'Ghost in the Machine' Theory of the Mind and Free Will

[Technosoul]

Quote by: rez lets take a look. You assume there is a soul compare it to light. Never tell us what this light does or contains and then you come out and say it is projected into the sky and seen as a shinny disk. A soul looks like a alien space ship... Boom and there is your evidence for a soul...... Are you serious dude? Basically nothing. Basically where does this come from? What reasons do you have to support the conclusion that "the soul is projecting into the future" Supplying conclusions without reasons is simply wrong. it is wrong in every way possible. Please stop it. Who do you take us for? Do you go and live your life making conclusions without reasons? DO you?

You Cherry picked from my posting. None of those idea were my ideas.

I was talking about a book written by Carl Jung called Flying Saucers.

And I was passing on what was written in that book, which I read.

I provided a link to that book.

But the text was in my own words... so I will answer questions and not dodge them.

Read this and you will know the resource behind my comments.

Psychological projection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shadow (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope that will answer your basic question.

[Technosoul]

Quote by: rez This paragraph is equivalent to trying to solve a math problem. You start doing it right by crossing off the right numbers and subtracting, but then you stop. You get stumped, and then start trying to solve the math problem in a way that is wrong. Primitive people were confronted by a lot of unexplainable things. Things such as what the sun was, what stars were, how plants grew, how babies were born, how fire was made. These peoples minds were not programmed to fully critically think about these things. They were programmed to hunt, gather, and breed. As time went on and as their problem solving skills increased, they learned from the past. They knew that slamming a rock against another rock could break the one rock and make it sharper, they knew that heavy fur could make them warmer. They learned that water and soil can make a crop grow, but they didn't know how to make it rain and didn't know what rain was. What do you do when you don't know something? You make shit up...what shit did they make up? Ghosts, demons, and gods. These primitive people never saw spirits, they saw nature like we do today. It is like you skipped a whole step of logic. Don't you see? The things they could actually explain was explained with nature, but the things they couldn't explain was explained by the supernatural. They didn't come up with a rock cutting god and pray to the rock cutting god to cut their rocks to make a spear. They cut it themselves. However, they did come up with a rain god, because they had no clue how it rained and when it would and why it would. They couldn't make it rain, it was out of their hands. So why not put it in the hands of someone else. Why not say a few words and hope it would rain? Whats the harm? And when it did rain after those "Magical" words it spooked them. and then all of a sudden it was like the magical words worked! People know how it rains today, and infact we can predict when it will rain. We know how clouds form and why they do, we know it is a completely natural occurrence. We know that 8 out of 10 times it would not rain because we casted a "spell" or "prayed". We developed statistics and learned about probabilities. Too bad caveman couldn't have put satallietes in space and program a television to connect to it, because it sure would of put to rest these really really really really stupid claims...

First of all allow me to remind you that this is not the fact-based science forum, this is a forum for and about religion and philosophy.

And so a scientist walks around looking at the Big Bang? Or does he make up an explaination via physics?

How do you know how a primitive man would see and think? What primitive tribe did you study or interview? Terrence McKenna on the other hand made a number of trips deep into the Amazon forests, lived with some of the most primitive tribes left on earth, interviewed them, observed their life style, took part in their rituals, and then wrote and gave lectures about them. I have listened to those lectures and read the books. In addition I have read much about the Native Americans. Such as Black Elk Speaks.

Black Elk Speaks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By the way, they do not pray to spirits. They view all spirits as being equal, more like a brotherhood.

I also speak from personal experience.

Making stuff up would have been an unwise thing to do in such primitive cultures. A phoney would be killed or excomunicated from the tribe, kicked out and never allowed to return. If someone said that they can make it rain, they better make it rain as claimed, or else.

I can recall when Rolling Thunder was going to come to L.A for a radio interview program, on the phone they asked him "will you make it rain when you come here". He said "you have a lot of smog in L.A. and so I might make it rain, because my eyes are sensitive to smog". A few weeks later he arrived and got of of his jeep, guess what. A light rain, not predicted by any local weatherman was happening. The odd thing is the rain cloud was a small one and so it only rained within a few blocks of where the interview took place. That was most amazing in my opinion.

Here is a link about Rolling Thunder, a Native American. (who also attended a university to become a certified doctor).

Rolling Thunder: Rolling Thunder Videos from Thinking Allowed

Now a rain dance is not about casting a spell or about praying to the great spirit, (it is what can be called a manifestation ) it is about communicating to energy forces with our energy to more or less draw them to gather in a location rain is needed. Sorry I cannot give away much details because it is not really a good idea to direct such things. Best to allow nature to follow it's own natural pathway. Especially when it comes to weather. I found that out he hard way.

On the other hand it is common for modern man to look down their nose at more primitive people and to view them with some stereotype, that they were of low I.Q. and caught up in stupid fantacy. I cannot object to you likewise doing that. Some things were made up in storytelling, no doubt about that.

Let's say some primitives live in an area near wild dogs, one day they fed the dogs and found out that the dogs would become friendly, they no longer had to fear dogs as much, and once domesticated the dogs would obey them and even help them out in many tasks, including the act of protecting them.

The same "feeding experiment" worked on other animals as well. Now they might have had a fear of some natural event, like a volcano erupting. So they might think "give the dog a bone and you have a friend for life". And so they would bring that mountain gifts, and sacrifice things to that fire mountain. In hopes of domesticating the mountain the same as they did the wild dogs. Now, as far as I know it did not work on the volcano mountain, but they might have thought so if the mountain for some reason stopped erupting for a long time. So the ritual continued for many generations until we get to the Jewish people offering a burnt offering to their God. (whom they feared and wanted to domesticate). The primitive ritual of giving a bone to a dog became giving a donation to God via the Temple. Later adjusted to giving a government taxes or lobby bribes, in hopes of domesticating something we have reason to fear - big government.

That would be a very logical theroy based on a progressive momentum. As a original idea that worked shifted through many alterations over generations which over time resulted in the IRS. I call this "concept construction and concept evolution". And I also very much favor such logical explanations. So keep them coming.

[Technosoul]

Now Pinker is more of a nuts and bolts person, and McKenna (and others mentioned) view the topic more through the eyes of metaphysical intellectualism.

The human construct is composed of both those metaphysical as well as the physical aspects of a shared reality of cross-dimensional exsistances. You cannot comprehend the felt experience of eating the pudding just by reading a cookbook to find out what all was put into the making of that pudding.