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My views on the paranormal: ESP, reincarnation, etc. (link to here)
My position on the paranormal is this: Although many frauds have been perpetrated in the history of parapsychology, I believe that this field of study has been unfairly stigmatized. If some experimental psychologists want to spend their days studying telepathy, or the effects of prayer, I will be interested to know what they find out. And if it is true that toddlers occasionally start speaking in ancient languages (as Ian Stevenson alleged), I would like to know about it. However, I have not attempted to authenticate the data put forward in books such as Dean Radin’s The Conscious Universe and Ian Stevenson’s 20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. The fact that I have not spent any time on this should suggest how worthy of my time I think such a project would be. Still, I found these books interesting, and I cannot categorically dismiss their contents in the way that I can dismiss the claims of religious dogmatists. (Here, I am making a point about gradations of certainty: Can I say for certain that a century of experimentation proves that telepathy doesn’t exist? No. It seems to me that reasonable people can disagree about the statistical data. Can I say for certain that the Bible and the Koran show every sign of having been written by ignorant mortals? Yes. And this is the only certainty one needs to dismiss the God of Abraham as a creature of fiction.)
My views on Eastern mysticism, Buddhism, etc. (link to here)
My views on “mystical” or “spiritual” experience are extensively described in The End of Faith, in several articles available on this website, and will soon be spelled out in a book entitled Waking Up: Science, Skepticism, Spirituality. Nothing I believe in this area is based on faith. There is simply no question that people have transformative experiences as a result of engaging in disciplines like meditation, and these experiences obviously shed some light on the nature of the human mind. (Any experience does, for that matter). The metaphysical claims that people tend to make on the basis of these experiences, however, are highly questionable. I do not make any such claims. Nor do I support the metaphysical claims of others.
Several neuroscience labs are now studying the effects of meditation on the brain. I am not personally engaged in this research, but I know many of the scientists who are. This is a fertile area of inquiry that is deepening our understanding of human well-being.
While I consider Buddhism to be almost unique among the world’s religions as a repository of contemplative wisdom, I do not consider myself a Buddhist. My criticism of Buddhism as a faith has been published, to the consternation of many Buddhists. It is available here:
Killing the Buddha
SuperFrog
I know that there are studies that people who were studied under complete isolation (hearing, no contact to outside world) were more likely to believe in ghosts, but today we know that it is human mind that makes people make those assumption and conclusion. Only difference between schizophrenic and normal mind is that one knows what is real, while other does not.
Replies to SuperFrog
interupt42
webedoomed
reply to post by sulaw
There is no science in this, whatsoever.
Would you agree that the human vessel while alive is a system of energy requiring external energy as in a form or calories to sustain life. Once death occurs the body no longer intakes energy and eventually that energy...
BlueMule
It sounds like you think you know what's real and what isn't, and know what the human mind is. Do you?
Another person that has exposed many crooks is, already mentioned in this topic, James Randi.
reply to post by wildtimes
I have book on hold, it should be in my library right after holiday and in time for me to finish what I am reading atm. I will post more about it once I start reading.
SuperFrog
BlueMule
It sounds like you think you know what's real and what isn't, and know what the human mind is. Do you?
Based on your arrogance, I am sure that you will provide us with comprehensive answer about mind and what is real or not. Let me ask you simple question, have you ever been close to schizophrenic person?
At least you did not c/p huge amount of someone's else work in your answer, thank you. Please read rules about 1 line replies.
wildtimes
You said in another thread a while back that you were going to read Chris Carter's book about Psychic Phenomena and The Fall of the House of Skeptics....
apparently you lied, or changed your mind, if you're still touting Randi as some 'messiah of truth.'
As for Randi being 'messiah of truth', I never said such a thing...he exposed and showed how to do tricks what supposed people with 'gift' could do.
That quote you shared...I believe you read it wrong. From what I'm seeing, he was referring to someone who had proven themselves invaluable in exposing other people as frauds.
tencap77
ok. besides the fact we KNOW that quantum physics DOES NOT WORK! (another evolutionary dead end, like bicameral governments or the betamax) you can prove this how? with math? ok. gothca. So what your saying is, when I kick, my "id" can transfer to a Universe that quantum physics says might exist in a fold of a racoons rectum! Gotcha! Now, please pass that bong and the chicken wings, oh , and don't forget the hot sauce and hit play on the quantum porn in the betamax would ya !
angryhulk
tencap77
ok. besides the fact we KNOW that quantum physics DOES NOT WORK! (another evolutionary dead end, like bicameral governments or the betamax) you can prove this how? with math? ok. gothca. So what your saying is, when I kick, my "id" can transfer to a Universe that quantum physics says might exist in a fold of a racoons rectum! Gotcha! Now, please pass that bong and the chicken wings, oh , and don't forget the hot sauce and hit play on the quantum porn in the betamax would ya !
You see if you read the book before contributing to this thread you wouldn't sound like such a tool.
I'm half way through it and yet to see any 'math'. Instead what is being presented is simple observations, documented and proven observations on how particles behave whilst being observed.
Loving the book by the way.
Highlights
• The Orch OR theory proposes quantum computations in brain microtubules account for consciousness.
• Microtubule ‘quantum channels’ in which anesthetics erase consciousness are identified.
• Evidence for warm quantum vibrations in brain microtubules is cited.
• Interference of microtubule vibrations are ‘beat frequencies’ seen as EEG.
• Orch OR links consciousness to processes in fundamental space–time geometry.
wildtimes
reply to post by jadedANDcynical
Yay!! Thank you!
Those are awesome.....!!
It's getting harder for the 'materialists' to deny this stuff; and we need to not let up the pressure to accept it as newly recognized TRUTH!
Soylent Green Is People
I wonder things like "where did my consciousness come from"? "How did it get into my brain"? "For that matter, when did it get inside my brain"?
Did it happen at birth? Conception? somewhere in between?
What triggered the movement of consciousness from wherever it was before into me?
Soylent Green Is People
wildtimes
reply to post by jadedANDcynical
Yay!! Thank you!
Those are awesome.....!!
It's getting harder for the 'materialists' to deny this stuff; and we need to not let up the pressure to accept it as newly recognized TRUTH!
I personally do not "deny" the possibility of a separate consciousness. However, I have yet to read or hear anything that convinces me. Those videos above are nice and all, but they are still not the solid evidence I would need to believe that my consciousness can transfer to something/somewhere when I die.
I wonder things like "where did my consciousness come from"? "How did it get into my brain"? "For that matter, when did it get inside my brain"?
Did it happen at birth? Conception? somewhere in between?
What triggered the movement of consciousness from wherever it was before into me?
Oxford physicist David Deutsch is an atheist -- who also endorses the reality of information as irreducible to physics.
"Information, in my view," he says in the clip (at about 40:35), "cannot be reduced to statements about atoms." He then gives a story about the transmission of information which should be familiar to any intelligent-design advocate. "It's only special kinds of information," he goes on, "that are preserved and instantiated," not because of their physical instantiations, which are strictly irrelevant, but because of their informational properties.
I think that the argument against free will from reductionism is just a mistake. It's a fundamental mistake. It's the idea that all explanation must be in terms of microscopic things. There's no philosophical argument in favor of that that I'm aware of. It's just an assumption. It has historical roots in how science centuries ago escaped from the clutches of the supernatural. And as I said earlier, certainly I'm opposed to any kind of modes of explanation in terms of immaterial things, in terms of abstractions, that contradict physics, but the idea that all such explanations by their very nature contradict physics is simply false….
wildtimes
reply to post by SuperFrog
Thanks for saying so.
He has NOT, however, proved EVERYONE does tricks or exposed them ALL as frauds. That's what I'm saying - he found a few, then jumped to the conclusion that they ALL are frauds. And it just isn't so.
I hope to hear from you again when you've had a chance to look at the book(s).