[MD] Metaphysics and the mystic.

[Carl Thames]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "118" <ununoctiums at gmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Metaphysics and the mystic.


> Hi Guys,
>
> Hot of the Press!!
>
> Science 27 January 2012:
> Vol. 335 no. 6067 pp. 415-416
>
> Another Remembered Present
> by Kaspar Meyer
> Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los
> Angeles, CA 90089, USA
>
> First Paragraph:
> "Intuition tells us that perceptual experience—the seamless flow of
> conscious images of vision, sound, touch, and so forth—reflects the
> external world. Accordingly, information flow along the brain's
> sensory pathways has been thought to follow a caudo-rostral direction,
> away from the ports of entry, toward integrative cortices in the
> anterior parts of the frontal and temporal lobes. However, this view
> of a unidirectional, “bottom-up” processing cascade is challenged by
> findings which suggest that there is also information transfer in the
> opposite, “top-down” direction, from association areas toward early
> sensory cortices. A particularly intriguing observation is that while
> the initial bottom-up activation sweep along the sensory pathways can
> accomplish stimulus processing of considerable complexity and yield
> certain automated behaviors, conscious awareness of a sensory object
> appears to depend on top-down signals (1–3), as observed in the visual
> (4), auditory (5), and somatosensory (6) systems. Why is this the
> case?"

Mark:
> Yes, he goes on to explain, but we know why.  DQ comes from the
> outside in and is matched by DQ from the inside out.  Where they meet
> is consciousness.  That is, the preconceptual comes from both sides,
> Get it?  Now you may not have access to the scientific journals since
> they require membership, and they can be difficult to read for the
> layman.  You may have to resort to free stuff such as Wiki, but there
> is another world out their which Google can not give you for free.
> That world is media science.  The brain scientists are far ahead of
> you on this one.  I used to be a "brain scientist", so I can say that.

"Likewise, the eminent physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, who formulated the
wave mechanics that undergirds quantum physics, went so far as to suggest
that, in fact, there is only one mind that is somehow participated in by
everyone, and that the idea of individual mind is illusory (1)."

1. Schrödinger, E. (Cecily Hastings, trans). My view of the World. 
Woodbridge, CT: Oxbow Press, 1983:31.

Carl:
If this is true, then the reductionistic efforts by various "brain 
scientists" would be just so much hogwash.

Mark:
> I have to caution you against thinking that you are so smart in
> understanding all of this.  All of the stuff you guys talk about has
> been considered.  Just join a neurosciences forum and find out!  Maybe
> you can contribute to what you think consciousness is.  Lots of people
> are studying it, including friends of mine.  Give it a little more
> serious study and you may learn something.  There are plenty of good
> books on this, if you can understand them.  From your conversation I
> am not sure you know what is going on in this field.  Perhaps you are
> talking to some pretty stupid brain scientists.  Some of the best
> philosophers were also scientists.  Go figure.

"The philosopher of religion, Huston Smith, has stated (2) that there are
four categories in which science is limited, “four things science cannot
get its hands on”: 1) intrinsic and normative values; 2) purposes; 3)
ultimate and existential meanings; and 4) quality. These limitations come
about, Smith claims, as a result of science’s helplessness in the face of
the qualitatively unmeasurable."

2. Smith H. Beyond the Post-Modern Mind. Wheaten. IL: The Theosophical
Publishing House, 1982:66-67.

Both quotations taken from:

The Quantum Physics of Consciousness: Towards a New Psychology, Fred Alan 
Wolf, Ph.D., Integrative Psychiatry, An International Journal for the 
Synthesis of Medicine and Psychiatry, Volume 3, Number 4, December 1985

And commentary on the article by:

Larry Dossey M.D., Dallas Diagnostic Association, Dallas, TX.

Richard M. Restak, M.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology, 
Georgetown University. Washington, DC.

> Regards.
> Mark

Carl:
The ball's in your court.

Serving with intent,
Carl