C. .S. Lewis: The Supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing.”
Naturalism
At Mind Matters News: Imaging studies fail badly at linking brain and behavior
Aha! news stories about what brain imaging reveals about human behavior are probably based on studies whose findings would not be confirmed by further research. Such studies, often of psychiatric conditions, were the Next Step for brain imaging: showing that human behavior is based on simple, identifiable brain states.
We’re not your lab rats any more: Convoy update IV
As of March 13, 2022, this page will not be updated. The issues re COVID-19 have now moved to the stage where only serious enquiries into the costly Crazy will be any use. Meanwhile, we leave you with this thought: Now, as we move forward (or not), a final message: Maybe you didn’t care when Read More…
We’re not your lab rats any more: Convoy update III
So much news worldwide now. I’ll just keep adding to it, putting new items at the top so you can keep checking back. I will try to group them loosely by topic where possible. This post is stickied for now so news news added on other topics is below this post.
At Mind Matters News: Neuroscientists: The Hard Problem of consciousness isn’t so hard!
If consciousness remains unexplained by materialist theories, we are entitled to conclude, at least provisionally, that it is not a material phenomenon.
Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne is getting mugged by reality
All: Unplug the TV. Those people can no longer afford to be friends of truth in any meaningful sense. That includes anything to do with evolution controversies.
Why people don’t trust science any more
As we enter the new year, full of cranks, quacks, and crackpots with huge power, here is a powerful statement on why people don’t trust Big Science any more (and shouldn’t)
Jerry Coyne on the war on math, science, in New Zealand – and falling scores
Darwinian evolutionary biologist Coyne doesn’t dispute teaching Indigenous beliefs in a cultural class. But he may be at a major disadvantage because – if many years of his blogging are any guide – he wants science taught as a branch of naturalist atheism. Thus, the question arises, why shouldn’t we teach naturalist atheism too as an outcropping of Western culture?
To what extent is the science we must learn at school materialist propaganda?
Here’s a question: Given what we (hope we) know today about the origin and development of life forms, would anyone today propose neo-Darwinism (natural selection) in any of its forms as an explanation – if they hadn’t already had to accept it anyway in order to get to where they are today?
At Mind Matters News: Why neuroscientist Mark Solms is no materialist
Mark Solms: Information, in neuroscience, is a crucial concept, and it’s very hard to think about quantum physics and the big questions that are unsolved that flow from it without the concept of information — which, I hasten to draw your attention to the fact, is not matter. I’m not a materialist for exactly that reason.
Woke atheist rejects the New Atheists — not Woke enough
Take in for a moment that the editors of an allegedly serious publication actually sponsored an article claiming that all of these prominent atheists have “merged with the far right.” Remember that the next time someone starts caterwauling about the need to suppress conspiracy theories. We can direct them to Salon’s website for their best convenience…
At Mind Matters News: Why panpsychism is starting to push out naturalism
Panpsychism eliminates the crudities of Darwinism. For example, if consciousness is assumed to be a natural development in the most complex life forms, human consciousness would have happened, whether it improved survival or not. Darwinian controversies on the topic become pointless or anyway, much less significant. Perhaps that’s why a classical Darwinian, who needs to see human consciousness as a simple but controversial accident, views panpsychism with hostility.
In time for American Thanksgiving: Stephen Meyer on “the frailty of scientific atheism”
Materialist atheism is — you read it here first — slowly being destroyed by panpsychism. Panpsychism (everything is conscious) makes more sense. Recall Egnor’s Principle: If your hypothesis is that even electrons are conscious, your hypothesis is likely wrong. But if your hypothesis is that the human mind is an illusion, then… you don’t have a hypothesis. That’s slowly killing “scientific” atheism.
At Mind Matters News: Does science disprove free will? A physicist says no
Apart from simple laws governing neurons, we have no clue what laws the mind follows, though it does show complex nonlinear dynamics.
At Mind Matters News: A Darwinian biologist resists learning to live with panpsychism
The differences between panpsychism and naturalism are subtle but critical. As panpsychism’s popularity grows, insight will be better than rage and ridicule.