From: mayer@owlnet.rice.edu (Christopher Francis Mayer)
Newsgroups: alt.hypnosis
Subject: Re: Interesting Hypnosis Talk
Date: 25 Jan 93 03:07:29 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Rice University

In article <1993Jan23.022513.22578@nmt.edu>, houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle) writes:
|> In article <C1813K.F1L@rice.edu> mayer@owlnet.rice.edu (Christopher Francis Mayer) writes:
|> 
|> >
|> >	Sounds pretty good, but the whole thing just doesn't make sense.  We
|> >pervceive things physically from the light around us entering our eyes. 
|> >Hypnosis may alter our perception so that our mind refuses to believe an
|> >object is there, but it cannot change the physical reality that there IS a
|> >solid object blocking our line of sight.  The light simply cannot reach our
|> >eyes even if we don't believe there's anything there.  Now metephysical
|> >believers can argue against this by saying that our "spirit" can look beyond
|> >the normal laws of physics and hypnosis can help us get deeper into touch with
|> >our "spirit", but I somehow doubt this is the case.  But if these stories are
|> >true, then there are other senses that we have over looked...however, if you
|> >believe this, I encourage further, first-hand research and experimentation.
|> 
|>         No,  the really metaphysical believers believe that there really isn't
|> any objective reality.  That is,  if you can remove something entirely from
|> your world view,  then it's gone entirely for you.  Of course this opens a
|> whole metaphysical can of worms,  but I have met people who believe things
|> like this.  Explaining human interactions is usually tricky for this kind of
|> theory,  but plenty of people such as Ruth Montgomery have tried.
|> 
|> 	Remember that we have a fairly good-sized blind spot in our perceptual
|> field that has probably gone entirely unnoticed by billions of human beings.
|> The brain uses representational codings that make it easy for it to interpolate
|> reasonable data into that space so we only notice our blind spot by trying
|> really hard.  Close your left eye and focus your right eye on the 'x' below
|> and move your head towards your monitor so you can see this
|> 
|>                            x             o
|>  
|>         (Yes,  I just tried it myself.  With my right eye exactly 'over' the
|> x,  I had to be about an index-finger length away from my 14" monitor to make
|> the 'o' go away)  Experiments show that the interpolation that the brain does
|> is actually rather sophisticated,  so that it will continue a line that is
|> drawn through the blind spot,  etc.  Anyway,  because the brain uses a
|> internal representaion that is complex -- it separates out forms and colors
|> and brightness and different submodalities,  it should be very possible for it
|> to do a good job of filling in a plausable background after deleting the data
|> of a particular person or whatever you are trying to make invisible.  Trance
|> logic will prevent a person from recognizing any inconsistencies.  A person
|> might even use any data from memory to make an excellent guess about what is
|> being held behind an invisible person.  If there was anything like ESP (or
|> even heightened nonverbal communications) that could also help fill in the
|> gap.
|> 
|>                                          
|> -- 

	Yeah, I know about the blind spot stuff.  This is all actually a
possibility.  I guess the only way to test it would be to have objects placed
behind the "invisible" person before the subject could interact with the
person who knew what the object was.  I'm not sure I believe in ESP, but I
guess it's possible.  I don't know...but I'd be interested to hear more
opinions or facts.
Newsgroups: alt.hypnosis