Nondualism vs Dualism

[Alan V]

Actually, my specific experiences with lucid dreaming which led me to become a skeptic occurred when I was still a believer in a pantheistic God.  What I found out with a bit of experimentation within my lucid dreams was that my dream content was highly influenced by my expectations for that content.  Extrapolating that to "mystical visions" in general, which occur in similar altered states, you can't assume such visions are veridical of anything.  In other words, my experiences with lucid dreaming ended up completely undercutting my interest in mysticism.  When I read accounts from dreaming and consciousness science which made better sense of my experiences than mysticism did, I gave up mysticism.

My experience with ayahuasca has lead me to believe that there is a higher power out there and it is possible to learn from that high power however we choose to open our mind to it. There is some kind of living consciousness that is living in the soul of the ayahuasca plant, and it somehow speaks to the human soul in any way that the human is open to perceiving the message. But it can only be backed up by personal experience

My personal experiences showed that my personal experiences couldn't be relied on to be veridical. That being the case, it doesn't matter what you or I think we experienced. We need something else to back up our experiences, and in my case it was my reading of science. But I think you understood that. You are just evading the point.

[The Grand Nudger]

My experience with ayahuasca has lead me to believe that there is a higher power out there and it is possible to learn from that high power however we choose to open our mind to it.

No, it didn't.  You believed that beforehand.   You joined four years ago almost to the day, and explained how you had been a jehovahs witness a year before that.  You described yourself, then, as predominantly fixated on the origins of the universe.  

There is some kind of living consciousness that is living in the soul of the ayahuasca plant, and it somehow speaks to the human soul in any way that the human is open to perceiving the message. But it can only be backed up by personal experience

Or, it's a collection of toxic compounds with hallucinogenic effects, and you have a history of believing and fixating on exactly what you do now.  50/50.

[Dmitry1983]

The brain is simply a transceiver.

[Succubus]

The brain is simply a transceiver.

That's pretty easy to test. Put someone in a Faraday cage and if they respond to outside stimulus then your hypothesis is disproven.

[The Grand Nudger]

He meant to say "soul antenna" - cut him some slack, aight. 

It's fun to imagine, though.  Particularly in light of how many brains there are on the planet - and what that would mean for all the soul-missions floating through the air.

[madog]

He meant to say "soul antenna" - cut him some slack, aight. 

It's fun to imagine, though.  Particularly in light of how many brains there are on the planet - and what that would mean for all the soul-missions floating through the air.

I was going to point out that we all have two soles, but don't want to give the creationists another faction to their fairy stories 

[Dmitry1983]

physicalism can't explain subjective experience which means that consciousness is generated somewhere else

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

physicalism can't explain subjective experience which means that consciousness is generated somewhere else

That's an interesting assertion Dmitry1983.

Why then does/do similar damage to different brains produce similar effects?

[The Grand Nudger]

The notion that the seat of consciousness is somehow offsite, or remote..but sending and receiving signals to/from a physical brain is just a non-local physicalist assertion.

[Angrboda]

physicalism can't explain subjective experience which means that consciousness is generated somewhere else

Physicalism has not explained subjective experience. That it cannot do so is something that you cannot demonstrate, but simply keep claiming because you suck at logic.