Michael Britt - The Psych Files - Dr. Daryl Bem and the Parapsychology PSYOP |328|

I have to laugh when peer review is held up as the gold standard of authoritative research. In the more esoteric subjects there are only about three people world wide who are up to speed, and they're all reviewing each other's research. Things like multiverse theory gain respectability without a shred of evidence, it really is bizarre.
Peer review means nothing. I have reviewed some appalling papers in my area of research but if the editor likes the paper they will ignore the review and publish anyway. And vice versa.

But things seem to be changing. First slowly then all at once. Behold the peer review vigilantes:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an...king-peer-review-into-their-own-hands-pubpeer
 
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I have to laugh when peer review is held up as the gold standard of authoritative research. In the more esoteric subjects there are only about three people world wide who are up to speed, and they're all reviewing each other's research. Things like multiverse theory gain respectability without a shred of evidence, it really is bizarre.

It's funny because on Bernardo's forum there was an article posted with Elon Musk and his belief in the simulation hypothesis. He and his silicon valley cohorts are giving scientists funding to break free from this simulation apparently. I will just paste what I wrote in response to that thread, it coincides with with your post and the state of the standard model.

I love all the metaphysical ideas that pop up in materialists. It's hard to accept that in human beings we have a deep need for some sort of spirituality or deeper meaning. After awhile the evidence for the standard model is hard to maintain belief in, so you get new ideas like this. What if we as a species just saw consciousness as fundamental? What would happen to panpsychism, the simulation hypothesis or the many worlds interpretation? I seriously feel like I live in a world full of people plugging their ears and closing their eyes.

Ideas like Musk's and the others above are accepted in science and philosophy. But seeing consciousness as fundamental and not being produced by matter is out of left field and has so much opposition. At the end of the day the materialist academics in their ivory towers will keep throwing hypothesis at the wall, hoping they will stick, but again hit the floor. I am coming to the conclusion there is a deep-seated fear among them, and the truth is not the goal.

I guess it has taken me a while to get to that place though.
 
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It's funny because on Bernardo's forum there was an article posted with Elon Musk and his belief in the simulation hypothesis. He and his silicon valley cohorts are giving scientists funding to break free from this simulation apparently. I will just paste what I wrote in response to that thread, it coincides with with your post and the state of the standard model.



Ideas like Musk's and the others above are accepted in science and philosophy. But seeing consciousness as fundamental and not being produced by matter is out of left field and has so much opposition. At the end of the day the materialist academics in their ivory towers will keep throwing hypothesis at the wall, hoping they will stick, but again hit the floor. I am coming to the conclusion there is a deep-seated fear among them, and the truth is not the goal.

I guess it has taken me a while to get to that place though.
What or who's consciousness is fundamental?
 
What or who's consciousness is fundamental?

With 1919 posts, I am very surprised I have to go into this, but I will shield the potshot. Your conscious experience Steve, the phenomenon that allowed you to type your question to me. I believe that is fundamental, and not tied essentially to brain function. I believe every living organism in this universe possesses it. It has also allowed me the qualitative experience to reply to your question, and will now allow me to hit this period at the end of my sentence.
 
Personally I don't mind listening to Alex wipe the floor with these materialists. This guy's arguments were piss-weak, however. I mean embarrassingly so. And I know we're all specialists working on our tiny little bits of disjointed knowledge nowadays but a psychologist who claims to know nothing about consciousness - really??

The thing to remember about academia is that it's like this giant reality-producing machine. It holds a complete monopoly on what is regarded as truth and knowledge. And it has been co-oped. This exercise in capture started in the early 20th century by people who suddenly realised how important scientists are in warfare and threw tons of money at them.

I agree that they don't have to use shills. Not in an overt way. Universities and academics dance completely to the tune of their funders and this is probably all you need to know. And I say this as an academic.
interesting. thx.
 
It reinforces the still dominant paradigms of mechanistic modern industrial culture. Mass production makes things for consumer markets. Labor contracts treat individual workers as interchangeable parts. Political discourse groups people into demographic voting blocks. At every turn individuals are treated like cogs in a vast deterministic machine. Or so it was. But things have been changing for a while. Niche markets, 3D printing and customization, decentralization of intellectual content. That can be very disorienting - moving from a mechanistic perspective on life to an organic and participatory one. Our culture hasn't caught up - including our approach to scientific inquiry.
agreed... promising :) long-tail content is available like never before in history... and gaining in popularity.
 
I have to laugh when peer review is held up as the gold standard of authoritative research. In the more esoteric subjects there are only about three people world wide who are up to speed, and they're all reviewing each other's research. Things like multiverse theory gain respectability without a shred of evidence, it really is bizarre.
worse yet are folks like Sean Carroll who talk out both sides about the process.
 
With 1919 posts, I am very surprised I have to go into this, but I will shield the potshot. Your conscious experience Steve, the phenomenon that allowed you to type your question to me. I believe that is fundamental, and not tied essentially to brain function. I believe every living organism in this universe possesses it. It has also allowed me the qualitative experience to reply to your question, and will now allow me to hit this period at the end of my sentence.
I always wonder why human consciousness has primacy over other life forms.
 
It's funny because on Bernardo's forum there was an article posted with Elon Musk and his belief in the simulation hypothesis. He and his silicon valley cohorts are giving scientists funding to break free from this simulation apparently.
Well, that's pretty ridiculous. If we were part of the simulation, it would be impossible for us to break free from it, just like it would be impossible for the Adoring Fan from Elder Scrolls IV to decide he's had enough of all the abuse he's taken on Youtube and he's going to jump out of the game and take revenge on the real world. The only way I could see that idea working is if they misunderstand the whole simulation idea and think it means we're real people plugged into the Matrix instead of simulated people in a simulated world.
 
Gabriel was right when he asserted (in the last show thread) that some elements in this forum sidetrack conversations by going off on one-sentence tangents meant to incite equally redundant replies. It would be wise for us to avoid doing the same in this one.
 
Rupert Sheldrake poses the question "is the sun conscious" in this video:
It's something he's asked for years as a corollary of are we conscious, is matter conscious, etc? It's a perfectly reasonable question, and he charts the ways in which people have regarded the sun historically. He's not claiming the sun thinks like we do, or has good days and bad, simply that the sun's role may be to do what it does in the way birds do their thing, and dogs theirs, and none are machine like.

Have a look at some of the outrage and obscenity that passes for intelligent comment below the video!
 
Alex,

I listened to this podcast with a certain sense of frustration. Michael Britt clearly hadn't read Julie Beischel's work in enough detail to realise that using motivated subjects did not invalidate her work in any way because of the multiple blinding protocol that she employed. Likewise his comments about the relationship between QM and physics didn't seem very informed - but I admit I gave up at that point. He even seemed to obscure your initial point about the difference between effect size and significance.

I was not really aware of Michael Britt before listening to this show, but I assume he is something of an opinion former. My feeling is that part of the problem with bad science in general, is that those who want to mislead and have razor sharp minds, can do so by creating a fug of phoney issues that get echoed by the likes of this guest, without really poking hard into whether the issues apply in the particular case or not.

I mean clearly, if you want to determine how often people brush their teeth on average, you don't go and select people in the dental profession! MB never seemed to grasp the fact that the blinded protocol meant that it was entirely reasonable to use motivated subjects.

Unfortunately MB didn't seem sufficiently motivated to explore this issue deeper, even after your interview - unless he changed his mind in the last few minutes of the show! IBM were well known for creating "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt" in clients wishing to purchase non-IBM kit! Indeed, MB didn't seem to take on board much of what you pointed out - there was no OMG moment - such as the multiple replications of Daryl Bem's work once sufficient time had elapsed to make this meaningful.

David
 
About the comments on QM and physics, its probably unfair to hold them against him since he is not a physicist.

I think that Michael may fall into the trap of repeating what he listens to if he is satisfied by the "authority" attributed to the speaker (most people, regardless of preparation or intelligence, do). For some odd reason, Dick Wiseman has a reputation for such "authority" and his shortcomings (both logical and methodological) are almost always ignored. But, of course, that doesn't justify ignoring Bem instead of trying to balance things by getting the tale straight from the horse's mouth.

I do think that there may be some confirmation bias involved and that he felt that his metaphysical preferences were "safe" after interviewing Dick. Despite not coming out completely, I think that his underlying assumptions were fairly obvious.
 
May I ask where that is implied in my message?



I never suggested a ranking.
You weren't, it's implied though because humans always talk about human consciousness. No one ever asked if the double slit experiment outcome was the result of the many domodex folliculorums exerting their consciousnesses.
 
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It's a perfectly reasonable question, and he charts the ways in which people have regarded the sun historically. He's not claiming the sun thinks like we do, or has good days and bad, simply that the sun's role may be to do what it does in the way birds do their thing, and dogs theirs, and none are machine like.

The Sun, Earth, Moon, all the Planets, Volcanoes, Mountains etc

I can see something Spiritual/Divine/Holy in them all, it gets more difficult to assign 'something' when I look at a table, or rock. But if my intuition or feeling that Idealism is the right direction to take, and that Consciousness is fundamental, (how fundamental? if we can chip away at layers) Maybe consciousness is all that Exists?

If, as I suspect, everything that exists (Consciousness?)within our own 'limit' is what many call God, then it is fitting that the Sun is conscious, perhaps nothing like we are, who knows? If we can experience life through taking on different avatars, then maybe we can take on very different types of avatar through many different forms of life? We might have to expand our definition of life or living. Maybe very different experiences are available to us? I would like to keep an open mind to ideas like Sheldrake's and the few others that are willing to think in these type of directions.

If Sheldrake was banned, it's just as well that I'm not a Scientist! I probably got burned at the stake or had my head removed in many previous lives!
 
It's funny because on Bernardo's forum there was an article posted with Elon Musk and his belief in the simulation hypothesis. He and his silicon valley cohorts are giving scientists funding to break free from this simulation apparently. I will just paste what I wrote in response to that thread, it coincides with with your post and the state of the standard model.



Ideas like Musk's and the others above are accepted in science and philosophy. But seeing consciousness as fundamental and not being produced by matter is out of left field and has so much opposition. At the end of the day the materialist academics in their ivory towers will keep throwing hypothesis at the wall, hoping they will stick, but again hit the floor. I am coming to the conclusion there is a deep-seated fear among them, and the truth is not the goal.

I guess it has taken me a while to get to that place though.
yeah... strange... on one hand, you wanta cheer these guys on for breaking free of the rigid mind=brain stuff, but on the other you wanta say, "really? that's it? we live in God's Xbox? that's the answer?"
 
Michael Britt clearly hadn't read Julie Beischel's work in enough detail to realize that using motivated subjects did not invalidate her work in any way because of the multiple blinding protocol that she employed.
I think he read it... I think the interesting thing (as you point out) is that it didn't penetrate. It was like a live example of cognitive dissonance playing itself out. He's smart enough... just can't get there because of prior worldview beliefs.
 
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