Arguing the opposite point of view!

[David Bailey]

The idea of this thread is that all contributions will be from people willing to argue the reverse of their usual position.

Feel free to discuss any aspect of Ψ/consciousness, but remember that if you are a skeptic, you must do your best to construct a cogent argument for something non-physical - Ψ, disembodied consciousness, faith healing, dogs that know telepathically when their owners are returning, whatever. Equally, if you are known here as open minded to these ideas, you must argue convincingly that the conventional scientific take on these subjects is correct - no Ψ, consciousness only within a functioning brain, faith healing is just placebo, dogs are just using their normal senses, etc.

To avoid confusion, I would suggest that everyone prefaces their post with a caveat:

Please note that this is the opposite of what I really believe!

I would also ask people to be careful not to quote these posts out of context, as this would be greatly unfair to the authors.

I will leave it to others to kick this thread off, and then, I hope, to join in.

David

[Interesting Ian]

What is there to say? We should believe what is implied by Science. Science has shown us that the world can be described by what are labelled "physical laws". We've put men on the moon, understand the origin and ultimate fate of the Universe, created our ubiquitous technological civilisation, all from a thorough understanding of these physical laws. It is now abundantly clear that there is no room for any supernatural influence. The scope for any supernatural influence has been pushed further and further back, and the possibility of any magic existing in the world has now all been but vanquished.

If telepathy really did exist, then it should be possible to conduct experiments to find out what precisely allows its expression, and what precisely inhibits this ability. But despite over 100 years of psychic research and parapsychology, not only has there been absolutely no progress on this question, but we are still trying to establish its existence! Add that to the fact that it completely contradicts what we know from what science tells us. What should a rational person conclude??

And "life after death"? How on earth can this be squared with the apparent complete dependency of our states of our minds on our brains?? Damage to various areas to the brain affects our emotions and personality. Our capacity to understand written and spoken words, or the capacity to speak, are impaired or even eliminated with injuries to certain regions of the brain. Damage to the hippocampal and thalamic areas of the brain can destroy one's ability to store new long-term memories.

So if all this occurs with particular damage to the operation of the brain, then what on earth should we expect to survive when the brain is completely destroyed??!

Our inability to accept what the evidence and Science is trying to tell us is symptomatic of the irrationality of most of the human race, and suggests that what determines most of our beliefs is not evidence and reason, but what we psychologically yearn for.

It's about time the human race grew up.

[Larry Boy]

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards psi phenomena.

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Add that to the fact that it completely contradicts what we know from what science tells us.

This is a very important point. The Inverse-square Law in physics tells us that any signal must lose strength the further it travels, yet parapsychology experiments seem to indicate that "psi", if true, is little - if at all - affected by distance. Any explanation of psi at the "macro" level of reality thus seems to be ruled out.

What about quantum physics and non-locality, then? Well, this is often forgotten by psi proponents, but there's no indication at all in quantum theory that information can be passed along at this level. The fact that two particles can be somehow connected - "entangled" - through space and time does not mean that any kind of useful information, which generally requires quite complex structures to be stored, also can.

It seems, then, that psi is in conflict with the current scientific model of the world we're living in.

[Venom]

Please note that this is the opposite of what I really believe!

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

The fact that two particles can be somehow connected - "entangled" - through space and time does not mean that any kind of useful information, which generally requires quite complex structures to be stored, also can.

The fact is that quantum mechanics is a very new field of science. There is a lot of unknown about it; so it's possible that some new discoveries in the future will allow for such kind of anomalous transfert of informations. Mabye science will show that in order to fully undersdand the deep mystery of consciousness, quantum mechanics is in fact necessary.

[David Bailey]

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards psi phenomena.

Venom,

I just knew I would disagree with you! After all, QM has been around for 80-odd years now, and there are far more scientists alive now than in past epochs, so that translates into an enormous number of man-years of thought.

Furthermore, even if QM were developed in some way so that information could be transfered from brain to brain, my contention is that it would not be understood! Information in the brain is believed to be encoded in neural networks, which acquire their information in a statistical way. In other words, your neural network for 'cat' (say) would mean absolutely nothing to me, even if it could be transmitted!

There is also the problem that quantum coherence requires very special conditions - usually very low temeratures - certainly nothing like the messy interiors of our brains!

David

[Venom]

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards psi phenomena.

Ok, ok, let's start from the beginning.

It's clear that the materialistic paradigm of modern science failed to explained consciousness. There is nothing in contemporary neuropsychology who come close to adress the hard problem of consciousness.

Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's obvious that the brain can't produce the qualia. So there must be something else. That's why materialism is wrong, and dualism is the way to go for science. After all, we all know that correlation is not causation. The brain activity is just correlating with the "something" (information at the quantum level of reality?) that is really creating the qualia.

So my bet is that in the future, scientists will discover that the solution for the Hard problem is in Quantum Mechanics. When that will be done, when the materialistic paradigm of modern science will be gone and replaced by a new paradigm (wich will be a fusion of science and spirituality), then parapsychology will be mainstream...

I'm just waiting for that to happen now... It's gonna be very very soon. I can feel it.

[Venom]

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards psi phenomena.

So that's it? Waw, that was short... Well I didn't expect more from hard-core skeptics who don't even read the scientific litterature on the subject anyway...

[David Bailey]

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards Ψ phenomena.

Originally Posted by Venom

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards psi phenomena.

So that's it? Waw, that was short... Well I didn't expect more from hard-core skeptics who don't even read the scientific litterature on the subject anyway...

You have to be kidding! It was Donald Michie, an expert in artificial intelligenct (AI) that pointed out that even a thermostat is conscious to a small degree. This is an amazing insight - that the humble thermostat can sense one thing about its environment, and respond to it. It knows whether it is too hot or too cold, and it does something about it! What more do you need from an intelligent entity?

Of course, that insight is now quite old - now we have computers with thermostats attached to switch on their cooling fans. Not only that, but computers can respond when they feel too hot by slowing their processing rate. Many laptops also know when they are starting to tip up, and park their disks. OK, you might say that is only a reflex action, but can't you see how a purely physical intelligence is gradually developing? Although it seems a little strange to call a computer's awareness of its environment 'qualia' why shouldn't we?

With purely physical consciousness, who needs Ψ?

David

[Venom]

I'm sorry, but can you prove that thermostat have qualia?

The p-zombie thought experiment demonstrate that this idea is silly. Artificial intelligenct (AI) don't have qualia like humans do, they will never do.

Pretending otherwise is pure nonsense.

[David Bailey]

Please note that the following is not my current position as regards Ψ phenomena.

Originally Posted by Venom

I'm sorry, but can you prove that thermostat have qualia?

The p-zombie thought experiment demonstrate that this idea is silly. Artificial intelligenct (AI) don't have qualia like humans do, they will never do.

Pretending otherwise is pure nonsense.

Do you reckon it is possible to get a proof either that a thermostat does experience qualia, or that it doesn't?

Put another way, what do you thing the minimal qualia would be like?

David