Felt Presence

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is a BBC article about 'invisible others'.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230526-felt-presence-why-we-sometimes-feel-invisible-others

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 explorers and adventurers have reported feeling similar presences, notably Ernest Shackleton, who had a sense of a "fourth man" accompanying his three-man party on the final stage of their epic trek across South Georgia in 1916. Everest mountaineers have also experienced these phantoms acting as guardian angels, helping them to survive and providing an eerie comfort. Sometimes it's referred to as the "third man factor".

In psychology, this experience is known as a "felt presence". Ben Alderson-Day, an associate professor of psychology at Durham University in the UK, is the author of a new book called Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other. He has found that these experiences are not limited to people in extreme situations. You may well have had the sense yourself at some point that someone is right there in the room with you, even though you can't see them.

A felt presence feels as though it's there with you in your personal space. It's hard to pin down exactly what a felt presence consists of. It's not experienced via the five physical senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell or taste, so it's not an hallucination. Objectively, in reality, there is nothing there at all. Yet they're not quite delusions either, which involve thoughts. Nor is it the same as imagining someone is there. People sometimes talk of something as nebulous as "a thickness in the air". It's almost like a sixth sense, which feels very real at the time.

The way we experience a felt presence can depend on our personal feelings and beliefs. It might feel comforting, as it was for Robertson, or malign or religious perhaps, depending on how you interpret the experience – a guardian angel maybe or a ghost or a visitor or your brain trying to help you.

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Yeah......I know...I know! It's all just your brain conjuring up such things in moments of stress or wishful thinking during lonely moments.  'The brain of the gaps'.

But there could be other worlds and other people close to us in 'parallel universes' who might be able to access us during moments of stress.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Nearly Sane]

As to the subject itself, how do you propose we might investigate it?

It does remind me of one of my favourite cartoons.

[torridon]

..

Yeah......I know...I know! It's all just your brain conjuring up such things in moments of stress or wishful thinking during lonely moments.  'The brain of the gaps'.

But there could be other worlds and other people close to us in 'parallel universes' who might be able to access us during moments of stress.

Maybe, however, what you need here, is Ockham's Razor.  No need to indulge fantastical explanations when there are much simpler ones available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

[Sriram]

We have discussed Occam's razor before, torridon. Ockham was a friar who believed in God and probably thought that the simplest of explanations is 'God'. He said something like "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"....and this principle is not considered as a irrefutable one in the scientific method. 

Your  'maybe' indicates that you probably accept the parallel universe hypothesis.   

[splashscuba]

We have discussed Occam's razor before, torridon. Ockham was a friar who believed in God and probably thought that the simplest of explanations is 'God'. He said something like "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"....and this principle is not considered as a irrefutable one in the scientific method. 

Your  'maybe' indicates that you probably accept the parallel universe hypothesis.

Or he put maybe because he just doesn't know.

[Enki]

An interesting article, certainly. I was particularly struck by this:

In his search for explanations, Alderson-Day turns to a combination of the physical and the psychological. With mountaineers and explorers, a lack of oxygen to the brain may play a part, something which is also known to induce hallucinations. But there's also the survival aspect. Is the mind somehow conjuring up a presence that helps us through?

And, I agree with Alderson-Day when he suggests that both the body and mind need to be studied in order to fully explain these experiences.

I'm struck by the similarity to NDE experiences also.

[ProfessorDavey]

We have discussed Occam's razor before, torridon. Ockham was a friar who believed in God and probably thought that the simplest of explanations is 'God'. He said something like "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"....and this principle is not considered as a irrefutable one in the scientific method. 

Occam may have come up with this notion and may also have consider this to be consistent with god, but the problem for him and other theists using Occam is that they need to demonstrate the necessity for god as an entity to explain the cosmos etc. Without demonstrating necessity then the entity of god merely becomes an additional unnecessary step and using Occam the preferred explanation would be one that is simpler in that it does not propose this additional unnecessary complexity that is god.

So sadly Occam rather undermines the conclusion he came to (but then again as a Friar I doubt he was particularly open to the non-existence of god) through the very mechanism he proposes.

Under Occam a cosmos that can exist without the existence of god is preferred to one that includes the existence of god.

[Nearly Sane]

An interesting article, certainly. I was particularly struck by this:

And, I agree with Alderson-Day when he suggests that both the body and mind need to be studied in order to fully explain these experiences.

I'm struck by the similarity to NDE experiences also.

I'm a reasonably big fan of knowledge for knowledges sake but the lengths that you'd have to go to to investigate this seem to outweigh the return.

[Enki]

I'm a reasonably big fan of knowledge for knowledges sake but the lengths that you'd have to go to to investigate this seem to outweigh the return.

Yes, I agree. I was simply agreeing with the idea that to fully explain this phenomenon we need to look at the relationship between mind and body further rather than introduce Sriram's 'other worlds'.

[Nearly Sane]

Occam may have come up with this notion and may also have consider this to be consistent with god, but the problem for him and other theists using Occam is that they need to demonstrate the necessity for god as an entity to explain the cosmos etc. Without demonstrating necessity then the entity of god merely becomes an additional unnecessary step and using Occam the preferred explanation would be one that is simpler in that it does not propose this additional unnecessary complexity that is god.

So sadly Occam rather undermines the conclusion he came to (but then again as a Friar I doubt he was particularly open to the non-existence of god) through the very mechanism he proposes.

Under Occam a cosmos that can exist without the existence of god is preferred to one that includes the existence of god.

Sriram appears to be using the reverse ad hominem here. If you agree with William on one thing, then you should agree on another.


As to the razor meaning William should have eschewed the odea of god, I think that all of our thinking takes place within cultural assumptions that it is almost impossible to be aware of. Further the razor is a tool in a set of logical approaches, William would have used. If William also accepted some form of the cosmological argument, then a 'god' might be seen as part of the minimum entities.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, I agree. I was simply agreeing with the idea that to fully explain this phenomenon we need to look at the relationship between mind and body further rather than introduce Sriram's 'other worlds'.

Given that those who would be the most reliable subjects in the sense of having it most consistently are categorised as having severe mental issues, we would I suspect be looking at defining what combination of physical and brain chemistry would likely lead to the experience.

I don't see anyway the 'hypothesis' that it arises from parallel universes could begin to be investigated.

[ProfessorDavey]

Sriram appears to be using the reverse ad hominem here. If you agree with William on one thing, then you should agree on another.

Yup that's right.

Actually I don't agree on either account - firstly I don't agree that the simplest explanation is likely to be correct - from what I've seen in the years I've spent studying biology things are incredibly complex and not simple at all.

But even if you were to accept the premise of Occam I'm struggling to see how it would posit god, in that there are explanations for life, the cosmos etc that don't require god  and therefore the addition of god would seem to be an unnecessary over-complication which would fall foul of Occam.

[Nearly Sane]

Yup that's right.

Actually I don't agree on either account - firstly I don't agree that the simplest explanation is likely to be correct - from what I've seen in the years I've spent studying biology things are incredibly complex and not simple at all.

But even if you were to accept the premise of Occam I'm struggling to see how it would posit god, in that there are explanations for life, the cosmos etc that don't require god  and therefore the addition of god would seem to be an unnecessary over-complication which would fall foul of Occam.

I didn't say the razor posits a god. I said that William had other tools which used in conjunction might assume a god, and that what you see as an overcomplication with your toolset is not seen as that with  a different toolset

[ProfessorDavey]

As to the razor meaning William should have eschewed the odea of god, I think that all of our thinking takes place within cultural assumptions that it is almost impossible to be aware of. Further the razor is a tool in a set of logical approaches, William would have used. If William also accepted some form of the cosmological argument, then a 'god' might be seen as part of the minimum entities.

Again I think you are correct - I suspect culturally when Ockham was around there would simply be no notion that there might not be a god and this would have been even stronger for those such as Ockham who had chosen a religious vocation. So for him I imagine his 'razor' would have been about how god interacted with the world rather than whether god did and even less, whether god actually exists.

God would have been a default absolute assumption to any discussion.

[ProfessorDavey]

I didn't say the razor posits a god. I said that William had other tools which used in conjunction might assume a god, and that what you see as an overcomplication with your toolset is not seen as that with  a different toolset

See my later reply. I don't think Ockham would have seen his razor being about providing evidence that god exists - he would have taken that as an absolute assumption. However plenty of people more recently have tried to use the razor as evidence for the existence of god - I think that is decidedly wooly thinking.

[Nearly Sane]

See my later reply. I don't think Ockham would have seen his razor being about providing evidence that god exists - he would have taken that as an absolute assumption. However plenty of people more recently have tried to use the razor as evidence for the existence of god - I think that is decidedly wooly thinking.

You are arguing against something not only that I haven't said but something that I have twice said I am not saying.

[Sriram]

All this talk of simple and complex are entirely subjective and depend on what we are comparing them to. There is no clear definition of either. 

Choosing a simpler solution could further complicate matters when you dig deeper. Just because a solution seems simpler in a specific situation, does not mean it is correct or likely to remain simple further on.  I don't think as a part of  the scientific method, Occam's razor is a valid principle.

But coming back to the felt presence, there is the possibility of people from other parallel universes intervening in our lives. The idea of a simulated world is also to be considered.

It is not similar to NDE's because during NDE's the person is clinically dead on various parameters.   

[ProfessorDavey]

You are arguing against something not only that I haven't said but something that I have twice said I am not saying.

It must be exhausting being you NS - being unable to avoid starting a row even if you were the only person left on the planet.

[Nearly Sane]

All this talk of simple and complex are entirely subjective and depend on what we are comparing them to. There is no clear definition of either. 

Choosing a simpler solution could further complicate matters when you dig deeper. Just because a solution seems simpler in a specific situation, does not mean it is correct or likely to remain simple further on.  I don't think as a part of  the scientific method, Occam's razor is a valid principle.

But coming back to the felt presence, there is the possibility of people from other parallel universes intervening in our lives. The idea of a simulated world is also to be considered.

It is not similar to NDE's because during NDE's the person is clinically dead on various parameters.   

Just to ask again how would you test this?

[Bramble]

But coming back to the felt presence, there is the possibility of people from other parallel universes intervening in our lives.

Of course, I'm sure they've nothing better to do.

Religion: All About Us!

[Enki]

. . . . . .
It is not similar to NDE's because during NDE's the person is clinically dead on various parameters.

But what you don't know is just when the NDE experience takes place and that is not necessarily when the subject was clinically dead. The fact that an NDE is remembered suggests that there was brain activity at the time.

I 'm not saying that the two conditions (felt presence and an NDE) are the same, but that they share some similarities.

E.g.
suggested lack of oxygen to the brain
physical stress
perception of a presence or presences, including fictional characters
hearing sounds
seeing landscapes

[Sriram]

Its incorrect to keep attributing all such experiences to the brain. It is like attributing all our normal experiences (vision, hearing, love, fear etc etc.) to the brain.

The brain is certainly involved as a platform for all these experiences...we all know that. But the brain does not create these experiences.

It would be more correct to say that the mind creates such experiences. But we don't know what the mind really is. We tend to dismiss it as just electrical and chemical reactions in the brain....which is rather simplistic.

Better to say that we don't know instead of dismissing these experiences as just brain generated images.

[torridon]

Its incorrect to keep attributing all such experiences to the brain. It is like attributing all our normal experiences (vision, hearing, love, fear etc etc.) to the brain.

No, it is the reasonable thing to do, given that is what all the scientific evidence points to.

[Sriram]

No, it is the reasonable thing to do, given that is what all the scientific evidence points to.

Evidence points to the mind and consciousness. Treating the mind, consciousness and brain as the same thing is not correct.

[torridon]

Evidence points to the mind and consciousness. Treating the mind, consciousness and brain as the same thing is not correct.

Maybe not the same thing, per se, but they are all aspects of the same thing.  Mind being the subjective aspect of the brain and consciousness being a constituent of mind.