Linking dualist and creationist over mind/body

[AdamWho]

The article Creationists declare war over the brain in NewScientist bemoans the attempts of creationists attempting to resurrect Cartesian Dualism (the soul and Christianity) via a "non-material neuroscience" movement.

From the article:

According to proponents of ID, the "hard problem" of consciousness - how our subjective experiences arise from the objective world of neurons - is the Achilles heel not just of Darwinism but of scientific materialism. This fits with the Discovery Institute's mission as outlined in its "wedge document", which seeks "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies", to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one.

We see this directly in this forum with the spread of dualist claims by the proponents of the paranormal. A display of such beliefs can be found in the following threads:

Are there any debunker EXPERIMENTS regarding psi phenomena?

Near-Death Experiences: What Really Happens?

For Proponents of Non-Physical Mind Separate From Brain

Is psi a faith based belief - not S&S

"Mental Mind" Derail

Significant Psi Experiments

Believers and skeptics in the science forum

How does a disembodied consciousness work in a Ockham-shaved universe?

How can consciousness exist without the brain?

Just to name a few...

I believe the outbreak of "non-material neuroscience" in this forum (in the form of psi/paranormal/mental-mind) is directly related to the phenomena reported in NewScientist and is a new wave of ID which we are just starting to understand more completely.

[figuer]

Originally Posted by AdamWho

We see this directly in this forum with the spread of dualist claims by the proponents of the paranormal. A display of such beliefs can be found in the following threads:...I believe the outbreak of "non-material neuroscience" in this forum (in the form of psi/paranormal/mental-mind) is directly related to the phenomena reported in NewScientist and is a new wave of ID which we are just starting to understand more completely.

I consider you are mightily mistaken. The "Quantum-Psi" explorers in this forum are not seeking "to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one". There is no justification for such a claim. Rather most are simply seeking to find a scientific model that appropriately represents their particular experiences, because the physicalist model fails to do so. It is not unscientific, but the contrary, to adjust models to fit observations/experiences.

[AdamWho]

Originally Posted by figuer

I consider you are mightily mistaken. The "Quantum-Psi" explorers in this forum are not seeking "to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one". There is no justification for such a claim. Rather most are simply seeking to find a scientific model that appropriately represents their particular experiences, because the physicalist model fails to do so. It is not unscientific, but the contrary, to adjust models to fit observations/experiences.

Consider the end game of what the "Quantum-Psi" support.
1. Dismantling of scientific method as the primary process for gaining knowledge about the physical world
2. Proposing a non-material / spiritual world, where the mind/soul resides.
3. Proposing non-causal forces that control mind/brain

The space between a psi / quantum consciousness person and a proponent of ID is diminishing.

Things they have in common:
1. pseudo scientific language to dress up their arguments against "main-stream science"
2. No theory
3. No mechanism
4. No evidence (or rather extremely poor and shoddy)
5. Demonization of critics as stuck in a dogmatic scientific paradigm (or what ever slogan is currently fashionable).
6. Complete lack of understanding of the subject matter they are critiquing
7. Complete lack of understanding of the scientific method.
8. Both have a subjectivist understanding of physical reality
9. Both are dualist
10. both believe in the spirit realm.

How they differ:
1. ID people claim not to believe in god but actually do. Psi people claim to not believe in god and I am uncertain if they are being honest.

[breezanne]

Interesting article... another example of pulling toward one extreme out of fear of the other extreme. Reminds me of American politics. Discernment and balance are better yet... not anyone's knee jerk reactionary materialist propaganda... not anyone's strident religiously motivated denials of evolution based on the existence of aware/purposeful mind.

I myself happen to be a monist, but not of your ilk, methinks. The threads you list are some in which you have repeatedly exhibited/defended a set of fervent physicalist beliefs... sometimes acting as though they are the "only beliefs allowed."

Neuroscience is not "non-material" and I don't recall anyone ever saying that it was. Mind, however, is non-material, and anyone who says otherwise is not speaking English properly... scientist or not. No one thought that scientists could not be physicalist believers... of course they can. Neither quality validates the other. Plus, even among scientists, you'll find such beliefs to be entirely optional, and far from universal. You'd be even more surprised at how differently scientists speak in private on this topic, as opposed to in public.

I love the part about changes in the body due to aware/purposeful mind being just a convoluted, unnecessary illusion caused by and completely superseded by "brains changing brains" (in some old mechanistic Newtonian manner). Perhaps those particular folks should just drop the word "mind" altogether, since for them, "brain activity" covers everything... veritably "Godlike" (this "brain activity") in its capacity to explain everything that has ever been felt or thought about any and all imaginable physical and abstract realms of experience and expression and creativity and meaning and purpose.

__________________

1. Don't be paranoid. Nobody here supports the "dismantling of scientific method" (there is no one "scientific method" anyway, which anyone very familiar with science ought to know).

2. There is a mental realm... that's where all your thoughts occur, even all your thoughts about the physical realm. No, your mental realm is not a physical realm... it contains, for you, the physical realm.

3. What is a causal non-causal force?


Yeah, yeah, and I think Physicalist devotees sound like Baptist preachers... so let's just talk about the actual participants in these actual threads...


1. What arguments against mainstream science? What pseudoscientific language?

2. Theories have been presented (they're just not physical... psi is mental activity).

3. Mechanisms have been presented (they're just not physical... psi is mental activity).

4. Much more importantly, evidence has been presented... and it's convergent from many kinds of phenomena. Psi is the evidence for psi... not a physical explanation/theory/mechanism.

5. Haughty vitriol and derision directed toward critics of physicalism, and categorical denials of "all possible evidence," can trigger a comparable lack of respect in return. No shiny pots around here.

6. No, complete lack of agreement with your unnecessary assumptions and extrapolations regarding the subject matter.

7. There are many "scientific methods"... which of them would you like to discuss?

8. Objective reality (independent of any and all kinds of minds) is an "ideal" that you seem to firmly believe in... good for you. Not much harm in that belief, at least not to others. Just so you know, that's all you can ever do, is believe in it. Can never verify it. Sort of like the preacher... notice that doesn't stop him from preaching either.

9. Many of us in these threads are monists. I think many of the self-described dualists here might also acknowledge that all is ultimately interconnected. But we're not the kind of monists that desperately wish to shrink our ontologies by trying to pass "mental" off as "physical"... while our physics has just barely begun to consider physical stuff as having mindful properties (tho spacetime, that's all about [mind's] perspective, dontcha know).


Adam... there is no actual category called "Psi People." Those who acknowledge the evidence for psi can also be in any other set you can name (including scientist, including atheist)... except maybe not the set of devout physicalists. The set of "fundie preachers" might overlap slightly with "those who acknowledge psi," but it's usually in a fearful, "dire warnings of evil" kind of way.

[AdamWho]

Adam... there is no actual category called "Psi People." Those who acknowledge the evidence for psi can also be in any other set you can name (including scientist, including atheist)... except maybe not the set of devout physicalists. The set of "fundie preachers" might overlap slightly with "those who acknowledge psi," but it's usually in a fearful, "dire warnings of evil" kind of way.

Sorry you have squandered your credibility months ago. You are just like the creationists and anybody who has bothered to follow the threads over the last couple of months (plus a decent science education) would agree.

Rhetorical questions (since I can't stand to read your nonsense) and I know most of the answers anyway.
1. So are you a theist?
2. Are you psi arguments just a hollow attempt to discredit science that you disagree with?
3. Do you actually have a theory?
4. A mechanism?
5. A testable hypothesis
6. At least a description of psi?

No you don't and everybody paying attention over the 1000s of posts know it.

But putting your credibility on scientific issues aside.

The article points to the real issue, a public painfully ignorant about scientific issues and how easily there ignorance is taken advantage of by religious charlatan throughout the ages. Quantum Consciousness / psi / paranormal / faith healers / ID / creationisms /religion / superstition, it is all the same, people desperately looking for meaning out of the chaos. The only way to cut through the chaos (of our faulty perceptions) is to find objective ways to see the world (remove the subjectivism), currently it is called the scientific method.

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by AdamWho

Sorry you have squandered your credibility months ago. You are just like the creationists and anybody who has bothered to follow the threads over the last couple of months (plus a decent science education) would agree.

Rhetorical questions (since I can't stand to read your nonsense) and I know most of the answers anyway.
1. So are you a theist?
2. Are you psi arguments just a hollow attempt to discredit science that you disagree with?
3. Do you actually have a theory?
4. A mechanism?
5. A testable hypothesis
6. At least a description of psi?

No you don't and everybody paying attention over the 1000s of posts know it.

But putting your credibility on scientific issues aside.

The article points to the real issue, a public painfully ignorant about scientific issues and how easily there ignorance is taken advantage of by religious charlatan throughout the ages. Quantum Consciousness / psi / paranormal / faith healers / ID / creationisms /religion / superstition, it is all the same, people desperately looking for meaning out of the chaos. The only way to cut through the chaos (of our faulty perceptions) is to find objective ways to see the world (remove the subjectivism), currently it is called the scientific method.

No surprise that I think 'tis you who has "squandered your credibility"... and you who keeps digging yourself deeper and deeper by increasingly prejudicial and offensive defenses. I've had an unusually strong science education... and thus, I know you to be a very poor judge of same. I am allegedly "just like the creationists"? Is that really your goal here in this thread? To try using a really broad brush to paint the same color on everyone you disagree with? No one could possibly be more correct than you on all counts, hey? And creationists are so easy to mock... why not throw everyone else that challenges you into the same big bag. Worth a try.

Me, I don't mind reading your nonsense at all... these threads are interesting as psychological studies in addition to the exchanges of ideas.

1. No, I am not and never was a theist. Formal religions do not suit my taste for logic and simplicity. However, that does not cause me to fear or despise people who enjoy the occasional positive features of religion. I know a number of religious people who are as loving and honest and intelligent as anyone, and a great many excellent scientists who also qualify as religious (or at least, aware of their spiritually).

2. There is no current science that I "disagree" with.

3.4.5. For one thing, in science we don't deny data/observations/experience/evidence for any lack of hypothesis, theory, or mechanism... much less concrete ones. Regardless, it's fairly easy to see how nonlocal minds are already "touching" everything else in this nonlocal [apparent to mind] reality we share, allowing an inherent potential of awareness and/or influence. Spacetime itself is merely apparent (not objective/concrete). But, to minimize hypocrisy, please explain your own theory, mechanism, hypothesis for mentality and psi? Be careful not to provide only fancy statements of your assumption [physicalism]... that the observable behavior of obedient lawful physical stuff is the "Cause and Creator" of all that ever has or ever could exist... and brain activity "somehow" creates mind out of whole cloth. You see, that doesn't actually explain anything either. You await the day when it will? The savior will come? Maybe so... when we adjust physics to include all aspects of mentality, including persistence of awareness after death of the body, and all other evidence borne of experience (in the field and/or in the lab).

6. Once again, psi is mind's awareness and/or influence sans reasonable physical or probabilistic pathways/explanations.

I agree with you that the general public is often painfully ignorant about scientific issues... but that is no reason for scientific people to remain alarmingly and proudly ignorant about the nature of science. It's bounded. You are committing an egregious logical error by lumping together all these things, "quantum consciousness / psi / paranormal / faith healers / ID / creationisms / religion / superstition." You are throwing out babies with your bath water. Not black/white, all/nothing thinking, but balance and discernment are required... before you'll be capable of picking out individual events of significant merit, among the boatloads of kooky stuff that people can dream up.

You too ought to learn to cut through the chaos of your faultiest perceptions... one of which is that science is truly objective, another of which is that science and only science can tell us all about reality as a whole. Science represents our best [human] attempts at looking at the world objectively, largely because it studies those objects/processes/systems in the world upon which humans can most easily agree... persistent/consistent spatiotemporal sensory data. Science is done by purposeful minds, and it's easy work compared to finding the meaning of life/existence. Nothing to gloat about.

Putting your credibility on scientific issues and the nature of science aside, and your belief-based assumptions and extrapolations aside... I do not actually ascribe bad intentions to you. I trust your sincerity, and that you honestly think you are here arguing for what it verily truly true about reality. But you cannot actually know whether what you now believe is verily truly true about reality... and other equally competent scientific thinkers may have already seen around the corner from where you are now standing, taking a broader, more complete view of it all... and occasionally trying to share that view.

[figuer]

Originally Posted by AdamWho

Consider the end game of what the "Quantum-Psi" support.
1. Dismantling of scientific method as the primary process for gaining knowledge about the physical world
2. Proposing a non-material / spiritual world, where the mind/soul resides.
3. Proposing non-causal forces that control mind/brain

1. False
2. Misrepresentation
3. Irrelevant

Originally Posted by AdamWho

The space between a psi / quantum consciousness person and a proponent of ID is diminishing.

Things they have in common:
1. pseudo scientific language to dress up their arguments against "main-stream science"
2. No theory
3. No mechanism
4. No evidence (or rather extremely poor and shoddy)
5. Demonization of critics as stuck in a dogmatic scientific paradigm (or what ever slogan is currently fashionable).
6. Complete lack of understanding of the subject matter they are critiquing
7. Complete lack of understanding of the scientific method.
8. Both have a subjectivist understanding of physical reality
9. Both are dualist
10. both believe in the spirit realm.

1. Opinion
2. Irrelevant
3. Irrelevant
4. False
5. Demonizing your opponents is what you are doing in this thread
6. False (but applies to you in this thread)
7. False
8. So do you and everyone else
9. False
10. False

[show_no_mercy]

There needs to be a distinction made between those who support the evidence, and those who support conjecture. As of right now, the evidence points towards the mind being an emergent property of the brain. Those who support conjecture are those who say the mind exists independently of the brain.

Obviously - which is the point of the OP - only one of those is equivalent to the Christian paradigm.

[AdamWho]

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

There needs to be a distinction made between those who support the evidence, and those who support conjecture. As of right now, the evidence points towards the mind being an emergent property of the brain. Those who support conjecture are those who say the mind exists independently of the brain.

Obviously - which is the point of the OP - only one of those is equivalent to the Christian paradigm.

Yes that is the point. The psi people, whether they know it or not, are implicitly on the same side as the ID people. They may have different motivations (or not) but they have a similar goal, which is to reintroduce Cartesian Dualism back into science. The ID people just take it an additional step by claiming the Christian god as the organizing force behind the spirit realm whereas the psi people haven't gotten around to explaining how this spirit realm works.

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

There needs to be a distinction made between those who support the evidence, and those who support conjecture. As of right now, the evidence points towards the mind being an emergent property of the brain. Those who support conjecture are those who say the mind exists independently of the brain.

Obviously - which is the point of the OP - only one of those is equivalent to the Christian paradigm.

I completely support what the evidence actually tells us... of tight correlations between mind/brain during life in the body. Between mental experience/expression and physical electrochemical activity. Evidence also tells us that minds can do other things at other "times."

Obviously, mind is "interdependent with the brain" during life in the body. The unnecessary conjecture/extrapolation is to insist that mind is always and only "an emergent property of the brain."

Yes, one position is more faith-based than the other... but it's not the one you think.

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by AdamWho

Yes that is the point. The psi people, whether they know it or not, are implicitly on the same side as the ID people. They may have different motivations (or not) but they have a similar goal, which is to reintroduce Cartesian Dualism back into science. The ID people just take it an additional step by claiming the Christian god as the organizing force behind the spirit realm whereas the psi people haven't gotten around to explaining how this spirit realm works.

You will not find a single competent scientist or psychologist who cannot consistently distinguish between mind and brain, between ideas and physical objects, between feelings and patterns of firing neurons. Science does not make mush of everything... distinctions are made and kept precisely because they are so useful. When it comes to the nature of a unified reality, it's philosophically absurd to leave out mentality as one of its features.

(I guess we need a term like "Phy People" too... all physical, all the time. )

[show_no_mercy]

Originally Posted by breezanne

I completely support what the evidence actually tells us... of tight correlations between mind/brain

Yeah, but:

Originally Posted by breezanne

during life in the body.

There's no evidence that life exists outside of the body, so this is where you admit your conjecture.

Originally Posted by breezanne

Between mental experience/expression and physical electrochemical activity. Evidence also tells us that minds can do other things at other "times."

What evidence?

Originally Posted by breezanne

Obviously, mind is "interdependent with the brain" during life in the body. The unnecessary conjecture/extrapolation is to insist that mind is always and only "an emergent property of the brain."

It's not unecessary conjecture. On the contrary, it's a very limiting conjecture. The unecessary conjecture is positing that there's some sort of life that exists independently of biological processes. As far as we know right now, life only exists biologically. The conjecture happens when you assume more than this without at the same time offering a methodology to test any additional conjecture (the difference between the spurrious conjecture of IDists/Christians, OBE peeps, psi, etc. and the hypothetical-deductive model).

Basically, it's the equivalent of saying "the universe just exists" (science) and "god created the universe, god just exists" (OBE/Christian paradigm). OBE/Christians posit more entities than strictly evidenced-based thinking.

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

Yeah, but:
There's no evidence that life exists outside of the body, so this is where you admit your conjecture.

What evidence?

It's not unecessary conjecture. On the contrary, it's a very limiting conjecture. The unecessary conjecture is positing that there's some sort of life that exists independently of biological processes. As far as we know right now, life only exists biologically. The conjecture happens when you assume more than this without at the same time offering a methodology to test any additional conjecture (the difference between the spurrious conjecture of IDists/Christians, OBE peeps, psi, etc. and the hypothetical-deductive model).

Basically, it's the equivalent of saying "the universe just exists" (science) and "god created the universe, god just exists" (OBE/Christian paradigm). OBE/Christians posit more entities than strictly evidenced-based thinking.

There is all kinds of convergent evidence that mind is not always focused on/through a body (other threads, and real life). It's your conjecture that none of that evidence could possibly be valid, because that wouldn't fit with your conjecture that brains make minds, which is based on your conjecture that only physical stuff is real/causal.

Your assumption is acting as your conclusion. Only physical things can be biological... mind is neither physical nor biological... ever. It's mental, whether it's busy experiencing life in the body, or not.

Mind is not an unnecessary entity to any known or knowable reality. It's hardly "posited"... indeed, it's the only thing that posits... and the only thing that ever reports experiences/events/evidence. Like I said, when it comes to the nature of a unified reality, it's philosophically absurd to leave out mentality as one of its features... some level(s) of mind(s) to which reality seems "real."

Evidently, reality exists... and just as evidently, it contains [at least] minds and their conceptions, some of which are of objects/processes/systems that are apparent to minds (the shared/physical universe). No additional physicalist conjectures/extrapolations are required by or beneficial to the science in which we study the observable/spatiotemporal/physical subset of reality.

It makes no sense to conflate OBEs with Christianity, or Christianity with Creationists, or Creationists with people who have acknowledged the evidence for psi. There is far too much inaccurate lumping going on around here... and it's motivated in defense of unsupported physicalist belief systems.

[AdamWho]

I would suggest that the psi people; if you are in a hole you should stop digging.

Useful tips I give to creationists:
1. Try to separate your religious beliefs from scientific claims. For example, you can believe in special creation, just don't try to claim it as science; have faith! Besides it will keep you out of the god-of-the-gaps fallacy.
2. Try to see the work of science as a study of gods creation rather than as debasing it. The psi people can look to current work in neurology / cognitive psych as a way to understand the mind more fully.
3. Try to admit when you are wrong or don't understand the subject matter. God doesn't need liars of charlatans working for him.
4. If these things seem too difficult then you should try and separate yourself from the world and the products of the science/research/technology you object to; god will approve.

[AdamWho]

It makes no sense to conflate OBEs with Christianity, or Christianity with Creationists, or Creationists with people who have acknowledged the evidence for psi. There is far too much inaccurate lumping going on around here... and it's motivated in defense of unsupported physicalist belief systems.

It makes tons of sense to LINK belief in psi, paranormal, afterlife, OBE, quantum consciousness, and all manner of new-age quackery with ID/creationism. They spring from the same root, the only difference is that new-age beliefs object to the traditions, hierarchy, and patriarchy of western religion.

[show_no_mercy]

Originally Posted by breezanne

There is all kinds of convergent evidence that mind is not always focused on/through a body (other threads, and real life). It's your conjecture that none of that evidence could possibly be valid, because that wouldn't fit with your conjecture that brains make minds, which is based on your conjecture that only physical stuff is real/causal.

[...]

It makes no sense to conflate OBEs with Christianity, or Christianity with Creationists, or Creationists with people who have acknowledged the evidence for psi. There is far too much inaccurate lumping going on around here... and it's motivated in defense of unsupported physicalist belief systems.

The only assumption I have is methodological naturalism. You're (as in soul/spirit/OBE types) the only ones who are positing more processes to explain, without any methodology to explain them; and as far I can tell, posit things that don't have any naturalistic properties. This is what's meant by *conjecture* (again, as opposed to the hypothetical-deductive model) - the needless insertion of additional entities/processes that still don't explain things that are adequately explained without multiplying processes.

Water freezing at 32 F is an emergent property of dihydrogen monoxide. If you take away the oxygen, then the hydrogen gets a new emergent property of freezing at -434 F. It's unecessary to posit that water gains an immaterial water pixie thinigie-majig that makes it start freezing at 32F and then this immaterial pixie that makes it freeze at 32F just up and leaves when the oxygen molecule breaks the bond. This is the equivalent of brain damage, where a person's basic personality, temperment, perception of the world, etc. are affected by trauma to the brain. There's no need to posit a soul when the brain accurately predicts what happens to a person's experience of the world and personality when we poke and prod a person's brain.

This is why positing "goddidit" / "water pixies that makes it freeze at 32F" is the equivalent of saying "the mind exists independently of the body". They're essentially the same needless addition of unfalsifiable entities. And this is also why the same arguments used against Creationists/IDers will work against OBE arguments. They're both unfalsifiable, and haven't put forth any predictions about soul/spirit/whatever's behavior when tested.

Until you get out of the ditch of unfalsifiability, you're going to be positing superfulous processes that have no explanatory power.

Consequently, I'd be willing to change my mind if a mind existing independently of a brain were to have some sort of naturalistic explanation and/or explanatory power. I doubt you'd be willing to let go of your conjecture no matter what happens.

[breezanne]

AdamWho... the beliefs you espouse are irrelevant to science, and you seem not to have absorbed the meaning of anything I've said to you.

Sure, it makes sense to a dogmatic physicalists to LINK together everything that is not dogmatically physicalist. Us versus Them. Doesn't mean it's even remotely justified.

[AdamWho]

Originally Posted by breezanne

AdamWho... the beliefs you espouse are irrelevant to science, and you seem not to have absorbed the meaning of anything I've said to you.

Sure, it makes sense to a dogmatic physicalists to LINK together everything that is not dogmatically physicalist. Us versus Them. Doesn't mean it's even remotely justified.

If you want to do science then you have to follow a process. THAT IS A FACT NOT A BELIEF.

You haven't said ANYTHING in the thousands of post on this topic except
1. call people dogmatic physicalists, pseudoskeptics or what ever BS term you are using these days.
2. Make unfounded assertions

I am not dogmatic, I just like to follow the evidence. I am would like my fellow Americans to stop being morons when it comes to science issues, if you are not a voting US citizen then you can believe anything you want.

If you don't have anything to say about the article, then quit posting in this thread, please. Your presence, and the other psi-people's presence in this thread jeopardizes the issue being taken seriously and will threaten it for closer.

[spanner365]

Originally Posted by breezanne

There is all kinds of convergent evidence that mind is not always focused on/through a body (other threads, and real life). It's your conjecture that none of that evidence could possibly be valid, because that wouldn't fit with your conjecture that brains make minds, which is based on your conjecture that only physical stuff is real/causal.

You need to back this up if you are going to keep repeating it. Or you could just admit that you don’t actually have any real evidence for your claims.
Here is something I found on the Wikipedia page on parapsychology:

“The scientific community outside the small field of parapsychology has not accepted psychic abilities. In 1988 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences produced a report that concluded that there is "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena."”

A source is provided on the page.
Why, if your evidence is so compelling, is it not accepted by the scientific community in general? I would like a direct answer to this question please.

Your assumption is acting as your conclusion. Only physical things can be biological... mind is neither physical nor biological... ever. It's mental, whether it's busy experiencing life in the body, or not.

What is with the certainty here? You never answered my question on that other thread as to why mind requires an explanation apart from brain and yet here you are as sure as ever that it does. Please, break it down for me into small steps. I am dumb.

Mind is not an unnecessary entity to any known or knowable reality. It's hardly "posited"... indeed, it's the only thing that posits... and the only thing that ever reports experiences/events/evidence. Like I said, when it comes to the nature of a unified reality, it's philosophically absurd to leave out mentality as one of its features... some level(s) of mind(s) to which reality seems "real."

You do realize that mind positing things doesn’t prove the mind cannot be reduced to the brain, right?

Evidently, reality exists... and just as evidently, it contains [at least] minds and their conceptions, some of which are of objects/processes/systems that are apparent to minds (the shared/physical universe). No additional physicalist conjectures/extrapolations are required by or beneficial to the science in which we study the observable/spatiotemporal/physical subset of reality.

There is a certain lack of substance/logical progression missing from your posts.

It makes no sense to conflate OBEs with Christianity, or Christianity with Creationists, or Creationists with people who have acknowledged the evidence for psi. There is far too much inaccurate lumping going on around here... and it's motivated in defense of unsupported physicalist belief systems.

Could you try to focus more on the "sharing of ideas part" and less on the "interesting psychological study" part?

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

The only assumption I have is methodological naturalism. You're (as in soul/spirit/OBE types) the only ones who are positing more processes to explain, without any methodology to explain them; and as far I can tell, posit things that don't have any naturalistic properties. This is what's meant by *conjecture* (again, as opposed to the hypothetical-deductive model) - the needless insertion of additional entities/processes that still don't explain things that are adequately explained without multiplying processes.

Water freezing at 32 F is an emergent property of dihydrogen monoxide. If you take away the oxygen, then the hydrogen gets a new emergent property of freezing at -434 F. It's unecessary to posit that water gains an immaterial water pixie thinigie-majig that makes it start freezing at 32F and then this immaterial pixie that makes it freeze at 32F just up and leaves when the oxygen molecule breaks the bond. This is the equivalent of brain damage, where a person's basic personality, temperment, perception of the world, etc. are affected by trauma to the brain. There's no need to posit a soul when the brain accurately predicts what happens to a person's experience of the world and personality when we poke and prod a person's brain.

This is why positing "goddidit" / "water pixies that makes it freeze at 32F" is the equivalent of saying "the mind exists independently of the body". They're essentially the same needless addition of unfalsifiable entities. And this is also why the same arguments used against Creationists/IDers will work against OBE arguments. They're both unfalsifiable, and haven't put forth any predictions about soul/spirit/whatever's behavior when tested.

Until you get out of the ditch of unfalsifiability, you're going to be positing superfulous processes that have no explanatory power.

Consequently, I'd be willing to change my mind if a mind existing independently of a brain were to have some sort of naturalistic explanation and/or explanatory power. I doubt you'd be willing to let go of your conjecture no matter what happens.

Methodological naturalism is a useful approach... not a philosophical assumption.

Is mind the same thing as soul? Spirit? Is your awareness a mind while you're alive, but would require a new label after you die?

The mind never qualifies as a physical process... not even when it's correlating with physical processes (during life in the body). Mind is not "additional"... it's fundamental. Don't leave home without it.

Freezing, however, is a physical process. The freezing point of physical substances depends on physical qualities of those substances. We can literally explain it down to the finest physical levels, in terms of mass, charge, space & time (motion), etc. Quite unlike mental awareness/mind.

On the other hand, just calling something an "emergent property" doesn't explain anything. It's just a label. And it certainly doesn't explain how electrochemical/physical brain activity... "POOF"... turns into aware/purposeful mental entities.

Everyone knows that the state of the brain affects the mind's experience and expression through that brain. So what? Mind also affects the state of the brain. Feedback and control.

I did not know of evidence that "god" or "water pixies" make water freeze. However, there is evidence that mind is not ultimately bound to brain. Other threads... and real life all around you. Abre los ojos.

What is an OBE "argument" anyway? Do you actually think that mind is superfluous, while its existence is "unfalsifiable"? Weird, confused stuff you're offering there, s_n_m.

So... you'd accept the evidence that mind can exist even when it's not focused on/through a brain... if and when there is a physical explanation for how it does so? It seems that you plan to cling to your physicalist conjectures no matter what, as though that will justify clinging to physicalist conjectures. It won't.

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by AdamWho

If you want to do science then you have to follow a process. THAT IS A FACT NOT A BELIEF.

You haven't said ANYTHING in the thousands of post on this topic except
1. call people dogmatic physicalists, pseudoskeptics or what ever BS term you are using these days.
2. Make unfounded assertions

I am not dogmatic, I just like to follow the evidence. I am would like my fellow Americans to stop being morons when it comes to science issues, if you are not a voting US citizen then you can believe anything you want.

If you don't have anything to say about the article, then quit posting in this thread, please. Your presence, and the other psi-people's presence in this thread jeopardizes the issue being taken seriously and will threaten it for closer.

Science can involve many different kinds of processes. So?

I've said all kinds of things. You've mentally filtered out all but two, and they're both inaccurate, since I don't call people pseudoskeptics, and I don't make "unfounded" assertions.

I do follow the evidence. When it conflicts with your beliefs, you apparently do not. I quite agree that Americans need to wise up about science issues, including the "nature of science."

I've spoken quite clearly about the article... see above. I addressed each of your enumerated points. I've also spoken about your attempt to lump everyone you disagree with into some kind of monolithic caricature... see above.

Again, I myself think the term "non-material neuroscience" makes no sense. Nonmaterial mind, sure. Non-materialist neuroscientists, sure, I know a number of them. But Adam, exactly how many arguments for Christianity, ID, or creationism have you heard in the threads you mention? Looks mighty like you're trying to assign "guilt/discredit" by association.

Yes, I have noticed that you feel threatened by the presence of intelligent posters who disagree with your prejudices. Sorry about that... but you have nothing to fear from the free and open exchange of ideas... do you? I promise I shall never open a thread designed to decry physicalists, and disallow physicalists from speaking therein.

[figuer]

Originally Posted by AdamWho

Yes that is the point. The psi people, whether they know it or not, are implicitly on the same side as the ID people. They may have different motivations (or not) but they have a similar goal, which is to reintroduce Cartesian Dualism back into science. The ID people just take it an additional step by claiming the Christian god as the organizing force behind the spirit realm whereas the psi people haven't gotten around to explaining how this spirit realm works.

You are wrong. "Psi people" do not conform a specific group, nor do "they" expose any particular set of beliefs, and cartesian dualism is not one of the aspects of Psi (Psi simply denotes a category of experience where the relationship between mind and reality seems to manifests itself in a way not consistent with a physicalist model). Many people who consider that there is evidence for Psi, are inclined towards monist/immanent world views, not dualism. There is no justification for the claim that "Psi people" are in the same side as ID people.

[breezanne]

Originally Posted by spanner365

You need to back this up if you are going to keep repeating it. Or you could just admit that you don’t actually have any real evidence for your claims.
Here is something I found on the Wikipedia page on parapsychology:

“The scientific community outside the small field of parapsychology has not accepted psychic abilities. In 1988 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences produced a report that concluded that there is "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena."”

A source is provided on the page.
Why, if your evidence is so compelling, is it not accepted by the scientific community in general? I would like a direct answer to this question please.

What is with the certainty here? You never answered my question on that other thread as to why mind requires an explanation apart from brain and yet here you are as sure as ever that it does. Please, break it down for me into small steps. I am dumb.

You do realize that mind positing things doesn’t prove the mind cannot be reduced to the brain, right?

There is a certain lack of substance/logical progression missing from your posts.

Could you try to focus more on the "sharing of ideas part" and less on the "interesting psychological study" part?

What absolute omniscient authority authored your "Wiki quote"? You know, if I was going to take any individual's word on the matter, I might be as swayed by your Wiki page or any particular report as you seem to be. But I and many others are rather better informed. If you don't personally know of any significant psi events, you are justified in... remaining neutral. Full stop.

The scientific community that studies observable material objects/processes/systems is arguably no better qualified to judge the existence of unobservable immaterial mental activity than any person who actually experiences it. It's absurd to deny significant psi events based on physicalist beliefs... but it happens all the time. Just like creationists deny the evidence for evolution, based on Biblical beliefs.

Wwweeeeelllllll.... biological stuff is physical stuff that is associated with life. Mind is defined as mental, the antonym of physical (look it up). "Brain activity" is not an "explanation" for mind, spanner. Brain activity and mind correlate during life in the body. Are you wishing to assume something "additional" beyond this bare fact?

Minds exist. Brains seem (to minds) to exist (part of this presently familiar apparent/observable/shared/physical realm of experience and expression).

Mind is not merely posited. It exists. What belief causes you to believe the mind can be "reduced to the brain"? I've never seen evidence for those beliefs.

Or maybe too much substance, too much logic.

Did you grasp the gist of the OP? I myself have been addressing it... by sharing ideas, including ideas about the gist of the OP. How about you?

[scombrid]

Schwartz used scanning technology to look at the neural patterns thought to be responsible for OCD. Then he had patients use "mindful attention" to actively change their thought processes, and this showed up in the brain scans: patients could alter their patterns of neural firing at will.

From such experiments, Schwartz and others argue that since the mind can change the brain, the mind must be something other than the brain,...

I wonder if it occurred to him that this mightn't have been their "minds" altering their brains but was his instructions (external stimuli) altering their brains?

[breezanne]

Except that it was actually the mentally interpreted, abstract meaning of the instructions that initiated their mental choice to pay "mindful attention" toward purposefully changing their thought processes... and thus, their neural patterns.