[MD] Tit's

[Krimel]

Krimel said to dmb:
I don't really see how the linguistic turn applies to whether or not you
reject the existence of a world external to your own thoughts. Or how such a
view could be reconciled with a scientific view. Or how you can possibly
regard the MoQ as dualistic. 

dmb says:
You are correct, sir! You really don't see it.

[Krimel]
So you do deny the existence of an external world and you believe the MoQ is
dualistic? Just trying to clarify.

Krimel said to dmb:
Or why you think mystical experiences have not been the subject of
scientific study. 

dmb says:
I don't think that. There is a guy that used to be at my school that wrote a
thing called "Zen and the Brain". Its just that I object to the reductionism
we usually find along with it.

[Krimel]
The Dali Lama sent monks for testing at a neuroscience lab at the University
of Wisconsin and delivered an address to the 2006 annual meeting of the
Society for Neurosciences. He also founded and promotes the Mind Life
Institute whose purpose is:

"To promote the creation of a contemplative, compassionate, and rigorous
experimental and experiential science of the mind which could guide and
inform medicine, neuroscience, psychology, education and human development."

The Transcendental Meditation folks have sponsored and promoted research for
years.

But the Dalai Lama and the Maharishi are too reductionist for you to dirty
your hands with? 

Krimel said:
Or why you think the universality of mystical experiences makes them more
valid guides to truth than universally reported hallucinations or dreams.

dmb says:
I don't think that. Hallucinations and dreams are very much worth studying
and have suffered from a similar neglect. But mysticism is more interesting
to me. I've come to dislike the word "universality" and don't use it much.
Seems better just to say mystical experiences are widely known and don't
belong to any particular time or culture.

[Krimel]
Dream studies have been neglected? The first president of the APA, G.
Stanley Hall wrote a book on dreams so did Freud, Jung and dozens of other
Psychologists. There are sleep laboratories the world over studying the
physiology of sleeping and dreaming. In the field of psychology alone there
were 69 articles on dreaming and sleep published in 2007. There is even a
rock band named R.E.M. you might remember their hit, "Losin' My Religion".
An acronym derived from the scientific study of the dream state has become
part of the modern mythos. 

Hallucinogens were studied extensively from the late 40's until they were
declared illegal in 1967. In isn't being neglected it has been outlawed. The
great psychologist William James wrote on hallucinations and Neurologist
Vilayanur S Ramachandran has had very interesting things to say about the
hallucinations of patients with frontal lobe seizures. The air force has
done research that is directly connected to research on near death
experiences.

It would seem that science has not "neglected" these studies, but you have.
I would suggest that whatever your plan for more inclusive science "should"
be might proceed a bit better if you actually knew what was going on.