Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science

Here's a Manifesto written by 8 co-authors and all but two hold PhD's. The idea of materialism never made any sense to me. It's a religion that requires strong faith. Materialist often say it's the most logical assumption but that's an opinion based on a belief. In the end, it doesn't explain anything and it's simply illogical.

And on it's face, there's nothing wrong with holding a materialist belief. The problem is, those who hold a materialist belief are more dogmatic than many people who practice their religion. At least with religion, it's based on faith and they admit it's based on faith. Materialist acts like their religion is based on science when in fact there isn't any science that supports materialism. Materialism is a belief that says, we know that these physical processes occurs THEREFORE these physical processes MUST be the cause of everything. Again, this is a belief and a statement of faith not science.

Also, anyone who dares to think differently than materialist are engaging in woo or pseudo-science. This sounds similar to the Jehovah Witnesses who knocked on my door years ago. Like I said, it's fine if you hold a materialist belief. What is absurd and illogical is acting like anyone who thinks differently and proposes that we look to answer some of these questions in a different way is instantly met with indignation and ridicule.

Idealism and Materialism should start out on equal footing when it comes to scientific inquiry. In fact, Idealism should be given more weight because evidence in support of Idealism is growing while there's no evidence for materialism. By definition there can't be any evidence for materialism. We just have to ASSUME that these physical processes give rise to everything. In fact, there's more and more articles coming out with Scientist giving up hope for naturalness. This is because everywhere they look their finding extraordinary fine tuning and they're not finding naturalness. So they have to say are universe is basically an improbable miracle but the universe and parallel universes are infinite and eternal. This runs into even more problems because this would mean any and everything could fluctuate into existence if a universe as big as ours with a low entropy state can somehow fluctuate into existence. It actually makes more sense to say we're the memories of a Boltzmann brain that fluctuated into existence instead of a universe the size of ours with it's low entropy state. Here's some of the Manifesto.

We are a group of internationally known scientists, from a variety of scientific fields (biology, neuroscience, psychology, medicine, and psychiatry), who participated in an international summit on post-materialist science, spirituality, and society. The summit was co-organized by Gary E. Schwartz, PhD and Mario Beauregard, PhD, the University of Arizona, and Lisa Miller, PhD, Columbia University. This summit was held at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, on February 7–9, 2014. Our purpose was to discuss the impact of the materialist ideology on science and the emergence of a post-materialist paradigm for science, spirituality, and society.

We have come to the following conclusions:

1. The modern scientific worldview is predominantly predicated on assumptions that are closely associated with classical physics. Materialism—the idea that matter is the only reality—is one of these assumptions. A related assumption is reductionism, the notion that complex things can be understood by reducing them to the interactions of their parts or to simpler or more fundamental things such as tiny material particles.

2. During the 19th century, these assumptions narrowed, turned into dogmas, and coalesced into an ideological belief system that came to be known as “scientific materialism.” This belief system implies that the mind is nothing but the physical activity of the brain and that our thoughts cannot have any effect upon our brains and bodies, our actions, and the physical world.

3. The ideology of scientific materialism became dominant in academia during the 20th century. So dominant that a majority of scientists started to believe that it was based on established empirical evidence and represented the only rational view of the world.

8. Psychological studies have shown that conscious mental activity can causally influence behavior and that the explanatory and predictive value of agentic factors (e.g., beliefs, goals, desires, and expectations) is very high. Moreover, research in psychoneuroimmunology indicates that our thoughts and emotions can markedly affect the activity of the physiological systems (e.g., immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular) connected to the brain. In other respects, neuroimaging studies of emotional self-regulation, psychotherapy, and the placebo effect demonstrate that mental events significantly influence the activity of the brain.

9. Studies of the so-called “psi phenomena” indicate that we can sometimes receive meaningful information without the use of ordinary senses, and in ways that transcend the habitual space and time constraints. Furthermore, psi research demonstrates that we can mentally influence—at a distance—physical devices and living organisms (including other human beings). Psi research also shows that distant minds may behave in ways that are nonlocally correlated, i.e., the correlations between distant minds are hypothesized to be unmediated (they are not linked to any known energetic signal), unmitigated (they do not degrade with increasing distance), and immediate (they appear to be simultaneous). These events are so common that they cannot be viewed as anomalous or as exceptions to natural laws, but as indications of the need for a broader explanatory framework that cannot be predicated exclusively on materialism.

The Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science was prepared by Mario Beauregard, PhD (University of Arizona), Gary E. Schwartz, PhD (University of Arizona), and Lisa Miller, PhD (Columbia University), in collaboration with Larry Dossey, MD, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD, Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, and Charles Tart, PhD.

www.explorejournal.com...

These things are needed because the Dogma of materialism is just illogical. Anyone who thinks outside of the materialist paradigm is met with derision and things like "There's no evidence." This is just a silly statement. There's tons of evidence and all of these people didn't just wake up one day and say, I think I will believe these things for no reason at all. You know you're dealing with Dogma when you can't even admit that others have looked at these things intelligently and looked at evidence but they reached a different conclusion than I have. What's so hard about saying that? It's because materialism is like a faith based religion.

There was another paper released earlier in the year that was along similar lines. It was called.

A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness

Science thrives when there is an open, informed discussion of all evidence, and recognition that scientific knowledge is provisional and subject to revision. This attitude is in stark contrast with reaching conclusions based solely on a previous set of beliefs or on the assertions of authority figures. Indeed, the search for knowledge wherever it may lead inspired a group of notable scientists and philosophers to found in 1882 the Society for Psychical Research in London. Its purpose was “to investigate that large body of debatable phenomena… without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems.” Some of the areas in consciousness they investigated such as psychological dissociation, hypnosis, and preconscious cognition are now well integrated into mainstream science. That has not been the case with research on phenomena such as purported telepathy or precognition, which some scientists (a clear minority according to the surveys conducted en.wikademia.org...) dis-miss a priori as pseudoscience or illegitimate. Contrary to the negative impression given by some critics, we would like to stress the following:

A very interesting read and here's a list of the Scientist who signed onto this view.

Daryl Bem, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Cornell University, USA

Etzel Cardeña, Thorsen Professor of Psychology, Lund University, Sweden

Bernard Carr, Professor in Mathematics and Astronomy, University of London, UK

C. Robert Cloninger, Renard Professor of Psychiatry, Genetics, and Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

Robert G. Jahn, Past Dean of Engineering, Princeton University, USA

Brian Josephson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge, UK (Nobel prizewinner in physics, 1973)

Menas C. Kafatos, Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics, Chapman University, USA

Irving Kirsch, Professor of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Lecturer in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA, UK

Mark Leary, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, USA

Dean Radin, Chief Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Adjunct Faculty in Psychology, Sonoma State University, USA

Robert Rosenthal, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Riverside, Edgar Pierce Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, USA

Lothar Schäfer, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry, University of Arkansas, USA

Raymond Tallis, Emeritus Professor of Geriatric Medicine, University of Manchester, UK

Charles T. Tart, Professor in Psychology Emeritus, University of California, Davis, USA

Simon Thorpe, Director of Research CNRS (Brain and Cognition), University of Toulouse, France

Patrizio Tressoldi, Researcher in Psychology, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy

Jessica Utts, Professor and Chair of Statistics, University of California, Irvine, USA

Max Velmans, Professor Emeritus in Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Caroline Watt, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Edinburgh University, UK

Phil Zimbardo, Professor in Psychology Emeritus, Stanford University, USA

And…

P. Baseilhac, Researcher in Theoretical Physics, University of Tours, France

Eberhard Bauer, Dept. Head, Institute of Border Areas of Psychology and Mental Hygiene, Freiburg, Germany

Julie Beischel, Adjunct Faculty in Psychology and Integrated Inquity, Saybrook University, USA

Hans Bengtsson, Professor of Psychology, Lund University, Sweden

Michael Bloch, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of San Francisco, USA

Stephen Braude, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA

Richard Broughton, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, University of Northampton, UK

Antonio Capafons, Professor of Psychology, University of Valencia, Spain

James C. Carpenter, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

Allan Leslie Combs, Doshi Professor of Consciousness Studies, California Institute of Integral Studies, USA

Deborah Delanoy, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Northampton, UK

Arnaud Delorme, Professor of Neuroscience, Paul Sabatier University, France

Vilfredo De Pascalis, Professor of General Psychology, “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy

Kurt Dressler, Professor in Molecular Spectroscopy Emeritus, Eidg. Techn. Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland

Hoyt Edge, Hugh H. and Jeannette G. McKean Professor of Philosophy, Rollins College, USA

Suitbert Ertel, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Germany

Franco Fabbro, Professor in Child Neuropsychiatry, University of Udine, Italy

Enrico Facco, Professor of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, University of Padua, Italy

Wolfgang Fach, Researcher, Institute of Border Areas of Psychology and Mental Hygiene, Freiburg, Germany

Harris L. Friedman, Former Research Professor of Psychology, University of Florida, USA

Alan Gauld, Former Reader in Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK

Antoon Geels, Professor in the Psychology of Religion Emeritus, Lund University, Sweden

Bruce Greyson, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

Erlendur Haraldsson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Iceland, Iceland

Richard Conn Henry, Academy Professor (Physics and Astronomy), The Johns Hopkins University, USA

David J. Hufford, University Professor Emeritus, Penn State College of Medicine, USA

Oscar Iborra, Researcher, Department of Experimental Psychology, Granada University, Spain

Harvey Irwin, former Associate Professor, University of New England, Australia

Graham Jamieson, Lecturer in Human Neuropsychology, University of New England, Australia

Erick Janssen, Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, Indiana University, USA

Per Johnsson, Head, Department of Psychology, Lund University, Sweden

Edward F. Kelly, Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

Emily Williams Kelly, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

Hideyuki Kokubo, Researcher, Institute for Informatics of Consciousness, Meiji University, Japan

Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies, Rice University, USA

These are just some of the names that signed onto this. You can read more here.

journal.frontiersin.org...

Of course, they must be all weirdos and practitioners of woo because they dare to think outside of the religion of materialism.

I know one of those people. My mother was working with him at UCI when I was a kid, and they were doing experiments with biofeedback. They did some experiments with me. He was a very serious individual, very scientific- not a woo-woo nut at all.

I think it is time we consider consciousness from a different angle.

1. The modern scientific worldview is predominantly predicated on assumptions that are closely associated with classical physics. Materialism—the idea that matter is the only reality—is one of these assumptions. A related assumption is reductionism, the notion that complex things can be understood by reducing them to the interactions of their parts or to simpler or more fundamental things such as tiny material particles.

materialism may not be the only reality but i would argue that our relationship with it qualifies it as the PRIMARY reality from our frame of reference.

2. During the 19th century, these assumptions narrowed, turned into dogmas, and coalesced into an ideological belief system that came to be known as “scientific materialism.” This belief system implies that the mind is nothing but the physical activity of the brain and that our thoughts cannot have any effect upon our brains and bodies, our actions, and the physical world.

it has been proven that there is correlation between psychological processes and biological processes although causation is still being determined. as for the psionics portion, it is a field that deserves rigorous and professional investigation. leave no stone unturned, but call a centipede a centipede.

3. The ideology of scientific materialism became dominant in academia during the 20th century. So dominant that a majority of scientists started to believe that it was based on established empirical evidence and represented the only rational view of the world.

the problem you run into at this point is determining where the mind influences the data and where it doesnt. given the nature of the study, this problem is all the further exacerbated by the fact that what you are studying is actively being used to study itself. how then do you effectively isolate flaws in such a method? furthermore, how do you rectify those flaws definitively? my point is that the material world is verifiable independent of the minds seeking to verify it. whereas the fields of study oriented around consciousness and its relationship with the physical worlds are vulnerable to all the psychological trappings that convinced us that lighting was Zeus having a temper tantrum. forgive us if we are a bit wary of employing such a tool in the study of said tool. you may as well hire a criminal lawyer to represent himself.

8. Psychological studies have shown that conscious mental activity can causally influence behavior and that the explanatory and predictive value of agentic factors (e.g., beliefs, goals, desires, and expectations) is very high. Moreover, research in psychoneuroimmunology indicates that our thoughts and emotions can markedly affect the activity of the physiological systems (e.g., immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular) connected to the brain. In other respects, neuroimaging studies of emotional self-regulation, psychotherapy, and the placebo effect demonstrate that mental events significantly influence the activity of the brain.

as i said before we have observed a very close relationship between the brain and the body, deeper than we were previously aware of. however this does not necessarily extend to environmental manipulation, which is cause for a finer brush than what appears to be at use here. "IM TELLY-KINETIC HURR HURR!"

Studies of the so-called “psi phenomena” indicate that we can sometimes receive meaningful information without the use of ordinary senses, and in ways that transcend the habitual space and time constraints. Furthermore, psi research demonstrates that we can mentally influence—at a distance—physical devices and living organisms (including other human beings). Psi research also shows that distant minds may behave in ways that are nonlocally correlated, i.e., the correlations between distant minds are hypothesized to be unmediated (they are not linked to any known energetic signal), unmitigated (they do not degrade with increasing distance), and immediate (they appear to be simultaneous). These events are so common that they cannot be viewed as anomalous or as exceptions to natural laws, but as indications of the need for a broader explanatory framework that cannot be predicated exclusively on materialism.

like i said, vigorous and professional investigation. i run into a lot of so called "expert opinions" that are nothing but tailored woo-woo speak based in limited scientific data extrapolated on a framework of metaphysical jargon thats more mystical buzzwords than any technical information. id like to look at a wikipedia page on telepathy and find the same kind of information you would on the electromagnetic spectrum. well-researched and documented data with reliable sources accompanied by repeatable experiments using professional methods, tools and minds. i dont see a whole lot of that going on except in the material world. and its worth mentioning that the only reason we found the higgs boson was because of the PHYSICAL TRACES it left behind. so yeah, solid ground does have its merits as opposed to the quicksand of psychic research. which is why im a little confused when you refer to it as a religion particularly when all of the "tenets" of said "religion" are obeyed by reality itself regardless of whether we are around to observe it, which undermines any philosophical quality one may be tempted to ascribe to such a field. religion indeed...strange how materialist science requires so little faith or spirituality to support its conclusions and data sets.

do i need to answer the rest of the points in the list you linked? i only covered the quoted ones.

i want to be clear here that while i am defending material based science as opposed to psychic-based i am not saying it shouldnt exist. it is very much a worthwhile field to explore in my opinion but it is in juvenile stages right now and that should be reflected in any immediate results. this is not like physics where a long history of rules and observations are solidly established. something is there and we are exploring its vague contours with the hopes of nailing down at least a profile of its dimensions and properties, but we are not there yet. nor will it be any semblance of a short or straight ride getting there. its one hell of a maze we are poking and prodding in the dark here, and that is something we MUST be honest with ourselves about regardless of what we hope or expect to find. and thats my point.

a reply to: neoholographic

I have nothing to contribute. I just wanted to say that I love this, thanks for sharing! S&F all around!

a reply to: TzarChasm

There's a few BIG problems in your post. You said:

it has been proven that there is correlation between psychological processes and biological processes although causation is still being determined.

This statement doesn't mean very much in the context of this debate. I can prove that there's correlation between driving and accidents but that wouldn't give me the cause why the person is driving down 2nd street or why a person in the accident is driving on a particular stretch of highway at a particular time.

And in many areas there's absolutely no correlation between the brain and the mind outside of the brain providing a mechanistic explanation about a material process not the cause of the experience we see.

For instance, recall of specific memories.

How does the material brain initiate the recall of specific memories?

How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wishes for the material brain to recall?

How does the material brain know the difference between these memories?

How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that's associated with a specific memory?

The point is, you can't say, well we see activity in the brain when X is occurring THEREFORE the brain MUST BE the cause of X. That's a statement of faith not science. And everyday more and more Scientist are realizing this and they're asking questions outside of the materialist paradigm. Materialism doesn't answer these question and by definition it can't.

So I could explain the mechanism of how my car drives but that mechanistic process isn't the cause of me driving to Atlanta and where I stop along the way. Activity in the brain could just be telling you how the mind interacts with the material brain and there's more and more evidence pointing to this conclusion.

You said:

the problem you run into at this point is determining where the mind influences the data and where it doesnt. given the nature of the study, this problem is all the further exacerbated by the fact that what you are studying is actively being used to study itself. how then do you effectively isolate flaws in such a method? furthermore, how do you rectify those flaws definitively? my point is that the material world is verifiable independent of the minds seeking to verify it. whereas the fields of study oriented around consciousness and its relationship with the physical worlds are vulnerable to all the psychological trappings that convinced us that lighting was Zeus having a temper tantrum. forgive us if we are a bit wary of employing such a tool in the study of said tool. you may as well hire a criminal lawyer to represent himself.

With this, you started off asking decent questions and then like most who people who defend materialism, you fell into a trap because you realize how weak of an argument this is. You have to compare people looking into these areas as to people who were convinced that lightning was Zeus having a temper tantrum. Again, this is the dishonesty of people who try to take a different position. They can't just debate the issues because the position is so weak. They have to talk about magic, pseudoscience, woo and now Zeus. You just can't accept that people are looking at the evidence and reaching a different conclusion. This is why you added this.

i run into a lot of so called "expert opinions" that are nothing but tailored woo-woo speak based in limited scientific data extrapolated on a framework of metaphysical jargon thats more mystical buzzwords than any technical information.

Basically, this woo-woo nonsense means that if anyone disagrees with what I already believe then it's just woo. Like I said, it's just dishonest and it shows how blinded some are because they can't just say, yes there's evidence but it's not strong enough to support the underlying hypothesis. They have to accuse those who don't agree with their blind faith as practitioners of woo or of practicing pseudo-science.

You said the material world is independent of the minds that are seeking to verify it and how do you know that the material world and the mind are separate and independent of each other? How can this be the case if the mind is just an emerging properties of physical processes? This would actually be an illusion of mind investigating a real phenomena.

Again, what you're saying is basically a modern miracle that makes turning water into wine look like a simple card trick.

You're saying this illusion of consciousness that emerged from the material brain from some unknown processes is now verifying reality. If consciousness isn't an illusion of the material brain then how is the material brain investigating and verifying itself?

Like I said, all that is shown is the materialist processes occur and not that they're the cause of all things. This is just a statement of faith with no basis in reality and this is why more and more Scientist are saying we need to look for answers without being constrained by the religion of materialist. Of course these Scientist will all be called practitioners of woo but that just shows the weakness in your argument.

From my point of view the probability wave in double slit experiment and entanglement have already disproven materialism. Probability fields have been observed and are as real as gravity fields and magnetic fields and it is time we create better equipment to measure the fields so we can get objective ways to measure synchronicity that are not subjective.

I am for seeking spiritual understanding tempered by logic to try to be objective instead of subjective. I have played around a little with Reiki and a little intention->manifestation of psi and have gotten it to work a few times so I am not skeptic to the existence but wondering how you would maximize the outcome (still think of myself as a newbi when it comes to these things).

A test jgarcya is doing right now.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Even now people are making experiments with teleportation of information between entangled particles proving that you can manipulate reality from a distance if you can achieve a entangled state (a state of Synchronicity where 2 different parts of space time are connected even if we do not understand why).

a reply to: neoholographic

The point is, you can't say, well we see activity in the brain when X is occurring THEREFORE the brain MUST BE the cause of X.

continual observation and process of elimination ought to help a bit in that scenario. especially when we induce activity. playing with the brain is a great way of figuring out what does what. how do you think we will be able to control prosthetics with our minds, or compose messages with our thoughts? at some point a physical reaction is occurring. that much is obvious. and that gives us a pretty decent starting point for figuring out the rest. in contrast to speculating as to what vibrational frequency to play mozart at for optimal chakra healing and spiritual cleansing.

So I could explain the mechanism of how my car drives but that mechanistic process isn't the cause of me driving to Atlanta and where I stop along the way.

personality is what your talking about. personality is a mix of a lot of things that dont necessarily indicate any supernatural affiliation. are you trying to say something about souls? i dont know about souls. i know about empathy and sympathy and compassion. emotions driven by chemicals and filtered through psychological trappings. the mind.

With this, you started off asking decent questions and then like most who people who defend materialism, you fell into a trap because you realize how weak of an argument this is. You have to compare people looking into these areas as to people who were convinced that lightning was Zeus having a temper tantrum. They have to talk about magic, pseudoscience, woo and now Zeus. You just can't accept that people are looking at the evidence and reaching a different conclusion. This is why you added this.

yeah...trusting in intuition and "divine inspiration" to inform you. thats what its all about. some dimension or layer of reality that can transmit or hold information that connects everyone and it can also channel positive or negative energy and influence people or influence reality and change the world and possibly already has...at what point would YOU draw the line between consciousness and spirituality? because i know the temptation is there. once you start talking about world of thought and influence which exists everywhere around us and possibly houses or indicates something bigger, because suddenly you have this unique power to detect it, because science PROVES it. at least thats an argument ive come across before. gotta be careful of stuff like that. giving yourself a reason to think that delusion merits credibility, in many cases. its difficult to take something so magical because science barely understands what they want to know let alone how to approach the problem, and turn it into a field of expertise. calculus wasnt born overnight and from the sounds of it, this is a delicate area of research that may take a century to turn into either a goldmine or a forbidden art.

Basically, this woo-woo nonsense means that if anyone disagrees with what I already believe then it's just woo. Like I said, it's just dishonest and it shows how blinded some are because they can't just say, yes there's evidence but it's not strong enough to support the underlying hypothesis. They have to accuse those who don't agree with their blind faith as practitioners of woo or of practicing pseudo-science.

drop in on a global consciousness thread sometime and - oh wait you already buy into it. woo woo speak is a lot of mystical words that sound like you are talking the talk but really you are blowing smoke because none of it means anything. you could call it spiritualist gobbledygook, spiritualist because it uses a lot of spiritual sounding words. people can make money doing that, im told.

You're saying this illusion of consciousness that emerged from the material brain from some unknown processes is now verifying reality. If consciousness isn't an illusion of the material brain then how is the material brain investigating and verifying itself?

i never said consciousness is an illusion. i said it is unexplored and unfamiliar territory so tread safely. well, its easy. we now have the means to sustain an active brain while conducting a limited investigation of its functions. in conjunction with other data cross-examined with each other you should be able to build a solid foundation for future investigation. consciousness isnt an illusion because it has a source. or you might refer to it as a conduit. the brain. either way, physical interaction going on there, one that is at the very least manipulable on a rudimentary level using chemical compounds. that suggests a rough chemical logic going on in there, belying some magical mystical force pulling levers from the inside. thats my thinking.

Like I said, all that is shown is the materialist processes occur and not that they're the cause of all things. This is just a statement of faith with no basis in reality and this is why more and more Scientist are saying we need to look for answers without being constrained by the religion of materialist. Of course these Scientist will all be called practitioners of woo but that just shows the weakness in your argument.

how are you going to measure and record it and establish a database for it without material investigation? stockpiling it on the psychic web? also what do you mean by cause? the laws of physics arent cause enough for you?

a reply to: TzarChasm

This whole post is basically a hodge podge of nonsense that says nothing but this.

continual observation and process of elimination ought to help a bit in that scenario.

Translation:

THERE'S NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT MATERIALISTIC PROCESSES GIVING RISE TO THINGS LIKE CONSCIOUSNESS OR RECALL OF SPECIFIC MEMORIES.

I ask again.

How does the material brain initiate the recall of specific memories?

How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wishes for the material brain to recall?

How does the material brain know the difference between these memories?

How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that's associated with a specific memory?

Instead of bloviating and obfuscating let's see this great materialist explanation along with research as to how the brain accomplishes these things.

This is a key point because it shows materialist don't have any answers. This is why more and more Scientist are doing research and building theories to find answers. The materialist just assumes this must be true and makes statements like:

continual observation and process of elimination ought to help a bit in that scenario.

LOL, pure nonsense.

I could easily say the same thing. Continual observation that materialism can't explain anything leads me to the conclusion we need to look for different answers.

What you're saying is just a faith based opinion about materialism.

especially when we induce activity. playing with the brain is a great way of figuring out what does what. how do you think we will be able to control prosthetics with our minds, or compose messages with our thoughts? at some point a physical reaction is occurring.

You said playing with the mind is a great way to show what does what. So let's hear it. What does what when you're thinking about which girl you're going to marry. What does what when you recall a memory when you first went swimming? What initiates this recall and how does the material brain know this is a memory you wish to recall? How does the material brain choose who you're going to love? How does the material brain know the difference between a persons love for Wendy vs their love for Michelle?

Nobody said a physical reaction isn't occurring. There's just no evidence that the brain can do all of these things. You can't say because there's activity in the brain that means consciousness emerges from the brain or the brain can recall specific memories.

Also, when you write your post, try using capital letters after sentences and question marks. Reading your post can feel like reading something from Ted Kaczynski.

a reply to: neoholographic

continual observation and process of elimination ought to help a bit in that scenario.

Translation:

THERE'S NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT MATERIALISTIC PROCESSES GIVING RISE TO THINGS LIKE CONSCIOUSNESS OR RECALL OF SPECIFIC MEMORIES.

and what processes are you suggesting specifically?

I ask again.

How does the material brain initiate the recall of specific memories?

How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wishes for the material brain to recall?

same way your arm knows which muscles to move in what sequence in order to throw that ball to that particular point on the field. your brain is basically just another muscle. how does it know that? because you tested it and learned how to do it. and you kept doing it. its that simple.

Instead of bloviating and obfuscating let's see this great materialist explanation along with research as to how the brain accomplishes these things.

i want to know what NON MATERIAL scientific approach you suggest for investigating the mind and its mysteries.

continual observation and process of elimination ought to help a bit in that scenario.

LOL, pure nonsense.

I could easily say the same thing. Continual observation that materialism can't explain anything leads me to the conclusion we need to look for different answers.

you have to know what questions to ask, and how to test the answers you get. is this condescending attitude yet another benefit of knowing how easily one may unlock and decipher the mysteries of the mind? hmm perhaps i dont want to know your methods anymore...

You said playing with the mind is a great way to show what does what. So let's hear it. What does what when you're thinking about which girl you're going to marry. What does what when you recall a memory when you first went swimming? What initiates this recall and how does the material brain know this is a memory you wish to recall? How does the material brain choose who you're going to love? How does the material brain know the difference between a persons love for Wendy vs their love for Michelle?

en.wikipedia.org...

wikipedia will be more than happy to tell you all about it. and dont just dismiss it either.

Nobody said a physical reaction isn't occurring. There's just no evidence that the brain can do all of these things. You can't say because there's activity in the brain that means consciousness emerges from the brain or the brain can recall specific memories.

Also, when you write your post, try using capital letters after sentences and question marks. Reading your post can feel like reading something from Ted Kaczynski.

i see a lot of opinions and no substance also criticize my writing in PMs where such comments will be neither off topic nor in my direct line of view which is exactly where they should be.

a reply to: TzarChasm

You said:

and what processes are you suggesting specifically?

There's a few areas of research but the one that looks most promising to me is things that have to do with a Quantum Mind and Quantum Biology. For instance microtubules are found in the brain and in plant cells. Proteins within the subunits of these microtubules called tubulin could operate as quantum computers.

There's several areas that point to this. The recent discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules as predicted by Penrose/Hameroff.

phys.org...

The fact that more research into plants show they exhibit qualities we usually associate with things like consciousness and intelligence.



Professor Seth Lloyd says this:

How could tiny bacteria be performing the kind of sophisticated quantum manipulations that it takes human beings a room full of equipment to perform? Natural selection is a powerful force.

www.pbs.org...

This isn't even touching the surface. With the emerging field of Quantum Biology, we're seeing coherent quantum states in everything from the migration of birds to the sense of smell.

So the question is, why couldn't nature select these quantum features to give our species a huge advantage?

This line of reasoning makes more sense to me then IT MUST EMERGE from the material brain without a shred of evidence.

Let's look at your Wiki post you linked to illustrate this point.

Encoding. Encoding of working memory involves the spiking of individual neurons induced by sensory input, which persists even after the sensory input disappears (Jensen and Lisman 2005; Fransen et al. 2002). Encoding of episodic memory involves persistent changes in molecular structures that alter synaptic transmission between neurons. Examples of such structural changes include long-term potentiation (LTP) or spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). The persistent spiking in working memory can enhance the synaptic and cellular changes in the encoding of episodic memory (Jensen and Lisman 2005).

What sensory input initiates recall of specific memories?

How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wishes for the material brain to recall?

How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that's associate with this memory?

Your post tells us nothing because materialism tells us nothing outside the mechanistic process. It doesn't tell us how these processes can give rise to anything.

Here's more from your link.

Working memory. Recent functional imaging studies detected working memory signals in both medial temporal lobe (MTL), a brain area strongly associated with long-term memory, and prefrontal cortex (Ranganath et al. 2005), suggesting a strong relationship between working memory and long-term memory. However, the substantially more working memory signals seen in the prefrontal lobe suggest that this area play a more important role in working memory than MTL (Suzuki 2007).

Again, there just talking about activity in the brain. Who initiates the recall of long term memory? Who navigates through and operates the information the material brain processes. This tells you nothing. It's like explaining the mechanics of how brakes on a car works but it tells you nothing as to how those brakes are used by different individuals.

There's more but I will stop here. Did you even read the article you linked to. It supports exactly what I'm saying. Did you just type memory into Google and blindly post a link?

a reply to: neoholographic

There's a few areas of research but the one that looks most promising to me is things that have to do with a Quantum Mind and Quantum Biology. For instance microtubules are found in the brain and in plant cells. Proteins within the subunits of these microtubules called tubulin could operate as quantum computers.

There's several areas that point to this. The recent discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules as predicted by Penrose/Hameroff.

and how exactly do you propose to approach such an investigation without material based science?

This isn't even touching the surface. With the emerging field of Quantum Biology, we're seeing coherent quantum states in everything from the migration of birds to the sense of smell.

So the question is, why couldn't nature select these quantum features to give our species a huge advantage?

This line of reasoning makes more sense to me then IT MUST EMERGE from the material brain without a shred of evidence.

or maybe there are rules, the same kind of rule that makes sure you dont fall off the face of the planet.

What sensory input initiates recall of specific memories?

How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wishes for the material brain to recall?

How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that's associate with this memory?

Your post tells us nothing because materialism tells us nothing outside the mechanistic process. It doesn't tell us how these processes can give rise to anything.

i havent told you nothing. you have simply failed to comprehend the information which is the reason you are having this discussion. because incredibly, you are asking for answers on a conspiracy site instead of going out and buying a book like a normal human being. ats is not an encyclopedia. try your local bookstore or amazon.com

how does a flash drive store information on it? maybe it works the same way. i dont know. but the point is, your ignorance is not the result of a LACK of an answer but a LACK of YOU going out and FINDING that answer. please dont make the mistake of thinking science is at fault for your lack of initiative. far too many people make that mistake.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Basically, this post shows that there isn't any evidence that materialism can give rise to any of these things. So others theories backed by experimental evidence, starts off in a much stronger position than materialism. It's not enough for those who adhere to the old religion of materialism to say materialism explains these things even though they never give us any explanations. They somehow have come to the conclusion based on faith that materialism MUST BE the explanation to everything and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise is a practitioner of woo or they're engaging in pseudoscience. You asked:

and how exactly do you propose to approach such an investigation without material based science?

All you have to do is SCIENCE. It's the dogma of materialism that's incredulous as to where scientific exploration should go. It should go where the evidence takes you instead of declarations that this can't be or everything you don't agree with is pseudoscience because of your faith in materialism.

Nobody is saying, scrap materialism. Materialism is very good at explaining the mechanistic process. These Scientist are saying, when a materialistic explanation isn't there, it shouldn't be met with blind ridicule when someone dares to look for answers that may not fit into a materialist paradigm. This is just blind faith in materialism and has no place in scientific exploration.

For instance, some Scientist recently came out and said the wave function is a NON PHYSICAL REALITY.

The wave-function is real but nonphysical: A view from counterfactual quantum cryptography

Counterfactual quantum cryptography (CQC) is used here as a tool to assess the status of the quantum state: Is it real/ontic (an objective state of Nature) or epistemic (a state of the observer's knowledge)? In contrast to recent approaches to wave function ontology, that are based on realist models of quantum theory, here we recast the question as a problem of communication between a sender (Bob), who uses interaction-free measurements, and a receiver (Alice), who observes an interference pattern in a Mach-Zehnder set-up. An advantage of our approach is that it allows us to define the concept of "physical", apart from "real". In instances of counterfactual quantum communication, reality is ascribed to the interaction-freely measured wave function (ψ) because Alice deterministically infers Bob's measurement. On the other hand, ψ does not correspond to the physical transmission of a particle because it produced no detection on Bob's apparatus. We therefore conclude that the wave function in this case (and by extension, generally) is real, but not physical. Characteristically for classical phenomena, the reality and physicality of objects are equivalent, whereas for quantum phenomena, the former is strictly weaker. As a concrete application of this idea, the nonphysical reality of the wavefunction is shown to be the basic nonclassical phenomenon that underlies the security of CQC.

arxiv.org...

This was also echoed by a group of different Scientist.

Link

You have things like consciousness and simple things like recall of specific memories in which materialism has no explanation outside of materialism MUST BE the case.

Look at the Vacuum Catastrophe.

In cosmology the vacuum catastrophe refers to the disagreement of 107 orders of magnitude between the upper bound upon the vacuum energy density as inferred from data obtained from the Voyager spacecraft of less than 10/14 GeV/m3 and the zero-point energy of 10/121 GeV/m3 suggested by a naïve application of quantum field theory.[1] This discrepancy has been termed "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics."[2]

en.wikipedia.org...

Many theories try to stay true to what's called "naturalness." For instance, one of the reasons many Scientist will accept a multiverse or some form of the many worlds interpretation is because the fine tuning of the universe doesn't show naturalness.

Quantum Field Theory has been very successful in it's predictions. It seems to show randomness in the events that occur. This is akin to the rolling of a 7 or 10 when rolling a pair of dice. When they looked at what determined these outcomes they didn't find naturalness. They were off by 107 orders of magnitude in there predictions vs. observed evidence.

You also have what they call the axis of evil.

Without getting overly technical, the Copernican and cosmological principles require that any variation in the radiation from the CMB be more or less randomly distributed throughout the universe, especially on large scales. Results from the WMAP satellite (early 2000s) indicated that when looking at large scales of the universe, the noise could be partitioned into “hot” and “cold” sections, and this partitioning is aligned with our ecliptic plane and equinoxes. This partitioning and alignment resulted in an axis through the universe, which scientists dubbed “the axis of evil”, because of the damage it does to their theories. This axis passes right through our tiny portion of the universe. Laurence Krauss commented in 2005:

“ But when you look at [the cosmic microwave background] map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That’s crazy. We’re looking out at the whole universe. There’s no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.”

Most scientists brushed the observation off as a fluke of some type, and many theories were created to explain it away. Many awaited the Planck mission. The Planck satellite was looked upon as a referee for these unexpected (and unwelcome) results. The Planck satellite used different sensor technology, and an improved scanning pattern to map the CMB. In March 2013, Planck reported back, and in fact verified the presence of the signal in even higher definition than before!

There are cosmologists and scientists who recognize the signal for what it is, and recent articles have started talking about the need for some “new physics” to explain the results. Even on the Planck mission website Professor Efstathiou states:

“Our ultimate goal would be to construct a new model that predicts the anomalies and links them together. But these are early days; so far, we don’t know whether this is possible and what type of new physics might be needed. And that’s exciting”

medium.com...

Even atheist Laurence Krauss was shocked by these findings.

I can go on and on. Materialism is lacking as an explanation for many things and Scientist are looking for answers to these questions and they're just saying we need to explore these things without the Dogma from those who blindly adhere to materialism.

Double post

a reply to: neoholographic

at this point i have no reason to believe that you have any comprehensive knowledge of the data you are posting except as a vague notion that they support your anti-materialism platform. nor have i seen any indication that you have a readily available methodology for furthering science via non-material based tools. in other words, im done with this thread. and it appears everyone else is as well.

Idealism is boring. Besides, idealism has been the go-to metaphysics for thousands of years. It is the theme of every crusade, inquisition and war. Even today's materialism is idealism, and frankly, not materialist enough.

What is absurd and illogical is acting like anyone who thinks differently and proposes that we look to answer some of these questions in a different way is instantly met with indignation and ridicule.

The irony.

a reply to: TzarChasm

LOL, I have explained these things to you and you simply have no response because you probably don't have a clue as to what's being said.

What anti-materialist agenda??

I have said this:

Nobody is saying, scrap materialism. Materialism is very good at explaining the mechanistic process. These Scientist are saying, when a materialistic explanation isn't there, it shouldn't be met with blind ridicule when someone dares to look for answers that may not fit into a materialist paradigm. This is just blind faith in materialism and has no place in scientific exploration.

Materialism in itself is fine. It's those who are blind followers of materialism and act like anyone who dares to look for answers outside of a materialist paradigm is practicing woo or pseudoscience who are the problem.,

Just look at your posts. A hodge podge of nonsense and not one shred of science.

I don't mind talking about Scientist looking at other explanations because there's a ton of research out there vs. the proclamations from blind materialist that there are no answers or everything that doesn't agree with there head in the sand adherence is woo.

There's been some good responses to this thread outside of your hodge podge of incoherent babble but I always welcome a debate against those who treat materialism like it's sacrosanct. It helps to highlight that there's no evidence just faith when it comes to blind followers of materialism. It also allows me to list the mountains of research from Scientist who dare to look outside of the materialist paradigm for answers.

originally posted by: Nechash
a reply to: neoholographic

I have nothing to contribute. I just wanted to say that I love this, thanks for sharing! S&F all around!

Great and thanks for your response.

Great thread! Keep the info coming!

I didn't know there was a second manifesto though. I only knew about the Cardeña one. Although I've recently discovered Mario Beauregard's research.

Great thread s&f! I think Tzarchasm believes you are trying to discredit materialism as a whole. Instead (at least what I got) is that this whole thread is simply saying that there needs to be another area for expanding into the unknown, intangible, and unmeasurable. And many creditable scientist are finally coming together to back it up. But materialism simply sweeps any of this under the rug as they have no use for the woo woo information.
As far as proof good enough to show there might be something there for materialism to accept it. Well how are you to find proof if all the scientist never look because its not up to their "standards". Also there might very well be a lot of proof, just no one has found it yet or made anything to measure it. You don't know until you try.
We have just recently been able to see into human brains while they are working (in the scope of human history). And claiming we have it figured out how we work is a bit cocky and naive. There is still much much to learn. We are truly in the future of human knowledge and as far as I'm concerned science above all should remain as open minded as possible. If we turn a blind eye to anything woo woo we might miss the key to everything. Plus its not like materialism has it all figured out to perfection.

But anywho I'm really glad all of these minds are coming together and hopefully they will be able to fill in some much needed gaps in our knowledge about the universe, our planet and ourselves!