Closing our religion news coverage for the week: Ross Pomeroy asks at RealClearScience:
We are perhaps the first generation of humans to truly possess a factually accurate understanding of our world and ourselves. In the past, this knowledge was only in the hands and minds of the few, but with the advent of the Internet, evidence and information have never been so widespread and accessible. Beliefs can be challenged with the click of a button. We no longer live in closed, insular environments where a single dogmatic worldview can dominate.
As scientific evidence questions the tenets of religion, so too, does it provide a worldview to follow, one that’s infinitely more coherent. More.
Huh? What with the multiverse and Help! I don’t exist!, current science seems well on its way to being the most crackpot religion ever.
Too bad we live in a culture that believes in funding the state religion.
See also: Wayne Rossiter: No “I” in “Me” (and no sense in Sam Harris) The old atheists make a lot more sense. It’s not clear what the new atheists’ interest in science is all about, if Harris’s view is typical.
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As a Christian, I am very comfortable with what science has revealed to us about the nature of reality:
“It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information”
(48:35 minute mark)
“In the beginning was the Word”
John 1:1 (49:54 minute mark)
Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT
https://youtu.be/s3ZPWW5NOrw?t=2984
Theism compared to Materialism/Naturalism – an overview – video
https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1139512636061668/?type=2&theater
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Death as the “Theory of Everything” – video
https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1143437869002478/?type=2&theater
Verse and Music:
Colossians 1:15-20
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Steven Curtis Chapman – Lord of the Dance (Live)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDXbvMcMbU0
supplemental note
Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram – video
https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1119619634717635/?type=2&theater
Science can never replace religion. Religion acts like an optimism booster. It helps billions of humans believe that tomorrow will be better and that some infinite being will solve their problems. As long as humans continue to be insecure (which is forever) , religion will continue to exists.
The answer is no. But religions vary tremendously, so the question is extremely vague. Science has already replaced/displaced a great number of specifics from various religions, so the better question is what roles can religions play, what specific beliefs are tenable, what aspects of religion do people find useful, etc.
The verse. “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” simply means that the atheist is fooling himself. Listen to Dawkins, he doesn’t believe a bunch of the tripe he puts out. Dawkins simply refuses to admit he might be wrong. Look at him in the movie Expelled. It is like I keep telling my wife,”I may not always be right, but the Good Lord knows I’m never wrong!” Kind of sounds like the king of a city in Rome don’t it?
THE INTERNET! you mean until this we were not a generation with facts at our fingertips? Oh brother. thats lame.
Prove the internet has effected double digit % of humans in reflection on the universe makeup??
What facts are there against a God? all they could say is there are no facts FOR a God.! What could be against him?
Likewise Genesis.
Me think claims that,,,
That is basically the ‘opium of the masses’ claim.
In other words, Me Think basically believes that atheists are acting rationally whereas he/she believes Christians are acting emotionally rather than rationally.
Yet, as with practically every other substantial claim made by atheists, that claim is patently false.
First off, rationality itself can only be coherently based in a Theistic worldview which affirms the reality of ‘mind’.
Moreover, it is now found that it is the Atheist, not the Christian, that is in fact acting emotionally rather than rationally.
Appreciate this irony, Joseph Stalin, on his death bed, one of the greatest mass murderers in history, shook his fist at the God he did not believe in.
Of related note:
Ross Pomeroy: We are perhaps the first generation of humans to truly possess a factually accurate understanding of our world and ourselves.
Yes, ‘we’ now know that ‘we’ are, in fact, nothing over and beyond a happenstance conglomeration of unthinking fermions and bosons. However neither fermions nor bosons nor combinations of them can be said to understand anything or exist at the level of personhood.
So, Ross Pomeroy, I hate to break it to you, but it is incoherent to use terms, we now know we cannot ground, such as “we” and “understand”.
Science will never replace religion. They are two distinct things, with different purposes. Science is indifferent to purpose. It is indifferent to what their discoveries are used for. For every scientific discovery, man can use them to benefit humanity or to benefit individuals or groups.
Nuclear physics have provided cheap power and significantly advance medicine. But it has also resulted in the nuclear bomb.
Evolution has advanced medicine and agriculture but has been used to justify eugenics.
Chemistry has been used to create fertilizers and pesticides that help us feed the world, but it was used in WWI to gas the enemy.
Religion provides a social venue that can unify communities. It provides hope to people who are suffering. It provides a filter through which scientific discoveries should be used.
For many, science has become their religion.
I don’t see that. I know lots of scientists, many who are religious in traditional ways but some who are not, and I don’t see them thinking of science in ways that are like how people are religious.
And, FWIW, I am not religious and I am a fan of science, but I don’t see any signs in me of thinking of science as my religion.
BA77 @ 6,
If that’s the way you want to interpret my comment, I have no problem.
Mind arises because of brain’s neurological activity. Without brain, there can be no mind. Mind is not a product of spirit or dualism.
As for,
the paper that you cite Neuromodulation of Group Prejudice and Religious Belief reaches no such conclusion. Instead, it embarrasses religious groups. It concludes:
IOW, instead of preaching “God is loving”, a better way to keep members in a religious group would be to say “You will go to hell and suffer if you don’t follow what God preaches ”
Note that the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) is a plausible mediator of shifts in ideological commitment. The pMFC complex includes the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
(dACC) and the dorsomedial prefrontal area anterior to the supplementary motor cortex (dmPFC), and has been linked to a wide variety of reactions to negative emotional stimuli (Etkinet al., 2011; Maier et al., 2012; Rushworth et al., 2007). The pMFC plays a key role in detecting discrepancies between desired and current conditions, and adjusting subsequent behavior during decision-making tasks (Bush et al., 2002; Ridderinkhof et al., 2004; Shima and Tanji, 1998). In humans, the dACC component of the pMFC has been proposed to induce a compensatory increase in moral or cultural values following exposure to threats (e.g., reminders of death,uncertainty, or meaninglessness) (Proulx et al., 2012; Tritt et al., 2012). Reminders of death trigger activity in the dmPFC (Han, Qin, and Ma, 2010; Shi and Han, 2013).
Me Think dogmatically claims, (or more precisely, since Me Think does not actually think that he actually exists as a person, Me Think’s brain dogmatically claims):
And yet, despite such a seemingly confident claim by Me Think, Me think has no scientific evidence whatsoever that mind can be generated by matter
There is simply no direct evidence that anything material is capable of generating consciousness. As Rutgers University philosopher Jerry Fodor says,
As Nobel neurophysiologist Roger Sperry wrote,
From modern physics, Nobel prize-winner Eugene Wigner agreed:
Contemporary physicist Nick Herbert states,
Physician and author Larry Dossey wrote:
At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that:
“consciousness is an illusion”
A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s
Moreover, contrary to Me Think’s dogmatic assertion that mind arises from matter for which he has no scientific evidence whatsoever, there is much scientific evidence for the reality of mind.
‘Brain Plasticity’, the ability to alter the structure of the brain from a person’s focused intention, has now been established by Jeffrey Schwartz, as well as among other researchers.
Moreover, completely contrary to Me Think’s materialistic thought, mind has been now also been shown to be able to reach all the way down and have pronounced effects on the gene expression of our bodies:
as well there is much scientific evidence that mind can exist independently of the material brain upon death just as is held in Christianity
And after blatantly ignoring the embarrassing fact that shutting down part of the brain associated with decision making leads to increased atheism, Me Think goes on to claim:
Yet. apparently contrary to what Me Think would “emotionally’ prefer to believe, there is actually very strong scientific evidence for the reality of hell (and heaven):
BA @ 12
Every drug that affects brain is evidence that mind is a consequence of brain’s neural activity. Every victim of date rate drugs – which obliterate not just self consciousness but even memory of events – shows how mind is not distinct from brain. ‘Spiritual’ experience of k – hole and Magic Mushroom proves chemicals can alter conscious reality. Can you show any research on dualism or spirit that supports your world view that mind is different from brain ?
I have not denied a correlation, yet you erroneously believe correlation equates to causation. You are wrong in your assumption.
Moreover, I have shown the evidence to you. It is not my problem that you do not accept the scientific evidence. That is your ’emotional’ problem.
Of supplemental note:
How Consciousness Points to the Existence of God – J. Warner Wallace – video – Sept. 2015
(5 attributes of mind that are distinct from brain therefore, via the law of identity, the mind is not the brain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ff1jiRpjko
podcast – How Consciousness Points to the Existence of God – Sept. 2015
http://coldcasechristianity.co.....adcast-42/
Six reasons why you should believe in non-physical minds – 01/30/2014
1) First-person access to mental properties
2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies
3) Persistent self-identity through time
4) Mental properties cannot be measured like physical objects
5) Intentionality or About-ness
6) Free will and personal responsibility
http://winteryknight.com/2014/.....cal-minds/
Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at SUNY, Stony Brook, states the irreconcilable properties of mind to brain, via the law of identity, as such:
The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor – 2008
Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: –
Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,,
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....super.html
Of related note, Alvin Plantinga humorously uses the fact that we can imagine that we have a ‘beetle body’ to highlight the fact, via the ‘law of identity’, that the mind is not the same thing as the brain/body.
Alvin Plantinga and the Modal Argument (for the existence of the mind/soul) – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTn_wRwDE0
“It (my body) looked like pretty much what it was. As in void of life.”
Pam Reynolds – Extremely Monitored Near Death Experience – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k
Bornagain77,
Thank you for your excellent posts #12 and #14.
Indeed!
Craig paraphrases Eccles on the topic of correlation:
At what point are parents going to be moved to demand their schools to teach that:
1 freedom is in fact real
2 expression of emotion with free will, thus choosing, is a valid way to form opinons about the subjective part of reality
When do people start to move on this??????
Do you think that schools don’t teach this? I worked in a public school for almost 40 years, and we assumed quite strongly that students were all those things. We expected them to be responsible for their actions, and to think carefully about forming opinions based on both facts and their values when that is applicable. We also had high expectations for lots of what some of those values should be: respect for others, honesty, general responsibility, etc.
Why do you think schools don’t do this?
Because I see what comes out of schools at internetforums. They don’t understand about freedom, and they refuse to accept it is real.
I think that free will is regarded as a problem in philosophy reflects widespread denial among the population that freedom is real. It’s not just namby pamby philosophers denying free will, the denial is a common thing.
Schools need to teach freedom is real as fact of nature, together with the other science, and not teach freedom as some kind of political or societal idea / fantasy.
Me_think: Mind arises because of brain’s neurological activity. Without brain, there can be no mind. Mind is not a product of spirit or dualism.
….
Every drug that affects brain is evidence that mind is a consequence of brain’s neural activity. Every victim of date rate drugs – which obliterate not just self consciousness but even memory of events – shows how mind is not distinct from brain. ‘Spiritual’ experience of k – hole and Magic Mushroom proves chemicals can alter conscious reality.
Now you are traipsing into a subject in which yours truly is an amateur expert, and which you apparently know little. Now aside from the first sentence of the second paragraph quoted being nonsensical in that drugs are not evidence, you seem not to think the large professional organization MAPS would have relevance to the topic. There are thousands of professionals associated with this group and interested in the role of psychedelics in various fields such as anthropology, psychotherapy, addiction treatment, and generally any area of human growth. And guess what dude, your materialistic philosophy is not held in common with a single practitioner or author from this large group that I have either read about or read from, which I have been for 35 years. If you showed up at one of their symposiums and tried to spread your thinking on this you would be looked at askance.
[MAPS -Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies]
OK here is an interview with Albert Hofmann Ph.D, discoverer of LSD-25, by Charles Grob member of MAPS:
https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/hofmann_albert/hofmann_albert_interview2.shtml
And if you were to read the autobiography of Hofmann as I have you would encounter an almost unbelievable series of coincidences that led him to the discovery.
And if you think this is a fluke or just a bunch of bunk, then you need to explain to us why the US government and other Western governments have been licensing the use of psilocybin for psychotherapy for (in the case of the U.S.) the last 12 years. And the program is snowballing. Your philosophy is in big trouble
Can you show any research on dualism or spirit that supports your world view that mind is different from brain
Yes we can, have at it and check back: http://www.amazon.com/review/R93YN1VTGE33U
@groovamus
We don’t need to address nazi’s figuring people are predetermined by heredity, and forced by a law of struggle for existence, or communists who figure people are predetermined by class, and a law of societal evolution.
We don’t really need to address anybody denying freedom is real. We just need to force students in school to learn that freedom is real. Teach the facts about the way things work.
The denial is just playing mindgames. Playing games is a take it or leave it kind of thing. Having functional people, family, democracy, where people know how choosing works, is not a take it or leave it kind of thing.
BA77 @ 14
In case of brain, my assumption is not wrong. We don’t have invisible spirits attached to brains nor are spirits riding our backs !
NDE is not evidence of mind being separate from brain, it is evidence of chemicals effect on brain. Most cases of NDE have been discussed to death here at UD- every time it has been shown that there is nothing out-worldly about NDE.
groovamos @ 19
MAPS is involved in drug assisted Psychotherapy such as psychedelic’s effect on PTSD , Ibogine treatment for drug addiction and Medical Marijuana research. Again, it just proves how much chemicals can alter consciousness, and that mind is not a separate entity.
From when did a 1975s book on amazon become a research paper ? Going by the review, the book cited is not a collection of research papers, but anecdotes on LSD effect on brain.
Me_think: “NDE is not evidence of mind being separate from brain, it is evidence of chemicals effect on brain.”
And scientists have been able to replicate NDE through manipulation of the brain. And at no time were the subjects “near death”.
Me_Think: From when did a 1975s book on amazon become a research paper ? Going by the review, the book cited is not a collection of research papers, but anecdotes on LSD effect on brain.
Oh but there are thousands of research papers on the successful use of psychedelics.
Since when did anyone who was the director of research at a major psychiatric institute, in a country which allowed that kind of research program, and who conducted the research program for 16 years, not have some of the best available data on the nature of human conciousness? And consider he was not the only person there in the program. You want to find scads of staff people who were conducting the research with him, who over the years have refuted his books? Do it. But you should read the book or at least the review.
Which leads me to say I don’t think you read the review. Tell us what is Grof’s concept of a COEX system, and why you think it should have been introduced in a “research paper” instead of a book.
Principia Mathematica was not a “research paper” either, so your complaint is ridiculous. There are mountains of research papers that support many of Grof’s observations. If you are going to construct an exhaustive framework on a difficult topic, you do what he did and write a book in English which is not his native language.
And besides you seem to be ignorant of the philosophical orientation of the people associated with MAPS because the Grof book is considered a classic in those circles. You are materialist and they are not, and you do not read the voluminous literature coming from these people or you would not be making ignorant arguments here, or listing a couple of broad thrusts of their work as if you are somehow very familiar with these fields of study and the people involved – when you are not.
And BTW Grof was co-founder with Abraham Maslow of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. Go ahead and express your negativity towards Maslow if you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
Me_Think:
So, you hold that the brain produces consciousness and reason. However you cannot support your claim by showing us a concept on how this is even possible. In post #12 we find this quote by Nick Herbert:
and several other quotes which essentially say the same thing: we are unable to come up with a causal concept, in which the brain produces consciousness.
A solution to this conceptual problem is unthinkable for several reasons. Allow me to provide a few examples:
Matter is determined by physical law, so how does one get from there to freedom, control and responsibility which define consciousness?
Matter is purposeless (non-teleological), so how does one get from there to purpose, which defines consciousness (and reason)?
The behavior of matter is explained by physical law, so how does one get from there to laws of logic, which defines consciousness (and reason)?
One clump of matter is not about another clump of matter, so how does one get from there to aboutness, which defines consciousness (and reason)?
Matter is unconscious, so how … get to consciousness?
Bottom line: matter is an insufficient cause for consciousness.
I’m not sure that I understand your argument here. Who is “we” in this sentence? Is “we” separate from “brains”?
Do you hold that this is a claim made by dualists? If so, you are mistaken. A dualist would rather hold that we are spirits that use a body and a brain. A dualist would reject the view that there are spirits attached to “us”, “our backs” or “brains” (which are supposedly us).
How is that “evidence of chemicals effect on brain?”
groovamos @ 24
Yes there are.So? How does drugs effect on brain prove mind is spiritual ?
COEX is nothing more than matrix of nomenclature for Long Term and Short Term memory and a bunch of Chakras. Unlike Principia Mathematica, it is not a foundation of anything. The reason COEX System needs to be validated by research is because it describes non-existent energetic pathways called Chakra. Interestingly, even the Chakras are affected by drugs (Crown Stupifiers is nothing but alcohol, psychotic drugs and neurotoxins).
What Grof describes as COEX’S root is nothing but long-term memory. Memory formation is a Physical process in brain with neural network change and physical changes of perineuronal nets. There is nothing remotely spiritual about the process.
There is no research on what constitutes Crown, Heart , throat or Sacral Chakra so I can’t comment on that. All I can say is that the entire system described by Grof is affected by drugs and alters it, so I don’t find anything remotely non-physical about his Chakras.
Origenes @ 25
Matter is essential for consciousness. Mind is a product of Brain’s neural activity. If mind was spiritual, it can’t react with material brain. You need perturbation in fields and gauge boson exchanges at particle level for interaction. The fact that mind is affected by chemicals in brain proves that there is physical interaction, hence mind cannot be spiritual.
Only particle, energy, field or force can interact. If we are spirits, we can’t interact with matter.
The patients interacted with nurses and their relatives/friends who had watched the surgery. What the patients described was what they gathered from their conversation with others. The AWARE NDE study using placards debunked NDE. Not a single patient out of over 2000 passed the Placard test.
You should be aware that Eben Alexander (from whose book Dr. Michael Egnor quotes) was kicked out of every hospital he worked in. He settled 5 malpractice cases in as many years. In two of the cases, he didn’t even know the difference between c4 and c5 vertebrae – he fused the wrong vertebrae and fudged records. His surgical license was cancelled. The last job he held was in a non-profit run by his friend.Forget about medical claims in his book, he even lied about simple incident when he said Chuck opened the parachute under him. When chuck stated no such incident happened, Ebener said it was some other friend and not Chuck. He refused to disclose the name of the friend and he couldn’t recall any other friends who could corroborate the incident.
Me_Think,
Yet, you are unable to provide a concept on how this is even possible. I have provided a summary of several properties of matter which are irreconcilable with properties of consciousness.
Only if one assumes that spirit and matter are causally isolated from each other. How do you ground that assumption? I personally hold that all of reality is ultimately spiritual, so, I don’t have the interaction problem.
Only if one assumes that such is the only mechanism of interaction. However this seems very unlikely, for instance, do you deny the reality of particle entanglement, which points to the existence of different mechanisms of interaction?
Only if one assumes that the interaction is indeed purely physical and that only purely physical things can have physical interaction.
Aren’t these classical notions long refuted by quantum entanglement and other QM phenomena?
Your line of reasoning is only convincing if we choose to ignore the fact that there is no concept for matter producing mind, assume a metaphysics in which spirit and matter are causally isolated from each other and stick to classical physicalism & deny other forms of causality such as found in QM.
– – – –
Finally, here is an interesting read: Causal Interaction: A Problem for the Materialist Too!
Origenes @ 28
There is no one to one correspondence between brain and consciousness. The properties that you describe are the recall of neural network that you have – they aren’t constituent properties. Thus a baby with minimal neural network doesn’t have the awareness, freedom, control and ‘purposelessness’ 🙂 that we have. I hope you don’t believe baby spirits use brain differently than adult spirits.
Spirit is not causaully isolated from matter, there is no spirit.
Entanglement is a physical process. Entanglement is created using atomic cascade, quantum dot to trap electrons until decay occurs, parametric down conversion etc. Particles which are entangled are described by the same wave function. Where is a different mechanism in this process? There are no spirits involved.
No. In fact they are strengthened by QM.If you look up any Feynman diagram, you will know how true they are.
My reasoning works by knowing that there is no mysterious spirit which is part of matter. There is no evidence of dualism and spirit is not entangled with matter!
Philosophers talking about stove and burning sensation have no idea about individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Individuals with ADS experience sensory abnormalities related to sight, hearing, touch, smell, and/or taste. If painfulness was not related to brain, you won’t have altered sensations due to brain disorder.
Are you deliberately playing dumb? Ok, I explain the simple point one time. Further I demand your apologies or I’m out of this discussion.
Did you get that? Do you now understand that “without being physically touched” implies that there is no “classical” mechanism involved and how this contradicts your claims?
Fine, now start again by reading my former post.
Excellent response Origenes!
Me Think, as hopeless as materialistic explanations of consciousness are, it is not as if you had the tiniest clue how the brain itself could be created by unguided Darwinian processes and that you are now just filling in the details of how the brain generates consciousness after you have explained how the brain came to be. Not even close. You can’t even explain where a single protein of the brain came from!
Much less Me Think can you explain how all the trillions upon trillions of proteins of the brain somehow, serendipitously, arranged themselves into the most complex structure in the known universe.
Should you not first have a clue how the brain came to be by unguided Darwinian processes before you then go on to pontificate on how you think the material brain, all by its lonesome, generates consciousness? i.e. Scientifically speaking, you are putting the cart way before the horse!
If ANYTHING ever cried out for God as an explanation as to how it came to be, it would certainly be the human brain that was crying out to God for its explanation.
Of related note to “It’s certainly true that electrical activity in the brain is synchronised over distances that cannot be easily explained”, the following paper comments on ‘zero time lag’ in synchronous brain activity:
In the following video, Stuart Hameroff, who is an anesthesiologist, comments on the ‘spooky’ zero time lag synchronization of the brain and the permanence (i.e. conservation), of quantum information..
Moreover, when we sleep the non-local, beyond space and time, coherence displayed by the waking brain disappears.
At the 18:00 minute mark to about the 22:15 minute mark of the following video, an interesting experiment is highlighted on the sleeping brain in which a fairly profound difference in coherence is shown in the way the brain ‘shares information’ between different parts of the brain in its sleeping state compared to how the brain ‘shares information’ in its waking state. In the sleeping state, the brain shares much less information with different parts of the brain than the brain does during our waking state.
As well, it should be noted that Hameroff’s Orch-Or model for quantum consciousness has fairly strong preliminary confirmation
And further confirmation for Hameroff’s model is found here:
Of related note:
Verse and Music
Me Think, you, (materialistic caveat: if there were even such a person that was called ‘you’ for me to address instead of just an illusion of a brain who thinks it is a person), YOU, despite being shown scientific evidence to the contrary, again dogmatically and falsely claimed that mind does not interact with matter. So to repeat and add to the evidence of mind interacting with matter:
‘Brain Plasticity’, the ability to alter the structure of the brain from a person’s focused intention, has now been established by Jeffrey Schwartz, as well as among other researchers.
Moreover, completely contrary to materialistic thought, mind has been now also been shown to be able to reach all the way down and have pronounced effects on the gene expression of our bodies:
Moreover, Dean Radin, who spent years at Princeton testing different aspects of consciousness, recently performed experiments testing the possible role of consciousness in the double slit. His results were, not so surprisingly, very supportive of consciousness’s pivotal role in the experiment:
Moreover, there is the Quantum Zeno effect
Origenes @ 30
I couldn’t care less.
Hmm… No. May be Spirits help?
I am used to giving orders, not taking orders from others- especially people who think spirits are shrink-wrapped on body.
BA77
Your personal incredulity is not a proof against evolution. Do you think the Creator personally designed and fixed brains in our heads?
says the man whose only argument boils down to one of personal incredulity
i.e.
“Hmm… No. May be Spirits help?”
The hypocrisy is stunning!
Me_Think: From when did a 1975s book on amazon become a research paper ? Going by the review, the book cited is not a collection of research papers, but anecdotes on LSD effect on brain.
From when did an 1853 book on Amazon become a research paper? The book is not a collection of research papers but anecdotes on trips to exotic lands and the postulated effects of environments on species. Unlike Principia Mathematica, it is not a foundation of anything. Yes you got that right.
COEX is nothing more than matrix of nomenclature for Long Term and Short Term memory and a bunch of Chakras. Unlike Principia Mathematica, it is not a foundation of anything. The reason COEX System needs to be validated by research is because it describes non-existent energetic pathways called Chakra. Interestingly, even the Chakras are affected by drugs
You know nothing of this. The history of these brave patients undergoing radical psychotherapy is their stories which you have chosen to view as invalid. These patients describe chronic psychological problems as being tied together with clusters of traumatic memories of which the child’s psyche generates personality disorders. The patients themselves describe these traumatic memories as clustering around the disorder to which they suffer. These UNCONSCIOUS (until therapy) memories form a dynamic system with the disorder. You can try to refute this until you are blue in the face, but you are essentially telling us that these patients over a 16 year period of a research program know less than you.
This is the way it works with these substances, and the success with the treatment for addiction is the calling card for this field of research.
Can you show any research on dualism or spirit that supports your world view that mind is different from brain
That’s what I have been doing, and you are proving to be hostile to the evidence because of your philosophical commitment (which has nothing to do with science BTW). This is not reductionist science I am discussing. There is no way reductionist science can refute this evidence, because it is akin to any of the social sciences. The evidence must be taken as the huge body that it is and you are hostile towards it. And I noticed you did not find any of Grof’s research associates in Europe to refute his book and the conceptual framework it contains.
Dude the body of evidence for dualism in this field is so huge and overwhelming that your argumentation is nothing. None of the players in the field from this country are philosophical materialists. I’ll quote from Grof chapter 4. Remember, Maslow formed his partnership with Grof after reading the book. Here is the short definition of the transpersonal realm from the review: In short, the mind is experienced as existing beyond the confines of space-time.
Grof chapter 4: “The individual comes to realize, through these [perinatal] experiences, that no matter what he does in his life, he cannot escape the inevitable; he will have to leave this world bereft of everything that he has accumulated and achieved and to which he has been emotionally attached. The similarity between birth and death-the startling realization that the beginning of life is the same as its end-is the major philosophical issue that accompanies the perinatal experiences. The other important consequence of the shocking emotional and physical encounter with the phenomenon of death is the opening up of areas of spiritual and religious experiences that appear to be an intrinsic part of the human personality and are independent of the individual’s cultural and religious background and programming. In my experience, everyone who has reached these levels develops convincing insights into the utmost relevance of the spiritual and religious dimensions in the universal scheme of things. Even hard-core materialists, positively oriented scientists, skeptics and cynics, and uncompromising Marxist philosophers suddenly became interested in a spiritual search after they confronted these levels in themselves. (pp 95-96)
See here is the thing working against you. There are almost a dozen requests per day from psychiatrists in the West for information to undergo training in this field. The training requires the practitioner to undergo experiential sessions with psilocybin. You can argue all day with the extensive findings in this huge and growing field. Your arguments are nothing, because you are ignorant of the field of study.
@Me_think
The term spirit is a subjective term, it is the foundation for other subjective terms such as beauty.
Obviously one cannot make the concept of subjectivity work without terms referring to things, the existence of which things is a matter of opinion.
You cannot make the concept of subjectivity work with everything in existence being a matter of fact issue, the fact being it exists, or the fact being it does not exists. Subjectivity works with opinion, not fact.
You said you accepted freedom is real. Then why wouldn’t the existence of some things in reality be established in a free way? That you are not forced by evidence to the conclusion it exists, but that you establish the existence of it by expression of emotion with free will, resulting in an opinion that it does, or does not, exist.
http://creationistischreveil.nl/creationism
groovamos @ 37
I wonder how many peer reviewed journals were there in 1853 and in 1975 ?
That is not a reason to not validate Chakras – if they exist at all.
Drug users do enter the k-hole zone routinely because of chemicals effect on brain. How did Grof go from there to concluding that mind is beyond space-time? There is no methodology that describes how he arrived at this profound conclusion.
I am surprised that there are just dozen requests for getting stoned legally.
It seems the proponents themselves are ignorant – they have no idea of Chakras mechanisms or of how mind becomes something beyond space-time.
mohammadnursyamsu @ 38
So spirits might exist for you but not for me, since it is subjective opinion and not a fact ? I am fine with that.
Materialist scientists can make up all the stories they want to about Multiverses, abiogenesis, space aliens, how this and that evolved, etc., but until they can demostrate their stories are true, there are many people who will not be convinced.
Science will never replace religion. The battle is not between religion and science but between Materialism and Judeo Christian worldviews.
Materialism cannot prove it’s origins beliefs scientifically any more than Christians can prove theirs scientifically.
semi related:
A Christian Perspective on Brain-Computer Interfaces
April 11, 2016 By Dr. Fazale Rana
Excerpt: Even though Rosemary Johnson and other members of the Paramusical Ensemble haven’t been able to communicate for nearly 30 years because of brain damage, they still retained the ability to conceive music. Thanks to the brain-computer interface, that capability is unleashed, anew.
If human cognitive ability is merely the manifestation of brain activity, then how is it that Johnson’s damaged brain still has the capacity to compose music? And why would she have such a deep-seated desire to do so? Without the benefit of brain-computer interface studies, it would be tempting to view the communication disability of brain-damaged patients as a loss of cognitive capacity. But this is clearly not the case. Instead, it appears to me that Rosemary Johnson’s identity and musical capabilities have been retained, in spite of the damage to her brain. To put it another way, it appears that her mind is distinct from her brain, consistent with the tenants of Christian theology.
Brain Relates to Mind Like Hardware Relates to Software
The results of the brain-computer musical interface studies can be interpreted through a hardware-software analogy. Accordingly, the brain corresponds to the computer hardware and the mind to the software. For a computer system to operate, both the hardware and software have to be functional and must work together. In like manner, I argue that both the brain and the mind have to be intact and working in combination for a human being to be fully functional and expressive. If computer hardware is damaged, the software can’t execute. Accordingly, if the brain is damaged, the mind becomes trapped, though it may still function perfectly. When the researchers from Plymouth University and the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability produced the brain-computer music interface, they used it to bypass the disabled musicians’ brain damage, creating a conduit for the mind to manifest.
On the other hand, if human capability stems from brain activity alone, then when the hardware is damaged the lost capabilities should be non-retrievable. And yet, they are.,,,
http://www.reasons.org/article.....interfaces
@Me_think
You are not understanding how subjectivity works (hint: it works in a different way as objectivity works)