Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline

From: The Avantguardian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:31:18 -0800 (PST)

My views are not popular on this list but I agree
with you Kevin. Religion is not going away. We have to
use religion for our ends or it will be used against
us by our enemies.

The Avantguardian 

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

		
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From: Dirk Bruere <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 03:17:56 +0000

Joseph Bloch wrote:

>
> You say you "meet the gods" (which you already admit have no 
> independent existence, being mere psychological archetypes). I say you 
> experienced some interesting brain chemistry, resulting from a few 
> hundred thousand years of evolution that made such experiences a 
> survival trait. The fact that you interpreted those perfectly natural 
> impulses as "meeting the gods" is irrelevant to their actual nature. 
> You're watching the shadows on the wall, but not bothering to see the 
> light behind you. The fact that such experiences are all culturally 
> specific should tell you the origin is organic, not metaphysical.
>
The gestalt formed during a Ouija game is an emergent phenomenon arising 
from the group interaction and can certainly pass the Turing Test.
Gods ditto.
Of course, I could have been hallucinating when I thought I saw the 
planchette spelling stuff out...

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org

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From: Joseph Bloch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:51:22 -0500

Dirk Bruere wrote:

> The gestalt formed during a Ouija game is an emergent phenomenon 
> arising from the group interaction and can certainly pass the Turing 
> Test.
> Gods ditto.

More likely, you (or someone you were playing with) was moving the 
planchette, consciously or unconsciously.

Your subconscious does not an "emergent phenomenon" deity make.

Joseph

Enhance your body "beyond well" and your mind "beyond normal":
http://www.humanenhancement.com

New Jersey Transhumanist Association:
http://www.goldenfuture.net/njta
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From: Dirk Bruere <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:59:58 +0000

> planchette, consciously or unconsciously.
*OF COURSE IT GETS MOVED UNCONSCIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* - 
that's the whole point.
It's called the ideomotor response.
And how likely is it that in *every* game of Ouija ever played someone 
was *always* cheating?

> Your subconscious does not an "emergent phenomenon" deity make.
Mine doesn't - on its own.
But it does when many are involved in a cooperative enterprise.

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-

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From: Emlyn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:39:04 +1030

> But it does when many are involved in a cooperative enterprise.

This is starting to become more interesting, Dirk. I think the
religious rhetoric that you usually use, with the caveats of it being
metaphor, have made it hard to grasp what you are saying. The above,
however, seems to be a very straightforward statement about a belief
that groups of minds (literally) create epiphenomenal consciousnesses
which can then be physicially interacted with, via media such as
Ouija. Care to expound on it a little more? Also, if Damien is out
there reading this, does any of your research into psi phenomenon
overlap with this contention of Dirk's?

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *

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From: Dirk Bruere <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:11:48 +0000

>overlap with this contention of Dirk's?
OK - at the risk of 'going over the limit' for posts... but I'll be 
off-list for several days next week so I'm 'borrowing a bit' on my quota...

The overlap is explored in an essay on my site which refers to an 
experiment carried out 30yrs ago.
http://www.neopax.com/asatru/pk/index.html

I'm currently in the process of writing a far more detailed analysis and 
exposition of such group epiphenomena but that will not be completed for 
some time.

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-

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From: Damien Broderick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:58:52 -0600

At 10:39 AM 3/18/2005 +1030, Emlyn wrote:

>This is starting to become more interesting, Dirk... seems to be a very
>straightforward statement about a belief

Certainly some anomalies researchers would say so, at least in very broad 
terms. See for example:

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

Then there's the classic invocation, by a group led by Kenneth Batcheldor, 
of an invented `ghost'. Have a Google.

Are such effects real and significant? I dunno. There's plenty more in Dr. 
Dean Radin's forthcoming book ENTANGLED MINDS.

Damien Broderick

Kenneth Batcheldor
  of an invented ghost,