Why dualism?

[IanS]

Apart from the fact that there is actually no evidence of any conciousness existing outside a human brain after death, and in contrast almost all objective experimental tests (apparently) show that the reported imagery is happening inside the brain just as it does during normal life, we might also ask - why, if there is actually credible evidence of conciousness outside the brain, is that not headline news in every paper, every TV and radio broadcast all around the world?

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As evidenced in this and many other threads attempting to use philosophical nonsense, linguistic hairsplitting, meaningless infinite recursivism or other such silliness to try and paint the base idea that reality exists as some horrible unreasonable assertion that makes us big mean skeptics just as bad as believers in unsupported nonsense which in turn somehow paradoxically makes their own Woo somehow more likely which makes zero sense has become one of the favorite pastimes of Woo Slingers and Woo Apologists on this board.

There has been a concentrated effort to turn "Reality exists" into some crazy belief with "materialist" practically being turned into a slur.

A lot of it seems to me to be a backlash against science.

It's as if quite a large number of people think that science is a matter of subjective opinion. And something which is to be discarded if you don't like it.

So if they believe in life after death (for example), but properly published science provides no support for such belief, then they conclude that makes it a 50-50 situation where their beliefs (supported by millions of theists and mystics, and seemingly by quite a few philosophers) are just as likely to be true as anything that science may conclude to the contrary.

 

[annnnoid]

This is explained, at length, in Carroll's video, which you claim to have watched and understood.

If you have any counter-arguments to offer to the reasoning he presents in that video, then I suggest you offer them.

….aaahh, the usual “I can’t answer that question but I’m damn sure they answer it in that there video…or maybe that video…or maybe that video.”

Beginning to sound like a broken record Joe. You…and Ian…and your never-ending arguments-from-authority.

We have a word for that Joe. It’s called ‘fallacy.’

Meaning…your argument is crap! If you are planning on continuing with this charade I wouldn’t even bother pressing ‘upload’ next time. Just delete everything and write “fallacy” and upload that…cause that is all you’re doing. Over and over and over and over and over.

Apart from the fact that there is actually no evidence of any conciousness existing outside a human brain after death,

…but there is, and lots of it. You all just pretend it isn’t evidence. You continually insist on applying this blatantly fallacious metric that…if science cannot empirically adjudicate it, then it does not exist.

Quite obviously this is stupid (and if you don’t understand why then you should quit this forum and go back to elementary school)…yet you all continue to argue from this perspective.

and in contrast almost all objective experimental tests (apparently) show that the reported imagery is happening inside the brain just as it does during normal life,

…and I have repeatedly shown how massively limited (in just about every conceivable way) these so-called tests actually are. Meaning…absolutely no definitive conclusions can be derived from them in relation to what is happening during these events, what the phenomenology of the experiences is, and what it is that is causing / generating the events.

You can drag any of your arguments-from-authority over here. I have absolutely no doubt what-so-ever that I could dismember every single one of them.

…not to mention…that there does not exist anything remotely resembling an empirical definition for or description of this mysterious thing you refer to as ‘normal life.’

The ONLY reason you call it normal is cause you’re familiar with it…not because you (or anyone else) has the slightest clue what it actually is!

This is also a demonstrable fact!

we might also ask - why, if there is actually credible evidence of conciousness outside the brain

We might also ask why nobody has a clue what a human being actually is or how a brain creates one!

, is that not headline news in every paper, every TV and radio broadcast all around the world?

…do you actually want an answer to that question or would you rather wallow in your pre-determined ideas about how things work?

If there really had been even one reliable report confirming conciousness existing in free space outside of the human living body/brain, then it would have been instantly seized upon by every Christian and Islamic leader around the world to proclaim direct irrefutable evidence of God ... and it would be front page headline news for ever more ... everyone in the world would have known about it as the most important story ever.

Your understanding of individual and collective human nature is, to put it charitably, simplistic.

But of course, that's never happened. There never has been any such discovery splashed across the worlds media. There are no reliable reports of any such disembodied conciousness.

…actually there are no reliable reports of consciousness…period!

Y’know Ian…I will concede that you are making at least a valiant attempt with all your wiki references etc. etc.

…but you’re wrong. Period. What you need to do is start with that quote from Scott Huettel:

“The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe … complexity makes simple models impractical and accurate models impossible to comprehend.”

This is the most complex problem in science…without exception. The thing that you are is the most complex problem in science. Quite obviously…you manage to function. Just as obviously…you do not possess anything remotely resembling the requisite empirical (scientific) knowledge that enables this to happen.

…so what variety of ‘knowledge’ do you possess? Cause you obviously do function (at least to some degree)…and you just as obviously don’t know science. That’s not a criticism either. Any scientist who imagines they practice ‘science’ in their daily lives is an unqualified retard!

So there is another variety of ‘knowledge’ besides empirical scientific knowledge. It provides you with the ability to function. If it did not exist, you would not either. It also precedes empirical scientific knowledge (cause the epistemology of science is built out of it). IOW…a ‘you’ can function without science…but science cannot function without a ‘you'.

It is precisely that variety of knowledge out of which experiences such as NDE’s etc. are built.

A lot of it seems to me to be a backlash against science.

It's as if quite a large number of people think that science is a matter of subjective opinion. And something which is to be discarded if you don't like it.

Actually you’ve got that backwards. It’s as if a large number of people think subjective opinion is a matter of science.

So if they believe in life after death (for example), but properly published science provides no support for such belief,

‘Properly published science’ actually neither has nor can have an opinion about this issue. For all the reasons that I never stop pointing out and which all of you never stop ignoring.

then they conclude that makes it a 50-50 situation where their beliefs (supported by millions of theists and mystics, and seemingly by quite a few philosophers) are just as likely to be true as anything that science may conclude to the contrary.

…like I said…it’s as if a large number of people think that subjective opinion is a matter of science. The simple problem is…you actually think this is not a problem. You simply do not realize how utterly blind science is in this regard.

…so you have two choices. Either take the time to actually learn the facts…or continue to entertain ideas based on ignorance. I don’t care either way…but if you show up here calling others idiots for their opinions…when your own are so flawed…then you know what to expect.



.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

….aaahh, the usual “I can’t answer that question but I’m damn sure they answer it in that there video…or maybe that video…or maybe that video.”

It's more like "the question shows such an astounding lack of understanding of the subject that all I can do is suggest the poster educates themselves on what they're talking about".

Really, think about what you asked me. You asked me how I know that a galaxy isn't the same size as a human being. And you asked me how I know that energies which are specifically described as too small to be detected under anything but the most strict laboratory conditions are too small to be detected outside of strict laboratory conditions.

The answer to the first is "because it's extremely common knowledge that galaxies are much larger than human beings". The answer to the second is "because that's what the description explicitly says".

I mean, there comes a point when the questions you're being asked are just so remedial that all you can do is say "flibble" and point.

Beginning to sound like a broken record Joe. You…and Ian…and your never-ending arguments-from-authority.

...says the person whose most oft-posted argument in this thread is "I've got a friend who has a Masters degree".

 

[annnnoid]

It's more like "the question shows such an astounding lack of understanding of the subject that all I can do is suggest the poster educates themselves on what they're talking about".

Really, think about what you asked me. You asked me how I know that a galaxy isn't the same size as a human being. And you asked me how I know that energies which are specifically described as too small to be detected under anything but the most strict laboratory conditions are too small to be detected outside of strict laboratory conditions.

The answer to the first is "because it's extremely common knowledge that galaxies are much larger than human beings". The answer to the second is "because that's what the description explicitly says".

I mean, there comes a point when the questions you're being asked are just so remedial that all you can do is say "flibble" and point.



...says the person whose most oft-posted argument in this thread is "I've got a friend who has a Masters degree".

Considering that I can unconditionally establish that references to the author of that paragraph constitute barely 1% of my posts…I think it is quite obvious whose argument is fraudulent.

You’ve now become a legitimate waste of my time. Bye.

 

[IanS]

Here's something which should be interesting to people in both of the current NDE-OBE threads, and which if the mods are happy with it, I am going to post in both threads, so that all involved can see it in full -

- there is a fairly well known book called "Conciousness and the Brain" by Stanislas Dehaene, which some here may have read. It's not specifically about NDE-OBE, but it includes the following brief mention of OBE, which I give below in full & complete with academic Jounal references (using the authors own reference numbers, i.e. refs 41,a,; 42,a,b ; 74 and 75. Where ref 41a is the same ref as 75) -

From page 44 of; "Conciousness and the Brain"; Stanislas Dehaene; Penguin Books, 2014.

" A case in point is the Swiss neurologist Olaf Blanke's beautiful series of experiments on out-of-body experiences. Surgery patients occasionally report leaving their bodies during anaesthesia. They describe an irrepressible feeling of hovering at the ceiling and even looking down at their inert body from up there. Should we take them seriously? Does out-of-body flight really happen?

In order to verify the patients reports, some pseudo-scientists hide drawings of objects atop closets, where only a flying patient could see them. This approach is ridiculous of course. The correct stance is to ask how this subjective experience could arise from brain dysfunction. What kind of brain representation, Blanke asked, underlies our adoption of a specific point of view on the external world? How does the brain asses the bodies location? After investigating many neurological and surgery patients, Blanke discovered that a cortical region in the right temporoparietal junction, when impaired or electrically perturbed, repeatedly caused the sensation of out-of-body transportation (41). This region is situated in a high-level zone where multiple signals converge: those arising from vision; from the somatosensory and kinesthetic systems (our brains map of bodily touch, muscular, and action signals); and from the vestibular system (the biological internal platform, located in our inner ear, which monitors our head movements). By piecing together these various clues, the brain generates an integrated representation of the body's location relative to it's environment. However, this process can go awry if the signals disagree or become ambiguous as a result of brain damage. Out-of-body flight "really" happens then - it is a real physical event, but only in the patients brain and, as a result, in his subjective experience. This out-of-body state, is, by and large, an exacerbated form of the dizziness that we all experience when our vision disagrees with our vestibular system, as on a rocking boat.

Blanke went on to show that ANY human can leave her body: he created just the right amount of stimulation, via synchronised but de-localised visual and touch signals, to elicit an out-of-body experience in the normal brain (42). Using a clever robot, he even managed to re-create the illusion in a magnetic resonance imager. And while the scanned person experienced the illusion, her brain lit up in the temperoparietal junction - very close to where the patients legions were located. "

41. Blanke, Landis, Spinelli, and Seeck. "Out-of-Body Experiences and Autoscopy of Neurological Origin."; Brain, 127 (pt 2); 243-58; 2004

41a Blanke, Ortigue, Landis, and Seeck. "Stimulating Illusory Own-Body-Perceptions"; Nature 419 (6904); 269-270; 2002.

42. Legggenhager, Mouthon, and Blanke. "Spatial Aspects of Bodily Self Conciousness". Conciousness and Cognition 18, (1), 2009

42a. Lenggenhager, Tadi, Metzinger, and Blanke. "Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating Bodily Self Conciousness". Science 317 (5841); 1096-1099. 2007.

See also -
42b. Ehrsson, H.H. "The Experimental Inductions of Out-of-Body Experiences". Science 317 (5841); 1048. 2007.


From page 153 of; "Conciousness and the Brain"; Stanislas Dehaene; Penguin Books, 2014 ...

" A systematic exploration suggests that every cortical site holds it's own specialized piece of knowledge. Consider the insula, a deep sheath of cortex that is buried beneath the frontal and temporal lobes. Stimulating it can have a diversity of unpleasant effects, including a sensation of suffocation, burning, stinging, tingling, warmth, nausea, or falling (74). Move the electrode to a location farther below the surface of the cortex, the sub-thalmic nucleus, and the same electrical pulse may induce an immediate state of depression, complete with crying and sobbing, monotone voice, miserable body posture, and glum thoughts. Stimulating parts of the parietal lobe may cause feelings of vertigo and even the bizarre out-of-body experience of levitating to the ceiling and looking down at one's own body (75).

If you had any lingering doubts that your mental life arises entirely from the activity of the brain, these examples should lift them (please see the book for his previous examples which I did not take the extra time to write out here). Brain stimulation seems capable of bringing about virtually any experience. "

74. Selimbeyoglu and Parvizi. "Electrical Stimulation of the Human Brain: Perceptual and Behavioural Phenomena Reported in the Old and New Literature". Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 4; 46. 2010

75. Blanke, Ortigue, Landis, and Seeck. "Stimulating Illusory Own-Body-Perceptions"; Nature 419 (6904); 269-270; 2002.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Considering that I can unconditionally establish that references to the author of that paragraph constitute barely 1% of my posts…I think it is quite obvious whose argument is fraudulent.

You’ve now become a legitimate waste of my time. Bye.

Uh-huh. And your deciding that it's over with me is because of one small bit of hyperbole, rather than the fact that you have no counter-argument to offer to the fact that the scale of a galaxy is many orders of magnitude larger than the scale of a human being. I believe you.

 

[Donn]

Fascinating stuff, IanS. I'd love to (briefly) experience the dislocation effect.

 

[Minoosh]

IIRC - a big if - I saw myself falling after slipping from the top of the high-diving-board ladder at a swim club. I was about 5. "I" was observing from quite distance - I "saw" a small human form plummeting.

One of my playmates tried to catch me - "I" didn't "see" that part.

This could all be a later image superimposing itself on that experience.

 

[Manopolus]

Well, simulation theory would be a form of dualism (or idealism, if you prefer -- more or less the same thing in this case), so there's that. It isn't like there isn't actual evidence out there that something like dualism may be the correct stance. It isn't quite the traditional form, though. This notion that it is fully discredited is complete bunk, however.

When matter often functions/behaves entirely as energy (waves), and only takes certain pre-determined forms (and only when a measurement is taken), it sort of suggests that materialism may be the more flawed assumption. Until we get quantum theory and Newtonian physics resolved with each other, it's a bit early to assume that dualism, or some form of it, isn't completely accurate because that is what the data is actually suggesting with regards to quantum mechanics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a New Ager or a theist of any sort. I don't assume "therefore, woo" sorts of things in relation to it. The data merely suggests that there is something completely non-materialistic going on here. The phenomena could be considered a type of animism and/or pantheism if looked at from a particular perspective. It's certainly NOT materialism in the strictest sense.

 

[LarryS]

Here is an easy to read article that (I think) gets to the heart of what annnoid and others are suggesting . . . bottom line being that when Carroll says something like: "Consciousness is matter becoming aware of itself" or anyone says that consciousness = brain . . . these statements include more truckloads of magic fairy dust and woo than even the woo-master himself could muster.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2...uman-brain-create-consciousness/#416a340234d6

Of course, these statements are what most people believe - so there is that.

Secondly, though I find the above statements 'hasty' and questionable, it does not follow that I believe in leprechauns, a supernatural or any such thing, nor does it follow that I disfavor the scientific method.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Bottom line being that when Carroll says something like: "Consciousness is matter becoming aware of itself" or anyone says that consciousness = brain . . . these statements include more truckloads of magic fairy dust and woo than even the woo-master himself could muster.

Oh utter claptrap. I get that just people think that calling is the scientific consensus "Woo" is just oh so clever in a nice schoolyard "I know you are but what I am way" but the natural biochemical functioning of the brain is consciousness, period end of discussion. This is not a matter of opinion or subjectiveness or the first person perspective of the duality of the al priori knowledge of the qualia out beyond the event horizon of the formless.

 

[LarryS]

If you're not even curious about such notions, why do you even participate?

 

[JoeMorgue]

If you're not even curious about such notions, why do you even participate?

What an odd question.

I don't quite understand how an assertion that a question has already been settled, which questions as to if some Woo is needed beyond the natural biochemical processes of the brain to explain how the human mind functions certainly are by any reasonable intellectual standard, equate to "not being curious about such notions."

If someone says 2+2 = 4 and you correct them would they be right to as why they are participating if they are not curious about such notions?

 

[Donn]

Here is an easy to read article that (I think) gets to the heart of what annnoid and others are suggesting . . . bottom line being that when Carroll says something like: "Consciousness is matter becoming aware of itself" or anyone says that consciousness = brain . . . these statements include more truckloads of magic fairy dust and woo than even the woo-master himself could muster.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2...uman-brain-create-consciousness/#416a340234d6

Of course, these statements are what most people believe - so there is that.

Secondly, though I find the above statements 'hasty' and questionable, it does not follow that I believe in leprechauns, a supernatural or any such thing, nor does it follow that I disfavor the scientific method.

I just read it. It's an agnostic line towards the brain causing "consciousness". I don't think I agree, even while I admit of profound ignorance. It seems obvious they are tied; like bones to muscle, like down to gravity.

 

[LarryS]

What an odd question.

I don't quite understand how an assertion that a question has already been settled, which questions as to if some Woo is needed beyond the natural biochemical processes of the brain to explain how the human mind functions certainly are by any reasonable intellectual standard, equate to "not being curious about such notions."

If someone says 2+2 = 4 and you correct them would they be right to as why they are participating if they are not curious about such notions?

the question has not been settled
no one knows how, or even if biochemical processes in the brain are sufficient to explain human consciousness
in fact, we are seeing more and more labs abandoning this singular approach to the question.

 

[JoeMorgue]

the question has not been settled

And I disagree. Which leaves us at an impasse.

To clear the fact that not one example of some mind function that can't be explained via rational, non-Woo needs either will or can be provided makes this a meaningless impasse, but an impasse nonetheless.

And the idea that modern neuroscience is "moving away" from the idea that all mental process are results of natural processes is ludicrous.

 

[Manopolus]

Forget it. I haven't read enough context to comment further yet.

(deleted comment)

 

[LarryS]

A

And the idea that modern neuroscience is "moving away" from the idea that all mental process are results of natural processes is ludicrous.

I never suggesting anything like this.

 

[JoeMorgue]

in fact, we are seeing more and more labs abandoning this singular approach to the question.

And the idea that modern neuroscience is "moving away" from the idea that all mental process are results of natural processes is ludicrous.

I never suggesting anything like this.

So which "singular approach" are "more and more labs abandoning" exactly?

 

[IanS]

If you're not even curious about such notions, why do you even participate?

Scientifically objective "sceptics" are not usually "curious about such notions", such as (say) claims of disembodied concious spirits. The reason for the replies is more often (a) to provide some balance against so much dangerously nutty "woo" being peddled on the internet, and (b) to encourage the woo believers to check what objective science has really shown about such claims.

If people write posts here claiming that out-of-body conciousness exists as a disembodied force (souls?) across the universe, then you can expect that more rational and better educated people will write back opposing beliefs like that.

And by "better educated", I mean a better education in objective core sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, relevant branches of maths (that's actually most of maths), and related fields such as astronomy). It does not mean that what we might call "spiritual types" or less kindly perhaps "woo believers", never have an education in other fields, because there are plenty of people with the most extensive and deep education in other non-scientific subjects (e.g. musicians, artists, economists), but those subjects do not teach you anything at all about how in the 21st century science has provided (and continues to provide), discover, and explain the most probable factually true explanations for how real events and processes actually work in this universe .... a diploma in classical musical may be great if you want to be a musician, but it teaches you not a single thing about how to form a rational objective opinion of real-world processes such as how humans evolved from earlier creatures, or how how our universe probably began via a mechanism that we call "Big Bang", or indeed why people should not believe the claims of spiritualists, mystics, mediums, homoeopaths, and even of course religious speakers who claim to know the existence of God/gods, heaven, hell, demonic possession etc.

I posted this simple Wiki link before (link below). But if you read that, then it's obvious that more objective scientific opinion, inc. that which has been properly published as research papers in genuine neutral research journals (the Wiki page gives refs to 177 different papers, books, articles and sources), is very strongly of the opinion that so-called NDE (and OBE) is quite clearly an experience confined to the functioning of the physical brain ... there is actually no genuine objective evidence of any conciousness continuing a persistent or permanent existence outside of the the dead brain/body, as if it were some sort of concious aware spirit or soul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience


See also of course, my post above which reproduces what Stanislas Dehaene explains, with proper academic references, about claims of OBE being anything whatsoever to do with any external conciousness. Dehaene makes very clear that genuine current research is unanimous in agreeing that there is no such external conciousness, and that all objective experiments now show that experiences such as NDE and OBE take place in the brain (not somewhere in outer space).

Who is Stanislas Dehaene? Again see Wiki -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_Dehaene