IN PURSUIT OF REALITY
a philosophical essay by:
Bill Birdsall
e-mail: Thinkenstein@yahoo.com
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Each individual perceives reality
in a way
that is subjective, and there is much difference of opinion between
individuals
as to which, if any, interpretation is correct. Culture is one
influence which
helps shape individual concepts of reality. Just as there are
differences of
opinion between individuals, there are also differences of opinion
between
cultures. Political and religious wars sometimes result.
My own sense of reality is
subjective, and
undoubtedly flawed by all the errors of thinking that tend to befall
human
beings. I feel, however, that behind all the subjective realities there
is
actually an objective reality; truth, were it to be known. This feeling
is
based on our success in manipulating the physical world; doing things
like
sending men to the moon. If the underlying science was very faulty, the
probability of such things happening would be very low.
To approach truth, critical
thinking is not
a tool to be lightly thrown away. Feelings and intuition undoubtedly
have their
value in getting through life, but I am uncomfortable delivering myself
to
faith in belief systems so long as I find reasons to doubt them.
Over the years, I have
investigated various
occult subjects. Information, and the means by which it is stored and
transmitted is an important element of my analysis of them,
especially slippery fields of "spirit" that are difficult to test
otherwise. ( * See: <a href="doc/page2.html">
The Nature of Information. )
Vehicles for memory, the localized
storage of information, are composed of matter in the solid state.
Liquids and
gasses don’t work, because their molecules move randomly, and are
incapable of
holding patterns. A message in alphabet soup is lost when stirred. The
ingredients may still be there, but their organized structure, their
relationship is not. Light and radio waves can be used to transmit
information,
but they are not useful for localized memory
storage
because they travel, and take the information they carry with them.
Just because some ideas are old,
that does
not necessarily mean that they are correct. Sometimes nature is falsely
perceived, and the false perceptions are passed along through respected
channels of culture, such as religion. If belief in an incorrect system
is not
fatal to its users, the system can still have good longevity,
especially if
there are no appropriate tools for examining the subject critically,
from a
different perspective.
Perhaps, one never knows
everything about
anything, but I would still like to share some of the skeptical
thoughts I have
concerning various subjects I have encountered in some people’s belief
systems.
There is no best order in which to approach them that comes to mind, so
I will
mention them randomly.
AURAS:
Some people claim to see colored
"energy" fields, auras, which surround every individual. What is the
evidence that supports such beliefs? I am a painter, with good
sensitivity to
color. If auras are normal colors of light, and they are usually
described in
terms of normal colors, any normal eye should be able to see them. What
I see
is not an energy field.
Thousands of years ago, long
before the
microscopic anatomy of the eye was known, Far Eastern cultures were
talking
about auras. I believe the first persons to perceive auras were
actually
misperceiving a phenomenon called persistence of vision.
Persistence of vision can be
experienced by
anyone by looking at a bright light bulb at night, and then closing
one’s eyes.
A ghost image, glowing against the normal black background of the
closed eyes,
will be seen. With the eyes open, staring at a black piece of paper,
the same
glow will be seen. Against a background of white paper, the ghost image
seems
darker, due to contrast. When the eyes are moved, the ghost image will
follow
eye movement. Staring at colored lights will produce ghost images in
complementary colors.
When a "seer" studies an aura, he
usually goes into a trance, which is to say he stares fixedly at the
subject,
much as one stares fixedly at the light bulb, to create a ghost image.
Then, he
allows his eyes to travel over the contours of the subject, dragging
the ghost
image along, creating the effect of a mysterious aura around the
object. The
ghost image is a fantasy of the eye and brain of the viewer, not a real
energy
field around the subject.
If an aura is truly an energy
field which
emits light, and not a phantom caused by reflected light, it should be
visible
to a seer in a room with total darkness. I have a simple test for those
claiming to be able to see auras in such a dark room. Let them count
one’s
fingers that are held up enough times to eliminate the possibility of
chance
success. For example, the probability of naming the correct number of
fingers
held up on one try would be one out of ten (or one out of eleven if
zero is
used). To successfully pick the number ten
out of ten
times would be sufficient to convince me. I once proposed this test to
a
visiting "seer", who refused to be tested. I believe the person was a
charlatan. Unfortunately, charlatans abound.
KIRLIAN _PHOTOGRAPHY:
Kirlian photograph images look like "auras". Kirlian photography is sometimes used as
evidence of energy
fields emanated by spirit-like bodies within physical bodies. Kirlian photographs of live leaves show stronger
aura-like
images than do those of dead leaves. There are images of partial leaves
that
show ghost images which include the removed sections, taken by some as
evidence
that a leaf’s spirit body remains intact, independent of physical
intactness.
Related to this subject is, I
think, a
glowing, aura-like static electricity phenomenon called Saint Elmo’s
fire,
sometimes seen around the tips of spars on sailing ships. In kirlian photography,
the object to
be photographed is placed between two statically charged plates. Live
material
contains more water than does dead, dry material, and would be expected
to
conduct electricity better, and create a stronger electrical field. The
"aura" image would, therefore, be more pronounced. We see an
electrical field in the photographs, one created by the process itself,
not by a
spirit body.
In explaining the images of
partial leaves
with auras of restored sections, spirit photographs in the early days
of
regular photography come to mind. Many of them, simple double
exposures, would
fool few people today. I suspect a hoax from the man in charge of
making these kirlian photographs. He
probably makes a partial exposure
of a whole leaf, removes a section without moving the remaining part,
and then
completes the exposure. The end result of such "darkroom magic" would
be kirlian photographs of ghost auras.
Would the
missing sections also show whole-leaf auras? How many times could a
leaf be
divided and still show whole-leaf auras for each tiny piece? Such a
progression
seems very improbable, and suggests a charlatan in the picture.
Charlatans
abound.
Kirlian photographs of the hands of "healers" in
resting and healing modes also show some variations in strength of the
fields.
Perhaps, when they concentrate on healing, whether or not they actually
do
heal, the concentration makes the hands
sweat more,
and the surface of the skin conducts electricity better. The image
would then
not be one of some healing field, but rather the same kind of static
charge
field produced in the other photographs.
REINCARNATION:
I am skeptical of the evidence for
spirit
bodies and souls. Reincarnation, the concept of their migration from
one body
to another, raises some questions.
Think in terms of information, and
the
brain, which is the solid-state vehicle for the information composing a
person’s memory of his lifetime. Memory needs a solid-state vehicle;
liquids
and gasses don’t work. Any disruption of brain structure, such as
accident
trauma can wreak havoc on the neural relationships, and the information
they
contain. Much worse, I imagine, would be the transformations of death;
decomposition into something soupy. Liquids and gasses are too
disorganized to
retain memory. I think it very unlikely that some spirit body, more
ethereal
than a gas, would be any better.
In many cases of accidents with
brain trauma,
people suffer from amnesia. If spirit bodies, necessary for the
transmission of
past life memories in reincarnation, can retain memory while the body
dies and
decomposes, they should be able to retain memory when the brain suffers
trauma,
and the body lives. In effect, with the spirit’s memory as back-up for
the
brain’s memory, there should never be any loss of memory from brain
trauma, yet
there is. Is there a spirit which survives death and can retain memory,
or is
there not? The absence of memory after brain trauma seems to indicate
there is
not.
Imagine, also, the memory of a
past life
being transcribed to a new being conceived of egg and sperm. At that
point, the
new being does not even have a brain with neurons that can create
neuron
relationships. Complex information needs a complex vehicle. An adult
brain is
needed to house adult memories.
SPIRITUALISM:
Some people feel that spirits of
the dead
exist and can be contacted by the living. Around 1848, two sisters,
Kate and
Margaret Fox, began to hold seances in
which people
sat around a table and the sisters acted as mediums between the
visitors and
spirits of the dead. Visitors asked questions, and the spirits answered
with
knocking sounds; one for yes, two for no, etc. There was money to be
made in
giving seances, connecting people with
their
ancestors, so this was like lighting a prairie fire. Soon, everyone was
holding
seances.
Later, the Fox sisters confessed
that they
were frauds. They had trick toe joints that they could make knocking
sounds
with under the table. By that time, though, the concept they had
started, seances to contact the dead, was
too popular to eliminate
by their confession. The prairie fire could not be put out. There were
too many
charlatans making money, and too many people eager to believe.
The magician, Houdini, exposed
many
fraudulent mediums in his exploration of the subject. Sometimes, it
takes a
magician to catch one. By the time Houdini took to the field, spirit
mediums
were using all sorts of elaborate tricks to create special spirit
effects, such
as spirit writing and strange noises.
Just as the Fox sisters got people
believing
in contacting spirits of the dead, Bridey Murphey was the first person to supposedly be
regressed
through hypnosis to a past life. She eventually confessed to being a
fraud, but
by then other charlatans had caught onto her act, and tapped into a
gullible
public. Today, there are still people who believe that hypnotic
regression to
past lives is possible.
ASTRAL_PROJECTION:
Some people believe that we have
several
bodies, other than our visible one. One of those less-than-gaseous
bodies is
supposedly the astral body, and is capable of leaving the physical body
under
certain circumstances (very closely resembling sleep) to travel and
experience
things. I, myself, have read a book on the subject, followed the
directions for
inducing astral projections, and experienced something similar.
I think, however, that such
experiences are
really misunderstood lucid dreams. Lucid dreaming, a subject explored
by sleep
labs in recent years uses very similar induction techniques, and can
get
identical results. Lucid dreams are dreams in which one has something
like
waking state consciousness within dreams. The experience is
convincingly real,
yet is really just a creation of the sleeping brain.
In astral projection, one
supposedly goes
places in the astral body and sees things. The mechanism of astral
vision needs
better explaining in order to satisfy me. It doesn’t integrate well
with the
science of optics and the eye-brain relationship that biologists
describe.
For one thing, to focus light and
make a
focused image one needs a lens, something with a density different from
the
surrounding medium, air. The normal eye’s lens is denser than air. Even
if an
astral body is transparent, distortions caused by an astral eye lens
floating
in the air would make the lens visible to an observer. I, for one, have
never
seen such spots of distortion floating in my environment, indicating he
presence of an astral body nearby.
What would be the shape of a
less-dense-than-air astral lens capable of vision in air? Certainly, it
could
not be the same shape as the denser-than-air lens belonging to the
physical
body. I see no explanation in the well-understood science of optics
that would
allow such a less-dense-than-air lens to function as needed. This is
some
indication that astral vision is not dealing with real light. Any
visual image
without its origin in real light probably has its origin in
imagination,
something that the dreaming mind deals with all the time. Also, if the
astral
eye lens was not the same shape as the physical eye lens, is there any
reason
why the rest of an astral body would be the same shape as the rest of
the
physical body?
Furthermore, the electro-chemical
mechanisms
by which neurons conduct signals from the eye to the brain are well
understood.
Without such neural pathways, signals never reach the brain. The
traveling
astral eye has no such neural pathway to the sleeping brain. A silver
cord has
been described by supposed astral travelers, connecting the back of the
astral
head to the forehead of the sleeping body; however, if astral bodies
and astral
silver cords are visible only to astral eyes, then astral vision does
not use
normal light. If we are talking normal light, then normal eyes should
also be
able to see the silver cords belonging to astral bodies. As far as I
know, that
has never been reported by people who are awake.
Furthermore, the cones in the
anatomical
structure of the eye needed for normal color vision are pigmented. The
need for
similar pigmentation in order to have color vision with astral eyes
would also
cause them to be visible to awake observers, and they are not. The
whole
concept of astral vision does not seem very realistic.
ASTROLOGY:
Thousands of years ago, when
astrology was
being invented, people did not know that the universe was like a
chaotic
explosion of shrapnel, and that many stars are millions of light years
away.
Many of the stars we see today no longer even exist.
By what means can stars influence
our lives
over such long distances? By gravity, light, or perhaps radio waves?
Most
people are born indoors, under roofs, which effectively block light.
The
objects around us exert a much stronger gravitational influence on us
than do
the stars. Anything similar to radio waves which do not interact with
the roofs
over our heads, therefore becoming modified and unpredictable when they
reach
us, would probably pass right through us, also, having no effect. The
means by
which stars might exert the influence on us that astrology claims is
not
evident.
For those who take the accuracy of
astrological readings as evidence of their validity, James Randi
(a magician who, like Houdini, has worked to expose trickery and
misunderstanding
in mystical fields) once did an interesting experiment. Prior to
visiting a
group of students, the students were asked for their birth dates and
places of
birth so that astrological charts could be done, and interpretations by
an
astrologer made. On the day of his visit they were asked to rate their
readings
for accuracy on a scale of one to five, with five being highly
accurate. All
students rated their readings with fours and fives. Then they were
asked to
pass their readings around, and it was found that all the readings were
identical!
That showed that, not only are
people more
similar than they might think, but also that people tend to interpret
vague,
suggestive statements in ways that favor what they want to believe.
Certainly,
as far as the readings went, if one size fits all, you can say that
none is a
custom fit.
In Discover Magazine, (February,
1997),
Steve Allen makes a good point about the establishment of astrology as
a valid
scientific discipline. He states, "But that’s precisely the point. Such
a
thing has never been established. There are three separate systems of
astrology
known to historians -- the Egyptian, the Chinese, and, I think, the
Persian,
and all of them are mutually exclusive. That, of course means that if
any one
of them is essentially right, the other two are wrong. The more
reasonable
approach is to assume that all of them are wrong until conclusive
evidence for
their validity has been offered."
URI_GELLER__(mentalist):
James Randi
exposed Uri Geller, an Israeli psychic who could supposedly bend spoons
and
other metal objects with only the power of his mind. It turned out that
before
the tests, Uri, or his assistants, secretly prepared the spoons to
break by
flexing them enough times to be at the point of breaking; creating what
is
known as metal fatigue in the objects. Charlatans abound, some
internationally
famous.
PETER _POPOFF__(evangelist):
Randi also exposed the evangelical preacher,
Peter Popoff, who was raking in about five
million dollars a year
for his ministry. Popoff was using modern
technology,
video cameras and mini-radio receivers, to get information previously
gleaned
from prayer cards passed out before the meeting by his wife, who was
outside in
their van with the transmitter. It made him seem like he had a hot line
to God.
Another charlatan.
In conclusion, there are many
pitfalls in
the ways we believe. We tend to believe things that offer us hope. We
tend to
believe in exciting ideas. We tend to believe what we want to believe;
what we
want to be true. We tend to believe in things that offer us more
control of our
lives, that give us a sense of order in
chaos.
Sometimes, we believe in illusions.
Sometimes we are lucky, judging by
results,
and objective reality coincides with what we imagine to be true. Often,
we are
not. Critical analysis is a tool that can, perhaps, be useful in
distinguishing
between subjective realities and the objective reality that is the goal
of
truth seeking.