UFOs and Alien Abductions
Objects observed in the sky by untrained observers are not necessarily what they appear to be. Also, despite intensive training, experienced pilots are unable to eliminate completely the visual problems associated with flying.
Abducted! Encounters with aliens
What are the conditions under which alien abduction-like experiences may occur? Are they altered states of consciousness? Most abductees do not recall the abduction immediately afterward but years later often under hypnosis. Memory is a complex phenomenon involving distortions, deletions, additions, and sometimes, complete fabrications. These confabulations mix fantasy with reality. Most abductions occur during sleep when hypnogogic hallucinations (occurring soon after falling asleep) and hypnopompic hallucinations (occurring when awakening) can occur.
What is the origin of the consistency in the stories reported (shared mental states and social contexts)? We are inundated with many social scripts and narrative tropes that become unintentionally incorporated into our memories and experiences.
The idea that we are not alone in the universe is a "congenial conclusion" - a belief that would make life more interesting if true and has some degree of plausibility. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and the notion of alien visitations is not supported by even ordinary evidence.
Near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences.
Are some people more fantasy prone, more open to group influence and suggestion, than others people? Are there different states of consciousness?
What is an Altered State of Consciousness?
Evidence suggests that there is nothing that an individual can do in an "altered state of consciousness" that they cannot do in an ordinary state of consciousness. Hypnotic behavior involves something more than voluntary and purposeful compliance with the perceived demands of the situation. Faking hypnosis is not like feigning illness but more like psychosomatic illness.
Sleep seems to differ qualitatively from waking but it may only be that the amount of what we do during sleep differs from what we do during waking.
Consciousness has two characteristics:
1. Monitoring ourselves and our environment so that perceptions, memories, and thoughts are represented in awareness;
2. Controlling our environment and ourselves so that we may initiate and terminate behavioral and cognitive activities.
An altered state of consciousness would reflect a distinct difference in such monitoring and control. Hallucinations occur under extreme stress, drugs, or sleep deprivation.
The Near-death Experience.
NDE, like its related partner OBE (out-of-body-experience) is a very compelling experience.
NDE is characterized by:
1. a floating OBE in which you look down and see your body;
2. passing through a tunnel or spiral chamber toward a bright light
3. emerging from tunnel and seeing loved ones of a god-like figure.
Hallucinations of flying can be drug-induced by belladona alkaloids that simulate Ach neurotransmitters and LSD simulates 5-HT. That artificial processed chemicals can induce various kinds of unusual experiences means that there are receptors in the brain for similar naturally produced chemicals that can generate such experiences.
Interfering with the normal activity of neurons creates specific experiences (spirals, tunnels) and reconstruction of reality involves decentering (usually involving a "looking down" experience. People have had NDEs without anoxia, hypoxia, or hypercardia.
The Quest for Immortality.
All organized religions address the question of what follows death.
Science and Immortality.
Causes of death:
1. Trauma - accidents;
2. Diseases - cancer, arteriosclerosis, infection
3. Entropy - senescence (progressive deteriorization of various physiological processes). Aging increases the likelihood of causes 1 and 2 above.
Life-span seems to be relatively fixed at 85-95 years; life expectancy (takes into account trauma and disease) continues to rise (U.S. 1900 = 47, 1950 = 68). Consider cloning and cryonics.
Historical Transcendence - Is it so Small a Thing?
History transcends the present through it long past and limitless future. History is a product of sequences of events that come together in unique ways. Such events are mostly human actions constrained by previous conditions including the laws of nature, economic forces, demographic trends, and cultural mores. One can gain transcendence by affecting history. Alternatives may lead one to miss something of profound importance in this life.
Normal, Paranormal, Deviations
Paranormalism - belief in any power, force, or entities that violate basic scientific rules, principles, or laws.
Education, Scientific Knowledge and Belief in the Paranormal.
Traditional religious beliefs that are paranormal (violate notions of scientific causality) exhibit a negative correlation with scientific education and knowledge.
These beliefs include: "heaven" and "hell" are materially real places; angels and the devil are materially real beings; young earth creationist notions of the natural world; etc.
Persons who accept paranormalism based on religion tend to be more traditional, conservative and conventional than those who do not.
Paranormal beliefs without a religious association(e.g., belief in UFOs as alien space-craft, alien visitations, ESP, telepathy, astrology, psychic contact with the "spirit world") are not related to education. Many seem to accept the truth of these paranormal assertions along with scientific principles that logically and factually contradict them.
Why? Humans have the ability to compartmentalize categories of thinking so as to permit simultaneous belief in contradictory assertions.
Cults & Hysterical Epidemics
A Witch Craze Feedback Loop involves cycling information through a closed system (family, village, culture).
Internal components include the social control of one group of people by another, more powerful group, a prevalent feeling of loss of personal control and responsibility, and the need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere.
External components include socioeconomic stresses, cultural and political crises, religious strife, and moral upheavals. The conjunction of such events can lead to self-organization, growth, peaking and collapse.
Historically, as science grew in importance, the viability of belief systems began to be directly attached to experimental evidence in favor of specific claims.
The Satanic Panic Witch Craze
The key to understanding the prevalence of many unusual beliefs is in the answer to the question "Who needs such beliefs?" Talk-show hosts, book publishers, anti-? groups all thrive on such beliefs. This is the information exchange fueling the feedback loop and driving the craze to higher levels of complexity. The Satanic-cult craze is fueled by news programs, discussion in prime-time programming, documentaries, and workshops for police officers, child protection workers, and other public officials. As Marvin Harris demonstrated historically, these crazes redirect attention away from those in power to relatively powerless scapegoats.
The Recovered Memory Movement as a Witch Craze
Absent at the beginning of therapy, memories of childhood abuse are soon created through prolonged application of therapeutic techniques that involve extensive social pressure.
The troubling aspect of the consequences of any particular craze that may have certain legitimate instances is that some genuine offenders may go free in the inevitable backlash against the craze. Childhood sexual abuse is real but not as prevalent as the craze implies.
The Unlikeliest Cult: Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and the Cult of Personality.
The seductiveness of facts, theory, evidence, and logic may mask some flaws in any system.
Science is not "truth" but how truth is sought. The results of an inquiry are not more important than the process of the inquiry.
Scientific reasoning can never lead to an absolute certainty about one's beliefs such that anyone who is not in favor of those beliefs automatically is anathematized as against them.
Ayn Rand's philosophy:
1. Reality exists independently of human thought;
2. reason is the only valid method for understanding reality;
3. every human should seek personal happiness and exist for his/her own sake (no one should sacrifice or be sacrificed);
4. and laissez-faire capitalism is the only viable political system for the organization of society.
Rand emphasizes individualism, personal responsibility, the power of reason and the importance of morality. No authority should dictate truth. How could this philosophy become a cult (depends on group thinking, intolerance of dissent, and the power of the leader)?
The fallacy in Rand's philosophy is the belief that absolute knowledge and final Truth are attainable through reason. Once a principle of action has been discovered by the Objectivist's version of reasoning to be true then:
If you disagree, your reasoning is flawed; if your reasoning is flawed, it can be corrected; if you do not correct your reasoning you are flawed and do not belong in the group.
Characteristics of a cult:
1. Veneration of the leader
2. Inerrancy of the leader
3. Omniscience of the leader
4. Persuasive techniques
5. Hidden agendas
6. Deceit
7. Financial and/or sexual exploitation
8. Absolute truth
9. Absolute morality
Note:
1. Criticism of the founder or follower of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy. The components of the philosophy must stand or fall on their own internal consistency or empirical support.
2. Criticism of part of a philosophy does not
invalidate the whole of the philosophy. Parts may be rejected while other
parts may be embraced.
Morals do not exist in nature and thus cannot be discovered. Human actions become moral or immoral only when someone else judges them as such. If morality is strictly a human creation, then it is subject to all sorts of cultural influences and social constructions. We create hierarchies and make judgments based the criteria for those hierarchies. Hence morality becomes relative to a moral frame of reference. However,when tolerance ends, morality loses its justification.