Dr. Truth
by MikeGene"My cause is simply the truth "” the truth stated plainly and openly." So says PZ Myers. So what is the truth? The Champion of Truth and Ambassador of Science will now tell us The Truth.
There is no god, or to say it in the most optimistic and sensitive way possible for a rational person, there is absolutely no evidence for a god"¦..You've got crazy-ass megalomaniacal evangelical kooks telling people to hate their gay/muslim/hindu/godless/female/evolutionist neighbors, you've got mobs believing them, you've got people electing presidents on the basis of how fanatically they will wage a crusade, and you've got even more swooning with the vapors at anyone who criticizes religious belief. Religion makes you nuts. It makes ordinary people identify with invisible spirits, it turns them into caterwauling flibbertigibbet idiots at any slight to a magic man who has never done a thing for them, and it makes them center their lives around head-dunkings and cracker-eating and gibbering chants to an unheeding phantasm.
But what Champion of Truth would be a champion without a Prescription for All? Dr. Truth dazzles us with his Inner Strength and beckons everyone to follow.
You've been given your prescription, people of faith: you believe in a lot of goofy, stupid, ridiculous ideas. You can resign yourself to them if you aren't strong enough to part from them "” I'm not going to follow you to church and drag you out with a choke-chain "” or you can wake up. It's all up to you. One thing you don't get to do is silence the people who point and laugh.
People who point and laugh. That's exactly what I'm doing. LOL.
Dr. Truth: He's Strong. He Defends Science. He is Reason incarnate. He Knows the Truth. And he wants to help you.
July 15th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Mr. Scientist, P.Z. Myers, "Doctor of Truth," can you cite any actual sociological research to support any of this? Is any of what you said here actually the truth? Are you aware of the hundreds of research studies showing that religious people are more physically, relationally, emotionally healthy than non-religious people? Are you aware that these are findings of science? (Here are just a few of them.)
Why do you prostitute your position as a scientist, denying what science itself tells us about the effects of religion on persons? Is it really truth you're after? You're not doing a very good job of convincing us that it is.
Comment by TomG — July 15, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Hi Mike,
My my, I do think I am noticing spikes on these shields being used for bashing.
You are responding to PZ Myers responding to his critics who asked…
His answer?
How does the saying go? If I had a dime for every time I heard this…
This is the standard rationalization for just about anyone offering spin.
In case you are curious. I agree that PZ Myers is engaging in a lot of spin and generous shield bashing (with spikes).
The difference may be that you care and he doesn't. Here is your PZ Myer's quote in context…
P.S. I also think this is an example of what happens when one rejects NOMA. but since I don't claim to know the Truth, I can't say for sure.
Comment by Thought Provoker — July 15, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Mike,
You forgot to tell us where PZ went wrong?
Comment by BoZ3MaN — July 15, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I think PZ's punishment, when he gets to Heaven, is that he'll have to walk around with his mouth duck-taped shut for a few centuries. We'll all think he looks so cute.
Comment by Bilbo — July 15, 2007 @ 5:44 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
LOL!!! Oh, man! Preaching to the choir is probably a lot of fun. Though PZ does tell us point black what it's really all about…
He's not insulting his readership, he's appealing to religion-haters as part of his audience, and a means of widening his audience. While he's bound to get flack from readers for being such a jerk, so what? They're reading his blog and commenting to it. That's money in the advertising bank (for his Seed sponsors, and I'm betting he gets a kickback or he'd be making money directly from an acolyte's donated webmaster-ship and not bother with Seed). It's also a draw for the New Atheist program, for which he serves as US propaganda adjunct for spreading the lie that science = evangelical atheism. The game is no different than it's ever been for all players (yawn).
Comment by Joy — July 15, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Here you go.
Comment by macht — July 15, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
They're all crackheads - atheists and religious people.
During the course of my life i've experienced every sensation known to mankind - atheistic, agnostic, buddhistic, religious, hinduistic, string theoristic, quantum mechnistic, etc and my life hasn't changed one bit - my stomach keep hurting from something i ate earlier despite the immensity of knowledge I possess lol
I'm officially a panpsychist now and screw atheistic & religious zealots!
Comment by dimasok — July 15, 2007 @ 7:55 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
It's simple, atheists like PZ are making Jesus get real angry. He's going to send another flood / drought if you naughty atheists do not change your unbelieving ways.
By the way, ID has nothing to do with religion and creationism… NOTHING!
Comment by salimfadhley — July 15, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
The evidence for some kind of spiritual reality is so strong and so pervasive, the only conclusion I can come to is that people like PZ are irrationally averse to exposing themselves to it.
That means they are fundamentally the same as religionists who avoid reading about evidence for common descent.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 15, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Being a professional scientist is very much about prostituting yourself. It's all about funding and grants and reputation getting tenure — and if some science happens to get done and done well — it's a positive side effect of the system.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 15, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
macht,
I didn't see PZ mentioned in that link, and PZ didn't just assert 'the truth'; he backed-up his assertion.
Comment by BoZ3MaN — July 15, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Bozman, there are morals to stories. This one signifies that even if you think someone is a such and such you could refrain from speaking your subjective version of the truth in the interest of kindness or one of many other virtues PZ is not known for possessing. I'm not surprised an EA choir boy thinks PZ has backed up his assertions. His assertions spring forth from his innate closedmindedness.
Comment by Bradford — July 15, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Yes, after reading your essay on the spiritual evidence of Out-of-body experiences I'm convinced… As a result of reading this I now also have been converted to believe in ghosts, goblins, voodoo-magic and other kinds of woo-hoo. As a result of this uncanny wave of gullibility my astrologer now informs me that I need tp pay him to write a list of list of which spiritual things are objectively real and which are purely figments of my whirling imagination. Unfortunately, since I gave all my money to scientologists I have none left to pay him.
Please help me MatthewCromer! Which spiritual stuff do I tust? It all seems so plausible to me.
Comment by salimfadhley — July 15, 2007 @ 9:42 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
BoZ3Man,
I'm curious how you can argue that PZ's claim there is no evidence for God or a spiritual reality has been "backed up" when many of us have been providing such evidence here for a year or more.
Like this, for instance. . .
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 15, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Mathew,
Historically, most everything anyone has ever attributed to "some kind of spiritual reality" has turned out to be perfectly explained by natural causation. Spirituality and the like have never explained anything concretely at all, and, by definition, never will.
P.S. Can you blame PZ for being "irrationally averse to exposing" himself to a 'NDE'? What's he supposed to do, flatline himself on purpose to satisfy you?
P.P.S. Love the whole grand scientific conspiracy thing you got going there. Nice.
Comment by BoZ3MaN — July 15, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Indeed.
I see you missed the point.
Comment by macht — July 15, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Salim,
Perhaps some people (are you volunteering yourself to this category?!) are too dim or too blinkered to evaluate claims based on the evidence. For those who are not, it is relatively easy to distinguish between those claims which are poorly supported by evidence, and those which are extraordinarily well supported.
Those who dismiss all claims without evaluating the evidence are simply fanatical believers in the religion of reductionism who do not understand that science is a method of inquiry, not their materialistic belief system. Such as those are no different from the rigid bible-thumpers who refuse to examine the evidence of the fossil record and radiometric dating.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 15, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Matthew not Mathew, thanks.
I do not draw any line between "natural" and "spiritual" (nor between "God" and the universe for that matter). I only use the term descriptively, to point at phenomena that PZ Myers claims in his state of blinded ignorance, to not exist.
I am not attempting to "explain" anything (and science is about descriptions, not explanations anyway) but merely pointing out extremely well documented phenomena that demonstrate that PZ Myers is blowing smoke.
A rather bizarre interpretation of what I said.
"exposing himself" obviously means familiarizing himself with the documented evidence.
You completely fail to understand what I wrote.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 15, 2007 @ 10:46 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
One more point — the author of the linked blog post you are sneering at is Michael Prescott, while my name is Matthew Cromer (spelled with two t's, thanks)! While I am fortunate enough to count Michael as a friend and frequent correspondent, I can assure you that we do not share a body or a street address. . .
I do hope (for your own sake) you decide to put a bit more care into your investigation of crisis apparitions than you have of your facts in this thread, to date. . .
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 15, 2007 @ 11:02 pm
July 15th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Here is picture from the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, that favorably reviewed a book enumerating scientific evidence for God. See: Review 27 March 1986
One of the authors recently chided Dawkins by saying:
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — July 15, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 2:42 am
Yes, exactly, and that changes the equation to the simple inquiry into what sorts of things are contained within reality. Are there any energies that we don't yet know about or so poorly understand that we merely suspect their existence?
Nah. We know everything now.
Comment by onething — July 16, 2007 @ 2:42 am
July 16th, 2007 at 2:42 am
Bilbo,
That's the most cheering thing I've ever heard a Christian say.
Comment by onething — July 16, 2007 @ 2:42 am
July 16th, 2007 at 10:46 am
MatthewCromer:
Matthew, that link you provided about "living phantasms" was simply fascinating. Most interestingly the reports I skim-read all seemed to be reports of 1st and 2nd hand accounts of ghostly apparitions and telepathic phenomena.
The bit I did not see was the part where the researchers verified that these "phantasms" are not products of human imagination. Do you think that we should take these reports on face value as descriptions of spiritual phenomena which objectively occurred?
Clearly something interesting is going on here - why else would so many apparently independent witnesses be telling very similar ghost-stories. Is it supernatural, or is there an entirely natural explanation for the story? Could the whole thing be the product of natural human imagination and a shared culture of ghost-stories?
I sometimes wonder if the same is true of stories about god or gods. Most human beings seem to have some kind of spiritual belief, but those beliefs even amongst those who claim they have received revelations directly from a god seem wildly inconsistent.
Clearly the god-phenomena is more than nothing - how else can we account for the fact that so many people invest so much energy in contemplating their god. Is it possible that gods are things like ghosts or pixies - figments of our imagination. We know that human beings have a tendency to delude themselves, so is it the god-lovers or the god-lacking who are most deluded?
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 10:46 am
July 16th, 2007 at 11:03 am
There is nothing supernatural about the world!!!!!
If all paranormal phenomena exist (ghosts, telepathy, phantoms, etc) and afterlife and god do too, then it is entirely NATURAL for them to exist, just like it would be natural for them NOT to exist.
I wish I could experience any of these phenomena, I wouldn't be surprised and would actually be delighted to see that there is more to the universe than I previously thought and it is a genuinely exhilarating place, a kind of place that CG movies couldn't think of emulating
Unfortunately, I haven't experienced ANY of it… so, do I lack the required apparatus? Is my soul not developed enough? Am I perhaps entirely outside the universe or not in tune with the necessary features to observe this phenomena? I donno. Either way, either I take the words as coming from the horses mouth and accept them as valid observed events or I donno what.
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 11:03 am
July 16th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Ooh, looks fun, PZ. Can I play?
"Science is a force for evil, or to say it in the most optimistic and sensitive way possible for a decent person, there is absolutely no evidence that science isn't a force for evil"¦..You've got crazy-ass megalomaniacal scientific kooks telling people to hate their Jewish/black/gypsy/gay neighbors, you've got mobs believing them, you've got people electing Chancellors on the basis of how fanatically they will wage a war against inferior people, and you've got even more swooning with the vapors at anyone who criticizes scientific belief. Science makes you nuts. It makes ordinary people create atomic bombs that cause untold suffering, it turns them into caterwauling flibbertigibbet idiots at any slight to a dead Englishman who has never done a thing for them, and it makes them center their lives around creating toxic chemicals and weapons that pollute the earth and water, poison the atmosphere, and are bound someday to wipe us out as a species altogether.
You've been given your prescription, people of science: you believe in a lot of evil, stupid, ridiculous ideas. You can resign yourself to them if you aren't strong enough to part from them "” I'm not going to follow you to your laboratories and drag you out with a choke-chain "” or you can wake up. It's all up to you. One thing you don't get to do is silence the people who point and laugh."
That was fun! If we keep all discussion at this charming level, then we can all just talk ourselves in circles until we're blue in the face and then nothing will ever get accomplished. Yay!
Comment by AliceL — July 16, 2007 @ 11:27 am
July 16th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Yes, exactly, and that changes the equation to the simple inquiry into what sorts of things are contained within reality. Are there any energies that we don't yet know about or so poorly understand that we merely suspect their existence?
Nah. We know everything now.
What facts do we know about spiritual matters? Are there any spiritual facts? Are these the same kinds of facts as the things we call facts in science?
Thanks
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 11:37 am
July 16th, 2007 at 11:43 am
There is nothing supernatural about the world!!!!!
No, but there are plenty of supernatural things in our imagination. Our imaginations are functions of our brain and our brains are things that objectively exist in the world.
I think your comparison is pretty good. I'm really interested in what people believe. I'm just as interested in UFO conspiracy as I am in the beliefs of fundamentalist religious people and IDists. What I find very remarkable is that the further you get from the mainstream of science the more people start to make the same kinds of kooky claims.
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 11:43 am
July 16th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
salimfadhley
Exactly. So does that mean that imagination is objective and therefore everything in our brains exists in the real world?
Actually, it's been driving me insane all my life. That the characters in video games (and in other mediums such as finished movies) contain characters with rudimentary consciousness and same goes for everything I imagine.
Any teachings i've stumbled upon (atheism, christianity, judaism, islam, buddhism, hinduism, etc) all are not satisfactory to me cause I constantly feel the pressure of there being MORE.
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Salim:
It seems to be healthy to believe in some kind of god. Not surprisingly. It can be uncomfortable or even depressing at times to know you're going to die and cease to exist forever. Are there any religions that do not believe in some kind of immortality of the soul? I can't think of any.
Comment by Raevmo — July 16, 2007 @ 12:17 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I don't think we need to worry ourselves with ideas of "objectivity" and "subjectivity" here.
Instead we simply need to answer the question: do these "crisis apparitions" convey information accurately enough that the fluke chance hypothesis can be excluded. I think when the phenomena as a whole is examined, the answer is clearly yes. Thousands of reports of phenomena that accurately convey that a friend or family member has died or been seriously wounded, among people not prone to these kinds of experiences, is pretty conclusive evidence.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 16, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
mcromer:
Maybe. But how many false positives and negatives are there? What's the null hypothesis? It seems these phenomena have not been studied rigorously enough to be accepted by mainstream science. Has anybody ever done lab studies with twin rats in which they killed one (unknown to the other; control1: known; control2: not killing; control3: just harassing, etc) to see the response of the other? Or do you think only humans have the capacity for these kind of experiences?
Comment by Raevmo — July 16, 2007 @ 12:30 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I'm not very interested in conspiracies, whether 9/11 or UFOs or even the JFK assassination.
I have not studied the UFO phenomena much, but what interests me about it is the reports of witnesses who see these very odd phenomena, not ideas that some (many) people have about the CIA, mind-control rays, UFO overlords, and the like.
But again I have done little reading on the topic, so I do not have an informed opinion.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 16, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
[quote]It seems to be healthy to believe in some kind of god. Not surprisingly. It can be uncomfortable or even depressing at times to know you're going to die and cease to exist forever. Are there any religions that do not believe in some kind of immortality of the soul? I can't think of any.[/quote]
Buddhism?
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I doubt it. The Buddhists that I know believe in reincarnation.
Comment by Raevmo — July 16, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Read on Wiki - not all Buddhism schools agree on this, in fact, most disagree on the presence of any soul.
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Dimasok
Speaking 'off the cuff' - I've always thought that people misunderstand questions that take the form "does X exist". The mistake is that people assume that the question is asking about X - but actually it's a question about our window of reference on the universe. It should be re-written "Is X something that exists in our universe".
This helps me get around the problem of gods, unicorns, Sherlock Holmes and other things of which we can speak objectively but we cannot ever experience in any material sense.
When I re-phrase the question it seems to me that the most important thing is not so much the rather dull question of whether something exists in the universe or not, but rather which context might be most appropriately said to exist.
To deny all possible existence of god seems rather silly to me, because any glance at theology text shows that a great many intelligent people have spent a great deal of time trying to say objective things about it. The fact that people can talk about it and agree on some of it's properties (e.g. likes and dislikes) means that it must be more than nothing. Mere dismissal would therefore be utterly vacuous.
On the other hand, the notion that any kind of almighty disembodied mind exists does not seem to jive with our knowledge that mind and thought consistently requires some kind of substrate (e.g. biological cells, or hypothetically some kind of machine). The notion that some kind of awesomely important cosmic creator might lavish utmost care on the design of malaria parasites seems to be a particularly human kind of hypocracy.
I'm perfectly happy to agree that God exists - only in so much as god appears to be a human-created, wholly-abstract concept.
The super-natural seems to do a great job of filling certain narrative gaps whether it be the plot of Macbeth, Harry potter, the Holy Bible or an emotionally satisfying explanation of why a sunset might appear so beautiful. This might indeed be a very beneficial belief, on the other hand one might find the same benefits from playing sport, writing poetry and raising a family.
Dimasok:
I'm not very interested in conspiracies, whether 9/11 or UFOs or even the JFK assassination.
I have not studied the UFO phenomena much, but what interests me about it is the reports of witnesses who see these very odd phenomena, not ideas that some (many) people have about the CIA, mind-control rays, UFO overlords, and the like.
I find all kinds of non-mainstream belief quite fascinating. I'm particularly interested in the psychology of their proponents. These people often believe they are mere steps from a major discovery and that the mainstream (science, media, history) is methodologically biased against them.
And what of the new-agers, whose broad spectrum of beliefs seems to be able to gobble up anything from creationism to crystal-healing, and somehow work it into a single somewhat coherent belief system. It's all fascinating stuff.
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Yeah, you're right. I might join them.
Comment by Raevmo — July 16, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
MatthewCromer,
Do you believe that thousands of people are being molested by spiders?
The standard of evidence that leads you to accept a 'spiritual reality' makes me think that you should.
Comment by BoZ3MaN — July 16, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Maybe. But how many false positives and negatives are there? What's the null hypothesis? It seems these phenomena have not been studied rigorously enough to be accepted by mainstream science. Has anybody ever done lab studies with twin rats in which they killed one (unknown to the other; control1: known; control2: not killing; control3: just harassing, etc) to see the response of the other? Or do you think only humans have the capacity for these kind of experiences?
Yes - and what of all those times when emotionally significant things happen of which we are utterly unaware until the moment we are informed of the news, say by a telephone call or email.
What of the human tendency to self-delude, or the simple fact that our minds are very good at filling in conceptual gaps with imaginary details. How would we determine which of those phantasm accounts are a consequence of those human tendencies?
The living-phantasm phenomena is a perfect example of the sort of thing that will remain pseudo-science until somebody can deliver strong verifiable evidence along with some kind of understanding of a possible mechanism. At the moment all we have are uncorrelated observations and innuendo - now why does that remind me of ID?
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 1:07 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Agreed entirely! In fact, I think that's the only time i've actually seen someone put forward such an explanation that fits so perfectly with what i've been thinking! We're twin-souls mate lol :DDDDDD
Still though, lemme ask you a question and give you an example: there were a lot of science-fiction movies done over the ages, incorporating afterlife (what dreams may come, the fountain (just in the imagery)), different brain-in-a-vat scenarios (matrix, 13th floor), and other scenarios which are a bit more scientific (gattaca, sunshine) and there also movies (based on games or books) depicting worlds and phenomena that we don't, as you say, "experience in any material sense" like 1408, starwars, king kong, transformers and a billion of others you name it.
When you walk into a theatre and watch all of these movies with your suspension of disbelief, don't you sometimes find yourselves indeed experiencing this "in a material sense" and therefore there is something more besides it since even if they don't exist outside of computer generated vistas, they do indeed exist "inside the universe" in the movies?
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 1:09 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
When you walk into a theatre and watch all of these movies with your suspension of disbelief, don't you sometimes find yourselves indeed experiencing this "in a material sense" and therefore there is something more besides it since even if they don't exist outside of computer generated vistas, they do indeed exist "inside the universe" in the movies?
The imagination does indeed seem like a very convincing world, and the fact that human imagination can produce convincing and consistent 'worlds' is testament to the creative possibilities of the human mind.
I think the Christian bible is also a man-made work of mostly fiction. That does not stop it from being profoundly interesting, important and majestic fiction, but it still is fiction. Religious experiences do not seem all that different to more mundane secular forays into imaginary worlds.
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
BoZ3MaN,
Why are you posting a link to the Onion?
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 16, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
then
From a thought to an assertion….
Record time, Salim.
Comment by Doug — July 16, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I love how you're able to seemlessly replace assertions for evidence.
Comment by Doug — July 16, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
In this case, the mainstream belief is for the reality of psi (ie most people believe in psi phenomena) while it is certain subcultures of scientists and fellow travellers who are certain the phenomena do not exist. In fact they claim do that the public is biased against them, and that is why the public rejects materialism and accepts non-materialistic phenomena.
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 16, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
My point exactly! The fact that human imagination can produce convincing and consistent worlds that aren't experienced by us outside of the mediums they are made in sometimes seems like a creation of superintelligence!
The christian bible, while interesting as a phenomenon in exploring the psychology of human beings or the phenomena back at the day that perhaps ceased revealing itself as time went by (which i personally doubt was true in the first place but nevermind that…) still seems mightily primitive to our day where you have studios actually translating written words (books, short stories, etc) to the silver screen where you actually get worlds that can actually be experienced by some of our senses.
If we could get someone to invest money into producing movies that are based on the old/new testaments of christianity or movies about other religions, that would be far more convincing to me, although it obviously sounds nuts to you
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
The verifiable evidence abounds, I cover it frequently on my blog.
As for a "mechanism", that presupposes the primacy of a mechanistic, reductionistic reality, doesn't it?
Comment by MatthewCromer — July 16, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
mcromer:
Does it? Does "holism" preclude "mechanism"
Comment by Raevmo — July 16, 2007 @ 1:51 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Raevmo wrote:
Does the information in a computer program reduce to states of hardware? If so, how can it represent other hardware, such as a solar system? What makes one mechanical process represent a particular, specific fact, as against some other fact, and as against no fact? How does such a process just by itself, or just in virtue of it being a product of a prior merely mechanical process, represent a mathematical fact, or a moral fact, or a metaphysical fact (such as there being no possible world in which Raevmo is made of an infinitely long aluminum cylinder of 3 inches diameter, or in which there are exactly 98.2 alcohol-addicted protons)? How can it possess or convey information? What is it that makes the letter string hshhfsdjzcjhcj hxjjcsjc dcfis meaningless, but the letter string the cat sat on the mat meaningful?
And as I've said before: the software/hardware analogy for explaining the mind's relationship to the body (especially if it's no mere analogy, but a true and literal description), strikes me (and always has struck me) as being more consonant with the view that the distinguishing properties of mind are in essence immaterial rather than material. Programs, codes, languages, rules, algorithms, symbol systems, etc look like they are no more reducible to their physical medium of expression than mathematical equations are reducible to chalk marks on a chalkboard in Einstein's office. In other words, why should the software/hardware model be considered a materialist or mechanical theory of the mind at all? If minds are software, then how does that make them unmysterious given that software seems to be at least as mysterious as minds? Mtraven had a go at answering these questions, but I'd like to have your take on them.
Comment by stunney — July 16, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Hi dimasok,
Mel Gibson did. Didn't you see The Passion of the Christ?
Comment by Aagcobb — July 16, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
MatthewCromer,
If you are prepared to believe the sporadic, and frankly weak evidence for NDEs, astral projection etc. than you should be more than ready to believe that thousands of people (who just happen to be meth addicts) are being harrassed by arachnids.
But of course that doesn't interest you, because you're only interested in phenomenon which happen to align with your religious/philosphical opinions.
Doug,
Could you please provide some concrete evidence for anything 'spiritual'?
Comment by BoZ3MaN — July 16, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
How could the same not be said of you?
Individual relationships that people have with Jesus, the impact that those relationships have on their lives.
Comment by Doug — July 16, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Yes, it was a visceral re-imagining of the christ-passion myth, and perhaps the single most successful example of the torture-porn genre even if I did find the conclusion somewhat preposterous
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Doug offers this as evidence of spirituality:
But how do I know those people are not deluding themselves? Christians claim that their god is the only god, however Hindus seem to have equally convincing relationships with their own deities. I cannot tell which religious claims are most authentic because they all make the same extraordinary claims and they all offer the same standard of evidence.
There seems to be plenty of evidence that enact a relationship with a purportedly spiritual entity. One need only attend a church service to be in no doubt of the level of conviction that religious people hold. The question is, is that god they worship something that has any existence outside of their collective imagination?
Indeed, the curious phenomena of a "holy war" between two sides, both of which claim to have God and riteousness on their sides strongly suggests that a substantial proportion of religious folk are indeed deluded.
My personal belief: God and gods are real, but not in the mundane sense of reality that has any practical relevance to me. God seems to be an abstract concepts, and an evolved product of the human imagination.
Comment by salimfadhley — July 16, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
salim:
The perennial philosophy is something you might find interesting. People have even written books about it. Or not. It's an idea, anyway.
Comment by Joy — July 16, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Boz3man
What is concrete evidence? Is it evidence made of concrete?
In any event, there is evidence that some people understand the concept of evidence. Understanding is a spiritual property.
Comment by stunney — July 16, 2007 @ 6:02 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
That didn't have to do with Christianity in the way I meant (miracles, god, etc).
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 6:26 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
stunney,
Concrete evidence would be like some kind of special goggles that would enable the viewer to see 'spirits' or see into 'the spiritual realm' (kinda like 'night vision' goggles) or a one of those detecto-meters sported by Dr. Egon in Ghostbusters.
How do you tell the difference between the spiritual/immaterial and the material? It seems to me like everything spiritual/immaterial to you is simply just stuff we don't really fully understand yet.
Comment by BoZ3MaN — July 16, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Dima,
Try some psychoactive plants.
Are you saying they are too tame for you?
Salim,
A lot of science facts aren't all that solid. We're still working on them, including, no doubt, some we think are solved. They aren't the same kinds of facts in the sense that we find out more about the easier stuff first. Easier means more solid, more crude, or at least closer in wavelength to our perceptive abilities. Things that are very tiny, very far away, or very ethereal, are harder to study. But we are making progress. And I think that things which are called spiritual are harder to study because they fit into the ethereal category. In fact, that is the source of confusion which has caused them to be labeled supernatural. They aren't any more supernatural then those parts of the electromagnetic spectrum we can't see or feel.
Well, mainstream science is a mindset and a group consensus social phenomenon.
Matthew,
There has to be a mechanism. Have you heard of Ervin Lazslo's Science and the Akashic Field? But of course the evidence stands on its own without our knowing the mechanism, and we have just heard a reiteration of the argument that design in nature cannot be taken seriously until we know who did it and how.
Comment by onething — July 16, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Boz3man wrote:
What about 'seeing' persons, or minds? Have you ever seen any scientists? Have you seen your own mind?
I never saw Ghostbusters.
By rational thinking. About things like mathematics, coded information, moral value, beauty, and rational thought.
What makes you think that when we understand it, it will turn out to be material? And what makes you think that we understand the material? And what makes you think that all of reality boils down to material entities and processes, as against it all consisting of immaterial entities and processes? What experiment proves that material objects exist independently of minds?
Comment by stunney — July 16, 2007 @ 7:17 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
onething wrote:
Why? What mechanism causes electrons to be charged, as against neutral?
You end up with an infinite regress of mechanisms if everything needs a mechanism to produce it.
Comment by stunney — July 16, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
stunney:
It's a convention among material beings. What happens if you kill all people with a knowledge of the theory of General Relativity and you destroy all books, papers etc that refer to it? Will the theory still exist? I think not. All material representations of it have been wiped out.
Why is software so mysterious? It's a (complicated) description of how to transform information. The actual transformation may be carried out by different mechanical means (in that sense it is "immaterial", in that it may be performed by quite different material configurations). The brain does just that: it transforms incoming information, which alters the state of the brain, which by a feedback loop changes the way it will transform further information. It's very complicated, which is why people can still get away intellectually with claiming that there "has to be more" to mind.
Comment by Raevmo — July 16, 2007 @ 9:03 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Raevmo wrote:
Ah, poor Raevmo.
You don't really think about the hard questions, do you? That's just not your cup of tea. Like: what's a convention? Especially one between material beings. What is it for there to be a rule applicable to material beings? What is it for there to be a meaning that material beings understand to be a rule that's applicable to them?
Will the propositions the theory express still be true? Let's hope so, otherwise you'll be floating off back towards Raevmonia any minute now.
Before we get on to that, let's ask: what is software? And, how does it differ from hardware? Why don't they just call it hardware too?
What is a description? What is a proposition? What is information? How much do they weigh?
What is it that is transformed?
You keep using that word as if you had a scoobie as to what it means. So go on, Raevmo, tell me. Out with it. What is information?
Is it a piece of paper with marks on it that gets transformed into pixel patterns on a computer screen? What happened to its meaning? Where's that located through this 'transformation'? And how much mass does it contain?
Yeah, but what's this information stuff that is being transformed? What happens to its content, Raevmo?
Don't tell me you don't know were you put the content. Don't tell me you have no idea what the content is, Raevmo. Oh for crying out loud, Raevmo. Don't tell me you're trying to get away with dodging the issue of what informational content is.
Say it ain't so, Raevmo. Say you've not just completely ignored the content, Raevmo.
Oh wait.
You have, haven't you? How disappointing.
Ya don't say.:roll:
Poor, befuddled, sad sack Raevmo.:lol:
Comment by stunney — July 16, 2007 @ 10:59 pm
July 16th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I'll try
Comment by dimasok — July 16, 2007 @ 11:15 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 12:18 am
I do not believe that science is about mechanisms.
Instead I see science as providing descriptions. Correlations, not causations.
That is, gravitation is a description of our observation that particles display an attractive behavior based on particle mass. We can do a slight-of-hand and give "mechanisms" which appear to provide cause-and-effect relationships, but all of these mechanisms actually appeal to something else observable.
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 12:18 am
July 17th, 2007 at 12:35 am
The evidence for NDEs is absolutely compelling. Read this prospective study from the Lancet for starters, where all cardiac arrest patients in 13 hospitals who survived resuscitation were interviewed and around 20% reported NDEs. I know of only one skeptic who actually denies the existence of the NDE as a category of experiential phenomena, the rest admit the phenomena is real (but deny it indicates the non-materiality of consciousness).
The evidence for veridical perception during NDE is very strong, with many cases reported in the literature (including one during the Lancet study linked above).
The evidence for "astral projection" or intentional OBE providing veridical information is pretty meager. It suggests that in at least many or most cases, intentional OBEs represent something like a dream state, rather than presenting objective reality.
You did not provide any evidence for your assertion. Instead, you cited the Onion.
Do you even know what the Onion is?
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 12:35 am
July 17th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Stunney,
There has to be a mechanism
Are you serious that all electrons happen to be negative without a cause? We don't need an infinite regress, but neither have we hit bottom yet.
MCromer,
There has to be a mechanism
Well, I didn't say science is about mechanims, although science certainly would like in its descriptions to include mechanism, when they can.
What I said was, that given certain psi phenomena such as people knowing when a loved one has died, there has to be a mechanism for the mind-to-mind communication. It is not magic.
Comment by onething — July 17, 2007 @ 2:02 am
July 17th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I just love Stunney's style of argumentation - any time somebody attempts to engage with one of his arguments, he responds with a bunch of pseudo-Socratic sounding questions:
See that - it's such majestic rhetoric. Especially asking about how much the information weighs… like a sucker punch - whammo!
Raevemo provided a serviceable definition of software in response to Stunney's previous line of questioning about computers and software, then quick-as-a-flash Stunney was back in there with a fresh barrage of brain-teasing imponderabilities. It was far too quick for Raevemo to notice that Stunney had not even bothered to address is questions.
I'm going to remember this trick next time I am caught in a debate. Each time somebody answers one of my points, I'm going to bat it directly back at them by asking them to define random words.
Great work, keep it up… and while you are at it, please tell me what up is and what it means to truly keep something?
Comment by salimfadhley — July 17, 2007 @ 10:18 am
July 17th, 2007 at 10:27 am
The evidence for NDEs is absolutely compelling. Read this prospective study from the Lancet for starters, where all cardiac arrest patients in 13 hospitals who survived resuscitation were interviewed and around 20% reported NDEs. I know of only one skeptic who actually denies the existence of the NDE as a category of experiential phenomena, the rest admit the phenomena is real (but deny it indicates the non-materiality of consciousness).
As far as I am aware, this study regards NDEs as a form of experiential phenomena somewhat akin to a dream or hallucination. When the Lancet suggested that the origin of this phenomena was not entirely medical in nature, I think they were suggesting that it might have a psychological or cultural component. I did not see one suggestion in this report that anything objectively spiritual is occurring.
The Lancet does not seem to have concluded that this study provides any evidence at all for the existence of a spiritual realm. I did not see any speculation of a spiritual nature at all in this paper. I'm astonished you can read this paper and conclude anything but a material, natural cause for near-death experiences.
Perhaps you would like to direct me to the paragraph that proves your point? Perhaps I skipped past the bit that suggests that spiritual stuff is objectively real?
Comment by salimfadhley — July 17, 2007 @ 10:27 am
July 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am
There is a "mechanism", and your pseudonym points right at it.
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 10:44 am
July 17th, 2007 at 11:04 am
First off, this article is published in the Lancet, but the article itself was written by Pim van Lommel. So it is probably better to refer to van Lommel's beliefs rather than the Lancet's.
Secondly, you did not read the article very carefully if you are "astonished you can read this paper and conclude anything but a material, natural cause for near-death experiences." I quote from the article:
You can't get much clearer than that in a peer reviewed journal that the author is questioning materialist assumptions.
Also, the paper also features this incident of veridical perception:
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 11:04 am
July 17th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
No, you can get a hell of a lot clearer than that, for example the author could have stated "The evidence I have shown clearly contradicts materialist assumptions for the following reasons… " - that would be a great deal clearer than the innuendo that you cite as proof. The author may have spiritual beliefs concerning near-death experiences, but to say that they are made clear in this article is certainly an exaggeration.
When they say "NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness", I think the author is hinting that even an apparently unconscious brain may be more conscious than initially suspected, not that some spiritual phenomena is occurring, or that some kind of mystical hyper-consciousness has been achieved.
After re-reading the article I still do not see any spiritual speculation. As usual, this is an example of the way that mystics and new-agers deliberately mis-read fairly dry scientific papers to imply support for their own kooky pet beliefs.
Yes, a rather interesting anecdote about a man who remembered events and details that occurred in a room that he had spent some time in. The remarkable thing is that he was thought to be fully unconscious at the time and therefore unable to percieve details such as the location of his dentures.
And yet he somehow was able to perceive the removal and storage of his dentures. Perhaps his blood-starved brain was functioning more than the surgeons suspected resulting in an odd hallucination of being outside his body.
I will concede one thing; I think the standard of evidence you have offered for the spirituality of near-death experiences and living-phantasms is at least as credible as the evidence for UFO conspiracy, Sasquatch, Poltergeists and Intelligent Design.
Comment by salimfadhley — July 17, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Salim,
No psi or NDE researcher ever states their conclusion like that in a scientific journal.
Nor do I read conclusions like that in any other scientific journal either.
Conclusions are always supposed to be stated tentatively and with a certain amount of humility that they might be wrong.
After reading scientific papers a while, you get pretty good at "reading between the lines". . .
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
You are the one misreading the paper. Perhaps with more familiarity of reading peer-reviewed scientific papers you will realize that softpedaling and understating controversial conclusions is the norm. Van Lommel is quite clear that he views these phenomena as indication of a non-material aspect of consciousness:
"The study of patients with NDE, however, clearly shows us that consciousness with memories, cognition, with emotion, self-identity, and perception out and above a life-less body is experienced during a period of a non-functioning brain "
Out of body experiences during NDEs are not "odd hallucinations", they are characteristic of the experience. Using the word "odd" implies that they are rare, while instead OBE perception is one of the most common markers of NDE.
Again, you show yourself to be an uncritical investigator. Perhaps for you simply "believing in" some kind of prepackaged sociological viewpoint is what you can handle right now, and anything that your social group dismisses must necessarily be nonsense to you.
The other topics you mention are not a package deal — each claim needs to be examined based on the observational evidence. You fail to distinguish between phenomena with widespread investigational support (ie: veridical NDEs, crisis apparitions with veridical information transfer) and phenomena with extremely poor support (ie: UFOs with mind-control beams who run the CIA and the world). You really need to familiarize yourself with the research by reading it or else your opinion on these topics is ill informed.
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Here's a letter by a JM Evans to the Lancet in response to van Pommel's paper, with some interesting suggestions to consider:
Comment by Raevmo — July 17, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Boy that's a catch-all bucket there, isn't it?
I mean, presumably most anyone near death is suffering from at least some sort of "physiological stressor", or they wouldn't be near death.
However NDEs are also reported when the person is merely psychologically near death (ie: climbers who start to fall off a cliff but manage to arrest their fall), so perhaps they would not fall into the letter writer's laundry list of possible causes of NDE.
My suggestion for those interested is to continue to read about the research into these kinds of phenomena. Perhaps you will follow the footsteps of many NDE and psi researchers like Van Lommel who start looking into these phenomena as atheistic reductionists and end up embracing a more non-materialist viewpoint of reality. . .
Comment by mcromer — July 17, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
onething wrote:
I've often stated at TT that it is ludicrous to suppose that all 10^80 or so electrons in the observable universe have identical properties by chance. One could hardly imagine something that would be less likely to result from chance. So of course I think their charge properties have a cause. But that's not the point.
When we hit bottom, the things that are at the bottom will not need a mechanism to do what they do. They'll just do it. A-type things interact with B-type things. By what mechanism? By C-type things interacting with D-type things. By what mechanism? By E-type things interacting with F-type things. By what mechanism? By F-type things interacting with…[ ...... ] ….. By:?:-type things interacting with :!:-type things. By what mechanism? Eventually there is no mechanism. Eventually they just do.
Hence, given that even in a purely material world material bodies must interact ultimately without a mediating mechanism, I see no reason why mental states can't interact with bodies ultimately without a mediating mechanism.
Comment by stunney — July 17, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
stunny:
Think about what you're saying. If electrons didn't have the same properties, we wouldn't use a unique word to describe them. The fact that we do implies that they have the same properties. What are the chances that all humans have two ears?
Comment by Raevmo — July 17, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Hi Salim,
How are you today? No, not your matter, silly. You know, you.
Have you heard of timepiece detergent? It's used for clock cleaning. Oh, and mickey-extraction.:smile:
Comment by stunney — July 17, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Raevmo wrote:
Raevmo, think about what you're saying. Please. Pretty please?
All humans are human. But, and I know you may not have noticed this, they're not all identical. Some weigh 200 pounds. Some weigh 100 pounds. Some prefer to give their weight in stones or kilograms. Some have a penis. Some, er, don't. Some speak Bulgarian. Others speak Urdu. And yet, astounding as it may seem, we use the term 'human' to refer to all of them. Though we usually give each one an individual name too.
Which makes me want to ask: is there anyone else called 'Raevmo', or is it just you? And do you have a clone? I'd hate to think you were not unique.
Comment by stunney — July 17, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
July 17th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
So you are saying that in order to 'read' this paper, what I actually have to do is read a completely different paper? Why then did you ask me to look at this paper and not the other one?
Stunney:
Again, this does not imply anything supernatural has occurred. The brain and body were not functioning normally, however cellular death had not yet set in and as a result some interesting things happened. In particular the patient 'remembered' floating above his own body. At the time no surgeon reported seeing anything float in the operating theater, and we know that in order to perceive one requires an eye or perhaps some other kind of optical sensor to interrupt the light.
An invisible massless thing would have no means to 'see' in any sense of the word, so we can be pretty sure that no actual observation took place from above the body.
It's much more likely that a paitient's brain filled in the details of what was happening. It's possible that part of the brain which deals with self-identity was not fully functioning, giving the sensation that what was happening was happening to somebody else.
It seems quite sensible to me that the stress of having a heart attack and medical treatment might cause all kinds of exceptional cognitive experiences. These might seem very convincing, but in no way lead us to conclude that a supernatural event has taken place. We know that drugs, trauma and certain medical conditions can lead to altered states of mind - why do we need to invent supernatural explanations for something that we have a perfectly natural explanation for.
I AM familiar with many of these topics - I spend as much time checking out 'esoteric' researchers as I do ID. I've noticed that people who believe in one esoteric topic usually have faith in a few others… why