Philosophy of the Hard Problem

Her profound OBE in her student digs in Oxford doesn't make any sense, either. She had a puff of weed (apparently, not Ketamine) and that was enough to give her a powerful experience that changed her life, but it didn't actually change her life, she only thought it did until she eventually knew better. (She finally checked the appearance of the roof that she felt she was flying over and saw that the gutters were in fact plastic, not metal as she'd seen in her OBE. Her own OBE debunked) 

Strangely, a number of OBE reports mention aspects of an OBE that were not completely accurate. I'm trying to remember - I think Graham Hancock mentions some of these. Goodness knows what this phenomenon means.

David

This is, I think, a very deep problem for us all to think about. If we were made, why were we made?

It's unknowable from this position but I tend to think we have always existed. Everything has always existed and always will, so a strict "in the beginning" is not necessary. 

The true answer may not be G.., because there could be many things going on. For example, if you look at the programming and hardware in a modern desktop computer, you could easily come to the conclusion that only a being far in advance of us could have made it. The fact is that we (humanity) made these things and program them routinely.

 
I agree, it may not be but there is no good reason why the answer is not god. Anyone who chooses to believe that, is being just as right or just as wrong as someone who doesn't. Based on the stuff we talk about here, I'd say one would find it hard not to believe in an intelligence behind the universe(s). Personally, I believe in god, I just don't understand him. 
(or maybe it's a woman in which case I will never understand her ...   )

Also, I don't think an appeal to the collective intelligence and technological progress of mankind would give us reason not to need "god". The problems we've solved are miniscule compared to what is left to solve. We don't even know how to formulate some of the appropriate questions yet, never mind conceive of the answers.
 

The process of programming involves shuffling millions of bits in specific ways, but we have a different way of looking at that. Before compilation, we may simply decide to add a statement - x=x^2+1 (say), but after compilation that will change a whole swathe of bits in the final program. Maybe there are ways to program with DNA in a similar way!

  
Maybe, but more to the point is...who made the DNA ? Maybe it's always existed, of course.

Strangely, a number of OBE reports mention aspects of an OBE that were not completely accurate. I'm trying to remember - I think Graham Hancock mentions some of these. Goodness knows what this phenomenon means.

David

Actually, only a very small percentage of OBE's contain inaccuracies, particularly within the context of cardiac arrest NDE's or RED'S as the leading researchers are now terming them. The really remarkable point about them; is not why there are some discrepancies ( in a few reports), but why the majority are so accurate. 

And so accurate despite what all common sense and logic would dictate.  The patients were dead with no viable brain function. There should be nothing going on at all, period. And yet they are reporting the most lucid, meaningful experience of their lives and consistently telling us details they absolutely should not know. 

How accurate would our memories be if we were asked to look around a room for thirty seconds or a minute or three minutes, wide awake with full brain power, and then report about it after a long sleep ?  We'd get some details wrong, for sure. 

David said >" Goodness knows what this phenomenon means."

We're at the point now where we don't need to wonder too much. It's beyond reasonable doubt that consciousness is able to decouple/detach from our brains/neurons. How or why it can do that, is quite another question.

Actually, only a very small percentage of OBE's contain inaccuracies, particularly within the context of cardiac arrest NDE's or RED'S as the leading researchers are now terming them. The really remarkable point about them; is not why there are some discrepancies ( in a few reports), but why the majority are so accurate. 

And so accurate despite what all common sense and logic would dictate.  The patients were dead with no viable brain function. There should be nothing going on at all, period. And yet they are reporting the most lucid, meaningful experience of their lives and consistently telling us details they absolutely should not know. 

How accurate would our memories be if we were asked to look around a room for thirty seconds or a minute or three minutes, wide awake with full brain power, and then report about it after a long sleep ?  We'd get some details wrong, for sure. 

David said >" Goodness knows what this phenomenon means."

We're at the point now where we don't need to wonder too much. It's beyond reasonable doubt that consciousness is able to decouple/detach from our brains/neurons. How or why it can do that, is quite another question.

I think we are talking at cross purposes a bit here! I have seen reference in Robert Monroe's works and also in Graham Nichols' book to this phenomenon. These seemed to imply that perhaps the mind creates variants of OBE scenes for some reason. I'd need some thought as to how best to look this up.

I don't think this is relevant at all to the kind of OBE you get in an NDE.

Tim,

I think the evolution of life on Earth suggests a number of things:

1)      Evolution  by natural selection can't explain what happened.

2)      When you think of the Cambrian explosion, a lot of new body designs were created and then scrapped. This rather suggests that the Creator(s) (let's not just jump to God) had to test their ideas and keep theories that worked best.

3)      Lone Shaman (remember him?) also showed me some evidenct that suggests that the genetic code began using only two nucleotides per amino acid! This would be almost impossible to upgrade on the fly, and it rather suggests that the Creator(s) changed their minds! It reminds me of something we did part way into a software project. We had encoded something using a single letter character, and we realised we needed more encodings. We upped it to 2 letters and got 26 X 26 encodings, which was plenty - but it was messy to implement that so late in the project.

4)      Michael Behe provided some strong evidence that genes degrade in a species over time (I can explain in more detail, but it might be worth reading his book) so updates from the Creator(s) may happen regularly - at least on an evolutionary timescale.

To me this suggests entities with large but finite intelligence. Indeed with infinite intelligence the Earth and all the livings things that are on it now could just be created in one step!

Remember that if time somehow doesn't exist out there, it might be that we ourselves designed our own physical bodies!

3)      Lone Shaman (remember him) also showed me some evidence that suggests that the genetic code began using only two nucleotides per amino acid! This would be almost impossible to upgrade on the fly, and it rather suggests that the Creator(s) changed their minds!

Remember that if time somehow doesn't exist out there, it might be that we designed our own physical bodies!

I really enjoyed Lone Shaman's posts!

Piaget put forward a Structuralist theory, with success, where human nature emerged in definable stages.  If mind evolved, then it would likely present in stages, each specific to addressing the negative feedback active in blocking target states.

wow  Are you are agreeing with my oft stated position -- that living things designed themselves?  Mostly by evolving detection systems that explore the informational environment. Life is the experiencing of current sensations, but also by exploring the past and future.  Looking at the information objects - there in the past and future - a biological agent's understanding was very profitable.  Not done so much consciously, but by vast amounts of pulsating "I wanna live".

I think we are talking at cross purposes a bit here! I have seen reference in Robert Monroe's works and also in Graham Nichols' book to this phenomenon. These seemed to imply that perhaps the mind creates variants of OBE scenes for some reason. I'd need some thought as to how best to look this up.

I  don't think this is relevant at all to the kind of OBE you get in an NDE.

I am very familiar with the former... and the latter's, work although Robert Monroe is in a different league, without disrespecting, Graham Nicholls. You have a tendency to jump off at a tangent sometimes, David. I'm not sure if it's a defensive thing or maybe something else (authority ?) 

If the OBE features scenes that are not correct or real (in the real world) then the OBE is not an OBE, simply a fantasy of some kind. I don't pay much attention to them.

(let's not just jump to God)

No. Lets jump to god, why not.  What's wrong with the word ? Is that a problem ? I'm not religious, but "god" the word doesn't offend me. Some of the biggest idiots in history have believed in god and also some the greatest geniuses.

I am very familiar with the former... and the latter's, work although Robert Monroe is in a different league, without disrespecting, Graham Nicholls. You have a tendency to jump off at a tangent sometimes, David. I'm not sure if it's a defensive thing or maybe something else (authority ?) 

Ha! I think it is more my getting older and because I have read so many books on these subjects, I can't always supply an accurate reference!

If the OBE features scenes that are not correct or real (in the real world) then the OBE is not an OBE, simply a fantasy of some kind. I don't pay much attention to them.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean if 1% of an OBE is 'wrong' do you throw the rest away? These things may reflect something fundamental about reality.  Maybe it just isn't totally linear, but picks up different possibilities.

Regarding God, I try to avoid the word because:

1)    If you use it, people assume you are a Christian, or maybe adhere to some other religion. I'm not, and I don't!

2)    As I described above, God is conventionally assumed to have infinite powers. I suspect He may have finite powers - particularly finite intelligence.

3)    God might plausibly be more than one entity, and if time is looped in some way, we might be partly responsible for reality.

4)    We may all be fragments of God.

Fundamentally, I just don't know which if any of those are true. I'm reasonably content to live my life like that, expecting to be updated when I die.

I don't like stuffing all those ideas into one word that people tend to understand in different ways.

Ha! I think it is more my getting older and because I have read so many books on these subjects, I can't always supply an accurate reference!

No worries. The guy you were 'looking' for (BTW) is not Graham Hancock, it's James Alcock, a near death experience critic.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean if 1% of an OBE is 'wrong' do you throw the rest away? These things may reflect something fundamental about reality.  Maybe it just isn't totally linear, but picks up different possibilities.

I only give credence to OBE's that occur during cardiac arrest. That way we can be certain enough that "something" is leaving the body, because if the brain is down, "something else" must be involved. That doesn't mean that I discount OBE's during sleep, or even wakefulness, I don't, but sceptics just write them off as coincidences or lucky guesses etc.

In fact that was why the first prospective studies were conceived. In order to shut the sceptics up, basically, but of course it didn't work. 

Regarding God, I try to avoid the word because:

1)    If you use it, people assume you are a Christian, or maybe adhere to some other religion. I'm not, and I don't!

  
Personally, I don't see why you can't be non religious and still be a Christian. I think everyone should try to have basic Christian principles, at least do as you would be done by. I consider myself a Christian but I don't consider myself a particularly good one, I'm not. Then again, I'm not sure that "god" or whatever intelligence is behind everything (if there is) requires us to be saintly. I don't think it works like that but I don't want to go there.

2)    As I described above, God is conventionally assumed to have infinite powers. I suspect He may have finite powers - particularly finite intelligence.

3)    God might plausibly be more than one entity, and if time is looped in some way, we might be partly responsible for reality.

4)    We may all be fragments of God.

 Yes, I agree.

Fundamentally, I just don't know which if any of those are true.

 
And never will, this side. Therefore it's a question that is better dropped, arguably.

I'm reasonably content to live my life like that, expecting to be updated when I die.

  
Well you can hardly live anybody else's, David. I'm being facetious but I do wonder what people mean when they say that.. I'm living my life. I don't think life can be lived here. We can't go back and live in the past, we can't live in the future, there is just this moment (now) which slips through our hands no matter what we do. And you never know if you actually have another hour, never mind a day. The graveyards are full of people that were "living their lives" and then all of a sudden, they aren't. Life, whatever it is, is so weird.