Thread: OBE Skeptics.

Because science potentinally studies what can be proved real.


If something cannot be proved real, I'd rather not believe it.


The only thing beyond science's reaches is imagination.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Because science potentinally studies what can be proved real.


If something cannot be proved real, I'd rather not believe it.


The only thing beyond science's reaches is imagination.

So in other words science=god.

depends on the point of view, but yeah science can replace God pretty well

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God means nothing to me. God is capable of nothing, it doesn't exist.

Science can be godlike. Just look at the computer you are using now. But saying science=god is pointless unless you believe in god. I don't.

Because science potentinally studies what can be proved real.


If something cannot be proved real, I'd rather not believe it.


The only thing beyond science's reaches is imagination.

First of all, proven, not proved. Second of all,in your opinion, the only thing beyond science's reach is imagination. Third of all, science does not prove anything. Science cannot disprove the existence of everything that humans cannot explain, therefore those who rely on science as a determiner of what is real and what is not, are at a loss. Science can prove what is real within the context of human knowledge, which is also based upon other in-context knowledge; a continuous circle of such.

So what is the source? Logic tells us that in order for something to exist, it must have had starting point. At the same time, there is no start of a perfect circle; an inconsistancy in our own formed concept. Ironic that a statement that characterizes science, and is about science just so happens to contradict itsself, isn't it? Ah the wonders of human logic- so illogical. So far, skeptics only basis for assuming OBEs don't exist is because we haven't proved they exist- yet.

Is that how you're going to treat each new concept that comes along? It's not possible simply because we've never seen anything like it? Simply because human knowledge cannot validate something's existence to ourselves means that it does not exist? How arrogant can human beings get.

If your proof system is so perfect, and that's what you rely on for truth, then the fact that you have NOT PROVED that OBEs are a figmant of the imagination...is a figmant of your imagination. You cannot prove that they do not exist, you cannot prove that they are not possible, therefore by your own "rules" of logical science, your own argument is flawed. You claim something cannot exist if science cannot prove it. Simultaneously and reflexively, you therefore cannot rightfully claim that something does NOT exist, if science cannot prove that it does not exist. (If you're so hardcore into science).

My point is, who are we as human beings to determine that something is impossible simply because OUR OWN science system cannot confirm it? Our own science system...created by humans...who know nothing. You see? It's a circle. Not of what we know. Of what we DON'T know, and what little we THINK we know, we are using as basis to determine what does not exist. The irony of this complex cirlce is entirely overwhelming. Your move, skeptics. (I hope that didn't come off as hostility, I don't mean it as such.)

First of all, thanks for the grammar tips. English is not my first language you know.

Second, it's not only because science hasn't proved OBEs that I do not believe them. OBEs involve one getting out of their own body. That implies on the mind being separate from the body. I do NOT believe in that, so that's my main argument, and one of the reasons I do not believe OBEs.

beggining and end are human concepts. There is no beggining and no end to e.g. a nuclear bomb. The bomb didn't start at the second of the explosion, it started with the things that originated it, which brings us back to the beggining of the universe. And it won't end: it's influence on the universe will always be there. If the bombs didn't explode, a lot would be different now. As it was said, a butterfly can cause a storm.


I don't mean that only what's been proven by science is real. But I say that, if it has proof, it is real. It's the only way to be sure of something (or as close to it as possible).



Actually, your logic is the one messed up. I said that if science cannot prove something, then high chances are it is not real. Science cannot disprove everything, that's the difference. God is the perfect example of that. No matter how much science can explain things, there will always be dodge arguments.

If science cannot prove something, then I believe it's not real, because science studies reality. Studying the unreal is rather controversial: philosophy does that all the time though.



Science not proving something is one thing. Me not believing what science cannot prove is another thing. You assumed too much on that. I am skeptical, so I do only believe what has proof: what doesn't have proof is instantly considered unreal. That is MY belief, you do no have to agree with that.

A good thing of science is its aims: it studies eality, its rules, occurances, phenomenoms, etc. If we study something, we get to know how it works. It's like studying the human body, in order to see that the heart is not the residence of inteligence.

I agree theer are many things we yet do not know, but saying we never will is ridiculous. Science is not imagination, you see. Science is real and studies reality.


What else do skeptics believe? Facts. If we see a big UFO in the sky, even though science cannot (yet) explain it, we will believe it. Simply because it is a fact (or maybe a hallucination heh?).


Again my story of the pink elephant. I can say theer is a pink elephant on your back. Nothing can prove it, can it? So I doubt you will trust bme and believe in the pink elephant.

Pawn -> F4. your move xD

(if you don't know what I mean, it's chess lol)

How come noone realises that theres someone controlling scientists?
Plasma tv's were already out in late 70's in USA army. It was secret for 30 long years until they were realised to the public. Even remote viewing is used by the military, the fact is they keep it secret.

I really doubt what you're saying.

You can control a group of scientists, a research, but not all the scientists in the world.

I think one of the (many) causes of misunderstandings in these sorts of threads is based on language and definitions alone. I don't put much stock in most things spiritual. I'm one of those "science" guys. However, if we're talking about OOBE, we I have to remember that the "E" stands for "Experience." Experience in this sense just means something that felt like they traveled outside of their bodies.

It might do us all good to base our underlying talks with this definition, which in itself does not judge the significance of this feeling, whether it be mystical or mundane in nature. I think we could all agree that people feel something they describe as being outside of their bodies, and we can call that feeling an OOBE. This being done, I cannot argue that OBE's don't exist... it is evident they do.

Moving on, the crux of anything worth talking about has to concern the underlying mechanics of this experience. The only question worth discussing then becomes:

"What is happens to a person when they have an OOBE?"

And the proposed answers are:
1. "They leave their body and follow to whatever location their experience takes them.
2. "They imagine they leave their body, and have an experience not tied to their physical location"
3. "Sometimes number 1, sometimes number 2." (Although few say this, it must be included for completeness)

I hope you are all with me here. I believe everyone should more or less agree with these statements, whichever side you are on.

From this starting place, I see the experiments conducted with the centerfuge in the "OOBE proven wrong" thread and it's quite evident that such an experience can be induced, and therefore we must accept that either number 2 or number 3 above is correct. Anyone who thinks that an OOBE must always have mystical significance is clearly wrong.

skysaw, I couldn't agree more about your post.

I understand the concept differences. However, what has been proven wrong in the video in the first post falls into #1. That is not something I believe in, and that's what I'm discussing about.

If someone's discussing about #2 and #3, then sorry for my sounding misleading. In that case OBE's are real, just like dreams are real (lucid or not).

Again terminology problems in discussions. OBEs ar real, yes, for people do actually experience them. That's undeniable. But you can't say that what happens is reality.

Reality is what happens in the universe, being it or not subject to perception. You not seeing air doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

But another thing is saying that OBE's are actually situations in which you leave your physical body. It's just like smoking pot and seeing a pink elephant. You did see the elephant, yes, that's undeniable. But arguing that the pink elephant is real is being silly.

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Perception in dreams is a real new layer of experiences. For instance, the simple thought that something is funny will make it funny, no matter what it is.

For that reason, while dreaming (which I think an OBE is) a person can see their own body sometimes. And, if they believe that OBE's are related to actually leaving your body and all that astral shit, then they will feel it is real, just as i explained in the paragraph above. But if they don't believe in that, it will only be a random occurance in a dream.

I know how real an OBE can feel. But still, saying you left your physical body is really silly, admit it.

Kromoh I apologize for the snooty grammar correction. It was hypocritical and unnecessary for me to make it even if English had been your first language.

Science not proving something is one thing. Me not believing what science cannot prove is another thing. You assumed too much on that. I am skeptical, so I do only believe what has proof: what doesn't have proof is instantly considered unreal. That is MY belief, you do no have to agree with that.

You are absolutely right, that is your belief and it would be silly of me to try and tell you that you are wrong for following logic. However, I feel that you are perhaps misinformed on what exactly an OBE is. The consciousness does not ever leave the body, simply a temporary "file" of it, if you will, is made so that you can access memories and schemata outside of the physical existence. This is only a theory, of course, as it would be silly to suggest that it was fact, however allow me to elaborate.

Note that before I continue, I would like to reinforce that I do not claim what I am about to say to be fact. These are merely my opinions.

During an alleged OBE, the projector has the ability to operate their consciousness beyond the confines of their physical body. This is what it means to have an OBE. Most people (logically of course) assume that this means that the consciousness leaves the body. Clearly this is not possible, as if your consciousness (sub or main) were to leave the body, you would become brain-dead, if not physically dead as well.

What I theorize happens is that the consciousness replicates itself, reconstructing all of the conscious memories, schemata, etc similar to how you function in lucid dreams. Before you get ahead of me, allow me to explain what I mean.

In a lucid dream or even a non-lucid dream, your mind creates a universe for you based on what you know, your schemata, and your memories that you are projected into. This is why we can manipulate them. You see, it is not such a different concept than an OBE. You are obviously not physically functioning on a conscious level, therefore IN A WAY your consciousness has left your physical body, even though the entire process remains active only because your brain is.

I think of OBEs not as LEAVING the body per se, but more as extending it. <edit - just added this part> During the process you are NEVER separated from your body!!! That much I can almost assure as fact. That is not to say that you are not OUT of your body, it is simply to say that you're never detached from it. Ever! It's quite brilliant when you think about it. I will explain that in a later post, I'm running out of time to type (I've gotta go soon).</edit>

Similar to lucid dreams, during an OBE you are capable of recording new memories. The sole difference between an OBE and a lucid dream is that your environment is not nearly as controllable (depending on which theorized plane you were to project to). Everything is as it is, and you cannot alter it. This is because your mind did not create it! It was there before you entered it and can only be bent to show itself to you how you choose to interpret it, and only to a very slight extent. You also do not have a body. If you look down at your hands, your mind will try to create the image of hands, because it cannot compute not having hands, because you're not used to that.

In an OBE you are merely a cloud of thoughts existing in a space that coordinate-wise can exist in exactly the same space as a solid object- which scientifically we know is purely impossible. Two objects of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time, therefore the only explanation is a different plane of space-time.

Your consciousness does not LEAVE your body. It is a perception- perhaps a form of remote eye viewing, but for most people the process is quite literally interpreted by the subconscious as LEAVING the body, thus the theorized OBE. Personally I believe an OBE is just a mind's interpretation of a remote eye viewing session, which has been used by the US military and CIA, and they are open about it, if you care to look it up.

These are just my opinions and theories, and I do not claim them for a second to be fact, I just hope maybe that clears up a little of the jumbled-ness.
As for science, Kromoh, it is a wonderful thing, but we cannot pretend to know everything and be able to determine reality, because our knowledge only extends to the reality we define, which is only defined by our knowledge- it is a perfect circle and has no beginning. In the beginning we started off ignorant, and evolved into what we are today. In the context of living existence and intelligence, we are gods because of what we have done with technology, manipulating electrical currents to sustain life, for example, or to use frequencies to communicate with one-another using boxes with keys on them. It's amazing.

But to determine that it cannot be real if we cannot prove it in my opinion is arrogance, when you really think about the entire concept of knowledge. All human knowledge is RELATIVE, and relative knowledge forms within itself, therefore the explaining of information outside of that realm of knowledge is temporarily impossible, if not forever impossible. Humans may never be able to explain EVERYTHING, and there's nothing wrong with that. In all reality....what is reality?!

I am glad to have this debate with you all. This is in it's own way, a work of art. A group of intellectuals discussing the limits of existence. Such a beautiful thing when you think about it.

your move, mate

Well, if you wanted me to, I can sure come up with many scientifical suppositions about OBEs. But I'm not really fond of them.. Bah anyway, philosophy is alway healthy, so here it goes:

Your mind keeps an updated image of the body. Like a map, with information of what is going on in every point.

When there is no external input (e.g. sleep paralysis or a lost arm) the mind struggles to keep a mental image of what should be happening to your body. It's like moving with your eyes closed: you can still know where your arms and legs are.

For some reason, in OBEs, the body image (which is also present in dreams btw, the so-called dream body) is projected beyond the viewer. It is like seeing yourself in a mirror for the mind. That pretty much causes a feeling of detachment from your body: it's a rationalization by your mind. What happens is that, if you are seeing your own body, your mind supposes that your mind is somewhere else than your body, hence the impression.

And as in my last post, belief can easily influence dreams. So if yo ubelieve this is an astral projection of sorts, then it will sound like so.

Just like when, in a dream, you believe that it will start raining, and it does. It's the same scheme.

Altogether, the outcome of such experience is to believe you were actually outside of your body. hence, Out of Body Experience.

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I agree with yo uthat extreme skepticism can be wrong too. But whe nsomeone comes to me saying that they left their body and entered an astral plane, I'd pretty much rather not believe it.

by the way loved your views abotu this discussion

Kromoh

It's completely off-topic but you just made me realise that I don't remember ever having experienced rain in a dream. Something to try today.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

depends on the point of view, but yeah science can replace God pretty well

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God means nothing to me. God is capable of nothing, it doesn't exist.

Science can be godlike. Just look at the computer you are using now. But saying science=god is pointless unless you believe in god. I don't.

Nah i don't mean it that way. I mean by science=god is science is all truth, not some dude or dudette upstairs or wherever.:p I don't believe in god either, just the cool stories i hear (i've yet to expierience any though )and want to come true. Race you around Saturn.

yeah, if you mean it that way, then I agree with you.

Ah Kromoh comes back with an excellent point indeed!! I have been pondering this idea myself of the mind trying to justify our own beliefs and expectations, just as it would be in a lucid dream!! Ok so perhaps that previous sentence didn't make much sense. Allow me to clarify

I agree Kromoh, that the potential experience that projectors are experiencing is indeed a fabrication of the subconscious to try and replicate what we expect to see- similar to how the dreamworld operates in our minds. I have another potentially skeptical/justifying point of view for the idea of astral projection and the like- I am beginning to think and wonder that perhaps the person who originally discovered OBEing maybe misinterpreted what was happening.

However I cannot find how this can be, as people experiencing NDEs (near-death experiences) have been reported to exit their body, travel down the hall, overhear something and accurately recall the gist of the conversation. Persons such as Robert Bruce are known to do this frequently not in NDEs, but intentional astral projections as well! This is the one gap we have yet to fill I think.

Well, I believe that in NDEs your brain doesn't want to be dreaming. So, it struggles to receive external input, in order to know what's going on. For that reason, the information will be taken into their dreams and they will dream of it.


And actually, if you will yourself to make your dreams (look like) OBEs, it shouldn't be hard at all to do.

I wonder though about long-distance validations. I personally have done short-distance validations...I sought a friend of mine, I went to her house (in which I've never been) and was able to accurately describe 2 of the rooms in her house. Do to the distorted nature of OBEs, I was unable to describe the rest accurately- my mind altered how it looked to how I expected it to look.

The thing about OBE is it is not altered entirely by your mind, like in LDs. The further you project, the easier it is to see clearly without your mind interfering. I think willing your dreams to appear as OBEs would be accurate, if you believe that you have experienced one. But even a lucid dream cannot replicate the true nature of an OBE, because of one's inability to interact with things outside of the conscious or unconscious mind, as you can in an OBE.

that's what makes me wonder about the possibilities of OBE's.. Too bad these people don't dare to take Randi's challenge to try to explain things

The problem with such things as validations is that they require the projector to project to the RTZ or the etheric plane, as both are the two lowest planes that exist closest to the physical, and in real-time. This is a problem because most people only reach these planes by accident, therefore the few times they make it to these planes, conductors of the experiments deem their accurate recalls of the test as coincidence.

What's Randi's Challenge?

James Randi, an illusionist, claims to give 1 million dollars to whoever convinces him of the existence of something "supernatural".

That shouldn't be too difficult. Lol. I'll start practicing right now how to RTZ project. Damn...the things I could do with 1 million bucks..."two chicks at the same time, man".

-Office Space

Like Homer said: "We could buy all kinds of useful things like…love!"

Well Kromoh. It all depends WHAT kind of science and WHAT kind of Faith we speak of. I myself am a great admirer of science and all it has made possible. Only the fatally flawed narrowminded way of thinking modern day scientists do their work with is blind to all of reality that is of a questionable nature.

Science can be even much more beneficial to the human race if the blinds were removed and instead of declearing alot of occurances to be untruthfull "Bullshit", look into these matters. There are a few scientists with an open mind that explore the possible applications of science on the human mind, it's dreaming and it's abilities. Far too few.

Faith. Well for at least 70% of the world's organised religions I must say they are fooles that have become conservative, mindless people that live life after some idolised perfection dictated by the patriarchic, dominant churchfathers.

Pretty much like most modern day scientists they have become stuck, naïve and conservative in their ways of viewing reality.

My personal beliefs are where Science and Faith interlock together and make perfect sense. Science sais "It's all happening in the head" while Faith sais " it is a vision of the divine". I can't say that any of them are wrong. I say It's all in the head, but nevertheless is it a divine experience"
My personal Truth lies there where science and faith meet.

To skeptics and Science lovers. The only thing which Science is discovering is that it knows too little about the mystery of the reality. The rest are just limited still-too-ignorant theories which are a lot of times used by narrow-minded people like you to deny things which don't fit in their schemes.