Trapped in Nature

[Sriram]

The simple fact you are unable to understand is that I am not disputing any of the mechanisms and scientific findings that you are talking about all the time.  I am talking beyond that, which you have a problem with.

[Stranger]

The simple fact you are unable to understand is that I am not disputing any of the mechanisms and scientific findings that you are talking about all the time.

This is simply untrue, you often do just that, here is an example: "I am saying that....phenotypic plasticity is the natural mechanism by which evolution happens in every instance. That is what happens in the real world. There is no randomness and NS is just a metaphor...", from here.

I am talking beyond that, which you have a problem with.

And trying to do so by simply ignoring all the problems people point out with your sources. You apply a totally different standard to things you like than to things you don't like. Solid, evidence based conclusions, and complete and simple explanations can all be dismissed if you don't like them, but if you like something, no amount of sloppy work, confused nonsense, contradiction, and baseless claims can be allowed to undermine it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

The simple fact you are unable to understand is that I am not disputing any of the mechanisms and scientific findings that you are talking about all the time.

That's a straw man - no-one has said that you are doing that.

I am talking beyond that, which you have a problem with.

Yes, because "beyond that" is just your opinion without any method to justify it.

Try to understand something: all beliefs are just opinions until they can be justified. What you do is to take your opinions and call them "reality" with no justification at all. When people point out that the standard method of enquiry for scientific claims doesn't produce the outcome you want it to produce, you then complain that that's a problem with the method rather than with the validity of your claim.

Well, that's up to you - what you can't do though is to claim "reality" when you have no means of any kind to validate that claim. That something makes sense in your head doesn't make it objectively true - i just means that it makes sense in your head.

That's your problem here. 

[Outrider]

I am talking beyond that, which you have a problem with.

What does 'beyond' the mechanisms and scientific findings even mean? Implicitly, if something has a demonstrable effect then it can be investigated using the scientific method; if it can't be investigated by science then that implies that it either doesn't have any effects or it has effects that we can't demonstrate or detect.

If we can't detect it, what makes us think it's there?

You aren't talking 'beyond' science, you're trying to talk around science because it comes up with better explanations for the phenomena than the woo you want to be true.

O.

[Sriram]

There is plenty of evidence for all the things I am talking of, just not in the physically measurable way that you want. Scientism should be avoided.

[Stranger]

There is plenty of evidence for all the things I am talking of...

As I've pointed out before, you're not even talking about a self-consistent set of things, if IIT (for example) is true, you cane wave bye-bye to an afterlife and reincarnation.

...just not in the physically measurable way that you want.

Anecdotes, dodgy studies, subjective experiences, and a desperate desire that something must be true, are not any sort of evidence.

Scientism should be avoided.

Scientism is irrelevant.

[ProfessorDavey]

There is plenty of evidence for all the things I am talking of, just not in the physically measurable way that you want.

If something cannot be assessed objectively then it merely becomes belief, anecdote, opinion, assertion etc and none of those things are evidence, except that people have subjective beliefs.

You can belief all you like that the sun orbits around the earth (just as many, many people did in the past) - but that believe provided not one jot of evidence for the how the sun and the earth orbit in relation to each other. Objective and rational study provided the evidence that the earth orbited around the sun.

[Sriram]

If something cannot be assessed objectively then it merely becomes belief, anecdote, opinion, assertion etc and none of those things are evidence, except that people have subjective beliefs.

You can belief all you like that the sun orbits around the earth (just as many, many people did in the past) - but that believe provided not one jot of evidence for the how the sun and the earth orbit in relation to each other. Objective and rational study provided the evidence that the earth orbited around the sun.

You are not getting the point at all....    There are different levels and types of reality. Reality is not one.

Each of them could mean different types of experiences and could need different types of interactions and investigations. Evidence will not be the same and would not involve the same methods and instruments that are used at certain levels.

Evidence is tricky. Everything is not physics. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

There is plenty of evidence for all the things I am talking of, just not in the physically measurable way that you want. Scientism should be avoided.

You’re hopelessly lost still. Evidence is tool of science; what you’re doing is taking one of science’s tools in name only, applying it incompetently and incompletely, and then telling us that the result demonstrates your claim.

It’s exactly the same as me telling you that there’s plenty of evidence for unicorns (all those records!), but you cannot dismiss the evidence because it fails the rules of evidence.

Again, if you don’t like science as the means to verify your claims then find another method. Very bad science though doesn’t do that.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

You are not getting the point at all....    There are different levels and types of reality. Reality is not one.

It probably is, but I agree that there are different abstractions of reality within the overall paradigm.

Each of them could mean different types of experiences and could need different types of interactions and investigations. Evidence will not be the same and would not involve the same methods and instruments that are used at certain levels.

OK.

Evidence is tricky. Everything is not physics.

That’s debatable, but you’ve missed the point in any case.

If you want to posit different realities all well and good – you still though need to find a way to investigate and verify the claims you make about these realities. So far though all you have is incompetent attempts at the scientific method.     

[Sriram]

Sriram,

It probably is, but I agree that there are different abstractions of reality within the overall paradigm.

OK.

That’s debatable, but you’ve missed the point in any case.

If you want to posit different realities all well and good – you still though need to find a way to investigate and verify the claims you make about these realities. So far though all you have is incompetent attempts at the scientific method.   

You are actually seeing my point...??!!    What happened to you..? The virus must have had some dramatic effect...   Better take some rest Blue... 

But more seriously....No one can offer such methodologies on a platter. They have to evolve as and when people start encountering any exotic phenomena and come up with their hypotheses.  That takes an acknowledgement of such possibilities to begin with. You can't keep dismissing them and then expect methodologies to be developed.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

You are actually seeing my point...??!!     What happened to you..? The virus must have had some dramatic effect...   Better take some rest Blue...

As the only point you were making was essentially “anything’s possible” there’s nothing much with which to disagree. Where we do disagree though is when you take one such possibility and go straight to calling it “reality” with nothing to bridge the gap from possible to probable.   

But more seriously....No one can offer such methodologies on a platter.

But they do have to offer something. Absent any method of investigation and verification, all you have is guessing. 

They have to evolve as and when people start encountering any exotic phenomena and come up with their hypotheses.

You’re reifying again here. There’s no reason to think that supposed reincarnation is an “exotic phenomenon” that’s been encountered. Some poorly assembled anecdotes do not constitute an encounter with an exotic phenomenon. 
 

That takes an acknowledgement of such possibilities to begin with. You can't keep dismissing them and then expect methodologies to be developed.

Now you're straw manning. As Richard Feynman famously noted, science itself begins with guesses. What it does next though is to investigate them. What you do on the other hand is to start and end with the guess (“reincarnation = reality”).

You can have all the possibilities you like – reincarnation, unicorns, tap dancing aliens on Betelgeuse, whatever. Your mistake though is to pick just the ones that take you fancy, and to call them “reality” with no justification at all.     

[Outrider]

There is plenty of evidence for all the things I am talking of, just not in the physically measurable way that you want.

If it can't be validated, it's at best questionable whether it's evidence, and certain that it's not good quality evidence.

Scientism should be avoided.

Applying scientific method isn't scientism; denying any possibility of an alternative is scientism. What's your alternative methodology?

O.
[/quote]

[Sriram]

Alternative methodologies cannot be offered on a platter. They have to develop through the contributions of all concerned as more and more people start taking exotic phenomena seriously.....and stop associating them with religious beliefs. 

This is a mindset problem and will take at least another generation.

[Gordon]

Alternative methodologies cannot be offered on a platter.

But there needs to be at least some kind of basic systematic approach: a means to detect and measure 'x' so that 'x' can be confirmed independently of the personal convictions of people.

They have to develop through the contributions of all concerned as more and more people start taking exotic phenomena "seriously"

Which is why an appropriate methodology is essential since it is important to exclude the risks of bias and wishful thinking among those who take 'x' seriously: enthusiasm and personal convictions are never enough.

.....and stop associating them with religious beliefs.

Woo isn't just confined to religion,
 

This is a mindset problem and will take at least another generation.

It isn't a 'mindset problem' at all: it's a methodological problem (as in the lack of one).

[Sriram]

But there needs to be at least some kind of basic systematic approach: a means to detect and measure 'x' so that 'x' can be confirmed independently of the personal convictions of people.

Which is why an appropriate methodology is essential since it is important to exclude the risks of bias and wishful thinking among those who take 'x' seriously: enthusiasm and personal convictions are never enough.

Woo isn't just confined to religion,
 
It isn't a 'mindset problem' at all: it's a methodological problem (as in the lack of one).

One of the simple checks is that many people have the same experience. Take NDE's for example. Thousands of people of all cultures and age groups have the experience. That is a simple enough methodology of checking. 

Additionally, the activities seen and heard by the patients have been checked and corroborated by medical staff.  Nothing much else can be done to check on NDE's.  That is the nature of the phenomenon.

As more and more experiences are encountered, people might come up with other methods of checking.  That is an ongoing process.

But dismissing the experiences as hallucination or imagination is certainly not the way forward.

[Gordon]

One of the simple checks is that many people have the same experience. Take NDE's for example. Thousands of people of all cultures and age groups have the experience. That is a simple enough methodology of checking. 

People make mistakes though, especially where they are predisposed to believing 'x': in 1917 in Portugal thousands claimed to see the Sun 'dance' in the sky (the so-called 'Miracle of the Sun') which is, of course, nonsense.

Additionally, the activities seen and heard by the patients have been checked and corroborated by medical staff.

Where are the credible citations then? The pseudoscience of the likes of Tucker is just woo dressed up as science.
 

Nothing much else can be done to check on NDE's.  That is the nature of the phenomenon.

Quite a lot is known about the biological changes as people approach death and are resuscitated and, of course, these people didn't die and stay dead.   

As more and more experiences are encountered, people might come up with other methods of checking.  That is an ongoing process.

They may - but methods they propose will need to be shown to stand scrutiny before they can have any practical use. 

But dismissing the experiences as hallucination or imagination is certainly not the way forward.

Why not?

[Sriram]

People make mistakes though, especially where they are predisposed to believing 'x': in 1917 in Portugal thousands claimed to see the Sun 'dance' in the sky (the so-called 'Miracle of the Sun') which is, of course, nonsense.

Where are the credible citations then? The pseudoscience of the likes of Tucker is just woo dressed up as science.
 
Quite a lot is known about the biological changes as people approach death and are resuscitated and, of course, these people didn't die and stay dead.   

They may - but methods they propose will need to be shown to stand scrutiny before they can have any practical use. 

Why not?

When lots of people across the world experience a similar phenomenon....it needs to be taken seriously.   Maybe the people in Portugal really did see some atmospheric effect.

There are many cases with corroborative evidence. One needs to go into the details of individual cases and maybe talk to people like Sam Parnia and others. 

Jim Tucker cannot be trusted.....nor Sam Parnia nor Raymond Moody nor Donald Hoffman....nor many of the others who have written about Consciousness in scientific journals.  Great!  Who do you trust?  Only people who keep repeating the old science stuff...?!

Why not....keep dismissing NDE's as imagination or hallucination?!  Not very 'scientific' even by the standards of his board, I must say!   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

When lots of people across the world experience a similar phenomenon....it needs to be taken seriously.   Maybe the people in Portugal really did see some atmospheric effect.

There are many cases with corroborative evidence. One needs to go into the details of individual cases and maybe talk to people like Sam Parnia and others.

Jim Tucker cannot be trusted.....nor Sam Parnia nor Raymond Moody nor Donald Hoffman....nor many of the others who have written about Consciousness in scientific journals.  Great!  Who do you trust?  Only people who keep repeating the old science stuff...?!

Why not....keep dismissing NDE's as imagination or hallucination?!  Not very 'scientific' even by the standards of his board, I must say!

You’re still making no sense about this. These people aren’t dead – they just stop breathing and cease blood flow for a bit, then recover. We’re all physiologically the same so it’s hardly surprising that those who recover report the same physiological phenomena (the sensation of bright lights etc), presumably triggered by temporary oxygen deprivation to the brain.

So what?     

[Sriram]

Sriram,

You’re still making no sense about this. These people aren’t dead – they just stop breathing and cease blood flow for a bit, then recover. We’re all physiologically the same so it’s hardly surprising that those who recover report the same physiological phenomena (the sensation of bright lights etc), presumably triggered by temporary oxygen deprivation to the brain.

So what?   

Critical care doctors and specialists have confirmed that they were dead. Activities they have witnessed (when dead) have been confirmed by others. 

People moving into another world, meeting beings of light, having a life review, having conversations with dead relatives, seeing people waiting for reincarnation, seeing their own body from above, witnessing activities at the accident site or hospital.....etc. etc. All these cogent and systematic events are triggered by oxygen deprivation...? Really?! 

You people are just unable to accept the possibility that there could be a life after death. It goes against all your fondly held atheist and materialistic beliefs.  That is why you people are clutching at straws and trying very hard to explain away such phenomena through mundane reasons.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Critical care doctors and specialists have confirmed that they were dead. Activities they have witnessed (when dead) have been confirmed by others.

Stop right there. No they haven’t. What they have confirmed is that two physiological processes usually necessary for life – breathing and blood flow – ceased temporarily. That’s the “N” of “NDE”. What you’re doing is removing that N and hoping that no-one will notice. 

People moving into another world, meeting beings of light, having a life review, having conversations with dead relatives, seeing people waiting for reincarnation, seeing their own body from above, witnessing activities at the accident site or hospital.....etc. etc. All these cogent and systematic events are triggered by oxygen deprivation...? Really?!

Funny isn’t it how these supposed events are always completely information free. A “conversation with a dead relative” for example is always just a memory of Auntie Doris’s known life, or maybe “Doris says she’s fine and sends here love”. It’s never, “here’s where the will you’ve all been looking for is hidden”.

It’s almost as though it’s just the brain closing down as it approaches (but, critically, never actually reaches) death and is pulling up memories, hallucinating etc. You know, just as you might expect it to when deprived of oxygen for a bit.

Why do you suppose that is?     

You people…

“You people”? What, rationalists? Non-woo merchants? Non-fantasists?

…are just unable to accept the possibility that there could be a life after death.

I know this is one of your favourite lies, but just repeating it is doing you no favours here. However fantastically unlikely, your problem isn’t that people reject the possibility. Rather it’s that you can never make an argument that takes you from that possibility to a probability. 

It goes against all your fondly held atheist and materialistic beliefs.

Yes it does, but that’s not the point. Make an argument for it that isn’t hopeless, and your claim will be accepted.

That is why you people are clutching at straws…

You have it backwards again. The only person clutching at straws here is you – you take the vaguest, most incoherent, unverifiable stories and immediately elevate them to “reality” when it suits you without ever bothering to find some reasoning or evidence to justify them. 

…and trying very hard to explain away such phenomena through mundane reasons.

What’s “mundane” about reason? The reason that undoes you is sound. You can try to address it or not as you wish, but calling it “mundane” doesn’t change the facts of the matter.   

[Sriram]

Sriram,

Stop right there. No they haven’t. What they have confirmed is that two physiological processes usually necessary for life – breathing and blood flow – ceased temporarily. That’s the “N” of “NDE”. What you’re doing is removing that N and hoping that no-one will notice. 

Funny isn’t it how these supposed events are always completely information free. A “conversation with a dead relative” for example is always just a memory of Auntie Doris’s known life, or maybe “Doris says she’s fine and sends here love”. It’s never, “here’s where the will you’ve all been looking for is hidden”.

It’s almost as though it’s just the brain closing down as it approaches (but, critically, never actually reaches) death and is pulling up memories, hallucinating etc. You know, just as you might expect it to when deprived of oxygen for a bit.

Why do you suppose that is?     

“You people”? What, rationalists? Non-woo merchants? Non-fantasists?

I know this is one of your favourite lies, but just repeating it is doing you no favours here. However fantastically unlikely, your problem isn’t that people reject the possibility. Rather it’s that you can never make an argument that takes you from that possibility to a probability. 

Yes it does, but that’s not the point. Make an argument for it that isn’t hopeless, and your claim will be accepted.

You have it backwards again. The only person clutching at straws here is you – you take the vaguest, most incoherent, unverifiable stories and immediately elevate them to “reality” when it suits you without ever bothering to find some reasoning or evidence to justify them. 

What’s “mundane” about reason? The reason that undoes you is sound. You can try to address it or not as you wish, but calling it “mundane” doesn’t change the facts of the matter.

All these are just your assumptions and beliefs based on a rigid materialistic stand.  You don't actually KNOW all this.     

The rigid materialistic view is being rejected by many professionals now....professional researchers who you would choose to dub as 'woo' merchants or whatever....just because these ideas don't fit into your old science world view...! 




 

[Stranger]

All these are just your assumptions and beliefs based on a rigid materialistic stand.  You don't actually KNOW all this.     

It's based on lack of proper evidence (and, no, it isn't a matter of opinion). You have you're own "two boxes syndrome" going on here. Things that you like require no proper evidence at all to back them up before everybody should take them seriously, and things you don't like can be rejected as inadequate or incomplete, no matter how well established or complete they actually are.

[Outrider]

Alternative methodologies cannot be offered on a platter.

But established, reliable methodologies cannot be discounted on the possibility of future other methodologies. If you don't have the methodology now then you can't go claiming a basis for your belief in defiance of the established, reliable methodology on the basis that you hope something else will turn up in the future.

[quote[They have to develop through the contributions of all concerned as more and more people start taking exotic phenomena seriously.....and stop associating them with religious beliefs.[/quote]

And if and when that happens people will listen, but until it does your beliefs go in the same hokey basket as the Nicene Creed.

This is a mindset problem and will take at least another generation.

It absolutely is a mindset problem. You have a mindset that your superstition is somehow functionally different from 'Western' superstitions because it's divorced from a religious organisation; functionally it's exactly as baseless.

One of the simple checks is that many people have the same experience. Take NDE's for example. Thousands of people of all cultures and age groups have the experience. That is a simple enough methodology of checking.

And there are a number of reasons those experiences might be similar; one of them is fundamental biology.

Additionally, the activities seen and heard by the patients have been checked and corroborated by medical staff.  Nothing much else can be done to check on NDE's.  That is the nature of the phenomenon.

People having sensory experiences of things around them make sense given their sensory organs are present. People have common sensory experiences of things that aren't in their vicinity under the same internal conditions is explicable by the biological activity of the brain under that stress. No need to introduce unevidenced notions of 'spirit' to explain what is fundamentally chemistry.

As more and more experiences are encountered, people might come up with other methods of checking.  That is an ongoing process.

Great. When they do, come back with your methodology.

But dismissing the experiences as hallucination or imagination is certainly not the way forward.

Why? You have nothing to suggest that it's anything more than that, by your own implicit admission. You're waiting for a methodology that might validate your claims, so you currently have nothing but a desire for it to be true. In the absence of any reason to agree with you, there is no 'forward' to get to. We are where we are, with a reliable system's best explanation for a phenomenon that you happen not to like. It might be wrong, you might be absolutely right, but we have no reason to think that this is the case, and you can't give us one.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

All these are just your assumptions and beliefs based on a rigid materialistic stand.  You don't actually KNOW all this. 

No, all these things are facts. Clinical death and brain death are not the same thing (and there's no evidence of anyone ever suffering the latter and then returning). There really is an "N" in "NDE" (and for good reason), no matter how much you pretend otherwise. There is no evidence at all of any accounts post NDE that could not be just memories of known events or hallucinations. The phenomena that are reported (bright lights etc) are exactly those the brain initiates when oxygen-starved and so on.           

The rigid materialistic view is being rejected by many professionals now....professional researchers who you would choose to dub as 'woo' merchants or whatever....just because these ideas don't fit into your old science world view...!

An anonymous argument from authority (who are these supposed "professionals", and what disciplines are they professional in? What methods do they use to verify their results, and where have they been published?) won't help you here. If you seriously think the evidence for your claims about NDEs is any more credible than my evidence for leprechauns then, finally, tell us what it is.

If you actually had any such evidence, why on earth wouldn't you do that?