The most important interview in Science that you probably haven't seen

a reply to: TheRedneck

You said:

I said you are describing magic, as in something with no physical basis.

Where did I say this? This is what I said:

I'm simply saying, when you come up against things that don't have a "physical" explanation, don't say the explanation MUST FIT a materialist belief before you even do research and examine the evidence.

I have been advocating throughout this post for more research into the observed Psi Effects. I'm just saying, debunkers and pseudoskeptics want to start with the priori it must fit a materialist belief. I'm saying just study the evidence wherever it leads.

Some things make no logical sense from a materialist point of view. For instance:

How does the material brain initiate memory recall? How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wants the material brain to recall and why?

To me, this makes no sense from the viewpoint of materialism.

This is why you have scientist looking for other ways to explain awareness and consciousness.

You can do a brain scan of a person recalling memories and accessing memories and what you will see is part of the brain is active. This is the machine(brain). This activity doesn't tell you why you recalled this memory over other memories, what this memory means to you or how this memory may have shaped your life.

It's just non physical awareness operating and navigating information processed by the brain. I'm glad more research is being done in these areas. If I were to hook up my computer to be scanned, the activity might tell you I'm visiting a website or downloading a PDF file. The activity will not tell you why I went to that website or why I downloaded the PDF and how I will use that information.

a reply to: neoholographic

Where did I say this?

You requoted yourself saying it. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "materialism"? This is the statement you made:

"I'm simply saying, when you come up against things that don't have a "physical" explanation, don't say the explanation MUST FIT a materialist belief before you even do research and examine the evidence."

I am saying that yes, all science requires a physical basis; if it does not have a physical basis, we have nothing to understand it with! All science deals with physics, the overall science of the physical. That is literally what science is.

Our knowledge of the physical changes over time as we learn more and more. At one time we had no idea how the sun was able to burn for so long so hot... it was literally magic... then we discovered atomic fusion. Now we have a scientific explanation and it's no longer magic.

We now know there is this "thing" called dark matter. We have no idea what it is or how it works. We know it exists because when we try to run the math on rotational speeds of bodies in the galaxy, the numbers give a different answer than we observe. But we can't explain it... it's magic. One day we'll (hopefully) figure out why our calculations are wrong and dark matter will no longer be magic.

Now, maybe you mean something different when you say something is "materialistic." I took it to mean that something is explainable by known physical laws. If you meant something different, now's our chance to correct me.

How does the material brain initiate memory recall? How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wants the material brain to recall and why?

Working on it.

What I have so far is that the brain memorizes sensory pathways which we call "memory." These pathways are stored not in individual neurons, but in the connections between neurons, which are strengthened as unique sensory combinations are experienced over time and feedback occurs to identify the pathways as pleasurable or painful. A few instinctive pathways exist when we are born, but in humans that number is very few and these can actually be overridden.

I have actually, literally designed an electronic version of an organic brain that would allow for learning. I just can't build it; the cost and time required to construct a couple billion artificial neurons is beyond what I can manage and afford. I have considered using a supercomputer to run a simulation, but that in itself is beyond me; I would not only need massive amounts of RAM and drive storage, but a proprietary OS written as well. The computer I might could handle; the OS I could not. That is out of my pay grade.

Now, when you get into imagination, artistic expression, and self-determination... I have no idea. I can explain two of the three categories of neural processing: the "instinctive" and the "Pavlovian," but not the "spiritual." Someone else will have to take my work (hopefully) and figure that one out.

The point of that is that the workings of the brain are, yes, magical , supernatural, and paranormal... now. Assuming I am able to someday finish my dissertation, two categories will be explainable by physical means. Science will advance, but it can only advance by understanding the laws of physics that underlie phenomena... not by rejecting physics.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Direne

I would say I'm not inclined towards accepting paranormal explanations. Even when I was very young I was unsatisfied with it. I don't find the idea of strange events terrifying, but I do find them interesting. The only malevolent entities I've encountered in my life were human beings.

The link is dense reading and I'll spend a week or two rereading it. There's probably another week or so fully exploring the terms in your post that are new to me. I look forward to the additional materials. The answers I'm looking for are likely several layers below this, but I recognize the need for familiarizing myself with the whole conceptual ecosystem and terminology.

Much appreciated.

originally posted by: neoholographic

First off, I notice the pseudoskeptics talk about Derren Browns video but haven't said a peep about Joe McMoneagle's video. Let's go over Derren Browns again first.

I confined my comments to the Derren Brown video because your decision to present it as evidence of remote viewing demonstrates a naivety of interpretation and willful lack of skepticism which undermines your credibility as a commentator on the whole subject.

originally posted by: neoholographic

First, your opinion doesn't matter.

Nor then presumably does yours.

originally posted by: neoholographic

It's the opinion of the female target that counts. She looked at the 5 pages and her eyes lit up when she saw them.

You confirmation bias is so strong you seem to have invented a scenario which wasn't in the video you posted.

There's a brief shot when she says something like, "I thought in one of your drawings I could see four objects", pointing at the sheet with a drawing which doesn't resemble a fountain. We see no comment or reaction to any of the other four sheets, which don't apparently show anything she saw or photographed.

As Mr Brown explained, the piece was edited: "you are seeing a version that a TV programme would show when they are showing someone demonstrating a psychic ability." So yes, of course they show a close up of her expression when he gets his nearest hit out of, "There seemed to be almost maybe a church like, or something that was relaxing about it there, perhaps a garden nearby or possibly, old brick stones, some kind of tower, yeah. Also a sense of water or fountain or some kind of movement. Also art, people could go inside, it was very... It was inviting."

We don't know exactly how many other misses he had, because, as you can see (and, as was explained) there are edits before and after this utterance, but you wouldn't need great cold reading skills to know from her reaction that you were getting close around the fountain part. But he could equally have struck gold with any of the other generic London commonplaces: church, garden, old brick, stone, tower, art, some kind of movement, a place where people 'could go inside', etc.

a reply to: TheRedneck

You said:

I am saying that yes, all science requires a physical basis

All I'm asking is what is a physical basis? What's the scientific evidence of this physical basis? Which Journals say all science requires a physical basis as you define physical basis?

“I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.” ― Werner Heisenberg “

[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” ― Werner Heisenberg

Subatomic particles do not exist but rather show 'tendencies to exist', and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather show 'tendencies to occur'. -Fritjof Capra

A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. -Erwin Schrodinger

So, when you say physical basis, do you mean energy that we perceive as matter? Do you mean the excitations of underlying quantum fields? Are you describing a physical basis as an independent thing?

Death by experiment for local realism

The world is made up of real stuff, existing in space and changing only through local interactions — this local-realism hypothesis is about the most intuitive scientific postulate imaginable. But quantum mechanics implies that it is false, as has been known for more than 50 years1.

www.nature.com...

That's what I'm trying to clarify. What do you mean by a physical basis and what Journal can I read about this physical basis? Show me the evidence that this physical basis has the objective meaning you're trying to give it.

You also didn't answer my question:

How does the material brain initiate memory recall? How does the material brain tell the material brain which memory it wants the material brain to recall and why?

I didn't want opinion that had nothing to do with the question. I want to see the peer reviewed studies and how the material knows these things. You're so sure that everything must have a physical evidence, you must have some scientific evidence.

How does the material brain initiate recall of a memory? How does the material brain know I want to recall a memory from the Army? How does the material brain know why I want to recall that memory? How does the material brain know the difference between a memory I want to recall from year one in the military or year 3 in the military? How does the material brain know how that memory shaped my future decisions? How does the material brain know that I tied a memory from 7th grade to a memory in the Army to make a future decision? How does the material brain know why I chose those two memories and not the other memories? How does the material brain know which parts of the brain to activate to recall that memory that's stored on the brain?

Again, I don't want opinion that doesn't answer the question. Your claim is everything has a physical basis. Show me the scientific evidence that shows that anything material like the brain can manage something as simple as the recall of a memory. You must have tons of scientific evidence after all of these years.