Challenge to debunkers: Can you prove hallucinations are generated inside brain :-)

[Mike]

Paul,

What do you think of this person's views?

Index of /papers/docs/stokes

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Yes I'm fine thank you Paul! . . . . well . . . apart from the completely baffling things that skeptics and materialists utter.

That's our goal, dude!

I really don't know where to start with this. It's so completely confused and wrong headed from start to finish! So I won't bother starting with it -- I'll let Open Mind respond . Actually it'll be interesting to see if he says the same things as I would.

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that in an idealist metaphysic, the brain, mind, metamind, and all that good stuff are actually just "mind," and so the interface problems magically disappear. Is that it?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mike

Paul,

What do you think of this person's views?

Index of /papers/docs/stokes

Oh man, can I have a synopsis? Let me see ...

As modern science clings to the delusion that its grasp of the nature of reality is complete, it has steadfastly resisted the work of parapsychologists.

Oh, please, not the "we know everything" strawman.

You are your mind, not your body, not even your brain. You are your thoughts, your personality, your memories, your emotions. In short, you are a person, not a blob of pulsating neurons.

This really sounds cool. Unfortunately, it's not as deep as it sounds.

To make this example more compelling, assume that more than one copy of the person is assembled at the destination site [by a transporter]. Surely it would be difficult to believe that one’s self could simultaneously inhabit all the replicas of one’s physical body that are constructed at the destination site, insofar as a conscious self cannot have several separate and independent streams of consciousness occurring at the same time.

Thus, you cannot be the pattern of your neural activity, your emotions, your memories, your personality traits, or your present hopes and dreams.

This sounds really important. Could you explain to me what in the heck he's saying here?

~~ Paul

[Mike]

Paul,

I feel you have taken certain quotations out of the context of the whole book and thus distorted the overall thrust of the book. It was perhaps unfair of me to ask you for comments on the book.

My sense of the book is that he believes that the existence of psi has not been proven and he attempts to rigorously lay out summaries of various studies and theories of psi, as well as skeptical criticisms of these studies and theories. He also strongly believes that one's personality and memories cannot survive the death of the brain because modern cognitive neuroscience has demonstrated the complete dependence of these on the brain. He does, however, seem to be open to a kind of "survival" of consciousness which does not entail survival of one's personality and memories. He approvingly cites skeptics like Susan Blackmore without necessarily completely agreeing with everything they've written.

I think that in pulling quotes out of the context of the whole book, one runs the risk of distorting his argument as a whole.

When I think of a type of survival of death as a kind of pure consciousness without aspects of one's personality and memories persisting for at least a time, I wonder how one would even know that one had survived.

At any rate, I regret I even brought this up, due to the length of the book. It popped into my mind when I read your comments in a recent post about the brain.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes Mike, I knew I was going out on a limb with the quotes, since the book is obviously long and deserves a better review. I agree that I don't know why it's interesting to say that some sort of pure consciousness might survive death. Perhaps he means that my individuated consciousness flows back into the metamind after I die?

I am still interested in his bit about the transporter. He seems to think he's making an important point there, but I don't understand it.

Also, really, modern science does not cling to the idea that it knows everything.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Paul

I've read a book by Stokes, about 2 years ago. It wasn't this one though. I never realised he'd written another one (thanks Mike for pointing it out).

Anyway I remember that Stokes was quite skeptical (in the traditional sense) of parapsychological phenomena because he conducted research himself but couldn't get any positive results (if I'm remembering this correctly).

Also I remember people on the jref quoting him with approval about something or other. Anyway I thought his first book was really good.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

This sounds really important. Could you explain to me what in the heck he's saying here?

This teletransporter business has been discussed loads of times on the jref! In the primary and secondary qualities thread for a kick off which I know you read and contributed extensively to.

You might be interested btw in reading my essay on this topic in my blog.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I am still interested in his bit about the transporter. He seems to think he's making an important point there, but I don't understand it.

~~ Paul

He's just saying the same stream of consciousness can't inhabit 2 or more bodies. But I think he's presupposing the notion of an enduring self. A materialist cannot believe in an enduring self. Anyway I talk about this in that essay on my blog. I don't mean I comment on Stokes ideas because I never realised he'd written another book!

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Mike

At any rate, I regret I even brought this up, due to the length of the book.

Personally I'm very pleased you did bring it up!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

This teletransporter business has been discussed loads of times on the jref! In the primary and secondary qualities thread for a kick off which I know you read and contributed extensively to.

Oh yes, I know. I just can't get a grip on specifically what he's talking about in that paragraph.

"Surely it would be difficult to believe that one’s self could simultaneously inhabit all the replicas of one’s physical body that are constructed at the destination site, ..."

What is this "one's self" that is having difficulty deciding which copy of the body to inhabit? He seems to be assuming some sort of dualistic notion of self.

"Thus, you cannot be the pattern of your neural activity, your emotions, your memories, your personality traits, or your present hopes and dreams."

How does this follow?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

He's just saying the same stream of consciousness can't inhabit 2 or more bodies. But I think he's presupposing the notion of an enduring self.

Yes, I agree, an enduring self looking wildly to the left and to the right, trying to decide which body to pop into.

~~ Paul