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tweakabelle -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/24/2013 7:19:39 PM)
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ORIGINAL: vincentML
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How can an OBE be anything but a personal experience? How can any personal account of an OBE be anything but a person's subjective interpretation of their experience? For my part, I am quite convinced, from my personal experience, that during my OBEs, the focus of my awareness is outside my physical body. I can add that initially, the experience was spontaneous - I wasn't expecting or anticipating it so the question of inducing the experience, or of deliberately influencing events to achieve a specific outcome doesn't arise (at least, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't arise). I have never felt the slightest whiff of danger during an OBE - quite the opposite, I feel so safe that the question of security never arises, and my OBE experiences are followed by a state of exhilaration that can last for several days or more.
I applaud your pleasure, Tweakabelle. It is wonderful that you can have such experiences. But, is there any explanation how the focus of awareness can be anywhere without involving the brain?
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For mine this is perfectly valid evidence, yet the response of many skeptics is to label it 'anecdotal' and then ignore it, as if the label somehow makes the evidence disappear. How many anecdotes does it take to produce admissible evidence demanding explanation?
As many as it would take to produce admissible evidence of alien abduction I would guess.
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Similarly, insisting that the only valid evidence must be physical or chemical produces the same outcome. There's a lot to be said in favour of skepticism but when it's effect to eliminate any evidence that the current scientific orthodoxy cannot accommodate then it ceases to be legitimate skepticism and becomes something else, something quite 'un-scientific' to boot - it is tailoring the evidence to preserve an inadequate model.
Therein lies the slippery slope to mysticism and superstition, and a world filled with angels and demons.
One thing that is known is that we cannot have a Theory of Everything within a rational framework (following Godel's Theorem). No matter which explanatory model is employed, there is always something that the theory cannot explain, there is always an excess beyond rational reach.
With respect to consciousness, whether we like it or not, insisting on a purely rational approach therefore has the effect of ensuring that the question cannot ever be answered in full. In a sense that means insisting on a purely rational approach condemns us to perpetual ignorance. Paradoxically enough, it means that it is irrational to insist on a purely rational approach and expect a successful outcome.
This is not to assert that rationality is irrelevant, it is to insist that is prudent to recognise its limitations. The physical mechanics of consciousness might well be discovered someday. But there is no reason to believe that such a discovery will ever reveal in full the secrets of consciousness and good reason to believe the contrary.
Why condemn yourself to an approach that cannot possibly deliver the results you seek?
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