What's With All The Vampires, Ghosts, and Zombies?

Do you think it is possible to induce a mass hallucination?

Lets look at Fatima:

Beginning in the spring of 1917, the children reported apparitions of an Angel, and starting in May of 1917, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, who the children described as "the Lady more brilliant than the Sun". The children reported a prophecy that prayer would lead to an end to the Great War, and that on October 13 of that year that the Lady would reveal her identity and perform a miracle "so that all may believe."[1] Newspapers reported the prophecies, and many pilgrims began visiting the area. The children's accounts were deeply controversial, drawing intense criticism from both local secular and religious authorities. A provincial administrator briefly took the children into custody, believing the prophecies were politically motivated in opposition to the officially secular First Portuguese Republic established in 1910.[2] The events of October 13 became known as the Miracle of the Sun.

Fatima

Most people think this is BS, but I wonder, could reality be so radically emergent that the human mind, via its semiotic umbilical tethering with the planets semiosis, be able to project its internal condition of need into the external world, in such a way so that the external "responds" with its own counter-point to the humans' semiosis?

It's crazy sounding, because, as humans, living "very low" in our semiotic understanding, are psychoneurologically entrained to swallow the blue-pill, lest the truth of reality overwhelm our awareness and expose its higher levels to human awareness. Hence, we live "behind the blinders" we place in front of ourselves.

Here, the trauma of the suffering of WWI, reached a collective threshold where for some unknown (as of now) reason, it was in Fatima Portugal that a weird, "hyper-emergent phenomena" occurred on Earth.

Aliens are the big thing in our day and age, with many "devotees". But still, there are Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc each with their own semiotic processes going on, driving certain images into being.

Indeed, even Hollywood, novels, comic books and video games have been driving home images of monsters and demons, so much so that one may well wonder: in situations of profound societal trauma, what kind of freaky correlations (synchronicities between systems) can be semiotically brought into being in such a world? South Park even had a few episodes dedicated to imaginary creatures coming into human reality.

Of course, its by splintering the human, or organism, from the environment which animates it, that we end up with dualistic ideas about how reality works. But reality is simply emergent. Humans exist as the 'very peak' of semiotic potentialities, inasmuch as our very collective feeling can affect dynamical processes within the Earth system itself.

One may well even wonder whether Moses parting of the Red sea actually happened, but one could of course take a softer interpretation. Not everything, of course, works this way. Some times writers elaborate/exaggerate, as we so well know. But then again, we may take semiosis, or 'belief', so frivolously, that we fail to recognize how much of a control parameter it is.

a reply to: Astrocyte


Semiotic umbilical tethering is a very good explanation of all the paranormal happenings.

...Or wait


Yeah, remember that strange word "Imagination". Kids have it as well

Ghosts are very real, remember what the Messiah told the theif on the pole?

originally posted by: ArchangelOger
Ghosts are very real, remember what the Messiah told the theif on the pole?

Do you have any grey poupon?

originally posted by: Astrocyte
Do you think it is possible to induce a mass hallucination?

.... snip ...

One may well even wonder whether Moses parting of the Red sea actually happened, but one could of course take a softer interpretation. Not everything, of course, works this way. Some times writers elaborate/exaggerate, as we so well know. But then again, we may take semiosis, or 'belief', so frivolously, that we fail to recognize how much of a control parameter it is.

So, the Egyptian charioteers drowned in their imagination?

Perhaps Trump's election was a mass hallucination, too?

Or anything that thousands or more have witnessed. All mass hallucination.

Perhaps everything that exists is a pernicious lie?

a reply to: chr0naut

We are all just NPCs in an MMORPG .
Who is the gamer , and who is the Player Character they play ?
I think ,therefore everything is

a reply to: Argentbenign

What don't you understand about that term?

The issue is actually a basic one of logic: why should signs or symbols exist at all, when they rely upon the implicative power of the objects which provoke their signature into the human brain-mind?

You think too small, and think too little, probably because you, like many people, wouldn't be comfortable knowing you live in a world with a structuring at the semiotic level that bespeaks something you'd rather not acknowledge.

So, if objects in the world are not mere objects, but forces which compel/structure the semiosis of our human imagination, then the imagination we carry within our heads and take-completely-for-granted is not merely inside of us, but is contained by something larger than us. This is all revealed at the level of logical-analysis, which affords the external object a catalyizing function on the semiotic structuring of the dissipative system of the human mind-brain. The issue is not me or my "kid imagination", but your lack of familiarity with what I'm actually talking about. A person with a little more humility would ask: what do you mean by this? Asking questions is a sign of intellectual vigorousness i.e. a recognition that the speaker probably has an intention that I, the hearer, being a different person living in a society which fosters a stubborn individualism, am probably prone to assign reflexive meaning to. Thus, I respond within my mind to the problems I recognize, and by doing so, extend my imagination into the Human other. The upside of this ability is that you get to feel like you're not a confused, angry, bitter person who enacts his frustrations through fictive reasoning processes that are all about making myself feel coherent in my operations (i.e. feelings) as a self.

My thinking is at the very edge of modern science/philosophy. I have not plucked this notion from the ether, but is based upon the work of the University of Copenhagen philosopher of Semiotics, Frederik Stjernfelt, who himself poured through the weird yet astonishingly brilliant manuscripts of Charles Sanders Peirce. I merely stand on the shoulders of other people, like we all do. It's just unfortunate that some of us don't recognize the necessity of invoking those shoulders-we-stand-on. Individualism breeds the most pathetic sorts of fantasies.

Don't be afraid of science. Be afraid of the idiocy's of mysticism: in my opinion, this is the only thing one should truly stand-on-guard against, lest ones brain be filled with damaging fantasies about the self, and one, not realizing that actions "summate" a new configuration of organic constitution, such that selfish actions grow and grow because the self begins to think that this is the way to truth, be unable to recognize the truth, because truth, when cognitively touched, elicits an embodied semiotic reaction that "fights back".

All that happens in us, in truth, follows rules. Our Universe is rational; and the living things which emerge in it, merely follow the rules that were released from the get-go.

Some people absolutely hate this idea. It is nauseating for them to hear the word "rule", especially when it implies that it has been established "outside them".

Such people don't even get that there is a non-verbal, early-life major trauma, that compels this anti-socialism in them. They think their feelings are "essences", describing something 'beyond' mere human beings.

It is sad and depressing, from the perspective of modern science, that this is what humans have been doing for thousands of years.

a reply to: chr0naut

What a weird response.

Here's what I think motivated your reaction: you have a strong commitment to Judaism, or the whole Abrahamic Christian-Jewish eschatological scheme. Yes?

What I wrote here may have been interpreted by you as unfairly critical of a Judeo-Christian theme, whereas earlier I spoke positively of Fatima. Your positive identification with one, and perhaps, negative identification with the other (Fatima), would then lead you to a state of irritation, and then, into the above weird post which seems unfairly exaggerated as to what I meant.

Is it possible that every claim made by a large group of people is true i.e. based upon what I described above as an emergent property of large group human biodynamical synchrony? No. When I was writing what I wrote, I thought to myself "but there are cases where people are just being completely deluded i.e. told something that didn't even happen".

What I meant was that not every claim made about reality is truthful i.e. sometimes it really is just limited to the skulls of the mind-brains who make the proposition.

It's popular entertainment.

Do I personally believe in "Mass hallucination"? Personally, I have never bought it. I have always viewed it as a convenient "explaination," i.e cop-out, for things that otherwise aren't understood. That's my prerogative though.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: chr0naut

What a weird response.

Here's what I think motivated your reaction: you have a strong commitment to Judaism, or the whole Abrahamic Christian-Jewish eschatological scheme. Yes?

What I wrote here may have been interpreted by you as unfairly critical of a Judeo-Christian theme, whereas earlier I spoke positively of Fatima. Your positive identification with one, and perhaps, negative identification with the other (Fatima), would then lead you to a state of irritation, and then, into the above weird post which seems unfairly exaggerated as to what I meant.

Is it possible that every claim made by a large group of people is true i.e. based upon what I described above as an emergent property of large group human biodynamical synchrony? No. When I was writing what I wrote, I thought to myself "but there are cases where people are just being completely deluded i.e. told something that didn't even happen".

What I meant was that not every claim made about reality is truthful i.e. sometimes it really is just limited to the skulls of the mind-brains who make the proposition.

The weird response is to the assumption that the crossing of the Red Sea could have been a mass hallucination.

They were being pursued by Egyptian chariots and had no other escape route. If they hallucinated it, why weren't they rounded up and returned to Egypt as prisoners? If they crossed at a shallow marshy point (and hallucinated the waters being held back) and the Egyptian cavalry and chariots actually got bogged, if such was the case, why didn't the riders and charioteers just get out and walk like the Israelite's before them? The account clearly said that the sea closed in over the pursuing Egyptians.

A mass hallucination does explain some aspects of the account but doesn't fit with ALL the details.

... and, in my reasoning, a mass hallucination would express differently for every person. They'd experience different things.

The suggestion that a large group of people (over 1 million Israelite's at the Red Sea crossing) begin hallucinating at a particular time and seeing exactly the same thing, is unreasonable.

originally posted by: chr0naut

A mass hallucination does explain some aspects of the account but doesn't fit with ALL the details.

Maybe it was a tsunami.

It probably happened this way. There was a massive earthquake out at sea in the "Indian Ocean". And the priests felt the earth tremble and understood a massive tsunami was coming.

Now, before the rush of water comes in, however, the first thing that happens is that "water drains" from near the shore.

Why do tsunami waves begin with the water flowing away from shore?

That initial drain away of the water, sucked water from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean, and allowed the Hebrews time to cross the shallow water.

By the time the Pharoah's troops arrived at the shore and start crossing, the water is coming back in, in a massive wave.

And like we saw in Japan, it literally washes everything away.

The average person would not have understood the science of the tsunami, and wouldn't have known about the "water drain" followed by the "water inrush", but the priests would know. And they would also know the "timing" of these events. The priesthood kept the secrets of science under wraps, and only the "initiates" would learn about such things.

So, the whole Red Sea event could be simply explained by an anticipated tsunami.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: Argentbenign
It is sad and depressing, from the perspective of modern science, that this is what humans have been doing for thousands of years.

What humans have been doing for thousands of years is endless philosophizing and getting things wrong. While calling it enlightenment or knowledge. Or implying insight and understanding of the world.

Have you figured out what "knowledge" is yet? It's a very simple concept. Philosophers seem to have some difficulty with it (seeing that you also asked the question months ago, well years perhaps, you should have figured it out by now). How about "truth"? Relative or absolute?

“What Is Truth?”

THAT question was cynically posed to Jesus by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. He was not interested in an answer, and Jesus did not give him one. Perhaps Pilate viewed truth as too elusive to grasp.—John 18:38.

This disdainful attitude toward truth is shared by many today, including religious leaders, educators, and politicians. They hold that truth—especially moral and spiritual truth—is not absolute but relative and ever changing. This, of course, implies that people can determine for themselves what is right and what is wrong. (Isaiah 5:20, 21) It also allows people to reject as out-of-date the values and moral standards held by past generations.

The statement that prompted Pilate’s question is worth noting. Jesus had said: “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.” (John 18:37) Truth to Jesus was no vague, incomprehensible concept. He promised his disciples: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”—John 8:32.

Where can such truth be found? On one occasion, Jesus said in prayer to God: “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) The Bible, written under divine inspiration, reveals truth that provides both reliable guidance and a sure hope for the future—everlasting life.—2 Timothy 3:15-17.

Pilate indifferently rejected the opportunity to learn such truth. What about you?

What is Truth?

Pilate, of course, was not really seeking the truth. If anything, his question revealed his skeptical or cynical attitude. Apparently, to Pilate truth was whatever a person might choose or was taught to believe; there was really no way to determine what is truth. Many today feel the same way.

Source: Three 16th-Century Truth Seekers—What Did They Find?

Nothing new under the sun.

A phrase adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes...

Source: dictionary.com

Eccl. 1:9,10:

What has been is what will be,
And what has been done will be done again;
There is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one may say, “Look at this—it is new”?
It already existed from long ago;
It already existed before our time.

Including ways of thinking about truth and knowledge/science (a familiarity with facts/truths/certainties/realities or that which is factual/true/certain/absolute/conclusive/correct, without error/definitive). Pilate's agnostic philosophy of vagueness is very old and it continues until this day (and not only by those calling themselves agnostic either):

This website, and especially this subforum is another prime example of re-hashed old pagan philosophies (sometimes modified slightly). The movie the Matrix is filled to the brink with the promotion of old philosophies such as Bishop Berkeley's immaterialism (which you will also come across by those talking about quantum physics, with or without much understanding about physics). Some parts of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics could be taken straight from Bishop Berkeley's fans (the philosophers that continued down his path). These things I'm talking about have no bearing on reality or what is true/factual/absolute.

You're right about this though:

Aliens are the big thing in our day and age, with many "devotees".

As demonstrated by the sheer number of posts on that subforum. People really like wasting their minds on fantasies and imagination presented as the latest mysterious subject or secret (see description under my name).

a reply to: Astrocyte

What about the UFO phenomenon and it connection to psychic phenomena?

Fatima supposedly had some ufo activity and high strangeness as well that was persistent for serveral months. The apparition of Mary was only seen by the three farm kids, while a " Sun that Dances" zig zags, shining multiple colours, while other said they saw nothing other then colours.

Also don't forget how Spring Heeled Jack, the Moth man to Dracula an heroes creepers are alot like Batman, or is it that Batman alot like Satan.

a reply to: Astrocyte


Astro, my first sentence was irony, the second one was a sarcasm. If your thinking is really at the edge of modern science/philosophy, then you should be smart enough to sense it, right?


And one more thing, as I am representing the Mysticism school and you the scientific one, be sure we're gonna find each other almost always on the different sides of the rope. Yet there's nothing personal in it. I am sure you are capable person with swift mind and genuine ideas like Bruno, Buber, Cathie, Munk, etc. Yet you still lack the writing style I've seen by other scientists and I can call satisfactory. Name me a dumb monkey if you will, maybe you won't be far from the reality of it...