Upcoming interview: Sean Webb -- any questions?

Alex

Administrator
I think this is going to be a fun one. Sean is someone who has made the transition from a very successful "this world" life if someone is very interested in consciousness transformation:
 
Alex, I didn't find the video all that useful. Its over 2 hours for starters. There are other videos that might be more to the point -
and

While I like BATGAP generally I don't have 2 hours to spend for the purpose finding questions. A half hour is okay, though. Just a thought.
 
Alex,

I'd like to suggest that you use one of the two dead sections of the forum, e.g. "Critical Discussions Among Proponents and Skeptics", give it a fresh title and open it for discussions about future shows. I think these discussions are valuable, but because they end up in the same section as the shows themselves, they can hide the current show - particularly for people who do not know this site well.

Once this was done, I could move this and other discussions about future sites across to the new location.

David
 
Alex, I didn't find the video all that useful. Its over 2 hours for starters. There are other videos that might be more to the point -
and

While I like BATGAP generally I don't have 2 hours to spend for the purpose finding questions. A half hour is okay, though. Just a thought.
fair enough... and actually this interview has taken a turn since I watched the vid you ref re Rogan/Shermer. this might wind up being more of a friendly debate :)
 
Alex,

I'd like to suggest that you use one of the two dead sections of the forum, e.g. "Critical Discussions Among Proponents and Skeptics", give it a fresh title and open it for discussions about future shows. I think these discussions are valuable, but because they end up in the same section as the shows themselves, they can hide the current show - particularly for people who do not know this site well.

Once this was done, I could move this and other discussions about future sites across to the new location.

David
we could do that but I'm worried that they would get buried.

another solution might be to unstick them after they pass.

what do you think?
 
we could do that but I'm worried that they would get buried.

another solution might be to unstick them after they pass.

what do you think?
Well my feeling is that we end up with too many discussions crammed into too few sections. Many people probably look at the top item in the podcasts thread, and just find a discussion about an upcoming show, and as soon as someone does comment on a podcast, the discussion for a future show gets buried again. Using all the sections seems to me to give a greater bandwidth to our site!

Having done that, it would also clearly also make sense to stick the current discussion(s) about future shows, and unstick them as soon as you have done the recording.

David
 
My God, Michael Sherma has moved a bit from the way he used to talk! I thought he had 'got over' his paranormal experience, but maybe not.

David
 
Well my feeling is that we end up with too many discussions crammed into too few sections. Many people probably look at the top item in the podcasts thread, and just find a discussion about an upcoming show, and as soon as someone does comment on a podcast, the discussion for a future show gets buried again. Using all the sections seems to me to give a greater bandwidth to our site!

Having done that, it would also clearly also make sense to stick the current discussion(s) about future shows, and unstick them as soon as you have done the recording.

David
let's try unsticking and see how it goes.
 
In view of Michael's video, I have one or two questions for Sean Webb.

In that interview he mentioned Eban Alexander's experience, and claimed that he could not be remembering his extended NDE because his cerebellum was out of action. This, he claimed, would prevent him from laying down new memories in the brain. My point would be that this would also invalidate many other NDE's - such as Pam Reynold's NDE, which involved deliberate chilling of the brain (and body) for the main operation, the NDE's experienced by people who fell into ice cold water and were resuscitated after rather long periods because their brain was preserved by the cold, but rendered non-functional over that period.

Furthermore, as I understand it, no clear location for memory stores has been discovered in the brain, the cerebellum operates to retrieve/lay down memories.

I think you should try to discuss the alternative theory of the brain - that it acts to communicate with consciousness, rather than generating it. This is often referred to as the TV set analogy, but I think 'Mars rover analogy' better describes this 2-way interaction more accurately. I think it would be worth raising the point that attributing consciousness to QFT doesn't really solve anything, because QFT consists of a set (infinite, I believe) of differential equations - so does it make any sense to even assert that whatever this represents is conscious? I feel science can just go down a rabbit hole chasing consciousness. And the deeper it goes, the further it gets removed from ordinary life, and the less likely it is that the explanation is true.

I am a bit wary of his invocation of the quantum field - I mean this is an extension of standard QM to allow for the creation and annihilation of particles. I suppose I am a bit wary of this, because as I understand it, this is the point at which 'renormalisation' first becomes necessary (the theory predicts infinite energies, but these are tolerated because the difference between the energy levels is finite).

Also, at some point you need a link between purely physical phenomena and consciousness. It seems to me that this might as well be the traditional quantum observation process.

It should be an interesting discussion!

Note added later: Sean may have said hippocampus rather than cerebellum, I'm not sure , but the strange thing is that if you look up either in the context of memory, they are both supposed to 'help'. This is something I have noticed about brain science - it does seem rather vague!

Take another example, suppose you are angry because (say) someone laughs at you for taking ψ seriously. Well, the amydala are supposed to be responsible for anger, but what can this really mean, other than, perhaps turning on the tap for the production of various hormones? I mean, if the amygdala knew enough to know when to exhibit anger, it would need to know huge amounts of information about you - it would effectively have to be your entire conscious part of your brain!

This isn't really a criticism of Sean, because he clearly realises that science can't explain consciousness, but I suspect science may just peter out into a set of obscurities when it looks at consciousness - not reach any sort of clear endpoint.

BTW Alex, I might expand this comment even further as I think about it!

David
 
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we could do that but I'm worried that they would get buried.

another solution might be to unstick them after they pass.

what do you think?

I think if you had a separate thing called 'Upcoming Shows' that would attract those interested in contributing to the formulation of questions. If you also had an approximate time frame you could also give advance notice if the guest has written something - just in case we are interested enough to go read it.
 
Furthermore, as I understand it, no clear location for memory stores has been discovered in the brain, the cerebellum operates to retrieve/lay down memories.

Should add to this the fact that there are reports from people who have had heart transplants concerning memories from the donor. Also there are apparently 'brain cells' in the gut as well. And let's also recall that dead folk have memories too - as is amply demonstrated by the numerous accounts of talking to them.
 
I think if you had a separate thing called 'Upcoming Shows' that would attract those interested in contributing to the formulation of questions. If you also had an approximate time frame you could also give advance notice if the guest has written something - just in case we are interested enough to go read it.
Yes, that is my feeling - piling these discussions in with the list of actual podcast discussions is confusing.

David
 
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