[MD] The Color of Perception, pt. 2

[Carl Thames]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 12:57 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] The Color of Perception



> Now the question is, what is the difference between direct experience and 
> abstract knowledge? What does that "expert" really know about red before 
> leaving that sense-deprived world of books and abstractions? What she was 
> missing was the "qualia" of red, the actual quality of phenomenal 
> experience for which "red" is a general abstraction.
>
snip
>
> Who was it that said, "there must always be a discrepancy between concepts 
> and reality"? I think this question about "red" is one way to look at that 
> discrepancy. It's classic stuff by now. I mean you can find this 
> hypothetical expert of "red" discussed by the professionals and such. This 
> question of "qualia" is a way to engage some of the cutting edge questions 
> about consciousness and mind.

I was looking for the quotation and found the following:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9681097/Self-Discrepancy-Theory-A-Closer-Look

Not exactly the same, but close.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  The "qualia" is fascinating to me.  To 
borrow a term from Heinlein, our physicist would "know" about the color red, 
but she wouldn't "grok" the color red until she experienced it directly.  I 
have been studying consciousness for many years now, with mixed results.  It 
seems to be a pretty elusive concept.  We know what it's not, but we don't 
really know what it is.  Then, to muddy the water a bit, I have been a 
Shamanic Practioner for almost 20 years now.  When I first started, I knew 
less than nothing about it.  How is that possible?  Well, I started with 
preconceived ideas about the subject passed down by my parents and 
grandparents.  They knew nothing about it other than that it was a bad 
thing.  I had been doing the survey of great religions, trying to find one 
that fit, with no success whatever.  I was raised Southern Baptist, (I'm 
still in recovery) and knew that wasn't what I was looking for.  I joined 
the Air Force at 19 and ended up in the Far East, where I studied Buddhism, 
Shinto, Taoism, etc. for 5 years.  They all had attractive elements, but 
none of them fit perfectly.  After coming back to the states, I spent 9 
years in limbo in San Antonio.  Leaving there, I returned to Missouri, 
although to a different city.  While knocking around, looking for something 
to do, I found a place that offered spiritual experiences.  They didn't care 
what brand of spirituality you practiced there, as long as it didn't break 
the law.  I went in and started talking to the director of the place.  We 
chatted for a bit, and then he told me they were going to do a Shaman 
Journey that night.  My response was, "A what?"  I had never heard of it.  I 
had heard of "medicine men" etc., but always with a dismissive snicker or 
other derrogitory remark.  Beyond that, I knew nothing about it.  He 
described the process, wherein someone enters an altered state of 
consciousness and does various things.  My first thought was that it 
involved an altered state of sanity.  He then went on to explain that it was 
experiential.  It either worked for you or it didn't.  That sounded like 
what I was looking for, so I tried to keep an open mind about it.  He then 
told me that the worst that would happen would be a fifteen minute nap.  I 
told him I would be willing to watch.  He said, "No, you'll participate." 
You have to know the guy.  Anyway, I was convinced that I would look like a 
complete idiot, but then realized that everyone else there would ALSO look 
like idiots, so I agreed.  He told me the proceedure, essentially "core 
shamanism" as taught by Michael Harner.  He would drum for fifteen minutes, 
we would do the procedure, and see what happened.

I did as he described, and felt an immediate connection.  When I came back 
to present, upright consciousness, I came back with specific, verifiable 
information that was immediately verified by the others there.  That's the 
crux of this discussion, imho.  I was able to access information that nobody 
had told me, that wasn't available in a book, etc.  How was that possible? 
I "knew" things about some of the people there that I had no rational way of 
knowing.  This relates directly to our physicist and her study of "red."  It 
also relates directly to the discussion of experience.  Who gets to define 
experience?  Is a mental conceptualization the same as physical experience? 
Is this where "qualia" comes in?  I don't know.  I have since read several 
hundred articles, several dozen books, had numbeous discussions, etc. on the 
topic, and nobody has the answer of how it was possible for me to get 
information in the manner that I did.  Probably the closest I've come is the 
concept of Jung's collective consciousness.  I had somehow tapped into that. 
It was real, it was personal, it was direct experience.  Equally important, 
it was verified.  If the physicist was able to connect to the same thing I 
did, would she be able to achieve that "qualia?"  I think so.  From the 
reading I've done, the answer to the consciousness and mind questions are 
simple: We are all connected.  We exchange information constantly in ways 
that aren't defined by the five senses.  Much of what is considered ESP 
falls into this category, I think.  My exception to the idea is that I don't 
think it's "extra" sensory perception.  I think we all do it, all the time. 
The problem is that the manifestation of it is always anecdotal.  Someone 
takes an extra two minutes getting out of the house and as a result avoids a 
fatal car accident.  Someone has a dream about a plane crash, changes their 
ticket, then finds that the plane they were supposed to be on crashes.  That 
sort of thing.  It defies rational explanation only because we don't have 
the tools to express it.  The thing is that it happens whether we understand 
it or not.  That's the part that fascinates me the most.

I also wonder if the people who were involved in fatal car accidents had 
prior warning that they ignored.  We're generally taught to dismiss anything 
that falls outside of our preconceived ideas of how the world works.  What 
would the world be like if we stopped doing that?  Interesting stuff, eh?

Carl