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Maybe people here have more knowledge of neuroscience, and physics, than the general population? Knowledge brings biases, of course. But those biases aren't ne

Maybe people here have more knowledge of neuroscience, and physics, than the general population? Knowledge brings biases, of course. But those biases aren't necessarily wrong. You have a blind-spot (at least one) on each retina that you never see. Does this mean that there is a secret hole in reality, just out of sight, that science won't accept? Or does it mean that there's an area on your retina with no visual sensors, and that the brain fills in the gaps?

colordrops 10y ago
I'm not saying that the experience is not likely an illusion. But its funny that you mention a blind spot, because why entertain every theory except the most obvious one?
- krapp 10y ago
  When you try to apply supernatural concepts to the natural world, you either have to dismiss the relevance of the body of scientific knowledge which contradicts the premises of magical thinking, and assume that the universe doesn't actually follow any knowable physical laws, or explain it within the constraints of what is known to be true in the universe in which we live. There is no scientifically credible evidence that the mind exists as a coherent entity outside of the brain - and there is evidence that the mind and the brain are the same thing, or at least, that the latter cannot exist outside the former. There is also no scientifically credible evidence that arbitrary and instantaneous travel to parallel universes is possible. Rather, it appears to either be impossible, or at least, infeasible without burning entire galaxies to a cinder - about as difficult a problem as traveling faster than lightspeed. One can credibly dismiss this theory because it requires astral projection and ESP to be true, despite there being no evidence of truth behind either, and the laws of physics (in particular, the laws of thermodynamics) to be false, despite the evidence in their favor.
  - colordrops 10y ago
    You are making far too many assumptions here. I said nothing of "supernatural" or "unscientific" ideas, and "magical thinking" is an insult in my opinion. I said nothing of the mind and brain being separate entities or astral projection or ESP. You are applying your own failure of imagination in explaining the concept within your limited realm of knowledge and projecting it onto me. You are mistaking explanation for reality. Your ability to explain something using whatever mental tools you happen to possess at the moment doesn't make that the truth. People three thousand years ago explained things with the tools they had, and ended up creating religions, which are in all likelihood not very accurate representations of reality. In the cosmic scale, our knowledge of reality now will probably look more primitive to humans in 10k years, than humans of 3k years ago look to us. It's needlessly self centered to think otherwise, and we are probably wrong about almost everything we know.
    - krapp 10y ago
      You're essentially claiming that "the map is not the territory," which is correct and, indeed, a fundamental scientific premise. However, for the models that science provides to be useful, they need to appear, predictably and repeatably, to describe the real world. I don't know what science will look like in ten thousand years (and neither do you) but given that current knowledge of physics, biology, neuroscience, etc do seem true to a reasonable degree, it seems unlikely that the science of the future would somehow discredit modern science entirely, while coincidentally validating a more primitive, shamanic point of view regarding altered states of consciousness. Accusing me of being ignorant and self-centered in defense of a premise you can't support beyond faith and personal belief seems hypocritical. And as far as imagination goes, accepting altered states at face value is literally the least amount of imagination or intellectual effort one can expend in attempting to understand them.
      - colordrops 10y ago
        Once again, assumptions. "A more primitive, shamanic point of view". "faith, personal belief". This is quite the opposite. No one is asking you to believe anything. There is no presumption of human-like deities without a shred I'd evidence. There is just direct, personal observation of phenomena. Choosing the most obvious explanation for it doesn't make it pseudoscientific crankery. It is just a first pass of a hypothesis without much evidence for anything else. And it is no more or less valid than other hypothesis.
- JabavuAdams 10y ago
  What is obvious depends on your prior beliefs. To me, it's a lot more obvious that messing with your brain causes hallucinations, especially when we can program similar hallucinations in neural-inspired programs.
remir 10y ago
How would you define reality?

colordrops 10y ago

I'm not saying that the experience is not likely an illusion. But its funny that you mention a blind spot, because why entertain every theory except the most obvious one?

krapp 10y ago
When you try to apply supernatural concepts to the natural world, you either have to dismiss the relevance of the body of scientific knowledge which contradicts the premises of magical thinking, and assume that the universe doesn't actually follow any knowable physical laws, or explain it within the constraints of what is known to be true in the universe in which we live. There is no scientifically credible evidence that the mind exists as a coherent entity outside of the brain - and there is evidence that the mind and the brain are the same thing, or at least, that the latter cannot exist outside the former. There is also no scientifically credible evidence that arbitrary and instantaneous travel to parallel universes is possible. Rather, it appears to either be impossible, or at least, infeasible without burning entire galaxies to a cinder - about as difficult a problem as traveling faster than lightspeed. One can credibly dismiss this theory because it requires astral projection and ESP to be true, despite there being no evidence of truth behind either, and the laws of physics (in particular, the laws of thermodynamics) to be false, despite the evidence in their favor.
- colordrops 10y ago
  You are making far too many assumptions here. I said nothing of "supernatural" or "unscientific" ideas, and "magical thinking" is an insult in my opinion. I said nothing of the mind and brain being separate entities or astral projection or ESP. You are applying your own failure of imagination in explaining the concept within your limited realm of knowledge and projecting it onto me. You are mistaking explanation for reality. Your ability to explain something using whatever mental tools you happen to possess at the moment doesn't make that the truth. People three thousand years ago explained things with the tools they had, and ended up creating religions, which are in all likelihood not very accurate representations of reality. In the cosmic scale, our knowledge of reality now will probably look more primitive to humans in 10k years, than humans of 3k years ago look to us. It's needlessly self centered to think otherwise, and we are probably wrong about almost everything we know.
  - krapp 10y ago
    You're essentially claiming that "the map is not the territory," which is correct and, indeed, a fundamental scientific premise. However, for the models that science provides to be useful, they need to appear, predictably and repeatably, to describe the real world. I don't know what science will look like in ten thousand years (and neither do you) but given that current knowledge of physics, biology, neuroscience, etc do seem true to a reasonable degree, it seems unlikely that the science of the future would somehow discredit modern science entirely, while coincidentally validating a more primitive, shamanic point of view regarding altered states of consciousness. Accusing me of being ignorant and self-centered in defense of a premise you can't support beyond faith and personal belief seems hypocritical. And as far as imagination goes, accepting altered states at face value is literally the least amount of imagination or intellectual effort one can expend in attempting to understand them.
    - colordrops 10y ago
      Once again, assumptions. "A more primitive, shamanic point of view". "faith, personal belief". This is quite the opposite. No one is asking you to believe anything. There is no presumption of human-like deities without a shred I'd evidence. There is just direct, personal observation of phenomena. Choosing the most obvious explanation for it doesn't make it pseudoscientific crankery. It is just a first pass of a hypothesis without much evidence for anything else. And it is no more or less valid than other hypothesis.
JabavuAdams 10y ago
What is obvious depends on your prior beliefs. To me, it's a lot more obvious that messing with your brain causes hallucinations, especially when we can program similar hallucinations in neural-inspired programs.

remir 10y ago

How would you define reality?