The SCIENCE of Monsters and Ghosts

Wisdom Quarterly HALLOWEEN SERIES

Too bad most of us do not believe in science. If we did, we'd believe in ghosts. What will happen when science dictates there is enough evidence for disembodied phenomena? Frightening thought. Science-lovers run out of haunted dwellings as quickly as ignoramuses. Why? The body knows what the brain cannot yet accept. What? Seen and unseen monstrosities roam about and among us. Wisdom Quarterly is only interested in the real-life ones in history and today.

• Buddhist Ghosts? Stories of the Departed
• Could dragons (nagas) have been real?

  The Science of Monsters
Matt Kaplan, The Science of Monsters (ScienceFriday.com, Oct. 26, 2012)

At their most basic level, monsters represent fears held by society, fears associated with dangers perceived in the surrounding world.

  

The Science of Monsters (Matt Kaplan)

These fears have a powerful evolutionary history by encouraging people to flee instead of fighting suicidal battles. When ancient hunters encountered a saber-toothed tiger by accident, they ran. When the human ancestor Homo erectus caught angry cave bears by surprise, it ran. When chimpanzees and [our sexy cousins the] bonobos, the nearest genetic relatives to modern humans, encounter large predators in the wild, they run.

  

While Hollywood heroes have made running away distinctly unpopular on the silver screen, every single actor who has ever portrayed a hero/heroine who stood his or her ground against some abominable terror comes from a long genetic lineage of cowards who fled in the face of danger.

  

Real life sea serpents: sturgeon (naga)

That is why they are here to act today. If their ancestors had fought against monsters far more powerful than themselves, as Hollywood heroes do all the time, their lineage would have been destroyed by predators long ago. Fear, in short, keeps people alive. But fear can also go too far.

  

Recent work in animal behavior has revealed something fascinating: There are personality types in animals. Among fish in a single species, there are adventurous individuals, ready and willing to take risks, and there are more cautious and timid individuals, fearful of doing anything that could put them in danger.
  

Yeti's bones, Tibet (factfictionandconjecture.ca)

Similar variations in personality are starting to be found in birds and mammals too. A recent study led by Kathryn Arnold at the University of York revealed... Being courageous or curious undoubtedly presents serious dangers. Ongoing studies indicate that fish with more daring personalities are...

  

Whether some humans are genetically predisposed to be more adventurous than others remains to be determined, but there clearly are some people who ultimately are more willing to take risks. Make no mistake, the instinct to flee from danger is still deeply rooted in every person’s brain, but some of us are more willing than others to go to places associated with danger....
  

LISTEN: Science of Monsters (Science Friday, NPR)
Parapsychology: Scary science (Coast to Coast AM) 
 
Like lion cubs play-fighting in the safety of their den, monsters may be allowing threats to be toyed with in the safe sandbox of the imagination.

  
So if monsters are present in society for both pleasure and mental practice for future frightening interactions, what happens when our fears are overcome? What then?
   

Camera catches real ghost (angelsghosts.com)

To a certain extent, danger should function as the life essence of monsters... Fears have changed a lot since the dawn of humanity, and with these changes have come alterations in the pantheon of monsters that lurk in our world.
  
The Minotaur is no longer with us, but aliens are. In a sense, monsters, while strictly the stuff of fantasy, experience evolution at a rate that is in stride with the pace of human understanding of the surrounding world. Science, the empirical testing and exploration of the world, which is about as seemingly unrelated to monsters as can be... [actually only denies their existence because of acceptability-filters not because of an absence of evidence.]

  
[Excerpted from Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite:  The Science of Monsters (Scribner). Copyright © 2012 by Matt Kaplan. Kaplan is a science journalist and a regular contributor to The Economist. He has also written for National Geographic, New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, Science, BBC Wildlife, and The New York Times. When not chained to a desk, he travels the wilds of the world as part of a London expedition group. He lives in London.]

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Conscious Life Expo (LA, Oct. 5-7)

Wisdom Quarterly; 2012.ConsciousLifeExpo.com

Conscious Life Expo Oct. 2012, Los Angeles Airport Hilton (consciouslifenews.com)

  

GT (Ancient Aliens), Wren (WQ)

The Conscious Life Expo comes to Los Angeles this weekend: October 2012 Expo. What will you be doing at the end of the world on December 21, 2012? Why not sail off the edge like a modern Columbus or Viking? 

Linda Moulton Howe (EarthFiles)

Join your tribe on a Cruise to the Mayan Yucatan to celebrate the birth of the Fifth World in this endless Mayan cycle of creation, destruction, and re-creation. Miss this expo? No worries. It comes through town again in February 2013 as the 11th Annual Conscious Life Expo, the largest event of its kind in the country.
  

Forbidden (MCremo.com)

Stay tuned as for updates throughout the year with a new monthly newsletter, each of which offers something FREE along with articles on interesting subjects. More

• AUDIO: The Biology of Belief (KPFK)
• (Bruce Lipton on KPFK's Inner Vision, October 2, 2012)
• Coffee (dehydrating) linked to vision loss
• Incest: White House and Monsanto, Inc.
• Free Yoga Videos-Fiber Rich Foods-Stress Relief-Smoking

(Enlightened Films) February 2012 Conscious Life Expo presentation by Dr. Steven Greer, MD, of CSETI (Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelliegence)
  

• Vatican butler found guilty of loving Pope too much

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Supernatural Science: Between Life and Death

TheDocumentarySite; Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Thousands of people claim to have had near-death experiences. Do these experiences offer proof for the existence of an afterlife? Or do they tell us something about the human brain's response to extreme stress?

Soul and Not-Soul

What is the "soul" (gandhabba) commonly referred to as spirit or ghost? In Buddhism it is a transient phenomenon composed of five "heaps" or aggregates. These factors are functionally-integrated by the mysterious power of karma that can bear results at a time distinct from an action undertaken. What are the five groups?

The first group is labelled "form." It is composed of four heaps, referred to as earth, wind, fire, and air but explained by the Buddha as actually being qualities of materiality: solidity, motion, temperature, and cohesion. Buddhist physics articulated in the Abhidharma go into great deal about these qualities. Moreover, instructions are given for seeing/experiencing them first hand as objects of insight meditation practice. (Success in such meditation is dependent on the depth and strength of concentration -- serenity, absorption, mastery of samadhi -- one has previously developed and has at his or her disposal. The strength of the mind is only available in the absence of hindrances, defilements, and taints.

The second group is labelled "feelings" -- not emotions but sensations. Emotions are more complex, and while they may be felt in the body, they are more likely categorized under mental/heart formations. There are six sense bases, the ordinary five and mind. Feelings are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and may be therefore thought of as 18 (6 x 3) in all. They also serve as objects of insight and are much easier to become aware of in a stable way than the kalapas (particles of perception) in Buddhist physics.

The third group is labelled "perceptions." When the six sense bases apprehend, perceive, or note in accordance with their types of objects (eye sensitivity sees forms, ear sensitivity hears sounds, etc.), perception takes place. Feelings and perceptions are two types of mental/heart formations, but they are so salient and important in our experience, that the Buddha singled them out for special attention. Perceptions arise from the six sense bases. Note that the eye does not see, but rather what sees is that property of the eye -- what might today be called the rods and cones of the retina -- that sends its impulses (mind moments, cittas?) to the nervous system's bulbous processing center we call the brain.

The fourth group is labelled "mental formations" but should not be regarded as exclusive to the brain. Much of the process of being aware actually emanates and returns to the heart, the literal heart area where the "mind door" is located -- a greenish mirror reflecting sensory experience. There is absolutely no need to believe this, for one may experience it directly. Seeing replaces believing, so one should not remain satisfied with an admixture of religious faith and skeptical doubt when investigation and verification are available and urged. The Buddha is famous for saying of the Dharma, of his teachings, "Come see." There are 50 groups under this rubric, in addition to the fact that the two previous groups are also special kinds of mental formations. They serve the important function of conditioning karma as skillful, unskillful, or neutral. See more at sankhara.

The fifth group is labelled "consciousness." Together with the previous three, this group forms what may be referred to as "mind." it is not a tangible thing but an interdependent process. The first group, form, is "body." A body is not limited to gross sensual bodies; fine-material (rupa) bodies, such as those of ghosts and spirits and light-beings (devas) also qualify as form. Not everyone, however, has a body. Ghosts have bodies but they long for sensual bodies. Beings in heavenly worlds have (fine material) bodies and are glad to be done with these dense material frames. The most rarefied beings in the four Immaterial Sphere (arupa loka) planes of existence are formless (arupa). But these four are the only exceptions. Otherwise, these Five Aggregates are always together, just as the qualities of materiality are bound up with one another and only analyzed (dissected, set apart) for the purposes of discussion (analysis) and the development of insight. Consciousness is awareness, which depends and influences the other aggregates.

So it is never correct to say, when conventionally speaking, that there is no self or that the Buddha teaches that there is no soul or no self. There is a soul (atta), there is a self (atta), there is an ego, there is a spirit (a subtle material body we may regard as "light" or ordinary matter in an extraordinary state such as a flux or higher energy state).

Likewise, it is never correct to say, when ultimately speaking, that there is a soul or self. There is NO soul or self. But this must not be taken on faith, for faith may supplant direct experience and lead to absurdities such as making the claim, "There is no soul, no self." Such claims by mystics who have seen is fine. But such claims by lay Buddhists is ridiculous and leads to doubt, scorn, and/or dismissal of Buddhism's philosophy leading to liberation. Philosophy does not lead out, practice does. With practice the philosophy makes perfect sense. With scholarship, it breaks down. So it is more important to practice meditation than to study ideas.

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Creationism is bad for children (video)

The Young Turks; Wisdom Quarterly

 

Scientist and children's television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism, and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters:

  

"I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine. But don't make your kids do it,'" said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series "Bill Nye the Science Guy." 

  

The video, entitled "Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children," was posted to YouTube on Thursday by the online knowledge forum Big Think and had netted more than 1.3 million views as of Monday...." 

  

Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola (host of TYT University and Common Room) discuss on The Young Turks. Reuters' Lily Kuo has a piece about the controversy on The Huffington Post.

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America growing increasingly Atheist

Patt Morrison (KPCC, SCPR.org)

Smile, there may be many hells and heavens yet no "God" due to workings of  karma.

  

Stephen Batchelor - atheist

The belief in God, or gods, is changing and some new research shows that the practice is on the decline worldwide. 

According to a new poll by WIN-Gallup International, the percentage of Americans who identify as “religious” dropped 13 points -- from 73 to 60 percent since 2005. The number of Americans who identify as atheists jumped from 1 percent to 5 percent in the same period. 

  

The poll posed the same question to 50,000 people in 57 countries and five continents: “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person, or a convinced atheist?”
  

“When we say religious, the definition of religious and religiosity has changed, especially for Americans. And so you ask the question, ‘Are you more religious?’ The answer may be that I’m not religious or as religious or more religious but I’m spiritual,” Dr. Carolyn Gordon, associate professor of communication and preaching at Fuller Seminary, told Patt Morrison. More

Was the Buddha an atheist?

Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha surrounded by humans and devas

If theism is defined as a belief, faith, or reliance on a creator/controller "God," the Buddha certainly was an atheist. But the issue is not that straightforward. The Buddha spoke of (and to) many "gods" (brahmas and devas).
  
Therefore, if theism includes the belief in "gods" (devas or "shining light beings" superior to humans in happiness, beauty, longevity, and other qualities), then the Buddha was no atheist.

The Buddha pointed out the wrong-view of relying on an all-powerful God as an explanation for the universe, karma, or as a means to enlightenment and final liberation from suffering.
  

Buddha in Thailand (Dongissel/flickr.com)

Buddhism is non-theistic. That is not at all the same as atheistic. It means that whether there are or are not gods or a God makes no difference to the need to exert oneself to develop compassion, insight-wisdom, and "salvation" (liberation from ignorance and samsara, the wheel of rebirth and suffering).
  
There are worlds in space, "heavenly" planes, some subtle (rupa), some immaterial (arupa). But even in this Sensual Sphere (kama loka), there are better planes/worlds to be reborn in.

Therefore, there is sex after death, sex in lower "heavenly worlds." In the world of Brahma -- which transcends sex, sensuality, and sexual dimorphism (Great Brahma and the other Gods being neither male nor female) -- is peaceful and sublime. But it is no final end of suffering, no escape from the round of rebirth or karmic results. It is no solution to the problem of ignorance and the suffering it brings about.

Enlightenment is a solution.

The Buddha was not a god, prophet, avatar, or an advocate for the gods/God. Instead, he demonstrated what an ordinary human being can attain in terms of wisdom, compassion, and most importantly a liberation surpassing that of God/the gods. He is therefore regarded as a teacher of devas, brahmas, and human beings.

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Mind Revolution (B. Alan Wallace video)

AlanWallace.org; via Buddhist Geek VincentHorn.com

B. Alan Wallace (Roads to Bliss)

“…This is something that had been postponed for 300 years from the time of Copernicus. Can you imagine 300 years of the development of science -- of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, etc., etc., 300 years before they actually started the scientific study of the mind?

“That should throw you back for a moment if you’ve not quite thought of it in those terms. This is bizarre. The mind is that with which you’re doing all the science. It would be like somebody giving you an instrument and saying, 'Use this instrument; you will discover a lot of things' then waiting 300 years before you actually look at the instrument itself.”

This video and quote come from B. Alan Wallace’s talk “Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences.” 

  

The cool thing is that he is giving this talk to Google employees! Vince Horn met Alan in July and had a chance to listen to this talk in Boulder. It’s an excellent talk on the history of the physical and biological sciences in the West.

  

His theory on how the mind sciences are about to go through an equally profound revolution like the revolutions related to Galileo and Darwin in the physical and biological sciences respectively.

   

Meditation, of course, is first person introspection. So it -- refining the instrument -- has a lot to do with empirical Western sciences. Reading Wallace’s superb book The Attention Revolution goes a long way to examining the instrument as well.

Who in the world is?

Google TechTalks August 8, 2006 B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970. He is currently seeking ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices and Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies ( http://sbinstitute.com ). ABSTRACT Galileo took a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the physical sciences, and a key element in this revolution was the rigorous, sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences, and the missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorous, precise observations of mental phenomena. By integrating the third-person methodologies...all »B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar-practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, at one time serving as translator for the 14th Dalai Lama. He seeks ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices with Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (sbinstitute.com). 

(Think and Be Happy) How are mental wellbeing and hedonic pleasure to be

distinguished? What types of mental, verbal, physical behaviors support and/or

undermine the cultivation of mental balance?  How does it relate to wellbeing?

ABSTRACT 

Galileo and some nearby planets

Galileo played a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the hard physical sciences. A key element in this revolution was the rigorous and sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences. The missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorously precise observations of mental phenomena as established in the Buddhist Abhidharma. By integrating third-person methodologies common in the cognitive sciences with the first-person modes of examining the mind, which have been developed in Buddhism and other contemplative spiritual traditions, our present generation may bring about the first real revolution in the mind sciences

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Intention Experiment: science of spirituality

Lynne McTaggart (TheIntentionExperiment.com); Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

This is a book without an ending. The Intention Experiment, which was voted a Top Amazon 100 by readers and is now a worldwide sensation, is the first book to provide full scientific evidence for the power of human intention. It is also the first book to invite readers to take an active part in its original research. The book seeks to answer the most fundamental question left open by The Field: If we are all connected, all one, can our thoughts and intentions affect and change the world and things out there in the world? More

• Lynne McTaggart, author of The Bond: How to Fix Your Falling-Down World, appears on The Aware Show today and soon on a free teleseminar call. She's found something more powerful than intention.

For centuries Western science and cultures have taught us to think of ourselves as "individuals." But a revolutionary new understanding is emerging: What matters is not the isolated entity but the space between things, the relationship. The "bond." It challenges the way we conceive of ourselves and our world. It also shows us that the essential impulse of all life is a will to connect rather than a drive to compete.

U.S. Attorney General is [a criminal] in contempt

(NPR) In a dramatic showdown between the branches of the U.S. government, the Republican-led House voted along party lines to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. This is the first time in history... droves of Democratic lawmakers protested by walking out of the House chambers... [in] disgust. Now the criminal contempt charge is referred to the U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia. In other words, Holder's own Justice Department will decide how to proceed. More

• The Nation: Scalia's broken Moral Compass...approximately 83 percent of Americans are affiliated with an organized faith, be it a form of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism... 
• Pakistan: BUDDHA attacked by Taliban gets facelift The monk credited with introducing Buddhism to Tibet, Padmasambhava, was born in Swat. 
• Return to the Same City
• Thai Buddhist Film Festival seeks to spark faithThe International Buddhism Film Festival was an effort by the government and private religious groups to popularize the Dharma among the younger... 
• "Many strands" of Aung San Suu Kyi's life unite in Oxford
• [Forced insurance] law upheld: Now what?
• Why there's less red meat on many American plates 

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Scientist: Evolution debate will end soon

NEW YORK (AP) - Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history. Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself.

Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that "even the skeptics can accept it."

"If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it's solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive," Leakey says, "then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges."

Leakey, a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, recently spent several weeks in New York promoting the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya. The institute, where Leakey spends most of his time, welcomes researchers and scientists from around the world dedicated to unearthing the origins of mankind in an area rich with fossils.

His friend, Paul Simon, performed at a May 2 fundraiser for the institute in Manhattan that collected more than $2 million. A National Geographic documentary on his work at Turkana aired this month on public television.

 

Now 67, Leakey is the son of the late Louis and Mary Leakey and conducts research with his wife, Meave, and daughter, Louise. The family claims to have unearthed "much of the existing fossil evidence for human evolution."

On the eve of his return to Africa earlier this week, Leakey spoke to The Associated Press in New York City about the past and the future. More

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  Day or night, rain or shine, small groups of African migrants can be found dotting the lawns of Levinsky Park in a rundown area of south Tel Aviv where hundreds of Israelis rioted in protest against them.
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