Future Guests – Open Discussion

[David Bailey]

DavidSmith73 posted a link to a paper by Donald Hoffman over on the Mind-Body thread. On the basis of that paper (http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf), I think Donald Hoffman would make an excellent guest!

David

[Larry Boy]

I've made this suggestion before, but journalist Richard Milton would be a perfect guest for Skeptiko. His book Alternative Science is one of the best, if not the best I've read concerning the psi controversy. However, it deals not only with parapsychology but with scientific controversy in general, and shows that scientists have been wrong time and time again about what is possible. It also has loads of useful information on relevant subjects such as cognitive dissonance.

His homepage: Alternative science, scientific anomalies, Darwinism, paranormal phenomena, censorship, pseudoscience,illuminati

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by Larry Boy

I've made this suggestion before, but journalist Richard Milton would be a perfect guest for Skeptiko. His book Alternative Science is one of the best, if not the best I've read concerning the psi controversy. However, it deals not only with parapsychology but with scientific controversy in general, and shows that scientists have been wrong time and time again about what is possible. It also has loads of useful information on relevant subjects such as cognitive dissonance.

His homepage: Alternative science, scientific anomalies, Darwinism, paranormal phenomena, censorship, pseudoscience,illuminati

Tried contacting him a couple of times... no response.

Am going to be focusing on the DogsThatKnow experiments for a while. Will get to some of these other excellent guests suggestions down the road.

If anyone has time/inclination/talent to conduct some interviews please contact me.

[anonymous]

I'd like to suggest a tag team match with Michael Prescott and Michael Tymn against two other skeptics.

The theme of the show would be to demonstrate that skeptics are ignorant of the evidence for the paranormal and survival after death and that they base their opinioins on ignorance not facts or science.

The content of show(s) would be to have Michael and Michael discuss the evidence and then let the skeptics open the debate by trying to explain why they do not accept the evidence.

Extending the program over more than one show would allow individuals to do research and even get input from the discussion boards etc. Maybe you could devote a portion of your show for several weeks, or even share it with the sgu podcast.

There is really plenty of evidence but the skeptics do not know about it. We don't really need more experiements like what is being planned with SGU. What we need is to educate people about what has already been done.

It might be a lot of work to ask of the host and the participants on the show, but if the debate is done seriously it might result in a book that could be published.

[Larry Boy]

Some suggestions:

Douglas Stokes, about parapsychology and various theories of mind (see his book Consciousness and the Physical World, which is available online: Index of /papers/docs/stokes)

Stephen Braude, about philosophical issues surrounding parapsychology

Bruce Greyson, about NDE-research

Erlendur Haraldsson, about research on death-bed visions and reincarnation

John Palmer, about the Ganzfeld controversy (he wrote an excellent review in Psi Wars)

Stanley Krippner, about psi experiences in indigenous cultures

Nancy Zingrone, about the history of the debate between skeptics and proponents (she wrote a thesis entitled "From Text to Self: The History of Criticism and Response in the English-language Literature of Academic and Scientific Parapsychology")

[Venom]

Daniel Dennett about consciousness.
Chris French about the “Haunt” Project, and other reseachs he has done in the past.
Richard Dawkins +1

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by Venom

Daniel Dennett about consciousness.
Chris French about the “Haunt” Project, and other reseachs he has done in the past.
Richard Dawkins +1

I second those suggestions. I've always found Chris French's moderate stance sympathetic, and Dawkins is always fun to listen to just because he is so provocative (and I agree with a lot of what he has to say about religion, even though he tends to get simplistic and one-sided at times). And it would be really nice to have a Dennet vs. Chalmers episode!

[Mark]

<quote>Daniel Dennett about consciousness</quote>

In that case we should get David Chambers on to talk about the same subject. The topic of 'the hard problem of consciousness' and qualia is bound to pop up.

Regards

Mark

[Interesting Ian]

What's the point of asking Daniel Dennett to talk about consciousness? He doesn't believe in its existence! He himself has acknowledged that he is a philosophical zombie (i.e he is not conscious).

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

What's the point of asking Daniel Dennett to talk about consciousness? He doesn't believe in its existence! He himself has acknowledged that he is a philosophical zombie (i.e he is not conscious).

Well is as much as people with such crazy views seem to have a lot of influence - why not? Alex doesn't just interview people that he agrees with. I think people like Dennett crystallize the sense in me that science is coming up to a big paradigm shift.

David