WSaged said:
Describing colors to the blind...
Heh, no doubt. I guess its good that one person in 100 million can undestand the apparent mechanics of these phenomena.
Psychodelirium said:
A distraction from the real work of changing the way your mind works and the way you engage with the world, i.e. from the spiritual practice itself. The point being that when you stumble into the chapel perilous of "belief defines reality" you have seized on an important psychodynamic insight that can be applied in daily life and experimented with. But to try and turn this psychodynamic insight into a bloated metaphysical theory that offends contemporary scientific knowledge steers you away from the practice and into armchair philosophizing.
In practice, you may discover that gradual changes in your worldview or experiments with altered states of consciousness changes the way that people relate to you, the way and the frequency with which opportunities present themselves, and your rate of success in life in general. You may discover the freedom to do things and to think things that had never before entered into your consciousness at all. But in the armchair you may delude yourself that you can defy the laws of physics, read thoughts and work miracles, which is total nonsense.
But it's also a distraction from those parallels between contemporary brain science and the mystical experience that actually hold water, for instance the fact that the mind/brain actually consists of a coalition of domain-specific modules and lacks anything like a central cognizing subject or "self" in the way we're accustomed to believe.
Does not changing the mind have to begin somewhere? Are not these types of ideas such that they will encourage others to explore their own existence and spirituality? Since when is understanding a bad thing? One can take this insight and explore the world around one with new idea, with new insight and experiment with the knowledge gained. Isn't understanding our true nature and the reality of our lives not a metaphysical pursuit at its core? If one person is encouraged to become awake and aware of the most inportant questions facing someone living in this world, is that not enough?
What contemporary scientific knowledge is being offended? The science which doesn't exist yet? That which science (materialists) refuses to accept or even contemplate? How does one offend someone who closes their eyes, covers their ears and shouts at the top of their lungs that they are the truth and wisdom so loudly that they drown out every other voice? How do paradigms shift (and they always do) without someone to "philosophize" about new possibilities to explain that which we experience?
In practice, changes in one's worldview does change the way other people relate to you, does change the frequency with which opportunities present themselves, and does change your "success" in the game of life. It does provide enormous amount of freedom to do and experience things both dreamed of, and not yet concieved. But that is
in practice, not sitting on the couch expeecting these things to be served to you upon a silver platter. That is the whole point, which I made earlier. One has to be an active participant in change. What are miracles? They are changes in our world for which we do not yet have an explanaion. Miracles happen all the time. You have never read someone else's thoughts? Never picked up the phone to call someone, only to find out they are already on the line? Never had an A HA moment, when you and a close friend have come to the same idea/conclusion at the extact same moment? Maybe you cannot intentionally read anothers mind, but you can read minds, you just haven't been aware.
Contemporary science that is inaccessable to 99.99999% of the people who live on the planet? Understandings that do nothing to explain the core of the mystical experience to practically anyone who has had one? One can talk about mechanics all they want, subdivide life and experience as many times as they can, chop it into smaller and smaller bits, but it provides no MEANING to life, no MEANING to the experience. And it never will.
So the brain lacks a cohesive cognitive structure to define the self? So there is no self (as we currently believe)? No I? So what does this show us about mystical experience, particularly those of Oneness? What does it say about consciousness? I am curious as to how this realization of science about brain mechanics enhances the understanding or meaning of existence.
