From: Ian Goddard (igoddard@erols.com)
Date: Thu Nov 27 1997 - 20:25:32 MST
At 01:09 PM 11/27/97 Tony Hollick wrote:
>> l.a. times, October 29, 1997
>> Study Suggests Brain May Affect Religious Response
>> From a Times Staff Writer
>>
>> New Oreleans- No one knows why humanity felt its first religious
>> stirrings, but researchers at UC San Diego reported Tuesday that the
>> human brain may be hard-wired to hear the voice of heaven, in what
>> researchers said was the first effort to directly address the neural
>> basis of religious expression.
>>
>> In a provocative experiment with patients suffering from an unusual form
>> of epilepsy, researcher determined that parts of the brain's temporal
>> lobe - which the scientists quickly dubbed the "God module"- may affect
>> how intensely a person responds to religious beliefs.
>>
>> They emphasized that their findings do not suggest religion is simply a
>> matter of brain chemistry. "These studies do not in any way negate the
>> validity of religious experience or God," the team cautioned.
IAN: I believe that the mystical experience -- the perceptual
identification with infinite being -- is a product of a neuro-
logical condition, and thus initiating that neurological con-
diton would faithfully initiate the mystical experience.
But it does not follow therefore that the mystical experience
is false; which is to say, if the experience of infinite being
is derived from neurological conditions, it does not necessarily
mean that there is not an infinite being to which we are unified,
which remains hidden under normal neurological conditions.
All states of mind resulting in various conclusions about the
nature of reality are the product of various neurological con-
ditions. If X is false simply because it's a neurological con-
dition, then all conclusions about reality, being the result
of neurological conditions, must also be false.
WHICH PERCEPTION IS MOST TRUE?
It stands to reason that some neurological conditions and the
conclusions about reality derived therefrom are more accurate
than others. How do we determine which conclusions are more
accurate? We could choose to believe whichever we like most,
but the most reasonable measure would be that X is most accurate,
or true, where X adheres most consistently with physical facts
that all or most perceptual beings can mutually experience,
even under different neurological conditions.
Most logical positivists would agree with that standard, and
most would therefore assume that it would push the mystical
experience out of contention for any degree of accuracy, much
less that of being "most accurate." I believe that that assup-
tion is, however, false and that I have proven it to be false.
The mystical experience states, as it were, that "I am all
things, all space, and all time," the experience of which is
said to be union with God, or "yoga." How could this be true?
The relational nature of identity: A thing, A, is A only as
derived from the relation of A and not-A. The identity of
A IS this relation and this relation is not in either A or
not-A, the relation is nonlocal; therefore, ispo facto:
I am all things, all space, and all time.
http://www.erols.com/igoddard/holistic.htm
The mystical experience is a cleansing of the doors of
perception, as Huxley put it. As the source of less-than-
the-full-truth -- of the perception that I am limited --
is the brain, it follows logically that the remedy to
this illusion would also arise from the brain, and
specifically from the cessation of its normal function.
AN ANALOGY
If a radio is so loud you cannot hear anything except it,
to hear the reality beyond the radio requires modulation
of the radio. But it does not follow that the auditory
reality beyond the radio discovered after modulating the
radio comes from the radio simply because it is discovered
by modulation of the radio. So too, simply because the
"mystical reality" is discovered after modulating the
brain, it does not follow that it comes from the brain,
i.e., that it is a reality isolated to the brain.
Think of the brain as the radio: the normal neurological
traffic, or noise, is so loud it drowns out the reality
beyond it. Neurological modulation causing the mystical
experience to arise, typically prolonged mediation, I
believe, turns down the "brain noise," thereby allowing
the perception of the reality beyond the brain noise.
No wonder that that experience is associated with the
cessation of mental dialog, or noise. It is an experience
beyond all play words, and as such is, I believe, the
real and true experience: being is eternal and free.
****************************************************************
VISIT Ian Williams Goddard ----> http://www.erols.com/igoddard
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