Bermuda Triangle

[Bala]

This notation that religion should deal with religion and
science will deal with the natural world is farcical.

Facts are real, authentic and verifiable or they are discarded. There is no dichotomy between science and religion. If stated facts from either sources cannot be verified than it needs to be abdicated.

Posters JP and hcap poor attempt to redefine randomness and chance are confusing. It is clear specific scientific disciplines define such terms within each discipline. And this is the paradox. Human randomness and chance are ever evolving because the universe shows a pattern of design. An idea that must be defeated my modern atheistic establishment science.

Every effect has a cause. This concept is absolute. Yes, there are absolute rules to science and some religions. {not Buddhism} In order for establishment science not to violate these laws there is a perpetual need to redefine old term to fit current paradigms. Richard Dawkins wrote a book trying to explain to an intelligent mind if one were walking through a forest and discovered a rolex – that rolex came to be by chance and millions of years. Gould, Dawkins, JP, hcap, etc.... are deluding themselves.

hcap's feeble attempts to find meaning through Buddhism is ultimately futile. Only an absolute intelligence can define moral law. A law that gives birth to civil law. Without God most everything is relative. Charles Manson must be freed for his worldview is just as correct as JP or hcap.

If most human action can be seen in the human genome then behavior like: alcoholism, compulsive gambling, hair loss, gay/lesbian, pedophilia, spouse cheating and even murder {overly aggressive gene} must all be excused. For all the above are a part of the human condition and must be accepted as such. But, we do not excuse bad behavior. Why? Perhaps it is written to our moral consciousness?

If atheism is true >> there is no moral law in this universe.
If agnostic is true >> we are all dazed and confused.

We live in a time of extraordinary human advancement. Using modern scientific principles, it is impossible to come to another conclusion then the universe was/is designed by an intelligence.


Anomalies which completely befuddle science..........

[Bala]

A couple links may have moved. Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to retrieve them. Some links are pay per view.

Quote:
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE VOICES OF THE MIND
Few problems have had as interesting an intellectual trajectory through history as that of the mind and its place in nature. Before 1859, the year that Darwin and Wallace independently proposed natural selection as the basis of evolution, this issue was known as the mind/body problem with its various and sometimes ponderous solutions. But after that pivotal date, it came to be known as the problem of consciousness and its origin in evolution. Now the first thing I wish to stress this afternoon is this problem. It is easy for the average layman to understand. But paradoxically, for philosophers, psychologists, and neurophysiologists, who have been so used to a different kind of thinking, it is a difficult thing. What we have to explain is the contrast, so obvious to a child, between all the inner covert world of imaginings and memories and thoughts and the external public world around us. The theory of evolution beautifully explains the anatomy of species, but how out of mere matter, mere molecules, mutations, anatomies, can you get this rich inner experience that is always accompanying us during the day and in our dreams at night? That is the problem we will consider in this symposium. [continued]
http://www.julianjaynes.org/pdf/jaynes_mind.pdf



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ON A CONFUSION ABOUT A FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct "guesses," but they cannot harness this information in the service of action, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are BOTH access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness.
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/O...bbs.block.html


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Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many have tried to explain it, but the explanations always seem to fall short of the target. Some have been led to suppose that the problem is intractable, and that no good explanation can be given.

To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. In this paper, I first isolate the truly hard part of the problem, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain. I critique some recent work that uses reductive methods to address consciousness, and argue that such methods inevitably fail to come to grips with the hardest part of the problem. Once this failure is recognized, the door to further progress is opened. In the second half of the paper, I argue that if we move to a new kind of nonreductive explanation, a naturalistic account of consciousness can be given. I put forward my own candidate for such an account: a nonreductive theory based on principles of structural coherence and organizational invariance and a double-aspect view of information. [continued]
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalme...rs/facing.html


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Consciousness and Complexity
Conventional approaches to understanding consciousness are generally concerned with the contribution of speciÞc brain areas or groups of neurons. By contrast, it is considered here what kinds of neural processes can account for key properties of conscious experience. Applying measures of neural integration and complexity, together with an analysis of extensive neurological data, leads to a testable proposalÑthe dynamic core hypothesisÑabout the properties of the neural substrate of consciousness.
http://scholar.google.com/url?q=http.../tononi282.pdf


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Consciousness: The Remembered Present
This chapter summarizes a theory of consciousness based on brain structure and dynamics. The theory centers around the notion of reentry—ongoing recursive signaling across multiple reciprocally connected brain regions present mainly in the thalamocortical system. It recognized the fundamental beginnings provided by the complementary efforts of Ramon y Cajal and William James.[continued]
http://www.annalsnyas.org/cgi/conten...ract/929/1/111


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A sensorimotor account of vision and visual onsciousness
Abstract: Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The outside world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the governing laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Several lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual “filling in,” visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception. [continued]
http://scholar.google.com/url?q=http...40525X01410119


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Toward a theory of episodic memory: The frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness.
Adult humans are capable of remembering prior events by mentally traveling back in time to reexperience those events. In this review, the authors discuss this and other related capabilities. considering evidence from such diverse sources as brain imaging, neuropsychological experiments, clinical observations, and developmental psychology. The evidence supports a preliminary theory of episodic remembering, which holds that the prefrontal cortex plays a critical, supervisory role in empowering healthy adults with autonoetic consciousness--the capacity to mentally represent and become aware of subjective experiences in the past, present, and future. When a rememberer mentally travels back in subjective time to reexperience his or her personal past, the result is an act of retrieval from episodic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)
http://content.apa.org/journals/bul/121/3/331


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the mechanisms of consciousness
A number of recent papers and books discuss theoretical efforts toward a scientific understanding of consciousness. Progress in imaging networks of brain areas active when people perform simple tasks may provide a useful empirical background for distinguishing conscious and unconscious information processing. Attentional networks include those involved in orienting to sensory stimuli, activating ideas from memory, and maintaining the alert state. This paper reviews recent findings in relation to classical issues in the study of attention and anatomical and physical theories of the nature of consciousness. [continued]
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...gi?artid=44408


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Temporal binding, binocular rivalry, and consciousness.
Cognitive functions like perception, memory, language, or consciousness are based on highly parallel and distributed information processing by the brain. One of the major unresolved questions is how information can be integrated and how coherent representational states can be established in the distributed neuronal systems subserving these functions. It has been suggested that this so-called "binding problem" may be solved in the temporal domain. The hypothesis is that synchronization of neuronal discharges can serve for the integration of distributed neurons into cell assemblies and that this process may underlie the selection of perceptually and behaviorally relevant information. As we intend to show here, this temporal binding hypothesis has implications for the search of the neural correlate of consciousness. We review experimental results, mainly obtained in the visual system, which support the notion of temporal binding. In particular, we discuss recent experiments on the neural mechanisms of binocular rivalry which suggest that appropriate synchronization among cortical neurons may be one of the necessary conditions for the buildup of perceptual states and awareness of sensory stimuli. Copyright 1999 Academic Press. [continued]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation


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Attention, self regulation and consciousness
Consciousness has many aspects. These include awareness of the world, feelings of control over one's behaviour and mental state (volition), and the notion of a continuing self. Focal (executive) attention is used to control details of our awareness and is thus closely related to volition. Experiments suggest an integrated network of neural areas involved in executive attention. This network is associated with our voluntary ability to select among competing items, to correct error and to regulate our emotions. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that these various functions involve separate areas of the anterior cingulate. We have adopted a strategy of using marker tasks, shown to activate the brain area by imaging studies, as a means of tracing the development of attentional networks. Executive attention appears to develop first to regulate distress during the first year of life. During later childhood the ability to regulate conflict among competing stimuli builds upon the earlier cingulate anatomy to provide a means of cognitive control. During childhood the activation of cingulate structures relates both to the child's success on laboratory tasks involving conflict and to parental reports of self-regulation and emotional control. These studies indicate a start in understanding the anatomy, circuitry and development of executive attention networks that serve to regulate both cognition and emotion. [continued]
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/a...lts,1:102022,1


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Beyond consciousness of external reality: a "who" system for consciousness of action and self-consciousness.
This paper offers a framework for consciousness of internal reality. Recent PET experiments are reviewed, showing partial overlap of cortical activation during self-produced actions and actions observed from other people. This overlap suggests that representations for actions may be shared by several individuals, a situation which creates a potential problem for correctly attributing an action to its agent. The neural conditions for correct agency judgments are thus assigned a key role in self/other distinction and self-consciousness. A series of behavioral experiments that demonstrate, in normal subjects, the poor monitoring of action-related signals and the difficulty in recognizing self-produced actions are described. In patients presenting delusions, this difficulty dramatically increases and actions become systematically misattributed. These results point to schizophrenia and related disorders as a paradigmatic alteration of a "Who?" system for self-consciousness. Copyright 1998 Academic Press. [continued]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation


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The neuronal basis for consciousness
Attempting to understand how the brain, as a whole, might be organized seems, for the first time, to be a serious topic of inquiry. One aspect of its neuronal organization that seems particularly central to global function is the rich thalamocortical interconnectivity, and most particularly the reciprocal nature of the thalamocortical neuronal loop function. Moreover, the interaction between the specific and non-specific thalamic loops suggests that rather than a gate into the brain, the thalamus represents a hub from which any site in the cortex can communicate with any other such site or sites. The goal of this paper is to explore the basic assumption that large-scale, temporal coincidence of specific and non-specific thalamic activity generates the functional states that characterize human cognition.[continued]
http://scholar.google.com/url?q=http...lTran_1998.pdf


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Are we explaining consciousness yet?
Theorists are converging from quite different quarters on a version of the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness, but there are residual confusions to be dissolved. In particular, theorists must resist the temptation to see global accessibility as the cause of consciousness (as if consciousness were some other, further condition); rather, it is consciousness. A useful metaphor for keeping this elusive idea in focus is that consciousness is rather like fame in the brain. It is not a privileged medium of representation, or an added property some states have; it is the very mutual accessibility that gives some informational states the powers that come with a subject's consciousness of that information. Like fame, consciousness is not a momentary condition, or a purely dispositional state, but rather a matter of actual influence over time. Theorists who take on the task of accounting for the aftermath that is critical for consciousness often appear to be leaving out the Subject of consciousness, when in fact they are providing an analysis of the Subject, a necessary component in any serious theory of consciousness[continued]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation


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Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: basic evidence and a workspace framework
This introductory chapter attempts to clarify the philosophical, empirical, and theoretical bases on which a cognitive neuroscience approach to consciousness can be founded. We isolate three major empirical observations that any theory of consciousness should incorporate, namely (1) a considerable amount of processing is possible without consciousness, (2)
attention is a prerequisite of consciousness, and (3) consciousness is required for some specifc cognitive tasks, including those that require durable information maintenance, novel combinations of operations, or the spontaneous generation of intentional behavior. We then propose a theoretical framework that synthesizes those facts: the hypothesis of a global neuronal workspace. [continued]
http://scholar.google.com/url?q=http...nition2001.pdf


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The Link between Brain Learning, Attention, and Consciousness
The processes whereby our brains continue to learn about a changing world in a stable fashion throughout life are proposed to lead to conscious experiences. These processes include the learning of top-down expectations, the matching of these expectations against bottom-up data, the focusing of attention upon the expected clusters of information, and the development of resonant states between bottom-up and top-down processes as they
reach an attentive consensus between what is expected and what is there in the outside world. It is suggested that all conscious states in the brain are resonant states and that these resonant states trigger learning of sensory and cognitive representations. The models which summarize these concepts are therefore called Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, models. Psychophysical and neurobiological data in support of ART are presented from
early vision, visual object recognition, auditory streaming, variable-rate speech perception, somatosensory perception, and cognitive–emotional interactions, among others. It is noted that ART mechanisms seem to be operative at all levels of the visual system, and it is proposed how these mechanisms are realized by known laminar circuits of visual cortex. It is predicted that the same circuit realization of ART mechanisms will be found in the laminar circuits of all sensory and cognitive neocortex. Concepts and data are summarized concerning how some visual percepts may be visibly, or modally, perceived, whereas amodal percepts may be consciously recognized even though they are perceptually invisible. It is also suggested that sensory and cognitive processing in the What processing stream of the brain obey top-down matching and learning laws that are often complementary to
those used for spatial and motor processing in the brain’s Where processing stream. This enables our sensory and cognitive representations to maintain their stability as we learn more about the world, while allowing spatial and motor representations to forget learned maps and gains that are no longer appropriate as our bodies develop and grow from infanthood to adulthood. Procedural memories are proposed to be unconscious because the inhibitory matching process that supports these spatial and motor processes cannot lead to resonance. ã 1999 Academic Press [continued]
http://scholar.google.com/url?q=http...onscCogn99.pdf

[Bala]

A couple links may have moved. Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to retrieve them. Some links are pay per view.

Quote:

Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest and the Mystery of Consciousness
...Cardiac arrest patients are a subgroup of people who come closest to death. In such a situation an individual initially develops two out of three criteria (the absence of spontaneous breathing and heartbeat) of clinical death. Shortly afterwards (within seconds) these are followed by the third, which occurs due to the loss of activity of the areas of the brain responsible for sustaining life (brainstem) and thought processes (cerebral cortex). Brain monitoring using EEG in animals and humans has also demonstrated that the brain ceases to function at that time. During a cardiac arrest, the blood pressure drops almost immediately to unrecordable levels and at the same time, due to a lack of blood flow, the brain stops functioning as seen by flat brain waves (isoelectric line) on the monitor within around 10 seconds. This then remains the case throughout the time when the heart is given 'electric shock' therapy or when drugs such as adrenaline are given until the heartbeat is finally restored and the patient is resuscitated. Due to the lack of brain function in these circumstances, therefore, one would not expect there to be any lucid, well-structured thought processes, with reasoning and memory formation, which are characteristic of NDEs.

Nevertheless, and contrary to what we would expect scientifically, studies have shown that 'near death experiences' do occur in such situations. This therefore raises a question of how such lucid and well-structured thought processes, together with such clear and vivid memories, occur in individuals who have little or no brain function. In other words, it would appear that the mind is seen to continue in a clinical setting in which there is little or no brain function. In particular, there have been reports of people being able to 'see' details from the events that occurred during their cardiac arrest, such as their dentures being removed. [continued]
http://www.datadiwan.de/SciMedNet/li...Parnia_nde.htm



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The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind.
The relation between early fantasy/pretense and children's knowledge about mental life was examined in a study of 152 3- and 4-year-old boys and girls. Children were interviewed about their fantasy lives (e.g., imaginary companions, impersonation of imagined characters) and were given tasks assessing their level of pretend play and verbal intelligence. In a second session 1 week later, children were given a series of theory of mind tasks, including measures of appearance-reality, false belief, representational change, and perspective taking. The theory of mind tasks were significantly intercorrelated with the effects of verbal intelligence and age statistically controlled. Individual differences in fantasy/pretense were assessed by (1) identifying children who created imaginary characters, and (2) extracting factor scores from a combination of interview and behavioral measures. Each of these fantasy assessments was significantly related to the theory of mind performance of the 4-year-old children, independent of verbal intelligence.[continued]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation

1/17/05

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Précis of: The Illusion of Conscious Will
Abstract: The experience of conscious will is the feeling that we’re doing things. This feeling occurs for many things we do, conveying to us again and again the sense that we consciously cause our actions. But the feeling may not be a true reading of what is happening in our minds, brains, and bodies as our actions are produced. The feeling of conscious will can be fooled. This happens in clinical disorders such as alien hand syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and schizophrenic auditory hallucinations. And in people without disorders, phenomena such as hypnosis, automatic writing, Ouija board spelling, water dowsing, facilitated communication, speaking in tongues, spirit possession, and trance channeling also illustrate anomalies of will cases when actions occur without will, or will occurs without action. This book brings these cases together with research evidence from laboratories in psychology and neuroscience to explore a theory of apparent mental causation. According to this theory, when a thought appears
in consciousness just prior to an action, is consistent with the action, and appears exclusive of salient alternative causes of the action, we experience conscious will and ascribe authorship to ourselves for the action. Experiences of conscious will thus arise from processes whereby the mind interprets itself—not from processes whereby mind creates action. Conscious will, in this view, is an indication that we think we have caused an action, not a revelation of the causal sequence by which the action was produced.[continued]
http://psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/al...gner%20BBS.pdf

1/17/05

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What is the Fundamental Nature of Consciousness?
The nature of consciousness is fundamental to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Science has made very promising progress on the "easy problem" (Chalmers, 1996) - the working out of the neural mechanisms of behavior and physiological correlates of mental states. However, despite thousands of years of philosophy and over a hundred years of hard science, the "difficult problem" - the issue of how first-person experience, and the raw feels of awareness can accompany the physical processes of neurobiology - remains intractable. A crucial aspect of this problem in the philosophy of mind is the question of ontology. Does mind or consciousness exist as a real feature of the world? Materialism asserts that only matter and energy comprise the universe, and all phenomena are products of their interactions. In contrast, dualism asserts that the universe also contains "mind", which cannot be reduced to matter or energy, and is responsible for consciousness. Which (if either) of these basic theories is true is an issue that is crucial to the way we understand normal and pathological human cognition, and the nature of the psyche. The data of parapsychology has direct relevance to these and other issues in cognitive science. In this paper I discuss the contribution that parapsychological research can make to the study of consciousness. Besides promising approaches to the "other minds" problem, and possible applications to the evolutionary origins of consciousness, the greatest contribution of parapsychology consists in what it has to say about materialism vs. dualism. I briefly mention a few arguments against materialism
from the mainstream sciences, and then focus on the powerful implications of parapsychological research, some of which are very telling against the sufficiency of materialism as a framework within which to explain consciousness. The paper concludes with major problems which parapsychology must address to flesh out its contribution to ontology. [continued]
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/basuyaux/par...in/ijp2001.pdf

1/11/05

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God as an emergent property
Treating conscious states as emergent properties of brain states has religious implications. Emergence claims the neutral ground between substance dualism (perceived as hostile to science) and reductive physicalism (perceived as hostile to religion). This neutrality makes possible a theory of human experience that is religious, yet lies wholly within the natural order and open to scientific investigation. One attempt to explain the soul as an emergent property of brain states is studied and found wanting, because of a dogmatic assumption that God is ‘beyond all material form’. Reflection on the central Christian claim that Jesus Christ was human and divine suggests the alternative view that God and the soul are both emergent properties. Unlike the philosopher's or physicist's remote and isolated ‘first cause’, this God is immediate and personal and social. [continued]
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search.../F0020009/1233


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A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter
ABSTRACT: The relationship of mind and matter is approached in a new way in this article. This approach is based on the causal interpretation of the quantum theory, in which an electron, for example, is regarded as an inseparable union of a particle and afield. This field has, however, some new properties that can be seen to be the main sources of the differences between the quantum theory and the classical (Newtonian) theory. These new properties suggest that the field may be regarded as containing objective and active information, and that the activity of this information is similar in certain key ways to the activity of information in our ordinary subjective experience. The analogy between mind and matter is thus fairly close. This analogy leads to the proposal of the general outlines of a new theory of mind, matter, and their relationship, in which the basic notion is participation rather than interaction. Although the theory, can be developed mathematically in more detail the main emphasis here is to show qualitatively how it provides a way of thinking that does not divide mind from matter, and thus leads to a more coherent understanding of such questions than is possible in the common dualistic and reductionistic approaches. These ideas may be relevant to connectionist theories and might perhaps suggest new directions for their development. [continued]
http://members.aol.com/Mszlazak/BOHM.html


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Mind and matter as asymptotically disjoint, inequivalent representations with broken time-reversal symmetry
Many philosophical and scientific discussions of topics of mind-matter research make implicit assumptions, in various guises, about the distinction between mind and matter. Currently predominant positions are based on either reduction or emergence, providing either monistic or dualistic scenarios. A more-involved framework of thinking, which can be
traced back to Spinoza and Leibniz, combines the two scenarios, dualistic (with mind and matter separated) and monistic (with mind and matter unseparated), in one single picture. Based on such a picture, the transition from a domain with mind and matter unseparated to separate mental and material domains can be viewed as a result of a general
kind of symmetry breaking, which can be described formally in terms of inequivalent representations. The possibility of whether this symmetry breaking might be connected to the emergence of temporal directions from temporally non-directed or even non-temporal levels of reality will be discussed. Correlations between mental and material aspects of reality could then be imagined as remnants of such primordial levels. Different conceivable types of inequivalent representations would lead to correlations with different characteristics. [continued]
http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/echo4.pdf


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"implicate Order" and the Good Life: Applying David Bohm's Ontology in Human World
In an attempt to formulate a coherent view of quantum reality, the theoretical physicist David Bohm has proposed a new concept of order to supplement the mechanistic Cartesian order of traditional physics. The "implicate" order is a subtler and deeper order that emphasizes "unbroken wholeness in flowing movement," in contrast to the coarser and more superficial, "explicate" Cartesian order of distinct phenomena. This dissertation attempts to develop a meaning for the idea of implicate order in the world of human experience. First is offered an account of some evolutionary episodes in terms of implicate and explicate order which draws on compatible work in cosmology, embryogenesis, visual perception, brain memory, decision making and phenomenology. Two important characteristics of the implicate order are then identified: in an implicate order, the whole is enfolded (or represented) in its parts; and all parts render different perspectives of the whole. Using arguments from decision making, the study of "flow" in human consciousness, and a model of skill acquisition, it is suggested that these characteristics manifest themselves in the human world as the "unity experience" and the "diversity experience," respectively. The former is the experience that a given part of one's life reveals a larger wholeness or unity; the subject-object distinction is transcended and one becomes absorbed in the flow of whatever activity is pursued. The latter is a deep appreciation of the diversity of ways in which people may seek the unity experience. These experiences are proposed as general values: social and psychological conditions ought to be such that these experiences are enhanced in all people. A two-by-two matrix of the two experiences demonstrates the danger of pursuing one to the exclusion of the other. The experience of unity without diversity turns into absolutism, the insistence that one's chosen activities or beliefs are the only right ones. The experience of diversity without unity becomes relativism, the excessive tolerance of and indifference to other people's pursuits. The good life lies in the simultaneous realization of both, unity-in -diversity. Lastly, it is suggested that this so-called unity-diversity matrix may be used as a personal compass the meaning of which is negotiated and calibrated in a community of users. [continued]
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...02R&db_key=AST


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From Matter To Mind
The relation between mind and matter is considered in terms of recent ideas from both phenomenology and brain science. Phenomenology is used to give clues to help bridge the brain-mind gap by providing constraints on any underlying neural architecture suggested from brain science. A tentative reduction of mind to matter is suggested and used to explain various features of phenomenological experience and of ownership of conscious experience. The crucial mechanism is the extended duration of the corollary discharge of attention movement, with its gating of activity for related content. Aspects of experience considered in terms of the model are the discontinuous nature of consciousness, immunity to error through misidentification, and the state of 'pure' consciousness as experienced through meditation. Corollary discharge of attention movement is proposed as the key idea bringing together basic features of meditation, consciousness and neuroscience, and helping to bridge the gap between mind and matter. [continued]
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search.../00000004/1266


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Quantum Ontology and Mind-Matter Synthesis
The Solvay conference of 1927 marked the birth of quantum theory. This theory constitutes a radical break with prior tradition in physics, because it avers, if taken seriously, that nature is built not out of matter but out of knowings. However, the founders of the theory stipulated, cautiously, that the theory was not to be taken seriously, in this sense, as a description of nature herself, but was to be construed as merely a way of computing expectations about future knowings on the basis of information provided by past knowings. There have been many efforts over the intervening seventy years to rid physics of this contamination of matter by mind. But I use the reports at this Symposium to support the claim that these decontamination efforts have failed, and that, because of recent developments pertaining to causality, the time has come to take quantum theory seriously: to take it
as the basis for a conception of the universe built on knowings, and other things of the same kind. Quantum theory ensures that this conception will yield all the empirical regularities that had formerly been thought to arise from the properties of matter, together with all of those more recently discovered regularities that cannot be understood in that mechanical way. Thus I propose to break away from the cautious stance of the founders of quantum theory, and build a theory of reality by taking seriously what the incredible accuracy of the predictions of the formalism seems to proclaim, namely that nature is best understood as being built around knowings that enjoy the mathemat ical properties ascribed to them by quantum theory. I explain why this idea had formerly been incorrectly regarded as untenable, due to a failure to distinguish signals from influences: relativistic quantum field theory ensures both that signals cannot travel faster than light, but that influences, broadly conceived, cannot be imagined to enjoy that property. Failure to recognize this fact had made a realistic interpretation of quantum theory seem impossible. I then explain how our conscious knowings can play a causally efficacious and binding role in brain dynamics without violating the statistical rules of quantum theory, and describe how these features provide a foundation for understanding how consciousness could have evolved by natural selection from primitive beginnings.

Invited Paper: The X-th Max Born Symposium “Quantum Future”.[continued]
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/9905/9905053.pdf


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Mind over matter? I: philosophical aspects of the mind-brain problem.
OBJECTIVE: To conceptualize the essence of the mind-body or mind-brain problem as one of metaphysics rather than science, and to propose a formulation of the problem in the context of current scientific knowledge and its limitations. METHOD AND RESULTS: The background and conceptual parameters of the mind-body problem are delineated, and the limitations of brain research in formulating a solution identified. The problem is reformulated and stated in terms of two propositions. These constitute a 'double aspect theory'. CONCLUSIONS: The problem appears to arise as a consequence of the conceptual limitations of the human mind, and hence remains essentially a metaphysical one. A 'double aspect theory' recognizes the essential unity of mind and brain, while remaining consistent with the dualism inherent in human experience.[continued]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation

[Bala]

A couple links may have moved. Use http://www.archive.org/index.php to retrieve them. Some links are pay per view.

1/23/05

Quote:
The Scientist :: The Biological Basis of the Placebo Effect

Dec. 9, 2002
Imaging technologies bring empirical rigor to the study of a mysterious medical phenomenon

The placebo effect baffles patients, confounds clinicians and frustrates drug developers. Until now, relatively little empirical evidence existed for the biological mechanisms that underlie the effect. But recently, researchers have begun approaching the challenge with methodological rigor. This new area of investigation, straddling basic and clinical realms, has evolved largely because of the novel, detailed window of observation offered by modern imaging technologies. "What we're getting," says Harvard Medical School's Ted Kaptchuk, "is good preliminary evidence that describes the hardwiring of the placebo effect--that is, the impact of symbolic treatment, and how it's mediated through the neurobiology of the brain to produce physical effects in illnesses." [continued]
http://www.forensic-psych.com/articl...fect12.02.html


Quote:
Placebo to credebo: the missing link in the healing process
The placebo effect has long been something of a mystery. The response of researchers has broadly been of two kinds: either to dismiss it as an artefact; or to view it as an important, but unknown, component in treatment. The thesis of this article is that the latter view is supported by the weight of evidence. After describing and evaluating a range of evidence relating to the placebo effect, it is concluded that placebos are active and potent elements in a complete theory of healing. Central to the effect is the interaction of the patient’s and the clinician’s beliefs in the efficacy of the process of healing. This permits a redefiniton of the placebo effect in terms of the therapeutic alliance and a shift of emphasis away from the passive treatment of susceptible patients by clinicians to the mutuality of what is termed a joint ‘credebo’ effect. [continued]
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search...00002/art00002



Quote:
The powerful placebo effect: fact or fiction?
In 1955, Henry K. Beecher published the classic work entitled "The Powerful Placebo." Since that time, 40 years ago, the placebo effect has been considered a scientific fact. Beecher was the first scientist to quantify the placebo effect. He claimed that in 15 trials with different diseases, 35% of 1082 patients were satisfactorily relieved by a placebo alone. This publication is still the most frequently cited placebo reference. Recently Beecher's article was reanalyzed with surprising results: In contrast to his claim, no evidence was found of any placebo effect in any of the studies cited by him. There were many other factors that could account for the reported improvements in patients in these trials, but most likely there was no placebo effect whatsoever. False impressions of placebo effects can be produced in various ways. Spontaneous improvement, fluctuation of symptoms, regression to the mean, additional treatment, conditional switching of placebo treatment, scaling bias, irrelevant response variables, answers of politeness, experimental subordination, conditioned answers, neurotic or psychotic misjudgment, psychosomatic phenomena, misquotation, etc. These factors are still prevalent in modern placebo literature. The placebo topic seems to invite sloppy methodological thinking. Therefore awareness of Beecher's mistakes and misinterpretations is essential for an appropriate interpretation of current placebo literature. [continued]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation


Quote:
Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment
...CONCLUSIONS: We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.[continued]

[Bala]

http://kjmatthews.users.btopenworld....roduction.html

this is a quote from Lawrence Kusche, a reference librarian at Arizona State University... results of his research in the Bermuda Triangle (The Bermuda Triangle mystery — solved, New English Library) 1975>quoted from above site:

"No theory so far proposed has been able to account satisfactorily for all or even most of the incidents. It has been suggested that to solve the mystery once and for all the area should be closed for a time to allow the government to send in remote-controlled vessels with monitoring equipment that would detect unusual phenomena. It has also been suggested that clairvoyants be called in to give their impressions of forces at work."

Such measures are not necessary.

"My research, which began as an attempt to find out as much information as possible about the Bermuda Triangle, had an unexpected result. After examining all the evidence I have reached the following conclusion: There is no theory that solves the mystery. It is no more logical to try to find a common cause for all the disappearances in the Triangle than, for example, to try to find one cause for all automobile accidents in Arizona. By abandoning the search for an overall theory and investigating each incident independently, the mystery began to unravel..."

"The Legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery. It began because of careless research and was elaborated upon and perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism. It was repeated so many times that it began to take on the aura of truth."

[hcap]

Bala.

Facts are real, authentic and verifiable or they are discarded. There is no dichotomy between science and religion. If stated facts from either sources cannot be verified than it needs to be abdicated.

You will have to discard any scripture that claims to be divine. Or cannot be subject to strict rules of scientific verification

Posters JP and hcap poor attempt to redefine randomness and chance are confusing. It is clear specific scientific disciplines define such terms within each discipline. And this is the paradox. Human randomness and chance are ever evolving because the universe shows a pattern of design. An idea that must be defeated my modern atheistic establishment science.

Every effect has a cause. This concept is absolute. Yes, there are absolute rules to science and some religions. {not Buddhism}

Absolute rules to religion? Cause and effect? How can there be absolute rules to any religion that is split into 100s' of sects? Is the pope catholic?

If you are walking off the top of a tall buiding, and break your neck, what is the cause?

1-The impact with the ground.
2-The force of gravity.
3-The end of the roof
4-putting one foot after another on the top of the building
5-The decision to walk
6-The argument with your boss
7-The medication you took the night before that screwed up your morning big time

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by hcap

Bala.You will have to discard any scripture that claims to be divine. Or cannot be subject to strict rules of scientific verification

Absolute rules to religion? Cause and effect? How can there be absolute rules to any religion that is split into 100s' of sects? Is the pope catholic?

If you are walking off the top of a tall buiding, and break your neck, what is the cause?

1-The impact with the ground.
2-The force of gravity.
3-The end of the roof
4-putting one foot after another on the top of the building
5-The decision to walk
6-The argument with your boss
7-The medication you took the night before that screwed up your morning big time

Yes the Pope is catholic. All catholic means is universal. It is not a specific denomination. Labeling a person is a genarility and there are no absolute rules to generalisms.

And walking off the building is due to being in a some place you should not be, that is the cause of the fall. The incorrect exercise of free will will set in motion forces beyond you control and result in unattended results, ie. gravity, hard ground, etc.

Yes there are absolute rules to specific religions. As we agreed before there is only one truth and everyting else is a lie. The argument is aove what is the truth. As there was an absolute truth as to the reason for falling off the roof.

[Show Me the Wire]

Verifiable facts. Facts are verifiable through eye witnesses, the person that personally observed the event. Isn't that a basis of empirical evidence, something has to be observed (verified by another witness) through recreating the experiment.

Holy Scripture it is the telling of observations (eye witnesses) of groups of people through the ages. Therefore, the contents can be considered factual.

[Indulto]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Verifiable facts. Facts are verifiable through eye witnesses, the person that personally observed the event. Isn't that a basis of empirical evidence, something has to be observed (verified by another witness) through recreating the experiment.

Holy Scripture it is the telling of observations (eye witnesses) of groups of people through the ages. Therefore, the contents can be considered factual.

I think you're misapplying the term, "repeatable."

[Show Me the Wire]

Observed by many so verifiable under eye witness. Two different ways of verifying either by many observing the event or being able to repeat it.

The Scriptures satisfy the first, many eye witnesses to the events.

[Secretariat]

Wonder if Tom will get on you for copyright quotes Bala as he generally does me.

[hcap]

SMtW

Yes there are absolute rules to specific religions. As we agreed before there is only one truth and everyting else is a lie. The argument is aove what is the truth. As there was an absolute truth as to the reason for falling off the roof.

What if the medication you took the night before you took by mistake? Is that free will or accident? Maybe you believe car accidents are free will as well? There is no absolute cause to certain events. There are chains of cause and effect. And although the preceeding cause is immediate and obvious, it usually only shows a small picture of reality.

From the Secretariat thread I said

The ultimate first cause may not be knowable along with the associated first intent.

...But the role of the larger mind in creation is not something I can describe. Assigning it first cause may be as deceptive as thinking the acorn came first.
This why people fight wars. The missinterpretation of this is We have the truth, and everyone else does not

But you are missing the cosmic dance. In many eastern philosophies, yes there is one truth, but it takes myriad forms. The manifestation of one to the many and the return of many back to the one. Unfortunately, we live in the many. And mistake it for the source.

I was comparing the whole ball of wax to a tree. The source as trunk. And myriad forms to the layers of branches and leeves. So to sumarize that I agreed to one truth and everything else is a lie is totally misrepresenting what I said. And I never implied any scientific rational for believing in one truth or myriad forms. Only philosophical.

Catholic as POPE is not the same as protestant as Jerry Falwell. But Bala was implying that the SAME kind of rules that comprise the scientific method, can be applied to religion

facts are real, authentic and verifiable or they are discarded. There is no dichotomy between science and religion. If stated facts from either sources cannot be verified than it needs to be abdicated.

Now you say

Yes there are absolute rules to specific religions.

Are you talking about rules for prayer, ceremony or ritual? I thought we were talking about science. And as science the belief systems of different divisions of religion show 100 times the divisions that exist in say, evolution.

Difference between the natural sciences and religion is that experimental empirical evidence is required to sort thru the sciences and lead to testable hypothesis. How can you test validity of justification, or any other dogmatic doctrine? Let alone specific interpretations of scripture?

Verifiable facts. Facts are verifiable through eye witnesses, the person that personally observed the event. Isn't that a basis of empirical evidence, something has to be observed (verified by another witness) through recreating the experiment.

Holy Scripture it is the telling of observations (eye witnesses) of groups of people through the ages. Therefore, the contents can be considered factual.

You gotta be kidding. This may be the stuff of myths and legends. Sometimes very worthwhile. Sometimes not. Science no. The roots of archeology possibly.
Are you a cargo cult believer as well?
How about walking under a ladder, or breaking a mirror. I bet I could round up some of more let's say "accepting" dogmatists that will assure you of all sorts of things. I mean there is the internet

My question to you and Bala, is why do you struggle so hard to PROVE what cannot be proven?. Don't you trust your religious faiths enough to fill in the gaps of "not knowing".

[hcap]

From one of Balas' articles.

Quantum Ontology and Mind-Matter Synthesis
The Solvay conference of 1927 marked the birth of quantum theory. This theory constitutes a radical break with prior tradition in physics, because it avers, if taken seriously, that nature is built not out of matter but out of knowings.

.... I then explain how our conscious knowings can play a causally efficacious and binding role in brain dynamics without violating the statistical rules of quantum theory, and describe how these features provide a foundation for understanding how consciousness could have evolved by natural selection from primitive beginnings.

Invited Paper: The X-th Max Born Symposium “Quantum Future”.[continued]
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/9905/9905053.pdf

[betchatoo]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Verifiable facts. Facts are verifiable through eye witnesses, the person that personally observed the event. Isn't that a basis of empirical evidence, something has to be observed (verified by another witness) through recreating the experiment.

Holy Scripture it is the telling of observations (eye witnesses) of groups of people through the ages. Therefore, the contents can be considered factual.

I've heard eye witnesses tell of being abducted by aliens and experiencing interplanetary travel. Does that make it factual?

[46zilzal]

Originally Posted by betchatoo

I've heard eye witnesses tell of being abducted by aliens and experiencing interplanetary travel. Does that make it factual?

how about those reports of the 900 year old people as well.