Is Wikipedia unfair to Psi research?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

You are just making assumptions like materialism is the default position of science and materialists owns science and natural selection ....which is false ... history is full of leading scientists who were not materialists .... natural selection was co-discovered by Alfred Russel Wallace who was a dualist (who also claimed evidence of telepathy, survival etc.)

The default position of science is scientific epistemology. Science has to make some assumptions, such as that real things are things that affect other things and real things can be described by a consistent set of laws. Science doesn't rely on complex ontological assumptions.

The only argument that "materialists" have with immaterialists occurs when immaterialists demand that their favorite immaterial thing be addressed by science, but then refuse to offer any suggestions about how that might be done. For example, if you believe that the mind is immaterial, please describe how the immaterial interacts with the material, so that poor scientists have some chance of coming up with testable hypotheses.

... no materilists have the slightest clue how consciousness/mind can evolve from material processes via natural selection ...

Please, spare us. There are many hypotheses about the evolution of consciousness. And, as always, saying "mind just is" offers no assistance whatsoever. How was it that immaterial mind interacts with the material, again?

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Cons.../dp/0671792245

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Please, spare us. There are many hypotheses about the evolution of consciousness.

It is all promissory materialism and metaphor magic .... suddenly the author starts using words like 'sensation' and how this emerges into consciousness ... but without consciousness already in place it is not a sensation at all .... consciousness must precede sensation .....it is just metaphor magic skipping over the hard problem ....

The usual materialist speculation is feedback loops between brain and body can generate sensations like pain ..... however over 50% of amputees experience pain from a phantom limb ... the theory in it's simplest form doesn't even fit the data

Plus even more metaphor magic and promises of how computers will one day experience joy, pain, love, imagine, desire, have personal goals, understand the meaning of the data ..... no proper evidence just non-causal correlations and the firm belief it is a local to brain classical material process at work.

Some materialists are using human consciousness to design computers (not allowed in the materialist version of natural selection) yet currently only humans understand the meaning of what computers are doing, the computer is only shuffling data around...... it is a deceptive metaphor, some materialists seem to think a computer programmed to fool observers means it is conscious ...

An elaborate computer/andriod deception is still nothing more than the pretense of consciousness......humans are not pretending to feel toothache while computers are programmed to pretend to feel pain ... so the materialist eventually claims humans are not really 'conscious' and it is just a deception of non-conscious material processes and in doing so remove empiricism (i.e. experience) from their belief system because it doesn't work.... at least yet.

And, as always, saying "mind just is" offers no assistance whatsoever. How was it that immaterial mind interacts with the material, again?

Profile | Solutions to the Mind-Body Problem? (Henry Stapp) | Closer to Truth


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[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

It is all promissory materialism and metaphor magic .... suddenly the author starts using words like 'sensation' and how this emerges into consciousness ... but without consciousness already in place it is not a sensation at all .... consciousness must precede sensation .....it is just metaphor magic skipping over the hard problem ....

As opposed to a "consciousness just is" hypothesis? What does immaterialism have to offer that is not merely metaphor, with virtually no hope of it becoming anything more?

The usual materialist speculation is feedback loops between brain and body can generate sensations like pain ..... however over 50% of amputees experience pain from a phantom limb ... the theory in it's simplest form doesn't even fit the data

I think neurophysiology has a lot more to offer than this.

An elaborate computer/andriod deception is still nothing more than the pretense of consciousness......humans are not pretending to feel toothache while computers are programmed to pretend to feel pain ... so the materialist eventually claims humans are not really 'conscious' and it is just a deception of non-conscious material processes and in doing so remove empiricism (i.e. experience) from their belief system because it doesn't work.... at least yet.

Your use of the word pretend clouds the issue. Perhaps what's really going on is neither pretend nor all-of-a-piece consciousness.

Profile | Solutions to the Mind-Body Problem? (Henry Stapp) | Closer to Truth

Originally Posted by Stapp

... these actual events are things that have two aspects ... one aspect is the collapse of a wave function ... but it's associated with a psychological element such that there is a close connection between the psychological element and the pattern of neurological activity.

Here is the gigantic leap from quantum mechanics to psychology.

Stapp may have the answer, but it's not in that video.

~~ Paul

[Limbo]

Originally Posted by CKava

As far as the association between psi and religion. I don't think there is any big connection aside from very similar arguments being used to argue against science.

Study comparative mythology, comparative religion, and comparative mysticism and it will be clear to you that that which the ancients called spiritual powers, miracles, magic, etc has a grain of truth to it - they were and are actually manifestations of psi.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Limbo

Study comparative mythology, comparative religion, and comparative mysticism and it will be clear to you that that which the ancients called spiritual powers, miracles, magic, etc has a grain of truth to it - they were and are actually manifestations of psi.

Well, they have a grain of truth if psi has any truth to it.

~~ Paul

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

As opposed to a "consciousness just is" hypothesis?

It doesn't have to mean 'consciousness just is' ......one could view it as a level of physics more fundamental than either matter or mind .... There are several alternatives to materialism ..... panpsychism, interactive dualism, idealism, etc.

What does immaterialism have to offer that is not merely metaphor

*All* of the positions on consciousness (including materialism) are currently metaphors, no one understands yet the cause of consciousness.

As for 'immaterial' .... immaterial things exist ....fields cannot be described in terms of matter ... fields are action at a distance with no material contact between objects ....time/space is not clearly material, a gravitational field that can curve matter within it. And material realism, locality, etc. isn't true at the level of quantum physics... matter is viewed as energy within fields.

I am using the term 'materialism' to mean the (too) dominant philosophical belief amongst those conditioned by scientific training that local matter alone creates mind ....the alternatives have not been falsified, just discredited due to a false mental association with religion which do not follow materialism either.

[OC68]

Originally Posted by Perig

you are likely to find the usual tricks of the trade: hypocrisy, selective use of evidence, dismissal of non-mainstream peer-reviewed publications, etc.

But the most important to realize, I believe (with others), is that Wikipedia (in all topics that are called "controversial") is a nerdocracy; the most important is not to have the evidence, or good ideas about how to be neutral, but to have a lot of time to spend in front of your keyboard, to exhaust the opponent.

Another thing is that you need several like-minded people, who will enter the discussion to give the false impression that "most people" would agree with you.

Excellent summary. Pretty much the only exception I've noticed are some of the articles dealing with UFOs. There tend to be just as many ufo believers willing to devote endless amounts of time to debate as their opponents.