The Life Between Lives - Dr. Michael Newton

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Danny

Well Arienell thats the fun part about Paul.
He likes to agrue with out taking the time to look at the other side of the story. Thats the problem with being overly biased, you have made up your mind before you even start the conversation. It is impossible to stay objective, it is impossible to stay true to the scientific methodology(even though skeptics praise it so highly) if you wont look at both sides the evidence. It is claiming that "theory does not trump data" one moment, and saying "give me a mechanism for the spirits world and i'll consider it" the next. It is to overlook the fact that hunderds of people give similar and highly detailed reports about the spirit realm under hypnosis, without giving it any explanation, apart from "we all have similar brains"

And we all have similar cultures. You're being awfully judgmental about this for a guy who is supposedly keeping an open mind. I get the feeling some of you folks really need to have this be true. Perhaps you just talk that way.

In other words, no amout of reports can convince to even look at the subject seriously because we dont have a mechanism for it....well we have something going on called the string theory. It predicts 12 or so dimensions alltogether but I doubt that make much of a difference. And yes paul, it is based on this highly logical thing called math

Yeah, and everyone is rolling their eyes at string theory until they can come up with an experiment that will distinguish their model of the universe from other ones. Theory does not trump data.

The problem here is that I don't trust the data. Mere matching of experiences doesn't do the trick. If you're the sort of person that trusts every story about past lives, then you think there is a lot of good data. If you're the sort of person that trusts some stories but not others, then you might help us by explaining your criteria. If you're the sort of person who thinks it seems like cold reading, then the data needs to be accompanied by analysis of the data.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Larry

I haven't read any of Newton's books myself, but does it say anywhere in them that he tells his patients that their experiences are real or that past lifes are a proven fact? Do you know the actual procedure he goes through when treating his patients? If not, why do you make claims about what he does to his patients? How do you know he doesn't tell them of more ordinary possibilities as well?

I'm sorry, but even saying "This might be memories of past lives" is making an unproven claim. It might also be memories implanted by our overlord denizens of the hollow earth.

If you can't come up with criteria for placing extraordinary claims on a possible/outrageous spectrum, then I see no reason to treat some of them with more respect. Well, except for homeopathy, which is patently absurd.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Rod McKenzie

Hi Paul,
Been trying to follow your debate with Majinrevan.
Seems to me you are confused about “logical possibility”. Found the following in an article by Neal Grossman :-

“….The alien abduction
hypothesis is of course logically possible, but calling it ‘‘logically
possible’’ means merely that the sentence ‘‘aliens abducted the
children and planted memories in their brains’’ is not self-contradictory.

Yup, that's the sloppy definition of logical possibility that philosophers use. How do you know that the sentence is not self-contradictory? For example, what if you could demonstrate that it is logically impossible for aliens to reach Earth? Or what if you could prove that it is logically impossible to implant memories that a child wouldn't realize was implanted? In other words, how do you know that the premises of the statement are true?

The Knowledge Argument is a classic example where philosophers do not do the work to determine whether the premises are correct.

Now, if philosophers know this but want to use the cheap method of deciding logical possibility, so be it. But that does not mean that their conclusions have anything to do with the real world.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by majinrevan

It doesn't necessarily mean that the stories aren't made up, but it
makes almost no sense whatsoever for them to make up these stories.

It makes almost no sense whatsoever for them to play cowboys and indians, either. What kids do has no obligation to make sense.

Children spontaneously remember past lives, they don't need therapists.

How do you know that the child is remembering a past life?

Imagine that you are god.
You want to have people reincarnated again and again on earth.
How would you go about doing it and what should I expect to see on
earth as evidence for what you've done?

Am I a god sort of like the Christian God, who wants to play endless games with his creations? If not, then I would make it obvious what the point of reincarnation was. If knowing the point defeated the purpose, then I would consider that I was inventing something broken.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by majinrevan

Let me just quote a passege in the book regarding mechanisms for you and
Paul:

Apparently it is virtually impossible to convince you that I am not dismissing reincarnation because I don't know the mechanism. I am treating it as highly improbable because I'm not convinced by the evidence. I realize that y'all can read gobs of evidence and just don't understand why it isn't convincing. I'm just not convinced.

We are fortunate that the field of medicine has not waited for mechanisms
to be uncovered before taking adventage of effective treatments, since physicians have successfuly used numerous medications before knowing their
mechanisms of action.

And yet people still complain that they don't want to take such-and-such a medication because they're not sure of its action.

The mechanism of gravity was a complete mystery at the time that Isaac Newton proposed the concept, but people accepted its existence nontheless.

That's because anyone could drop a rock.

Unless we are willing to say that we know that no mechanism is even possible, we should not dismiss a concept simply because we do not know its
mechanism."

Agreed.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

I think my problem with skeptics generally, is that they confront a mound of evidence which contradicts a strictly materialistic position - laboratory experiments - each of which derives from earlier informal experiences, the evidence of NDE's, presentiment, evidence for reincarnation, etc.

Paul (in the role of resident skeptic) would dismiss each piece of evidence separately, as though none of the rest were present. Taken together, they make a much more convincing case that the orthodox position has to evolve somehow.

If you have sufficient motivation, almost any scientific evidence is deniable:

Smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, maybe it is just that those prone to get the disease have a greater desire to smoke!

Alcohol/cigarette adverts don't encourage greater consumption, they just make people change brands.

Or let's invent some fresh ones:

Maybe aspirin doesn't cut heart disease, it just makes us less inclined to eat too much fat.

People who binge drink, may have a need to detox their bodies by vomiting so it may be health giving.

I don't think that Paul acknowledges the corrosive effect that 'heroic' efforts to dismiss some experimental results have on the whole scientific process. Science is far more based on common sense that some people seem to realise.

David

[majinrevan666]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

It makes almost no sense whatsoever for them to play cowboys and indians, either. What kids do has no obligation to make sense.

Let me get this straight, the reason that children seem to remember
past lives is because children do weird things.
The reason that adults seem to remember past lives is because they're
delusional.
The reason that certain hypnotherapists seem convinced that their
patients are recollecting past lives is because they're incompetent or
fraudulent.
The reason that the patients themselves tell similar stories is because
they have similar brains and/or similar cultures.
The reason people like Ian Stevenson found the evidence for reincarnation
compelling is because they were uncritical in conducting their research.

Is this a fair summary of your position?

How do you know that the child is remembering a past life?

1)What have we been talking about so far if not this very subject?
2)I don't "know" that they're remembering past lives, I have good reason
to believe that they do.
3)The reasons are inclusive of the following:

A)The children make unmistakable allusions to the past lives that
they believe they have experienced.
They make statements like:"When I was big so and so happened and I died".

B)When they speak of past lives they often get very serious and emotional.
They do not change or embellish their statements after a period of time lapses, in other words, they do not do the things that you would expect them
to if they were making stuff up.

C)It is often the case that they know things about the deceased person
whom they purport to have been the previous incarnation of which they
couldn't have known by any ordinary means.

D)It is often the case that the children have birthmarks corresponding
to the wounds which led to their alleged previous incarnation's death.

E)When the children are brought face to face with their previous family
members they treat them exactly as their deceased counterparts would
have had they still been alive, not to mention that they often recognize
their family members by name.

Apparently it is virtually impossible to convince you that I am not dismissing reincarnation because I don't know the mechanism. I am treating it as highly improbable because I'm not convinced by the evidence. I realize that y'all can read gobs of evidence and just don't understand why it isn't convincing. I'm just not convinced.

When I present the evidence, you make endless complaints about the absence of a mechanism.
When I point out that the mechanism isn't the point, you say that you agree, yet you aren't convinced of the evidence.

Be that as it may, it's not the fact that you aren't convinced that's frustrating, it's the fact that you ARE convinced of it being nonsense, or at least appear to be.

[Ariannel]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I get the feeling some of you folks really need to have this be true. Perhaps you just talk that way.

Would this not be a Fallacist's Fallacy?

The fallacist’s fallacy involves rejecting an idea as false simply because the argument offered for it is fallacious. Having examined the case for a particular point of view, and found it wanting, it can be tempting to conclude that the point of view is false. This, however, would be to go beyond the evidence.

Example

“People argue that there must be an afterlife because they just can’t accept that when we die that’s it. This is an appeal to consequences; therefore there is no life after death.”

[David Bailey]

Most people in the UK seem to get on quite well without any belief in the afterlife! The argument that people have a burning 'need' to believe is very US-oriented.

David

[Breanainn]

We need to remember that people aren't Vulcans, no matter how some might wish they were when they're playing clever logic games. There's always bias, there's always irrationality. Believers (gah, I hate that term) do not have the monopoly on that. Some (rare) skeptics even admit to being emotionally biased towards atheism. They don't want to believe in God, spirits, an afterlife, whatever. Are these the deviant minority that failed their skeptical Kolinahr? Sure the hard evidence is on their side (so far), but let's not pretend they've transcended as entities of pure impersonal logic just yet.
I've met as many atheists who were terrified by the possiblity that Big Skydaddy really was watching them as theists who found the concept of a pointless universe a soul-destroying Dementor to be banished mercilessly with every wishful thought they can muster. No one is impartial. Some people certainly fear oblivion, but I'll bet just as many fear judgement, reincarnating or existing as pure consciousness without time. If even some of what some people say is true, then the afterlife scares the crap out of me... I don't like change.