rationalskepticism.org

tolman wrote:
If 'enlightenment' is taken to mean something else, the meaning of the statement changes.
If someone sees 'enlightenment' as covering either the temporary state of feeling at one with everything or the (real or imagined) more lasting effects of having felt such feelings, then they are justified in seeing 'enlightenment' as something that they could get.

Well, Ramesh makes a distinction between enlightenment and the experience of which he calls "free samples from God." Enlightenment is what is gained from this "free sample," the lasting insight that effects the person for the rest of their life. That's his take, of course, but some people do refer to this temporary experience of "samadhi" or "sunyata" as the Enlightenment.

tolman wrote:That would seem to be the case whether we're talking about some Eastern Mysticism or about one or other form of Christianity, or about something more secular. A Christian, for example, may see some form of 'annihilation of self' through prayer and meditation as an end in itself, or may see it as a means to an end, with the goal being having a different perspective on reality (or a different perspective available) when they do feel a sense of self.

Yes, I agree. I don't believe mysticism is exclusive to eastern religion, it seems to be prevalent in all the major religions, and Christianity is no exception. Perhaps you're familiar with quietism. It's a form of meditative prayer that is quite akin to Zen meditation in Buddhism.

tolman wrote:
Well, maybe more like the way an orchestra produces music.

Well, did you catch the post where I mention Kaku's analogy of the orchestra?

tolman wrote:
If the mind is a 'receiver', it's an extraordinarily strange one, given how it malfunctions when temporarily compromised or permanently damaged. It'd be like having a television with specific circuitry required to pick up ultra-specific bits of a transmission, so just as tinkering with a brain can affect recall of specific events, the 'television' would have to be possible to tinker with so it refused to pass on transmissions regarding Aunt Flo's wedding 30 years ago while letting everything else through.

Well, in an earlier explanation, I say that these things are intertwined. The signal it receives it in direct correlation with the physical brain. So, I don't see these instances of brain damage as "weird." They're interconnected in such a way that a compromised brain would be correct to malfunction in the way that it does just as a damaged TV might botch a signal.

tolman wrote:'Mind-as-receiver' seems to be a convenient technological metaphor for people who wish to believe in a soul or suchlike, but I have yet to see anyone really try to explain how someone with dementia gets 'soul damage' to match their brain damage.

Well, people often imagine "souls" to be an individual thing, like everyone has one. In this case, if you're going to posit a soul, then the "signal" is the one and only soul that everyone taps into from different angles, so to speak.

tolman wrote:
Well, that was essentially meant to convey that things which happened were happening on some internal screen, not projected out and mingled up with an optically observed reality.

Well, as in the TV set analogy I gave earlier, this internal screen is projecting every single RGB output or every possibility in order to give the impression of a panesthesia. So, that's why I differentiate it from the dream. The dream seems like it outputs a single scenario whereas this so-called "mystical experience" seems as though it outputs the entire spectrum of scenarios, and in fact, where the single scenario of the dream may have drawn from in order to manifest in the first place.

tolman wrote:How do I know that I don't have regular disembodied dreams but with such dreams being naturally hard to meaningfully remember?
Possibly hard to remember because language is quite tied up with memory and such dreams are not easily describable.

That may be the case, it's often said of this experience like it's gold dust running through your fingers, and before you know it. It's gone! I mean, it's so hard to recollect or even bring anything back quite similar to how it's difficult to sometimes recall the dream, the "one scenario" or a piece of that scenario.

tolman wrote:
That's certainly interesting, not least because among other things it's not a million miles away from how many people relate to cannabis, or even sometimes to alcohol.

Oh, definitely. I would not compare psychedelics to alcohol or cannabis at all.

tolman wrote:I'm not saying that such experiences don't happen, simply that claiming they have some external meaning or connection simply because the experience involves a feeling of connection is going beyond the evidence, however strong that feeling is.

I don't think it's necessarily without evidence. I linked in an earlier post to a page on neurotheology. This is basically an effort to describe these phenomena in neuroscientific terms. It references the work of Dr. Rick Strassman who speculates in his book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" that these experiences may be mediated by a natural induction of N,N-DMT.

tolman wrote:If I have a dream that I'm riding a racing motorbike, I can have vision, smell, motion, noise, the lot, and it can be entirely convincing to an extent that might scare me if I wake up. However, intensity notwithstanding, it isn't real in any external sense, 'just' an internal, personal one. Similarly, if I get in a mental state where I feel I can see the whole planet or galaxy and experience the real meaning of Deep Time, however personally meaningful that may be to me, it is 'just' personal. (and 'just' there isn't intended as diminishing or denying the experience, but simply in not claiming it is more than it is.)

Well, by saying it isn't "out there" in an external sense I believe is missing the point. This type of hallucinatory activity within this experience isn't a projection of perceived entities as in a leprechaun or unicorn or something like that. It seems to be a kind of glimpse into an 'end state' of consciousness or perhaps a future state. This seems to be the impression. If you haven't read that TV set analogy, that's basically my best metaphor so far. I've others, but if that one isn't understood, I'll try and find another way to describe it. However, the point being that this colossal altered state has over millennia been interpreted as God, Brahman, the Beatific vision, nirvana, samadhi, Cosmic consciousness, ego death, etc. Perhaps the modern version is M-theory's "11-dimensional hyperspace." This view is referred to as "Perennial Philosophy." Alan Watts discusses it a bit more articulately than myself, and I'll link to his talk on it.

tolman wrote:
And as for a phenomenon requiring a 'heroic dose', that suggests it's an all-or-nothing thing, even maybe implying there is nothing to be gained by people not quite getting stoned enough.
While a complete loss of self may be an ideal, possibly as you say it's not an ideal someone can reach while being aware of what was happening.
In such a case, it's not clear that an 'incomplete yet maximal loss of self' is the only worthwhile experience and anything less is inadequate.
Indeed, it could be that a less extreme experience may be as good, if not better for a given individual if the lower intensity allows more of the experience to be somewhat understood and/or self-described at the time and to be more memorable later.

Well, yes, a full-spectrum dose is necessary to elicit this phenomenon. So, the hitting the marker makes all the difference between "sunyata" and "try again, Sam."