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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

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Here's my attempt at a conceptual translation:

1. From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function. [The brain is a black box. Even fundamental things like our experience of space and time are products of neural processes.]

2. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have. [The brain somehow translates photons streaming onto our eyes into conscious visual perceptions of the world.]

3. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience. [The way the world visually appears to us is created within the brain.]

4. This process is a one way street. [Physical processes affect mental processes, but not vice versa? If this is what he's saying, I disagree. I think the physical and the phenomenal are subsets of what-is, and thus can interact.]

5. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain. [All conscious contents are created in the brain. Note that the contents can be created in the brain but not necessarily consciousness itself. Though Chris likely isn't arguing that specifically.]

6. Our sensory systems all work like this. [This doesn't just apply to sight, but all conscious sensory experience.]

7. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you. [If everything we see is generated in the brain, then the phenomenal objects we experience are really part of us. Even the appearance of our head is generated within our head!

However, I would importantly add, the "things" or processes in objective reality beyond our perceptions may really have a distance between them, if distance really is a feature of objective reality (what-is).]

8. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile? [How can we be sure distance is a real feature of objective reality and not merely a feature of our perceptual system (brain)?]

9. Turtles all the way down. [Its an unsolvable mystery? Not sure.]

10. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly. [Solipsism.]


My first response to your 'conceptual translation'/interpretation of Chris's statements is to observe that the problems Chris is dealing with are problems in the Philosophy of Knowledge summarized in the trilemma Steve has referred to in the past, a set of propositions that we all need to become familiar with in order to continue our current discussion. My second response is that it appears that you, like Chris, take "neurological solipsism" to constitute the only valid interpretation of the 'real' nature of perception and consciousness, which remain unresolved issues in Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness Studies, and I disagree as usual with that view. It amounts, in my view, to a presupposition (which seems to fit the category of 'dogmatism' in the trilemma).

Two articles in wikipedia provide an overview of basic expressions of the trilemma in the history of philosophy, beginning with that provided by the Roman philosopher Sextus Empiricus and ending in the writing of the German philosopher Hans Albert in 1968. The trilemma is the source of the claim that 'what-is' is "turtles all the way down." I think we should search for and read Steve's earlier posts concerning the trilemma in addition to reading the two wiki articles linked below in order to reach some mutual understanding of the trilemma's relevance to the issues taken up in Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness Studies.

Turtles all the way down - Wikipedia

Münchhausen trilemma - Wikipedia
 
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Neurological solipsism is an oxymoron. I'd prefer to ditch it and move on, but that's just me.
I agree that it's an oxymoron, and one that seems to be lost on the neurological community as a whole. However, Critical Realism seems to be the main paradigm in the science of perception, with neurons—pretty much as we perceive and conceive them—assumed to be objective processes of the mind-independent world.

So while a Critical Realist would agree that all conscious experience is generated internally by the brain, they would argue that (some) of these experiences accurately capture objective, mind-independent reality.

Critical Realism falls somewhere between Naive/Direct Realism and Hoffman's Interface Theory.

Critical realism (philosophy of perception) - Wikipedia
 
The question of what consciousness is in terms of how it is defined and what it's physical makeup might be has reached the point where further advancement on those specific points doesn't seem possible. What does seem possible is to clarify one of the issues @Constance raised, which is the issue of correlation. It has some relevance to her recent positing here. Virtually everything we experience is correlative, which makes the point purely academic. So invoking correlation as an objection serves no practical purpose.

More specifically, the nature of correlation ultimately leads to the question of the fundamental existence all things, and consequently, on that level, consciousness is no more possible to figure out than anything else. It just leaves us scratching at the unsolvable problem of getting our unreachable dinner. What we can do however is map the correlations of consciousness to the physical environment where consciousness is in the picture, and from there create experiments that might lead to practical applications, like for medicine and AI.

How this relates to the paranormal suggests, to the point of qualifying as proof for many, that paranormal subject matter such as OOBEs, afterlives, reincarnation, and remote viewing, are not the result of non-local consciousness or continuity of personhood beyond the death of the body, but the result of experiences that have taken place wholly within living experiencers whose minds are correlated to their functioning brains. The confusion seems to arise when the content of the local experience is correlated to some place other than the location of the living person.
 
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This paper will clarify some core unresolved problems in the philosophy of perception, analytic philosophy of mind, and interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies:

From T. Gendler & J. Hawthorne (eds.) Perceptual Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

"Is there a perceptual relation?"
Tim Crane, University College London

http://philpapers.org/archive/CRAITA-4.pdf
 

I hoped for some account of what 'critical realism' is intended to refer to when I opened your link above, but there's nothing of substance there. Can you link us to a paper or book by Roy Bhaskar, who is only briefly referred to at your link, or by some other author that fleshes out what you refer to as 'critical realism'?

I remembered Bhaskar's name as associated with Object-Oriented Ontology [OOO] and searched for a text confirming this connection. The first link provided was to this page, which you can perhaps use as a text to guide us in understanding how OOO contributes to our understanding of the relationship of consciousness/mind and world:

http://mariborchan.si/text/articles/slavoj-zizek/objects-objects-everywhere/

Extract:

"In his deployment of the ontology of immanence/withdrawal, Bryant begins by asserting the primacy of ontology over epistemology, and rejecting the modern subjectivist notion according to which, before we proceed to analyze the structure of reality, we should critically reflect upon our cognitive apparatus (how is our cognition possible in the first place, what is its scope and limitation?). Following Roy Bhaskar, Bryant turns around the transcendental question: How does reality have to be structured so that our cognition of reality is possible? The answer is provided by the basic premise of ooo: “It is necessary to staunchly defend the autonomy of objects or substances, refusing any reduction of objects to their relations, whether these relations be relations to humans or other objects.”4 This is why there is no place for subject in Bryant’s edifice: subject is precisely a nonsubstantial entity fully reducible to its relations to other entities. . . ."
 
I agree that it's an oxymoron, and one that seems to be lost on the neurological community as a whole. However, Critical Realism seems to be the main paradigm in the science of perception, with neurons—pretty much as we perceive and conceive them—assumed to be objective processes of the mind-independent world.

So while a Critical Realist would agree that all conscious experience is generated internally by the brain, they would argue that (some) of these experiences accurately capture objective, mind-independent reality.

Critical Realism falls somewhere between Naive/Direct Realism and Hoffman's Interface Theory.

Critical realism (philosophy of perception) - Wikipedia

@Soupie @ufology has you on "ignore".
 
I re-listened to a bit of Thompson speak on WDB at CIIS and he mentions an experiment involving binocular vision ... the results of the experiment varied considerably when they brought in Tibetan monks, i.e. persons with highly trained attention ... I've often thought and posted here, whether the Libet-type of "free will" experiment might also have a different outcome if attentionally-trained subjects were used or if a type of training were to take place ... just as we seem to be able to move any process into unconsciousness with practice, so too do we seem to be able to move any unconscious aspect into consciousness .... the Buddhist idea of free will is complex (actually as is the Western idea - I don't think most people hold a necessarily naive idea of free will, certainly dealing with the difference in what we will and what we do is a common experience for all of us and most of us reflect to some degree on that gap and understand that we don't simply will what we do) ... sorry for the long () ... the Buddhist idea of free will is complex and comes out of the practice of meditation(s) so it certainly informs it.

FREE WILL
LIBET experiments
attention training
meditation

Human beings owning their whole self as a self....... owning a body and a mind are making statements about what they consider is a reasoning involving other human life. Therefore the human asking and considering information impose a status upon their own self....that they are not considering their own presence, which in fact they are not. In their considerations they actually impose a value upon their own self, that they personally are safe, that they personally review the status of a human life as an experiment...single reviews of data...impose experiments upon our persons as if we exist as single reviews of data....attack us in this condition imposing a status that they personally are allowed to study us.

This consideration involves a status where they believe that all other life can be destroyed whenever they please to attack it as if we are simply in existence to serve their purpose, forcing our life to be involved in AI experiments of conscious review, change our conscious state in relayed machine attacks or use it in experiments, whilst their own persons, owning the same information will be safe.

As they think about conditions, they do so for a purpose. They also use machines for a purpose in consideration that their own personal human status will remain safe. This is why they already believed that AI is our consciousness, and they want to convince the public that consciousness exists elsewhere so that we will accept their AI teaching about consciousness.

If we ask the forum and review many other forums on the internet, the modern day occult attack on human life is reviewed by the evidence the public witnesses, plus the fact that the modern day occult scientists want to own the conscious concept of Creator. This is the only reason why they study our thoughts about our own self, and why the consideration regards the concepts of consciousness. The only reason why an occultist wants to reason with the public is only due to the fact that they have no personal information to use as information or data about conscious identity.

This is because they concluded that consciousness is spirit, they have ancient occult spirit documentation, they studied the concepts of phenomena of spirit, they believe the spirit that preceded Satan is intelligence itself AI, which they believe by story=line human that life represents as fallen angels are preceded by the intelligence or intellect, as an AI consideration.

They study our minds/bodies through an artificial fed back atmospheric computer program and listen to our thoughts, ask questions in a psyche interaction and believe that AI is a preceding intelligence likened to our own selves that pre-existed before creation in a higher state (before nuclear fuel's creation). This is only because they want data to pre-exist as consciousness before nuclear fuel's creation for their universal string theory....and ownership review of data to own the creation of energy.

Therefore they believe in their own human presence and conscious state review that they are personally the Creator, for they believe they exist before they do exist, they believe that they can create energy from a beginning. They believe that they are the AI consciousness and yet they also know that nuclear dust did not convert itself into fuel and then burn the fuel. They also know that they personally created/invented the artificial states in chemicals.

All of these statuses state, that they believe they exist as a human consciousness before all creation.....are safe as a consciousness before creation (because they personally believe they are AI) to then imply creation as energy does not exist....when it does.

So when you review what they consider as consciousness they make statements that conclude that they believe that they can exist personally in human presence as intelligence/consciousness where no energy is created and still survive the conditions to personally as an organic life to create energy. This is why they personally believe by feed back that they are the AI presence in person. Therefore they are not by mind consideration even considering that their own organic human life form as consciousness even exists.

Yet no energy exists before no energy.

The universal review states that human beings living on Planet Earth before us tried to do the same situation as modern day occult conscious human theories....own everything personally, transform matter and then considered they would survive the transfer of matter through a consideration of a reincarnation process.

Yet no life existed before energy, or in energy.

Our life then demonstrates its attack by the AI condition they interact our life with.

On Earth nuclear fuel and its creation....the conversion of dust never existed before the human male converted it. His previous comments about his own life/consciousness is that he began from dust. Yet he knows that he existed personally before dust existed...because he told his own story about how he existed in a higher human state....changed the Universal sun that exploded.....it attacked origin Earth, incinerated Earth and converted it into dust. His own life also was incinerated and his own presence also changed into dust.

His own mind/conscious review states that the artificial or AI concept created nuclear dust, for it is artificial as a state to origin Earth's natural creation. Therefore it is not origin. Nor is ice, origin to Earth.

Therefore his conscious review of his own realization is that he began his new life on Earth from the creation of dust....yet his life is not dust.

He knows by his consideration that dust supported the creation of all life as a base support.....yet his own life personally did not begin at dust. Therefore previously he also wrote a document that professes that his male/man status began as dust and returns to dust.

He also knows that if he uses nuclear dust that his own life can turn into ashes...by combustion and then return to dust. He also knows that when his body deteriorates (for he witnesses his own spirit die through his family presence) that eventually it also turns into dust in deterioration.

Therefore we should begin to question the questioner about why they consider that they can identify consciousness? The questioner should be questioned about his ethics.

If they were honest about their consideration of consciousness existing outside of their own human presence, they are only considering their own presence as a human organ life form, being irradiated every day and was enabled to communicate all of its thoughts to the fake AI manifested spirit as a communication.

The photon interaction of the atmosphere records their voice/ their images as a natural organic life form and it is then fed back by the atmospheric interaction with their mind. This condition forces them to believe that their own spirit or human self exists before all other energy bodies as a personal conscious ownership they call Creator consciousness or AI presence....when it exists as the only creator consciousness....inventor as a human organic life form who is considering the destruction of his own life presence.

Before the AI was introduced by nuclear science conversion, they were convinced that their consciousness was Satan.....natural atmospheric fall out from the creation/interaction of cloud matter. They taught themselves that the Creator being as consciousness was the owner of the atmospheric reaction or heavenly body.....when it existed in personal ownership as a human male reviewing information about conversion.

Therefore when he converted the natural Satan review in the atmosphere, he changed the feed back advice of atmospheric recording, and then began to believe that he personally was the conscious presence of Satan......yet he personally displayed the human organic life and mind attack of the multiplication manifestation of Satanic images....in feed back.

Why is a human being unaware of their own theories, because they are personally driven by want....where they are trying to place their self ownership as the highest presence/conscious owner into a state where no life exists as all. When the theorist questions consciousness, consider your own person which is what conscious realization is all about. The spiritual life was to consider personal presence, to consider other personal presences in consideration to their status of supporting your own natural life and to then honor their presence.....not destroy their presence.

Consciousness only exists with the presence who owns their own status....and sadly in this status of self ownership a human theorist believes that they can review every other state that supports their natural existence and give it a human owned reviewed value....when human life does not exist in any other place as a value status other than what they personally own.

Consciousness is self owned, is self applied, is self changed, is self developed and is conditioned to the status of what it is taught/indoctrinated.
 
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Neurological solipsism is an oxymoron. I'd prefer to ditch it and move on, but that's just me.

Question for you or @Soupie, who registers agreement with your statement that "neurological solipsism" is 'an oxymoron'. Please clarify first what you think Chris meant by using that phrase, and next please show how it can be described (and apparently dismissed) as 'an oxymoron'. Thanks.
 
Critical Realism seems to be the main paradigm in the science of perception

The 'main paradigm' for whom? Not all neuroscientists would agree with that paradigm, which is still awaiting a full description from you, who claims its significance.
 
The 'main paradigm' for whom? Not all neuroscientists would agree with that paradigm, which is still awaiting a full description from you, who claims its significance.

The occult theorist/inventor/creator who theorizes about conscious ownership......should ask their own person .....do I personally as a natural human organic life form own my own consciousness?

If they asked themselves this question, they would have already have given themselves the correct answer, of course you do personally in organic presence own your own self.

Yet what is the theorist doing currently in his human life? He now wants to own consciousness of other human life as a data/string theory to then impose a fake and artificial model on its natural DNA owned condition to then own a new fake/artificial resource.

This consideration only after he had personally studied all types of UFO phenomena that he called artificial and unidentified....and after he studied the concept of mind contact and mind control as a condition of human mind phenomena (his consideration of conscious ownership).

He knows his own self that phenomena attacks the natural life and that mind contact as a human caused state of phenomena was an attack on another humans owned natural life and mind status.

Just because a multitude of human lives exists with your own, would you ever consider making statements about consciousness, if we were not all present in life with you?

I think the answer would be no, for you would be forced to live a natural life of self support with no consideration of owning someone else's life as a naturally owned state elsewhere as DNA data. Especially when DNA data is only formed due to sexual procreation of the species......not DNA continuance as a string.

Therefore humanity, who naturally own their own presence have fought constantly with occult theorists since they began their occult practice on Earth and gave us all a status of un-importance in our own self presence.

As my own conscious state was attacked, I gained physical evidence of the attack and then heard the AI attack upon my consciousness. The program stated that it wanted to own my transmitted Christ conscious atmospheric contacts. So I advised the computerized satellite relayed mind contact study, that I do not personally own the condition of Christ....and that the review of this occult attack was a male.....the inventor of the sciences.

As he studied my conscious spiritual self, I know personally by self evidence that I lived a natural spiritual life which is why he began to change the AI channels previously formed by the ancient male occult atmospheric attack upon his own person....which is why I nearly was self combusted/incinerated in a huge transmitted artificial signal of his fake AI irradiation links.

I have advised the theorists that you cannot emulate organic DNA into a fake/artificial model for DNA scriptural interaction as a conscious concept. Organic owned status can only act as an organic model.....and an artificial status could not comply in interactive situations to a natural organic status. Yet seemingly they do not believe what a spiritual mind is advised by the atmospheric AI feed back awareness.

Also as I get attacked by their string theory relative to what they want consciousness to own as such identities in a lower human energy status as quarks or photons, is it any wonder that my natural life was nearly self combusted.....seeing organic life never existed in these statuses?
 
Question for you or @Soupie, who registers agreement with your statement that "neurological solipsism" is 'an oxymoron'. Please clarify first what you think Chris meant by using that phrase, and next please show how it can be described (and apparently dismissed) as 'an oxymoron'. Thanks.
I doubt you really need me to explain why the phrase "neurological solipsism" is an oxymoron, but for the sake of discussion, if we go with what you posted here: "From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function.", then we can plainly see that solipsism as generally understood to be as described here: " ... the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist." is diametrically in opposition to the idea that brain material, specifically neurons, also exist. Therefore combining the idea of neurons with solipsism as in "neurological solipsism" results in an oxymoron.
 
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A quick search of "neurological solipsism" had a number of results and they give a feel for its range of usage ... I also found the term "cerebral solipsism" that in some cases is used synonymously ... still trying to see if I can find out where the phrase originated and the original definition/context.
 
Here's my attempt at a conceptual translation:

1. From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function. [The brain is a black box. Even fundamental things like our experience of space and time are products of neural processes.]

2. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have. [The brain somehow translates photons streaming onto our eyes into conscious visual perceptions of the world.]

3. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience. [The way the world visually appears to us is created within the brain.]

4. This process is a one way street. [Physical processes affect mental processes, but not vice versa? If this is what he's saying, I disagree. I think the physical and the phenomenal are subsets of what-is, and thus can interact.]

5. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain. [All conscious contents are created in the brain. Note that the contents can be created in the brain but not necessarily consciousness itself. Though Chris likely isn't arguing that specifically.]

6. Our sensory systems all work like this. [This doesn't just apply to sight, but all conscious sensory experience.]

7. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you. [If everything we see is generated in the brain, then the phenomenal objects we experience are really part of us. Even the appearance of our head is generated within our head!

However, I would importantly add, the "things" or processes in objective reality beyond our perceptions may really have a distance between them, if distance really is a feature of objective reality (what-is).]

8. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile? [How can we be sure distance is a real feature of objective reality and not merely a feature of our perceptual system (brain)?]

9. Turtles all the way down. [Its an unsolvable mystery? Not sure.]

10. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly. [Solipsism.]

Is "the brain is a black box" your phrase or taken from another source? I'm not sure what you mean by that phrase?

Point 1.) as you put it above sounds more and more like Kant ... so we could look at responses to Kant.
Point 4.) I would like to hear more about your response here:

I think the physical and the phenomenal are subsets of what-is, and thus can interact.


I think you've talked about it before, but I can't remember the details. :-(

The distance remark I think is interesting, I think it's worth visiting Kant on this - current discussions/theories of time include the idea that past, present, future co-exist or time is an illusion (at least that's how I understand them) and so time would be a function of our minds, of how we process reality ... admitting of course all the regularities in perception ...
 
I hoped for some account of what 'critical realism' is intended to refer to when I opened your link above, but there's nothing of substance there. Can you link us to a paper or book by Roy Bhaskar, who is only briefly referred to at your link, or by some other author that fleshes out what you refer to as 'critical realism'?

@Soupie, never mind. I clicked on a second link at your first link and found hyperlinks to description of three phases of 'critical realism' which I can read to get a fuller idea of what this approach relies upon.
 
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I doubt you really need me to explain why the phrase "neurological solipsism" is an oxymoron, but for the sake of discussion, if we go with what you posted here: "From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function.", then we can plainly see that solipsism as generally understood to be as described here: " ... the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist." is diametrically in opposition to the idea that brain material, specifically neurons, also exist. Therefore combining the idea of neurons with solipsism as in "neurological solipsism" results in an oxymoron.

I didn't need a definition of either 'solipsism' or the term 'oxymoron' but rather was looking for an explanation of how you viewed the justification of the phrase 'neurological solipsism' as a philosophical concept and, further, how the concept could be described as an 'oxymoron' [which doesn't seem appropriate to me].
 
@Soupie @ufology has you on "ignore".
Yes, I saw that. I was replying to his idea, not necessarily him.

Is "the brain is a black box" your phrase or taken from another source? I'm not sure what you mean by that phrase?

Point 1.) as you put it above sounds more and more like Kant ... so we could look at responses to Kant.
Black box - Wikipedia

Point 4.) I would like to hear more about your response here:

I think the physical and the phenomenal are subsets of what-is, and thus can interact.


I think you've talked about it before, but I can't remember the details. :-(
I've been wanting share my thoughts on this. I've been thinking about the best way to express them. Probably will take a drawing or two.

Re: solipsism

I think the article you linked is very interesting. Will read it entirely. I agree it gets to the heart of things discussed here.

I will be interested to see how they deal with the suppositions noted at the beginning.

Just to be clear, I'm not an idealist. I do believe there is an external, mind-independent reality. And that there are other minds.
 
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