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InvisibleMoonshoe
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The central philosophical question of reality?
    #8059129 - 02/23/08 02:18 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Almost all discussion here revolves around a basic question that needs to be reexamined.

Is personal experience valid basis for belief?

On the hand of those who say no, the following reasons (among others) are given

-people are prone to self delusion
-people can hallucinate, be mistaken, deceived or tricked
-two or more people can have different experiences in the same situation, thus both cant be right

Hypothetical examples that are often employed include:
"if you think your Jesus it doesn't mean you are"
"if you take acid and see a pink bunny it doesn't mean it really exists"

All of these are fairly sound arguments. Of course, they raise major problems. If we accept the proposition that personal experience is NOT basis for belief, what possible ground of understanding do we have? even the most rigorous scientific experiment requires the observation and interpretation of a human observer. Logic and rationality are nothing more then experiences in the mind, a particular form of thought. Even mathematics can not be understood without reference to an observer or understander.

Even those experiences which people in this camp admit are real, such as day to day waking life physical sensations like pain and solidity or hot and cold, are known to us only in so far as we experience them.

So if we believe that personal experience is not valid reason to believe something, we must either resolve to believe nothing and regard all things as uncertain mysteries, or we must answer this vital problem: What basis for understanding can there be that doesn't reduce to or begin with personal experience?

If on the other hand you decide that "yes, of course personal experience can be a basis for knowledge" then you probably fall into one of two broad camps.

The more common camp includes those people who believe, roughly, that personal experience IS valid basis for understanding, but only if you are: Sane, reasonably intelligent, awake, sober, not under the influence of love, spirituality, wishful thinking or religion, not too tired, not deprived of oxygen, sleep or water, etc, etc, etc... and only if your personal experience agrees with mine.

This position has some obvious weaknesses. On what basis can we say that one purely subjective experience (waking life) is somehow "real" when countless other purely subjective experiences (dreams, visions, religious or mystic experiences, hallucinations, trips, out of body experiences, astral experiences, visualization, hypnotism, imagination, sensory deprivation) are not, even when they occasionally equal or exceed waking life in any given qualifier (vividness, lucidity, coherence, etc.)

People in this camp frequently claim that personal experience is not valid means of experience, when they are confronted with anyone whose personal experience does not match there own.

The problem of course is that there is no way of discerning truth in such situations, as all peoples perceived experiences are necessarily of equal reality, to them.

For this reason there are only two types of statements that can be made with integrity.

1. "I personally experienced _____________________________________"

or

2. I personally did not share your experience of __________________________.


Anything else is bigotry.

The second camp is of course those people who accept all perceived experience as real perception. Such a simple and self evident fact: that which is perceived is perceived, thus it is a real perception. And of course, nothing can be experienced except as perception.

How far people in this camp take there beliefs varies from individual to individual, but generally they attribute real experiential value to one or another personal experience that falls outside of the narrowly defined limits of what modern western urban industrial culture conventionally refers to as "real".

The very duality inherent in the conception of "real/unreal" belies a simplistic mentality. A more rational view would see reality as a fluid spectrum on which various things are not at all clearly placed.

Is music real? love? hope? faith? dreams? thoughts? ideas? language? hallucinations? art? photographs? movies and film? spiritual experiences? what part of them is real? what part is not? how can you distinguish? are we real? is life?

The shaman does not need to trouble himself with such inanities, because he has accepted the first foundational fact of action and vitality: that which i experience is real for me.

This belief does not imply that any particular thing is real in the same way as another thing. When i say that happiness is real i do not mean to imply it possesses the same kind of reality as a moose or walrus. Similarly when i say that dreams and astral experiences are real, i do not imply that they have the same exact qualities as waking experiences, nevertheless, real and tangible they are.

Once this basic step has been taken and an open minded view adopted, entire universes literally open to individual possibility. Dreams, if not accepted as real or viewed as important, very quickly cease to imprint upon the conciousness, and you cease to be aware of dreaming.

If on the other hand you believe that the dream world is a valid arena for exploration, fun, experimentation, learning and relaxation, your intensity, frequency and recall of dreams will greatly increase. Rather then spending the night in unconcious oblivion, you can spend it soaring on the winds of outer heaven, conversing with celestials and drinking moonwater.

Will this pay your bills? will it make you bullet proof? does it discredit science?

Of course not. Too often these kinds of nonsensical questions are raised in a knee-jerk response to the shamans stories and ideas.

This example of dreams, and how the acceptance of dreams as valid experience increases our perception and enjoyment of them, is just one example of many.

The exact same mechanics apply to shamanic experiences of all kinds, astral, plant induced or otherwise.

Often people dismiss such things as "just imaginary" but really imagination refers to a specific form of thought or conciousness which is somewhere between understanding and visualizing. When we imagine a castle or a cloud we visualize it in our mind and think about the concept intellectually.

This is a valid form of experience in and of itself, but it is not the same as a dream, a lucid dream, an astral projection or a drug hallucination.

Anyone who has taken a large dose of acid knows that the hallucinations he is having are NOT "just imagination" they are something entirely different and more potent. The same is true of other shamanic states.

Thus i will summarize my points as follows:

1. If you say personal experience isn't a valid form of experience, you are posed with the problem of explaining what possible means of knowing doesn't begin with or end in human experience.
2.It is only logical to conclude that what you experience is a real experience for you. Denying this is absurd.
3. Various levels or types of reality exist, all with different qualities, all equally real. Just because the qualities of one (dreaming, visions) are different then the qualities of another (waking, sober life) does not make one more real, only different.
4. A shaman (in my usage) is one who accepts that his experience is real to him, and then proceeds to develop his ability to cultivate different kinds of experiences for his enjoyment and pleasure.
5. These experiences can not be dismissed as "just imagination" because they actually comprise a wide variety of psycho-physiological states that go far beyond the meaning of the word "imaginary".
6. Just because a shaman chooses to explore the limits of his conciousness by entering into non ordinary states of conciousness does not mean he claims to have any powers that contradict western science. However, much of what he does has not yet been adaquetly understood or studied by western science, so he is not afraid to go beyond its ideas of what is possible.
7. If you choose to deny other peoples subjective experiences, you are assuming an authority you have no right to. The most you can legitimately say is "i have never had an experience like the one you are describing" or "my experience of that event was different then yours"

8. any disavowal of another persons internal state or experience is at best nonsense and a worst bigotry.

9. If you choose not to believe in, validate or develop any of your own capacities for various kinds of experience, you lose. You miss out. And by definition, you cant even have the tiniest conception of what your missing, any more than someone who has never taken acid can imagine what its like, or someone who has never had sex can enjoy that experience.

If you dont believe you can fly through outer space, talk to trees, walk on water, sing in Technicolor, dance with the spirits and turn into a dragon, you can't. and you wont.

But I can.

and if you think i just claimed to do something magical or impossible, you haven't been listening.

Peace.


--------------------


Everything I post is fiction.

Edited by Moonshoe (02/23/08 02:31 AM)

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8059156 - 02/23/08 02:39 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

You win the record for most logical fallacies in one post. :cheer:

Repeating the commingling of observation and interpretation which has been covered to death here; yet still remains misundertood by some no matter how carefully and logically it is explained shows an unparalleled inability to learn.

Scientific skepticism along with objective validation has given us the internet and computer with which to air our ideas. Mysticism and self-proclaimed subjective truths have given us religious divisiveness, war and prejudice at worst and fantasy-filled books and movies at best.

If there were no objective truth (small 't') then communication here would be impossible.
The apprentice shamans here always complain about, yet use western materialist methods. The hypocrisy astounds.


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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8059171 - 02/23/08 02:47 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

"You win the record for most logical fallacies in one post"




There are no logical fallacies in my post, or if there are you have failed to indicate even one in your response.

I challenge you to do so by direct reference to the text of my post, using quotations to indicate some of the fallacies you observe.


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Everything I post is fiction.

Edited by Moonshoe (02/23/08 03:08 AM)

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8059191 - 02/23/08 02:59 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Read the following from highly-respected salvia pioneer, Daniel Siebert being interviewed by 'Entheogenic Review' and apply your premise.

Will: You recently conducted an experiment to test the putative psychoactivity of another Salvia-Salvia splendens. How was the experiment set up and what were the results?

Daniel: The first published description of what we now refer to as salvinorin A appeared in a 1982 paper by the Mexican phytochemist, Alfredo Ortega. At that time it was simply called salvinorin. In his paper, Ortega points out that salvinorin is structurally similar to compounds that had previously been isolated from the common ornamental bedding plant, Salvia splendens. This caught my eye early on in the days of my work with Salvia divinorum, and I was curious to see if Salvia splendens might produce any interesting effects similar to that of Salvia divinorum. So I purchased several Salvia splendens plants from a local nursery and tried smoking the dried leaves. After smoking a huge amount, I did not notice any effects other than a slight headache. I then made an extract of the leaves using the same procedure that I had been using to extract salvinorin A from Salvia divinorum. I experimented with this extract several times, using ever-increasing amounts, but was still unable to detect any effects. At this point I was convinced that Salvia splendens was inactive. Then a year or two latter, I received e-mail from someone who claimed that he and a friend of his had tried Salvia splendens and found it to be active in very low doses. He sounded quite excited about his discovery and started posting messages on the Internet about it. He claimed that the leaves produced a sort of relaxing, anxiolytic, emotional-blunting effect. Obviously, these effects are not at all like Salvia divinorum. The effects he associated with Salvia splendens are rather like those of ValiumĀ®; it was not said to be a visionary herb by any stretch of the imagination. While I realize that such effects have their place, I personally do not find them very interesting. Nevertheless, this report intrigued me enough that I decided to try Salvia splendens again. Interestingly enough, when I did, I experienced exactly the kind of effects that he had described. However, for some reason, I was unable to experience these effects again on subsequent attempts, even though I tried using larger amounts of leaf. As this information was being posted in various places on the Internet, quite a few other people started experimenting with it. People's reports were mixed. Many people were reporting that they were experiencing sedative or anxiolytic effect, but others didn't seem to feel anything.

Because the reports were so inconsistent, I began to wonder if the "placebo effect" might be responsible for many of the effects people were experiencing, including my own. To investigate this, I decided to conduct an informal double-blind experiment using volunteers from the Salvia divinorum E-mailing List. This is an e-mail discussion forum I founded a couple of years ago, which is dedicated to Salvia divinorum and other psychoactive Labiatae. I located a source for a large amount of Salvia splendens leaf. In order to determine if this material would be suitable for use in the experiment, I sent samples of the doses I intended to use for the study to three people who had already tried Salvia splendens several times and claimed to be able to distinguish its effects. Unanimously they concluded that this material was indeed active and thus should be quite suitable for the experiment. I then selected a placebo herb. I chose Viola odorata leaf, because it was the most similar herb in appearance and texture that I could come up with that did not have effects that were likely to be confused with those that were being associated with Salvia splendens. I then sent out coded packets containing pre-measured doses of Salvia splendens and the placebo herb to 61 volunteers. They were instructed to ingest the samples and then to report any effects experienced on a questionnaire that had been provided to them. People were allowed to choose between smoking the herb samples or ingesting them sublingually. Some people chose to do both. So I collected two sets of data based on method of ingestion.

The purpose of the experiment was to determine if people would be able to distinguish Salvia splendens from the inactive placebo herb. If Salvia splendens does produce a significant effect, this should show up in the data obtained from the questionnaires. Unfortunately, only 31 of the volunteers completed the experiment and returned the questionnaires, so the amount of information I had available to work with was relatively small. Nevertheless, I think that the results are meaningful. The results of the experiment showed that most people reported no effects from either herb. Of those that did report "Salvia splendens-type effects" (about 35%), the numbers were essentially equal for Salvia splendens and the placebo. This suggests that Salvia splendens is no more effective than the placebo in producing "Salvia splendens-type effects." This is definitely the case for the specific materials and doses used in this particular study.

After sharing the results of this study publicly, I received quite a few surprisingly emotional reactions from people who insisted that Salvia splendens was indeed quite active and that my study must be flawed. I got the feeling that people felt I was attacking their integrity by suggesting that they were victims of the placebo effect. It is clear that this herb produces effects in many people when they know that they are taking it. The fact that many people are convinced of its effects is compelling. The problem is that the activity seems to disappear when people don't know what it is they are taking. The information available suggests that the effects people have been reporting are probably due to psychosomatic factors rather than a true pharmacological action of the herb.


Hmmm - they GOT ANGRY, when objective reality failed to meet subjective reality, even at a person who sympathized with them and bent ever backwards to attempt to substantiate their claims.

What does this suggest to you?


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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8059197 - 02/23/08 03:05 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

As was immediately obvious, you are totally unable to identify even a single logical fallacy in the text of my actual writing despite the fact that you openly stated that I "win the record for most logical fallacies in one post".

The quote you posted in no way invalidates or contradicts anything I have suggested.


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Everything I post is fiction.

Edited by Moonshoe (02/23/08 03:06 AM)

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8059205 - 02/23/08 03:11 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

You get upset when I critique and upset when I don't.

Look up 'strawman fallacy' then reread your post line by line.

No more spoon-feeding. :nono:


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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8059210 - 02/23/08 03:14 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Actually I openly invited you to offer a relevant critique that actually touches on the ideas I clearly presented in the text of my post. So far you have failed to do that.


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Everything I post is fiction.

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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8062113 - 02/23/08 07:32 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

really? no one wants to play with this one?

It seems to me everyone must touch on this problem at some point, and I'm curious as to how various people resolve it or attempt to.

The specific question is: What basis for understanding can there be that doesn't reduce to or begin with personal experience?


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Everything I post is fiction.

Edited by Moonshoe (02/23/08 07:35 PM)

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InvisibleHumble lurker
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8062321 - 02/23/08 09:06 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

:thumbup:

Excellent post.  I agree with you.

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InvisibleTacticalBongRip
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8062343 - 02/23/08 09:13 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Is personal experience valid basis for belief?

I'd say so.

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8062463 - 02/23/08 09:58 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Yes, of course we must experience reality personally in order to experience reality. (duh).

The scientific method was created in order to verify our subjective experiences & the interpretations we apply to those experiences.

For those unfamiliar with the scientific method:

Quote:


1. Observe some aspect of the universe.


2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.


3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.


4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.


5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.




For further connections between the scientific method and philosophy, see this post (yes, it's one of mine):

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4499407#4499407

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OfflineDimensionX
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8062516 - 02/23/08 10:19 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Great post moonshoe. I believe we all live in seperate realities communicating with each other, through some kind of shared experience we can all relate to on some level.

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Offlinekrin
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: DimensionX]
    #8062663 - 02/23/08 11:09 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

"I believe we all live in seperate realities communicating with each other, through some kind of shared experience we can all relate to on some level."

I dont understand ANYTHING your saying!
I wish...i wish there was some way to communicate with each other,maybe through some sort of shared experience that we could all, you know,make a reference to, and say, "yes, ive observed that!"
Then we could come together from our seperate realities, and create one unmoving massive architecture of joy and creation and orgies.

it is a universal shame we all speak different languages
lets bow to moon goddess Shaneese for support (while perhaps someone else is studying the whooping cranes migration path, and a large steel tank is filled with oil to submerge massive transistors for a high intensity laser in Los Alamos beaneath a screaming desert wind.)

Ombobombo witnesses all and moves through your tounge,be blessed children of letterances.


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OfflineDimensionX
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: krin]
    #8062699 - 02/23/08 11:21 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

We can both say that we shared the experience of attempting to communicate with each other, cant we?

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Offlinekrin
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: DimensionX]
    #8062711 - 02/23/08 11:26 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Yes, like two sloppy bolstering frustrated brethren are we


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8062985 - 02/24/08 01:25 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

we must either resolve to believe nothing and regard all things as uncertain mysteries




What is wrong with that?

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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #8063189 - 02/24/08 02:49 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

I don't know. Is anything wrong with it?


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Everything I post is fiction.

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8064157 - 02/24/08 11:42 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Moonshoe said:
really? no one wants to play with this one?

It seems to me everyone must touch on this problem at some point, and I'm curious as to how various people resolve it or attempt to.

The specific question is: What basis for understanding can there be that doesn't reduce to or begin with personal experience?





I resolve this by remaining unconvinced by any so called reality. Mine or anyone else's.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Icelander]
    #8064420 - 02/24/08 12:51 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

interesting. Do you find that this lack of conviction detracts from, enhances or does not effect your enjoyment of the realities you experience?


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Everything I post is fiction.

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: The central philosophical question of reality? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #8064524 - 02/24/08 01:18 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

This is a relatively new belief system for me so I am going through a break in period. It's not possible to answer accurately at this time.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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