34 replies to this topic

[mentatpsi]

neurogenesis is already known to happen when you practice stuff such as meditation, this is nothing special as this is practicing a muscle like any other.
But not because of someone else is waving good thoughts at you.

In here, when you feel like jumping and saying "It is true!" on some half worked-science, you better show some data and not just scream wolf.

to me i've always seen the ability for thought to influence the body and brain as mind-matter interaction, so perhaps we're just not communicating properly. I realized a couple days after that the book was a bad selection for what i was trying to accomplish. You probably thought i was excusing another person's thinking for an individual's neurogenesis. Ya that's not what i was getting at.

What i did complain about was a bias in Neurofeedback, which does have evidence to support that it works. I suppose i just enjoy the idea the the brain is a dynamic organ whose ailments are not written in stone... perhaps that's idealistic... when i tried supporting myself on the other areas, i did it as a way to say it's possible. Either or, you agreed with me on the most important of the points (personal reality, neurogenesis)... so i don't get why we're debating, cause i agree with you lol.

Anyways, perhaps thughes is right and this thread doesn't belong here.

Edited by mysticpsi, 07 June 2008 - 02:03 PM.

[cyborgdreamer]

so how is the observable universe deterministic at the macro level?

The way I understand it, the quantum fluctutations tend to even out when you get to the macro scale. It's like how when you flip one coin, you don't know whether it will land heads or tails. However, if you flip a million coins you know that the ratio will be close to 50/50. So the huge numbers of quantum fluctuations even out to a more or less deterministic ratio.

[mentatpsi]

btw do you guys want links to where i got that story from? It was from memory, but I read it in a book awhile ago. So if you guys wish i can get the title and page of the book as not to make it look like i'm discussing random rubbish.

Edited by mysticpsi, 08 June 2008 - 01:57 AM.

[mentatpsi]

so how is the observable universe deterministic at the macro level?

The way I understand it, the quantum fluctutations tend to even out when you get to the macro scale. It's like how when you flip one coin, you don't know whether it will land heads or tails. However, if you flip a million coins you know that the ratio will be close to 50/50. So the huge numbers of quantum fluctuations even out to a more or less deterministic ratio.

ahh great explanation . The fluctuations of the coin toss can be attributed to various fluctuations within speed of toss, starting point (H or T), wind velocity, etc etc. It's still influenced by factors... but from a probability standpoint, it will always come close to 50/50, i agree. I just always find probablity theories used to explain events who's factors are so numerous, that investigating them from that angle would be too complex. So quantum physics might be the same way.

[mentatpsi]

btw do you guys want links to where i got that story from? It was from memory, but I read it in a book awhile ago. So if you guys wish i can get the title and page of the book as not to make it look like i'm discussing random rubbish.

"By the late sixties, laboratory research into brain wave training was blossoming. The first meeting of biofeedback professionals took place at the Snowmass Resort in Aspen, Colorado, in 1968 as part of the International Brain and Behavior Conference and included leading figures of the movement...

By then the word was also out to the general public, and the meeting was packed. 'It was a mixture of uptight scientific types of all types, and people barefooted, wearing white robes, with long hair,' says Kamiya. 'It attracted the heads to a tremendous extent.' This was the time of Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, free love, LSD, the turned-on Beatles, and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of transcendental meditation fame. There was a strong and pervasive belief that altered states of consciousness were a panacea for the 'uptight' society that was waging a vicious war on Vietnam, despoiling the earth with toxic wastes and worshiping profit and greed. While some of the researchers in the field had similar feelings about the promise of biofeedback, the emotional, often wildly speculative claims made others, like Sterman, extremely uncomfortable. 'Half of the group had ponytails and saffron robes, and half had crew cuts and ties,' says Sterman. 'We'd look at each other and say, What planet are you from?'" (Robbins 65-6)

Robbins, Jim. A Symphony in the Brain. New York: Grove Press, 2000.

Edited by mysticpsi, 08 June 2008 - 02:39 AM.