From: Patrick Mullaghy (pmulaghy@indigo.ie)
Date: Tue Oct 20 1998 - 00:57:04 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Badger <wbadger@psyberlink.net>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 19 October 1998 23:23
Subject: Re: Mind control 1965
>[snip]
>
>>In the first type of case, it seems clear that the brain has developed
this
>>type of recognitional/experiential capacity to deal with something beyond
>>itself. Why shouldn't the same be true of the second type of
>>recognitional/experiential capacity? Why would the brain have evolved a
>>recognitional capacity for something that doesn't actually occur?
>
>
>Naysayers suggest that the brain developed this capacity to disassociate
>as an escape from things like imminent physical death. I know about the
>Pediatrician studying children's NDEs who has suggested that there is a
>place in the brain (in the Sylvian fissure of the right temporal lobe) that
>is
>triggered during times of tremendous physical stress or at the moment of
>death. He alludes to this bundle of neurons as being our link to the
>spiritual
>world. (sigh) It seems a bit more parsimonious to assume that intense
>levels of anxiety simply trigger dissociative phenomena. It; probably just
>an extension of the flight response.
Seems a bit elaborate as a flight response. Wouldn't fainting be simpler?
In any case, I'm not hung up on OBE's per se. It's just that I've gotten a
bit suspicious of the practice of explaining much of the standard range of
paranormal phenomena as products of the unconscious mind. If I say that
there's a tree outside my window, no one - except perhaps a Berkeleian
philosopher - would say 'That's just a product of your conscious mind.' Why
shouldn't the unconscious mind be just as much of an experiencing instrument
as the conscious mind is acknowledged to be? In some ways this is the more
parsimonious assumption. Put the 'P' back in ESP?
Patrick M.
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