Article about an interesting research paper we went over in my animal behavior class. It’s about novelty seeking behavior in honey bees.
This is the take home message of the article: “The work suggests that evolution may use the same genetic toolkit across species for behavioral traits, much in the way that related genes are used for building body parts, whether in a fruit fly or frog. If you ask people if they think a squid has personality, they usually say no,” says psychologist Sam Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin. But individual squid, and apparently bees, may consistently seek new things. In animals, scientists call that “novelty-seeking,” while people who exhibit similar traits get labels like “extrovert.””
Since you guys are on about hallucination n different planes of existence. Anyone ever tried DMT?
Joe rogan goes on about it n he says it’s changed his life forever. A lot of interviews on DMT users suggests that DMT leads to ego death where you feel oneness with your environment.
Some bhuddist monks have said that DMT gives a similar effect to when they meditate.
Wikipedia says that DMT is produced in the blood and urine (in regards to tests done using chromotography, mass spec n ionisation).
I meditate 3 times a day and i get the same feelings as DMT users decribe but no visual imagery so it seems plausible.
Our perspectives are pretty similar but mine deals more with the irreducible parts of nature, the cohesive “incohesion” between the macro and microverse. I have a more pantheistic belief when it comes to life and nature.
Like I’ve said a while back, the fact that on a quantum scale nothing is solidly quantifiable and observations extremely subjective has lead me to believe that consciousness might be an inerrant part of the universe, that we as lifeforms tap into through and ever-evolving biological process. Consciousness allows a measure of localized freedom in decision making and introspective thought.
Think of it like a dolphin swimming in the ocean. A dolphin on a molecular level is in itself composed mostly of water, only given distinction by form from a shell of other molecules working in unison to give this amorphous liquid structure a more definable purpose amongst the grand sea of turbulent liquid. If we look at the brain, we can visualize it as essentially a complex shell that allows consciousness to flow, developing through millions of years of evolution to act as the perfect conduit.
Essentially, the reason why our so-called “objective” observations are similar as human beings is a result of our brains evolving precisely to experience this world of jostling waves of energy, the very same fields of pulsing energy we’re composed of, as well-defined physical constructs.
The fact that on a quantum scale our observations literally control the outcome of an event, and can retroactively change an event that has already occurred due to the Uncertainty Principle is perplexing enough to question our physical reality. This goes against our expectations of the macroverse and yet, is an inextricable part in how we view reality. Your decisions can alter things on a fundamental level, and that events that are statistically impossible (e.g. 5 billion years ago our sun* actually had too little mass to start nuclear fusion, but due to quantum tunneling hydrogen atoms jumped past their repulsive fields… igniting the proto-sun.) can occur sporadically.
Consciousness, to me is like taking a fraction of god’s essence (in a pantheistic sense) to shape our reality. The more of it we gain, the more complex our brain has to function to regulate this “power of choice”.
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Shows the how much our subconscious controls our conscious behaviors.
*It’s interesting how the sun fits 3 out 4 main criteria for how we classify life.
-It reproduces (via supernovas)
-Consumes “food” to maintain homeostasis while expelling waste.
This reminded me of that thing in “What The Bleep Do We Know?” when it was shown that certain atoms act differently when they are being observed by humans.
I will attempt to state that again with slightly more gravity:
Voyager. May have exited the fuckingsolar system.
If the reports are true, then… oh, you know, this is just the first time in the hundreds of thousands of years we’ve existed that something we’ve made has, I don’t know, LEFT THE FUCKING STAR SYSTEM IN WHICH IT WAS CREATED.
Know who has two thumbs and is god damn proud to be the member of a species of interstellar explorers?
Not to be nitpicky since this is a pretty monumental moment but wouldn’t the countless radio waves we have broadcasted count as the first things we sent that left the solar system?
I hope the first thing we do is ram an alien spaceship. That way we can get aliens coming at us asking if we have intergalatic insurance.
Have you read Heaven and Hell (I don’t know if there’s an online version)? Really interesting stuff by Huxley, very similar to what you’re talking about here.
Speaking of Huxley, is anyone familiar with the mid 20th century psychic experiments that convinced him that ESP might be real? I’m assuming they’ve been debunked (or covered up…cue ominous music), but they seem to have had an effect on pop culture at large.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), member of the House Science Committee, is a young Earth creationist who believes that evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell”. He also believes that the Bible teaches us how to form our public policy.
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Cross-posted to the Romney thread, which has become the de facto election thread.
Man, is really sad to see that there are a lot of idiots like that on this age and time, i went to a catholic school, where they taught us the evolution theory, the big bang theory, etc, etc because as one of the priest there told us, believing in god doesn’t mean that you have to be an ignorant idiot.
Seeing that he thinks that the Big Bang Theory is a lie straight from hell, what would he think after learning that the father of the Big Bang theory was a a Catholic priest
Star formations in the seen universe on the far end of exponential decline, e.g. even if we wait forever, there may only 5% more starts in the universe, than today (if the trend continues and some new process is not found):
