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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by THClord
The brain is an incredible thing, I think everybody agrees. The most fascinating part to me is how we are able to do complex tasks 100.0000% correctly in times of sudden danger with absolutely no time to prepare.
I started longboarding just over a year ago. I'm pretty good at it, but I can't do anything crazy. When I'm about to fall, however I can do the craziest shit ever. It's like I wouldn't have thought in my wildest dreams that I could do the things that I do.
Ex. I'm going down carving a hill when my rear wheels slip. So my board is suddenly perpendicular to the way I'm going, and I'm going fast. I actually rode the board standing on it while sliding all the way until I slowed down enough to simply jump off. For the record, I can't even slide my board even a bit normally.
Also, when I fall I coordinate every single part of my body so perfectly that it amazes me. Every time I get out of a fall that could have easily broken bones without even a scratch. I do not know when I could have possibly learned to do this.
Is this simply an example of our brains' huge power? Maybe, but I think there's more to it. First, I strongly believe that our brain is a quantum computer. That would explain our brains' huge power. But let's think bigger. A property of quantum mechanics is that if two particles were once connected, after that if you act on one particle, you act on its pair instantly even if it is across the universe. This would explain telepathy. Maybe when I was about to fall on my board, my brain telepathically communicated with all my friends who longboard, and this allowed me to do stuff I normally wouldn't.
Also, a lot of people have the "start singing a song randomly, turn the radio on and there it is." I think it could easily be telepathy, one of your friends must've been listening to the same station.
dunno about telepathy but we do just have that natural instinct of avoiding danger, like saw survival instinct that old dood with cancer sure kno's his shit :thumbsup:
but yeah we are the most intelligent things known but considering how we're suppose to be so intelligent we still make stupid mistakes.. but i mean, how do you know other things cant communicate? like dogs or sommat lol
but i dont think a dog could build a house or a whole city or nowt lol :)
but yeah its great having a brain man'g :D
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by b0Ng h!tz 4 mE
dunno about telepathy but we do just have that natural instinct of avoiding danger, like saw survival instinct that old dood with cancer sure kno's his shit :thumbsup:
but yeah we are the most intelligent things known but considering how we're suppose to be so intelligent we still make stupid mistakes.. but i mean, how do you know other things cant communicate? like dogs or sommat lol
but i dont think a dog could build a house or a whole city or nowt lol :)
but yeah its great having a brain man'g :D
I don't know about telepathy, but I can levitate about an inch off the ground using only the power of my mind (and a toe).
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
I don't know about telepathy, but I can levitate about an inch off the ground using only the power of my mind (and a toe).
Last night I could levitate items in my dream. It was really cool. I just checked, I can't do it now. :D It would be awesome though.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by THClord
Last night I could levitate items in my dream. It was really cool. I just checked, I can't do it now. :D It would be awesome though.
Take a few more Bong-Hit's `~^~` & try it again Gasshopper,,I think you can, I think You can, T think you can,~~^~~,nac ouy kniht I~~~~ May The Force Be With You~~~~~\/\/\/\/\/~~~~:rastasmoke::rasta::stoned::jointsmile::wtf::w tf::smokin::pimp:
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by hatch
Take a few more Bong-Hit's `~^~` & try it again Gasshopper,,I think you can, I think You can, T think you can,~~^~~,nac ouy kniht I~~~~ May The Force Be With You~~~~~\/\/\/\/\/~~~~:rastasmoke::rasta::stoned::jointsmile::wtf::w tf::smokin::pimp:
The Force may help, but not this backward Satan-Speak! BEGONE, DEVIL!!!!
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
THClord, I REALLY recoomend you either watch / listen / read some of Michio Kaku's stuff.
He talks a lot about parallel universes, AI, future civilization, etc etc etc...
basically everything that is right on the cusp of being proven. (string theory, etc)
good read if you are into that kind of thing, and your initial post seems to show that you would really like to read this stuff.
Now with regards to your first post, I don't necessarily agree with you on the thought that the human brain is a quantum computer (at least in our current definition of a quantum computer.) I do feel it is as fast or faster than any quantum computer we will have in the next 20-50 years (Mr kaku thinks that we will have a fully functional quantum computer in 20 years; basically when Moores Law breaks and Silicone cant take us any farther.)
Anyway, I feel that the brain is more of a Nueral network, I kinda visualize it like the internet, tons of different nodes that are all interconnected in some way, BUT the connections can change on the fly, and just like the way google ranks pages, I bet thats how the brain ranks information in your mind. (the more connections to some piece of information, the more important and easier to remember it is)
google does the same thing, the more links to your website on other sites, the higher your pagerank. The higher your pagerank, the easier it is to find and apply that data.
Have fun if you pick up one of his books, he is a really good writer.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by THClord
Last night I could levitate items in my dream. It was really cool. I just checked, I can't do it now. :D It would be awesome though.
Last week I learned how to do an illusion where I appear to levitate a few inches off the ground. I've used it to freak a few people out. It's not quite as great as actually being able to fly, but it still pretty fun. I will need to go to the Mutant Academy to devlop my superabilities...
Regarding the original question about the brain, I'm with Zero0ne and the others who don't think the brain is a quantum computer. I don't realy have the right vocabulary or technical knowledge to describe this, but as I understand it, quantum computers use the quantum states of particles for their calculations. So instead of having only two states ("binary" --- on/off or one/zero or yes/no) for each piece of the calculation, like you do in our current binary computer technology, you would have many more, because there are more than two quantum states for a particle. I hope I have that right. Anyway, quantum-based computer technology will yield much much more powerful computers.
I don't think the brain is a quantum computer, because I don't think the brain has a way to "read" or "set" the quantum states of particles. But I do not think the brain is a binary device either. It is something we do not fully understand yet. Part of the power of the brain is the extremely high number of complex connections in the neural network. And another part of its power comes from its biochemical nature --- I think each neuron can store more than two states because it is not simply on or off, it has a complex biochemical state.
Once our scientists develop the powerful quantum computer brain, it will have to fight it out for supremacy with our biochemical neural net computer brains in the final climactic battle between man and his abominable machine creations. Judgement Day! May the best brain win!
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by THClord
Last night I could levitate items in my dream. It was really cool. I just checked, I can't do it now. :D It would be awesome though.
I love dreaming. When you think about it, in some cases dreams are just as real as reality. The only difference is that in your waking life your mind is responding to stimuli in your environment, and in dreams it is forming its own consciousness by using past experiences or memory and imagination (memory and imagination play a major role in our waking life as well. For example the idea of the world existing independent of your mind is a fabrication of the imagination) .
Dreams may make no sense, they may be ridiculous or "impossible", but so what? The emotions you feel in them are just as real as in reality. So really what separates dreams from reality besides the fact that dreams are all in your head? Reality is all just in your head too.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
Dreams may make no sense, they may be ridiculous or "impossible", but so what? The emotions you feel in them are just as real as in reality. So really what separates dreams from reality besides the fact that dreams are all in your head? Reality is all just in your head too.
You are right. But I spend a lot of effort trying to get reality OUT of my head!
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by dragonrider
But I spend a lot of effort trying to get reality OUT of my head!
haha, well good luck with that. Reality IS your head, your mind. To think that existence is independent of your mind is completely natural and necessary for the survival of our species, but it is just in your imagination.
For example if you close your eyes you know that your computer is still in front of you even though you can't see it. You know this because throughout the course of your life when you closed your eyes and then opened them again, things remained relatively the same so your imagination lead you to believe that things still exist when you can't sense them. We can't logically come to this conclusion because everything we know about reality is based on what we can actually sense, so there is no logical proof for continued or independent existence. Our imaginations simply automatically make us believe this so we can assign a certain identity to objects and ourselves, so we can make sense of the world.
Its crazy to think about and hard to swallow, i know. I don't know how good a job I do at explaining it, but if I am unclear just let me know so i can try to explain it better.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
haha, well good luck with that. Reality IS your head, your mind. To think that existence is independent of your mind is completely natural and necessary for the survival of our species, but it is just in your imagination.
For example if you close your eyes you know that your computer is still in front of you even though you can't see it. You know this because throughout the course of your life when you closed your eyes and then opened them again, things remained relatively the same so your imagination lead you to believe that things still exist when you can't sense them. We can't logically come to this conclusion because everything we know about reality is based on what we can actually sense, so there is no logical proof for continued or independent existence. Our imaginations simply automatically make us believe this so we can assign a certain identity to objects and ourselves, so we can make sense of the world.
Its crazy to think about and hard to swallow, i know. I don't know how good a job I do at explaining it, but if I am unclear just let me know so i can try to explain it better.
I agree somewhat with you, the mind creates a model of reality with varying degrees of accuracy. All we really experience is the incomplete model. But I think "reality" is still out there, independent of your mind. There is an existence out there that your mind senses, but does not create. What your mind creates is the experience of the independent reality. And sometimes your brain also creates the experience of a reality that does NOT exist independently, like when you're dreaming, or hallucinating, or just plain wackadoo nuts.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by dragonrider
But I think "reality" is still out there, independent of your mind.
Ok, I want to believe this as much as the next person. How could you go about experiencing this "absolute" reality then? Or even explaining it. That would mean you would have to be able to make a general conclusion about a certain object based on a specific observation.
I try to convince myself there is an external existence and absolute truth all the time when I think about this. Wouldn't that be great to see things "as they truly are" instead of how you perceive them? I think when it comes down to it since reality is only what we can sense, and we are naturally inclined to attach an identity to perceptions that appear to be related to eachother (the computer remains the same computer even after you open and close your eyes) the idea of dependant existence seems too illogical to some people who assume that these identities are ones that are assigned by something other than their own mind by causation or cause and effect.
I think absolute reality or truth (if there even is one...which I doubt) can only be understood through careful and continuous observations of existence. And by continuous I pretty much mean never ending, or at least observations over a long period of time.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
Ok, I want to believe this as much as the next person. How could you go about experiencing this "absolute" reality then? Or even explaining it. That would mean you would have to be able to make a general conclusion about a certain object based on a specific observation.
I try to convince myself there is an external existence and absolute truth all the time when I think about this. Wouldn't that be great to see things "as they truly are" instead of how you perceive them? I think when it comes down to it since reality is only what we can sense, and we are naturally inclined to attach an identity to perceptions that appear to be related to eachother (the computer remains the same computer even after you open and close your eyes) the idea of dependant existence seems too illogical to some people who assume that these identities are ones that are assigned by something other than their own mind by causation or cause and effect.
I think absolute reality or truth (if there even is one...which I doubt) can only be understood through careful and continuous observations of existence. And by continuous I pretty much mean never ending, or at least observations over a long period of time.
Philosophers go around in circles on this topic all the time. I konw I have gone around in circles on this topic many times on these boards. It is a very intereting question.
The fact is, you are right, you cannot PROVE an external objective reality. I've decided it's an interesting exercise from a philosophical point of view, but it doesn't matter very much from a practical point of view. My BELIEF is that an external reality does exist, my senses detect it in a limited way, and my mind makes an incomplete model of it. That seems pretty much consistent with most of what I have read (although, I may have just made those books up in a totally imaginary world that is just a product of my pure, unnattached, independent mind, which floats alone in a vast nothingness).
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
Philosophers go around in circles on this topic all the time. I konw I have gone around in circles on this topic many times on these boards. It is a very intereting question.
The fact is, you are right, you cannot PROVE an external objective reality. I've decided it's an interesting exercise from a philosophical point of view, but it doesn't matter very much from a practical point of view. My BELIEF is that an external reality does exist, my senses detect it in a limited way, and my mind makes an incomplete model of it.
I understand what you are saying and honestly half of me agrees with exactly what you believe, I am mostly arguing with you to develop my own understanding a little better, because a healthy discussion/argument is defiantly the best way to expand your mind.......besides of course the perception altering qualities of psychedelics, which is just as mind expanding.
I just can't help but notice the similarities in the ideas of existance being dependant on your mind and the product of causation with the the ideas of the ancient Buddhist teachings that say everything is relative and existance in inherently empty.
To me it seems more logical but at the same time more ridiculous that existence is not independent of the mind. My current reasoning leads me to assume that this is just because it is so hard to comprehend because our very sanity lies in the idea that the world exists independent of us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonrider
That seems pretty much consistent with most of what I have read (although, I may have just made those books up in a totally imaginary world that is just a product of my pure, unnattached, independent mind, which floats alone in a vast nothingness).
haha, maybe you did.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Another good way to test this theory is when April 15 rolls around in a couple weeks, don't send in your taxes. When the IRS contacts you, just tell them, "Taxes are not an independent reality! They are just a product of my imagination!"
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by WaZ
By the way, there is a $1,000,000.000 prize "to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." (
Challenge Info - James Randi Educational Foundation) Not needing the money or not being interested in collecting money is not an excuse for those who claim paranormal powers to not take this challenge - one can easily win the money and donate it to any charity afterwards. That fairly easily rules out "psychic abilities" until proven otherwise.
Well... i believe in all the psychic shit, and yet im sure that nobody will win this prize.
James Randi was a VERY famous magician/illusionist/whatever until be eclipsed by Uri Geller bending spoons with his "mind powers". So after it obviously he became very bitter towards the psychic people, even if Uri Geller were not one of them, but only another illusionist.
But as he was a magician, im sure he knows a lot of this psychic stuff, and im sure he uses all his knowledge to avoid anyone to succeed when trying. There is several ways to make psychic "noise", psychic blocking and such, so anybody which were trying to do some psychic stuff would be hindered by him (or his assistants), to ensure they would not succeed.
If Randi is willing to give $1,000,000.00 as a prize, plus all the media repercussion it would have, is because he is sure that nobody will ever win the prize.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WaZ
Obviously, a large portion of our brain is devoted to labeling things into categories and storing those relationships for later. We are good at picking out patterns and shapes from random noise to the extend that we see faces in almost anything. We look for, even crave, patterns.
Yes... since our earliest childhood, our brain is incessantly busy searching for patterns among all the data it recieves from its sensory input. It learns how to group lots of sensory data under labels, so instead my brain recieve a visual information like "red dot-red dot-black dot-black dot... (lines and lines of coloured dots) ... black dot... etc", it recieves an information like "small red sqare over a black background", which is far simpler to understand and process.
In fact, i would say our brains (or our Tonal) are (among other things) classification machines. They convert EVERYTHING in a list of labels (or concepts). For example, when i look to my right, for example, i see a lot of things, which into my brain are converted in something like:
Object#1 - Name: pillow - Where: over bed - Size: medium - Color - white, yellow, brown - etc etc
Object#2 - Name: bed - Where: on floor - Size: ... etc etc
So, instead of percieving the things as they are, we percieve them like a list of characteristics, or labels. Everything we percieve is only a list of labels. And now we arrive at the problem of the nature of the reality.
I dont doubt there is an objective reality independent of we humans, or of our minds. But this objective reality is not the "real world", "out there", just because what we call the "real, physical world" is only a list of labels into our brains.
When two or more people agrees that a thing exists and its "real", they are only agreeing that their brains have common labels for this thing. For example, me and a friend see a bong. We see it as glassy, a bit stained, large, etc. But the fact we both see it and agree with its characteristics dont make it real. It just mean that both me and my friend learned to percieve it the same way, so we give the same labels ("glassy, stained, etc") to it.
The "real" nature of the things, or rather, the most basic level of "reality" humans can percieve things is as energy. Everything is energy. Matter is energy (as proved by E=mc2). And energy is energy (obviously). So, energy is the basic level of the objective world, is of what the things are actually made. But we dont percieve the world as made of energy, because between it and us there is our brain, classifying the different manifestations of the energy, so instead we percieve it directly, we percieve just a list of labels.
This process of "labelization" of percieved energy is a learned skill we learn during our earliest childhood. So, a child learns to percieve the world as the other humans do. But this process is reversible. Through practice of meditation, mystical experiences, or use of some psychedelics, we can stop this process of labelization and percieve the world as it is, and its called "illumination", "enlightenment", "stopping the world", etc, which is described in several spiritual teachings.
BTW, i personally think our brains are not the source of our consciousness, but an intermediary between the physical world and our (non-physical) consciousness, much like our eyes are intermediary between the outside world and our brains. Our brains cant percieve light directly, so it need the eyes to convert light to electric impulses which it percieves.
And i would say our non-physical consciousness cant percieve the physical world directly, and thats why it needs our brain to do it.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
And now i see i forgot about the dreams...
How can we be sure when we are awake or when we are dreaming? Like... for me we "know" we are awake because we remember all the times we were awake before, we remember all this times as a continuous thing, so we conclude that we are actually awake.
But if every night we had a dream where we could remember all the dreams we had before, exactly like we can remember all the things that happened when we were awake? How could we be sure that we were into a dream?
What if, every night, we dreamed we lived in another place, with another people, etc, and every night we dreamed with this same place, and with the same people, and remembered what we did in the day before? How could we know it was a dream? Or how could we be sure that this was not the "reality", and what we call waking reality were not only a dream in this (other) reality?
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by 40oz
I understand what you are saying and honestly half of me agrees with exactly what you believe, I am mostly arguing with you to develop my own understanding a little better, because a healthy discussion/argument is defiantly the best way to expand your mind.......
Sorry I can't go down this road with you right now, because I sort of exhausted myself on the topic. But it is a very interesting discusion topic. Coelho has posted some interesting ideas above already, and he is usually a great person to discuss this kind of thing with.
Coelho, I went looking for the thread about whether the past is real or not, and I couldn't find it. I was going to post a link, because it get's into these same ideas about objective and subjective reality. Do you know if that one got deleted in the big shakeup? I don't even remember what forum it was in, but maybe it was in one that disappeared.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by dragonrider
Coelho, I went looking for the thread about whether the past is real or not, and I couldn't find it. I was going to post a link, because it get's into these same ideas about objective and subjective reality. Do you know if that one got deleted in the big shakeup? I don't even remember what forum it was in, but maybe it was in one that disappeared.
Here it is... fortunately it survived the "inquisitorial witches hunting" done in this boards...
http://boards.cannabis.com/spiritual...past-real.html
:thumbsup:
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
So, instead of percieving the things as they are, we percieve them like a list of characteristics, or labels. Everything we percieve is only a list of labels. And now we arrive at the problem of the nature of the reality.
Ok I agree with that......
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
I dont doubt there is an objective reality independent of we humans, or of our minds. But this objective reality is not the "real world", "out there", just because what we call the "real, physical world" is only a list of labels into our brains.
The "real" nature of the things, or rather, the most basic level of "reality" humans can perceive things is as energy. Everything is energy. Matter is energy (as proved by E=mc2). And energy is energy (obviously). So, energy is the basic level of the objective world, is of what the things are actually made. But we dont perceive the world as made of energy, because between it and us there is our brain, classifying the different manifestations of the energy, so instead we perceive it directly, we perceive just a list of labels.
I agree with you except where you claim there is an independent reality. You seem to understand that all matter is energy, so what is so hard to swallow the idea that existence is all a construct of the mind? Your mind arranges this energy to make sense of it, to give an identity or label to everything. Without the mind all we are left with is an endless abyss of energy, and energy itself has no mass, depth, color, or any other physical properties.
So independent of the mind, existence is nothing but energy. We ourselves are energy, our mind makes us consciousness of the energy around us and we assign identities to energy we sense so we are able to identify ourselves as a distinct and seperate identity from the rest of the energy floating around.
It is pretty generally accepted that we are able to become self aware because we are able to use symbols and abstract thought to interact. It is through this interaction that we come to view ourselves as unique individuals, as an "I". Humans are one of the few animals that are able to do this, and the only ones who can construct a complex self concept. If you put a dog in front of a mirror, it will not be able to recognize itself because it has no sense of I. It will either be indifferent or respond to its reflection as a separate entity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
This process of "labelization" of percieved energy is a learned skill we learn during our earliest childhood. So, a child learns to percieve the world as the other humans do. But this process is reversible. Through practice of meditation, mystical experiences, or use of some psychedelics, we can stop this process of labelization and percieve the world as it is, and its called "illumination", "enlightenment", "stopping the world", etc, which is described in several spiritual teachings.
Enlightenment, at least according to Buddhist and Hindu texts, deals mainly with understanding the emptiness of everything in existence and being able to be in control of your emotions instead of your emotions controlling you. The Bhagavad-Gita says "Nothing of nonbeing comes to be, nor does being cease to exist; the boundry between these two is seen by men who see reality". I believe that being means consciousness. Nonbeing is everything that is not conscious, or the external world. This only exists as far as some being is able to perceive it. Now I can't say I know a lot about enlightenment, but it seems to me that to be enlightened is to truly understand that what is perceived as a reality independent of the mind is an illusion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
BTW, i personally think our brains are not the source of our consciousness, but an intermediary between the physical world and our (non-physical) consciousness, much like our eyes are intermediary between the outside world and our brains. Our brains cant percieve light directly, so it need the eyes to convert light to electric impulses which it percieves.
And i would say our non-physical consciousness cant percieve the physical world directly, and thats why it needs our brain to do it.
Your right, our brain isn't the source of our consciousness, it is our mind. The brain is just a machine, it is physical, and physical things only exist if there is a consciousness to perceive them. Independent of the mind, what you consider the physical world is not physical at all, but a large mass of nothing but energy.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
I agree with you except where you claim there is an independent reality. You seem to understand that all matter is energy, so what is so hard to swallow the idea that existence is all a construct of the mind? Your mind arranges this energy to make sense of it, to give an identity or label to everything. Without the mind all we are left with is an endless abyss of energy, and energy itself has no mass, depth, color, or any other physical properties.
Well... energy does not just floats around aimlessly, randomly... its behavior is ordered enough to generate what we call "the laws of physics", as what we call the laws of physics are our perception and interpretation of the order that there is in this flow of the energy.
Also, it flows in such ordered way that it gives rise to awareness, and even consciousness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
So independent of the mind, existence is nothing but energy.
Exactly... and thats what i call the objective reality. The world of energy that exists independently of our awareness.
BTW, i myself think that energy is not the only thing that makes the world, but also information. I think information is the real "essencial substance" of the world, and that even energy contains (or is) information. But it is a highly speculative thought, so i cant give any proof or argument to it, yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
Enlightenment, at least according to Buddhist and Hindu texts, deals mainly with understanding the emptiness of everything in existence and being able to be in control of your emotions instead of your emotions controlling you. The Bhagavad-Gita says "Nothing of nonbeing comes to be, nor does being cease to exist; the boundry between these two is seen by men who see reality". I believe that being means consciousness. Nonbeing is everything that is not conscious, or the external world. This only exists as far as some being is able to perceive it. Now I can't say I know a lot about enlightenment, but it seems to me that to be enlightened is to truly understand that what is perceived as a reality independent of the mind is an illusion.
Yes... but i dont think it disagrees with what i think. Energy can exist in the void. Energy is not only a shiny thread of light... a wave carries energy, and it can be dark, invisible, even unpercievable, and yet its there. So i think when the enlightened ones says "reality", they mean what we usually call reality, the physical world made of physical things, which is indeed an illusion, as it is dependent of the mind.
And... there is no need to be enlightened to control ones emotions... its far easier that reach enlightenment. The control of the emotions and behavior is called (in Castanedas books) Controlled Folly, and is a skill that is learned and practiced.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
Your right, our brain isn't the source of our consciousness, it is our mind. The brain is just a machine, it is physical, and physical things only exist if there is a consciousness to perceive them. Independent of the mind, what you consider the physical world is not physical at all, but a large mass of nothing but energy.
Yes... some people calls it mind, some calls it soul, spirit, whatever... but surely its real, and also non-physical.
Also, i think "energy" is a general term... i think there are several "kinds" of energy... like the "physical" energy in the physical "plane", and also non-physical energies in the non-physical "planes", so our mind, soul or whatever would be made of non-physical energies as well.
(I wonder if my physics teachers heard me talking such things... they would be VERY disappointed... :p)
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
You guys ready to be blown away? Watch this lectue from a brain scientist who had a seizure and through that experience she learned in real time what happens when you experience a seizure and she learned first hand what happens when one side of the brain shuts down.
It is an intense lecture. I recommend you sit back and get ready to be blown away.
TED | Talks | Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight (video)
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
By the way, "religious experience" has been produced in a laboratory setting.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
If your brains are soooo powerful will you change the
federal schedule 1 on canibis!!and make it legal!!:jointsmile:
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
That was some tripy shit. Makes me think about how drugs affect the human mind, with "feeling one with the world and all" and how thats obviously chemical changes in the brain affecting the 2 halves in a certain way. Also how different ways of human existing can do this like the above mentioned budists and inlightend such people seeking states of mind like that through meditation and sensory deprovation.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by WaZ
By the way, "religious experience" has been produced in a laboratory setting.
Indeed... and Timothy Leary was among the ones who did it...
Interestingly enough, one of this experiments was made at 4/20... coincidence? :D:jointsmile:
Marsh Chapel Experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pahnke's "Good Friday Experiment" - Follow-up
CSP - The Good Friday Marsh Chapel Experiment
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
i want to start a thread where we start a topic where everyone is totally blazed:stoned:
that would spark some great conversations :thumbsup:
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by gnarshred57
i want to start a thread where we start a topic where everyone is totally blazed:stoned:
that would spark some great conversations :thumbsup:
Most treads here already are this way... :stoned::thumbsup:
Good text! Its nice to know that at last science is starting to accept the real existence of this states of mind.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
i thought everyone on here was already blazed?...lol
:smokebong:
whiskeytango
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
wow this is the most interesting thread I've found here lol haven't been on in months until now.
Anyway, after reading about all this I came up with this theory.. maybe what happens when we die is we dream eternallly? we create our "paraidise"? haha that would be cool.. can't really say it's foolish since I could say the same about Heaven & Hell or those that think nothing will happen when you die and everything it's just blank, or those that believe in reincarnation etc etc...
Also, have you guys heard about DMT? one of the most illegal substances in our planet yet it's generated by our brain when we go to sleep everynight , when we are close to dying and apparently in the early steps of the fetus creation. Some say it's what triggers I forgot what.. but it's in the pineal gland which If i'm correct is the part of the brain we are less knowledgeable about.
Other than that.. reality i guess we'll find out eventually.. a lot of people feel everyone is connected and some friends mentioned that after trips on shrooms. Telepathy, mind tricks.. like Criss Angel he blocks pain with his mind.. there's probably so much we can do with our minds.
Maybe 2012 we will learn how to do more with it?
my 2 cents.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
p.s. Interesting quote I found from reading Matrix quotes which are very interesting..
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by Aly_G
p.s. Interesting quote I found from reading Matrix quotes which are very interesting..
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
Excellent quote! :thumbsup:
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
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Originally Posted by Coelho
Yes... some people calls it mind, some calls it soul, spirit, whatever... but surely its real, and also non-physical.
Is it real? Do people really have a soul? I am beginning to think the correct answer to that is no. What we consider to be our soul, our "I" , is really just a relation and collection of ideas. This relation of ideas produces an identity so that easy transition between other thoughts and ideas can be had. Basically your soul (identity) is discovered by your memory of past cause and effect relations.
I know this probably makes little sense, so bear with me through my attempt to give an example. Lets say a baby is born. This baby has no idea what it is or what is going on. The baby looks at its hands, legs, and torso. The baby realizes that he has control over all these things, and that they can move positions but they stay relatively the same, and attached. The baby can conclude then from what he is able to sense that these parts are part of him and he identifies them as such. PARTS of HIM.
Now the baby is put face to face with his mother. He perceives his mother with all his senses as she gently strokes his head. He realizes that his mother is not part of him, so she must be something else...but what? The baby glances over to his right and sees his father. Again the baby does not know what to think. What are these things? Are they related?
Now that the baby has gotten a good look at the room he is in he realizes that he is surrounded by unknown objects. The hospital bed, paintings on the wall, the wall itself, everything the baby can percieve, it is all unkown to him. He has not ascribed a specific identity to anything, barley even himself. Besides the fact that he seems to have control over a mass or sensory objects that sits right under his field of vision, he has no idea who or what he is. How then, is the baby able to distinguish one thing from the other? How can he assign anything an identity if he doesn't know what anything is?
The answer is the baby is able to assign identities to certain things based on 3 relations; resemblance, contiguity and causation. To explain a little, the baby can begin to identify his mother because when he looked back at his mother, after he looked away, he noticed the object he was looking at (mom) resembled the object he was looking at before he turned his head (mom). Each time the baby looked away, then back at his mother, she remained relatively the same. Maybe her body position shifted a little, but she remained relatively the same. This is where contiguity comes into play. Causation helped the baby to understand that objects can change appearance, but still be the same object. For example over time the baby will be able to recognize that the thing he is looking at is his mother even if she changes positions or adds makeup. The baby realizes that cause of these changes is related to the environment.
So how was the baby able to identify objects, and why would he want to? And what does this have to do with not having a soul? The baby was able to assign an identity to objects because his memory stored past observations of certain objects. Over time these observations grow and they all effect eachother. The baby is able to tell a wall from a person because they are not observably similar, and he is able to tell the difference between people because certain individuals remain relatively similar over time. He is able to identify a pizza as the same pizza even after 3/4 of it have been eaten because he understands there must have been some kind of cause to make most of the pie disappear.
Because the baby is able to assign a certain identity to everything, he is able to transition between ideas so smoothly that he doesn't even realize he is transitioning. For example, wave your arms in the air. Notice anything strange? Of course you didn't, your brain is so good at transitioning between sensed objects that you don't even realize that whenever you move your arm (or whenever you move period), you are creating a whole new form or object, a object that needs to be interpreted by your brain so it can still be identified... and identified it is, as your arm. Think about it. You sitting in that chair is a totally different object than you standing or walking away from the chair. Your brain makes this transition between those two forms smooth and without any gaps so that you can keep your identity, or what many people like to call a soul.
If you read down this far I am proud of you, and if you understand what I was trying to say, well then I love you. Not just because of how hard this idea is to grasp if you have never been exposed to it before, but also because I feel that I do a horrible job of trying to explain it. If you did read down this far and don't understand, please just ask me to clear things up where they are a little hard to understand and I will be happy to try to explain it to you a little better.
So is it so bad that we don't have a "soul" or some kind of invisible entity that represents our individuality? I don't think so. In fact, this whole idea just further extends my beliefs to the idea of everything being one single collective conscience. By one conscience I mean that we (all living things, not just humans) share one common bond, and that is the bond of life, of consciousness. This single consciousness is manifested in different ways in different organisms. In essence; I am you and you are me and we are everything. The only difference between one manifestation to another is the impressions that have been made on specific manifestations' brains due to our environments. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself in many many different ways.
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Originally Posted by Coelho
Also, i think "energy" is a general term... i think there are several "kinds" of energy... like the "physical" energy in the physical "plane", and also non-physical energies in the non-physical "planes", so our mind, soul or whatever would be made of non-physical energies as well.
(I wonder if my physics teachers heard me talking such things... they would be VERY disappointed... :p)
But what is physical energy if there is no mind to perceive it? To feel it? It's just energy.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
we actually use 100% of our brain, just at different times
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aly_G
But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.
I think its very true... we even say "its too good to be true"... but i never heard anybody saying "its too bad to be true"... cause we actually think only bad things can be real, and the good ones are unreal... why does is so?
Whenever i tell people that is possible to live a happy and painless life, they think im a dreamer, and that i live in a world of fantasy. (Well... most of time im stoned, but it is not the issue here :p)
But its all in our mind... to be suffering or to be happy is much a matter of choice. One can choose a path that will make one happy, or one can choose a path that will make one suffer. The effort to choose is the same. But most people chooses the suffering path.
I wonder what Buddha would say about it...
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Originally Posted by 40oz
Is it real? Do people really have a soul? I am beginning to think the correct answer to that is no. What we consider to be our soul, our "I" , is really just a relation and collection of ideas. This relation of ideas produces an identity so that easy transition between other thoughts and ideas can be had. Basically your soul (identity) is discovered by your memory of past cause and effect relations.
(...)
If you read down this far I am proud of you, and if you understand what I was trying to say, well then I love you.
Well... i did read, and did understand... and i love you too :p :D lol!
Anyway... after done some reading, i concluded my own concept of "soul" is very different from most peoples concept, which is what youve described.
So, i agree completly that the "usual" description of soul, which is what you described, is not real indeed, but as you said its only a relation of ideas.
What i call "soul", and maybe its what you call "mind", is the immaterial, non-physical "thing" that is "behind" the brain, recieving data from it, the same way the brain recieves data from the sensory organs.
It is not the "I", as it is a product of the brain, like you explained. Its something else. Its very hard to describe...
Some time ago i noticed that my mind was in fact two. One of them was the usual "I" we all have. The another one was what i could call my "true" consciousness, as it could percieve what i called "I" from outside... like if the "I" were a robot that my consciousness could control and interact with it, but without being involved in it... i noticed it when i was stoned, and felt like i was a bit "higher" than my body (actually higher, maybe one feet or so), and that i was not my body, and i was not my thougts. I was something else, which could observe my actions and thoughts... and this "thing" is what i call "soul".
Also, during some experiences with weed + (some unmentionable inhalant) for some instants i could only percieve the world, without being an "I"... like... i would see my room, i would hear the noises outside... but only to percieve. I didnt know i was a person, i didnt remembered anything, in fact i hadnt any thoughts... i only percieved the world around me. I hadnt any notion of time also... the only thing that existed was the present moment. There was not an "I" which were conscious that it was percieving. There was only perception. I think during this experiences i noticed clearly what was my "soul", and how it existed apart from thoughts and from the "I", and yet percieved the world.
Im sure what ive wrote is at least very confusing... but its the best description i can give.
Another thing... you mentioned the babies perception. I would like just to add that the perception of the world as we usually do (seeing the world in terms of solid objects) is a learned skill. A baby can percieve the world in inconcievable ways to us, as their brains were not conditioned to percieve the world the way we adults do. Through the socialization process, the child learns to percieve the world as we adults do, and when its old enough it forgets how was to percieve the world in another ways and thinks (like everybody else) the the way it percieves the world is THE only way to do it. But it is not. Through mind alterations like meditation, or use of psychedelics, we can percieve the world in other ways than the usual, and it shows the arbitrary-ness of our everyday worlds perception.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
So is it so bad that we don't have a "soul" or some kind of invisible entity that represents our individuality? I don't think so. In fact, this whole idea just further extends my beliefs to the idea of everything being one single collective conscience. By one conscience I mean that we (all living things, not just humans) share one common bond, and that is the bond of life, of consciousness. This single consciousness is manifested in different ways in different organisms. In essence; I am you and you are me and we are everything. The only difference between one manifestation to another is the impressions that have been made on specific manifestations' brains due to our environments. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself in many many different ways.
Well... i already did read many ideas like yours... up to now i cant say if i believe or not in it. It makes sense, but i have not any personal experience which enable me to agree or disagree with it.
If my plans were sucessfull, maybe at 4/19 i will have an answer to it. (Im almost sure you know what i mean ;))
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40oz
But what is physical energy if there is no mind to perceive it? To feel it? It's just energy.
Yes... and yet it moves the universe. Or rather, it is the universe. I believe we humans are not the only conscious beings. I believe there were another ones before us, and there will be other after us. And i also believe the universe itself exists with or without us. So, i believe the energy exists independently of we were aware of it. Or even its the energy which enables us to be aware of anything, including energy itself.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
Also, during some experiences with weed + (some unmentionable inhalant) for some instants i could only percieve the world, without being an "I"... like... i would see my room, i would hear the noises outside... but only to percieve. I didnt know i was a person, i didnt remembered anything, in fact i hadnt any thoughts... i only percieved the world around me. I hadnt any notion of time also... the only thing that existed was the present moment. There was not an "I" which were conscious that it was percieving. There was only perception. I think during this experiences i noticed clearly what was my "soul", and how it existed apart from thoughts and from the "I", and yet percieved the world.
I have felt this exact feeling, many times actually and all under the influence of certain psychedelic substances. The only one besides weed which I think I am allowed to talk about is salvia. I have had some of the most mind blowing experiences using that sage, and one of the most intense experiences was the first time I used it. A few seconds after I took the first hit, as I was still exhaling the smoke, I slipped into some kind of a cosmic daze which there is no possible way to describe in words. The last thing I remember is seeing my friend laughing at me, probably because I was drooling all over the place. Time at this point meant nothing to me, but I am guessing that after about 2 mins. I woke up from the cosmic haze and became aware of my surroundings again.
I was aware of my surroundings, but of very little else. I didn't know what I was, what I was doing, or even really what I was looking at and what it all meant. I just couldn't figure out what "this" was (by "this" I mean my awareness). I remember I sorta looked down and saw the chair I was sitting in, so I assumed that I was a chair (and this made perfect sense to me at the time). It took me a good minute or so to realize that I was a person, a person sitting down in a chair with a little group of friends around me. Just like the experience you described, for a few minuets I had no identity, no ego. I was just consciousness. It was a crazy feeling, and I think it offers a lot of insight into the workings of the mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
Another thing... you mentioned the babies perception. I would like just to add that the perception of the world as we usually do (seeing the world in terms of solid objects) is a learned skill. A baby can percieve the world in inconcievable ways to us, as their brains were not conditioned to percieve the world the way we adults do. Through the socialization process, the child learns to percieve the world as we adults do, and when its old enough it forgets how was to percieve the world in another ways and thinks (like everybody else) the the way it percieves the world is THE only way to do it.
I'm glad you said something about the socialization process of babies. I omitted it from my example because I thought it would make the whole thing even more confusing for your every day average pot head to understand, plus it would have made my post another 3 or 4 paragraphs longer. The baby in my example would have been a super baby with the mental capacity of an adult, but with the blank mind of a newborn. Everything we know about socializing and making sense of the world has been set up by previously existing humans and passed on to us.
I think this is where the line between mentally ill and mentally sane gets fuzzy. Really when you think about it you only really consider a person to be crazy if their social patterns and cognition are different from your own or the norm. If you don't want to be institutionalized, you better think the same way as everyone else, or at least be good at fitting into social norms.
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Originally Posted by Coelho
If my plans were sucessfull, maybe at 4/19 i will have an answer to it. (Im almost sure you know what i mean ;))
Haha yes. It will be a bicycle day to remember.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
I believe we humans are not the only conscious beings. I believe there were another ones before us, and there will be other after us. And i also believe the universe itself exists with or without us. So, i believe the energy exists independently of we were aware of it. Or even its the energy which enables us to be aware of anything, including energy itself.
That is an interesting view. I especially like the last sentence. I have never really been able to bring myself to believe in aliens, although I don't doubt that life out there is possible, I just feel that trying to explain anything with the idea of aliens is just fantasy speculation at this point in time (but really, what isn't). I'm not sure if that is what you were getting at with the first sentence, but if not, just let me know.
What you say about there being another conscience before us however, I have been thinking about a lot lately. I was going to write a little ditty about my thoughts on that idea, but as I was typing it out I realized I still have a lot of stuff to think about and I still need to organize my thoughts a little more so I don't say something completely insane or stupid. I will get to it though, this subject interests me.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
I think its very true... we even say "its too good to be true"... but i never heard anybody saying "its too bad to be true"... cause we actually think only bad things can be real, and the good ones are unreal... why does is so?
What about "it's too bad to be true" in the form of shocked disbelief?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coelho
Yes... and yet it moves the universe. Or rather, it is the universe. I believe we humans are not the only conscious beings. I believe there were another ones before us, and there will be other after us. And i also believe the universe itself exists with or without us. So, i believe the energy exists independently of we were aware of it. Or even its the energy which enables us to be aware of anything, including energy itself.
Well, that opens up a whole new thread of conversation about M Theory, branes, the Drake Equation, Fermi's Paradox, et al.
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Why I think our brains are so powerful
Does anyone else here love exercising their mind? Nevermind.. I'm sure the majority of you do. :jointsmile:
