• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

Status
Not open for further replies.
That's an interesting one and I think it's a little different than:

this sentence is false

there, if it is false that this sentence is false, then it's true (that this sentence is false) and if it's true that this sentence is false, then its false that this sentence is true ...

but to say this sentence is not written in English

1. could just be false (because it clearly is written in English)
2. it could be a translation ... the latter is closer to what I do with it in the story
3. ?
 
3) It could be true.

If #2 above - that it's a translation ... so for example:

Dieser Satz ist nicht in Englisch.

Would be true (it's written in German) and translated would be:

This is sentence is not written in English.

but

the sentence, stand alone - now is

1. written in English, in which case it's false that it's not written in English
2. is written in some other language ... but then the sentence:

This sentence is not written in English.

very probably doesn't mean "This sentence is not written in English."

... so, how else could it be "true"?
 
I think this will be a magnificent book, Steve, and I'm looking forward to reading it, including reading partial installments you post here. The more the better. I do suggest, however, that you send the parts of the ms written so far (including some of the descriptions of the book you've posted here) and the provisional table of contents and title to the US copyright office post haste. Like tomorrow.

Thank you, Constance! - digging into it and remembering that editing and re-editing are the biggest part of writing! Will try and post some more soon.
 
2. is written in some other language ... but then the sentence:

This sentence is not written in English.

very probably doesn't mean "This sentence is not written in English."

... so, how else could it be "true"?
It's playing with the idea of information and meaning. There is the meaning intended by the author of the sentence — the information that was intended to be encoded, but the meaning received by the reader may be, will be, different.

I also like: Contrary to your assumption, this sentence is not written in English.

If there are infinite multiple universes, isn't it possible there is a language in which such a sentence could be written that had a completely different meaning and only appeared to be an English sentence?

What is the the most ambiguous sentence that can be formulated in English I wonder?
 
It's playing with the idea of information and meaning. There is the meaning intended by the author of the sentence — the information that was intended to be encoded, but the meaning received by the reader may be, will be, different.

I also like: Contrary to your assumption, this sentence is not written in English.

If there are infinite multiple universes, isn't it possible there is a language in which such a sentence could be written that had a completely different meaning and only appeared to be an English sentence?

What is the the most ambiguous sentence that can be formulated in English I wonder?

This sentence is not written in its native language. - would catch translations.

I thought about the alternate language that had a different meaning but happened to spell out :

This sentence is not written in English.

But you wouldn't be able to determine that from the isolated sentence - so with no other information it would be an English sentence to an English speaker. Otherwise, we should suspect every piece of written material. And in fact, when the aliens come it could be that they will read everything in every book on the planet to mean something else. Moby Dick could be an instruction manual for disabling nuclear power plants.

Thix brogba this malwit tunga not. This sentence is not written in English. Garwick written fazzzil waad.

The native language might also be "English" and the meaning of the sentence could be this sentence is not written in its native language (English) ...

I also like the joke where the linguist says "Many languages use double negatives to indicate the positive, but there is no known example of a double positive meaning the negation."

"Yeah ... yeah."

Whatever the most ambiguous sentence that could be forumulated in English is - it could always be modified by -ish.
 
But you wouldn't be able to determine that from the isolated sentence - so with no other information it would be an English sentence to an English speaker. Otherwise, we should suspect every piece of written material. And in fact, when the aliens come it could be that they will read everything in every book on the planet to mean something else. Moby Dick could be an instruction manual for disabling nuclear power plants.

Thix brogba this malwit tunga not. This sentence is not written in English. Garwick written fazzzil waad.
Yes, haha, that's it! (The previous sentence was English just to be clear haha.)
 
Is ambiguity even clearly defined? -ish

In the book/story there is acknowledgement of three stories: the one the author wrote the one the reader read and the true story.

(And of course ... The love story)
 
Evidently copyright is automatic ... smart money is on registration though.

Copyright exists as soon as the story is finished. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is optional, but recommended, since registered stories have advantages in a lawsuit against those who try to pass off the work as their own, including a chance to sue for damages. You have three ways to register a copyright: online, with a barcoded form or with Form TX. All three require an application form, a filing fee and a copy of the work, which the Copyright Office calls a "deposit." The fee is nonrefundable and the copy will be not be returned. Registration is effective from the date the Copyright Office receives the materials (see Resources).

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4964182_copyright-a-story.html

U.S. Copyright Office
 
Evidently copyright is automatic ... smart money is on registration though.

Copyright exists as soon as the story is finished. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is optional, but recommended, since registered stories have advantages in a lawsuit against those who try to pass off the work as their own, including a chance to sue for damages. You have three ways to register a copyright: online, with a barcoded form or with Form TX. All three require an application form, a filing fee and a copy of the work, which the Copyright Office calls a "deposit." The fee is nonrefundable and the copy will be not be returned. Registration is effective from the date the Copyright Office receives the materials (see Resources).

Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4964182_copyright-a-story.html

U.S. Copyright Office
 
Fascinating!!! Thank you for posting this, Flipper. It inspires me to read Vedantic and Yogic texts and perhaps even to pursue their practices. That state of dreamless sleep, that lowest not-quite-'contentless' state, seems to me to signify pure presence, a sense of pure being. Husserl was therefore wrong to claim "no consciousness but by virtue of/in awareness of things" as a corollary of "no things but in consciousness." I want to read Thompson's new book on this neurophenomenological research.
 
Fascinating!!! Thank you for posting this, Flipper. It inspires me to read Vedantic and Yogic texts and perhaps even to pursue their practices. That state of dreamless sleep, that lowest not-quite-'contentless' state, seems to me to signify pure presence, a sense of pure being. Husserl was therefore wrong to claim "no consciousness but by virtue of/in awareness of things" as a corollary of "no things but in consciousness." I want to read Thompson's new book on this neurophenomenological research.

If you read these texts let me know what you think ...
 
Awhile back, I posted an article from the NYT called "Are We Really Conscious?" which was needlessly provocative and introduced Michael Graziano's "Attention Schema" theory of consciousness. Based on an article I recently read about the potential important role of metacognition in the realization of conscious (subjective) experience, I sought out two additional articles/papers by Graziano about his theory, and I it does fit the data and has some explanatory power. There is also some interesting evidence to support it. However, I feel that Graziano does a poor job of explaining his theory in all three papers I've read.

First, I want to go back to the one quote we've noted from Chalmers about one big mystery of consciousness being how phenomenal consciousness and cognitive consciousness can interact at all. (And Constance you have even discussed and posted papers about how cognition/thinking has a subjective feel to it, which I agree with.)

One of the reasons I have liked the Information Theory of Mind (as I'll call it) is because, as I said awhile ago, it address Chalmers' question: How do the two types of consciousness interact? I've said it may be because, ultimately, both types of consciousness are information. Graziano's theory posits the same idea, although he comes at it a little differently.

Graziano's argument this (I'm paraphrasing): (1) Because we know the brain processes information for motor function, and (2) we can verbally report our conscious experiences, then (3) consciousness experiences must be information, (4) because only information can cause stuff to happen in the brain-body.

Thus, Graziano does not think consciousness is epiphenomenal.

You see the "trade off" though, and it's one that I've already made. If consciousness ontologically consists of a non-physical substance, then it won't have causal influence on the body. However, it appears that consciousness does have causal influence on the body (we're able to verbally report our conscious experiences). Therefore, consciousness must be physical.

[The needlessly provocative aspect of Graziano's writing is that be suggesting we don't really have subjective experience, what he seems to be saying is that the subjective experience isn't a dual, non-physical substance but rather is information generated by the brain. Thus I think it's needlessly provocative to say we don't really have subjective experience -- even Graziano says we can verbally report on it; what he should really straightforwardly say is that subjective experience is information generated in the brain, as I don't think either word -- subjective nor experience -- implies a dual substance per se.)

But what about the hard problem? How can consciousness be physical? Answer: it's information.*

As Bob Doyle so eloquently explains, information can be described as purely physical (information must be embodied in and communicated via a physical substrate); but information is not ontologically the same as the physical substrate it is embodied by. In that sense, information can be considered non-physical.

I understand that the theory that all consciousness -- all mind -- is information is not proven. However, I think the idea has a lot of support. Also, from what I can gather, those who subscribe to this idea seem to believe that self-aware consciousness occurs on the scale of neurons. (But that's not to say that all processes leading to self-aware consciousness occur on the neuronal scale.)

I'll post the two articles I recently read of his and a third about metacognition's potential role in subjective experience soon.

*This raises another question though: Why does information feel like something? More on that later.
 
Last edited:
Awhile back, I posted an article from the NYT called "Are We Really Conscious?" which was needlessly provocative and introduced Michael Graziano's "Attention Schema" theory of consciousness. Based on an article I recently read about the potential important role of metacognition in the realization of conscious (subjective) experience, I sought out two additional articles/papers by Graziano about his theory, and I it does fit the data and has some explanatory power. There is also some interesting evidence to support it. However, I feel that Graziano does a poor job of explaining his theory in all three papers I've read.

First, I want to go back to the one quote we've noted from Chalmers about one big mystery of consciousness being how phenomenal consciousness and cognitive consciousness can interact at all. (And Constance you have even discussed and posted papers about how cognition/thinking has a subjective feel to it, which I agree with.)

One of the reasons I have liked the Information Theory of Mind (as I'll call it) is because, as I said awhile ago, it address Chalmers' question: How do the two types of consciousness interact? I've said it may be because, ultimately, both types of consciousness are information. Graziano's theory posits the same idea, although he comes at it a little differently.

Graziano's argument this (I'm paraphrasing): (1) Because we know the brain processes information for motor function, and (2) we can verbally report our conscious experiences, then (3) consciousness experiences must be information, (4) because only information can cause stuff to happen in the brain-body.

I don't find that argument (underscored above) to be persuasive. Would you cite the paper in which he expresses it? I can agree that 'information' in nature enables creatures to experience the world, and to be aware of themselves as present in their experiences, but I don't see how it accounts for what experience is, how it differs from 'information'. Thus the hard problem remains unresolved.

Thus, Graziano does not think consciousness is epiphenomenal.

That's somewhat confusing. Isn't epiphenomenalism the 'idea' that phenomenal experience is not real and does not depend on 'consciousness' for its existence, thus that what 'looks like consciousness' is a computational byproduct of information processing in the brain? I might be missing something here; it's a long time since I've tangled with epiphenomenalism.

You see the "trade off" though, and it's one that I've already made. If consciousness ontologically consists of a non-physical substance, then it won't have causal influence on the body. However, it appears that consciousness does have causal influence on the body (we're able to verbally report our conscious experiences). Therefore, consciousness must be physical.

How can we know the ontology of consciousness if we don't know what consciousness is? It seems clear that we can't know what it is until we resolve the hard problem. Denying that the hard problem exists is not sufficient to dissolve it.

[The needlessly provocative aspect of Graziano's writing is that be suggesting we don't really have subjective experience, what he seems to be saying is that the subjective experience isn't a dual, non-physical substance but rather is information generated by the brain. Thus I think it's needlessly provocative to say we don't really have subjective experience -- even Graziano says we can verbally report on it; what he should really straightforwardly say is that subjective experience is information generated in the brain, as I don't think either word -- subjective nor experience -- implies a dual substance per se.)

I don't see how experience can be understood to be non-subjective, nor how experience can be seen as a substance of any kind. Except to rescue the materialist/physicalist paradigm, I don't see the purpose in trying to establish any substance as constitutive of consciousness.

But what about the hard problem? How can consciousness be physical? Answer: it's information.*

I still have not seen an explanation of how consciousness can be defined as 'information'. Doyle does not attempt to do so, judging by your summary of his approach here:

As Bob Doyle so eloquently explains, information can be described as purely physical (information must be embodied in and communicated via a physical substrate); but information is not ontologically the same as the physical substrate it is embodied by. In that sense, information can be considered non-physical.

I understand that the theory that all consciousness -- all mind -- is information is not proven. However, I think the idea has a lot of support. Also, from what I can gather, those who subscribe to this idea seem to believe that self-aware consciousness occurs on the scale of neurons. (But that's not to say that all processes leading to self-aware consciousness occur on the neuronal scale.)

That's a hypothesis, I believe, rather than something proved.

I'll post the two articles I recently read of his and a third about metacognition's potential role in subjective experience soon.

Good; I'll read them with interest.

*This raises another question though: Why does information feel like something? More on that later.

That's still the primary question. I'd like to come back to this statement again:

But what about the hard problem? How can consciousness be physical? Answer: it's information.*

and ask you a question: do you think the same 'information' involved in generating and sustaining human bodies and brains likewise shapes or even determines what can be felt and thought by humans?
 
Last edited:
This how-to list will give you a reference point for exercises and ways to help with pineal gland decalcification. Your pineal gland, also referred to as the 3rd eye, is a small endocrine gland in the geometric center part of your brain. It is home to the ajna (brow) chakra and its energy is of psychic and spiritual phenomena.

Your pineal gland produces a number of chemicals and hormones that cause happiness and serenity, euphoria, restfulness, civilized behavior, balanced emotions, and psychical phenomena just to name a few. These are natural states of being, however, due to lack of proper nutrition, environmental issues, left-brained thinking, and various chemicals; most people have developed a calcified pineal gland.

The Creator has given humans a chance to reverse or decrease ALL “ailments” and dysfunctions. There are various supplements, food and drink, exercise, and other practices one can implement into their lifestyle to reverse pineal gland decalcification. Once you begin to consciously work with the energy of the third eye chakra you will begin to see reality for what it is as opposed to what you have been programmed to beLIEve.

The following list is in no particular order. See what resonates or feels right to you and begin there. And remember, practicing patience and being consistent is key for any spiritual and metaphysical work.

1. Eliminate or reduce meat intake. Meats, especially heavier ones like beef and pork, are very acidic. An acidic ph balance is not conducive for a healthy, decalcified pineal gland.

2. Drink alkaline or distilled water. Alkaline water is electrifying and distilled water removes heavy toxins and metals out of the human body.

3. Avoid fluoride. Fluoride is toxic to the human system. Use non-fluoride toothpaste. Most tap water in the US is fluoridated so drink alkaline or distilled water.

4. Practice Sungazing. Taking in the Sun’s energy when it is orange or setting/rising is tremendously beneficial for the pineal gland and decalcification. You can do this daily for 3-5 minutes, it doesn’t take long. Your pineal is a crystal and reacts remarkably to our Sun.





5. Eat more greens & vegetables. The more alkaline foods you get into your system the more you are feeding the pineal gland and other crucial parts of your being. Foods that have been charged with sunlight are electrifying and pineal decalcifying!

6. Avoid mercury. Mercury is extremely toxic. Most vaccines and tooth fillings are mercury-based. However, nowadays, most dentist are using non-mercury based fillings. If you have mercury fillings in your teeth, a holistic dentist can remove them.

7. Maintain positive thoughts and actions. This may seem a little elementary or not “deep enough” but, there is great power in your state of mind. Thoughts can also be toxic.

8. Take Blue Green Algae and other chlorophyll rich “superfoods”. This is similar to eating more veggies but adding a more powerful punch. Other superfoods include chlorella, spirulina, sea moss, and wheatgrass.

9. Use herbs. Herbs like mugwort, wood betony, alfalfa, parsley, and gotu kola have wonderful healing properties. You can make a tea or grind it and sprinkle on a salad, or it can be smoked as part of a ritual.

10. Use the fluorescent, coiled-like light bulbs. The standard, cheap light bulbs are very inconsistent with the natural light spectrum. Your pineal gland is light-sensitive. It’s also important to sleep in complete darkness, if possible.

11. Place a crystal on your brow chakra daily. Meditating with a crystal is energetically beneficial for pineal decalcification. Some of the favorites are amethyst, clear quartz, sodalite, and lapis lazuli.

S. Ali Myers is a Metaphysics teacher, writer, speaker, and consultant specializing in spiritual self-development. Ali’s goal is to help others reach their highest potential by operating from the Spirit Mind (Higher Self). You may find out more information about Ali and his works at 3rdEyeActivation.com | Spiritual Self-Development

In5D Addendum: This is an amazing list! The only other suggestion I would make is to try ozone water, too. As per Dr. Masaru Emoto’s research into water and consciousness, you can add mantras and affirmations to whichever water you consume as a way of supercharging it!

11 Ways to Decalcify the Pineal Gland : In5D Esoteric, Metaphysical, and Spiritual Database
Alkaline Foods to Help Decalcify the Pineal Gland - Waking Times : Waking Times
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top