Rupert Sheldrake's thoughts on skepticism

[David Bailey]

Rupert has published some interesting thoughts on the nature of extreme skepticism, that readers may find interesting.


THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 — Page 2

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Sheldrake

Skepticism has even deeper roots in religion than in science. The Old Testament prophets were withering in their scorn for the rival religions of the Holy Land. Psalm 115 mocks those who make idols of silver and gold: "They have mouths, and speak not: eyes have they, and see not." At the Reformation, the Protestants deployed the full force of biblical scholarship and critical thinking against the veneration of relics, cults of saints and other "superstitions" of the Catholic Church. Atheists take religious skepticism to its ultimate limits; but they are defending another faith, a faith in science.

How strange. Sheldrake appears to think that all atheists have a strong affinity for science. Furthermore, he's walking on tricky ground when he talks of faith in science, since faith is belief without evidence.

~~ Paul

[DysonSphere]

I too dislike that criticism. I'm scientistic I'll admit. I don't have faith in faith, I have faith in evidence. The supposed deep root of skepticism in religion being described by Sheldrake is not skepticism, it is prejudice. In this case prejudice against "superstition" but in this case believing the Pope has divine powers is equal in superstitiousness. The only difference is that one belief is popular and one isn't.

My problem with The Skeptics is that they don't follow the evidence wherever it goes (in my eyes) and aren't open to certain beliefs that could, one day, be validated (God for example). Another problem I have is that of the nihilistic type atheists who believe morality needs to be somehow proven by science but that is a small number of atheists indeed.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Dyson

My problem with The Skeptics is that they don't follow the evidence wherever it goes (in my eyes) and aren't open to certain beliefs that could, one day, be validated (God for example).

Indeed, one must be willing to follow the evidence. It's tough sometimes, though, because events aren't perfectly documented.

Validating God can't happen until someone defines the term in a meaningful manner.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Paul,

You and your fellow critics throw away most of the evidence for a variety of reasons:

Anything anecdotal (such as the landing of meteorites used to be considered) is, well, anecdotal!

Evidence from children, people on the point of death, people with mental health problems, people from other cultures, or people taking drugs, that suggests that consciousness is not what you think it is, gets dismissed (in effect) by just arguing that their brains aren't functioning right!

Carefully designed experiments, such as those of Rupert Sheldrake, are subjected to a withering mass of criticism (including the ultimate suggestion that the experimenter might be cheating) without any real acknowledgement that few if any scientific experiments would survive such an attack.

The consequences to a researcher if he publishing paranormal results, are such that I would guess there are substantial numbers of conventional workers in fields such as psychiatry that have evidence of ψ phenomena that they never publish. Equally, some phenomena - such as those Rupert Sheldrake studies - hint at ψ explanations, that most researchers never even think of investigating for fear of what they might find!

Above all, it seems to me that you apply double standards. You dismiss dualist/idealist arguments because they are not complete theories, but when pressed, you say that a physical explanation of consciousness may be several lifetimes away!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

Anything anecdotal (such as the landing of meteorites used to be considered) is, well, anecdotal!

But you don't assume scientists discard anecdotes because they think all of them are false, do you? Of course not. They discard anecdotes because they cannot tell which of them are false.

Evidence from children, people on the point of death, people with mental health problems, people from other cultures, or people taking drugs, that suggests that consciousness is not what you think it is, gets dismissed (in effect) by just arguing that their brains aren't functioning right!

Such evidence is not discarded, it's just take with a large grain of salt. Who do you think neurophysiologists learn a lot about brain function from? People with interesting bits of busted brain.

Carefully designed experiments, such as those of Rupert Sheldrake, are subjected to a withering mass of criticism (including the ultimate suggestion that the experimenter might be cheating) without any real acknowledgement that few if any scientific experiments would survive such an attack.

So you mean that the integrated circuits in my computer, based on QM, would stop working if we homed in on the possible defects of QM experiments? Look, Sheldrake forgot to control for clock synchronization in some of his telephone telepathy experiments. I'm sorry, but it took me about five minutes to come up with that potential leak. I'm sure he tries hard to design good protocols, but it's a tricky business with psi experiments.

Above all, it seems to me that you apply double standards. You dismiss dualist/idealist arguments because they are not complete theories, but when pressed, you say that a physical explanation of consciousness may be several lifetimes away!

What?! There is no research program for an idealist or dualist theory of consciousness at all. At least those nasty physicalist scientists are working on the problem.

Anyway, I don't dismiss idealism and dualism per se. As I've said, I think any metaphysics that actually explain the world would be consistent. The reason I sound like a physicalist is simply because I think that consciousness is a product of brain function. When the idealist research program starts up, I'll certainly take a look at the evidence.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

So you mean that the integrated circuits in my computer, based on QM, would stop working if we homed in on the possible defects of QM experiments? Look, Sheldrake forgot to control for clock synchronization in some of his telephone telepathy experiments. I'm sorry, but it took me about five minutes to come up with that potential leak.

The circuits would go on working just as much as pet dogs all over the world will go on anticipating the return of their owners.

Clocks are pretty well synchronized nowadays (thanks to the above mentioned integrated circuits) - are you sure you have found a significant factor. A lot of mud seems to be thrown at Sheldrake and not much of it seems to stick - as Alex demonstrated in his recent podcast. Presumably your clock issue (if genuine) also requires that the participants chose to cheat - but cheating is more or less taken for granted in critiques of ψ experiments. Yes, there have been cheats, but there have been frauds exposed in ordinary science, and presumably others that remain undiscovered. The case of Hendrik Schön comes to mind. Interestingly, he was discovered only because he used the same graph (complete with noise) for more than one experiment!

David

[DysonSphere]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Validating God can't happen until someone defines the term in a meaningful manner.

To define God is to confine God as they say but I agree with you. The "God" I'm talking about is the one described in mystical experiences, usually described as all pervasive love and awareness, also as a white light, you know all that woo woo stuff that Skeptics hate. We know those experiences happen but we don't know yet if they occur as an illusion in the body or if they should be taken literally. I don't think anything rules out the objectiveness of them.

I share the David Bailey's impression: most scientists seem to remain willfully ignorant of "mind expanding" experiences. Take drugs for instance. Psychedelic drugs in high doses allows people to remember very vividly their entire life up to the point of consuming the drug. I've read several magic mushroom accounts describing this or something similar. Wouldn't those experiences alter the current understanding of memory?

[David Bailey]

Arghhhhh - not that G word again - cant we go back to the Metamind!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

Clocks are pretty well synchronized nowadays (thanks to the above mentioned integrated circuits) - are you sure you have found a significant factor.

Gee, my house is full of clocks that are not sychronized to any atomic clock.

Sheldrake acknowledged that clock desychronization could be used to determine who was calling, and that they had not controlled for it, but claimed that he checked the videos and it didn't matter. I'll have to take his word for it.

~~ Paul