testing

AndyH said:

Fine. Tell me then - are your eyes still shut? Because there is no tool on the planet that can be accepted by those that will not open their eyes to see the tool.

Try this: Get an original unabridged copy of Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich" and experiment with some of the exercises there. Or attend a "Gateway Voyage" at the Monroe Institute (or the Institute of Noetic Science). Either of these will provide you with direct experience of processes that you can control and use that are beyond your physical body. All three of these options are science and research based and completely independent of religion and spirituality.

There's a difference between 'believing' and 'knowing' - I'm talking about absolutely verifiable real-world repeatable experience. For me it's a 'known' born from first-hand experience. For you to move from disbelief to belief, you have to suspend disbelief. To move from belief to knowing you'll have to have first-hand experience.

Once that happens, I'll be glad to chat more. Until then, further conversation is meaningless.

Click to expand...

Are my eyes still shut? Or are yours, perchance?

Perhaps I am misinterpreting your response, but I assume that you are answering in the affirmative: you do believe in "dualism," i.e., that the "mind" is separate from the body. At least that is what Noetic "Science" seems to purport with the assertion that there is a "consciousness" beyond our physical brain.

You claim to "know" (not just "believe") that this is indeed the case from "first-hand experience." I am not sure what event you are referring to, but from your previous posts, and your reference to the Monroe Institute, I am guessing that you might have had what is called an "out-of-body experience" (OBE)...?

If so, you might want to look into truly scientific experiments about that phenomenon. For example, "Out?of?body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin," published in the Oxford journal Brain (2003), or "Induction of an illusory shadow person," published in the journal Nature (2006). This is evidence based upon verifiable data, in experiments that other scientists are invited to replicate to either substantiate or refute the findings, published in peer-reviewed journals independent of the experimenters' institutions --not just in-house, anecdotal "articles" under the misapplied rubric "research."

Certainly I appreciate experience, but... ultimately, when push comes to shove, I trust science even more than my own perceptions. For instance, my experience when looking at these circles, tells me that they are rotating --yet they are not! That experience is erroneous, simply an oddity of my brain's neurological wiring.

For millennia, people "knew" the earth was flat, because that was their experience, witnessed with their own eyes when gazing at the horizon. But... they were wrong. Science has since shown that our planet is round. Likewise, people "knew" that the sun circled the earth because it was what they experienced with their own eyes every day. Again... they were wrong. Science finally determined that just the opposite is true.

To know something based on experience reminds me of when Cortés asked the Aztecs:

"Why do you perform these horrific sacrifices, cutting out the victims' beating hearts?"

"So that the sun will rise in the morning," answered the Aztecs.

"What? Those sacrifices have nothing to do with the rising of the sun!" he said.

"They most certainly do! We have been performing these sacrifices every single day for hundreds and hundreds of years, and the sun has risen every time." :?

This is why we need science, empirical evidence --and not just "experience." Listen: if the Monroe Institute can actually prove dualism, the James Randi Educational Foundation will award them... one million dollars! They should go for it! We would all love to see the proof!