Mind Over Matter

_{Barry Arrington

January 1, 2013

Intelligent Design}

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In any philosophy of reality that is not ultimately self-defeating or internally contradictory, mind – unlabeled as anything else, matter or spiritual – must be primary. What is “matter” and what is “conceptual” and what is “spiritual” can only be organized from mind. Mind controls what is perceived, how it is perceived, and how those percepts are labeled and organized. Mind must be postulated as the unobserved observer, the uncaused cause simply to avoid a self-negating, self-conflicting worldview. It is the necessary postulate of all necessary postulates, because nothing else can come first. To say anything else comes first requires mind to consider and argue that case and then believe it to be true, demonstrating that without mind, you could not believe that mind is not primary in the first place.

William J Murray

Comments

In re: Kairosfocus @ 141:
My own comment to you is that first you cannot count up, step by step to Aleph-null. A transfinite cardinality like that cannot be traversed in that way. Now, reverse sign, and assign an ordering of steps regressing in the past. The same obtains. Arriving at the present is an insuperable difficulty. We are back at the same issue of a finitely remote succession, i.e. time has a terminus in the past, to reach to now by successive causally connected events.
Oh, definitely -- but I wasn't wondering if perhaps the universe is infinite -- that the universe is finite (but unbounded) is a result of contemporary cosmology I'm perfectly happy to take on board. My question was whether or not the cause of the universe couldn't itself be contingent, and then have the cause of that in turn be contingent, and so on -- 'all the way down'. Why must the cause of this contingent being -- the cosmos -- be a necessary being? Why couldn't this particular contingent being -- the universe -- have been caused by some other contingent being, and so on?
(This is linked to the worldview roots issue you have said you will get back on, some time ago now.)
On your criticism of "the raft metaphor," I picked that thread back up in the last three paragraphs of my (84) above: epistemic 'grounding' is not causal 'grounding', and the very notion of 'grounding' elides that distinction if one is not exceedingly careful. I should add -- and this is actually fairly important to me, though it might not be to any of you -- that my agenda here isn't to show that there's anything irrational or mistaken about theism. I have no metaphysical or epistemological objections to theism, only to anti-atheism. That is, I have no reasons to hold that either theism or atheism is more or less rational than the other. It's a leap of faith either way.Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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KN: Okay, I see your acknowledgement re PSR. My own comment to you is that first you cannot count up, step by step to Aleph-null. A transfinite cardinality like that cannot be traversed in that way. Now, reverse sign, and assign an ordering of steps regressing in the past. The same obtains. Arriving at the present is an insuperable difficulty. We are back at the same issue of a finitely remote succession, i.e. time has a terminus in the past, to reach to now by successive causally connected events. This is multiplied by the entropy increase problem and other similar problems, even through multiverse speculations. Remember, also, we have credible empirical evidence for just one material cosmos, which is temporally limited, 13.7 BY on the usual Hubble estimates. A contingent cosmos cries out for causal explanation. A necessary being is logically possible, i.e. coherent. So, it is not an unreasonable explanatory object. So, already, (i) it is reasonable to dismiss the infinite traversal model, (ii) it is not coherent to have circular cause, and (iii) a necessary being is a coherent candidate. (This is linked to the worldview roots issue you have said you will get back on, some time ago now.) It is quite reasonable on the balance of evidence to infer that the best explanation of the causal root of a contingent world id a necessary being of intelligence, power, intent and skill to build a cosmos capable of hosting life as we experience it. Indeed, the evident alternatives are plainly inferior. In that context, too, we multiply by our moral experience of being under moral government and the experience many have had of dealing with, being positively transformed by and coming to know such a transcendent being. Better known as God. (And, in this context, the case of Jesus of Nazareth and his impact, in light of the prophetic tradition leading up to him, should be very carefully reflected on indeed, including in light of the alternatives that have been put on offer to deal with the testimony of the 500 recorded in 1 Cor 15:1 - 11, c. AD 55. [My own 101 on that is here on.]) It is possible to reject all the premises and evidence that lurks behind this and related matters, but at a very stiff worldview price that reeks of reductio ad absurdum. KFkairosfocus_{January 5, 2013
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I should also note that I tend towards nominalism about abstract entities, though I do worry that that puts excessive constraints on set theory, and towards cognitivism in metaethics, though I think that one has to specify very carefully just what the truth-makers are of moral judgments. How am I doing so far?Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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So, you don’t really have a philosophy of life? You are just searching? Have you given any thought to the possibility that you are reading the wrong philosophers.
You might find hard this hard to believe, but I'm not really interested in a "philosophy of life." I'm interested in living philosophically, which means being thoughtful, reflective, and self-critical. Did Socrates have a "philosophy of life"? I don't think he had a 'doctrine,' in any event. He just lived a life of passionate questioning and quiet virtue. I do not think there is a better way for a human being to live than that. I read a great deal of philosophy, and I find something to agree with and something to disagree with in everyone I read. I have a fairly loosely defined 'home' at the intersection of pragmatism (Peirce, Dewey, C. I. Lewis, Sellars, Rorty), phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty), and critical theory (Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas), with Kant and Hegel as the headwaters from which those streams run and sometimes cross. In terms of my metaphysical and epistemological positions, my real interest lies in constructing one for myself, rather than adopting as my own the thoughts of someone else, but I have some fairly clear commitments, provisional credo: pragmatic realism in the form of metaphysics and process ontology in substance; a social-practice account of justification and reasoning that incorporates both fallibilism and 'corrigibilism'; a qualified defense of the correspondence theory of truth; direct critical realism about perception; a distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual content in philosophy of mind (corresponding to social externalism and physical externalism); a holistic and inferentialist semantics; convergent realism in philosophy of science. In terms of my ethical position, I don't think that anyone has really improved upon Martin Buber's existentialist transformation of Kant's categorical imperative, though Levinas' injunction to bear witness to 'the Face of the Other' comes close, and that the I-Thou relation is the lived ground of all the virtues. I think that justice is distinct from other virtues (courage, honesty, integrity, sincerity, etc.) in being universalizable, and that justice requires de-institutionalizing all forms of privilege based on affluence, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. I think that non-human animals and plants deserve some moral consideration, though not identical with that which human persons deserve, and that environmental destruction is the most serious problem we currently face as a civilization and as a species. In politics, I'm a socialist with vaguely anarchist leanings at the level of principle (think Guy Debord or Noam Chomsky) and a staunch New Deal liberal at the level of policy. I think capitalism is both fundamentally immoral and essentially incompatible with democracy, but that it's not going anywhere anytime soon, and that revolutions tend to bring out the worst side of human nature. OK, I guess went on a bit long there, but I think that should cover the main bases -- I left out aesthetics, because I haven't read much and have nothing interesting to say about it, and also philosophy of logic/mathematics, because I haven't studied it carefully enough to have a well-defined position.Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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Here are a couple more strong pieces of supporting evidence for the 'mind': ,,If my mind were merely my brain as materialists hold, then if half of my brain were removed, then I should be 'half the person' I was before, but that is not the case. The 'whole person' is still intact though the body suffers impairment: Miracle Of Mind-Brain Recovery Following Hemispherectomies - Dr. Ben Carson - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994585/ Removing Half of Brain Improves Young Epileptics' Lives: Excerpt: "We are awed by the apparent retention of memory and by the retention of the child's personality and sense of humor,'' Dr. Eileen P. G. Vining; In further comment from the neuro-surgeons in the John Hopkins study: "Despite removal of one hemisphere, the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved. Intellect was only affected in the one child who had remained in a coma, vigil-like state, attributable to peri-operative complications." http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/19/science/removing-half-of-brain-improves-young-epileptics-lives.html Another little known fact, a fact that is very antagonistic to the genetic reductionism model of neo-Darwinism, is that, besides environmental factors, even our thoughts and feelings can 'epigenetically' control the gene expression of our bodies: Genie In Your Genes - video http://www.genieinyourgenes.com/ggtrailer.html main website excerpt: There are over 100 genes in your body that are activated by your thoughts, feelings and experiences http://www.genieinyourgenes.com/ Upgrade Your Brain Excerpt: The Research; In his book The Genie in Your Genes (Elite Books, 2009), researcher Dawson Church, PhD, explains the relationship between thought and belief patterns and the expression of healing- or disease-related genes. “Your body reads your mind,” Church says. “Science is discovering that while we may have a fixed set of genes in our chromosomes, which of those genes is active has a great deal to do with our subjective experiences, and how we process them.” One recent study conducted at Ohio University demonstrates vividly the effect of mental stress on healing. Researchers gave married couples small suction blisters on their skin, after which they were instructed to discuss either a neutral topic or a topic of dispute for half an hour. Researchers then monitored the production of three wound-repair proteins in the subjects’ bodies for the next several weeks, and found that the blisters healed 40 percent slower in those who’d had especially sarcastic, argumentative conversations than those who’d had neutral ones. http://experiencelife.com/article/upgrade-your-brain/ Genie In Your Genes - Book Book review: First of all, if you are a newcomer to Dawson Church's writing, you need to know that his facts are unimpeachable - they were stringently peer-reviewed before publication. What is more, when Church makes categorical statements, he provides research to corroborate them. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1604150114?ie=UTF8&tag=eliboo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1600700225 Anxiety May Shorten Your Cell Life - July 12, 2012 Excerpt: These studies had the advantage of large data sets involving thousands of participants. If the correlations remain robust in similar studies, it would indicate that mental states and lifestyle choices can produce epigenetic effects on our genes. http://crev.info/2012/07/anxiety-may-shorten-your-cell-life/ One of the more facinating branches of Near Death Studies have been the studies of people who were blind from birth who have had NDE's, who could see for the first time during there NDE. This simply has no explanation within the materialistic framework, whereas this is expected within the theistic framework: Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) - Pim von Lommel - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994599/ Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their Near Death Experiences (NDEs). 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: This 'anomaly' is also found for deaf people who can hear sound during their Near Death Experiences(NDEs).) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_64/ai_65076875/bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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Mung: You are going to argue for the rationality of the infinite regress? KN: Possibly.
Will you begin at the beginning? ;)Mung_{January 5, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist:
It’s clear that Jupiter, being an object, is subject to logical principles, such as the LNC.
Yes, but the question is this: Has Jupiter's existence always been subject to logical principles? It is (or was) your position that logical principles didn't exist prior to the advent of language.
The line of thought I’m exploring is that logic is just the semantic metavocabulary which explicates the rules that govern the vocabulary in which we talk about objects. And the vocabulary of objects is deeply embedded in how human beings, like other animals, perceive and act in the world.
Meaning no disrespect, but you have taken at least five positions so far: [a] Reason's rules are norms, but they are not laws, [b] Reason's rules are laws in the epistemological and psychological sense, but they are not laws in the ontological sense, [c] Reason's rules came into being only with the advent of language, [d] Reason's rules are dependent on one's "conceptual framework" [e] Reason's rules are subject to evolutionary change,
But are there objects, in some ‘deep’ sense? These days I find myself more and more drawn to some version of process philosophy.
So, you don't really have a philosophy of life? You are just searching? Have you given any thought to the possibility that you are reading the wrong philosophers.StephenB_{January 5, 2013
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KN: "I have nowhere (to my knowledge) said, “this is how it is!” I’ve merely been indicating that it seems to me like a promising line of inquiry." Buddy there is nothing 'merely' as to how you present your case! That is why I expressed amazement at the repeated confidence you display in your comments since I know for a fact that your evidential basis is non-existent!bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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Premise One: No materialistic cause of specified complex information is known. Conclusion: Therefore, it must arise from some unknown materialistic cause On the other hand, Stephen Meyer describes the intelligent design argument as follows: “Premise One: Despite a thorough search, no material causes have been discovered that demonstrate the power to produce large amounts of specified information. “Premise Two: Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified information. “Conclusion: Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate, explanation for the information in the cell.” There remains one and only one type of cause that has shown itself able to create functional information like we find in cells, books and software programs -- intelligent design. We know this from our uniform experience and from the design filter -- a mathematically rigorous method of detecting design. Both yield the same answer. (William Dembski and Jonathan Witt, Intelligent Design Uncensored: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to the Controversy, p. 90 (InterVarsity Press, 2010).) Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Excerpt: So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html You see KN you have no evidence whatsoever that any natural processes, self organization or otherwise, have ever produced a single functional protein (much less a molecular machine) whereas ID has not only evidence for intelligence producing functional proteins,, Viral-Binding Protein Design Makes the Case for Intelligent Design Sick! (as in cool) - Fazale Rana - June 2011 Excerpt: When considering this study, it is remarkable to note how much effort it took to design a protein that binds to a specific location on the hemagglutinin molecule. As biochemists Bryan Der and Brian Kuhlman point out while commenting on this work, the design of these proteins required: "...cutting-edge software developed by ~20 groups worldwide and 100,000 hours of highly parallel computing time. It also involved using a technique known as yeast display to screen candidate proteins and select those with high binding affinities, as well as x-ray crystallography to validate designs.2" If it takes this much work and intellectual input to create a single protein from scratch, is it really reasonable to think that undirected evolutionary processes could accomplish this task routinely? In other words, the researchers from the University of Washington and The Scripps Institute have unwittingly provided empirical evidence that the high-precision interactions required for PPIs requires intelligent agency to arise. Sick! http://www.reasons.org/viral-binding-protein-design-makes-case-intelligent-design-sick-cool Computer-designed proteins programmed to disarm variety of flu viruses - June 1, 2012 Excerpt: The research efforts, akin to docking a space station but on a molecular level, are made possible by computers that can describe the landscapes of forces involved on the submicroscopic scale.,, These maps were used to reprogram the design to achieve a more precise interaction between the inhibitor protein and the virus molecule. It also enabled the scientists, they said, "to leapfrog over bottlenecks" to improve the activity of the binder. http://phys.org/news/2012-06-computer-designed-proteins-variety-flu-viruses.html but also evidence for intelligence producing molecular machines: (Man-Made) DNA nanorobot – video https://vimeo.com/36880067 Examples of molecular machines (molecular switches (or shuttles) and molecular motors) - Synthetic (Made By Chemists) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_machine#Examples_of_molecular_machinesbornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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KN: "I don’t really know what “functional information” means" Functional information and the emergence of bio-complexity: Robert M. Hazen, Patrick L. Griffin, James M. Carothers, and Jack W. Szostak: Abstract: Complex emergent systems of many interacting components, including complex biological systems, have the potential to perform quantifiable functions. Accordingly, we define 'functional information,' I(Ex), as a measure of system complexity. For a given system and function, x (e.g., a folded RNA sequence that binds to GTP), and degree of function, Ex (e.g., the RNA-GTP binding energy), I(Ex)= -log2 [F(Ex)], where F(Ex) is the fraction of all possible configurations of the system that possess a degree of function > Ex. Functional information, which we illustrate with letter sequences, artificial life, and biopolymers, thus represents the probability that an arbitrary configuration of a system will achieve a specific function to a specified degree. In each case we observe evidence for several distinct solutions with different maximum degrees of function, features that lead to steps in plots of information versus degree of functions. http://genetics.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/publications/Szostak_pdfs/Hazen_etal_PNAS_2007.pdf Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - Abel, Trevors Excerpt: Three qualitative kinds of sequence complexity exist: random (RSC), ordered (OSC), and functional (FSC).,,, Shannon information theory measures the relative degrees of RSC and OSC. Shannon information theory cannot measure FSC. FSC is invariably associated with all forms of complex biofunction, including biochemical pathways, cycles, positive and negative feedback regulation, and homeostatic metabolism. The algorithmic programming of FSC, not merely its aperiodicity, accounts for biological organization. No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization. Organization invariably manifests FSC rather than successive random events (RSC) or low-informational self-ordering phenomena (OSC).,,, Testable hypotheses about FSC What testable empirical hypotheses can we make about FSC that might allow us to identify when FSC exists? In any of the following null hypotheses [137], demonstrating a single exception would allow falsification. We invite assistance in the falsification of any of the following null hypotheses: Null hypothesis #1 Stochastic ensembles of physical units cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #2 Dynamically-ordered sequences of individual physical units (physicality patterned by natural law causation) cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #3 Statistically weighted means (e.g., increased availability of certain units in the polymerization environment) giving rise to patterned (compressible) sequences of units cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #4 Computationally successful configurable switches cannot be set by chance, necessity, or any combination of the two, even over large periods of time. We repeat that a single incident of nontrivial algorithmic programming success achieved without selection for fitness at the decision-node programming level would falsify any of these null hypotheses. This renders each of these hypotheses scientifically testable. We offer the prediction that none of these four hypotheses will be falsified. http://www.tbiomed.com/content/2/1/29 Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins - Kirk K Durston, David KY Chiu, David L Abel and Jack T Trevors - 2007 Excerpt: We have extended Shannon uncertainty by incorporating the data variable with a functionality variable. The resulting measured unit, which we call Functional bit (Fit), is calculated from the sequence data jointly with the defined functionality variable. To demonstrate the relevance to functional bioinformatics, a method to measure functional sequence complexity was developed and applied to 35 protein families.,,, http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/47bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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In re: BornAgain77 @ 129
Show functional information being produced, without recourse to mind, by any self organization process, or any combination of natural processes thereof, so as to lay to rest my doubts about your ability to think in an unbiased fashion on these issues.
I don't really know what "functional information" means, but there are plenty of examples of self-organizing processes. So the relevant question would be, does self-organization theory explain how complex organic molecules assembled into proto-cells? On that point, it's quite clear that the experiments have not yet been performed, but as I keep on stressing, I have nowhere (to my knowledge) said, "this is how it is!" I've merely been indicating that it seems to me like a promising line of inquiry.Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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In re: Mung @ 128:
You are going to argue for the rationality of the infinite regress?
Possibly. :) Here's one of my worries: just why is it that the classical philosophers, from Plato to (say) Kant, thought that infinite regresses are "absurd" or "irrational"? I suspect that one powerful motivation for this move on their part is that they lacked a precise concept of infinity. They just didn't have the tools to think about it clearly. But we do, thanks to the foundations of set theory. So it's not really clear to me that the classical objections to infinite regressions make as much sense to us now as they did when they were first articulated.Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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In re: StephenB @ 111
Are you saying that prior to the development of language, it was logically possible that Jupiter could exist and not exist at the same time and under the same formal circumstances, but after language emerged, it became logically impossible.
No, that would clearly be an absurd position to take. :) It's clear that Jupiter, being an object, is subject to logical principles, such as the LNC. The line of thought I'm exploring is that logic is just the semantic metavocabulary which explicates the rules that govern the vocabulary in which we talk about objects. And the vocabulary of objects is deeply embedded in how human beings, like other animals, perceive and act in the world. But are there objects, in some 'deep' sense? These days I find myself more and more drawn to some version of process philosophy. Now, I have not read Whitehead, who is the process philosopher, but I have read a bit of Bergson, a good bit of Dewey, and a lot of Nietzsche and of Deleuze. There are debates amongst process philosophers and I have not yet decided where to pitch my tent amongst them. But, if process metaphysics is the way forward, then it suddenly becomes entirely murky just how logic, which is primarily bound up with an ontology of objects, bears on reality. It's an fertile area of inquiry, for sure.
I am not clear on your position. If you are not denying the “Law” of Non-Contradiction, why did you just reduce it to a “norm” in the preceding comment?
I treat logical principles as a class of rational norms -- other rational norms being, for example, "Mill's methods" of induction and Peirce's abduction ('inference to the best explanation').Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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KN, it always amazes me how confident you can be in your pronouncements against anything to do with ID and yet when pressed for any precise evidence whatsoever to back up your claims (such as the claim that 'self organization' can produce functional information) you have, as hard as it is to believe, even less evidence for your pronouncements than Darwinists do. i.e. Why should your (IMHO) severely misleading words be given merit by anyone if you can show no linkage to reality by empirics? So here is a test: Show functional information being produced, without recourse to mind, by any self organization process, or any combination of natural processes thereof, so as to lay to rest my doubts about your ability to think in an unbiased fashion on these issues.bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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KN:
In light of that, I’m still not clear why it can’t be “contingency all the way down” — the contingency of the universe, the contingency of the multiverse, the contingency of the meta-multiverse (because why not?), etc.
You are going to argue for the rationality of the infinite regress?Mung_{January 5, 2013
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Correction to (126): there's only one point I was trying to make there. I thought there would be two, changed my mind and forget to edit. Mea culpa!Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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In re: Kairosfocus @ 112: I was being sloppy; it wasn't an intended caricature of the PSR. Suppose I concede that a contingent being depends upon some being for its existence. (For all X, if X is contingent, then there exists some Y on which the existence of X depends.) Two points: (1) as I've indicated above, there's no logical way to get from
For all X, if X is contingent, then there exists some Y on which the existence of X depends.
to
There exists some non-contingently existing Y on which the existence of all contingent Xs depends.
Somewhat more precisely, there's no way to do that within modern symbolic logic, though conceivably Aristotelian logic has semantic resources that Fregean logic lacks. At any rate, such has been argued. In light of that, I'm still not clear why it can't be "contingency all the way down" -- the contingency of the universe, the contingency of the multiverse, the contingency of the meta-multiverse (because why not?), etc.Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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For my part, a mind is an immaterial faculty of a spiritual soul. That is why I argue that matter cannot produce one. Perhaps you don’t think that minds exist by that definition.
I don't; Ryle's The Concept of Mind thoroughly and completely disabused me of any such "ghost in the machine". (Note: I linked to the 60th anniversary edition because the introductory essay by Julia Tanney is superb, though the standard edition has a lovely and very moving introduction by Dennett.) I've also been deeply influenced by Neither Brain Nor Ghost and The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, and The Problem Of The Soul: Two Visions Of Mind And How To Reconcile Them. All three show in tremendous detail how to understand experience, reason, thought, agency, and responsibility as dimensions of embodied human life, with no need for an immaterial or spiritual substance to do any serious explanatory work.Kantian Naturalist_{January 5, 2013
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Alan Fox:
Are you saying there is evidence that minds exist other than in brain tissue?
How much mind per brain cell, pray tell?Mung_{January 5, 2013
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oops! the above was not by BA77. my bad.Mung_{January 5, 2013
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Thanks SB. BA77:
KN: You are a philosophy professor, by your own admission.
lol. Like that's a bad thing.Mung_{January 5, 2013
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Let's see Alan, there is found to be a beyond space and time component in molecular biology, on a massive scale, (in every DNA molecule and every protein molecule) that can't possibly be explained by the reductive materialistic, within space and time, processes of neo-Darwinism, and you have the sheer audacity (or ignorance) to pretend that this has nothing to do with evidence for NDE's??? Okie Dokie, let's go way back, clean off the black board, and get really basic. Alan have you ever heard of what is termed a 'soul'? Is the Soul Immortal? (J.P. Moreland) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7nqB7SH-7s Case for the Existence of the Soul - JP Moreland, PhD - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SJ4_ZC0xpM Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068 Quantum Entangled Consciousness (Permanence of Quantum Information)- Life After Death - Stuart Hameroff - video https://vimeo.com/39982578bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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Phil Was there anything in those last two posts about evidence for NDE? If you select one piece of evidence, I suggest your best shot, and post it without any excess verbiage, I'll have a look. Not now, I have a busy few days.Alan Fox_{January 5, 2013
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But Alan, even more crushing to the materialistic position (as if materialism was not already crushed to smithereens), non-local, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement/information has now been found in molecular biology on a massive scale: Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA - Elisabeth Rieper - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5936605/ DNA Can Discern Between Two Quantum States, Research Shows - June 2011 Excerpt: -- DNA -- can discern between quantum states known as spin. - The researchers fabricated self-assembling, single layers of DNA attached to a gold substrate. They then exposed the DNA to mixed groups of electrons with both directions of spin. Indeed, the team's results surpassed expectations: The biological molecules reacted strongly with the electrons carrying one of those spins, and hardly at all with the others. The longer the molecule, the more efficient it was at choosing electrons with the desired spin, while single strands and damaged bits of DNA did not exhibit this property. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110331104014.htm Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?-A Galaxy Insight - 2009 Excerpt: DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn't be able to.,,, The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/does-dna-have-t.html Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature - Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes - University of Toronto - Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73 Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state. http://www.scimednet.org/quantum-coherence-living-cells-and-protein/ Testing quantum entanglement in protein Excerpt: The authors remark that this reverses the previous orthodoxy, which held that quantum effects could not exist in biological systems because of the amount of noise in these systems.,,, Environmental noise here drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement.,,, In summary, the authors say that they have demonstrated that entanglement can recur even in a hot noisy environment. In biological systems this can be related to changes in the conformation of macromolecules. http://www.quantum-mind.co.uk/testing-quantum-entanglement-in-protein-c288.html The reason why finding non-local, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement/information is so devastating to atheistic materialism, is because there is no 'story' within space time that can tell us how the quantum correlations happen: Looking Beyond Space and Time to Cope With Quantum Theory – (Oct. 28, 2012) Excerpt: To derive their inequality, which sets up a measurement of entanglement between four particles, the researchers considered what behaviours are possible for four particles that are connected by influences that stay hidden and that travel at some arbitrary finite speed. Mathematically (and mind-bogglingly), these constraints define an 80-dimensional object. The testable hidden influence inequality is the boundary of the shadow this 80-dimensional shape casts in 44 dimensions. The researchers showed that quantum predictions can lie outside this boundary, which means they are going against one of the assumptions. Outside the boundary, either the influences can’t stay hidden, or they must have infinite speed.,,, The remaining option is to accept that (quantum) influences must be infinitely fast,,, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” says Nicolas Gisin, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028142217.htm Moreover quantum information has strong evidence suggesting that it is 'conserved': Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Moreover, material atoms are now shown to reduce to quantum information: Atom takes a quantum leap – 2009 Excerpt: Ytterbium ions have been ‘teleported’ over a distance of a metre.,,, “What you’re moving is information, not the actual atoms,” says Chris Monroe, from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland in College Park and an author of the paper. But as two particles of the same type differ only in their quantum states, the transfer of quantum information is equivalent to moving the first particle to the location of the second. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2171769/posts etc.. etc.., The point being Alan is that you, as usual for a Darwinist, have nothing except incredulity. Too bad for you that incredulity does not count for evidence in science.bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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"I question whether they are real or symptomatic resulting from anaesthesia." Well it is apparent you have not truly questioned too deeply for Dr. Long addressed that very question in one of the videos I listed. In Fact NDE's happen in all sorts of circumstances where anesthesia is not even a part of it.,,, But more to the point of empirical evidence (not that empirical evidence matters to dogmatic Darwinian materialists), what does the empirical evidence say? Can quantum theory be improved? – July 23, 2012 Excerpt: However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (conscious observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice. free will, assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,, ,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random. http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html Now Alan this is completely unheard of in science as far as I know. i.e. That a mathematical description of reality would advance to the point that one can actually perform a experiment showing that your current theory will not be exceeded in predictive power by another future theory is simply unprecedented in science! Moreover, it was shown in the paper that one cannot ever improve the predictive power of quantum mechanics by ever removing free will or conscious observation as a starting assumption(s) in Quantum Mechanics! Moreover, Here’s a recent variation of Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment, which highlights the ability of the conscious observer to effect 'spooky action into the past', thus further solidifying consciousness's centrality in reality. Furthermore in the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is falsified by the fact that present conscious choices effect past material states: Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012 Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a "Gedankenexperiment" called "delayed-choice entanglement swapping", formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured", explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study. According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past?,,, I consider the preceding experimental evidence to be an improvement over the traditional 'uncertainty' argument for free will, from quantum mechanics, that had been used to undermine the deterministic belief of materialists:bornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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...corroborated eyewitness testimony, such as that published in the Lancet about NDE research.
I don't doubt that people have these experiences. I question whether they are real or symptomatic resulting from anaesthesia. It's still anecdotal.Alan Fox_{January 5, 2013
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Alan, There is a difference between anecdote and corroborated eyewitness testimony, such as that published in the Lancet about NDE research. Such kinds of evidence are relatively easy to locate if one is sincere in their desire to look it over.William J Murray_{January 5, 2013
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Alan, I find it ironic that you accept the myth of Darwinism as true with far, far, less proof (none actually) than what we have for Near Death Experiences,,, Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species (or origin of life), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html You wouldn't be a dogmatist would you Alan? Dogmatism is the antithesis of the scientific endeavor you know Alan! Further notes: "A recent analysis of several hundred cases showed that 48% of near-death experiencers reported seeing their physical bodies from a different visual perspective. Many of them also reported witnessing events going on in the vicinity of their body, such as the attempts of medical personnel to resuscitate them (Kelly et al., 2007)." Kelly, E. W., Greyson, B., & Kelly, E. F. (2007). Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena. In E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, & B. Greyson, Irreducible mind (pp. 367-421). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. The Scientific Evidence for Near Death Experiences - Dr Jeffery Long - Melvin Morse M.D. - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4454627 Dr. Jeffery Long: Just how strong is the evidence for a afterlife? - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mptGAc3XWPs But Near Death Experiences are far from the only 'proof' we have for 'mind',, a few notes along that line: Do Conscious Thoughts Cause Behavior? -Roy F. Baumeister, E. J. Masicampo, and Kathleen D. Vohs - 2010 Excerpt: The evidence for conscious causation of behavior is profound, extensive, adaptive, multifaceted, and empirically strong. http://carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/165663.pdf In The Wonder Of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind, Eccles and Robinson discussed the research of three groups of scientists (Robert Porter and Cobie Brinkman, Nils Lassen and Per Roland, and Hans Kornhuber and Luder Deeke), all of whom produced startling and undeniable evidence that a "mental intention" preceded an actual neuronal firing - thereby establishing that the mind is not the same thing as the brain, but is a separate entity altogether. http://books.google.com/books?id=J9pON9yB8HkC&pg=PT28&lpg=PT28 “As I remarked earlier, this may present an “insuperable” difficulty for some scientists of materialists bent, but the fact remains, and is demonstrated by research, that non-material mind acts on material brain.” Sir John Eccles - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963 Materialism of the Gaps - Michael Egnor (Neurosurgeon) - January 29, 2009 Excerpt: The evidence that some aspects of the mind are immaterial is overwhelming. It's notable that many of the leading neuroscientists -- Sherrington, Penfield, Eccles, Libet -- were dualists. Dualism of some sort is the most reasonable scientific framework to apply to the mind-brain problem, because, unlike dogmatic materialism, it just follows the evidence. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/01/materialism_of_the_gaps015901.html Can Your Body Sense Future Events Without Any External Clue? (meta-analysis of 26 reports published between 1978 and 2010) - (Oct. 22, 2012) Excerpt: "But our analysis suggests that if you were tuned into your body, you might be able to detect these anticipatory changes between two and 10 seconds beforehand,,, This phenomenon is sometimes called "presentiment," as in "sensing the future," but Mossbridge said she and other researchers are not sure whether people are really sensing the future. "I like to call the phenomenon 'anomalous anticipatory activity,'" she said. "The phenomenon is anomalous, some scientists argue, because we can't explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense. It's anticipatory because it seems to predict future physiological changes in response to an important event without any known clues, and it's an activity because it consists of changes in the cardiopulmonary, skin and nervous systems." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121022145342.htm The Mind and Materialist Superstition - Six "conditions of mind" that are irreconcilable with materialism: Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at SUNY, Stony Brook Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super.html This following video humorously reveals the bankruptcy that atheists have in trying to ground beliefs within a materialistic, genetic reductionism, worldview; John Cleese – The Scientists – humorous video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXobornagain77_{January 5, 2013
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The state of current evidence concerning quantum theory and survival of consciousness after death clearly indicate that mind cannot be (theoretically) and is not (afterlife research) a product of, or limited to, material life.
Are you saying there is evidence that minds exist other than in brain tissue? I should very much like to examine such evidence. (Unless you are referring to anecdotes of "near-death" experience, in which case, no worries.) When Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral, he was felled by a sword-blow that took off the top of his cranium. One of his assailants then proceeded to scoop out brain tissue with his sword and spread it on the flagstones like butter. I will take some convincing that that was not the end of Becket's mind!Alan Fox_{January 5, 2013
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The state of current evidence concerning quantum theory and survival of consciousness after death clearly indicate that mind cannot be (theoretically) and is not (afterlife research) a product of, or limited to, material life. Additionally, mind cannot be held as caused if one wishes to maintain a rational worldview. The idea that mind is ultimately a product of material life is simply not supported either by rational argument or available evidence.William J Murray_{January 5, 2013
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