"I am you" nonsense

Kafei · **#901** by **Kafei** » Dec 12, 2018 9:05 pm

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Kafei wrote:
He's also phrased it a bit differently in the papers he's published. He put it like this, "Once again, we are aware that it is not in the purview of science to prove or to disprove the reality of God."

Yet another failure to cite your sources.

http://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/trps-41-02-139.pdf

Kafei · **#902** by **Kafei** » Dec 12, 2018 9:06 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:
Kafei wrote:

I don't now how you see this quote as a criticism.

It's not a criticism of him, he's behaving as a responsible scientist and stating clearly for the cranks and wooheads that the research does not confirm anything about metaphysics, God or ultimate reality.

You, on the other hand...

Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

Don't say 'normal' if instead you mean 'not unheard of'. It's not normal to have to meditate until your stomach falls out or take dangerous amounts of semi-poisonous mushrooms in order to have an 'experience' that is, after all, only purported, and then reflected in subsequent anecdotes. These anecdotes might even be predictable, especially among woo-heads, but they're not normal until ingesting dangerous drugs and half-starving is considered normal.

Biologically normal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY0oGjYqhhw#t=6m26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bu3q3GMHfE#t=51m18s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKm_mnbN9JY#t=14m14s

Thomas Eshuis · **#903** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Dec 12, 2018 9:09 pm

Kafei wrote:
GrahamH wrote:Also this from the 2006 paper

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_r ... ocybin.pdf

The participants were hallucinogen naïve adults reporting regular participation in religious or spiritual activities.

The participants were recruited from the local community through flyers announcing a “study of states of consciousness brought about by a naturally occurring psychoactive substance used sacramentally in some cultures.”

All 36 volunteers indicated at least intermittent participation in religious or spiritual activities such as religious services, prayer, meditation, church choir, or educational or discussion groups, with 56% (20 volunteers) reporting daily activities and an additional 39% (14 volunteers) reporting at least monthly activities.

You're referencing the initial pilot study in which they did intentionally look for religious inclined people, but not because they were being biased, but rather because they felt that people who defined their lives in these religious frameworks are better apt to have faith or trust in whatever this experience presents to them. However, that was simply for the pilot study. All studies henceforth do not selectively look for people with a religious bent with the exception of the study done on the people in high clergy positions.

You really do not understand how rigorous science works. :roll:

Thomas Eshuis · **#904** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Dec 12, 2018 9:10 pm

Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:
Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:More highlights of yesteryear. Here's some of what the "professionals" doing the research actually have to say about the participants and validation of Perennialism.

https://news.softpedia.com/news/Q-A-Wit ... 9364.shtml

I don't now how you see this quote as a criticism.

It's not a criticism of him, he's behaving as a responsible scientist and stating clearly for the cranks and wooheads that the research does not confirm anything about metaphysics, God or ultimate reality.

You, on the other hand...

Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

Nevertheless the above is still counterfactual bullshit. :naughty:

Kafei · **#905** by **Kafei** » Dec 12, 2018 9:36 pm

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:
Kafei wrote:

I don't now how you see this quote as a criticism.

It's not a criticism of him, he's behaving as a responsible scientist and stating clearly for the cranks and wooheads that the research does not confirm anything about metaphysics, God or ultimate reality.

You, on the other hand...

Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

Nevertheless the above is still counterfactual bullshit.

Well, not to these researchers, simply to you because you've chosen to define it in such a way. I mean, so far you've met this with a kind of hyperskepticism and doubt. Also from speculating from a vantage point of not having this experience.

Thomas Eshuis · **#906** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Dec 12, 2018 10:12 pm

Kafei wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Kafei wrote:
He's also phrased it a bit differently in the papers he's published. He put it like this, "Once again, we are aware that it is not in the purview of science to prove or to disprove the reality of God."

Yet another failure to cite your sources.

http://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/trps-41-02-139.pdf

A citation requires a page numer Kafei. I am not going to do your work for you and trawl through the entire pdf to see if it this would be the first time a source of you actually states what you claim it states.
I'll also note that this paper is from a field and private club in psychology that is neither mainstream nor accepted as a science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology#Criticism,_skepticism_and_response

Relationship to science and scientific criteria
The field of Transpersonal psychology has also been criticized for lacking conceptual, evidentiary, and scientific rigor. In a review of criticisms of the field, Cunningham writes, "philosophers have criticized transpersonal psychology because its metaphysics is naive and epistemology is undeveloped. Multiplicity of definitions and lack of operationalization of many of its concepts has led to a conceptual confusion about the nature of transpersonal psychology itself (i.e., the concept is used differently by different theorists and means different things to different people). Biologists have criticized transpersonal psychology for its lack of attention to biological foundations of behavior and experience. Physicists have criticized transpersonal psychology for inappropriately accommodating physic concepts as explanations of consciousness."[140]

Others, such as Friedman,[57][58] has suggested that the field is underdeveloped as a field of science and that it has, consequently, not produced a good scientific understanding of transpersonal phenomena. In his proposal for a new division of labour within the transpersonal field he suggests a distinction between transpersonal studies, a broad category that might include non-scientific approaches, and transpersonal psychology, a more narrow discipline that should align itself more closely with the principles of scientific psychology. However, this criticism has been answered by Ferrer [141] who argues that Friedmans proposal attaches transpersonal psychology to a naturalistic metaphysical worldview that is unsuitable for the domain of spirituality.

Kafei has basically been referencing the AiG of psychology.

*Edit, for further elucidation:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

Thomas Eshuis · **#907** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Dec 12, 2018 10:14 pm

Kafei wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:
Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:

It's not a criticism of him, he's behaving as a responsible scientist and stating clearly for the cranks and wooheads that the research does not confirm anything about metaphysics, God or ultimate reality.

You, on the other hand...

Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

Don't say 'normal' if instead you mean 'not unheard of'. It's not normal to have to meditate until your stomach falls out or take dangerous amounts of semi-poisonous mushrooms in order to have an 'experience' that is, after all, only purported, and then reflected in subsequent anecdotes. These anecdotes might even be predictable, especially among woo-heads, but they're not normal until ingesting dangerous drugs and half-starving is considered normal.

Biologically normal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY0oGjYqhhw#t=6m26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bu3q3GMHfE#t=51m18s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKm_mnbN9JY#t=14m14s

1. Failure to cite scientific studies.
2. Failure to acknowledge refutations of the claim that it is biologically normal.
3. Mindless regurgitation of a PRATT.

Thomas Eshuis · **#908** by **Thomas Eshuis** » Dec 12, 2018 10:18 pm

Kafei wrote:
Thomas Eshuis wrote:
Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:

It's not a criticism of him, he's behaving as a responsible scientist and stating clearly for the cranks and wooheads that the research does not confirm anything about metaphysics, God or ultimate reality.

You, on the other hand...

Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

Nevertheless the above is still counterfactual bullshit.

Well, not to these researchers,

Completely irrelevant. I am responding to what YOU just posted and claimed.
The researchers do not draw the conclusions you draw, nor can they, because that's not what they investigated nor what the results demonstrated.
Your claims about the studies are complete misrepresentations and projections of your ideology. They are not one and the same as the actual science, no matter how hard you maintain, insist, believe, think etc, that they do.

Kafei wrote:simply to you because you've chosen to define it in such a way.

More projection. It's you who has consistently made shit up about the results of the studies and what they mean.
It's you who incessantly and baselessly accuses his interlocutors of all manner of nonsense to avoid dealing with criticisms.

Kafei wrote: I mean, so far you've met this with a kind of hyperskepticism and doubt.

Nope, just rational skepticism and a correct reading of the snippets of science you've posted so far.

Kafei wrote: Also from speculating from a vantage point of not having this experience.

The emperor is butt naked Kafei. :roll:

Thommo · **#909** by **Thommo** » Dec 13, 2018 5:30 am

Kafei wrote:Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

What does "biologically normal" mean? What does "humans are wired" mean?

Are heart attacks biologically normal, are we wired to have them? Are migraines biologically normal, are we wired to have them? How would we distinguish between something that is a bypdoduct or misfire of our normal biology and a product of it?

Regardless, as long as you agree with Griffiths that there are no metaphysical implications of the research about God, or ultimate reality, then we're done here. The research presents no challenge to atheists or theists. It merely suggests there are features common in many mystical experiences, and thus where there are historical reports of mystical-like experiences there is some reasonable probability they had some of the common features too.

Cito di Pense · **#910** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 13, 2018 8:25 am

Kafei wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:
Kafei wrote:
Thommo wrote:

It's not a criticism of him, he's behaving as a responsible scientist and stating clearly for the cranks and wooheads that the research does not confirm anything about metaphysics, God or ultimate reality.

You, on the other hand...

Nevertheless, this research has produced evidence which suggests that these experiences are biologically normal, that they have been happening perhaps for millennia à la the Perennial philosophy.

Don't say 'normal' if instead you mean 'not unheard of'. It's not normal to have to meditate until your stomach falls out or take dangerous amounts of semi-poisonous mushrooms in order to have an 'experience' that is, after all, only purported, and then reflected in subsequent anecdotes. These anecdotes might even be predictable, especially among woo-heads, but they're not normal until ingesting dangerous drugs and half-starving is considered normal.

Biologically normal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY0oGjYqhhw#t=6m26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bu3q3GMHfE#t=51m18s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKm_mnbN9JY#t=14m14s

Why are you linking me to videos of Roland Griffiths hooting about drug experiences and meditation to answer my question about what you reference by "biologically normal"? What if Griffiths is just giving us another sermon about how such behavior is not unheard of, or not unpredictable on a statistical basis? To get normal, you (and RG) have to have better statistics using volunteers selected without obvious bias. Do you have any conception of what response Griffiths would get if I accidentally fell into his sampling scheme, and he tried to prepare me for my upcoming mystical experience? I'd tell him to just fuck off. Don't you know what a normal distribution is? I can't use your colloquial definition of normal, thanks.

Thommo wrote:Are heart attacks biologically normal, are we wired to have them?

You know how it goes, Kafei. Heart attacks are not unheard of. They are not supernatural events. But heart attacks are not fucking normal; the fat part of the distribution does not have heart attacks. If it did, the hospitals would be overrun.

Your ignorance of statistics is showing, here, and it is a principal reason I don't take your protests about 'combative' responses very seriously, or regard you as anyone who is a trustworthy critic of any research. You use normal to denote not unheard of as a path to trying to justify your conviction that perennial philosophy reflects something universal. What you denote by normal is getting all mixed up with what you denote by universal.

Cito di Pense · **#911** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 13, 2018 8:43 am

Kafei wrote:Well, not to these researchers, simply to you because you've chosen to define it in such a way. I mean, so far you've met this with a kind of hyperskepticism and doubt. Also from speculating from a vantage point of not having this experience.

Are you going to keep trolling RatSkep with shit like this until somebody actually calls you an asshole? Is that what you're waiting for? I just want to know what you think your above remark is supposed to clarify.

The 'researchers' you cite have not been shown (by you) to have any credible results pertaining to the claims you are making about whether or not it's necessary to have such an experience in order to evaluate whether or not there's any valid research being done that supports your claims. You might not even be able to state what your claims are other than that you claim these people are doing scientific research. Enduring a drug experience is not necessary to critique the shit you're claiming.

Kafei wrote:Notice that many flies have dropped.

The shit you're claiming is pretty dried out at this point. Is the point you want to make here that only stupid people are going to keep confronting you? Just come right out and say it, and admit thal all you're doing is trolling.

You know where shit comes from, Kafei. It comes out of assholes.

GrahamH · **#912** by **GrahamH** » Dec 13, 2018 9:53 am

On "biological normal" this interview gives some context:

What our studies are showing is that such
experiences can be occasioned at relatively
high probability. In the most recent study that
we conducted, more than seventy percent of
our volunteers had complete mystical experiences
as measured by psychometric scales.
An important implication of demonstrating
that we can occasion these experiences with
high probability is that it suggests that such
experiences are biologically normal. Another
important implication is that it now becomes
possible, for the first time, to conduct rigorous
prospective research, investigating both the
antecedent causes as well as the consequences
of these kinds of experiences. With regard to
antecedent causes, it becomes possible to ask
what kind of personality, genetic, or disposition
characteristics increase the probability
of these experiences. We described some of
the consequences of the mystical experience
in our first study, and certainly they’ve been
well described in the broader literature on
religion, mysticism, and entheogens. These
involve shifts in attitudes and behavior, and
some cognitive functions that appear quite
positive.
https://maps.org/news-letters/v20n1/v20n1-22to25.pdf

The implication of "biologically normal" seems to be that he thinks that seventy percent of the population might have such experiences if given high doses of psilocybin. The research doesn't actually bear that out given how subjects for these trials are selected. They are not really representative of the entire population.

This isn't saying much. Doing something abnormal to normal humans is a fairly reliable way of eliciting unusual experiences. I can see it could work as a tagline if you were advertising psilocybin as an easy way to "mystical experience" in that you don't have to be a freak, it works for most people. Again, this has nothing do do with whether these experiences are of anything real.

Cito di Pense · **#913** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 13, 2018 11:37 am

GrahamH wrote:The implication of "biologically normal" seems to be that he thinks that seventy percent of the population might have such experiences if given high doses of psilocybin. The research doesn't actually bear that out given how subjects for these trials are selected. They are not really representative of the entire population.

This isn't saying much. Doing something abnormal to normal humans is a fairly reliable way of eliciting unusual experiences. I can see it could work as a tagline if you were advertising psilocybin as an easy way to "mystical experience" in that you don't have to be a freak, it works for most people. Again, this has nothing do do with whether these experiences are of anything real.

All you've managed here is to get sucked into Kafei's game-playing with 'normal'. That said, your first paragraph is OK by me.

First of all, Graham, anyone capable of a little introspection has some knowledge that reports of mystical experience are anecdotes presenting language that can be copied, That introspection might think twice about describing the effects in terms of 'mystical experience'. The anecdotes have to be interpreted in some context or other. So the subject with a little capacity for introspection will admit the drug induced state was different from the state one is in after eating a steak, and need not say more.

What kind of people don't have much control over the anecdotes they tell about their experiences, unless they're under the fucking influence? Some people might be disinclined to say much of anything.

What have you said, here? You said the subjects may not be representative of a general population, but all that means is that the subjects might be inclined to render anecdotes about being on drugs in some subset of terms. Even asking if the drug experience corresponds to 'anything real' is far too ambiguous. We know what you mean by 'real', but that's a flaw in terminology. "Real" just does not correspond in this context, because all it implies is "not on drugs".

Is one's condition after eating a beefsteak 'normal', or is it just not different enough to be called other than 'normal'? You always have to identify what your basis of comparison is, and you can't do that. Therefore, your remark is wibble.

Who knows if 70 percent are going to have some particular 'experience'? First of all, there's no way to create a sample. Secondly, all we can do is compare anecdotes following drugged states. We are obviously not going to consider the output from people who can be presumed not to have metabolized all the toxins, which is something that could be assessed with blood toxicaology, something you might note if you were scientifically trained.

GrahamH · **#914** by **GrahamH** » Dec 13, 2018 12:03 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
What have you said, here?

Only that Griffiths isn't saying much at all. Kafei goes on about "biologically normal" as if it meant something important, but even Griffiths' strongest claim for it, which is not supported by his evidence, that "70%" have CME from high doses of perception distorting drugs, is irrelevant to someone claiming that CME has anything to do with "seeing God".

GrahamH · **#915** by **GrahamH** » Dec 13, 2018 12:14 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:Is one's condition after eating a beefsteak 'normal', or is it just not different enough to be called other than 'normal'? You always have to identify what your basis of comparison is, and you can't do that. Therefore, your remark is wibble.

I have no problem with collecting peoples' anecdotes of eating beefsteak and quantifying the prevalence of some arbitrary common features. This is basically what Griffiths has done. I could takie some arbitrary adjectives for a questionnaire and report that eating beefsteak gives most people:
a feeling of "fullness"
a meaty taste
something on a scale from tough to tender bite

then I could say that some percentage on my sample are likely to report some set of experiences if they eat beefsteak.
If I went on to say that this set of popular beefsteak anecdotes were "biologically normal" I wouldn't be saying much at all, but it would be comparable with what Griffith said.

Cito di Pense · **#916** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 13, 2018 12:18 pm

GrahamH wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:
What have you said, here?

Only that Griffiths isn't saying much at all. Kafei goes on about "biologically normal" as if it meant something important, but even Griffiths' strongest claim for it, which is not supported by his evidence, that "70%" have CME from high doses of perception distorting drugs, is irrelevant to someone claiming that CME has anything to do with "seeing God".

Well that's fine, Graham. I don't know what 'seeing God' could possibly refer to. Worse yet, neither do you. So what do you conclude when someone else talks about 'seeing God'? You conclude you don't know what he's talking about. What do perception-distorting drugs do? They distort perception. This comes directly from the Department of Tautology Department.

GrahamH wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:Is one's condition after eating a beefsteak 'normal', or is it just not different enough to be called other than 'normal'? You always have to identify what your basis of comparison is, and you can't do that. Therefore, your remark is wibble.

I have no problem with collecting peoples' anecdotes of eating beefsteak and quantifying the prevalence of some arbitrary common features.

Well, I do. What you have after you do so is a collection of anecdotes, and no good reason for having collected them. Maybe you wanted to get funding for a follow-on proposal, about anecdotes people tell after watching Loony Toons.

GrahamH wrote:it would be comparable with what Griffith said.

That depends on whether or not you recognize you need a metric for 'comparable'. I know this is just a fuck-off internet forum, but really. What you mean is that it would be 'analogous', but then we're deep into the literature of analogy.

What kind of shit is this, where we actually have to try to figure out what Kafei thinks he's saying? If hundreds of posts from Kafei have not convinced you that he's not very focused, then nothing will.

Cito di Pense · **#917** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 13, 2018 12:29 pm

GrahamH wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:
What have you said, here?

Only that Griffiths isn't saying much at all.

Stop the presses. This could be big. Really big.

Taking drugs is optional. It could be that searching for mystical experience is not optional for some people. But that is only about something they want or need. I use the latter term loosely.

Some people treat "there isn't any mystical experience" in the same way they treat "there isn't any God".

Don't you understand the common thread, here? What is there to take seriously?

GrahamH · **#918** by **GrahamH** » Dec 13, 2018 12:36 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:If hundreds of posts from Kafei have not convinced you that he's not very focused, then nothing will.

Oh no, I'm convinced of that

Cito di Pense · **#919** by **Cito di Pense** » Dec 13, 2018 12:40 pm

GrahamH wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:If hundreds of posts from Kafei have not convinced you that he's not very focused, then nothing will.

Oh no, I'm convinced of that

Then any bit of it you take seriously has nothing to do with anything Kafei has written. This is how my remarks relate about the difference between ingesting steak and ingesting psilocybin. They're both just stuff, possibly with toxins that mess up your neurotransmission or augment it beyond a useful level. Only someone who believes there's something to harness here would be further interested, and would only want to do that because something good might come of it. Good?

GrahamH · **#920** by **GrahamH** » Dec 13, 2018 12:54 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:
GrahamH wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:If hundreds of posts from Kafei have not convinced you that he's not very focused, then nothing will.

Oh no, I'm convinced of that

Then any bit of it you take seriously has nothing to do with anything Kafei has written. This is how my remarks relate about the difference between ingesting steak and ingesting psilocybin. They're both just stuff, possibly with toxins that mess up your neurotransmission or augment it beyond a useful level. Only someone who believes there's something to harness here would be further interested, and would only want to do that because something good might come of it. Good?

Kafei is not very focused so others here have tried to provide some focus, citing papers, facts and figures or context that kafei has failed to do. It's a futile diversion and it only further exposes the vacuity of kafei's 'arguments' but it does have something to do with what kafei has written. If you stated that we were all wasting our time doing that I'd agree.

"I am you" nonsense

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