The Shortest Thread EVER!

[carbon dioxide]

1 hour ago, MorningStar said:

Are our visions meant for just us or for other people to hear? I have a couple I have shared with close friends when I felt like they needed to hear it, but I wouldn't share them just to try to prove to others that there is a God or that the church is true because those who don't want to hear won't hear and would most likely call it a hallucination. Those experiences were meant to help me during my worst trials. 

Its pretty much impossible to prove a vision to a skeptic.  I love those people who dismiss near death experiences with the suggestion that there is no proof.  What proof would they expect?  Those who are having it somehow are able to take their iPhone along with them and take a selfie?  In almost all these cases the experience whether visions or other things is for the benefit of the individual having them. 

[Maidservant]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Clark Goble , who hangs out here as well, was kind enough to ask me to post on Times and Seasons this little article that seems relevant.

What is the difference between a vision and a hallucination and seeing anything "real"?

There is a neuroscientist mentioned in the article who says we "hallucinate reality" !

We do not see what is "real" if what is "real" is what physicists say reality is- quarks and subatomic particles, but what we actually see are light waves bouncing off of---- what?  Compounds and elements?  What IS reality and why do we see what we see as "real"?

https://www.timesandseasons.org/harchive/2017/08/guest-post-justifying-visions/index.html

 

The word I use is RENDER.  The human body (the body-mind, mind-body) RENDERS signals received according to the capacity and programming they already have.  (A fly body renders signal differently than a dog body than a human body, etc; also programming that nuances capacity varies from human to human).  That rendering is highly--scratch that--EXCLUSIVELY personal and NO ONE shares your world, NO ONE.  You have ONLY your own rendering.  You aren't 'seeing' objects or 'hearing' sounds, you are rendering signal/info bits into a landscape that is already mixed/virtual/tardis reality.  'Seeing' and 'hearing' is not OUT THERE, it is 'IN HERE' in the neurons etc (not only the brain, but that's a big part of it).

The signal/info bits do not tell you what it is . . . YOU tell the data/signal what IT is by your rendering capacity and choices i.e. programming.  Traditional rendering choices are infected from person to person in a family and society (transmitted, passed down), so that's why it seems many of us share things, but if you talk with random people, you'll figure out that there is actually very little sharing.  Everyone is on different paradigms, beliefs, stories, definitions, focuses, significances.  For some people there's not even certain colors, etc, and some people 'see' sounds etc.  Some people 'see' dead people (they're not dead, they are just unseeable in some capacities--and apparently well and easily seeable in other capacities).

 

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As for what that means for Joseph Smith's experience, for me there are two choices.  Either there was an experiential component for him on some level; or he just sat down and made up a big con.  I find the latter zero compelling or probable for a variety of reasons.  What his experience was and what it meant to him, he has shared with us.  We can take or not.  I honestly don't think a whole lot about Joseph Smith's engagement with GOD in the form it came to him; I'm all about figuring out mine.

 

[Tacenda]

2 minutes ago, Maidservant said:

 

As for what that means for Joseph Smith's experience, for me there are two choices.  Either there was an experiential component for him on some level; or he just sat down and made up a big con.  I find the latter zero compelling or probable for a variety of reasons.  What his experience was and what it meant to him, he has shared with us.  We can take or not.  I honestly don't think a whole lot about Joseph Smith's engagement with GOD in the form it came to him; I'm all about figuring out mine.

 

I think it could have been magic mushrooms, or datura. People in his day used these for spiritual experiences with God. So neither conman or real, possibly. http://www.mormonthink.com/files/restoration-sacred-mushroom.pdf

[rodheadlee]

18 hours ago, Metis_LDS said:

I ask for forgiveness in advance.  I am more interested in the reaction really.  If you have seen what I have written some times you will know I do not hold back about experiences.   I state most correctly and honestly that I have never seen with my eyes or otherwise anything related to the Lord or the Lord himself                                                                                                                                  SO is talking about visions socially unacceptable.  If someone says well I feel it is sacred or the Spirit tells me not to speak about it, I accept that.  Otherwise why hold back???

It's interesting  that you started this thread. The Satan in the temple thread reminded me of a vision I had while living in the shadow of a temple. I was going to share it but then I remembered I was mocked by my friends when I shared it with them. They were not members of the church but they were close friends and still are. So I decided to keep my mouth shut.

Edited May 26, 2019 by rodheadlee

[Tacenda]

13 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

It's interesting  that you started this thread. The Satan in the temple thread reminded me of a vision I had while living in the shadow of a temple. I was going to share it but then I remembered I was mocked by my friends when I shared it with them. They were not members of the church but they were close friends and still are. So I decided to keep my mouth shut.

I'm always envious of people that have these experiences. I've never had anything. I keep thinking the heavens are closed to me. And I must not fully believe anything is out there, and maybe if I did, I might get something. My niece has told me and others that we mortals need to speak out loudly to Spirit and bring them to us sometimes. They are busy up there, lol. She said there are signs everywhere we just need to pay attention and not discount them. 

So your friends might like to hear that story now, I think people are more open to it the older they/we get. I love watching NDE's and watching readings, but try to avoid things that appear to be fake. 

[Maidservant]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

I think it could have been magic mushrooms, or datura. People in his day used these for spiritual experiences with God. So neither conman or real, possibly. http://www.mormonthink.com/files/restoration-sacred-mushroom.pdf

I actually had heard that theory, it's quite interesting.  Although for me, I wouldn't say that 'mushroom experiences' weren't real.  But I see what you mean.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Haven't watched this, if it's saying what I think it is, then what about JS's vision, does he still get a pass?

Not sure what you mean.

[Tacenda]

19 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Not sure what you mean.

Just that what this guy is saying appears to me to be that we hallucinate rather than see something real and tangible. Yet everyone feels JS saw the real thing or actual personages. Not a hallucination.

 

 

19 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

 

 

[mfbukowski]

8 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Just that what this guy is saying appears to me to be that we hallucinate rather than see something real and tangible. Yet everyone feels JS saw the real thing or actual personages. Not a hallucination.

 

 

 

Just watch the video.  The whole point is the relationship between hallucinations and "reality" and how it can be hard to define one from the other.  Why not watch it??  Why speculate what it says?  Just watch the dang thing! 

 

[mfbukowski]

48 minutes ago, Maidservant said:

I actually had heard that theory, it's quite interesting.  Although for me, I wouldn't say that 'mushroom experiences' weren't real.  But I see what you mean.

They are certainly "real experiences" just like pain from an amputated limb is "real pain"!  Dreams are real experiences and can change our lives!  So what's the difference? 

 

[Metis_LDS]

Yeah thanks everyone I am enjoying the response to the thread.  We have looked at different aspects of seeing.  Just to concentrate on visions for a moment it would seem that a major dividing line is visions that are self apparent and those that like in the scriptures need an interpretation.  Also are visions recorded in heaven?  Nephi had the same vision as his father.  There are other examples of the same vision being given out.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Metis_LDS
grammar

[Tacenda]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Just watch the video.  The whole point is the relationship between hallucinations and "reality" and how it can be hard to define one from the other.  Why not watch it??  Why speculate what it says?  Just watch the dang thing! 

 

I did, before I answered you a second time.

[The Nehor]

On 5/25/2019 at 8:18 AM, rpn said:

My guess is that when it first happens, people aren't sure if they're crazy and don't want to tell anyone who might think they are?

I generally ignore experiences from those prone to exaggeration and hyperbole and those who are mentally unbalanced. They could be true but I feel no obligation to believe it. From those who are “sober” for lack of a better word I almost always accept. There is scriptural warrant that these things come to those of “firm mind”. Revelations and visions do not generally come to the hysterical or deranged.

[Metis_LDS]

13 hours ago, Maidservant said:

The word I use is RENDER.  The human body (the body-mind, mind-body) RENDERS signals received according to the capacity and programming they already have.  (A fly body renders signal differently than a dog body than a human body, etc; also programming that nuances capacity varies from human to human).  That rendering is highly--scratch that--EXCLUSIVELY personal and NO ONE shares your world, NO ONE.  You have ONLY your own rendering.  You aren't 'seeing' objects or 'hearing' sounds, you are rendering signal/info bits into a landscape that is already mixed/virtual/tardis reality.  'Seeing' and 'hearing' is not OUT THERE, it is 'IN HERE' in the neurons etc (not only the brain, but that's a big part of it).

The signal/info bits do not tell you what it is . . . YOU tell the data/signal what IT is by your rendering capacity and choices i.e. programming.  Traditional rendering choices are infected from person to person in a family and society (transmitted, passed down), so that's why it seems many of us share things, but if you talk with random people, you'll figure out that there is actually very little sharing.  Everyone is on different paradigms, beliefs, stories, definitions, focuses, significances.  For some people there's not even certain colors, etc, and some people 'see' sounds etc.  Some people 'see' dead people (they're not dead, they are just unseeable in some capacities--and apparently well and easily seeable in other capacities).

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As for what that means for Joseph Smith's experience, for me there are two choices.  Either there was an experiential component for him on some level; or he just sat down and made up a big con.  I find the latter zero compelling or probable for a variety of reasons.  What his experience was and what it meant to him, he has shared with us.  We can take or not.  I honestly don't think a whole lot about Joseph Smith's engagement with GOD in the form it came to him; I'm all about figuring out mine.

 

What I get from the video and what you posted is this.  Our bodies are subjecting to us to the Fall (leaving Eden).  Yes the earth itself is in a Fallen state but most of the effects are from our bodies being Fallen also.

[Maidservant]

8 minutes ago, Metis_LDS said:

 Our bodies are subjecting to us to the Fall (leaving Eden).

Yes, but bodies are also the vehicle of exaltation.  Double duty.  To fall is to rise.  Crucifixion and Resurrection are two sides to the same coin.

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, Maidservant said:

The word I use is RENDER.  The human body (the body-mind, mind-body) RENDERS signals received according to the capacity and programming they already have.  (A fly body renders signal differently than a dog body than a human body, etc; also programming that nuances capacity varies from human to human).  That rendering is highly--scratch that--EXCLUSIVELY personal and NO ONE shares your world, NO ONE.  You have ONLY your own rendering.  You aren't 'seeing' objects or 'hearing' sounds, you are rendering signal/info bits into a landscape that is already mixed/virtual/tardis reality.  'Seeing' and 'hearing' is not OUT THERE, it is 'IN HERE' in the neurons etc (not only the brain, but that's a big part of it).

The signal/info bits do not tell you what it is . . . YOU tell the data/signal what IT is by your rendering capacity and choices i.e. programming.  Traditional rendering choices are infected from person to person in a family and society (transmitted, passed down), so that's why it seems many of us share things, but if you talk with random people, you'll figure out that there is actually very little sharing.  Everyone is on different paradigms, beliefs, stories, definitions, focuses, significances.  For some people there's not even certain colors, etc, and some people 'see' sounds etc.  Some people 'see' dead people (they're not dead, they are just unseeable in some capacities--and apparently well and easily seeable in other capacities).

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As for what that means for Joseph Smith's experience, for me there are two choices.  Either there was an experiential component for him on some level; or he just sat down and made up a big con.  I find the latter zero compelling or probable for a variety of reasons.  What his experience was and what it meant to him, he has shared with us.  We can take or not.  I honestly don't think a whole lot about Joseph Smith's engagement with GOD in the form it came to him; I'm all about figuring out mine.

 

Agree!

What I find interesting is that what William James calls "experience" is a verbal, recollected account of something that happened to you. 

So that already makes it an interpretation. 

On the other hand there is what I call "reality" which is what is happening WHILE it is happening.  So driving through the mountains you go up over a rise and suddenly you are awe struck by gorgeous awe-inspiring vista of a valley, perhaps overlooking a town, green valley, snow on the mountains, puffy clouds- and taking it in it is a pre-verbal reaction- perhaps all you can say at that moment is "Wow".

Why is something like that "awe-inspiring"?  What is it inside us that says "Wow" or counts such an event as "beautiful"?  What does that moment have in common with looking at a "beautiful" painting, or house, or human being, or a beautiful symphony?

Yet we use the same word for all these experiences when we verbalize them.  At first we are just "smitten" and then we characterize the experience. This becomes an important philosophical point.

I think the difference  between "raw experience" or as Rorty called them - "raw feels" is important because many suggest that our minds are programmed by language- this idea is that of "the contingency of language".  In fact Rorty did not believe that raw feels existed.  That means that within us, we are all programmed by language and are a bit like cultural robots.  Perhaps your way of putting it would be that it is "ALL shared"

But I disagree with that- and agree with you that it is NOT all shared at all.  Each of us has our own unique interpretation and characterization of what is happening around us.

But that first impression as it is happening before the words come- to me, is "raw reality".   Yes it is created by our senses, but it is the only reality we can feel for that reason.

So when people try to differentiate between "what we saw" and "what really happened" there can BE no such differentiation!

This became a big deal to the existentialists because essentially- believing that all our reactions are shared means we are all hopeless robots, God is dead, and even "Man" is dead because there are no real humans with agency.  We are not subjects, we are programmed completely by society.

https://www.tremr.com/Duck-Rabbit/michel-foucault-on-the-death-of-man

Quote

 

"When one analyses the language of man, one doesn’t discover the nature, essence or freedom of man. In their stead, one discovers unconscious structures which govern us without our noticing or willing it" (Michel Foucault). 

"...as soon as one realised that all human knowledge, all human existence (…) are trapped within structures, i.e. within a formal system of elements which obey formal relations that anyone can describe, man so to speak ceases to be his own subject. (…) One discovers that what makes man possible is at the end of the day a set of structures, structures that he may be able to describe but of which he is not the subject or the sovereign consciousness" (Michel Foucault) 

 

So by my logic, in order to have agency then we need to NOT be completely programmed by language- and that moment of non-linguistic raw experience as it is happening- coming up the hill and seeing the view and literally "having no words to describe it" becomes CRUCIAL eventually in this idea of agency!

And just to finish this idea out- a woman named Chantal Bax, who I have mentioned before, has come up with a book which essentially says exactly what you say here-  this is your way of saying it, not hers:

Quote

Everyone is on different paradigms, beliefs, stories, definitions, focuses, significances.  For some people there's not even certain colors, etc, and some people 'see' sounds etc.  Some people 'see' dead people (they're not dead, they are just unseeable in some capacities--and apparently well and easily seeable in other capacities). 

For a bit more on her book see here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/subjectivity-after-wittgenstein-9781441127327/

 

[Metis_LDS]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I think the difference  between "raw experience" or as Rorty called them - "raw feels" is important because many suggest that our minds are programmed by language- this idea is that of "the contingency of language". 

I was just watching a program about Albert Einstein where he is quoted as explaining that he did not use words when thinking.  I find that I can think in images when trying to solve a mechanical problem but most of my thoughts use words.  

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Metis_LDS said:

I was just watching a program about Albert Einstein where he is quoted as explaining that he did not use words when thinking.  I find that I can think in images when trying to solve a mechanical problem but most of my thoughts use words.  

Sometimes I am thinking about a problem and find an answer, or observe something, and I see it as itself, but there are no words.  And then I think the words that correspond, as if I am validating the experience or the thing.  But the words seem to be unnecessary.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Metis_LDS said:

I was just watching a program about Albert Einstein where he is quoted as explaining that he did not use words when thinking.  I find that I can think in images when trying to solve a mechanical problem but most of my thoughts use words.  

I see arguments as flow charts and diagrams and look for literal "holes" in the chart- which are holes in the argument,  or dead ends where the writer may not have seen them. When I see the hole I then have to go back and find the words that define the error.  I see a theory as a kind of woven cloth and sometimes I can see the hole in the cloth before I find the words that are contradictory and create the "hole"

[mfbukowski]

2 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Sometimes I am thinking about a problem and find an answer, or observe something, and I see it as itself, but there are no words.  And then I think the words that correspond, as if I am validating the experience or the thing.  But the words seem to be unnecessary.

Wow great discussion- I had no ideas others did the same thing.  I love it!! 

[Stargazer]

Something I read in Elder Dallin H. Oak’s 1991 book, The Lord's Way, made me think that I really ought to make a record of all the personal spiritual experiences that I can remember having.  The record that I wrote came to 38 pages, and it documented 11 experiences, what I would call major ones.  Each one of them made a profound impact on my life and my testimony.  I occasionally recount some of them, when it seems that the Spirit concurs.  This doesn't happen often, but I've written about some of them here over the years, with varying degrees of detail.

As I wrote the paragraph above I thought of two other experiences, not as major as the others.  They happened in the temple, but to describe them in a meaningful way would involve getting a bit too detailed as far as temple content is concerned. So I shall leave off telling about them.

But my late wife had a temple experience that I can relate, however.  It's not a long story.  She told me that she was in the Celestial Room after an endowment session, and was sitting in one of the chairs, contemplating as one sometimes does.  Suddenly she was given a vision of the Savior, such that, as she told me, she finally understood who He was and what he had done for us.  She never explained it to me in detail, and I didn't feel prompted to ask for a full explanation.

[Stargazer]

14 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Wow great discussion- I had no ideas others did the same thing.  I love it!! 

I only just noticed this in myself a year or so ago.  Maybe it's something that comes when one is old.

[Calm]

56 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I only just noticed this in myself a year or so ago.  Maybe it's something that comes when one is old.

I have always thought in pictures when  thinking of concrete or math ideas as well as actions, as I get older the more words are attached as well.  Conversations with others I am thinking about, that has always been words....by necessity probably. 

[Maidservant]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

pre-verbal reaction- perhaps all you can say at that moment is "Wow".

 . . . ..  At first we are just "smitten" and then we characterize the experience. This becomes an important philosophical point. . . . . .

But that first impression as it is happening before the words come- to me, is "raw reality".   

Yes . . . there is experience; and then there is the story of the experience.  As soon as you begin the story, you've left the experience.  They cannot coincide.  This is not to say one is better than the other; they each have their place.  But best not to confuse them for each other.

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

So by my logic, in order to have agency then we need to NOT be completely programmed by language- and that moment of non-linguistic raw experience as it is happening- coming up the hill and seeing the view and literally "having no words to describe it" becomes CRUCIAL eventually in this idea of agency!

I love this; I hadn't pondered it so crucial to agency and I think I will ponder that more now.

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And just to finish this idea out- a woman named Chantal Bax, who I have mentioned before, has come up with a book which essentially says exactly what you say here-  this is your way of saying it, not hers:

For a bit more on her book see here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/subjectivity-after-wittgenstein-9781441127327/

 

Cool!  Thanks for the reading suggestion!

[Maidservant]

Thought of you guys . . .

TED TALK What hallucination reveals about our minds