Response to Dr. G.M. Woerlee's Critique of Dr. Jeffrey Long's NDE Research

[Keith W.]

Greetings,

I spent quite a bit of time researching Dr. Woerlee's NDE explanations and specifically his critique of Dr. Long's research. Based on my findings, I put together the following response:

Response to Dr. Woerlee's Critique of Dr. Jeffrey Long's Research

I originally posted this in the podcast thread, but it was in the middle of an ongoing conversation and Alex felt it would be a good idea to move it into a separate thread.

Feel free to critique away, I have fairly thick skin.

Best regards,

Keith

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Twig

Greetings,

I spent quite a bit of time researching Dr. Woerlee's NDE explanations and specifically his critique of Dr. Long's research.

Quite a lot of time - and thanks for that effort - it puts a lot of this into a clearer context.

It seems to me that the real problem is that some people, such as Dr. Woerlee, have somehow concluded that dualism and all that entails is illogical. All their theorising stems from a desperate attempt to explain the facts after taking that conclusion as given.

Maybe Alex should try to probe the roots of that starting assumption when interviewing skeptical guests.

David

[FastEddieB]

It seems to me that the real problem is that some people, such as Dr. Woerlee, have somehow concluded that dualism and all that entails is illogical.

Instead of "illogical", I'd insert "unnecessary" or "unproven".

In any case, I don't see it as a "problem" - just initial assumptions that remain to be proven wrong by experiment and/or data.

[Lyander]

Dualism has a fundamental problem on the conceptual level- how something immaterial and without dimension can interact with the physical universe.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Lyander

Dualism has a fundamental problem on the conceptual level- how something immaterial and without dimension can interact with the physical universe.

When Daniel Dennett made this point, physicist Henry Stapp responded...

'.. This argument depends on identifying 'standard physics' with classical physics. The argument collapses when one goes over to contemporary [quantum] physics, in which, due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, trajectories of particles are replaced by cloud-like structures, and in which conscious choices can influence physically described activity without violating the conservation laws or any other laws of quantum physics. Contemporary physical theory allows, and its orthodox von Neumann form entails, an interactive dualism that is fully in accord with alll the laws of physics. Any perception merely reduces the possibilities.' - Physicist Henry Stapp[/B]

Emphasis added by me....

Nor should one assume long held materialist assumption based upon classical mechanics that the world must be causally closed .... '...the Universe is fundamentally unpredictable and open, not causally closed.' - Physicist Anton Zeilinger, one of today's leading researchers into quantum entanglement.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Twig

I originally posted this in the podcast thread, but it was in the middle of an ongoing conversation and Alex felt it would be a good idea to move it into a separate thread.

Feel free to critique away, I have fairly thick skin.

Best regards,

Keith

Keith, great critique ... thanks for posting this!

[paqart]

Keith,

Your response to Woerlee is much more carefully made than Woerlee's books and the statements he made on Skeptiko. While reading it, I was reminded of how careless Woerlee was in the statements he made on his website. He sounded like a heckler more than a serious professional. Likewise, his book The Unholy Legacy of Abraham, is a calculated insult meant to amuse himself and annoy others more than a serious critique. With these contemptible motivations as his reason for engaging in this debate, it is no wonder his results are so meager and unconvincing.

This is exactly what bothers me the most about the writings of skeptics. They are often careless, poorly researched, arrogant to the extent that their writers feel comfortable including sarcastic insults. All of these characteristics indicate lack of respect for readers who disagree with their primary thesis. This reminds me of a particularly awful evening I once spent, on the advice of a friend, at the campus of his favorite self-help university. I went primarily because I didn't want to offend my friend, but afterwards told him we wouldn't be talking anymore. It was the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood, a recruiting arm of Scientology. They had a recruiting video that I had to see, and at its end, Scientology's new leader, David Miscavige, made a rather chilling statement. He said words that were very close to the following, but the same in meaning "Now that you've seen this video, you know what it's like to be a Scientologist. It's your decision whether you want to become one, or instead, to kill yourself, or become a drug addict, stupid, or ruin your life in some other way."

Miscavige's face leered evil from the screen as he made this completely open threat on screen to people in the audience. His callousness is hard to exaggerate. When I read Woerlee, I think of Miscavige, the same for James Randi and some other prominent skeptics. Even skeptics who are not as nasty, like Richard Wiseman, have casual lack of respect built into all of their critiques of psi. This is evident because their arguments almost never directly address the data they are critiquing. When they do, in some cases they may be reacting to research that may not have been done very well, or instead, they respond to only a part of it in a reasonable way, and then revert to ignoring it for the rest of the critique.

Here on the site, I see this all the time. David Bailey pointed this out regarding some posts he made, and I've certainly seen it in responses to my own, where skeptics might as well be responding to something they wrote themselves, as an imaginary version of what a deluded psi-believer would write. It probably won't look this way to them, because they are unconsciously adding their assumptions to anything they read, translating it into language understandable to themselves. More careful attention however, is necessary if they ever hope to have credibility with the other side of the debate.

Woerlee and others have managed to accomplish calm during their Skeptiko interviews. What they often are incapable of, is the kind of mental focus required to fully engage they information they are there to critique.

AP

[Keith W.]

Thanks to all for the kind words, I'm glad I could contribute. I've enjoyed the spirited debates and all of your contributions as well.

Regards,

Keith

[Open Mind]

Giving Keith's critique a bump up the topics page .... worth a read folks

[imiyakawa]

Keith you go girl!