Mod+ 269. DR. MICHAEL SHERMER, SKEPTICAL SCIENCE REPORTING

So
shorthand for the 100 or so shows on Skeptiko falsifying mind=brain.

Sorry Alex. But that answer is just plain worthless, and beneath you. I can't believe you even spent the time to put fingers to the keys....

You have a large well informed and interested audience here and that's the best you've got?

I am literally astounded.
 
So


Sorry Alex. But that answer is just plain worthless, and beneath you. I can't believe you even spent the time to put fingers to the keys....

You have a large well informed and interested audience here and that's the best you've got?

Astounding.
Jesus JKMac - what is your problem? I got exactly what he was saying. Are you just another Skeptic troll here?

My Best,
Bertha
 
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Jesus JKMac - what the fuck is your problem? I got exactly what he was saying. Are you just another Skeptic troll here?

My Best,
Bertha

Tbh i didnt get what he was saying. It'd be great if Alex could clarifiy which aspects of Radin's experiments he referred to when he said that they would imply that...
1. consciousness survives death and 2, decisions matter in some sense beyond this material world... i.e. life has meaning
.
That got nothing to do with Mac being anything.
 
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Tbh i didnt get what he was saying. It'd be great if Alex could clarifiy which aspects of Radin's experiment he referred to when he said that they would imply that...
.
That got nothing to do with Mac being anything.

I agree. If you are going to bring up Radin, then talk specifically about what Radin is doing. Pointing to the entirety of Skeptiko is kind of silly. Sometimes there is a little bit too much shorthand.
 
brutal, but true. let me take another shot at this since I get the feeling that it's simmering below the surface.

if the universe is meaningless

Alex, IMO it would behoove you stop using wishy washy language and get right to the heart of it. You're not talking about "meaning", you're talking about God, right? God as either the prime mover or as an ongoing presence or as the universe itself. Why are you so unable to answer the question directly? What are you talking about? Will you please clarify?
 
Ahh. We get to the crux of where I think the misinterpretation of the DS results usually lay: in the defining of what can actually cause the collapse. Some used to say observation. Then it was amended to human observer. Then "conscious" observer. And on it goes. Let me spend some time with video and see what I can gleen.
Thanks!

OK so after watching the video-
I have to say,,, this is great data! Worth a watch for anyone who hasn't seen it.

There aren't many shortcomings here but one big one that he isn't touching on, and which I think may be a critical part of using this type of material as a truly convincing "game-changer", has to do with the intention of the testers. It has been shown that the intention of an experimenter impacts the experiment. Obviously this impacts the design of the experiment and analysis of the resulting data. But I think it goes beyond these points and gets to the actual results varying with intention. Intention of course in many cases is the exact thing we are trying to test, but in this case I refer to the tester and not the tested.

Researchers have always tried to mitigate this effect through constraining and changing the actual test itself. As we have often discussed, this eventually actually degrades the ability of the test to show any meaningful results, which works right into the skeptic's argument. Which means: conversation over, skeptics win.

I would love to see a multi-blind experiment which attacks this effect from a different angle. Rather than bastardizing the test, simply design the data collection and analysis aspects of the test to account for it.

For example- set up the test so two groups of experimenters (those who believe they are proving the effect, those who believe they are disproving the effect) are allowed to run the experiment according to a mutually agreed protocol, and where they collect and then independently analyse their own results. In addition, results are also provided to each team in three blind subsets. One subset only contains (or is a preponderance of) "provers" data, one subset 2- of"dis-provers" data and the last, a random set.

I'd like to see the results of the analysis of each of the two teams to see if they found similar results and if they found different results from their vs the other team's, vs randomized data.

I would predict that even when following identical protocols, their results would track their expectations. This effect is what (I think) underlays much of the confusion and disagreement in these sort of experiments. Where skeptics, even if they took the time to try and duplicate results, can't.

Bottom line is- the intention of the tester may play a major part in the process. A test like this might peel another layer off this onion...

Dean. Are you reading this?

Actually I've asked Dean if he would comment. Let's see.
 
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The tag team Skeptics on this thread suddenly let fly their true colors.

Once again, we get the same tired Skeptic's polemic, where is the evidence. Show us the evidence. And they want a guy like Alex - who has spent years doing hundeds of interviews, to provide these Skeptic zombies with the evidence they refuse to look at - serve it to them on a golden platter, because they can't be bothered to look themselves. So they can refute what is given to them with their usual zombie skeptic talking points.

You know what - I don't blame Alex one bit here for avoiding this endless repetitive nonsense. If you're going to challenge someone on the research, then get a bloody clue about the research yourself.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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I sort of go with the "you are the universe observing itself and assigning meaning to itself" view of things. Our processes are a subset of greater processes that are probably beyond our concepts of meaning, intelligence, consciousness.

Whether the universe is meaningful or not is sort of a meaningless thing to ponder or quibble over isn't it? :P It's not like we'll ever experience a reality that doesn't have us in the mix as part of it.

Maybe the whole concept of "the universe" as a "thing" is what's inherently meaningless.

That's sort of the Alan Watts view. That you are an aperture of the universe looking back at itself.
 
OK so after watching the video-

Bottom line is- the intention of the tester may play a major part in the process. A test like this might peel another layer off this onion...

Dean. Are you reading this?
Bottom line: Alex has done hundreds of interviews on the mind=body problem and you're questioning whether there is any good evidence.

Perhaps you should inform yourself better on the actual research before you imply you know so much more than anyone else here about the science regarding the mind/body problem.

It's not our job here to rid you of your ignorance.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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Jesus JKMac - what the fuck is your problem? I got exactly what he was saying. Are you just another Skeptic troll here?

My Best,
Bertha
Settle down.

I've heard and read many of Alex's responses and have come to see him as thoughtful and intelligent and saw this as ducking a major issue.

Sorry to confront your god with this fact. Didn't realize he or anyone else here was sacrosanct.

Is that how it works? If you sound like you may be a skeptic you are a troll?
 
Settle down.

I've heard and read many of Alex's responses and have come to see him as thoughtful and intelligent and saw this as ducking a major issue.

Sorry to confront your god with this fact. Didn't realize he or anyone else here was sacrosanct.

Is that how it works? If you sound like you may be a skeptic you are a troll?

Alex can speak for himself. If he wants to regurgitate his 100+ podcasts interviews to you and the three amigos here on this thread, I can't stop him. I'd be surprised if he'll continue to pursue this kind of polemic with you though. At some point, we got to let guys like you go back under your bridge - and get on with the real open-minded inquiry that science is suppose to be about.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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Settle down.

I've heard and read many of Alex's responses and have come to see him as thoughtful and intelligent and saw this as ducking a major issue.

Sorry to confront your god with this fact. Didn't realize he or anyone else here was sacrosanct.
Alex can speak for himself. If he wants to regurgitate his 100+ podcasts interviews to you and the three amigos here on this thread, I can't stop him. I'd be surprised if he'll continue to pursue this kind of polemic with you though. At some point, we got to let guys like you go back under your bridge - and get on with the real open-minded inquiry that science is suppose to be about.

My Best,
Bertha

Wow. What a piece of work.

I don't know who the other of the "amigos" are, and I really don't care but I have 155 likes with 143 postings.

That didn't happen by trolling....

Oh,,, in case you missed it. I wasn't the only one to comment about the non-response.
 
Piece of work eh? How about this:
Sorry Alex. But that answer is just plain worthless, and beneath you. I can't believe you even spent the time to put fingers to the keys....

Or this:
You have a large well informed and interested audience here and that's the best you've got?

Well informed is correct.

Well, on second thought - most of us are well-informed. Some ... not so much.

My Best,
Bertha
 
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I have a rule to NEVER a swear on a forum. I'd paste your's,, but then I would be breaking my own rule.
But I'm the "troll"... Yikes.
Don't worry all. I realize the futility of this so last posting on the matter.

Sorry Dad - I used a swear word. I'll try not to next time. Can I have the car keys tonight?

My Best,
Bertha
 
The questions JKMac (and others) are asking are important.

I can see how one arrives at a position of mind>brain. However, when one says stuff like:

... we have to deal with the overwhelming evidence that 1. consciousness survives death and 2, decisions matter in some sense beyond this material world... i.e. life has meaning... or if your uber-agnostic... has the potential to have meaning. even if we don't know what it is.

You have to be very clear exactly what that means. If not, it adds nothing, but just emboldens certain folk (who claim to have some sort of hotline channel on these matters) to start insisting what foods we can and can't eat, what we can and can't do with our genitals, and what we should do with infidels etc, etc.
 
Who is to say whether the universe has meaning? To whom? What is meaning? And who is to say whether what we "feel" as consciousness is or isn't in fact possible chemically/electrically?

For me, I would rather use these more convincing arguments, than to pretend that a personal sense of "meaning" have any bearing what so ever on someone's view of the actual nature of reality.

You come screeching about the "fact" that meaning is obscure. This comes from a metaphysical point of view that has failed to have a received definition of how awareness works to bind an organism to its environment. And declaring it convincing is just being a "true believer" and ignoring the facts of the natural reality. This is pointing to your disease; and crying everyone else is sick.

Meaningful awareness of an ecosystem is a logical process open to defined variables and predictive computational analysis. Living things observe possibilities for desired interaction (affordances) with things, events and processes that provide for biological, emotional and physical needs. Empirical observation of nature lists exactly those needs as food, sex, danger avoidance, shelter, personal gratification and social acceptance. Psychology is the science of observing these behaviors in an ecological setting and it has massive amounts of well-formed data about them.

The 5 senses are the primary tools of the inflow of information for an organism to understand and respond to its environment. So, its not just conscious experience, or personal meaning, that must be chemical or electrical - its integration and understanding of this ambient information; so essential for living things to live and evolve.

Recently deceased biophysicist, Werner Loewnstein describes it so directly and simply:
"If there were something like a guidebook for living creatures, I think the first line would read like a biblical commandment: Make thy information larger. And next would come the guidelines for colonizing, in good imperialist fashion, the biggest chunk of negative entropy around."
 
You come screeching about the "fact" that meaning is obscure. This comes from a metaphysical point of view that has failed to have a received definition of how awareness works to bind an organism to its environment. And declaring it convincing is just being a "true believer" and ignoring the facts of the natural reality. This is pointing to your disease; and crying everyone else is sick.

Meaningful awareness of an ecosystem is a logical process open to defined variables and predictive computational analysis. Living things observe possibilities for desired interaction (affordances) with things, events and processes that provide for biological, emotional and physical needs. Empirical observation of nature lists exactly those needs as food, sex, danger avoidance, shelter, personal gratification and social acceptance. Psychology is the science of observing these behaviors in an ecological setting and it has massive amounts of well-formed data about them.

The 5 senses are the primary tools of the inflow of information for an organism to understand and respond to its environment. So, its not just conscious experience, or personal meaning, that must be chemical or electrical - its integration and understanding of this ambient information; so essential for living things to live and evolve.

Recently deceased biophysicist, Werner Loewnstein describes it so directly and simply:

Do you think this is what Alex is talking about when he says "meaningful universe" or "meaningless universe"? As in "materialists believe that they are biological robots living meaningless lives in a meaningless universe"?
 
You come screeching about the "fact" that meaning is obscure. This comes from a metaphysical point of view that has failed to have a received definition of how awareness works to bind an organism to its environment. And declaring it convincing is just being a "true believer" and ignoring the facts of the natural reality. This is pointing to your disease; and crying everyone else is sick.

Meaningful awareness of an ecosystem is a logical process open to defined variables and predictive computational analysis. Living things observe possibilities for desired interaction (affordances) with things, events and processes that provide for biological, emotional and physical needs. Empirical observation of nature lists exactly those needs as food, sex, danger avoidance, shelter, personal gratification and social acceptance. Psychology is the science of observing these behaviors in an ecological setting and it has massive amounts of well-formed data about them.

The 5 senses are the primary tools of the inflow of information for an organism to understand and respond to its environment. So, its not just conscious experience, or personal meaning, that must be chemical or electrical - its integration and understanding of this ambient information; so essential for living things to live and evolve.

Recently deceased biophysicist, Werner Loewnstein describes it so directly and simply:

I may be missing some of your point, and I certainly don't mean to "screech", but what I was trying to get at is not the obscurity of meaning, but that a view where personal meaning might just arise from what they see as a biological impetus rather than a metaphysical one is reasonable. And that one might believe their sense of meaning in their own life stems from that biologic root. ie: it is part of the biological "illusion" of self. And finally whether at the same time this same person might reasonably feel that the universe as a whole is not an active "living" thing but a dead thing with no purpose or what we might call an ulterior motive.

I'm trying to understand whether this is a reasonable POV or whether as some people seem to think, it is inconsistent and/or logically flawed. And if so, why? If you have already addressed this aspect of things in your post than yes, I am not "getting it".

Personally I have spoken to many people who feel this way and I can find no obvious logical inconsistency in their thinking. My disagreement with those people isn't in their logic, but rather the volumes of data (such as Dean Radin's DS data mentioned above) that points to various non-physical mechanisms at work that they are not taking into account, and that the data, not the philosophy, is the elephant in the room what should cause them to reconsider their world view.
 
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Oh hogwash. Don't you get it? Upon close objective analysis NEITHER of these arguments stand scrutiny when looked at too closely!

This is what I mean when I've said we are talking about the number of fairies dancing on the head of the pin. Who is to say whether the universe has meaning? To whom? What is meaning? And who is to say whether what we "feel" as consciousness is or isn't in fact possible chemically/electrically? All of this is philosophical word gaming and arm waving. A waste of your time and mine and all who read this slop.

Neither of us provide the proof at the roots of our arguments. We both run out of steam. In the end, we both have to rely on waving our arms.

In my case I am making the huge assumption that perhaps chemicals and electrical impulses and a hunk of brain can cause "experience".

On the other hand you spend your time waving you arms and not explaining the roots of the non-dual which are usubstantiatible.

Come on! You are no more close to a proof than I am in this case.

However these discussions don't HAVE to be a waste of time. There ARE convincing arguments for some of the things that point us to non-physical existence that DON'T rely on these flimsy points about "meaning". For me, I would rather use these more convincing arguments, than to pretend that a personal sense of "meaning" have any bearing what so ever on someone's view of the actual nature of reality.

Nice try. I offer evidence rather than hand-waving, and you continue to insist that the hypothesis it's meant to counteract has equivalence. You're right that I don't know the evidence I have pointed to accounts for the existence of consciousness distinct from brain, but nonetheless, it is actual evidence, and on balance, much more convincing than the hand-waving you mentioned.

If you find my argument a waste of time, you don't have to come here. You don't have to listen; put your fingers in your ears and say "la la la" and pretend that you're still right. I can't stop you.
 
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