Can we have a science of the non-material

[David Bailey]

Paul,

Lets just explore the idea of thought without language a little more - because you do seem quite convinced that it does not exist.

I am not really musical, but if you talk to a musician, they do consider music to have meaning. I guess each small section has an emotion associated with it, and the succession of such emotions conveys some meaning. In a way, perhaps that just means that music is not really language free. I don't know, you can't really deny that a piece of music seems to have some meaning!

As to the meaning of Bethoven's 5th - it so happens that if my partner oversleeps, I sometimes wake her up with that very piece of music - it works rather well!

There is at least some evidence that some likes/dislikes get passed on when someone receives a heart transplant -

Inherited Memories in Organ Transplant Recipients

I find this extremely interesting because even if some information is encoded outside the brain, it should (according to orthodox ideas) be encoded as a neural network, which would be meaningless to another nervous system.

As regards Chiatin - the few extra bits to make the copy is hardly relevant to the discussion you were having with Ian (i.e. you still only need a few bits, even if you are copying gigabytes of information) - which is where that sub-thread started - I suggest we let that drop!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

Lets just explore the idea of thought without language a little more - because you do seem quite convinced that it does not exist.

I am not really musical, but if you talk to a musician, they do consider music to have meaning. I guess each small section has an emotion associated with it, and the succession of such emotions conveys some meaning. In a way, perhaps that just means that music is not really language free. I don't know, you can't really deny that a piece of music seems to have some meaning!

To whatever degree it conveys meaning, it is a language. And it has a written counterpart that uses musical notation.

As to the meaning of Bethoven's 5th - it so happens that if my partner oversleeps, I sometimes wake her up with that very piece of music - it works rather well!

And the meaning to her is ... what exactly? But if you want to equate emotion with meaning, I guess I won't argue with you too much.

There is at least some evidence that some likes/dislikes get passed on when someone receives a heart transplant -

I quite doubt it. I suspect it's confirmation bias on a massive scale. Also, gee whiz, who can be surprised that a person who gets a heart transplant might change various aspects of their life?

I find this extremely interesting because even if some information is encoded outside the brain, it should (according to orthodox ideas) be encoded as a neural network, which would be meaningless to another nervous system.

Unless it's encoded as hormone levels or by other chemical means.

As regards Chiatin - the few extra bits to make the copy is hardly relevant to the discussion you were having with Ian (i.e. you still only need a few bits, even if you are copying gigabytes of information) - which is where that sub-thread started - I suggest we let that drop!

Ian said "Otherwise it's just presenting existing information in differing ways." He's wrong, in exactly the same way that creationists are wrong when they say that duplicating DNA doesn't increase genetic information.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Unless it's encoded as hormone levels or by other chemical means.
~~ Paul

You would still have an arbitrary mapping between the original idea and the chemicals. Neural nets are supposed to work because you end up with 'symbols' that, although randomly encoded, are used consistently. Wouldn't this be just as true for other means of encoding information - such as a love of classical music (one of the examples in the link I sent you). The interesting thing is that the donor family is normally kept secret from the recipient - so the recipient would not know about the donor by normal means.

David

[Lekatt]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Almost - there would obviously be a few extra bits to make the copy. The concept is known as algorithmic complexity.

I think the question as to whether spirit/psi communication requires language, is interesting. Unfortunately ESP seems to work best between people who know each other, and therefore probably speak the same language - so it would be hard to test experimentally.

Assuming Lekatt genuinely has contact with the spirit world, he is telling us that language is not required to communicate. He obviously approaches these issues from experience, not from a scientific viewpoint. I must say, I wish I could draw on experience in these matters, but I can't. Of course, even if I could, I would have to worry that my experiences might be hallucinations. I don't know if Lekatt ever worries about that, but it would be very interesting to know if he has managed to eliminate that possibility.

The idea that thought might be possible without language is interesting. Listening to music might be close - I mean performers need a language alright, but people seem to listen and extract meaning directly.

David

It is interesting to me that you think language is required. Thought does not require any symbols (language) because it uses reality. If in the spirit world you want to communicate an event, action, picture, then that is what is communicated. Huge amounts of information can be communicated instantly in thought. Thought is energy, well everything is energy at its core. When near death experiencers enter the light, all the knowledge of everything is available to them. They have only to question with thought and the answer appears. Unfortunately when returning to physical life not all of this information returns with them. The human body works like a shield to keep spiritual knowledge from being seen while in the physical.

Illusions, delusions, hallucinations, are just thoughts that are not understood. Everything has meaning and purpose, but we humans are not always able to ascertain what it is. And, of course, one man's hallucination is another's reality.

There are many disciplines in the physical that actual believe they have the answers to the questions of the universe, this discourages the seeking of truth.

I may have given this link before, but it is good to repeat. This is my understanding of what I learning during my spiritual experiences.

Beliefs, Thoughts, and Emotions | Thoughtful Living

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

You would still have an arbitrary mapping between the original idea and the chemicals. Neural nets are supposed to work because you end up with 'symbols' that, although randomly encoded, are used consistently. Wouldn't this be just as true for other means of encoding information - such as a love of classical music (one of the examples in the link I sent you). The interesting thing is that the donor family is normally kept secret from the recipient - so the recipient would not know about the donor by normal means.

Indeed, if a specific interest cropped up, it would be hard to see how that was encoded. But if a desire for salty thing cropped up and the person started eating, say, pretzels, that might correspond to a specific desire of the donor because pretzels are a classic salty food.

How have we missed information encoded in heart cells after centuries of studying the heart?

Really though, it's just ripe for confirmation bias. How many habits do the recipients change that do not correspond to habits of the donors?


~~ Paul

[Miguel]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Unfortunately ESP seems to work best between people who know each other, ...

One hears that from time to time but how do we know that?

(I take it that there is no more interest discussing the OP?)

[Danny_D]

Originally Posted by Miguel

One hears that from time to time but how do we know that?

(I take it that there is no more interest discussing the OP?)

From personal experience I can tell that that this connection seems to work quite well with me and my wife and the kids.
I always try to rule out the obvious ques that I might give or receive, but then there are those occasions that you can't explain with bodylanguage or subtle unconscious ques, like my wife dreaming some of my very personal thoughts

[Miguel]

Originally Posted by Danny_D

From personal experience I can tell that that this connection seems to work quite well with me and my wife and the kids.
I always try to rule out the obvious ques that I might give or receive, but then there are those occasions that you can't explain with bodylanguage or subtle unconscious ques, like my wife dreaming some of my very personal thoughts

Sounds interesting. Can you share more about how that appears to work?

Also: Have you ever contacted a researcher about this? As you may know the big problem in the study of psi is that it cannot be reliable produced. You obviously can't study something you don't have at hand.

ETA: Happy new year to you all.

[Danny_D]

Originally Posted by Miguel

Sounds interesting. Can you share more about how that appears to work?

Also: Have you ever contacted a researcher about this? As you may know the big problem in the study of psi is that it cannot be reliable produced. You obviously can't study something you don't have at hand.

ETA: Happy new year to you all.

Well, really nothing special about it. My wife was asleep, and I was watching TV and thinking about some "personal stuff". Later when I came to bed my wife woke up and started telling about this dream she had. Curiosly, it was excatly what I had been thinking.

Sometimes while I'm lying in bed trying to go to sleep, a bad feeling comes over me. A few seconds later my 2 year old starts crying. It's a very distinct feeling and it has happend to me many time. Ofcourse this could just be me picking up some ques that I'm not aware of.

Also Sheldrakes, "sense of being stared at" happens sometimes. I've noticed that when theres a strong emotion behind "the looking"....like seeing an attractive woman from behind They immideatly turn around and see whose looking at them.


Edit:
I've never contacted any resercher about this. I think these things are rather common. People just dont take notice or dismiss them.
I'm sure if I tried to replicate these, the experiments would fail. I have a sense that the "mental trying" isn't a part of if, and thats why the lab experiments dont produce strong effects overall. Any unconscious doubt might also hinder the effect.

[Pollux]

These things you mention, about your wifes dreaming, along with Sheldrakes `knowing when people stare at you´ is things that happens to everyone.
The staring thing though is far to mundane to make attraction, unless heavy statistic leans towards it.

But everyday matters that contains more complex ingredients like this with your wife's dream gives more of an impact when it happens.
The thing that irritates scientist regarding this matter is, you cant control it.
It happens when it happens, but when it does it makes a real impact to the one it happens to, and often ultimately changes their perspective on life.

Guess you all heard of the monkeys and the typewriter, and give enough possibilities and given variables anything like this is bound to happen.

I call bollox on that, because of the complexity and the accuracy.
Nothing of this can be proven and tested under any kind of laboratory conditions unless its a fluke.
But even if its a fluke scientists demands that it works EVERYTIME when they want it to.
They want a "ghost" to jump when they say so, and if doesn't they ignore it.

Under all this lies the ongoing struggle between science and religion, meaning science wont ever give an inch to anything that might even seem remotely spiritual.
What point they would go to even consider anything in this area to be possible is ESP, that solely includes a possibility that its a connection wavelength between human brains that totally exclude any other external spiritual theories.
This would only include something like a form of transcendent electromagnetism-like force that yet to been found.

This is no news to anyone really, but polarized atheism and bonker-crazy religion is always riding on the verge on the road, half an inch from a crash.

There is no mutual ground for die-hard atheist-scientists and open-minded free thinking scientists.
Any scientist that want to make research in any of these areas haft to do it amongst like-thinking peers and dont expect any grants from anyone, and if they want to keep their day-job keep their mouth shut.

The Academic-Mafia don't forget, if you even hint your interest for anything remotely near any of this question you are a pariah.