Nasa Physicist Tom Campbell on alternate realities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL28lY8WzVo

His theory that reality is a virtual simulation, and that many reality frames coexist : one of which is the alternate consciousness of lucid dreaming ( he is well known for describing western science as a "kind of religion with it's own restrictive dogmas and proscriptions, and beliefs. He says you need to keep a scepticism about everything including western science and it's beliefs). Yes he is a NASA physicist. His famous trilogy is My Big TOE ( TOE meaning Theory of Everything). Worth a look at his books. They were certainly interesting.

In other words if his theory is correct then the multiverse may be real?

Yes; you could say that. He also says consciousness is independent of a physical self ( or brain) as it would have to be in a virtual simulation reality frame.

"Where physics, spirituality and metaphysics meet – there you find one of the foremost scientists in the world – Thomas Campbell. Working as a nuclear physicist for NASA, Campbell postulates that we do indeed live in a virtual reality, saying: “The only thing that is fundamental (real) is consciousness itself; all else is virtual- i.e., a result of an exchange of information within consciousness.”

There's a good summary for you ( quotation)

So if he's right, then we as physical beings are simply for lack of a better word mechanical vessels that house said consciousness.

Yes. It's all semantics. You could also say: "The human body is a sacred garment" ( I believe the ballet dancer Martha Graham said that).

This is pretty much my exact view of the world right now.

It's both cool and sucky at the same time. If I had my way the mechanical vessel I'd be controlling with my consciousness would be a Wing Gundam Zero.

:lol:

mia:...( he is well known for describing western science as a "kind of religion with it's own restrictive dogmas and proscriptions, and beliefs. He says you need to keep a scepticism about everything including western science and it's beliefs). Yes he is a NASA physicist.

Science is not about beliefs. It is about following evidence and establishing facts. It's a methodology that develops theories and refines them according to experimentation and verification. It does not have dogmas or cling to ideas as its methodology also involves falsifiability. There is no room for conspiracies either as different teams will replicate experiments that have arrived at certain conclusions in order to verify its accuracy.

Scientists like to be precise and are very passionate about establishing facts. They also compete for Nobel prizes and recognition. None of these qualities are possessed by Campbell. The fact that he has said "Western science" is also a fallacy in itself. What other science is there. The nonsensical Vedic science as Hagelin once uttered? Science is a universal method. You may get different branches such as physics, chemistry, biology etc. (sometimes described as "sciences" rather than areas covered by science) but the principle is the same.

And just because someone specialises in a scientific field does not mean they won't lie about it to people with little knowledge of it. In the lab, the dishonest scientist may do everything right and contribute to useful technologies for major facilities (like NASA). But in their spare time they may mislead the layman and even form esoteric/New Age cults. Meanwhile, his scientific peers are laughing at him and shaking their heads - especially when he criticises the scientific method itself.

Crackpot pseudoscientist and charlatan. Me and a friend of mine came across him online (Facebook dream explorer group) a couple of years ago and we pulled him up about some inconsistencies in his Big TOE trilogy and the fact that he deliberately misled the layman about the double-slit experiment. He got defensive, said something about him possessing the "big picture" while mainstream science has the "little picture" and refused to address his errors, which, in restrospect, were not errors, but rather, deliberate lies. Cult leader tactics. Just look at his own forum and his lemmings there... :roll:

To say that consciousness produces a collapse is absolute nonsense. He conveniently misinterprets the term "observation" in scientific circles in a way that the laymen assume is has a quotidian sense. It really means measurement and a basic lesson in quantum physics will tell you that measuring something quantumly delicate will affect its state. I can use an analogy if you like: Imagine you are trying to detect a green tennis ball in a green field but its dark. You want to know what the ball looks like so you use a searchlight. The photons bounce on the ball and reach your eyes. You see that the ball appears well-lit and is bright green. But that is not what the ball looked like prior to light shining on it. The ball looked dark previously. No consciousness involved in changing its appearance. Consciousness is restricted to the perception of sentient beings. That's it.

In his book he also deliberately used quotes from well known scientists, twisted their meaning, and lied about the context in which they were used. Very dishonest. He's not worth your time and you won't learn anything from him that you don't already know via this site.

To cut a long story short, he is basically saying that because science has not managed to come up with a theory of everything yet, there is room to allow his parapsychological ideas to be potentially true. His literature does not contain a theory of everything at all, just sugar-coated and misleading statements for the layman. His argument is tantamount to the fallacious 'God of the gaps' reasoning. There are still gaps in science so lets throw unicorns, fairies and elves into the mix as they could or might fit.

He has also said recently that the placebo effect is an example of mind over matter. I invite any of you to look at this effect to really know what it's about if you are not familiar with it.

Summerlander wrote: Science is not about beliefs. It is about following evidence and establishing facts. It's a methodology that develops theories and refines them according to experimentation and verification. It does not have dogmas or cling to ideas as its methodology also involves falsifiability. There is no room for conspiracies either as different teams will replicate experiments that have arrived at certain conclusions in order to verify its accuracy.

Scientists like to be precise and are very passionate about establishing facts. They also compete for Nobel prizes and recognition.

Science can be biased too and being based on beliefs as well. Examples of biased in science is the big drug companies who pay lots for studies done on their drugs and dont publish the negative findings about their drugs but rather only the positive ones.

Something I found out recently is that even research published in "some" journals, the journals arent always allowing the research to be questioned and mistakes called to it unless the ones who did the study agree.. I read a statement along that line from a scientific journal only the other day (this can leave bad science out there much much longer).

Behinds todays science lays a lot of misleading due to companies or places wanting to make money or having something to loose if their science is proven to be false. Its money which is leading this world, many arent caring if they are misleading, but its all being about profit.

Many scientists themselves are complaining about how things currently are and what others are getting away with. Science nowdays is often just about selling a belief or just an idea.

One of the reasons why I don't put all of my faith in science.

Science is not about selling beliefs. Science is about study. To say that you have no faith in science is to say you have no faith in the study and exploration of reality - something which will bring you facts about the world (not the assumptions, weak hypotheses, or lies of pseudoscience which get quickly exposed and dismissed for the tripe that they are.)

Pharmaceutics is constantly being review and if you bothered to follow science papers you would know that the effectiveness of Prozac for depression is being questioned today. It doesn't seem to have the same effect that it did years ago. You see, science reviews itself and is humble enough to admit when it isn't dealing with certainties. It is not about holding on to dogmas or beliefs. It's in constant progress and follows evidence wherever it may lead.

Wake up. That's all. B-)

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Blahblahblahblahblah

I didn't say I have NO faith in science. I merely said I don't put ALL my faith in science. Meaning to me, there are some things science can explain, but others that even the Top Minds like Hawking and Newton would scratch their heads over.

Ace: Some things science can't explain...yet! There is a saying by Darwin regarding individuals who think science will never be able to answer certain questions...

Mia: Very mature.

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I would most definitely blow my brains out in a few days of living in a world where EVERYTHING is perfectly explained and set-in-stone lol. I mean think about it, that kind of life is no life. There would be not reason for deep pondering or debate. Every day would be the same thing, over and over and over. There would be no individuality, no uniqueness or genius. No imagination or creativity. A world without mystery and opacity is hell (at least to me). Does anyone else see my point?

Something else I thought to add: Humans are utterly incapable of satisfaction and contentment. Take children for example. You buy them the toy that they've been wanting for a week or so. In two hours tops, the magic and thrill of having that toy is gone. This idea carries on for everyone. Really, there's no point in trying in life haha. We can never be satisfied, there ALWAYS has to be more. More wealth, more knowledge, more, more, more. I just don't see how we can ever get to the point where every single thing is explained. We'll either die trying to get there or destroy ourselves once we get there.

We don't have the answers to everything and every scientist loves the challenge of a puzzle. But I have also met people who take great pride in explaining how lightning works. There is something comforting about knowing. We also like to be sure of things. Uncertainty is the enemy of confidence. It is true that the unknown can be beautiful but we can also fear it.

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Read the novella "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. It's a fascinatingly dark little book about a future collectivist society that utterly loses all meaning of individuality. It's so depressing and horrifying.

deschainXIX wrote: Read the novella "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. It's a fascinatingly dark little book about a future collectivist society that utterly loses all meaning of individuality. It's so depressing and horrifying.

My highschool made me read that book sophomore year. I hated it and I didn't even read much of it but we did so much class discussion I had the book down. It's an interesting exaggerated form of communism written by someone who was oppressed by Comunism. It's a perfect exaggerated example of why the system just dosnt work, and we shouldn't use it anywhere in the world.

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.......I wouldn't say it's communism

Communism is the proletarian's dream and the plutocrat's nightmare. It's fallacy is treating people like they are the same when they are not. It's an unrealised ideology from which a perfect utopia can never flourish. Why? Because we are still kids at heart.

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Yeah. I think the reason it doesn't work is because (just as Thomas More said in his book Utopia), humans are infinitely selfish creatures. That was the sort of main idea revolving around the original idea of a Utopia.

An Ant Colony is the perfect society, and they get things done without crime, or corruption. We even use words like 'Worker', 'Soldier', 'Queen', and 'Colony' to describe their society. Coincidence? (Of course not, and the first biologists must have compared them to the ideal concept of the perfect society).

But that would never work with us humans would it? We have individual desires, and I can't change that. We are more like troops of monkeys all screaming at the other troops, fighting the dominant alpha males in power, stealing each other's food, trying to fornicate with each other's mates, and flinging poo at each other! (Well, maybe not poo, but other weapons... our technology has improved....) :lol:

(That's MY view on society) :roll:

Ants are slave drivers and there are solider ants that kill the workers that don't work to correct rate, we are just like them :)

Yea, ants have a very draconian society. Perhaps there are human societies on this planet more like ants than I realized. But do ants ever have an uprising?

Are ants even...conscious?

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They are a hive mind. The workers, soldiers etc, might not have a conscious mind, but their main controller I.E. The Queen is conscious.

I would say they are conscious at the basic level. They sense their surroundings and make simple decisions based on that. But of course they are not self aware and don't have a sense of self and individual desires. I find insects fascinating when I watch them walk. They dart around and choose left or right, but why I have no idea. Even they probably don't know. They are non-lucid. But they do seem to make very simple decisions at the very least.

When I think of ants though, the ant itself is not the organism. The colony is. Much like a group of bacteria comes together to create a colony. And cells come together to create the human body. We do the same and are making a super-organism too right here on this Petri Dish we call, 'planet Earth'.

Cities are like an organism. Food comes in from the farms and leaves through waste management. Police are like white blood cells fighting disease. Roads are like blood vessels. And politicians are like the brain. (Perhaps brain dead at times, but we need to work on that.....) :roll:

Reminds me of a theory I thought about based off the old "Turtles all the way down." concept. To those who don't know, it was based around an old religious belief that our planet was flat and attached to the back of a large turtle. Sounds ridiculous I know but come to think of it. No matter what structure we use, religion, science, philosophy, art, there is often one thing on top of another like a food chain. For basic cosmology, we have, the turtle (A nickname I use for beyond the the multiverse), Multiverse, universe, galaxy, Planets. For basic science bacteria, bottomfeeders (Shrimp jelly fish etc.) Sea life, reptiles, avians, mammals, Humans. For religions we have an interger as there's a split between. The lowest form is the darker aspects starting with Dark Deity (Devil/Hades/Anubis etc.), It's Spawn, Demonic beings, Humans being the neutral, celestial beings (Angels/fairies/etc) Demigods and Deities.

No matter the concept there is always someone on top or below. We may not be on the back of the turtle, but for all we know our universe could be a pile of Mucus someone Else's skin.

Interesting replies on what it is like to be these creatures! B-)

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Summerlander wrote: Are ants even...conscious?

I think they were just talking about the way their routines are organized in comparison to human societies. But, no I don't think they're conscious. At least, the way we currently define consciousness. But that could, of course, change, as we don't know what it is exactly. But I think that if you don't have Theory of Mind, you're not conscious.

I agree ^^!!!

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Among the variety of things I may easily rebut, only this one about the scientific method:

<<Meanwhile, his scientific peers are laughing at him and shaking their heads - especially when he criticises the scientific method itself.>>

Never the traditional scientific method will be able to find ultimate truths due to a quite simple reason, namely, that it is dependent upon external observation alone, and therefore any improvement as to skill in such kind of observation may challenge previous findings.

For someone so prone to cling to what is considered as the sole existent logic it should be easy to understand that my above statement is absolutely unquestionable.

What do you mean by "external observation." If you mean objectively corroborating evidence, then that is a strength, not a weakness. We are lucky to be able to establish some understanding of objective reality. There are many things that we can agree on about reality (even if sometimes interpretations differ) because we practically perceive the same things.

So I really don't know what you are getting at there buddy. If anything, the opposite of what you say is true. You can already imagine a solipsistic scenario where all that you know is that which you perceive and you have no one to corroborate the veracity of your conclusions. Imagine living in a world where you are the only inhabitant. You would be wondering how accurate your perception is against reality and whether or not all illusions can be unravelled by yourself.

You could establish your own science to study your world. But it would be a limited one indeed. You wouldn't even be able to examine the human brain objectively for you would be the only human being and thus the only brain required to perceive.

Thomas Campbell claims his sleep hallucinations (dreams, lucid dreams, OOBEs) support the existence of a nonphysical (whatever this means) reality which makes the afterlife possible. Other scientists, like LaBerge, experience what he does and have a more mundane interpretation strengthened by evidence and reason. (Not mysticism, mumbo-jumbo, fairytales and pseudoscience.)

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