Begin Archive #010 January 1998
From: "PJ Gaenir"
Date sent: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:53:28 +0000
Subject: [Psi] Reality II
Hi Brian,
>Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. But the reason I'm still on the
>fence about this is all those other examples of psychic phemomena we
>hear about. I feel that the above must be true for anomalous
>cognition and perturbation. But I can't relate it to e.g.,
>apparitions (of living or dead), possession, survival, divine
>intervention, OOBEs (not to be confused with RV which is a flavour
>of AC), reincarnation etc.
The term Anomalous Cognition was invented by the Cognitive Sciences
Laboratory originally, specifically to replace the term "remote
viewing," which had been glommed onto by an undiscriminating public
to describe everything psychic. It does, by its nature though,
include any form of unexplained perception. But remote viewing
itself is actually seldom visual and is usually sensory (taste,
touch, sound, smell, etc.) anyway. Just fyi. No big deal....
>>>>Alternate universes? Oh! puleeeze (as Q said to Jean Luc) :-)
Q was a megalomaniacal sociopathic jerk.
(I liked him anyway. So there you go.)
Hey, don't knock it 'till ya try it! ;-)
>Even so, I have no beliefs as to where God might be. If he really
>is "in here" then we have to presume the existence of a hiding place
>for him (by which I mean someplace for him to dwell and to "be").
>That means we have to consider the existence of other dimensions,
>or something.
I do, but I don't know that this theory means we HAVE to. Perhaps
the problem is not where something "is" but rather, your definition
of that something in the first place. Maybe a lot of people are
looking for a "thing" which is their own mental construct based on
cultural conditioning, something that doesn't even exist as that
"thing" -- quite a frustrating disappointment to a lot of angry
atheists who were believers as kids -- yet may exist quite well in
its own nature.
>If theory 1 (the one that says ac and ap are the only phenomena to
>come under the umbrella of psi) is correct then all remaining
>phenomena can be explained away as psychological dysfunction.
>Under this theory there is no need for ghosts or for a god.
Leaves a lot left to be explained -- and requires a monstrous
stretching of logic to blanket every experience (no matter how
similar and personally-unrelated) as hallucination -- but this is one
theory.
>If theory 2 (the one that tries to encompass all phenomena) is
>correct then we must presume somewhere for spirits, ghosts, demons,
>angels, etc., plus all the paraphernalia and apports they hurl
>around, to go and to dwell.
My theory as I bored you with in another post, so far, at least to
me, actually functions as a logical explanation for everything I've
ever even heard of. That's why I like it. Convenient, wraps up all
those loose ends. Now if only I were a physicist.....
>God, if he exists must also live somewhere.
Maybe God lives everywhere.
Maybe God is not a measurable "thing" in our definition.
Maybe the evidence for God is that anything lives at all.
Just ideas. Who knows.
>If all these entities, including God, exist then why should we think
>only of science exposing psi when to do so might also expose God?
>Why must we regard them as unrelated phenomena?
I think the more we learn about ourselves, the more we learn about
God. If a painting were able to be self-aware, the more that
painting understood itself, the more it would understand its creator
(so to speak). The creator is actually "in" every bit of it. And in
the non-local sense that physics is currently exploring, you might
say, if you painted that picture with your own flesh and blood,
in your image, everything that you experience, and everything your
creation experiences, simultaneously feeds into and affects the
other. Your awareness, though, contains that entire picture -- but
massively more. So to the picture, you're pretty much omniscient.
Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day" (my favorite movie ever) says that
maybe God knows everything just because he's been around so long --
like Bill, living the same day over and over, became "aware" of it
until he could function almost as a God in it.
>For all we know it might be God's plan for Mankind that we should
>eventually "find" Him.
Or find ourselves. I suspect that our definition of 'self' would
grow and grow, larger and larger, always reaching toward the largest
/ infinite which would be 'God.' Just my theory.
>He has given us the brains to do it. The hunt for psi might well
>provide the clue.
Interesting idea.
Courtney Brown RVd God. Ask him.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
PJ
From: "John Krimes"
Subject: Re: [Psi] Developing Psi
Date sent: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:09:43 -0500
Hi all
Just a quick personal note on what I have found with intoxication, whether
it be alchohol or "others." I have a horrible time meditating(I can't )
while intoxicated. To me that says that being intoxicated isn't healthy or
benefitial( For 99.9% of psi). There was one instance where I picked up on
some info, when I was intoxicated, where I feel if I wouldn't have been
intoxicated I won't have recieved the info. But those times are less
frequent than sober states.
John
From: "PJ Gaenir"
Date sent: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:54:24 +0000
Subject: [Psi] Holographic Reality
Further to my conversation about frequencies and reality:
I have a hard time explaining this because I'm not a scientist and
don't really even have the necessary education to do so and mix up
basic things sometimes. I feel obliged to provide something
educational to make up for the mess I tend to make of things in that
category.
I thought the below quote would help explain an aspect of things
(necessary for my own theory -- which is hardly original, obviously!)
I didn't get to, says it very well. (Bohm is a physicist, Pribram
is a neurophysiologist, for anybody not aware.)
>From "The Holographic Universe"
by Michael Talbot
In a section called "Pribram and Bohm Together"
(paperback version of the book, pgs 54-55) Indents are "italics" in
the original. Paragraph separations are my own.
[begin quote]
Considered together, Bohm and Pribram's theories provide a profound
new way of looking at the world:
Our brains mathematically construct objective reality by
interpreting frequencies that are ultimately projections from
another dimension, a deeper order of existence that is beyond
both space and time: The brain is a hologram enfolded in a
holographic universe.
For Pribram, this synthesis made him realize that the objective world
does not exist, at least not in the way we are accustomed to
believing. What is "out there" is a vast ocean of waves and
frequencies, and reality looks concrete to us only because our brains
are able to take this holographic blur and convert it into the
sticks and stones and other familiar objects that make up our world.
How is the brain (which itself is composed of frequencies of matter)
able to take something as insubstantial as a blur of frequencies and
make it seem solid to the touch?
"The kind of mathematical process that Bekesy simulated with his
vibrators is basic to how our brains construct our image of a world
out there," Pribram states. In other words, the smoothness of a
piece of fine china and the feel of beach sand beneath our feat are
really just elaborate versions of the phantom limb syndrome.
According to Pribran this does not mean there aren't china cups and
grains of beach sand out there. it simply means that a china cup has
two very different aspects to its reality. When it is filtered
through the lens of our brain it manifests as a cup. But if we could
get rid of our lenses, we'd experience it as an interference pattern.
Which one is real and which is illusion? "Both are real to me,"
says Pribram, "or, if you want to say, neither of them are real."
This state of affairs is not limited to china cups. We, too, have
two very different aspects to our reality. We can view ourselves as
physical bodies moving through space. Or we can view ourselves as a
blur of interference patterns enfolded throughout the cosmic
hologram. Bohm believes this second point of view might even be the
more correct, for to think of ourselves as a holographic mind/brain
*looking* at a holographic universe is again an abstraction, an
attempt to separate two things that ultimately cannot be separated.
Do not be troubled if this idea is difficult to grasp. It is
relatively easy to understand the idea of holism in something that is
external to us, like an apple in a hologram. What makes it difficult
is that in this case we are not looking at the hologram. We are part
of the hologram.
The difficulty is also another indication of how radical a revision
Bohm and Pribram are trying to make in our way of thinking. But it
is not the only radical revision. Pribram's assertion that our
brains construct objects pales beside another of Bohm's conclusions:
That we even construct space and time.
[end quote]
This sums up what I was trying to say to Brian about defining "what
is reality" in order to answer the question, "If someone encounters a
ghost, how can we tell it was "real" vs. just their "deceived
perception?"
Technically, nothing in reality is any "real-er" than another --
EVERYTHING is merely frequencies which our brains cause us
to "perceive" a certain way (after filtering nearly all data OUT of
our perception in the first place).
So it is possible that sometimes the brain causes a person to
PERCEIVE something that may or may not be there to a third party.
But whether it is or isn't, this does not, itself, "prove" that the
thing perceived was or was not "real" -- what is real? There may be
just as much reason for that person to have perceived it as for them
to perceive the cars going by. Or, it is possible that the
frequencies / interference patterns / waveforms may actually change
shape, size, placement, interactivity, etc., and things "perceived as
physical" in one place or at one time may cease to be so. And so on.
So that "ghost" corpse may have been completely "real" as much as
anything else is, at the time encountered, and yet may still have
"originated" from outside what we call reality and may have gone back
to wherever that is as well. Leaving nothing but a big question mark
to us and our test tubes.
Hope this helps explain what I meant. Sorry words are always so
clumsy in these areas.
PJ
From: "John Krimes"
Subject: Re: [Psi] Hidden and repressed psi
Date sent: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:22:37 -0500
Hi all
I believe the universe is set up, to an extent, like a holographic plate.
Every piece of the universe(our internal and external environment) contains
all the information of the whole(the entire cosmos to infintity). It then
becomes a matter of directing intend and sorting the info out.
John
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 98 00:42 GMT0
From: (Daniel Wilson)
Subject: Re: [Psi] Beliefs
PJ said in response to my:
> >I'm very
> >much of the view that psychic faculties are induced as much as
> >taught.
> You know, there may be something to that, although I would say that
> if it's true, it's true for the same reason as above: belief systems,
> and the ability of some people to profoundly impact others in ways
> that are nothing short of hypnotic (since as you know, hypnosis has
> many modalities and certainly doesn't require a formal induction).
> In magick most people would say that's so to varying degrees.
> I know that many times, various teachers/gurus, channeled entities,
> et al. have had a pretty profound impact on people and have sponsored
> tremendous change in them just from one meeting. Because for that
> moment, the person was able to BELIEVE, and able to sort of insert a
> new line of code into their internal programming.
For a thorough-going sceptic like me, the believing is not possible; I
have to fake something up so that my unconscious tells me "that's not
bad ... keep going ... be a bit fiercer !" I'm sorry to say I go in for
what one might call software theft: if a guru or healer sounds as
though he/she's (or was, or might in the future be) really motoring,
I'll switch on my own plug-and-play capture mode. In return of course,
I leave my own system wide open for anyone who might be interested.
There was a really menacing-looking fellow in Germany in the 50s, Bruno
Groening, who was the real religious type - but a fabulous healer.
There are groups all over the world invoking him and getting amazing
results. When I do my espionage bit on him, my "voice" says: BG is
great stuff, but why not invent a twin brother who never got the Jesus
bug who can swap ideas with you ? So I'll be trying that out, once
there are not 101 things going on at once here.
> A good psychic will probably get a little bit of every kind of data
> there is, and some will be wrong and some will be right. RV methods
> training sort of trains people to structure the data they receive so
> that it comes in a certain order and is handled a certain way. In
> short -- you reprogram yourself. For good psychics, this is probably
> a bad idea IMO. For people without any major talent, it's the only
> way they're going to find what they have.
This is where my scepticism becomes much nearer skepticism (I
distinguish the two by the second being a reverse belief: "there is no
psi", for example). I'd say there, "...it's one good way they can find
what they have, but it certainly won't be the only way." When my
courses get to the weirdo Day 3 stuff, I check the students and can
tell where their strengths are, so they can be let off the hook if they
can't do X but can do Y. This discussion is tending to persuade me that
I don't affirm nearly strongly enough about them. But I'm very grateful
for your description of what happens in RV. I'll have to mull it over
and kick some angels in action. (Er - angel = utility, you understand.)
> Hey, when I
> get some money (which will probably happen when I quit doing so damn
> much work for barely anything or free!), I'll hire you to do some
> work on my fear, ok? :-)
As the lady in Sauchiehall Street (Glasgow) said to the GI in 1943:
"Ah'm not free but ah'm vair-ry reasonable !" In fact 26 pounds ($43)
for an hour's session - but you have to come to East Grinstead 30 miles
south of London ! I do visits but the travel fee racks it up a lot.
Dan Wilson
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 98 00:42 GMT0
From: (Daniel Wilson)
Subject: Re: [Psi] What is a ghost?
Brian said:
>All that needs to be established is whether or not her
> senses had been deceived.
> Had she felt something or had she *thought* she felt something?
The man who really got me into this stuff, Major Bruce MacManaway, had
been a spiritualist before WW2 and told us of numerous
"transsubstantiation" seances where the medium slowly disappeared and a
figure appeared on a second chair. After some time participants were
invited to touch this figure and all found it (man or woman) solid. On
a few occasions, to show that this was more than mass hypnosis, two
weighing machines with large dials were used and as the medium's weight
sank, the figure's weight rose. Interestingly, even when invisible, the
medium always retained a few pounds of weight. I believe attempts are
being made to repeat a seance like this. I would expect them to be
specific to the medium, though, like the groups trying to levitate
tables, who could only do it when a man called Batchelor or Batcheldor
was present. (They gave it up as "having no use". Gadzooks, had they
never heard of grand piano moving ?)
Dan Wilson
From: USPsiSquad
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:59:10 EST
Subject: Re: [Psi] Mechanism of psi [was: What would you do]
Apropos of Brian's comment about the hunt for PSI perhaps exposing God. I had
said way back in one of my books that the Russian search for PSI would reveal
the reality of God.
Good thinking Brian.
Bevy J/Psi Squad
From: USPsiSquad
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 03:43:25 EST
Subject: Re: [Psi] Developing Psi
I believe what Joan was talking about was that science 'finds' include the
following:
persons practicing psi seems to exhibit lower rates of blood sugar than normal (for them)after practicing psi persons practicing psi seem to become subject to lower potassium levels after practicing psi there seems to be excess activity in the rear of the brain while practicing psi.
The above observations were presented at an Educators' Conference held in St. Louis, Mo. in the mid-70's.
In my own observations, use of alcohol, 'recreational' drugs, even sinus preparations can interfere with 'learned' or 'trained' psi functioning. Naturally, this may differ somewhat for those who may be 'naturally psychic'. We have no data concerning these individuals.
Bevy J/Psi Squad
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:47:17 -0500
From: Thomas E Carey
Subject: Re: [Psi] Holographic Reality
At 16:54 1/27/1998 +0000, PJ wrote:
>EVERYTHING is merely frequencies which our brains cause us
>to "perceive" a certain way (after filtering nearly all data OUT of
>our perception in the first place).
>So it is possible that sometimes the brain causes a person to
>PERCEIVE something that may or may not be there to a third party.
Here I go again. ("You," here, is generic, not personal.)
Think of it this way:
You use your brain. It does not use you.
All the filtering and biasing and selection and rejection which occurs in
your nervous system, whose end product you know as your "experience," is the
consequence of decisions you have made and _continue_ to maintain. What to
see, what not to see. What to accept, what to reject. What to know, what not
to know. Attitudes, beliefs, desires, preferences. All individual decisions.
Some of these decisions are trivial, and easy to abandon. As a child I
_hated_ bananas because the schoolyard bully ate bananas. I would never even
_taste_ a banana. But sometime in high school I _did_ taste one. I liked it!
Case closed. When I let it go, that decision was gone.
Some of these decisions are un-trivial. They were made initially in intense
situations where to maintain your own integrity, to achieve a tolerable
solution, you brought all your capabilities to bear. These are _not_ easy to
abandon. Most of them we have even decided not to remember. But we maintain
the often complex patterns of effort and thought and emotion through which
we continue to execute those solutions. Yet even these can be let go.
We are not marionettes.
Not for the first time, I recommend
"Evolution's End : Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence"
by Joseph Chilton Pearce
Harper, 1993
ISBN 006250732X
and
"Wholeness and the Implicate Order," by David Bohm
Routledge, 1996
ISBN 0415119669
Tom
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:02:06 GMT
From: Brian Oldham Subject: Re: [Psi] What is a ghost?
At 09:41 AM 1/27/98 -0500, Tom Carey wrote:
>These three quotes are good illustrations of the semantic and (dare I say)
>paradigmatic mazes our language allows us to enter.
<sigh> Yes Tom, I know, and I agree. But I don't know of any way to
make progress through a debate without using the language we have.
Are we to drop the subject just because we have difficulty with the
exact interpretation of the words?
>1) The ONLY way you, I, or anyone can differentiate between "having physical
>existence" and being "merely apparent," is to come to an agreement with
>others on what those words represent, and on categories of experience. Every
>conceivable "empirical" criterion depends on such agreements.
But for everyday use we do have such an agreement. Ask publishers, like
Collins, Chambers, or the OED. It is what has enabled them to compile
dictionaries. They will acknowledge, as will I, that there are very few words
which can totally escape an intellectual challenge as to its meaning. But it
would be foolish to bring down every debate with such low level argument.
At some point you have to acknowledge that some things in this odd branch
of science are so poorly understood that we do not have words to describe
what we mean and can only make approximations or allude to by reference
to something else.
>2) The question, "Did you actually feel it, or did you only think you felt
>it?" can only be answered by reference to agreement with others on the
>nature of personal experience.
The reason I asked this question was to wonder whether a "feelable"
corpse might actually have been there. It is one thing to have an
hallucination - even a psi induced hallucination - quite something else,
had it been a physical apport.
>3) How can the "presumption of reality" be supported by one witness's
>_opinion_ of what another witness (whether real or hypothetical) might have
>seen? A long tradition of common law rightly rejects this in evidentiary
>procedures.
Of course. Would you like me to withdraw the question m'lud?
>We are all parties to a mass of such agreements, obviously. J. C. Pearce has
>called this the ordinary consensus. Without it communication and mutual
>interaction would be extraordinarily difficult. But in discussions of
>matters "outside the box," as on this list, these agreements should be
>identified and considered as possible limitations.
I think we are broadly in agreement on this but do remember that this is a
non-scientific, and not even academic, debating forum. However, if you
have any suggestions or recommendations to make which would help
render the discussion of our subject less ambiguous I for one would find
them most welcome.
Brian
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:15:15 GMT
From: Brian Oldham
Subject: Re: [Psi] "Real" Reality
At 04:52 PM 1/27/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Well no, seems to me that could never be scientifically or even
>empirically worthwhile, let alone trustworthy...
I expect by now you will have seen my reply to Tom Carey. I don't
dispute what he or you have said. In fact I agree. If I were a scientist
or an academic with a career to protect I should have to be much
more careful with definitions.
But you and I seem to be playing two different games here. I am
reading Dan's story and accepting it verbatim - because I know it
was offered as a story and not a case report. Just for the purpose
of engaging in a what I hoped would turn into a fruitful and
instructive thread.
>>So, for
>>her, the thing felt 'real' - solid to the touch. Yet, we learn that
>>it turned out to be a mere apparition.
>Now, now -- we did not learn that it was a mere apparition when she
>touched it. What we learned, to be objective, is that the thing
>eventually was no longer perceived.
Yes, I take your point. If I were an objective observer or an investigator
I should have to proceed as cautiously as you say. But, for the purpose
of this debate, which after all is not scientifically critical, can't we just
accept Dan's story as true? Re-reading my words, perhaps I should
have written "Yet, the story, by implication, appears to tell us.."
instead of "Yet, we learn..." for of course we do not learn any facts;
only what the story tells us.
>You cannot determine if someone's senses have been "deceived" until
>you determine what constitutes reality and solidity "compared to"
>an erroneous perception. You are saying, "It either was real/solid,
>or it wasn't and she was deceived." In order for that measurement to
>work, you DO have to specify what is real/solid. Don't you? This is
>so obvious that I'm starting to think we may be caught in a semantics
>loop here, I must be missing some aspect of your point.
It may be obvious to you but then I think that you may have had some
training in philosophy. My thinking has thankfully not been so distorted :)
and I continue to think that "real" means that which has objective
existence whether or not an observer can sense it.
Thanks for expanding on your theories. I have snipped it for the time
being as it is a bit too much for me to get to grips with right now but I
have saved your post and may come back to it some other time.
Regards
Brian
From: "PJ Gaenir"
Date sent: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 12:36:00 +0000
Subject: Re: [Psi] "Real" Reality
Howdy Brian,
Naw, I was not trying to force any kind of debate into an academic
mold. I am not an academic or a philosopher. What you call
science or my philosophy (physics) is, in my life, more like common
sense than theory, but I understand it's not that way for everybody.
I'm real sorry about that. Sometimes I forget it isn't obvious.
You wrote:
>If I were a scientist or an academic with a career to protect I
>should have to be much more careful with definitions.
I'm sorry, again. Didn't mean to be overbearing. When I define
something it is not to be academic. It is because if we are not
using the same words in the way, we are not even talking about the
same thing.
I can't tell you how many debates I have seen between people who
actually _agreed_ on the issue, but kept using different words or
assigning different meaning to those words, so went around in circles
for eons.
I don't think expecting people to make themselves clear is overly
critical. If one wants to have a discussion, people on both sides
have to make an effort to define what they mean. Words are the only
things we have in an email group. We have to agree on definitions
for that. We speak the same language, you wouldn't think this would
be so difficult....
>But you and I seem to be playing two different games here. I am
>reading Dan's story and accepting it verbatim - because I know it
>was offered as a story and not a case report.
I didn't mean to annoy you, as I must have from the way you
responded in a few place. I took Dan's story quite literally and at
face value. I don't recall where I said anything that indicated
otherwise. My posts were to a great extent, explanations of how his
story, taken literally, could be completely supported by modern
theoretical physics about the very nature of reality.
There is a terrific case for the validity of stories such as Dan's.
Which I tried to point out and it took me three whole emails but I
guess I still failed. Dang. Well, I give up, I'm just not fit to
explain it I guess. Maybe someone else will do better.
***
Many of my comments were directed at the assumptions which you
applied to things, which in themselves had actually no support or
mention in his story at all. I wasn't trying to be hard on you and
apologize if I offended. I was simply trying to point them out.
>Yes, I take your point. If I were an objective observer or an
>investigator I should have to proceed as cautiously as you say.
>But, for the purpose of this debate, which after all is not
>scientifically critical, can't we just accept Dan's story as true?
Hey, that was a twist worthy of a politician! What does taking his
story as "true" (which I did) have to do with my pointing out you
were "injecting" things into it he never said? These two things are
not related. In order to discuss it with any kind of sense, we do
have to start by discussing the facts he provided, without creating
new ones. (You can call that "being cautious" and I guess it is.
But being cautious is a matter of sense, not science.) My pointing
out you had done that ("created" a new fact) doesn't infer in any way
that I didn't accept his story as true.
You have been asking, looking it seems, for some explanation of how
that story could be literal. I have no problem accepting it was. I
was attempting to provide an explanation of how it could be literally
true *just as he reported it*, since to some degree your question
(were her senses deceived) would have been answered by that.
Here's the real point this brings up, though, which is a good thing
to take note of in discussions of ANY kind of anomalies or psi:
Every time somebody makes an assumption that is not one of the
reported facts of an event, they alter the underlying logic ("how it
works" or "what really happened") which would be necessary for that
event to have happened.
In other words -- people create their answers by the way they create
their questions.
People only get surprises -- learn new things -- when they learn to
ask questions based on *the evidence* INSTEAD of questions based on
*their pre-existing _interpretation_ of the evidence.*
Your assumption that the thing could not have been physical when the
woman touched it -- which is not only an assumption itself, but
actually semi-contradicts the story as provided to some degree --
sort of *forced* the issue into "the woman didn't really feel
anything, her senses were simply deceived" as an explanation.
I understand it was just wording, and it's no big deal. But I see
people do that all the time. I am not accusing you of being a
skeptic, or being anything more than an interested party, and I enjoy
your conversation here. It's just that this is really familiar to me
and I see it happening in this case as well.
Sometimes people honestly want an explanation that will validate
something. They are sincere that they are looking. And yet, they
inject their belief systems into the account when even talking about
it, in such a way that the real answer (should there be one) *could
not conform* with what they then assume are the new set of "facts."
So even though they are earnestly looking for an answer and seemingly
open to it, their belief system actually forces the answer they
subconsciously expect into being the only explanation for them. Talk
about creating one's own reality. It's fascinating to watch.
It is my view, which gets stronger all the time, that one of the
biggest problems in any form of communication is semantics.
Particularly in the modern West where language is highly slang and
not taken very seriously.
>I continue to think that "real" means that which has objective
>existence whether or not an observer can sense it.
My first questions in this thread were simply about what you wanted
to measure that reality with. There are many different technologies
that measure different aspects of "real objective reality." You
can't define objective reality by what people see, because in this
case, ALL the people saw the same thing, one even touched it, yet you
are questioning whether or not it was "really real." So you must be
using some other measure than human perception. That's okay. What
measure do you want to use? What equipment, if it registered
something there, would you consider evidence the thing was "real?"
You avoid defining this. It is like avoiding there being any chance
of anybody handing you any answer *except* that it was the woman's
imagination.
On a slightly different note...
>"real" means that which has objective
>existence whether or not an observer can sense it.
My understanding of daily reality makes your sentence itself an
assumption not supported by facts. But I understand that to most of
the world, reality is something happening outside of them that they
have nothing to do with, and everything is in black and white... it's
real or not, it's physical or not, it either always exists or never
exists, it is either a separate objective measurable in a test tube
or it is outright hallucination with no meaning except insanity, and
so on.
Actually, psi across the board will be a very difficult subject for
you to discuss as long as you are holding to that. I realize that
this means the evidence just doesn't fit into the test tubes you are
using to define reality -- so to speak. Don't know what to say to
that, except maybe you might consider a new kind of tube the evidence
will actually fit in.
I guess what I was trying to do, with the Bohm quote etc., was show
you that these common guidelines about "reality", while they were
thought true when we were in school and growing up and forming our
model of reality, are no longer rigid limits. I was attempting to
first explain how Dan's story could have been literally true, second
answer your question about whether or not the woman was merely
"deceived" by the feel (or at least provide theoretical evidence
toward an answer), and third demonstrate that your use of language
demonstrates your belief system, both of which exclude you from
likely finding the real answer.
I can point something out but if you're not willing to look there,
it doesn't really matter. And if you're not only not willing, but
not able, I guess I'd have to give up. I use science BECAUSE you
keep presenting yourself as a rationalist type, you want an objective
reality kind of answer. That is a "based- on- what- we- know- of-
science" point of view -- even if you don't want to be bound by the
rules of discussion on that level.
Objective reality is a surface demonstration, not a fundamental law.
Psi and ghosts and the like are not usually operating on the surface
-- obviously -- and without an awareness that there is more to
reality than what test tubes call "real" on the surface (and other
related assumptions), you are never going to allow an answer for psi.
You will, by your belief systems and language, force the ONLY answer
into being "the witness was deceived."
I'm suddenly reminded of "Stranger in a Strange Land" -- my favorite
book -- where Michael (the Martian), in order to teach people the
various psi abilities his people had, first had to teach them his
language. That makes more and more sense all the time. Heinlein was
downright inspired for that one....
PJ
End Archive #010 January 1998
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