From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body
Subject: Re: OOBE or just vivid imagination
Date: 12 Nov 92 20:17:33 GMT
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science

|> In article <1992Nov09.191818.23121@news.mentorg.com> garyk@garyk.mentorg.com
|>      (Gary Kaminski) writes:
|> > In article <1992Nov8.073403.4318@gnosys.svle.ma.us>, gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
|>      (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
|> 
|> >> What do others feel on this subject - or is this debate going to just be
|> >> between myself and Robert?
|> 
|> > I hope only the two of you debate this point; meaning,I hope we do not use
|> > too much bandwidth on it.  For me, the out-of-body experience represents a
|> > tool to be used for spiritual advancement, not a science project.
|> 
|> I hope we can use a variety of tools available to use, including direct
|> personal experience and logic to get a better understanding of what the
|> OBE phenomenon represents.  However, if, as I am starting to suspect,
|> Robert McGrath is committed to the view that *only* a reductionist logic
|> is valid in understanding the phenomenon, I will cease to be a willing
|> participant in the discussion, and will leave that approach entirely to 
|> others who would completely exclude a spiritual or non-ordinary dimension
|> in their investigations (at present, I have no belief or leaning one way
|> or the other, though I suspect that OBEs can, at the very least, be tools
|> of self-understanding).

I have no idea what you want to mean by "reductionist" logic, but I
have made my interests and approach clear.  I have never objected to
the ideas or approaches of others, nor have I insulted or denigrated
other people for disagreeing with me.  This thread began as a discussion
of evidence, research, theories, explanations, and such like.  My
comments were perfectly appropriate to this line of talk.

-----

In article <BxJ03J.Cqx@cs.psu.edu>, cole@gaff.physci.psu.edu (Robert Cole) writes:
|> NOTE:  The opinions expressed below are those of an individual with only
|>       6 (six) credits in psychology.
[...]
|> >>> 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. :-)
|>      ^
|> 	I take McGrath's 'H' here to mean 'honest' as I detect no humility
|> in any of his postings.
Well, 'humble' with ':-)' attached might suggest a certain irononic intention
to the discerning reader.

|> >What do others feel on this subject - or is this debate going to just be
|> >between myself and Robert?
|> 
|> 	I'm glad you used the word "debate" rather than "discussion."  It
|> seems clear that one of the participants involved is not interested in 
|> modifying his model of reality but only in forcing all data to conform to
|> it.  

I haven't seen ANY of the participants in the news groups show any sign 
of modifying their model of reality.  What I see is a lot of people
pushing their own points of view.  I have never objected to others
stating their positions, but I reserve the right to clearly state my
own.

|> 	I find the gedanken experiment to be a particularly cogent illustration
|> of Gary's point and consider the objections raised to it to be irrelevant.

It was a cogent illustration, but my objections were hardly irrelvant.  
Your dismissal of them doesn't add anything.  Why were they irrelevant?

|> I think it is regretfull that the anecdotal evidence for the validity of obes
|> is apparently receiving so little attention.  There are those who obviously
|> place zero value on such evidence but I personally find it to be compelling
|> and would like to read more stories by those who believe they have validated
|> obes for themselves than any more attempts to denigrate these experiences or
|> explain them away.

If you knew something about psychology, you would know why it is unwise
to trust anecdotal and personal experience.  It is not "denigrating"
to examine subjective experiences from points of view other than
absolute, naive, trust.

|> 	I trust the day will come when the "mystical" world will be seen
|> as an equally valid description as the "rational" one in much the same way
|> as quantum and classical mechanics are equally valid under the appropriate
|> circumstances despite the fact that they provide inherently different
|> descriptions.  

This is your position.  Try not to impose it on others.

|> If you think
|> rationality is the be-all-end-all of perceptual modes, I recommend the
|> Castaneda books,  but you may as well discount the ramblings of these writers
|> as they don't have degrees in psychology and are probably not up on
|> the decades of reasearch that have been done in the fields of...

Well, Castenada is a liar and a hoaxster.  But he DID get a PhD in
anthropology for his fraud, to the neverending shame of UCLA.  If
you are trying to convince me of something, you better not use
CC as your source!

So why don't you learn something about the decades of research that
have been done, instead of just dismissing it as irrelevant and
wrong headed?  Do you have a problem with learning something?  Is
your world view threatened by the fact that scientific evidence
doesn't quite agree with all of your imaginings?  How can
you justify rejecting ideas that you haven't even tried to understand?
This sounds like pure bigotry to me.

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