A question for all skeptics

[Tiggs]

A lot of your tests would not rule out mental illness. Somone with a mental illness may knock over the water and be completely unaware that they did it, and they may also solve a math problem ( being totally wrong) and still believe it solved.

True, but the thing about solutions to math problems is that you can get other people to verify them, independently.

If I'm at the stage of mental illness where I think that the people I ask to independently verify the result for me are telling me that it's correct when it's actually not - then hearing a voice in my head is probably the least of my issues.

[dlonewolf85]

Yes I would ask them to proove it and then I would go pray and ask to go back to the old way of communicating with God. It's probably a scary thing to go about listening to a voice claiming to be God, but some people do it. I think with practice, discernment and trust you could begin to truly know the voice of God and follow it. This is what's taught in the scriptures but most people cant handle that so God lets his people be sometimes seen as lunatics. When we as the saints begin to allow those titles to effectively apply to our personalities, perhaps it is then when we go mad and forget who our God is to us.

Some hear the audible voice of God on a frequent basis and those may be refered to as prophets and prophetesses. They have a certain message to tell. Some hear it on occassion and it is a refreshment to the soul. Some are being tormented and still they will know the power of God, though the devil's voice is also audible. People who hear voices should know they are special and should have loving support around them, and/or be strong, loving and supportive, thus if the voice truly be God, God would be their strength and use that prophets body as a vessel.

Much love and peace.

I have to disagree. People who hear 'voices' in their head should know that they're NOT special but equal to any other person in this world. Imagining a voice in one's head and then pretending it is something divine, isn't anything that 'most people can't handle' as you put it. Almost anybody can daydream and/or imagine. I believe it's human nature to want to feel special. Some people could just imagine stuff that makes them feel like they have a special relationship with some god or a deity, doesn't that sound even a bit possible to you? A fact can be something very different from an alleged truth. And you sound as though you really really "know" stuff that the rest of the people probably don't or may not "get it" even if they do. It's not that I do not understand what you're saying, it's just that you could be right, but only philosophically. I hope that my point gets through to you also.

[rustygh]

The OP poses a question that assumes an event that hasn't happened and is therefore not "admissible."

I would say if I heard a god speak to me, I would seek out a qualified doctor and get some medicine and some mental treatment.

Ditto, although only after using some type of recorder close to my head to make sure I wasn't drugged and implanted with a speaker. LOL

[SpiritWriter]

I have to disagree. People who hear 'voices' in their head should know that they're NOT special but equal to any other person in this world. Imagining a voice in one's head and then pretending it is something divine, isn't anything that 'most people can't handle' as you put it. Almost anybody can daydream and/or imagine. I believe it's human nature to want to feel special. Some people could just imagine stuff that makes them feel like they have a special relationship with some god or a deity, doesn't that sound even a bit possible to you? A fact can be something very different from an alleged truth. And you sound as though you really really "know" stuff that the rest of the people probably don't or may not "get it" even if they do. It's not that I do not understand what you're saying, it's just that you could be right, but only philosophically. I hope that my point gets through to you also.

Im not talking about day dreaming or imagining. The OP is suggesting that a person wakes one morning and can suddenly "hear" a voice who calls itself God. This is his proposition, not mine and my response was for that context. I also agree that we are all special, not one person more than another. But, if a person can hear a clear and audible voice, who claims and then proves itself to be God, I'd say we have ourselves a unique situation....

Edited September 16, 2013 by SpiritWriter

[Frank Merton]

I have philosophical reasons (a perfect being would not use imperfect human language but would have better methods) for thinking that God would not communicate with individuals in hearable words.

[Whisperer]

HI,

Based on my understanding current at this time;

Unipolar event...immortal consciousness...God forces ...eternal and therefore subject to boredom, result....

gives rise to bipolar universe..IC (imortal consciousness) avatars = us, full on interest, boredom abated.

Process...rules of the game....

2 Teams....White and Black T-Shirts ( good guys, bad guys)

White shirts code of conduct ... Ask unsolicited contact who they 'play' for under the terms of 'The Great Game' and completed with something akin to;

By order of the 'White Brother hood of Man', unarguable and must comply...

The response returned should then be a 'Forced' truth...

Penalties...ejected from the 'Great Game'....

No imortal consciousness wants that and so they will 'play by the rules'....

otherwise, see a psychiatrist.

Edit, wrong order due to software...

Edited September 16, 2013 by mumanster

[Almagest]

You mean like 'thinking'? I do think, and I contemplate, yes. But I certainly do not wake up in the morning with another voice inside my head, telling me that it's the voice of so and so... I hope you get the picture. It's usually more of a monologue when people express their inner thoughts to themselves or have to make choices inside their minds.

Oh I do. I was just ribbing you a bit. As someone who is already a bit mentally ill, I'd be checking myself in after hearing a foreign voice in my head.

I have philosophical reasons (a perfect being would not use imperfect human language but would have better methods) for thinking that God would not communicate with individuals in hearable words.

I think Mathematics is the language of the universe, and therefore the language of God if there is one.

[White Crane Feather]

True, but the thing about solutions to math problems is that you can get other people to verify them, independently.

If I'm at the stage of mental illness where I think that the people I ask to independently verify the result for me are telling me that it's correct when it's actually not - then hearing a voice in my head is probably the least of my issues.

It dosnt work that way. A paranoid scitzophrenic will only incorporate the people telling him its wrong into the delusion as lieing or conspiring. If you are hearing voices from god ( and its not really god... I'm not one to rule that out just yet), then you are already there. Some rescent research on scitzophrenia has shown the people with the illness will do something but will not realize they have done it, and then they become certain that Somone else or sonething else did it.

Years ago I got very drunk at a bar. ( Native Americans should not drink I don't anymore I was young and stupid ) I blacked out and thrashed my car looking for a spare key because I actually tossed mine on the roof of the building knowing I might try to drive home. . Then went back into the bar. I had no recollection of thrashing my car, and indeed I was going to try to drive home. I got upset because I became convinced that the bouncers thrashed my car trying to get my spare key.

Lets just say it was a wild night

The point is that it only takes a few cognitive gaps before things can go crazy wrong.

[AtlantisRises]

Why do I keep going to bed with stunningly beautiful creatures and waking up next to something I'd rather gnaw my arm off then wake up?

[Frank Merton]

In other words, if you are sane and hear voices, you will seek medical treatment, but you won't hear voices unless you are insane, and then you won't.

[Frank Merton]

I think Mathematics is the language of the universe, and therefore the language of God if there is one.

I had something in mind more along the lines of stories and images and ideas.

[eight bits]

Generally

To hear a voice, or experience a "second" interior voice is not in itself compelling evidence of mental illness. It is a modality of thought. The standards of illness are that it bothers me (this wouldn't) or it interferes with normal functioning (we'll see whether or not it does). Or, if you prefer a religious spin, let it be for voices as Jesus said of prophets, "by their fruits you shall know them." The Buddha gave similar advice. Good enough for me, at least for starters.

Tiggs

Nevertheless, I wish I had a dollar for every time I have questioned the phrase "(s)he couldn't possibly have known that." So far, always with some success. My presumption remains that if a person is the vehicle of expression of a cognitive feat, then that person is the one who performed the cognitive feat. It is the same for the allegedly miraculous poetry of a revealed religion, the stage psychic, and onto the occasional poster here... um, ouija boards, say. Cold sober and ceritfied sane, human beings are lousy judges of what we know.

And surely you didn't mean to suggest that if P=NP, and somebody ever proves that, then that somebody couldn't possibly be thee or me . {I have a sense of deja vu that I have typed that sentence before. But seriously, which is more likely? Some part of our cognitive apparatus sees the break on a wickedly hard problem, or the Creator and Sustainer of the Uinverse stopped by for a chat?}

"I know somehing, I don't know how I know it, therefore God told me" is exactly "god of the gaps."

Frank

I have philosophical reasons (a perfect being would not use imperfect human language but would have better methods) for thinking that God would not communicate with individuals in hearable words.

Human language is an excellent method for communicating some things. Also, since the OP is hanging back, I'll just assume that "another voice in your head, and this voice claimed to be God," was not intended to exclude other sensory happenings which you would experience as personal to you but originating outside of yourself, with a felt inclination to attribute them to God.

I once had the singular (for me) experience of reasoning out a math problem in a kinesthetic "representation." I felt, vividly and fully engaging my attention - as if it were my actual situation, what it would "feel like" for my body and its parts to be the abstract things in the math problem and the mathematical operations involved were displacements of my voluntary musculature in space. I "danced" the solution, or "tai chi'd" it, or something like that.

Both the basic idea (which did successfully solve the problem), and the "strategy" of reasoning through kinesthesia presented themselves unbidden. I did, however, consciously develop the basic idea through this way of thinking... it wasn't quite the experience some people have of suddenly knowing the whole solution to something, fully worked out.

Finally, if the OP's hypothetical experience were similar to many other real reports of unusual communication, it could well turn out that, on reflection, I would realize that I had had other, earlier encounters with the "person or idea" behind what is now a voice. Perhaps these took some other form, and I ignored those "messages." Now the "person or idea" is reduced to manifesting as an unignorable voice, on pain of not achieving my conscious awareness at all.

Sheri

Yes, I think something like this is entirely personal. If something did happen to me like what the OP described, then I would assume it was something I needed to explore, not necessarily something I would be in any rush to "test." I certainly would accept that the source-of-the-voice might identify itself that way, but neither be that nor intend deceit, but rather be asserting kinship with experiences that others have attributed to religious beings.

I will pretty much hear anybody out. Surely any voice in my head deserves no less .

[White Crane Feather]

In other words, if you are sane and hear voices, you will seek medical treatment, but you won't hear voices unless you are insane, and then you won't.

Yes! Beautifully put. It's a very sane thing to question ones sanity.

[Jodie.Lynne]

If one day you woke up with another voice in your head, and this voice claimed to be God, what would you ask this voice to do in order to prove such a claim?

For starters, the voice would have to tell me something that I do not know, that can be verified by outside sources. Or, predict an event of momentous importance, with a clearly defined date and details of the event.

[Tiggs]

It dosnt work that way.

It does for people who experience positive hallucinations.

Either way - If there's no effective personal test for madness - then personally testing for it is a waste of time. They have guys in white coats for that.

Testing that the voice in your head isn't someone impersonating God, however - that's probably worth spending a little bit of personal time working out.

[libstaK]

The OP poses a question that assumes an event that hasn't happened and is therefore not "admissible."

I would say if I heard a god speak to me, I would seek out a qualified doctor and get some medicine and some mental treatment.

Ditto, although only after using some type of recorder close to my head to make sure I wasn't drugged and implanted with a speaker. LOL

In other words, if you are sane and hear voices, you will seek medical treatment, but you won't hear voices unless you are insane, and then you won't.

What we have here seems to me to be the primary reason God would NOT talk to a person as a voice in their head - the listener would just think they were nuts and go see a shrink, which is not conducive to getting one's message across.

If God were to appear before me OR even more poignantly bring me directly into HIS presence then unless I woke up in a strange white padded room strapped into a straight jacket sometime later I might consider it was God - he would know better than me what would convince me but a good start would be some precise predictions and a few miracles for the sick and suffering for me to witness first hand.

[Doug1029]

If one day you woke up with another voice in your head, and this voice claimed to be God, what would you ask this voice to do in order to prove such a claim?

I'd ask it if I was schizophrenic.

Doug

[Tiggs]

Tiggs

Nevertheless, I wish I had a dollar for every time I have questioned the phrase "(s)he couldn't possibly have known that." So far, always with some success. My presumption remains that if a person is the vehicle of expression of a cognitive feat, then that person is the one who performed the cognitive feat. It is the same for the allegedly miraculous poetry of a revealed religion, the stage psychic, and onto the occasional poster here... um, ouija boards, say. Cold sober and ceritfied sane, human beings are lousy judges of what we know.

And surely you didn't mean to suggest that if P=NP, and somebody ever proves that, then that somebody couldn't possibly be thee or me . {I have a sense of deja vu that I have typed that sentence before. But seriously, which is more likely? Some part of our cognitive apparatus sees the break on a wickedly hard problem, or the Creator and Sustainer of the Uinverse stopped by for a chat?}

"I know somehing, I don't know how I know it, therefore God told me" is exactly "god of the gaps."

I'm sure that there are parts of my brain happily unspinning the solution to RSA2048 in background processing - not least because I've asked it to do so.

If I were to come up with a solution for that - that wouldn't entirely surprise me. If I were to come up with a solution for every ridiculous maths problem I could think of posing - and I can think of some fairly ridiculous ones - then that would be more surprising. Admittedly, if part of my brain has decided to pretend it's God, then it may conveniently suggest to me a list of problems that it knows that it's already solved.

Do all of that and predict a hundred coin flips, however? Then I'm not sure there are many options left, at that point.

There's a decent chance I'd be clinically insane. If it turned out that I wasn't, then the only other two alternatives that spring readily to mind are that I'm either speaking to the creator, or a part of my brain which has managed to decode some fairly deep rules regarding how the universe works.

Maybe it's unspun P=NP and it has a rather simple equation to predict the outcome of complex interacting events that we would otherwise regard as being random. Such as coin flips.

Either way, if something with that level of understanding of the Universe has decided that it needs to urgently communicate with my conscious mind, then I suspect I had better listen.

[Mr Walker]

Talking to yourself, even if you don't verbalize, is a bad habit that wastes time and interferes with appropriate mindfulness. The mind works fine without putting everything into words -- that is done for talking to other people.

I do not understand this. My mind works entirely in words (i cannot see visual images inmy mind)

There are multiple intelligences in a human's mind and multiple ways of thinking. One can problem solve by separating ones mind into a number of thinking compartments and getting each compartment to analyse a problem, then report back on results to the "overmind. " The one can use the "total mind" to analyse the results of creative intuitive, analytical, or emotional reasoning Every waking minute of every day my mind is conversing with itslef; learning, growing, and entertaining itslef.

In my understanding human thought is intricately linked to human linguistic abilty Without an abilty to think verbally, we could not speak, and vice versa.

[Rlyeh]

I do not understand this. My mind works entirely in words (i cannot see visual images inmy mind)

Do you dream with words too?

[DeWitz]

Sit down with a copy of Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, turn up some ZZ Top,read the book over a few beers and shots of tequila, and all will be revealed.

[eight bits]

Really, Mr Walker?

OK. If you're interested in a taste of how some other folks think, I recommend Rudolf Arnheim's Visual Thinking. The experimental things are dated (it's a 1969 book), but the basic theme is robust, and most of the examples are timeless things. Arnheim is a perfect ambassador between the worlds of the word thinkers and visual thinkers. He was a visual thinker himself, but also perfectly quntilingual (but accented). His English prose is exquisite.

St George

Jaynes is a fine read. The problem is that there's litlle evidence, and not much other reason to think that that was how it happened. Jaynes must have read different ancient literature than I did. In the Odyssey, Odysseus experiences his gods not only as voices, but fully incarnate. In the case of Circe, very nicely so. It's hard to miss.

Was it the OP's intention to make this specifically a voice encounter? Number One? Speak to us.

[Mr Walker]

Do you dream with words too?

No my dreams are both completely realistic and also totally lucid. I "LIVE' my dream the same way i live my life, by making choices which control the content and results of the dreamscape, but i can also manipulate and creatively enhance a dream scape more than i can mundane waking life.It is jus tthat i cannot conjure up even the image of a square or a circle in my waking conscious mind i do not "see " images in my mind while awake, at all.

.I did this to myself to stop terrifying images i would see as a very young child, and am working to overcome it .

[Mr Walker]

Really, Mr Walker?

OK. If you're interested in a taste of how some other folks think, I recommend Rudolf Arnheim's Visual Thinking. The experimental things are dated (it's a 1969 book), but the basic theme is robust, and most of the examples are timeless things. Arnheim is a perfect ambassador between the worlds of the word thinkers and visual thinkers. He was a visual thinker himself, but also perfectly quntilingual (but accented). His English prose is exquisite.

St George

Jaynes is a fine read. The problem is that there's litlle evidence, and not much other reason to think that that was how it happened. Jaynes must have read different ancient literature than I did. In the Odyssey, Odysseus experiences his gods not only as voices, but fully incarnate. In the case of Circe, very nicely so. It's hard to miss.

Was it the OP's intention to make this specifically a voice encounter? Number One? Speak to us.

I think i have explained how this came about. I only came to ths conscious realisation myself a few yeas back. As a very young child i was plagued by vivid images of snakes, every time i closed my eyes or when it was pitch black. I disciplined my mind not to be able to see them, but at the cost of being able to see NO visual images. I first became aware that his was the case, when a teacher in about first year high school ( i would have been about 12) said to the class, "Now visualise a pyramid in your mind and rotate it " I said, "What do you mean; visualise a pyramid?"

After a heated discussion (where neither of us really understood what the other was talking about) i was sent to the principal.

Even today i hear educators at conferences use similar terms and have to point out to them that not all children can actually create a visual image in their mind. Philosophically, i am aware of the nature of visualisation and its importance to learners. I build the opportunity into my teaching but always know that some child might not have a clue what i am talking about.

I just googled this and apparently about 25% of people think exclusively in verbal terms. I do not know if this means they CANNOT see visual images or not.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Mr Walker

[Frank Merton]

Of course we can and do regularly create visual images in our minds. I don't, however, think that this is how we think. I very definitely do not think we have to have language to think either -- this comes from knowing several, and I "think" in none of them. My thinking is done some other way and then, if I want to express my thoughts, I subconsciously put them into whatever language I want. The assignment of words is one of the last things that happens.