I've been doing alot of ponderin' lately and happen across:

http://world.std.com/~awolpert/

rather long and heavey but i'd like to hear opinions and/or experiences in relation to, as the authour describes it, 'A narrative of the last 21 months of a five-year religious crisis that culminated in purgation and mystical union'.

My first impressions are that it's an interesting approach to the phenomenology of religious experience, but it's a bit egoistic and fanciful isn't it? I'm not quite sure how he hopes to apply rational criteria to intuitive experience (in the process comparing himself to Newton) and arrive at a universal religion.

Some things in particular so far have really jumped out at me as seeming unusual, like claiming that mystical union lasts for precisely 4-7 seconds (?), his use of the concept of intentionality to explain what he calls "neurophysical correlates" is baffling, and it's upon these "correlates" that he says the scientific validity of his analysis rests. He says that his analysis can be verified by some kind of bizarre experimentation done by neurophysiologists, but it rests on this weird intererpretation of this intentionality in his religious experience. I really don't understand what the fuck he is going on about, because it genuinely doesn't seem to make any sense. I suspect he is either batshit insane, he's making this shit up to sound like a funky guru, or I've made a major error in understanding him.

I'll definitely read more of this later to try and figure out if he's making sense or if it's just me.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

it's a bit egotistic and fanciful isn't it?



qoute -

his use of the concept of intentionality to explain what he calls "neurophysical correlates" is baffling, and it's upon these "correlates" that he says the scientific validity of his analysis rests.



Yeah, he seems to have taken the concept past the point of pure reason...