Thread: Crazy Reoccurring Girl IRL

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

I feel like we have gone one way with science, and we are far advanced in that, but we are basically in the dark ages with other types of science. Things like lucid dreaming could be some of the most advanced sciences ever, and expand our minds. If every scientist learned how to LD I feel like we would have more breakthroughs then ever in all feilds ilof science and technology.

It is good to see a discussion going well on here.

I agree very much that "we are basically in the dark ages" on a lot of topics on which the sciences are not presently very helpful. I also think you're right that scientists practicing lucid dreaming would change some things. I think lucid dreaming really wrecks the materialism currently presupposed in most of the sciences (theoretical physics excluded).

And yeah, it is great to see a good discussion here. In my previous experience these internet exchanges almost always get hot-blooded way too fast. It seems to be a different crowd on here than on youtube, eh? Thanks especially to Darkmatters for setting a really positive tone.

BrandonBoss, I really want to hear more about these sustained deja vu experiences you have. Could you please share some more? Can you try to pick what you think others might find to be your most impressive one and talk about it a bit? It's hard to be really impressed by the b-ball story for various reasons: you probably know from playing ball with your in-law before what sort of things he's likely to do, etc. But I'm certainly very open to the claims you're making. I would just like to hear more about them.

I'm sure it's occurred to you that prophetic traditions could be based in precognitive experiences if precognitive experiences happen?

@darkmatters
I will have to look at his books sometime when I get some more time. Thanks.

Originally Posted by rrrrocketrick

I agree very much that "we are basically in the dark ages" on a lot of topics on which the sciences are not presently very helpful. I also think you're right that scientists practicing lucid dreaming would change some things. I think lucid dreaming really wrecks the materialism currently presupposed in most of the sciences (theoretical physics excluded).

And yeah, it is great to see a good discussion here. In my previous experience these internet exchanges almost always get hot-blooded way too fast. It seems to be a different crowd on here than on youtube, eh? Thanks especially to Darkmatters for setting a really positive tone.

BrandonBoss, I really want to hear more about these sustained deja vu experiences you have. Could you please share some more? Can you try to pick what you think others might find to be your most impressive one and talk about it a bit? It's hard to be really impressed by the b-ball story for various reasons: you probably know from playing ball with your in-law before what sort of things he's likely to do, etc. But I'm certainly very open to the claims you're making. I would just like to hear more about them.

I'm sure it's occurred to you that prophetic traditions could be based in precognitive experiences if precognitive experiences happen?

I think that the most amazing one was when I had a dream about the movie insidious. I had not seen the movie before, I had just seen the movie cover, and had not seen anything but the kid (which is barely even in the movie ).

I had a dream about the end part of the movie (I don't want to spoil it, it is great even though it is very inaccurate). The actual climax of the movie. The whole movie I thought that the dad looked so familiar. I checked imdb to see if I had seen anything with him in it. I hadn't, but I couldn't shake the feeling. When he was sitting in the chair it clicked. I knew what would happen through the next 5 minutes.

Problems:
I didn't tell anyone till after

^^

I thought about the basketball one. I have played basketball with them 500+ times. Me doing things like that aren't rare either, so I also was questioning it.

Yeah, they actually always sound fake unless it happen to you. Even with occurrences like that. Next time it happens I will try and tell something to someone so it gets noted.

Rocket (if I may be so informal, or can we call you Rick?) - it sounds like you might have seen my post before I edited off the end, where I said I don't recommend the first 2 books. I changed that because, looking at the webpage I see it's in those books that Don Juan lays down the way of the warrior philosophy which is excellent stuff whether or not you buy into any of the mysticism. It's about living very philosophically - understanding that nothing is as important as we think it is, letting go of the preoccupations of modern life etc, and shares a lot in common with Buddhist teachings (which of course sprang partially from ancient shamanistic practices of animistic cultures like the Yaquis). But I think the most important part is the ideas about the Tonal and the Nagual - which correlate basically to the conscious and unconscious. But of course, when you think about the Nagual or name it or talk about it, you're reducing it to something less than it is - 'the Tau you can talk about is not the real Tau' (or however that goes). Juan's 'stopping the world' is essentially meditation. There are a pair of great books by Don Miguel Ruiz and his son which do a much better job of explaining certain aspects of this 'way of the warrior' lifestyle called The Four Promises and The Fifth Promise. These books have nothing really to do with mysticism but only present a way of living and understanding that allows you to be very detached from the concerns that drive most modern individuals (by realizing that when they talk about you they're actually only talking about their own idea of you, not the actual you, and that you don't know them, you only know your idea of them). The book The Fifth Promise contains a boiled-down version of the info presented in The Four Promises but I recommend getting both books if this interests you - they're short and excellent.

And since this has veered into discussion about the conscious and unconscious (who brought those subjects up anyway? ) I have a little theory about deja-vu. It's known that the conscious mind evolved partially as a redundancy program to double-check the decisions being made by the unconscious. Lower animals have little or no conscious processes, and at the real simple end of the food chain probably don't even have a sense of self to distinguish themselves from other animals or from their environment. Sort of like we all were as newborns or as fetuses (we all go through the evolutionary process in our lifetimes - beginning as single celled completely unconscious creatures, living at first in a liquid environment, then emerging and becoming increasingly self-aware and conscious). So basically anything the conscious mind thinks about has already been chewed through by the unconscious. It's possible that sometimes we become partially aware of those unconscious processes before they enter fully into conscious awareness. I don't know - could be totally wrong, it's just a thought that occurred to me (twice - lol).

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Rocket (if I may be so informal, or can we call you Rick?) - it sounds like you might have seen my post before I edited off the end, where I said I don't recommend the first 2 books. I changed that because, looking at the webpage I see it's in those books that Don Juan lays down the way of the warrior philosophy which is excellent stuff whether or not you buy into any of the mysticism. It's about living very philosophically - understanding that nothing is as important as we think it is, letting go of the preoccupations of modern life etc, and shares a lot in common with Buddhist teachings (which of course sprang partially from ancient shamanistic practices of animistic cultures like the Yaquis). But I think the most important part is the ideas about the Tonal and the Nagual - which correlate basically to the conscious and unconscious. But of course, when you think about the Nagual or name it or talk about it, you're reducing it to something less than it is - 'the Tau you can talk about is not the real Tau' (or however that goes). Juan's 'stopping the world' is essentially meditation. There are a pair of great books by Don Miguel Ruiz and his son which do a much better job of explaining certain aspects of this 'way of the warrior' lifestyle called The Four Promises and The Fifth Promise. These books have nothing really to do with mysticism but only present a way of living and understanding that allows you to be very detached from the concerns that drive most modern individuals (by realizing that when they talk about you they're actually only talking about their own idea of you, not the actual you, and that you don't know them, you only know your idea of them). The book The Fifth Promise contains a boiled-down version of the info presented in The Four Promises but I recommend getting both books if this interests you - they're short and excellent.

And since this has veered into discussion about the conscious and unconscious (who brought those subjects up anyway? ) I have a little theory about deja-vu. It's known that the conscious mind evolved partially as a redundancy program to double-check the decisions being made by the unconscious. Lower animals have little or no conscious processes, and at the real simple end of the food chain probably don't even have a sense of self to distinguish themselves from other animals or from their environment. Sort of like we all were as newborns or as fetuses (we all go through the evolutionary process in our lifetimes - beginning as single celled completely unconscious creatures, living at first in a liquid environment, then emerging and becoming increasingly self-aware and conscious). So basically anything the conscious mind thinks about has already been chewed through by the unconscious. It's possible that sometimes we become partially aware of those unconscious processes before they enter fully into conscious awareness. I don't know - could be totally wrong, it's just a thought that occurred to me (twice - lol).

Informal is great. One of the things I'm most enjoying about interacting on a forum like this is informal anonymity.

This has become a really substantial thread, and I'm really glad about that. Thank you for clarifying the post about your Castaneda picks. Like I said, it'll be a while before I can read him, but when I do I'll have your recommendations in mind.

I like your theory about deja vu. I've been playing with something similar myself. My thought is that our decisions are largely made in the subconscious long before they ever appear in waking life. It's one way in which I've tried to reconcile precognition with responsible free agency.

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

@darkmatters
I will have to look at his books sometime when I get some more time. Thanks.



I think that the most amazing one was when I had a dream about the movie insidious. I had not seen the movie before, I had just seen the movie cover, and had not seen anything but the kid (which is barely even in the movie ).

I had a dream about the end part of the movie (I don't want to spoil it, it is great even though it is very inaccurate). The actual climax of the movie. The whole movie I thought that the dad looked so familiar. I checked imdb to see if I had seen anything with him in it. I hadn't, but I couldn't shake the feeling. When he was sitting in the chair it clicked. I knew what would happen through the next 5 minutes.

Problems:
I didn't tell anyone till after

^^

I thought about the basketball one. I have played basketball with them 500+ times. Me doing things like that aren't rare either, so I also was questioning it.

Yeah, they actually always sound fake unless it happen to you. Even with occurrences like that. Next time it happens I will try and tell something to someone so it gets noted.

Do you keep a detailed dream journal? If you did you might be better able to convince/unconvince yourself (and maybe others) of your interpretations.

I'd really like to hear more about the Insidious experience.

Originally Posted by rrrrocketrick

Castaneda picks... Like I said, it'll be a while before I can read him, but when I do I'll have your recommendations in mind.

Hmmm - you keep saying recommendations, but I didn't actually recommend a book - I just linked to a website that has excerpts from all of the books so you can preview them for free whenever you want and get a feel for them. Just wanted to make sure you understood this. Here's that link again because I suspect you didn't save it: Carlos Castaneda's don Juan's Teachings - might want to bookmark it or something so you can browse it when you have the time.

Originally Posted by rrrrocketrick

I like your theory about deja vu. I've been playing with something similar myself. My thought is that our decisions are largely made in the subconscious long before they ever appear in waking life. It's one way in which I've tried to reconcile precognition with responsible free agency.

My idea is a bit different from what it sounds like yours is - when people say "our decisions are largely made in the subconscious long before they ever appear in waking life" it still implies a certain determinism, which I think is false (might just be desperation and denial on my part though ). The way I look at it, the unconscious does make decisions but then submits them for conscious review and evaluation. But the unconscious is very un-evolved - it knows nothing of the modern world, it thinks in simple terms like "get food now - get to shelter - fight (or flee)". But thanks to the neocortex and all its apparatus the conscious mind is capable of weighing things and making a much more subtle nuanced decision than the unconscious would. Imagine the decision a dog might make compared to one you or I could make. And dogs are among the most conscious of non-human animals! I believe this is what the human conscious evolved for - to allow us to make better decisions than we could unconsciously (or in our dim pre-human semi-consciousness). So it's not that the decision is already made and then for some reason we mull it over consciously and then go ahead and do it anyway the same as a totally unconscious creature would. We're able to truly evaluate and critique - at least when we have good intel to work with.

And while we're still waxing loquacious here (before this thread peters out) let me say something about Don Juan's concepts of the Tonal and Nagual. I said earlier they correspond roughly to the conscious and unconscious, but that's an oversimplification. To be more precise, I think the Tonal is The Matrix - but a mental matrix (as opposed to computer generated). It's the 3D CGI/ video game map the brain generates (unconsciously) from all the data streaming in realtime from the various sensory organs - constantly being updated moment by moment. In truth this model is all we know of the 'real' world - we don't actually see or hear anything directly, only receive streams of electrical impulses via nerve bundles into the brain's processor units. The mechanisms responsible for generating and updating this model are exactly the same processes responsible for dreaming - so in a very real sense we are continually dreaming the world into existence (though working from actual data when awake).

The Tonal is this model of the real world - which with some possible subtle differences in terms of qualia like precise colors or sounds or smells is identical for all of us. But in reality all it is is a model situated somewhere within the vast and incomprehensible workings of the unconscious, which surrounds and dwarfs it. I think that unconscious is the Nagual (the mysterious world of sorcery Don Juan talks about, which he reaches through Dreaming).

Ok, enough rambling - I need to stop or I never will!

Oh I'm really starting to dig the book - for a few chapters it was pretty basic stuff - I think those chapters were essentially to erase the Christian notion of an eternal soul that has no worldly existence. I was starting to think the whole book was gonna be like that, but then he said that subatomic particles experience - similarly to the way the body experiences (but in a way rocks or pieces of wood don't). Now he's got my attention! This is getting good...

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

My idea is a bit different from what it sounds like yours is - when people say "our decisions are largely made in the subconscious long before they ever appear in waking life" it still implies a certain determinism, which I think is false (might just be desperation and denial on my part though ). The way I look at it, the unconscious does make decisions but then submits them for conscious review and evaluation. But the unconscious is very un-evolved - it knows nothing of the modern world, it thinks in simple terms like "get food now - get to shelter - fight (or flee)". But thanks to the neocortex and all its apparatus the conscious mind is capable of weighing things and making a much more subtle nuanced decision than the unconscious would. Imagine the decision a dog might make compared to one you or I could make. And dogs are among the most conscious of non-human animals! I believe this is what the human conscious evolved for - to allow us to make better decisions than we could unconsciously (or in our dim pre-human semi-consciousness). So it's not that the decision is already made and then for some reason we mull it over consciously and then go ahead and do it anyway the same as a totally unconscious creature would. We're able to truly evaluate and critique - at least when we have good intel to work with.

And while we're still waxing loquacious here (before this thread peters out) let me say something about Don Juan's concepts of the Tonal and Nagual. I said earlier they correspond roughly to the conscious and unconscious, but that's an oversimplification. To be more precise, I think the Tonal is The Matrix - but a mental matrix (as opposed to computer generated). It's the 3D CGI/ video game map the brain generates (unconsciously) from all the data streaming in realtime from the various sensory organs - constantly being updated moment by moment. In truth this model is all we know of the 'real' world - we don't actually see or hear anything directly, only receive streams of electrical impulses via nerve bundles into the brain's processor units. The mechanisms responsible for generating and updating this model are exactly the same processes responsible for dreaming - so in a very real sense we are continually dreaming the world into existence (though working from actual data when awake).

The Tonal is this model of the real world - which with some possible subtle differences in terms of qualia like precise colors or sounds or smells is identical for all of us. But in reality all it is is a model situated somewhere within the vast and incomprehensible workings of the unconscious, which surrounds and dwarfs it. I think that unconscious is the Nagual (the mysterious world of sorcery Don Juan talks about, which he reaches through Dreaming).

Oh I'm really starting to dig the book - for a few chapters it was pretty basic stuff - I think those chapters were essentially to erase the Christian notion of an eternal soul that has no worldly existence. I was starting to think the whole book was gonna be like that, but then he said that subatomic particles experience - similarly to the way the body experiences (but in a way rocks or pieces of wood don't). Now he's got my attention! This is getting good...

I also think determinism is false. I should have said that I hypothesize that our decisions are largely made in dreams long before they ever appear in waking life. I was assuming that our dreams are manifestations of our subconscious so I was using subconscious as a rough synonym for dreamworld or something like that. I'm not really pleased with the hypothesis, but it's one I play with. Another reason I could write that without intending determinism is that I had in mind the relationalist doctrine that all proper things (including, for example, subatomic particles, the SiO2 molecules in a silicate rock, and a cell of wood tissue) have experience.

In my opinion, your rejection of determinism is not a result of any "desperation and denial." You're perfectly right and perfectly in your rights to reject it. You'd be irrational not to reject it. Determinism is incompatible with true responsibility. Therefore nobody could be responsible for their opinions if determinism were true. But if nobody can be responsible for what they think, then it's pointless to try to think responsibly. But if it's pointless to try to think responsibly, then this exchange--and any other--is as likely as masturbation to be fruitful. An affirmation of responsible free agency is essential to any coherent conception of knowledge, justified opinion, personhood, etc. It may therefore be presupposed. There's no way to correct ourselves if we're wrong to presuppose it anyway!

I think I don't agree that "the unconscious...thinks in simple terms." I think Jung would reject that on empirical grounds and that he'd be right to do so.

I strongly incline away from the idea that we think with interior models of the exterior world. As I understand it, that's a representationalist theory which presupposes materialism (actually dualism). It encourages skepticism, because if we know only representations then we are forever cut off from the "real" world. It seems to face an infinite regress of representations of representations of representations (etc.). If this regress stops in the immediate knowledge of a representation at some point, then it might as well stop in immediate knowledge of the thing allegedly represented. It makes it very hard to understand how our thoughts could be causally connected to the material world, further encouraging skepticism and creating a problem for evolutionary models of cognitive development. And it's a product of a worldview (materialism) that ought to be rejected for numerous other reasons anyway (e.g., because materialism implies determinism). I think there's a sense in which we may speak of mental models, but the way in which you seem to be using it implies a rigid boundary between inner and outer that I don't accept. I think you'll get a better sense of what I mean if you keep reading that Mesle (?) book. I'm really glad you're enjoying it, by the way! Process philosophy is very cool stuff.

Excellent breakdown on why it's right to reject determinism!

I hypothesize that our decisions are largely made in dreams long before they ever appear in waking life.

This would only work for decisions we sleep on. What about decisions we make on the spur of the moment?

I deliberately overstated the primitive nature of the unconsciuous a bit to make my point, but you may be right that it's not primitive. But my real point remains that I doubt it's capable of decisions as complex and subtle as we can make consciously, assuming we have good intel and aren't being swayed by some issue like addiction or denial - otherwise what was the point of evolving a conscious mind at all? It obviously gave us an advantage that allowed us to outcompete less conscious creatures, and that advantage must be decision making (or so it seems).

On your last paragraph - I do see your point. The main point I was trying to make is simply that the same mental mechanisms that are responsible for maintaining that mental model are also responsible for dreaming - but you're right, there's no need for that to imply we're cut off inside the skull like prisoners. The mental modeling is just a fact - you're aware of what's behind you because you've seen it recently or are familiar with your surroundings - this demonstrates that the mind is constantly maintaining a sort of model of the sapce surrounding us and updating it in realtime. If you hear something behind you that's an update.

Or are you saying that the 'mental model' model is incorrect? Maybe that the body directly experiences what's around us and the mind merely collates the data to improve accuracy? More to ponder.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Excellent breakdown on why it's right to reject determinism!



This would only work for decisions we sleep on. What about decisions we make on the spur of the moment?

I deliberately overstated the primitive nature of the unconsciuous a bit to make my point, but you may be right that it's not primitive. But my real point remains that I doubt it's capable of decisions as complex and subtle as we can make consciously, assuming we have good intel and aren't being swayed by some issue like addiction or denial - otherwise what was the point of evolving a conscious mind at all? It obviously gave us an advantage that allowed us to outcompete less conscious creatures, and that advantage must be decision making (or so it seems).

On your last paragraph - I do see your point. The main point I was trying to make is simply that the same mental mechanisms that are responsible for maintaining that mental model are also responsible for dreaming - but you're right, there's no need for that to imply we're cut off inside the skull like prisoners. The mental modeling is just a fact - you're aware of what's behind you because you've seen it recently or are familiar with your surroundings - this demonstrates that the mind is constantly maintaining a sort of model of the sapce surrounding us and updating it in realtime. If you hear something behind you that's an update.

Or are you saying that the 'mental model' model is incorrect? Maybe that the body directly experiences what's around us and the mind merely collates the data to improve accuracy? More to ponder.

Given the hypothesis, there perhaps are no decisions made at the spur of the (waking conscious) moment. It assumes that many dreams are precognitive and that a precognitive dream is the nexus of a decision which then plays out in conscious waking life. Again, I don't really like the hypothesis, but I play with it. Maybe its only strength is that it tries to acknowledge both precognition and responsible free agency. I do have what I think is a more adequate theory than this, but I don't know how to express it at present.

*****

It's very hard for me to say fully what I mean about models. I wrote the paragraph about models in language that presupposes materialism while rejecting materialism. I did that because I'm trying to communicate with someone who I think thinks like a materialist. If I expressed myself as if I was addressing a relationalist thinker, you'd recognize all my words but probably not get my meaning. Worse, you'd probably interpret them through materialistic lenses and conclude that I must be very confused! This problem of communicating relationalist conceptions is closely related to the problem of learning relationalism that I wrote about earlier.

I'm about to write a spoiler, so if you haven't seen the first Star Trek movie but want to, I suggest you watch it before reading this. It's a great film, so if you haven't seen it yet, do!

In the first Star Trek movie, Earth is confronted with decimation by an enormous alien craft--the size of a planet--who demands to meet its maker. It turns out that one of the exploration craft sent out years ago by the U.S. to collect data collected so much data that it became conscious. Its consciousness filled it with existential angst, and its angst propelled it though the cosmos collecting ever more data in search of the meaning of its existence, which it assumed it might find if it found its creator. Hoping to save Earth, the Star Trek crew engages the craft, and Spock travels deep inside its memory banks with a rocket pack. What he finds there is a highly detailed scale model of the all the worlds from which the craft collected data! I mention this film because it offers a gross illustration of what I think is wrong with a representationalist theory of perception, knowledge, and memory: the planet-sized model of the cosmos in the brain of the craft. Ask yourself how the craft knew/perceived/remembered that huge model, and your sense of the problem should grow. Via another model? And how does it know/perceive/remember that? Via another model? An infinite regress looms that can be stopped, I think, only by supposing that one of the models is known/perceived/remembered not mediately but immediately. But if immediate knowledge of a model can be had, then there's no reason to think the first model is necessary, in which case there's something seriously wrong with the "model" model of perception, knowledge, and memory.

Whitehead and other relationalists provide an alternative theory of modeling; they suppose that to perceive, know, or remember is to apprehend the perceived, known, or remembered thing in itself. We almost never perceive, know, or remember anything completely; we apprehend only aspects of things. If we apprehend important bits of a thing--instead of something superficial like just the thing's color--then we have a model. The thing is represented not by other things but by aspects of itself which are located both in their proper place in the thing and in the experience of the knower/perceiver/rememberer.

Notice the important change in meaning of the word model. I shifted from using it in a materialist sense 2 paragraphs above--which I criticized--to using it in a relationalist sense in the paragraph just above this one, which I recommended.

What I've just given you is key to understanding Whitehead. You can unlock a very great deal of his philosophy if you get this and apply it liberally.

Again, I'm not trying to be a smartass. I'm just glad for a chance to share something I find very important. Because I actually think this isn't just a key to getting Whitehead but maybe even a key to getting the meaning of life. It's certainly been life-changing for me.

Though I'm a little leery of interfering in this interesting exchange, I had a thought that might be relevant. Or not.

First, kudos to you rrrrocketrick for including a reference to the first Star Trek movie in an thoughtful intellectual argument; that may be a first!

Now, each time I passed through another reference to modeling I was slightly confused, or rather feeling misdirected. Your reminder of that fantastically awful scene in Star Trek cleared it up for me: I think the problem here isn't that darkmatters is a some sort of thick-headed materialist (though I may have called him that in the past ), it's that he may have been following the wrong semantic path.

I suggest you both take a moment and simply switch the word "modeling" wherever you see it with "metaphor."

In order to communicate, both to others and ourselves, humans require metaphor -- some sort of image, symbol, memory, smell, feeling, or whatever drawn from their experience to attach meaning to whatever new thing they are experiencing. Now that doesn't mean every new experience must match an older experience -- we're not have precognition about everything -- it simply means that we need something to compare the new experience to in order to understand it. That's how we build the schema to navigate reality every moment.

For instance, you might see an object in front of you. It is spherical, maybe a foot in diameter, and orange, though in the first instant you know none of this -- you must look into your mental filing cabinet to establish a schema that makes the object make sense. Immediately your mind grabs a metaphor for "spherical," so you're past the abstract right away. Then you observe it's size, color, texture, etc, always running each aspect through that filing cabinet. Eventually you're at the schema stage, where you are able to run the object en toto through the files, determining in an instant that it is not the moon, a pea, a head, or any other spherical object...no, all clues confirm that it is a basketball. Now you understand that it is a basketball -- schema established -- and you can understand what it is and what it is for, because you have an established image, a metaphor, for what a basketball does. From where is that image? Precognition? Determinism? No; it's from that cabinet of past experience, your vast unconscious sea of waiting potential metaphor.

In other, and way fewer words, metaphor is simply a method of communication, of definition. Dualism or monism are not attached, nor is materialism, representationalism, or any other cognitive "ism." It is simply a means to communicate, and it is necessarily based on what we already know. That base is not an exact model, just an example that might have enough to do with a new experience to lend meaning to it.

There are of course many experiences that defy explanation or understanding because they are so new that we have no metaphor to draw upon from which to build meaning. Navigating these transcendental moments is how we grow. And, we do it by building new metaphor, by "modelling" new memory files for the cabinet.

Oh, and for what it's worth, dreams are about as close as we get in daily life to that "filing cabinet" of metaphor in its purest state. All dreams are not precognitive -- perhaps none of them are -- but all dreams contain the potential to accidentally tap files that may have something to do with waking life, simply by the sheer mass of random metaphor they represent.

I hope that made sense; I wrote it very quickly. If not, just ignore me and press on.

Oh hey Sage, nice of you to pop in! No, Materialist is one you haven't called me yet! I'm not sure it really fits either, though to some extent it probably does. I only accept it so far, and only because I deny the existence of the supernatural. From the rest of what the Rocketman is saying, it sounds like Materialism isn't really for me, though it doubtless is the default mode most of us are brought up in (those who aren't religious). Naturalist may well be closer to the mark for me (does that mean I have to take my clothes off now? ). And I like what you just said - I agree with your assessment - we store metaphors or schema as memories. Remembered experiences.

I considered mentioning earlier that I don't think the Materialist tag really fits me, but then it occurred to me that Rick might be drawing power from that assumption and might just lose interest in posting if he loses his metaphorical 'enemy', so I just let it slide.

And right now I'm not so much ionterested in arguing against relationalism or anything, I want to learn about it first and then see what I can draw from it to add to the gestalt of my knowledge/vault of concepts.

@ rrrrocketrick:

Oh yeah, you mean V-ger!

Ok, I had to read that twice, very slowly the second time, and I think I understand what you mean now. My initial reaction of course was "why would there need to be more than one model?". I'm thinking in term of computer modeling of course, like video game environments - and the environments are only 'projected' into an actual 3 dimensional model when you enter that area - the rest of the time they're simply stored as data. That *seems* to be a pretty good approximation of how I imagine the brain works.

Ok, I'll read on - thank you for taking the time to explain this stuff to a struggling noob!

A question though (and I don't necessarily expect you to know the answer) - if we directly apprehend the environment we're in rather than creating an internal mental projection of it, then what are the environments we find ourselves in when we dream? Obviously in dreams the brain can create models of environments and people etc that aren't really there, and make them absolutely as real and detailed as reality itself (assuming reality is as we perceive it). Knowing that it can do this, it seems reasonable to conclude that what we experience around us when awake is also a model, but constructed from accurate realtime data.

But then maybe the models we dream up are fundamentally different. Does Whitehead say anything about dreams?

hat I've just given you is key to understanding Whitehead. You can unlock a very great deal of his philosophy if you get this and apply it liberally.

Apply where - where it hurts? Let me just crack my skull open real quick then...

Originally Posted by Sageous

In order to communicate, both to others and ourselves, humans require metaphor -- some sort of image, symbol, memory, smell, feeling, or whatever drawn from their experience to attach meaning to whatever new thing they are experiencing. Now that doesn't mean every new experience must match an older experience -- we're not have precognition about everything -- it simply means that we need something to compare the new experience to in order to understand it. That's how we build the schema to navigate reality every moment.

In other, and way fewer words, metaphor is simply a method of communication, of definition. Dualism or monism are not attached, nor is materialism, representationalism, or any other cognitive "ism." It is simply a means to communicate, and it is necessarily based on what we already know. That base is not an exact model, just an example that might have enough to do with a new experience to lend meaning to it.

There are of course many experiences that defy explanation or understanding because they are so new that we have no metaphor to draw upon from which to build meaning. Navigating these transcendental moments is how we grow. And, we do it by building new metaphor, by "modelling" new memory files for the cabinet.

Hey Sageous, thanks for your post. You make an important point about metaphor: it seems that we understand new things by analogy with things we have understood previously. So we started off understanding atoms by analogy with something like billiard balls (that wasn't the actual historical analogue, but it's good enough for my purposes here). We were thus encouraged to think of them as very hard (impenetrable and indivisible) little things that move through space and time as if space and time were containers like a pool table.

It turns out that atomic models built of billiard-ball metaphors are of very limited use. They help to an extent--we got Boyle's gas law out of it, for example--but they start to get in the way later when we encounter physical phenomena that defy the laws of billiards. And that leads neatly into something key in what I was saying: that we have different theories/models of reality as a whole that can be more or less adequate to our experiences in the world. Materialist theories/models are built of certain metaphors; relationalist theories/models are built of others.

I don't think Darkmatters is a stubborn materialist. He isn't. But like the rest of us, he inherited a rather materialistic--or dualistic--way of thinking about the natural world. (Materialism is implicitly dualistic, in my judgment, and that's why I sometimes paint with both those brushes.)

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Oh hey Sage, nice of you to pop in! No, Materialist is one you haven't called me yet! I'm not sure it really fits either, though to some extent it probably does. I only accept it so far, and only because I deny the existence of the supernatural. From the rest of what the Rocketman is saying, it sounds like Materialism isn't really for me, though it doubtless is the default mode most of us are brought up in (those who aren't religious). Naturalist may well be closer to the mark for me (does that mean I have to take my clothes off now? ).

@ rrrrocketrick:

Oh yeah, you mean V-ger!


A question though (and I don't necessarily expect you to know the answer) - if we directly apprehend the environment we're in rather than creating an internal mental projection of it, then what are the environments we find ourselves in when we dream? Obviously in dreams the brain can create models of environments and people etc that aren't really there, and make them absolutely as real and detailed as reality itself (assuming reality is as we perceive it). Knowing that it can do this, it seems reasonable to conclude that what we experience around us when awake is also a model, but constructed from accurate realtime data.

Yeah, Vger. Great movie, in my opinion!

Metaphorical enemy? I thought you friended me?

I don't think you're a full materialist. I don't think anybody is really a materialist, because I think materialism is incoherent. I think you're closer to a dualist in your thinking, because dualism is sorta the default position to adopt when materialism stops working. Some philosophers argue that materialism is implicitly dualistic, and I incline to agree. Still, I think your thoughts about what we generally refer to as the natural world--the world "out there"--are largely conditioned by materialist metaphors. This is because, as you say, materialism is "the default mode most of us are brought up in." I think it's the default mode whether we're religious or not. Even most "religious people" nowadays--or since religious people is a junk category, I'll be more specific and speak of theists--tend to think of nature in very materialistic terms and then add souls and God off to the side as utterly different sorts of things in the same way you add the realm of dreams. That wasn't always the case. Previously in the Christian West, for example, we thought in Aristotelian terms. But materialism displaced Aristotle and changed the nature of our common sense by displacing him.

Naturalism is a tricky category. What fits into it depends on the worldview you interpret experience through. If you're a materialist in your thinking about the natural world, then anything non-material might be thought of as super to the natural materialistically conceived, and that could include not just God and angels but numbers, propositions, and even dreams. A relationalist seems to lack grounds for thinking anything is super to nature. That's because for a relationalist stereotypically "supernatural" things--immaterial persons, e.g.--aren't excluded from existence a priori as in materialism. For relationalism, it's an empirical question whether gods, Buddhas, or ghosts (etc.) exist. For similar reasons, I argued previously that relationalism is open to the possibility of precognition whereas materialists incline to reject it a priori for being incompatible with materialism.

I don't think a sharp line can be drawn between the "imaginary" and the "real." Dreams are obviously real in some sense: they happen. They're both causes and effects, so they're even real in a manner continuous with the so-called "real" world. For me, the question then becomes whether dreams constitute an absolutely distinct sort of reality (dualism) or represents a grade on a continuum of reality (monism). It seems to me we have plenty of reason to think that dreams aren't absolutely different from waking reality and plenty of other reason to think they're grades on a continuum. Seems to me that lots of the latter evidence comes from lucid dreams. It's why I'm on this forum!

Why are you so smart about all this stuff? Are you a philosophy student?

Lol yeah, I guess I'd call myself somewhat reluctantly indoctrinated into materialism and growing increaisngly suspicious of it. It's proving to be a slippery slope though - I make progress up and out and later find I've slid back in! Indoctrination is such an insidious thing!

Whoah! Very bizarre - last night as I perused the book on Whitehead further, I ran across this:

Process thinkers would agree with Kant, and with many postmodern thinkers, that the world of our sensory perception is always a construct. To use Kant's language, the world of our sensory perception is a phenomenal world. The phenomenal world is the world our brain paints for us of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. The sensory world of our "now" is never identical with the world as it is in itself.

At first I was all "Aha! I SAID! Didn't I say? I said!! ( <--- triumph dance of the ego )

But I read on a bit and noticed it was followed up by saying that Whitehead would modify this to reflect that due to causal efficacy we completely understand and in fact 'feel' that this constructed world is absolutely real and intimately connected to us.

I'm starting to get the difference. In fact, previous to this he said that we can't ever see causality. We see its effects, but not actual casuality. He used the biliard ball analogy - we can see one smash into another and the other one move away from it, but what we're actually seeing is simply one action followed by another; not the fact that it caused the other. We must infer that.

My inititial reaction was "No, that's wrong - we know what it's like to be a billiard ball if we've ever been punched in the head (or been struck by anything). We've FELT causality.

He went into a long-winded explanation that basically was what I said, but in somewhat different terms. The gist of it was that we can't experience causality immediately via any particular sense, but that we can feel it internally through collating the combined realtime sensory data and sort of experiencing it holistically.

Ok - that makes sense. It's only subtlely different from what I was saying, but it does fill in a gap in my understanding. I think I'm digging this process-relational stuff!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Why are you so smart about all this stuff? Are you a philosophy student?

Hi Darkmatters,

Something like that, yeah. Let's just say that I'm a lifelong student of science, philosophy, and religion and that lifelong extends into middle age in my case.

Originally Posted by ixsetf

No, sivason is suggesting you have ESP which lets your subconscious see the future. I highly doubt precognition is possible, considering that an effect cannot occur before its cause. Precognition would violate this basic scientific principle.

But effect can be predicted and notice his dream Is not exactly like his experience

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Whoah! Very bizarre - last night as I perused the book on Whitehead further, I ran across this:



At first I was all "Aha! I SAID! Didn't I say? I said!! ( <--- triumph dance of the ego )

But I read on a bit and noticed it was followed up by saying that Whitehead would modify this to reflect that due to causal efficacy we completely understand and in fact 'feel' that this constructed world is absolutely real and intimately connected to us.

I'm starting to get the difference. In fact, previous to this he said that we can't ever see causality. We see its effects, but not actual casuality. He used the biliard ball analogy - we can see one smash into another and the other one move away from it, but what we're actually seeing is simply one action followed by another; not the fact that it caused the other. We must infer that.

My inititial reaction was "No, that's wrong - we know what it's like to be a billiard ball if we've ever been punched in the head (or been struck by anything). We've FELT causality.

He went into a long-winded explanation that basically was what I said, but in somewhat different terms. The gist of it was that we can't experience causality immediately via any particular sense, but that we can feel it internally through collating the combined realtime sensory data and sort of experiencing it holistically.

Ok - that makes sense. It's only subtlely different from what I was saying, but it does fill in a gap in my understanding. I think I'm digging this process-relational stuff!

Hi Darkmatters,

I'm a bit surprised that Mesle is putting it as you report. Of course, it's hard to tell what he's really saying from so little context.

I had written a response, but it was lost when I went to post it (for some reason Dreamviews logs me off every five minutes or so--very annoying). I'll type up another response later, but let me take a day or so to think about how best to respond.

I'm glad you feel like you're "getting" process philosophy, but I feel like I should also caution you again against thinking you're getting it too quickly. This has nothing whatsoever to do with me thinking I'm smarter than you or whatever. No matter how smart you are, you can't really understand a part of a new worldview until you understand all of it, and understanding an entire theory of reality simply takes a ton of work and there's really no shortcuts around that. The reason it's so hard is because we think and perceive with our worldviews! You might be well prepared from previous reading in Jung (etc.) to get Whitehead, etc. But anyway, I'm not recognizing your interpretations of Mesle as Whiteheadian. I suspect you're interpreting him through materialist/dualist lenses.

Great dancing icon, by the way!

@ rocketrick
You guys have a pretty good conversation going on here, but I don't really have much to add. It is something I haven't studied very much.

Also. I used to have that problem, try making sure you click "remember password" and it should keep you signed in. This worked for me. I only had the problem on my phone though, and that was annoying since I typed soooo much on my phone. If that doesn't work you should PM some higher ups.

Wow, that is thoroughly discouraging. Sounds like I got the wrong book. It also sounds like this is a long and difficult journey with absolutely no rewards until the very end. At least I posted a good dancing icon!

Originally Posted by rrrrocketrick

Hi Darkmatters,

I'm a bit surprised that Mesle is putting it as you report. Of course, it's hard to tell what he's really saying from so little context.

I had written a response, but it was lost when I went to post it (for some reason Dreamviews logs me off every five minutes or so--very annoying). I'll type up another response later, but let me take a day or so to think about how best to respond.

I'm glad you feel like you're "getting" process philosophy, but I feel like I should also caution you again against thinking you're getting it too quickly. This has nothing whatsoever to do with me thinking I'm smarter than you or whatever. No matter how smart you are, you can't really understand a part of a new worldview until you understand all of it, and understanding an entire theory of reality simply takes a ton of work and there's really no shortcuts around that. The reason it's so hard is because we think and perceive with our worldviews! You might be well prepared from previous reading in Jung (etc.) to get Whitehead, etc. But anyway, I'm not recognizing your interpretations of Mesle as Whiteheadian. I suspect you're interpreting him through materialist/dualist lenses.

Great dancing icon, by the way!

I found I could save the Don Juan teachings from that site as PDF files on my Kindle (hint, make your browser really skinny first, it helps keep the words big enough to read - otherwise they'll be microscopic! And find the Printer-Friendly version). I want to review this stuff as it's been a few years since I first read through the books, and it's great to have this boiled-down version of just the teachings, rather than reading the entire series of books again.

Castaneda, being the hidebound lummox he is (stubborn materialist) kept insisting that the nagual to him means simply the unconscious (or something similar - I might be remembering it a little wrong because it's my contention that it's the unconscious). Juan's reply was that it doesn't matter at all whether you believe it's inside your head or outside all around us - either way it's real and it's ultimatley mysterious and the only way to experience it is to let go of the learned version of the world you've been indoctrinated into all your life (the tonal). I think maybe this can help with the little kerfuffle above concerning whether we're a spirit living inside a skull looking at monitors to see the world or actually directly experiencing everything firsthand. In the end it doesn't matter which interpretation you believe in.

My personal interpretation doesn't go so far as to say that we're disembodied spirits trapped in prisonlike skulls - not at all. More like we're organic bodies, an important part of which is the brain, which generates and maintains the mind as well as this realtime, intensely interactive 'video-game environment' that is the tonal (my interpretation anyway) - and by holistically combining all sensory input and memories - all experience collated together - we are really experiencing the physical world around us while at the same time we're also living entirely in the mental world of the unconscious - a vast formless world in which we maintain a focused area called the conscious mind.

I can't exactly recall which of my friends, but I have a friend who told me she once had a 20-minute (I think) déjà-vu. Dammit... now I kinda wanna ask who it was on Facebook lol.

And by the way you guys do know about the tests scientists did where they monitored people's brains and found that their brains reacted to images of good or bad before the image actually popped up, right? That's basically like precognition.

Originally Posted by Extremador

tests scientists did where they monitored people's brains and found that their brains reacted to images of good or bad before the image actually popped up, right? That's basically like precognition.

No, I haven't heard of that - got a link?

I remember something like this happening to me about 3 or 4 years ago. I had a week where every night I would dream of something that would then happen in the next day. Every night for exactly 7 days - a dream about events that were 1) either the same as the events happening the day after, or 2) resembled them very closely. After a week, it just stopped and never happened to me again.