What is Consciousness?

[Izzywizzy]

ChazyWyman wrote

It is nothing more than a return to 19thC mysticism and spiritualism - which led to nothing.

Hi Chaz I appreciate your opinion but can you expand on that assertion and include any counter evidence you have please. Thanks in advance.

[Izzywizzy]

Interestingly the double slit experiment shows that by simply observing them we can collapse the wave function of electrons
It seems electron wave responds to our minds over its matter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

[chaz wyman]

ChazyWyman wrote

It is nothing more than a return to 19thC mysticism and spiritualism - which led to nothing.

Hi Chaz I appreciate your opinion but can you expand on that assertion and include any counter evidence you have please. Thanks in advance.

Just about every idea they have has no epistemological basis. It's nothing more than a collection of hypostisized undigested phenomena screwed into a scientific framework which will not support it. It is about as scientific as scientology and have many similarities. Making the subject of your study spontaneous remission, meditation, consciousness, alternative healing practices, spirituality, human potential, psychic abilities and survival of consciousness after bodily death, assumes that such things are viable phenomena to study. What these things need is not reification, but debunking.
"Noetic" is simply a new version of psychicism in new clothes.
Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noetic_theory
WITH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucian_Order
AND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience

For a debunking take a look at James Randi.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swi ... o-fly.html

[chaz wyman]

Interestingly the double slit experiment shows that by simply observing them we can collapse the wave function of electrons
It seems electron wave responds to our minds over its matter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

That's what it seems. But that does not mean it is so. This phenomenon is as it appears to us.
QM is the very edge of science and it is far too early to conclude anything from the double slit experiment.

[Izzywizzy]

Chaz Wyman The real issue isn't really "how much" evidence is required, the real issue is that you have an apparent double-standard in the way you sort and label evidence; thus dismiss evidence that contradicts your beliefs, making it convenient for you to claim that your views are based on evidence and that other people's views are not.

Some claim that their beliefs are based on empirical scientific research, which usually means (unless they are practicing, published peer reviewed scientists ) that their beliefs are actually based on anecdote and testimony.

If I read a scientific article in "Nature" I am not believing in empirical evidence because I wasn`t conducting the experiment or the empirical research. All I do is read the research and what the trusted authority has to say on it.

I think this is where a healthy dose of scepticism is required in any enquiry, be it religious or scientific, both are apt to be flawed as humans are fallible in many area`s pertaining to empirical evidence.

By seeking only authoritive accounts and ignoring the counter claimants accounts we are left with those extreme pseudosceptics who rely on their confirmation bias in naming all other evidence as not real evidence! That is a prejudice I am not about to concur with. I would advise a neutrality and opening of the mind and rather it was said that you don`t find the evidence convincing, instead of declaring that its not real evidence.

I have given account to the scientific peer reviewed experts in this case and see no good reason for this debate to become a mere quibble back and forth. Thank you for your time.

ps Chaz i couldn`t help laughing at your James Randi challenge so to all and anyone if your a betting man like our Chaz.... here is one back at you.


Victor Zammits $1 Million Challenge

http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html

[Izzywizzy]

NDE`s or Near Death Experiences studied
There are well documented cases of near death experiences (NDE's) in which the NDE'er was brain dead, there was no measureable brain wave activity at the time of the NDE, and yet they could describe events that occurred around them during this time. It appears consciousness is a neuroscience issue when alive, but after death it becomes a spiritual or religious issue.

Dr Raymond Moody wrote a book on his NDE and his expert findings over the many years of his empirical research as an anaesthatist.

http://www.lifeafterlife.com/

http://www.lifeafterlife.com/books.html

[Izzywizzy]

Arising Uk said that i was building a strawman and that No one in Science is doing any of the above

Arising your claim against me without so much as any evidence forthcoming, means the onus is on you to prove A) I am building strawmen and B) that no one in science is doing any of the above..I will give a starter for 10 and no conferrring lol..Richard Dawkins, using his bias science against theism.

[Arising_uk]

The simple answer to you, Zammits and Dr Moody is, if you believe this then kill yourself now. Show me the strength of your belief in an afterlife, as I've read of many who have demonstrated such a strong faith, are you one of them?

In fact, I'm pretty much guessing I could raise a million bucks from the internut atheists just to test the afterlifers belief.

Don't tell me! Its against your 'god/s' rules.

[Izzywizzy]

No Arising you can`t object unless you show them to be unscientific and even before i mentioned Moody or Zammit I gave peer reviewed scientist as my evidence the ones you said are no one in science saying it , try again, your flailing badly here with but but..lol

if you believe this kill yourself now

and please stop with the
over dramatics and emotionalism and try rationalism thank you after all I am a rational member trying to have a rational discussion.

[Arising_uk]

...
Arising your claim against me without so much as any evidence forthcoming, means the onus is on you to prove A) I am building strawmen and B) that no one in science is doing any of the above..I will give a starter for 10 and no conferrring lol..Richard Dawkins, using his bias science against theism.

Why do you write some of your words in red?

What are you babbling about with respect to Dawkins? All thats happened there is that he originally wrote a couple of books about his subject and the godbotherers went mental. He took it well for a while but then the truly loopy neo-con godbotherers went to work and he decided to fight back.

The strawman you are building is the idea that there is a plot by 'reductionist science' to cover-up 'research' that 'proves' the godbotherers beliefs. There isn't. Its just that they can't get the govt or business to pay out for research grants.

[Arising_uk]

...and please stop with the over dramatics and emotionalism and try rationalism thank you after all I am a rational member trying to have a rational discussion.

Your 'peer-reviewed' 'science' papers appeared to be nothing of the sort? In fact if you read them you'd see that the author actually states that the research shows the opposite of what he was claiming and he just refuses to believe it.

My argument is rational, if you believe there is a life after death then I'll accept you killing yourself as proof of your conviction. After all, you won't be losing anything by killing yourself. For myself, since I do not believe such a thing, I'll not be doing such a thing.

[duszek]

Mr. Arising, I do not quite agree with your line of reasoning.

Some people who are atheists say: what does it matter whether I die now or later ? what does it matter ?
And those who believe in afterlife say: it does matter because my life on earth is just one part of a continuum which goes on after my death. So everything matters because my soul moves from one phase to another.

[Izzywizzy]

lol Duszek maybe if Arisings red herrings mean`t anything we could stop laughing..out loud..

Arising besmirches DR.Raymond Moody in a heart beat..maybe he should know the guy he/she besmirches has credentials..and tell me..what are your Arisings credentials haha?

M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia, 1976 Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Virginia, 1969 M.A. in philosophy from the University of Virginia, 1967B.A. with Honors in philosophy from the University of Virginia, 1966

need i say more? lol Dr.Raymond Moody was qualified in philosophy on three counts with honours
are you?

Dr Moody is, if you believe this then kill yourself now.

um..Arisinguk maybe you should take your own advice, after all the scientific empirical evidence presented to you , you have no choice but to take yourself off somewhere ..lol

[duszek]

Please do not get me wrong.
I only wanted to assist Mr. Arising by offering food for thought.

There is nothing wrong in getting a little bit emotional once in a while, it shows us the hidden aspects of our own personality.

I am certainly not supporting the fundamental Christians in America. They scare me.

[Izzywizzy]

Duszek and don`t you go getting this thread wrong either! I don`t know what your last comment had to do with this thread about Consciousness, you read and sounded like christian bashing to me. You need the religious forums, this isn`t it.