Working Together: Can We Restore the World?

IFeelFree wrote:

Its because the word "God" means something different to me than it does to a lot of other people. I don't want to defend their use of the word, and I don't want to to have to go through a long discussion of the meaning I assign to it. Its not important to me.

It is pretty damned probable that "god" doesn't mean the same thing to any two people--which is the basis of my objection to the drivel you have been posting here--it is personal, idiosyncratic and interpretive, involving an interpretation which you cannot assert will occur to everyone who pursues the same "methods" about which you so vaguely prate.

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The origin of the Self is not something that I can speak about. Its nature is formless, unbounded, eternal, blissful, the source of all manifest existence. It is experienced as inner silence, spaciousness, love-bliss, restful alertness, a sense of freedom.

Your evidence that any of this is so, is . . . ?

Personal experience, supported by a study of the literature from various spiritual traditions.

Precisely--you are referring to personal and idiosyncratic interpretations of your experiences for which you can provide no common basis for a discussion of the merits of what you choose to believe. In essence, we have only your word for the meaning of things to which you have imprecisely alluded, but which we are to take on "faith" have the deep, spiritual and transcendent significance which you allege.

That's no answer--what you claim you have experienced is not evidence, it is merely anecdote.

Can I "assert" that the same experience will occur to "everyone who pursues the same 'methods'"? No. However, I have spoken to hundreds of people over the years who have had very similar experiences when engaged in similar practices. It is reasonable to suppose that this is a universal experience.

If I said that a mango is delicious, but you'd never tasted one, you'd have to either take my word for it, hold no opinion, or taste one yourself. If I assert that someone who engages in certain self-transcending spiritual practices will have certain experiences, it is a falsifiable proposition. In that sense, it is scientific. It is different than asserting that you must believe such and such, because it says so here in this book.

No, it is not at all apparent that such experiences are universal. To quote Anatole France: If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. That many, many people share a delusion is not evidence, it is just manifold anecdote. When the majority of the people on this planet believed it was flat, did that make it true? They were all able to adduce their own apparent experience to that effect.

As for spiritual literature, the thought of "because it says so in this book" leads me to wonder if you would interested in purchasing a bridge.

IFeelFree wrote:

Can I "assert" that the same experience will occur to "everyone who pursues the same 'methods'"? No. However, I have spoken to hundreds of people over the years who have had very similar experiences when engaged in similar practices. It is reasonable to suppose that this is a universal experience.

No, it is not reasonable to suppose that at all. Hundreds of people constitute an infinitesimally small and insignificant sample on a planet with six billions. Also, see my post above about what "many" people believe--it is called the ad numerum fallacy, or the ad populum fallacy. The latter is probably more applicable because there is an implication of elite opinion being definitive, and your spiritualist claptrap is a call to achieve an elitist state of mind.

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If I said that a mango is delicious, but you'd never tasted one, you'd have to either take my word for it, hold no opinion, or taste one yourself. If I assert that someone who engages in certain self-transcending spiritual practices will have certain experiences, it is a falsifiable proposition. In that sense, it is scientific. It is different than asserting that you must believe such and such, because it says so here in this book.

You have a problem with definitions here, as you always have. There is a consensus opinion on what constitutes "mango"--but even with that in mind, what i consider delicious and what anyone else considers delicious is a personal and idiosyncratic judgment. So you haven't saved yourself from the objection that you are simply peddling your personal and idiosyncratic interpretation of an experience--and an experience which you believed in advance would lead to a state of "consciousness." When you say "Hey, Presto!" and assert that you've attained your putative transcendent state of consciousness, reasonable people can be excused for taking a skeptical view of the reality of your claim. By the way, in the post i quoted above, you did indeed attempt to support your silly claims by stating that you had read it in books.

Indeed, your proposition is falsifiable, but it is never verifiable.

Anyone who claims to have reached a transcendent consciousness is simply doing no more than that, making a claim. If you assert that there are mangoes, i can certainly discover if that is true. But if you assert that everyone will find mangoes delicious, that is not only falsifiable, it is never verifiable.

The number of scientists who actually have studied and understand the theory of general relativity is an infinitesimally small sample on the planet, yet we (most of us) accept it as true. Is it the ad populum fallacy, or the "appeal to authority" fallacy? The proposition that the earth is flat is wrong because it disagrees with observation. The same cannot be said with the theory of general relativity.

It is even more difficult to determine truth when discussing subjective experiences.

Most of us have had the experience of, say, being in love, or feeling jealous. Oh yeah? Prove it! How can you? How could someone prove that they are in love? We accept what they say at face value because we've had similar experiences, and so it seems plausible to us. We tend to believe it when someone says, "I'm in love". I'm discussing an experience which is not as common, therefore it is likely to be met with skepticism. That does not mean that it is not real.

It is verifiable, it is not provable (as any other scientific proposition is not provable). It is verifiable because the "experiment" can be done by any willing individual. They can engage in certain practices and see what experiences they have. If they have similar experiences, then the proposition is verified in their experience.

The same criticism can be made of any scientific proposition. Newton's theory claimed that you can do these experiments and obtain these results. However, there exist a class of experiments for which Newton's theory produces false predictions (and were used to verify the general theory of relativity). Therefore, it can never be claimed that any theory can be verified in all cases since it is impossible to test all cases.

Of course, it is not the burden of the skeptic to "prove" that an extraordinary claim is foolish or a delusion.

Those who make extraordinary claims have the burden of proving them, and you have consistently failed to do so. Now you write: If you are looking for objective proof for a subjective experience, you won't find it.--no ****, Sherlock, that's been pretty much the crux of the biscuit all along.

You make extravagant, and frankly hilarious, claims about your transcendent state of "Self," of "consciousness." You claim that you have freed yourself from ego, and yet your statements are hedged all around with "I"--you are far more focused on yourself, far more wrapped in your ego, than anyone else in this discussion. And you are offering an extraordinary claim, and now whining that you shouldn't be expected to prove your claim. I've not even asked you for proof--a plausible explanation would do. All you offer is that you have had this experience, and that hundreds of other people have told you they have had the same experience, and that you have read about this in books. None of that is plausible, and none of it constitutes an explanation. All you offer are assertions, and those assertions are exactly equivalent to testimonials by unknown persons on some hyped television info-mercial.

IFeelFree wrote:

The number of scientists who actually have studied and understand the theory of general relativity is an infinitesimally small sample on the planet, yet we (most of us) accept it as true. Is it the ad populum fallacy, or the "appeal to authority" fallacy? The proposition that the earth is flat is wrong because it disagrees with observation. The same cannot be said with the theory of general relativity.

Actually, it is an appeal to authority in which the authoritative speakers have evidence, something you lack.

Quite apart from that, the general theory of relativity cannot account for particle physics, and cannot accommodate chaos theory, so you've chosen a poor example. In fact, continued observation has served to falsify the theories of general and special relativity.

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It is even more difficult to determine truth when discussing subjective experiences.

No, it is impossible to assert that you have found the truth when all you have to offer is subjective experience. I haven't put up that stringent a barrier, however, i have said that i'd be happy to see even a plausible explanation from you, but you don't bother, you don't even argue from analogy. (Your mango example was a dead failure because i can taste a mango, and subjectively declare it not to be delicious. In fact, i find mangoes cloying.)

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Most of us have had the experience of, say, being in love, or feeling jealous. Oh yeah? Prove it! How can you? How could someone prove that they are in love? We accept what they say at face value because we've had similar experiences, and so it seems plausible to us. We tend to believe it when someone says, "I'm in love". I'm discussing an experience which is not as common, therefore it is likely to be met with skepticism. That does not mean that it is not real.

Allow me to reintroduce you to reality. This thread has to with whether or not "we" can work together "to restore" the world. If you said you have a plan, and then proceed to say that it involves "love," which you know to be real, because you have personally experienced it, you would be offering just as goofy and meaningless a proposition as your silly "high consciousness" argument. You have not yet offered a single concrete proposal for ameliorating the human condition.

As for a less common experience, this is just a further statement of your ego-centric conviction that you are in possession of a special, elite understanding. That is a sadly predictable claim by people who are possessed of religious fervor--that they are the possessors of a special spiritual truth.

You no more convince me than do the Presbyterians--and there's a lot more of them than there are of you "higher consciousness" bullshit artists.

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It is verifiable, it is not provable (as any other scientific proposition is not provable). It is verifiable because the "experiment" can be done by any willing individual. They can engage in certain practices and see what experiences they have. If they have similar experiences, then the proposition is verified in their experience.

No, it's not even verifiable. I can never know when you make a claim to me about your experience of your "inner consciousness" if you are lying or deluded. Even if there were complete honesty, the people who engage in your "method" based upon your claims would, if they did agree with your conclusion, have been motivated by suggestibility--they would expect that result because you set them up for it. Without regard to what they experience, you have already provided them with the script for how they are expected to describe their experience. It isn't even verification, let alone proof.

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The same criticism can be made of any scientific proposition. Newton's theory claimed that you can do these experiments and obtain these results. However, there exist a class of experiments for which Newton's theory produces false predictions (and were used to verify the general theory of relativity). Therefore, it can never be claimed that any theory can be verified in all cases since it is impossible to test all cases.

First, no one claims that theory is verifiable in all cases. When a theory reaches the point at which it is asserted that its tenets apply in all cases, it ceases to be a theory and becomes a law of physics. You'll have to do better than "Newton's theory claimed . . ."--you need to be specific. If it is Newton's law of universal gravitation to which you refer, it was only falsified in relativistic environments. To that extent, it remains a classic example of a theory--it was predictive and reliable until it was applied to the orbit of Mercury--and then it was falsified. The question of the gravitational influence on the orbit of Mercury was resolved with he application of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

But there are testable hypotheses which derive from theory, and which serve to further support or to falsify theory. Your babble here doesn't even approach the level of testable hypothesis. Even if someone followed your method, and failed to experience what you claimed they ought to have experienced, you'd simply accuse them of having failed to "transcend" their ego. Which is hilarious considering the ego-obsessed nature of your exquisite enjoyment of the excellence of your heightened state of consciousness.

You're wasting everyone's time in this thread. You nave nothing to offer on the titular subject, and you can't even offer a plausible reason for believing your "higher consciousness" claptrap.

Setanta and IFF,

The analogy which has not been mentioned is "swimming". Can a swimmer adequately describe his experience to a non-swimmer ? Can a non-swimmer learn to swim without emersion ? This I feel comes close to modelling the qualitative shift in consiousness being discussed here. But it also illustrates the point that the experience in one situation although contributing to general (cognitive) "health" may not be transferable to the other. This is the extra step that IFF takes which leaves his conclusions vulnerable.

Setanta and IFF,

The analogy which has not been mentioned is "swimming". Can a swimmer adequately describe his experience to a non-swimmer ? Can a non-swimmer learn to swim without emersion ? This I feel comes close to modelling the qualitative shift in consiousness being discussed here. But it also illustrates the point that the experience in one situation although contributing to general (cognitive) "health" may not be transferable to the other. This is the extra step that IFF takes which leaves his conclusions vulnerable.

Setanta,

Have you read "Siddharta" by Hesse ? (Available in full on the net).

I think this is a good introduction to cosmic "swimming"

To restore the world implies that things were once hunky-dory, and then went downhill--but that we can make nice, and go back to the golden age . . . dogs living with cats . . . the lion lays down with the lamb . . . the televangelist reveals his secrets to mere dull-witted capitalists . . .

Of course, what was once said golden age is in the theological eye of the preacher . . . and in what a new age of peace and freedom will consist would also be in the eye of the preacher. So, you're going to have particularist theological imposition, and the whole cycle will start all over again.

How about we restore the golden age of the robber baron? I know a castle i can pick up for a song . . .