Fair enough but understanding how consciousness transforms is far from erroneous assumptions. Valuable work anyone?


We have plenty of information, which is far from zero understanding. Bias?


Where does one start and end?


So if you cant define something you cant discuss it rationally? Thats a bit extreme. It might not ensure your comfort for rational discourse thats for sure. Im surprised.


Its called theory not bumbling about. And exploration if anything. Why even have a discussion with you? I could just use your point as a disclaimer on all my posts.

I agree, we know very little about "consciousness".

So before I present my evidence for the afterlife maybe we should examine what we do know!

Here's some overwhelming evidence that consciousness can and does affect the "physical world"

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

I'm not trying to be evasive or confusing, Mags, rather I am suggesting that we proceed cautiously and question everything. Trying to understand consciousness is worthy of pursuit, but I can plainly see the human tendency to jump to conclusions at work here.

Excuse my colloquialism with respect to "zero understanding". To be accurate, I should have said "almost zero understanding". We may have plenty of information, but we have very little assurance that the information is accurate, significant, or objective. That lack of assurance could be considered a bias, but not an unhealthy one given the subjective nature of most of the information we are considering. Call it an uncertainty bias, and yes, I do have it. You, on the other hand, have a certainty bias, which is the status quo among humans. I suspect that you don't need me to point out how much trouble a certainty bias gets us into as we are herded about effortlessly by the sociopaths using exactly that manipulation point.

Concerning the conundrum of the messenger versus the message -- when dealing with something as subjective as NDEs and consciousness, it is especially difficult to separate the message from the messenger. So your question is especially relevant -- where does one start and the other end? I am indirectly pointing this out, that it is a big problem when investigating consciousness and NDEs.


The lack of clear definitions is just another difficulty on the list, much like the messenger/message problem.

When we are dealing with troubleshooting a mechanical problem, for example, I can show you tangible things that will help you understand what is happening. We share the subjective experience of examining the tangible and agreeing on our terms and definitions. When we cannot share that subjective experience, as with NDEs or consciousness, because there is very little that is tangible about them, then we are bound to run into difficulties. And that is why more caution is needed.

Anyone status quo here is ridiculous. Certainty and uncertainty both have equal evils to it, its in application.

With that said, a bit more bias to open mindedness in these area might help you keep up, rather then projecting "jumping to conclusions".

And when you say "we" please replace it with I. Unless you are speaking for others? This exercise helps with judging bias.

An uncertainty bias also plagues our species keeping us in this corruption. I am sure you do not need me to point these things out as well.


Consciousness is far from a mechanical problem, but I get your advice. I would compare this work with more of trying to change perception.
If your new in this field, I definitely urge caution...

You might come to the conclusion, that you are in a self generated computer hologram...

I agree, and most of the problems occur at the extreme ends of the sliding scale between certainty and uncertainty.


How do you think ideas such as reincarnation, life after death, and gods got started in the first place? I would argue that they started by humans "jumping to conclusions". Are we so different today?


I don't have the specific example you are referring to, but generally when I do this, I am speaking for humanity in general.


It's true that the sociopaths are clever enough to use both of them quite effectively against us, at times making us certain of things that aren't true, and at other times making us uncertain of things that are true.


I am not new to this field by any means, and that is precisely why I urge caution. I still recall studying the great philosophers in college, and marveling at how wise they could be, and how wrong at the same time.


Not self-generated, and not a computer as we know it, but definitely a deliberately constructed illusion.

What is the extent of the influential biases in the random number experiments? How did they account for the fact that true random number generators do not exist? Random number generators in a computer are actually called "pseudo-random number generators" because they are not truly random, but are computationally based. I know something about this because I have created and experimented with such computer algorithms myself. I recall developing rapid visual data displays for identifying "patterns" in the outputs of these algorithms, because the human visual system and brain are especially skilled at recognizing patterns.

Well, it gets a lot more complicated than computer-generated random numbers. Quantum noise in lasers is being used to generate random numbers. This is a non-computational means of generating random numbers, but is noise truly random? Is there anything in the universe that is truly random? Given all the complex interactions of matter and energy that occur every single microsecond at every point in space, does everything influencing everything else produce randomness? And if we run experiments that show that our energies can influence the behavior of a "random" number generator that is itself energy based, as are all the instruments that do the measuring, as is all matter, should we really be surprised at the results? And wouldn't that confirm that there is indeed no true randomness in the universe, which is exactly what we are trying to use as a yardstick?

I examined a few of the cases in the Global Consciousness Project database in more detail, and I would like to focus attention on one of them, which I drilled down to at "random" (lol). In this example, the possible variation in the random number generators due to the death of an individual is examined. No disrespect to the individual or anyone else is intended on my part.

There are two variations that are of note (2 am and 4:30 am), of which the second is highly significant. But here's the real problem -- significant correlated to what? Something may have affected the randomness at 4:30 am, but there is no way to know what it was! Which event in the world, or the known universe for that matter, would you like to attribute to that variance?

The same criticism can be leveled at every single case in the GCP database. It doesn't matter what the data shows, because the correlations are essentially arbitrary.

That is why I have such a problem with the "certainty" that people derive from such studies.

Is your conclusion then that you are "certain" that consciousness cannot affect physical reality?

No. I suspect that consciousness does have minute effects on physical reality. We already know at the quantum level that there is an interaction between the observer and the observation (the observer effect). Given that consciousness is a means of "observation", it will have an effect on what is being "observed", which is typically reality. There is also the apparent fact that matter is a condensed form of energy, and energy fields interact with each other to some degree all the time, which gives matter its characteristics. So the "loose" interconnectedness of all things is fairly well supported, but the degree of that interconnectedness is still being discovered and is likely to be much less than a lot of new-agers imagine. At the macro level, for example, events appear largely independent and unrelated, so the effect of consciousness on physical reality is typically a non-issue.

When it comes to the connectedness of all life, there is something there, even if it is small. Here is a possible example.

Just as there are real sociopaths that walk amongst us, there are also caring human beings, who like the sociopaths often go unrecognized.