O.B.E.'s

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: And sometimes those conclusions are "We don't know". That doesn't mean we will never know because science is not about a destination, it's as much about the journey as any i individual Jedis path here. But that also does not mean we should just make something up in the mean time either.

Well, for what it's worth, I don't know.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Sorry if i come off as so animate in some of my replies. These things are pet peeves for me. Right now in my home state there is a bill going through the state legislature that will allow the teaching of creationism alongside evolution. This is one of the most dangerous things we could ever allow because it is a teaching based in superstition not critical thinking and logic or science. If we allow these things they will only serve to return us to the stone age.

Wow, that's insane. Hopefully it doesn't pass. Though it would send an interesting precedent. Would it then be fitting to demand that other religious creation stories be taught alongside the Abrahamic one as well?

I do understand your peeve. But I also do think it is different to say "I believe OBE might be possible because I experienced something that fits the description and cannot explain it otherwise", than to say "I believe OBE should be taught in school after remote sensing, but before Reiki healing".

Wow thank you everyone! It is a very real experience, seems even more real than just being awake. Though it happens in the brain, so does everything. There isn't really an out there is there. When I had mine, I knew of the reality of the force, and the reality of other dimensions of experience and life after death. You go through a tunnel and you exit completely on fire, its amazing, and just as real as anything.

Magnus Staar wrote: I do understand your peeve. But I also do think it is different to say "I believe OBE might be possible because I experienced something that fits the description and cannot explain it otherwise", than to say "I believe OBE should be taught in school after remote sensing, but before Reiki healing".

Agreed, on all your points, except I would say "I don't discount that these things could be possible but will also not accept they are possible without sufficient reason. In this I also don't support a "God of the gaps" concept where I say " well what else could it be?" Lack of explanation as to the cause of something does not mean we can use that as justification to make the claim it could be nothing else but "X" cause. If we don't know, then we don't know and that Includes all the unknown explanations it could be that we are not even aware of.

This is a meaningless statement. Can you prove the experience exists? If you can prove it exists can you objectively prove the experience occurred according to the parameters defined by the experiencer?

If a tree falls and no one is around, does it make a sound?

I don't believe in magic, and I'm not that interested in debating the point.

At the moment, the best scans and medical tests my local hospital has to offer are struggling to "prove" I have an injury in my back, and yet I'm fairly confident the pain is real.
It could all be in my head. It's certainly not real for anyone else in the world, so by those measures, it ain't there

(We've cut enough people up in the past that we can make a reasonable guess at what has happened to my nerves, but until they can find it and prove it, I might as well say it's a Voodoo curse)

Either way in the end what the "experts" call it is immaterial to the experience.

My back twinges.

Old mate felt like he was outside his body.

That's the experience as experienced.

It is one thing to say that there is nothing wrong with your back. It is not the same to say that you do not feel any pain. We can accept that people have an experience without also accepting that the cause they attribute to it is indeed the cause of what they experienced or that their descriptions of what did in fact happen is accurate. That they had some sort of sensation is for the time being an incorrigible statement. If they are being sincere, there is really nothing at this point that we could dispute. But the moment they begin saying that this sensation was their spirits leaving their body, now we have an assessment of what happened, an interpretation, if you will, an explanation (though it really explains nothing; if anything, it raises more questions than it answers), and that is when we must begin applying our critical minds, lest we end up accepting conflicting models as we would have to, if they all could be left to pass unfiltered.

JamesSand wrote:
If a tree falls and no one is around, does it make a sound?

Yes it does because when it fell it created vibrational sound waves in the medium of the atmosphere in which it fell.

It's not about the experience. It's about the truth of that experience. You dont know why your back hurts but you are investigating using science to see if you can find that explanation. I'll bet if I said the reason your back hurts was because I sent the invisible unicorn I keep in my garage to your house and she kicked you in the back you would not accept that explanation, right? And then if I said well science can't find an explanation for your pain so what else could it be other than my unicorn, you would still not accept it, right?

I guarantee when it comes to your pain you want an explanation that is as close to the truth as possible so you can treat the issue as accurately as possible. So why is it that when it comes to other things you dont afford yourself the same restriction? Tell me why it is you would not accept my unicorn story and yet you readily accept another explanation when they say they floated outside their body? Neither one has any evidence and yet you reject one and accept the other.

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes". Our rigid rules of the Universe have and will be broken again and again. Don't let your ego cloud your judgement.

All of reality is a fantastic illusion.

It's a life changing experience!

I don't think anyone is arguing against scientific method. It is simply a case of the mechanism's behind the event not being accessible enough to properly apply that scientific method. If someone has en experience which to them is justified enough to warrant a strong measure of truth for them, then an interest in exploring that is scientific in spirit! It's just the extent they are able to apply science might vary. Skepticism has a good place there though.