我的專業生涯一直是單向的,而且極為學術性,想不到卻碰到上門求診的凱瑟琳,讓我經曆一場難以置信的經驗,整個過程在《前世今生》一書中有詳細描述。我畢業於哥倫比亞大學,然後獲得耶魯大學醫學院博士學位,在耶魯大學的附設醫院當精神科主治醫師。我也曾擔任數所大學醫學院的教授,並發表四十餘篇有關精神藥物學,腦部化學,眠障礙,沮喪,焦慮,藥物濫用,老人癡呆症等等科學性論文。先前我唯一出版的著作是《膽鹼功能生物學》(The Biology of Cholinergic Function),它絕不是一本暢銷書,不過對於失眠病患確實有幫助,閱讀它必能讓患者一覺到天亮。我是左半腦發達的人,具有強迫性人格,而且,對於“不科學”的領域,譬如超心理學,徹底的懷疑。我對於前生,輪回轉世的觀念一無所悉,也沒興趣了解。
Coast to Coast AM 2004-12-11 Brian Weiss - Past Lives Hour 2
ed2k://|file|Art%20Bell%20-%20Brian%20L.%20Weiss%20-%20Past%20Lives%202%20of%204%20(11.12.2004).mp3|15594336|F311668678DB53CB74231EE030315547|/
Coast to Coast AM 2004-12-11 Brian Weiss - Past Lives Hour 3
ed2k://|file|Art%20Bell%20-%20Brian%20L.%20Weiss%20-%20Past%20Lives%203%20of%204%20(11.12.2004).mp3|15604488|DC64A8110F48966F1CA2ED422D778EB2|/
Coast to Coast AM 2004-12-11 Brian Weiss - Past Lives Hour 4
ed2k://|file|Art%20Bell%20-%20Brian%20L.%20Weiss%20-%20Past%20Lives%204%20of%204%20(11.12.2004).mp3|15531912|B7E8D3B4CBEB0DE3954D6612C9DD074C|/
Brian Weiss 博士的專訪,用eMule下載
衲子 發表評論於
In the 1950s, while conducting research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, Stanislav Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed deion of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species's anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. The woman's experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.
Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed deions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.
In later research, Grof found the same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions which did not involve the use of drugs. Because the common element in such experiences appeared to be the transcending of an individual's consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations of space and time, Grof called such manifestations "transpersonal experiences", and in the late '60s he helped found a branch of psychology called "transpersonal psychology" devoted entirely to their study.
Although Grof's newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm.
As Grof recently noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.
【1】更多超常的、獲得驗證的案例 見: Stanislav Grof, The Adventure of Self-Discovery (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1988), p. 108-9.
【2】Stanislav Grof, Beyond the Brain (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1985), p. 31.
V.M.Janik et al., "Signature whistle shape conveys identity information to bottlenose dolphins," PNAS, May 23, 2006, vol. 103, no. 21, pp.8293-8297.
Abstract
Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) develop individually distinctive signature whistles that they use to maintain group cohesion. Unlike the development of identification signals in most other species, signature whistle development is strongly influenced by vocal learning. This learning ability is maintained throughout life, and dolphins frequently copy each other’s whistles in the wild. It has been hypothesized that signature whistles can be used as referential signals among conspecifics, because captive bottlenose dolphins can be trained to use novel, learned signals to label objects. For this labeling to occur, signature whistles would have to convey identity information independent of the caller’s voice features. However, experimental proof for this hypothesis has been lacking. This study demonstrates that bottlenose dolphins extract identity information from signature whistles even after all voice features have been removed from the signal. Thus, dolphins are the only animals other than humans that have been shown to transmit identity information independent of the caller’s voice or location.
-------------------------------
全文:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/103/21/8293.pdf
(您的學校或課題組必須有訂閱PNAS的電子期刊,您才能下載這個pdf文件. 若不然,您隻好去泡圖書館了.)
"'Cyclic universe' can explain cosmological constant"
04 May 2006
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn9114&print=true
"Why the Cosmological Constant Is Small and Positive"
Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1126231v1.pdf?ijkey=vlxG9iFtrQZJQ&keytype=ref&siteid=sci
(登載於Science上的專業論文)
Parnia S, Waller DG, Yeates R, Fenwick P (2001) A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation. Feb;48(2):149-56.
van Lommel P, van Wees R, Meyers V, Elfferich I. (2001) Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A prospective Study in the Netherlands. Lancet, Dec 15;358(9298):2039-45.
"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity" -- Albert Einstein
"科學還原論以允諾的唯物主義態度聲稱最終必能用神經活動來解釋所有的精神世界. 我認為,這極大地貶損了人性之謎. 這種信念應該被歸為一種迷信... 我們必須認識到,我們是有靈性的生命,我們的靈魂存在於精神世界,而我們的身體和大腦存在於物質世界."
Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self
by Sir John Eccles p. 241
---------
Sir John Carew Eccles (January 27, 1903 – May 2, 1997)是澳大利亞的神經生理學家. 由於他對神經突觸所作的傑出工作, 他獲得了1963年度的諾貝爾醫學和生理學獎.
衲子 發表評論於
Penrose對"唯物主義"這個詞的態度:
"Well, what I am partly saying is that those words (materialist) are a bit out of date, because the contemporary understanding of material is very different now from the way it used to be. If we consider what matter really is, we now understand it as much more of a mathematical thing. When these catagories 'materialist', 'idealist' etc. were first coined, people thought of matter as a much more defined thing, something which is 'there', and then you combine that with mysterious mind stuff which is floating around, which would be seperate from it. But I think that matter itself is now much more of a mental substance;... So before we have a deeper understanding of what is really going on, to talk about things in these terms is almost certainly limiting and inappropriate." -- Penrose
From the first issue of "The Journal of Consciousness Studies"
對於意識的非局域性與量子力學的聯係, 約瑟夫森(超導約瑟夫森結的那個"約瑟夫森", 炸藥獎得主, 劍橋大學物理係教授)的這兩篇文章講得很清楚.
"String Theory, Universal Mind, and the Paranormal" ("超弦、宇宙心智、超自然現象")
Brian D. Josephson
http://arxiv.org/html/physics/0312012
"Biological Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality" ("量子非定域性在生物學上的應用")
Brian D. Josephson and Fotini Pallikari-Viras
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/papers/bell.html
更多物理學家對於這個問題的看法:
"Physicists probe the paranormal"("物理學家探察超自然現象")
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/05/8
"Most readers of Physics World will probably dismiss paranormal phenomena as either utter nonsense or not worthy of serious study, but over the years the subject has attracted the interest of a number of eminent physicists..."
衲子 發表評論於
“意識”研究資訊:
亨利 P.施塔樸(理論物理學家, 任職於伯克利加大勞倫斯實驗室理論物理組)所寫的期刊論文 "為什麽經典力學不能自然地容納意識,而量子力學卻可以"
Henry P. Stapp, "Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accomodate Consciousness but Quantum Mechanics Can," Psyche, 2(5), May 1995
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-05-stapp.html
Stuart Hameroff 的主頁
http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/
很詳盡地收集了有關量子意識領域的各種資料, 如對該理論所涉及的各方麵知識的介紹, 他與合作者們所發表的論文(有些刊登於Physical Reviews和PNAS等一流期刊上),他們與還原論/唯物論/神經元學派(也就是現在的主流)學者們的來來往往的爭論記錄,一些Powerpoint講義, 等等.
彭羅斯(R. Penrose 物理學家, 數學家, 高就牛津大學數學學院)所撰
(不過此書沒有在線版, 下麵提供的隻是它在Amazon的網址)
"Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195106466/ref=pd_sxp_f/002-5932499-5756020?v=glance&s=books
及他給別人對於此書的質疑的答複 "超越對陰影的懷疑: 對的評論的答複"
"Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow:
A Reply to Commentaries on Shadows of the Mind," PSYCHE, 2(23), January 1996
http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-23-penrose.html
這是一場新的爭論,因為無論自有科幻小說(十九世紀末)還是有電腦(一九四六年)以來,有關機器思維的爭論──也就是“擁AI”和“反AI”的爭論──實在沒有停息過。例如在六、七十年代,便有英國哲學家魯卡斯(J. R. Lucas)基於數理邏輯(特別是哥得爾 Kurt Goedel 的不完備定理),以及美國哲學家德雷弗斯(Hubert Dreyfus)基於現象學的觀點對人工智能作出種種非難。令這一爭論在八十年代重新熱烈起來的,是一篇發表於一九八0年的文章《心靈、大腦與程序》(”Minds, Brains, and Programs”)。在這篇文章裏,美國加州柏克萊大學的哲學家西爾(John R. Searle)首次提出了他那著名的“中文字房實驗”(Chinese room experiment)有趣的一點是,這個實驗雖然從來沒有付諸實踐,但它所引起的爭論,卻比不少真正進行過的實驗還要多。
一九八0年的這篇論文,最先發表於專業學術期刊,因此未有引起廣泛注意。不久,西爾應劍橋大學邀請主講著名的“雷夫講座”(Reith Lectures),其中一講正以中文字房實驗為題。演講其後結集成書,名為《心靈、大腦與科學》(Minds, Brains, and Science)。透過這本小書,他的論點才開始引起注意。
當然,早在一九八一年,對中文字房理論的反駁已經出現了。“擁AI”的主將霍夫斯塔(Douglas R. Hofstadter)繼震撼學術界的奇書《哥德爾、埃舍爾、巴哈:一條永恒的金帶》(Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid)之後,與哲學家鄧納(Daniel C. Dennett)合作,出版了可作為前書續篇的選集《心靈的我》(The mind’s I),集中收錄了西爾首篇中文字房文章,也刊登了霍氏的反駁文章。霍氏和其他“擁AI”學者對西爾的反駁,大致可稱為“係統觀”或“層次觀”的理論。他們主要的論點是:所謂語法和語義的劃分,隻是一個層次的問題。在一個較低的操作層次來看,我們可能的確隻是看到語法;但從包括整個“字房係統”的高層次來看,我們必然無可避免地要涉及語義。
到了九十年代,著名的通俗科學雜誌《科學的美國人》以卷首位置同時刊登了兩篇針鋒相對的文章,即西爾的《大腦思維是電腦程序嗎?》(”Is the Brain’s Mind a Computer Program? ”〉和“擁AI”的丘卓倫夫婦(Paul and Patricia Churchland)的《機器能思想嗎?》(”Could a Machine Think?”)。這兩篇文章大體上仍集中於上述“語法”“語義”之爭,它們可以說是對“西爾論題”爭論的總結。
一九五0年英國數學家圖林(Alan M. Turing)發表了一篇名為《計算機器與智能》(”Computing Machinery and Intelligence”)的經典文章,揭開了有關強AI命題爭論的序幕。雖然電腦在當時隻出現了數年,但科學家和哲學家對“電腦能否思維?”這一問題己爭論不休。圖林有感在進行這項爭辯的時候,大家對思維的定義往往各不相同,於是執筆寫了這篇文章,提出了,著名的“圖林試驗”(Turing test),作為判定機器是否擁有思維能力的標準。
像時間起源一樣,自我意識可說是宇宙間一個深不可測的謎。千百年來,不少哲人智者都為解開這個謎而費盡思量。在哲學探求中,這便是著名的“心、物問題”以及“自由意誌與決定論”這兩大課題,同時亦牽涉到本體論中唯物與唯心的古老爭論。究竟現代科學的進步,對上述這些問題帶來了甚麽新的啟示呢?這些啟示對“強AI”的追求又是好消息抑或壞消息呢?這些都是彭羅斯(Roger Penrose)在他的新作《皇帝的新心靈》(The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics)中企圖回答的問題。現任牛津大學Rouse Ball數學講座教授的彭羅斯,是當代著名的數學家兼物理學家。七十年代,在研究黑洞時空結構的問題上,他曾經提出著名的“彭羅斯圖”(Penrose diagrams)這一分析工具。一九八八年,由於他在科學研究上的貢獻,曾與著名的物理學家霍金(Stephen Hawking)共同獲得吳爾夫獎(Wolf Prize)。