The universe is conscious?

[Sriram]

Nobody has suggested for a moment that it does.

Yes they can, especially those: sight, gravity, noise, electromagnetism... But, equally, there is a wealth of evidence to the various manners in which our sensory experience and our cognitive biases make our subjective experience at the best questionable. This is why we have developed a rigorous process like scientific enquiry to attempt to minimise the impact of those all too human foibles.

O.

'rigorous process of scientific enquiry'....that is itself the impediment in such cases.  Scienism has taken over from impartial inquiry. Method has become more important than understanding reality.

[Outrider]

'rigorous process of scientific enquiry'....that is itself the impediment in such cases.

If you have another valid method you're welcome to put it forward, but to just make assertions and complain that science doesn't validate them so therefore science must be lacking is to put the cart before the horse.

Scienism has taken over from impartial inquiry. Method has become more important than understanding reality.

Without a viable method you have no understanding, you have guesswork. Science is a method, but currently it's the most reliable, most consistent method we have.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

'rigorous process of scientific enquiry'....that is itself the impediment in such cases.  Scienism has taken over from impartial inquiry. Method has become more important than understanding reality.

1. That's not what "scientism" means.

2. If you think scientific enquiry is an "impediment", what process for investigation and verification would you propose instead to distinguish your claims from just guessing?

3. Method is the only way we know of to map observation to reality. If you think there's another one though, tell us what it is.   

PS Any news on why you just lopped the "N" off "NDEs" to turn "near death" into "death" - presumably in the hope that no-one would notice the attempted cheat? 

[Sriram]

If you have another valid method you're welcome to put it forward, but to just make assertions and complain that science doesn't validate them so therefore science must be lacking is to put the cart before the horse.

Without a viable method you have no understanding, you have guesswork. Science is a method, but currently it's the most reliable, most consistent method we have.

O.

Science can easily become a religion that you swear by....  Method becomes a ritual...something that is adhered to regardless of its usefulness.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Science can easily become a religion that you swear by....

Wrong again. It's precisely because science is not a religion - ie, it's not faith-based - that it can provide useful explanatory models for observed phenomena.

Method becomes a ritual...

Depends what you mean by "ritual", but if you're trying to say something like "applied consistently" that's right - it's supposed to be.

...something that is adhered to regardless of its usefulness.

And now you've collapsed into mindless sloganeering.

All you've done here is to parade a set of ill-informed prejudices. Do you have anything to say though to the actual arguments that are undoing you?

[Outrider]

Science can easily become a religion that you swear by....  Method becomes a ritual...something that is adhered to regardless of its usefulness.

And yet in a few hundred years science has brought us immeasurably further than snake-oil salesmen pulling words like 'soul' out of their arse and waving it around like they've cured cancer. You can dislike science for not backing up your pet superstition if you'd like, but this sort of nonsense is just sad.

Anything misapplied can be a bad thing, but the misapplication of the scientific method is neither an intrinsic flaw in science nor evidence that 'spirit' is in any way a meaningful term. If you can't come up with a viable argument, or a viable alternative to science, just accept that you don't yet have enough evidence to support your contention and keep looking for it. Attacking the single most productive philosophy we've come up with for human advancement just makes you look like a Luddite.

O.

[Sriram]

And yet in a few hundred years science has brought us immeasurably further than snake-oil salesmen pulling words like 'soul' out of their arse and waving it around like they've cured cancer. You can dislike science for not backing up your pet superstition if you'd like, but this sort of nonsense is just sad.

Anything misapplied can be a bad thing, but the misapplication of the scientific method is neither an intrinsic flaw in science nor evidence that 'spirit' is in any way a meaningful term. If you can't come up with a viable argument, or a viable alternative to science, just accept that you don't yet have enough evidence to support your contention and keep looking for it. Attacking the single most productive philosophy we've come up with for human advancement just makes you look like a Luddite.

O.

The benefits of science and its usefulness in certain areas are not in doubt. I have not questioned that.

It is the misapplication and the mindless adherence to a method that is inappropriate for certain investigations is what I am talking about. You can't use a foot rule to measure your mental state. 

[Stranger]

The benefits of science and its usefulness in certain areas are not in doubt. I have not questioned that.

It is the misapplication and the mindless adherence to a method that is inappropriate for certain investigations is what I am talking about. You can't use a foot rule to measure your mental state.

The first problem is that you haven't actually made a case for science being inappropriate, in fact you seem to regularly switch from claiming science supports your ideas to claiming it's inappropriate. The second problem is that you haven't offered an alternative methodology that we could use instead.

Of course your actual agenda is as clear as day; you want to say science is inappropriate because it's not confirming your cherished preconceived ideas, and the alternative you'd like is for everybody to just accept said cherished preconceived ideas.

You need to cultivate a more open mind and a more rational approach. Reality is under no obligation to pander to what you want to be true. Starting with your conclusion and then trying to find support for it is putting things backwards if what you want is to get as close to the truth as possible.

[Sriram]

   Why 'preconceived' ideas?   

1. There are enough NDE cases to suggest that there is an after-life. Even born blind cases have been investigated.

2. There are enough researchers who accept that NDE's could point to an after-life.

3. Documented cases of reincarnation investigated by professional people of science.

4. Number of qualified researchers who suggest that Consciousness could be independent of the brain.

Everything is hunky dory as I see it.....

[Outrider]

It is the misapplication and the mindless adherence to a method that is inappropriate for certain investigations is what I am talking about.

Firstly, in what way is the scientific method inappropriate for the investigation? If you have detectable phenomena, science is an appropriate method for investigating it; if you don't have a detectable phenomenon, what are you investigating?

You can't use a foot rule to measure your mental state.

We aren't talking about investigating a mental state, though, we're talking about investigating the poltergeist that's alleged, without evidence, to be influencing the mental state. And the foot-rule (I'd prefer a metre rule, but hey-ho) might be the appropriate device once you can isolate the poltergeist - until then...

O.

[Stranger]

  Why 'preconceived' ideas?   

You'd have to answer that. That they are things that you want to believe is blindingly obvious from your posts.

1. There are enough NDE cases to suggest that there is an after-life. Even born blind cases have been investigated.

2. There are enough researchers who accept that NDE's could point to an after-life.

3. Documented cases of reincarnation investigated by professional people of science.

This has all been dealt with multiple times before, and near death experiences are totally irrelevant anyway.

4. Number of qualified researchers who suggest that Consciousness could be independent of the brain.

And again you are latching on to tentative conjectures that, for the most part (things like IIT and Orch OR), wouldn't support a fully functioning mind outside of a brain, let alone the transfer of a brain-based mind to some other substrate.

If IIT or Orch OR are correct, it would pretty much rule out any afterlife.

Everything is hunky dory as I see it.....

Since you seem to value your comfort zone above actually trying to find the truth, I'm sure it is.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

  Why 'preconceived' ideas?

Your woo claims.   

1. There are enough NDE cases to suggest that there is an after-life. Even born blind cases have been investigated.

No there isn't. If I walk to the edge of a roof of a tower block I'm having a near falling experience too, but I can't therefore tell you anything about falling.   

2. There are enough researchers who accept that NDE's could point to an after-life.

Semantics: rainbows "could" point to leprechauns too. You're conflating possibility with probability here. 

3. Documented cases of reincarnation investigated by professional people of science.

Utter nonsense. There are no such cases. If there were, they'd be global news and moreover would fundamentally reconfigure science itself.

4. Number of qualified researchers who suggest that Consciousness could be independent of the brain.

Who are these supposed "qualified researchers" and in any case what epistemic value do you think a "could be" gives you?

Everything is hunky dory as I see it.....

That's because your inability to reason is matched only by your incurious arrogance.

Short version: you're al over the floor here.

[Sriram]

Firstly, in what way is the scientific method inappropriate for the investigation? If you have detectable phenomena, science is an appropriate method for investigating it; if you don't have a detectable phenomenon, what are you investigating?

We aren't talking about investigating a mental state, though, we're talking about investigating the poltergeist that's alleged, without evidence, to be influencing the mental state. And the foot-rule (I'd prefer a metre rule, but hey-ho) might be the appropriate device once you can isolate the poltergeist - until then...

O.

How do you suggest they impartially investigate NDE's 'scientifically'?  Merely by assuming that they are brain generated hallucinations....??!!

[Enki]

How do you suggest they impartially investigate NDE's 'scientifically'?  Merely by assuming that they are brain generated hallucinations....??!!

As many NDErs describe OBEs, most from a height overlooking their bodies, how about producing a visual target(say on top of a high cupboard) which only the person having the OBE could possibly identify? Oh, wait a minute, it's been done, hasn't it, multiple times, including as part of Parnia's Aware studies, and every result as far as I know has come back negative hasn't it?

Indeed, *Kenneth Ring in an exchange with Bruce Greyson, said:

There is so much anecdotal evidence that suggests [experiencers] can, at least sometime, perceive veridically during their NDEs.....but isn't it true that in all this time, there hasn't been a single case of veridical perception reported by an NDEr under controlled conditions? I mean, thirty years later, it's still a null class(as far as I know). Yes, excuses, excuses-I know. But, really, wouldn't you have suspected more than a few cases at least by now?

* Professor Kenneth Ring, of course, was one of the two authors who produced the paper that you linked to in post 68, and with whose interpretation you obviously disagreed when you stated that "Born blind people have seen and identified objects like normal people.....while being clinically dead."

[Sriram]

Visual targets and so on don't prove anything.  NDE's are spontaneous events and cannot be directed.  We cannot specify that a person having a OBE should notice such and such.  That is ridiculous. Just because you have not noticed some road sign in your high street doesn't mean you haven't been there.

However, such patients have by themselves noticed events and conversations taking place in the hospital. Many such corroborative evidence have been documented. Just read Sam Parnia's 'What happens when we die' or Raymond Moody's 'Life after Life'.

[torridon]

Visual targets and so on don't prove anything.  NDE's are spontaneous events and cannot be directed.  We cannot specify that a person having a OBE should notice such and such.  That is ridiculous. Just because you have not noticed some road sign in your high street doesn't mean you haven't been there.

 .. whilst the idea that people that don't exist can hear quite well without ears and can see quite well without eyes is not ridiculous in the slightest ?  I think you have lost the plot somewhere

[Enki]

Visual targets and so on don't prove anything.  NDE's are spontaneous events and cannot be directed.  We cannot specify that a person having a OBE should notice such and such.  That is ridiculous. Just because you have not noticed some road sign in your high street doesn't mean you haven't been there.

As Prof. Ring says "Yes, excuses, excuses-I know. But, really, wouldn't you have suspected more than a few cases at least by now?" 

However, such patients have by themselves noticed events and conversations taking place in the hospital. Many such corroborative evidence have been documented. Just read Sam Parnia's 'What happens when we die' or Raymond Moody's 'Life after Life'.

Rubbish. Not corroborative at all. Anecdotal evidence runs the constant risk of confabulation. indeed Parnia himself who conducted two detailed studies(Aware 1 and Aware 2), investigating a large number of people with cardiac arrest over a number of years could only find two people who might have correctly recalled awareness before CPR, and one of those only recalled audio stimuli.

You might be interested in this view of the one from the Aware 1 study.

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/aware-results-finally-published-no-evidence-of-nde/

In contrast to your confident articulation of 'corroborative evidence',  Parnia is much more circumspect and vague. Here is his conclusion to the Aware 2 Study.

External awareness and internal cognitive activity may occur during CA. However, it is unclear whether explicit recall sufficiently describes the entirety of cognitive processes during CA, or whether implicit memories may also form. In some survivors, memories lead to greater life-meaning and a positive transformation, which contrasts with negative psychological outcomes such as PTSD. In this context, in place of NDE a more appropriate term might be transformative experience of death (TED). Further studies, are needed to delineate the role of implicit and explicit learning and how cognitive activity during CPR may relate to brain resuscitation quality and overall psychological outcomes.

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.140.suppl_2.387

As you said, in post 108, (Everything is hunky dory as I see it..... ), and no one is going to convince you that you might just be wrong, are they,  Sriram?

[Outrider]

How do you suggest they impartially investigate NDE's 'scientifically'?

Search for external factors that could be affecting the brain - monitor brain function to look for activity that appears to be spontaneous, or at least that appears to arise differently to brain activity under other circumstances. Investigate.

How do you propose people impartially investigate them, or indeed anything else, without the scientific method?

Merely by assuming that they are brain generated hallucinations....??!!

No, by presuming that the experiences are caused by something, and running through the viable possibilities to determine what has a) capacity and b) evidence of actually existing. Of those, test and trial between them to see which is the most likely, and adopt that as the working hypothesis until further evidence comes along.

From that evidence it would seem that these are, effectively, hallucinations; they are mental states that arise, possibly from the breakdown of brain biochemistry under unusual circumstances causing 'misfires' of neurons, as a result of ischemic damage in the brain. There is evidence for the biochemical breakdown, there is evidence for the ischemic damage, there is evidence of the spurious neuronal activity... what there isn't any evidence for is 'soul'.

If you want 'soul' to be in the mix, how do you demonstrate it? If science isn't your preferred toolkit, what is?

O.

[Sriram]

This kind of to and fro could go on forever...   Thanks guys....

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

This kind of to and fro could go on forever...   Thanks guys....

There is no "to and fro" in the sense of a debate or an exchange of ideas. Rather you post various assertions. Others here produce reasoning and evidence that shows those assertions to be wrong or at best unjustified. Instead of engaging honestly with the reasons and evidence you've been given though, you just repeat exactly the same assertions as if nothing had happened.

This is intellectually dishonest, and it does you no credit.

Let's take an example: your assertions about NDEs. The important part of an NDE is the "N" - it's a near death experience, not a death experience. The difference is critical - when breathing and blood flow stop for a brief time people who recover report some similar experiences (bright lights etc), which is hardly surprising given that we all have the same neural architecture. What you do though is to remove the N, claim people were actually dead when they weren't, then extrapolate various fantastical conjectures as facts without bothering with any of the hard yards to take you from (already false) premise to conclusion.

Why not then show us that you're not dishonest after all actually by addressing this issue openly and head on?