From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: OOBE or just vivid imagination
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 21:45:34 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.055629.21882@gnosys.svle.ma.us>, gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo) writes in part:
|> 
|> Yes, I know, these hypotheses sound fantastic, but I find Dr. Sheldrake's
|> gedanken experiment which demonstrates the fallacy in our conventional
|> assumptions to be a particularly fascinating one...  He observes that it
|> would be difficult to convince a person who has never seen a television
|> set that the pictures on the face of the tube and the sounds coming from
|> the speaker are in fact generated by a transmitter located some distance
|> from the receiving set.  It is far more convenient to assume that what-
|> ever is happening is actually taking place within the circuitry "inside
|> the box."  Again, we use the principle of Occam's Razor, and get what we
|> all know to be an incorrect result.  The state of brain science is simply
|> not sufficiently advanced to demonstrate that what we observe about our
|> own mental functioning all takes place "inside the box."  

There isn't any gentle way to say this:  I think you are totally mistaken
here.

   1.  There is substantial evidence of what psychologists would call
   the "Neural-identity-hypothesis".  There are 150 years of research,
   thousands of studies, which show that mental experiences are corellated
   to physilogical events in the nervous systems.  This body of evidence
   cannot just be dismissed as "occam's razor".

   2.  The gedanken experiment you describe is faulty, at least as you
   describe it.  It would not be difficult for a cognitive psychologist
   to determine that the TV is a receiver not the originator of the
   signals.  In fact, psycholgists would quickly determine the wavelengths
   and basic forms of the signals received by the TV.  This is called
   "perceptual psychology"!

   3.  You are under-informed about psychology.  Please do not 
   get carried away with fascinating, popular pseudo-intellectual
   stuff like Sheldrake, without learning something about what
   serious students of cognitive sciences have learned over the years.
   And please do not dismiss the brilliant work that has been done
   by hundreds of smart, clever, and hard working investigators.

|> Therefore, I
|> would submit that to say that out-of-body experiences are "simply mental
|> events" doesn't really tell us very much about their nature, and doesn't
|> really help to distinguish them from some other kind of events with which
|> we would like to contrast them, as was seemingly attempted in Robert's
|> earlier article.

Placing OBEs in the realm of cognitive psychology actually tells ME quite 
a lot about them because I know quite a bit about cognitive psychology.

|> > ...I have dreams and can simply imagine things that are VERY accurate.
|> 
|> Indeed you can.  But if you can report events that you have no means of
|> knowing in an ordinary way (through visual or auditory impressions, or
|> as a result of having read or been told something), whether you do so as
|> a result of a dream or some "paranormal" event (relative to a certain
|> conventional sense of what "normal" means), I think we would have to say
|> that we have something worth investigating, and that we probably need a
|> very different model of human being and functioning to adequately explain
|> it and other phenomena which are not explicable using our usual models.

Exactly my point:  dreams, images, and OBEs share these same 
characteristics--there is no evidence that any part of the experience
comes from any source other than previous experience and constructive
imagination.  This tells me that we have something worth investigating
but that we probably DON'T need a very different model of human beings.
Furthermore, what we DO know about cognitive psychology provides
useful insights into OBEs.

|> I have not demonstrated, and probably *cannot* demonstrate, though, that
|> an OBE differs in some important way from the kinds of events studied
|> by parapsychology.  I don't really seek to do so anyway - I would just
|> like to get or generate some map of the territory if such a thing is
|> possible.

I'm not sure what you include in "the kinds of events studied by 
parapsychology".  But OBEs actually are a QUITE distinct phenomenon.  

First of all, the OBE is a psychological EXPERIENCE.  It is in fact,
a definiable experience that can be differentiated from similar
experiences, such as dreams.

There may be an "experience" of ESP (I think there is), but "ESP"
per se is a particular claim about information transmission, or something.

I take the position that there is nothing at all in common between
the FACT of OB EXPERIENCES, and various hypotheses about ESP or
whatever.  OBEs are a subject to be studied by cognitive science,
just like other subjective experiencs.

|> My overall sense, though, is that we're both struggling together
|> to understand what's going on here - not that we're taking the most mean-
|> ingful or productive approach, since it's based on analysis and a fairly
|> conventional logic.  

Au contraire, this is the ONLY meaningful and productive approach.
IMHO. :-)

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu