Video: Michael Shermer *promises* Daryl Bem's studies will fail

[Open Mind]

I don't know if someone posted this video previously it contains Stuart Hameroff, Henry Stapp, Deepak Chopra, Michael Shermer and others.

Stapp mentions Bem's experiments on passing .... leading on to Michael Shermer promising the effect is not real. He also states 'quantum consciousness is baloney' because 'we' (i.e. he) know how the world works.

Deepak Chopra, Michael Shermer, Chapman University - YouTube

It is long a bit boring in places but has some amusing moments too. Shermer becomes super confident around 1:18:30 mark.

[Ian]

It's apt that he's quoting Stephen Colbert just before that moment, given the evident "truthiness" of Shermer's remarks. He feels that's not how the universe works... you know, in his gut.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Ian

He feels that's not how the universe works... you know, in his gut.

It seems Shermer is a materialistic fortune teller

[gabriel]

Turn the sound off on Shermer and his body language alone is 100% bluster.

[Johann]

I have seen this panel debate several times, and I think we need more of them. They really represent a synthesis of the minds, uniting people with disparate opinions and challenging them to defend their viewpoint against other, well informed participants. In some ways, this mode of inquiry is superior to the written word, for there is little time for the kind of sophisticated rationalization we encounter on forums or blogs; instead, the panelists must speak only from their own knowledge and experience, such that the unbiased spectator gradually comes to realize who is the more informed.

Of course, the setback to this setup is that debates are often "won" on rhetorical skill and intelligence rather than data. Still, I think it serves a crucial purpose: those who are absolutely convinced about something may quickly find their conclusions challenged, unless they are really backed by strong arguments. In this way, it opens minds and weeds out weak positions - such as the position that their is "no good evidence" against the materialist hypothesis.

A militant Atheist watching this presentation might, I think, find his or her position a bit softened, and made more reasonable, for example.

- Johann

[Open Mind]

Yes I agree.

I should give Shermer some credit, he did spark it into life .... but he didn't get away with it. Hameroff's response to Shermer was interesting.

Also a lot of people deride Deepak Chopra but I think he is improving at debating, his comments had me laughing at times

[Maaneli]

Just watched it. Sorry to be harsh, but overall I thought the debate was poorly conducted by the panelists. Most of them were inelegant speakers and would often say words incompletely or out of logical order because they were trying too hard to get in as many words as they could, rather than focusing on being clear. Also, an hour and 45 mins is way too short to have a productive conversation about 'the ultimate nature of reality', especially given how many panelists there were, and how much disagreement ensued.

Deepak would make some reasonable points but then taint them by vague usage of words (e.g. 'consciousness', 'nonlocality', 'entanglement', 'nonphysical', etc.) and non-sequiturs. Shermer was absolutely right to call Deepak on the vagueness of his word usage, but had his own faults in that he'd make ignorant comments about things like the Bem study, and when he posed his questions to Stuart directly (e.g. giving an operational definition of consciousness), and Stuart responded directly, he would just get needlessly pedantic and not even bother to try and understand Stuart's claims (or to even acknowledge the empirical evidence Stuart would cite about things like macro QM processes in the brain). Kafatos didn't really say anything specific about why he thinks consciousness and QM are related (e.g. he could have at least talked about the empirical evidence that leads him to think so). Stapp I thought just rambled incoherently most of the time (especially at the end) and would lose everyone in the process.

Jeff Tollaksen completely botched his explanation of nonlocality and was needlessly dilly dallying during his 4 minutes. He was trying too hard to look and sound cool to the audience. Mlodinow also was a disappointment. When he asked Stuart to explain the terms he was using to define consciousness, he clearly didn't understand the terms, didn't seem to be at all aware of Penrose's serious work on gravity and objective reduction, and tried to cover it up by pretending that it was just Stuart speaking gibberish. And he topped it off by throwing out an unnecessary gotcha question like 'can you tell us what a wavefunction is?'. He did a good job explaining in layman's terms what nonlocality is, but completely messed up on the question about M-theory and its falsifiability. He claimed M-theory was falsifiable but couldn't even give one example of how and instead just rambled on about how not all the elements of a theory need to be falsifiable (which is true but a completely different issue). He also showed his ignorance of string theorists and string theory when he said "I don't think they'd work on it if it wasn't falsifiable", and he was unfairly condescending when Deepak said he thought 10^500 universes is an inelegant feature (which many string theorists agree with too).

So, overall, the debate topics had potential, but the panelists completely failed to fulfill that potential.

[Open Mind]

Thanks for the comments Maaneli. I wouldn't know when someone claims 'M Theory' is falsifiable, whether they are right or not.

Tollaksen did seem star struck (or dumb struct). Stapp does take too long to get to the point. I excused Chopra because he at least preempted his beliefs by saying he wasn't going to argue like a scientist and he didn't.

Shermer surely knows Victor Stenger (CSI fellow) got it wrong so to claim a quantum mind concept was 'baloney' seems an attempt to reaffirm his beliefs regardless of the failure of his prior reasons to reject it.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

So, overall, the debate topics had potential, but the panelists completely failed to fulfill that potential.

I think a better format would be to have scientists on just two opposing teams on a specific 'question' ... they move seats (or sit out in neutral area) to let audience know which side they are on each issue to be discussed and then the debate proceeds back and forth. Might look like a silly game of musical chairs but so often some have nothing important to say other shun being associated with a particular viewpoint ... I think Mlodinow did that in response to Hameroff.

Scientists should debate this stuff on TV - instead of the dumbed down stuff we are being spoonfed .... these could include debates on parapsychological evidence, global warming, optimum nutrition versus pharmaceutical drugs and many other controversial topics ...

[David R]

If scientists don't see God it is because they are not looking.

That just about sums the whole thing up.

[fls]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Scientists should debate this stuff on TV - instead of the dumbed down stuff we are being spoonfed .... these could include debates on parapsychological evidence ...

Or maybe on the radio or a podcast. That would be a useful endeavor.

Linda