Psience Quest

Full Version: New book, "Heavens on Earth", by Michael Shermer
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Chris

Published last month. The full title is "Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia". Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's a review by Wray Herbert in the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i...3ac90b6e63

There's quite a lot about Shermer's strange experience with a radio that had belonged to his wife's grandmother, which had apparently been broken but briefly started working again in circumstances that seemed significant to him. The odd thing is that rather than writing this off as a chance coincidence (an explanation which doesn't seem particularly unlikely to me) Shermer apparently speculates about the dead continuing to exist in "another dimension" and having the power to manipulate gravitational waves from wormholes to turn on radios. Such speculation is viewed as preferable to invoking "gods and preternatural forces" (though it's news to me that the known natural forces accommodate that kind of thing). Frankly, I think that if someone considers that a parsimonious explanation, it's a symptom of extreme bias at work in their thought processes.
(2018-02-15, 10:22 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Published last month. The full title is "Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia". Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's a review by Wray Herbert in the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i...3ac90b6e63

There's quite a lot about Shermer's strange experience with a radio that had belonged to his wife's grandmother, which had apparently been broken but briefly started working again in circumstances that seemed significant to him. The odd thing is that rather than writing this off as a chance coincidence (an explanation which doesn't seem particularly unlikely to me) Shermer apparently speculates about the dead continuing to exist in "another dimension" and having the power to manipulate gravitational waves from wormholes to turn on radios. Such speculation is viewed as preferable to invoking "gods and preternatural forces" (though it's news to me that the known natural forces accommodate that kind of thing). Frankly, I think that if someone considers that a parsimonious explanation, it's a symptom of extreme bias at work in their thought processes.

A bit daft. He's doing the same as he accuses believers in the supernatural, reaching for answers.
In 2015, Shermer took part with Eben Alexander on the "Ask Dr Nandi show." Alexander apparently congratulated him on his courage and "open mindedness" in revealing the incident about the radio.

Shermer however informed him that both he and his (now) wife had found an explanation for the event. Alexander enquired as to what that explanation had been but (according to Alexander) Shermer didn't elaborate, only saying it couldn't have been supernatural.

 A link to Shermer's twitter account. https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/statu...5333261312
(2018-02-15, 10:22 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]There's quite a lot about Shermer's strange experience with a radio that had belonged to his wife's grandmother, which had apparently been broken but briefly started working again in circumstances that seemed significant to him. The odd thing is that rather than writing this off as a chance coincidence (an explanation which doesn't seem particularly unlikely to me) Shermer apparently speculates about the dead continuing to exist in "another dimension" and having the power to manipulate gravitational waves from wormholes to turn on radios.

"It's only real when it happens to me", is what he's saying. Everyone else is delusional.
(2018-02-15, 02:30 PM)tim Wrote: [ -> ]In 2015, Shermer took part with Eben Alexander on the "Ask Dr Nandi show." Alexander apparently congratulated him on his courage and "open mindedness" in revealing the incident about the radio.

Shermer however informed him that both he and his (now) wife had found an explanation for the event. Alexander enquired as to what that explanation had been but (according to Alexander) Shermer didn't elaborate, only saying it couldn't have been supernatural.

 A link to Shermer's twitter account. https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/statu...5333261312

Easy to say that Shermer is far from balanced in his views, that's for sure. To treat those who do believe something is truly behind paranormal occurrences as below him in critical thinking and rationality is very arrogant to me. 

Through the article, it would seem Shermer is continuing to downplay any significance in parapsychology as "woo" and whatever else he calls it. Making the same claim his class of skeptics do: there is no conclusive proofs of an afterlife. Outside the New Ager crowd, I don't hear many people seriously invested in investigating the paranormal who go that far. They all say it can only be "strongly suggestive" at best. Honestly, this is a straw man if I ever saw one.  

In the end, he is caught speculating about alternative dimensions and wormholes, as if suddenly an afterlife seems probable to him. As far as I can gather, his main beef with the paranormal is it seems to trigger an association to religion and God to him. Now he has stopped seeing red, he can rationalize possibilities that go beyond the usual skeptic explanations, but that don't include the dreaded G word anywhere in it! Progress?

Chris

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's a not particularly favourable review of the book by Robin Carlile on the Magonia Review website:
http://pelicanist.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03...ching.html
Shermer's problem is he can only allow himself to explain things in terms of dimensions, forces, wormholes...as if any of this were fundamental.

Why would there be regularities consistent enough for a ghost to predictably manipulate forces? Heck, why are there regularities that allow us to manipulate our world?

Or to go deeper, what's a "force", gravitational or otherwise?
(2018-04-04, 08:54 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from?

A force is a way of understanding the transformation of something in spacetime... what bit's to fix, what bits to transform.

I still find that holding a permanent magnet in each hand and bringing them near to each other so that they repel each other an amazing demonstration of force.

To me explaining things the way Shermer does presupposes the fundamental nature of reality - or at least those parts of reality we have access to - is in accordance with the building blocks of physics or even more specifically of physicalism.

I don't disagree with your definition of force as a means of understanding, but I'm not convinced "force" or "energy" are extant in the way people usually presume? I'm thinking of Feynman noting definitions of force had a circularity to them - it's something that is observed in measurement and then claimed to be the cause of those measurements. Same with natural laws.
(2018-04-05, 06:42 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, I probably agree if I understand you correctly, that it's just how we understand things, there is no reason to accept that's how things really are. And yet reality really is like that for us, but the things (laws we make up) that fit in between our observations, they are just tricks we use to stick the observations together.

But where I struggle, is that even though I accept this as the case, I'm still stuck without any better way to understand nature than the way I've been taught. Even though I think deeply about things, and have found some quite different ways to view the world (what causes what, and how it might be joined up differently), they only make small adjustments to my subjective view of nature. Where-as things like soap, antibiotics really make a difference, they may be symbols for something else, and be joined up with things in some other way... but I don't know what that way is that could make any difference... so I'm stuck with the soap, and the antibiotics.

Assuming that Yoichiro Saka's experimental results at the ESPER labs at Sony are real, and I really do believe they are. Both he and Sony appear to have discovered that some type of anomalous effect is real. But because of the way it works, it's been impossible for them to find a way of exploiting the effect. The way it works, already seems to be exploited in the form of brands, advertising, propaganda etc.

The only thing I've found that looks potentially interesting and might have some effect are Sigel's - whereby you decide on some outcome you want to happen in the form of a sentence, then write down the letters from the words of that sentence, one on top of each other (I think excluding the vowels?) to form a complex unique pattern. Then place the pattern in a place that you can concentrate on it, thinking about what you want, whilst becoming very coherent (emotional/feelings). I see some people have suggested during sex - drawing a pattern on the forehead of their partner - not so sure. But the suggestion is that you've now increased the likelihood of getting to that outcome over time. I mean this might be something that was believed to work in the past, and because of that it has some legacy to draw on allowing it to still work today (rather like pharmaceutical tablet colours have some placebo effect).

I can see a way to make such seemingly different things as Sony's ESPER work, Sigels, brands/propaganda, belief, and experiments on the adaption of E.Coli fit together into a theory, but have found it difficult to find a way of testing it. Also the idea of fiddling around with things like Sigel's - letting them in to my head (Belief) makes me worry I might be treading into areas that fuck with ones mental health/reality! Anyway, I haven't had the motivation to do anything about it yet.

I think we're on the same page pretty much. I've spent years now wondering about these things, slowly moving on from my initial more mechanistic assumptions about reality.

I also have thought to myself, "Why so shy, Psi?" - there seems to be a certain difficulty in getting anything out of what Psi is. Perhaps that's because the underlying nature of Psi is disconnectedness from the present flesh, making it an evolutionary disadvantage for most? Maybe it's as the Hermeticists/Neoplatonists say and our Soul is the descent of the One into base matter? Maybe it's something to do with quantum biology and the oddness of that low level of reality?

With regard to soap and antibiotics, I agree the applicability of reality's regularity has proven itself time and time again - it's one of the most mysterious/wondrous things about Nature even if it's easy to forget in the day to day.

I've tried using sigils (I think we're spelling it differently but speaking of the same things) though it's hard to say how effective they are. Whenever I have cause to turn to sigils it usually means I'm neck deep in some crap and am using every mundane resource in my hands as well. :-)
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/dr...-379.4147/

I thought the interview was quite entertaining. Alex seemed in a good mood too.
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