Not entirely I suspect, but he does often inject levity into his posts. It must be phenomenally hard living with such a condition.
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Clearly the deities are versed in the arts of deception.
It is “psychic” phenomenon.
It’s particularly relevant since if you can show intelligent organization, then it points to agency, in which case “hearing or seeing something that isn’t there” becomes “hearing or seeing something that was put there by an agent”. It ceases to be a hallucination by definition.
This raises the “hard problem of consciousness”. If serotonin and dopamine are molecules which elevate mood, or even better, define mood, then the scientific endeavour has yet to link the physiological to the psychic. It may well be the case that the molecules themselves carry the ontological keys to aspects of consciousness which we can only define subjectively. At this point no one has the answer.
Again, the identity between physiological processes and psychic phenomena has not been established. So, you have no business equating the effects of a pharmacological substance with their psychic phenomena counterparts. Yes, there’s a correlation but it doesn’t rule out sentient beings.
Clearly, they are psychic phenomena and you haven’t established a link between physiological and psychic, so the mechanism of the medication is not well understood. Which is why I jest when saying “you’re just as well off getting a lobotomy - after all it decreases the symptoms!”
Well, we’ve yet to bridge the fact that the hallucinations aren’t really hallucinations inasmuch as they show agency. But we can get to that later 
And go down in history forever as a martyr? Hell ya! Give me death by immolation
Or they exist only in the human imagination, again we see one answer we know is possible, while we have no objective evidence that deities are possible.
Just another entirely subjective claim.
Your “pointing” to a subjective anecdotal claim. Your claim includes supernatural causation by a deity, the phenomena can be objectively evidenced as an entirely natural phenomenon, as it can be affected by medicine for example, repeating the claim using different words won’t change that.
A question or something we can’t explain, is not evidence.
Then it’s silly to pretend the answer is a deity did it.
I didn’t, that’s a straw man you’ve added. I don’t believe psychic phenomena exist, for the same reason I don’t believe deities exist.
I never claimed there was one, you can’t make up claims and assign them to me.
That’s not a fact, it is a subjective claim, that is at odds with objective evidence.
It wasn’t a choice for many people of course, and burning people to death shouldn’t be a choice anyone makes for themselves.
Hi! Thank you for recognizing Schzophenrics here.
Anyway, i have to travel to a supplier in Germany tomorrow, and won’t be back until Thursday evening, so I will resume this, if needed, when I return.
Should we say, “godspeed”? 
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What I tend to think of in convos like this one is that theists tend to see common features in their dreams, visions, intuitions, impressions or whatever … and say that commonality must come from their deity of choice or from some overarching spiritual “reality” they believe in. When I would just say that all the people involved are humans, with human brains, and even what are generally considered healthy, correctly functioning brains are imperfect and prone to various perceptual quirks and biases. So I see the similarities and common threads running through people’s (quasi?) religious or simply unusual experiences to come from the fact that they’re all humans, with human brains. It’s the far more economical explanation. The mind can give very vivid experiences and can disassociate from the sense of self and from reality itself in interesting ways. That is all I need to explain the resulting experiences.
In the case of minds that are malfunctioning in some way, that there would be similarities in how those issues play out, is also far more likely to come from how the machinery works, than from some imposed outside force.
But I can see how, if you hear these voices and they become almost like old frenemies or something, you feel like you get to “know” them and you’re going to naturally tend to ascribe agency to them, etc. After all, they are persistent and you have to “deal with” them somehow. Quiet them to a dull roar at least. And so you start to bargain with them, distract them, and they seem persuadable and distractible at least sometimes and so … you can’t help but think of them as separate entities. But I’d argue that there’s no less utility in seeing them as fragments of your own consciousness and personality [shrug].
And there might be advantages to looking at it that way. If they are facets or shards of you, then that’s far less daunting, I’d think than dealing with some godlike entity with its own agenda.
I read once that the subconscious is highly suggestible. Tell it to do something and it will comply, in an almost naive way. So I’m taking a walk, say, and I am tired and hot, and bored, and just want to stop for a snack and relax for a bit. But that will kill time and add calories and carbs, etc., so I tell “myself” that I will treat myself when I get to the point in my walk that I’m passing a favorite eatery. And then when I get there I say to “myself”, nah, changed my mind, it’s only another 10 minutes and I’ll get home and I can make myself a cup of coffee that’s pretty good for 25 cents rather than $4. I did that to myself a dozen times and the act of looking forward to the stop-off that never happened, continued to motivate me. It’s like my subconscious whining about wanting a latte was satisfied by my fake assent, and never caught on that it was a ruse.
Make of that what you will, but I don’t need to see that as not part of me.
When I read what Ratty posts, I always giggle 
My way of looking at it is, I have no more way to prove his working hypothesis wrong than he has of proving himself right. Anything is possible, it’s just that some things are more possible than others, and rat spit is highly motivated by personal experience, much like a Christian having some sort of Damascus Road experience that convinces them God has personally intervened and revealed himself to them. I’m not saying it’s not compelling for them, but I have the admitted luxury of having very nearly zero experience of anything numinous – even when I was a Christian – so am IMO in a better position to assess the probabilities with no skin in the game.
That doesn’t make me right as such though. It’s just that when it comes to subjective personal experience and alternate realities, it can never get beyond assertions and personal testimony, and so for me it falls into the category of things asserted without evidence.
The universe exists.
What are you even on about? Just so we’re clear. You did read me write that hearing voices is a psychic phenomenon? Part of the psychic part of the brain? Not meaning “psychic” in any superstitious manner … just the purely scientific use of the term “psychic” to refer to the psyche? Yes? Like the phenomenon of perception is a psychic phenomenon? Is it not?
And why are you always looking for a pissing match, Sheldon? Our debates take two or three posts, without exception, to devolve into these cases of intellectual passive aggression … why is that always the case?
Yes. I am the one experiencing the phenomenon. I more qualified to comment on it than any physician. So, you can call it “anecdotal”. For me it is “expert testimony”. Of course, as usual, your completely closed to open ideas.
Not “entirely” natural in the way you would like it to be. It has a “psychic” component. Science has no answer to how the psyche arises out of physiological conditions. So, you have no business calling it “entirely natural” in the sense you would like it to be.
I’ve already dealt with your misunderstanding about medication.
Nor is your lack of understanding sufficient argument.
Silly? Again, the so called hallucinations show organized intelligence. This points to agency. You can call this “anecdote” however it is first person description of the phenomenon as it exists within the psyche. Your scientific counterparts also attempt to describe the phenomenon. How am I being anecdotal whereas they are being objective?
Did you not claim that the “hallucinations” are entirely physiological?
What objective evidence? I haven’t seen any which disproves that the “hallucinations” are organized to the point of intelligent agency?
Take a joke, much? Okay. So here we go. Sheldon has been offended and we are set to engage on another debate according to his terms. This should be entertaining enough.
You’re just assuming it’s a malfunction. It might perfectly be the case that my brain is working better than yours. Your boring brain with your inactive pineal gland has no connection to the source. Whereas my exceptionally healthy pineal gland produces far more DMT than yours and I am in touch with the extra sensory.
Have you ever tried psychedelics? Are you aware of the other realms of existence which exist alongside this one? You conviently lump me in with other “God” believers, without really understanding how I perceive the supernatural. God to me is a part of an intelligent collective existing alongside matter on a different level. It is the physical which supports the psychic. But the physical does not limit the psychic to our mere five perceptual faculties. It opens up a huge array of possible realms depending on the nature of the molecules involved.
Are you laughing with me 
or at me 
???
I don’t see the significance to your original claim?
Did you perhaps mean psychological? Psychic is woo woo superstition.
psychic
adjective
1.relating to or denoting faculties or phenomena that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, especially involving telepathy or clairvoyance.
It’s called debate, if you don’t want to debate your beliefs that’s fine. I am off to the airport in 15 minutes, that should give you the whole day to decide.
It remains a subjective claim. Note, I am talking about the supernatural part, not the hallucinations, these we know exist.
There is no bias for or against on my part, and you would need to objectively evidence that psychic phenomenon were possible. I think you meant to say psychological, if so then I am not disputing the existence of that at all.
I never suggested otherwise?
I didn’t, read it again more carefully, the words “can be explained” were in that sentence, nothing that we understand about it evidences anything but natural phenomena.
Not that I’ve seen, it remains objective evidence that the hallucinations are a natural physiological phenomenon, as they are affected directly by medicine. There’s no “dealing with that” ratty, it is an objective fact.
Indeed not, but then I never claimed nor implied it was, the straw man claims are creeping in now.
The agency would be the brain they originate in, and again we know this exists and is capable of producing organised intelligence, as an objective fact, unlike deities, which we don’t know are even possible. Occam’s razor ratty…
I never mentioned the word psychic, and natural physiological explanations are mutually exclusive with psychic claims, which are defined as " inexplicable by natural laws".
My pineal gland works fine, thank you. It produces melatonin and regulates my circadian rhythm, just like it’s supposed to. Are you suggesting it has some other function? According to whom?
Nothing beyond weed, but I’m aware that psychedelics alter conscious experiences. So what? So does an anesthetic.
I get that, but that assertion has no more weight than “God to me is the creator and sustainer of the universe as revealed in the Bible – I commune with him in prayer every day.”
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I’m laughing at you. Trying to philosophize something as real while you’re using psychedelic drugs doesn’t prove anything to anyone other than yourself.
First comment is an unfalsifiable claim, we’d need to see some of empirical evidence to support the notion of ‘collective conciousness’.
Again, no evidence to support the claim and overlooks the more likely reasoning? Like hallucinations.
Confirmation bias.
Self sealing logic
False dichotomy, more likely is mental health issues.
No objective evidence given that there is or can be a higher state of conciousness.
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