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You have a good grasp on this. Have you looked at Tom Campbell? He has a separate angle than Hoffman but very similar conclusions. The batshit crazy thing abou

You have a good grasp on this. Have you looked at Tom Campbell? He has a separate angle than Hoffman but very similar conclusions. The batshit crazy thing about Tom is that he shows you ways that you can individually experiment and prove through your own experiences the things he's positing. His My Big Toe trilogy goes into all this, but I shudder to recommend it. Tedious slog. If you really want to prove it to yourself, it's not too hard. This book by Kenneth Daz, "The Last Astral Projection Book You'll Ever Need", is the best way I've found, he's read endlessly and summarized it into a hundred pages. So far I've rolled out of my body twice now. Floated through my front door and got down my road a fair ways. Fully conscious, able to make choices, full memory after returning to my body. No psychedelics involved. You can't of course talk to anyone about this. My wife knows but she's been naturally OBE'ing since she's a kid. (Edit, I can't believe I'm not being down voted to oblivion here. Love HN).

fishtacos 3y ago
If I could, I would. Most of what you wrote is anathema to evidential scientific conversation. If you've got no evidence for it besides the subjective, then it's not provable. I've no idea who Tom is, so I followed up on what you wrote and believe I have enough of a glimpse to see he's a crackpot theorist. Being a physicist doesn't abscond one of the burden of proof. Apparently he's been cooking up a new double slit experiment for the past decade+. Yeah... OK... let's not even get started on falsifiability.
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  I think maybe the only thing separating the guesswork involved in producing things like the amplituhedron is the fact that they are able to reproduce results in space-time that we can understand and verify. However, if this is true that we perceive space and time through the evolution of senses that are bounded by fitness functions unrelated to the real world, then the only verification method could deceive us. Maybe other expressions that don't match our observations might not be entirely invalid, they might just represent different emergent worlds not unlike the one we perceive through our senses. Maybe they could map to these transcendental or mystical experiences, I don't know, only guessing here. In any case, it serves us well to have untainted clarity in our objectives. If we intend to create abstractions that correlate to the real world and help us create tools that somehow explain or help manipulate the perceived reality (which I believe is the only reasonable goal), then falsifiability and proof in this sense is essential, and I have to agree with you.
  - fishtacos 3y ago
    Separating this question from the rest of the conversation: Do you think it's plausible we live in a simulated existence? If so, how? If not, why not? (very broad questions, am aware; simply wanted to get an input on your perspective).
    - gchamonlive 3y ago
      It's plausible, even probable, given the arguments layed out in Nick Bolstrom essay "Are you living in a computer simulation?". I used to think the question that should preclude this one is if the universe is even able to host a simulation of itself, but given that we know it is probable we live in a perceived reality that not only is separated from what we think as objective reality, that this perceived reality is, for the sake of survival, a much simplified version of the objective reality, then it isn't impossible that a base objective reality might harbor countless simulations not unlike the one we possibly live in. This is however an interesting experiment in a way to guide moral decisions when we encounter technological leaps, like if we ever develop the capability of producing an ASI. I don't think, however, that these considerations are falsifiable, because we can't just "break out" of our possible simulation to see what is what. What might that even mean? Would we be able to tell if we broke out of our simulation? It breeds all sorts of speculations that at the end of the day adds very little to the overall discussion. What I personally think is that there is something to be perceived and explored ousite of the realm of human concern, in the silence of the absence of the endless chatter of the cognitive consciousness, that is hard to experience and hard to describe, even though it is accessible to everyone, maybe in the form of a question, like "what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha?". I know this is all really esoteric and mystic, but I am really trying very hard to maintain a certain level of philosophical scrutiny here, if only whoever reads this might give me the benefit of the doubt. All in all this is my take on the subject and I hope I don't disappoint you too deeply.
      - heavenlyblue 3y ago
        > what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha What makes you think dharma body is more real than Santa Claus?
- swader999 3y ago
  Yeah all fair critism, except that experiment is involved and it does take that long to get rigerous results. You can actually do this. Takes about ten or so tries over a few weeks for most. I haven't tried to fly like a bird yet. Hopefully I'll get to experience that next.
  - Buttons840 3y ago
    They way you sell it, I gotta say, even if it's all imagination I want to try it.
    - hnfong 3y ago
      That’s the idea. If “consciousness is part of the fabric of the universe”, then in a sense the universe is just the manifestation of the imagination anyway.
gchamonlive 3y ago
I think it is because this is the few times where mysticism and science meet and wrestle. How to communicate something inherently transcendental without talking about this inward journey through consciousness? It might take sometime to separate fact from fiction, but at this point we are in, untethered exploration is essential.
dbsmith83 3y ago
Have you ever conducted a simple experiment to prove you were not just lucid dreaming? It is a pretty easily falsifiable claim
- swader999 3y ago
  That's something I wonder myself. I need to do a few more, maybe up to fifty before I have enough subjective data to be certain. What is this experiment to prove I'm not lucid dreaming? You can put your fingers on your nostrils and blow through fingers in lucid dream, irl the air stops, but in OBE, you might not have a full body. One time I did, other time I was just like a shadow, half formed. Really weird. There's a progression I've experienced which I don't think is something a lucid dream is characterized by. Got a hand out, fell out and quickly went back because it scared me. Got out and couldn't see and gave up. Got out and out the front door and that freaked me out. Then finally a half mile down the road. My next journey I'm going to go farther in my area to places that I've never been and see what they compare to on a fully conscious visit. One thing that shocked me though was going through my front door. At the time in the OBE I thought this isn't the same front door, particularly the stained glass. Then I went and looked at it in real life after and I realized my OBE recollection was more accurate than my previous knowledge or memory of it.
  - Engineering-MD 3y ago
    I mean you could ask someone to leave a note (maybe a couple of random sentences or a password) somewhere that you have never seen. Go read it when OBE then when back in your body write it down and then get your friend to compare the note you wrote to the original.
  - lend000 3y ago
    You can see what's going on on your roof perhaps? I'm very interested in the subject and spend a lot of time meditating but have yet to experience anything one might consider mystical, outside of the use of psychedelics.
    - swader999 3y ago
czbond 3y ago
I've been interested for some time in Astral, thanks for mentioning it. I've had very intelligent, credible people suggest it is possible. Similar for remote viewing In the crux of Tom's argument - what can one prove via Astral?
- swader999 3y ago
  To get an idea what's possible see this, it's an entertaining, educational look at it: https://youtu.be/Wly9_qN-jZ0?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Wly9_qN-jZ0?feature=shared The CIA report is linked in the description.
smokel 3y ago
A thing with Out-of-Body-Experiences is that if you were able to shift outside of your body, then why would you still be constrained to the body of the earth? If you were able to roam around free of physics, then certainly you would leave not only your human body, but you would have to take account of the earth moving around the sun as well (at breakneck speed, mind you). You'd probably be either a few kilometers inside our planet or up in the air, and then in space, in practically no time. So, call me unconvinced about OBE's. It's most likely just your mind playing tricks on you.
- swader999 3y ago
  The thing that convinced Campbell it was real was when he and a colleague met up during them and recounted the shared experiences after. I'm not that motivated to go to the moon but people said that's no big deal to do that.
- hnfong 3y ago
  Your argument doesn’t even make sense. You posit that if the OBE person is free of physics they must have a particular absolute frame of reference (which does not exist in accepted laws of physics) that is totally different from the in-body one? It’s trivially easy to make up flawed theories on how OBEs work without having that absolute frame of reference. Arguing that it requires one seems like a scummy straw man argument and a bad faith attempt to conceptualize the idea - it’s up to you what to believe but you need to try harder to think about possibilities on how it might happen if you want to reason about it.
  - smokel 3y ago
    No need to be so harsh. I am just positing one problem with OBEs. The burden of proof is completely on people who believe in the existence of OBEs, because it physically does not make any sense to have them.
jancsika 3y ago
> If you really want to prove it to yourself, it's not too hard. Perhaps. But proving it to anyone else at all is a hell of a leap in difficulty from there.

fishtacos 3y ago

If I could, I would. Most of what you wrote is anathema to evidential scientific conversation. If you've got no evidence for it besides the subjective, then it's not provable. I've no idea who Tom is, so I followed up on what you wrote and believe I have enough of a glimpse to see he's a crackpot theorist. Being a physicist doesn't abscond one of the burden of proof. Apparently he's been cooking up a new double slit experiment for the past decade+. Yeah... OK... let's not even get started on falsifiability.

gchamonlive 3y ago
I think maybe the only thing separating the guesswork involved in producing things like the amplituhedron is the fact that they are able to reproduce results in space-time that we can understand and verify. However, if this is true that we perceive space and time through the evolution of senses that are bounded by fitness functions unrelated to the real world, then the only verification method could deceive us. Maybe other expressions that don't match our observations might not be entirely invalid, they might just represent different emergent worlds not unlike the one we perceive through our senses. Maybe they could map to these transcendental or mystical experiences, I don't know, only guessing here. In any case, it serves us well to have untainted clarity in our objectives. If we intend to create abstractions that correlate to the real world and help us create tools that somehow explain or help manipulate the perceived reality (which I believe is the only reasonable goal), then falsifiability and proof in this sense is essential, and I have to agree with you.
- fishtacos 3y ago
  Separating this question from the rest of the conversation: Do you think it's plausible we live in a simulated existence? If so, how? If not, why not? (very broad questions, am aware; simply wanted to get an input on your perspective).
  - gchamonlive 3y ago
    It's plausible, even probable, given the arguments layed out in Nick Bolstrom essay "Are you living in a computer simulation?". I used to think the question that should preclude this one is if the universe is even able to host a simulation of itself, but given that we know it is probable we live in a perceived reality that not only is separated from what we think as objective reality, that this perceived reality is, for the sake of survival, a much simplified version of the objective reality, then it isn't impossible that a base objective reality might harbor countless simulations not unlike the one we possibly live in. This is however an interesting experiment in a way to guide moral decisions when we encounter technological leaps, like if we ever develop the capability of producing an ASI. I don't think, however, that these considerations are falsifiable, because we can't just "break out" of our possible simulation to see what is what. What might that even mean? Would we be able to tell if we broke out of our simulation? It breeds all sorts of speculations that at the end of the day adds very little to the overall discussion. What I personally think is that there is something to be perceived and explored ousite of the realm of human concern, in the silence of the absence of the endless chatter of the cognitive consciousness, that is hard to experience and hard to describe, even though it is accessible to everyone, maybe in the form of a question, like "what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha?". I know this is all really esoteric and mystic, but I am really trying very hard to maintain a certain level of philosophical scrutiny here, if only whoever reads this might give me the benefit of the doubt. All in all this is my take on the subject and I hope I don't disappoint you too deeply.
    - heavenlyblue 3y ago
      > what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha What makes you think dharma body is more real than Santa Claus?
swader999 3y ago
Yeah all fair critism, except that experiment is involved and it does take that long to get rigerous results. You can actually do this. Takes about ten or so tries over a few weeks for most. I haven't tried to fly like a bird yet. Hopefully I'll get to experience that next.
- Buttons840 3y ago
  They way you sell it, I gotta say, even if it's all imagination I want to try it.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    That’s the idea. If “consciousness is part of the fabric of the universe”, then in a sense the universe is just the manifestation of the imagination anyway.

gchamonlive 3y ago

I think it is because this is the few times where mysticism and science meet and wrestle. How to communicate something inherently transcendental without talking about this inward journey through consciousness? It might take sometime to separate fact from fiction, but at this point we are in, untethered exploration is essential.

dbsmith83 3y ago

Have you ever conducted a simple experiment to prove you were not just lucid dreaming? It is a pretty easily falsifiable claim

swader999 3y ago
That's something I wonder myself. I need to do a few more, maybe up to fifty before I have enough subjective data to be certain. What is this experiment to prove I'm not lucid dreaming? You can put your fingers on your nostrils and blow through fingers in lucid dream, irl the air stops, but in OBE, you might not have a full body. One time I did, other time I was just like a shadow, half formed. Really weird. There's a progression I've experienced which I don't think is something a lucid dream is characterized by. Got a hand out, fell out and quickly went back because it scared me. Got out and couldn't see and gave up. Got out and out the front door and that freaked me out. Then finally a half mile down the road. My next journey I'm going to go farther in my area to places that I've never been and see what they compare to on a fully conscious visit. One thing that shocked me though was going through my front door. At the time in the OBE I thought this isn't the same front door, particularly the stained glass. Then I went and looked at it in real life after and I realized my OBE recollection was more accurate than my previous knowledge or memory of it.
- Engineering-MD 3y ago
  I mean you could ask someone to leave a note (maybe a couple of random sentences or a password) somewhere that you have never seen. Go read it when OBE then when back in your body write it down and then get your friend to compare the note you wrote to the original.
- lend000 3y ago
  You can see what's going on on your roof perhaps? I'm very interested in the subject and spend a lot of time meditating but have yet to experience anything one might consider mystical, outside of the use of psychedelics.
  - swader999 3y ago

czbond 3y ago

I've been interested for some time in Astral, thanks for mentioning it. I've had very intelligent, credible people suggest it is possible. Similar for remote viewing In the crux of Tom's argument - what can one prove via Astral?

swader999 3y ago
To get an idea what's possible see this, it's an entertaining, educational look at it: https://youtu.be/Wly9_qN-jZ0?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Wly9_qN-jZ0?feature=shared The CIA report is linked in the description.

smokel 3y ago

A thing with Out-of-Body-Experiences is that if you were able to shift outside of your body, then why would you still be constrained to the body of the earth? If you were able to roam around free of physics, then certainly you would leave not only your human body, but you would have to take account of the earth moving around the sun as well (at breakneck speed, mind you). You'd probably be either a few kilometers inside our planet or up in the air, and then in space, in practically no time. So, call me unconvinced about OBE's. It's most likely just your mind playing tricks on you.

swader999 3y ago
The thing that convinced Campbell it was real was when he and a colleague met up during them and recounted the shared experiences after. I'm not that motivated to go to the moon but people said that's no big deal to do that.
hnfong 3y ago
Your argument doesn’t even make sense. You posit that if the OBE person is free of physics they must have a particular absolute frame of reference (which does not exist in accepted laws of physics) that is totally different from the in-body one? It’s trivially easy to make up flawed theories on how OBEs work without having that absolute frame of reference. Arguing that it requires one seems like a scummy straw man argument and a bad faith attempt to conceptualize the idea - it’s up to you what to believe but you need to try harder to think about possibilities on how it might happen if you want to reason about it.
- smokel 3y ago
  No need to be so harsh. I am just positing one problem with OBEs. The burden of proof is completely on people who believe in the existence of OBEs, because it physically does not make any sense to have them.

jancsika 3y ago

> If you really want to prove it to yourself, it's not too hard. Perhaps. But proving it to anyone else at all is a hell of a leap in difficulty from there.