A major but biased new paper on consciousness

[Laird]

I still don't get that, Laird but it must be a 'good un' if Brian likes it 

To explain or not to explain, that is the question!

I'm not much for politics.  I see no gulf, except my in poor prose.  Your somewhat pleading that they are real occurrences, which you do to me a lot, is wasted.  I have defined them as real occurrences in recent past posts.  Why try to respond to me, as if, I don't?

Your claims that Psi is empirical is playing into the hands of doubters and skeptics.  You, yourself now admit they don't meet most conceptions of what science calls empirical.  In a competitive forum, you will be dismissed immediately for overreaching. 

I am simply trying to steer away from the talk, talk, talk.  And get to the heart of mind and mental evolution.  I suspect that there is spiritual layers on top of a simple natural understanding of the world we perceive.

post script...

Maybe it would help to understand my posts in the context that I am a retired marketing executive.  I am trying to market versions of Psi that can meet the needs of the consumers.  Telling folks white is black is a waste of time in the long run.

Explaining how natural things lead to mental things - leads to thinking about deeper-meanings beyond.

Perhaps it would help to understand my posts in the context that I am a retired electronics engineer and fighter aircraft weapons systems, radar, avionics and software designer. A field where success depends on finding engineering solutions to problems, complicated solutions that necessarily have to be in accordance with the underlying laws of how things really work. This work breeds great respect for the truth.

And I'm not trying to market anything, much less a watered-down version of psi that can be accepted by academia or meet the needs of anybody. Oh well, I suppose to a dedicated carpenter with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I'm just looking for the truth, just something more closely approaching the truth about psi and the afterlife, regardless of whether it is acceptable to materialism-brainwashed academia or the public in general. Of course, naturally I'm concerned about the glacial slowness of the inchwise social trend away from materialism, but I'm not an activist.  

Your remark about not wanting to waste your time promulgating the doctrine that white is black is telling. My version of that is that I don't want to waste my time trying to convince brainwashed materialism-indoctrinated mainstream academics, or for that matter similarly brainwashed (or Bible-thumping) members of the general public, that the world and reality in general contain an all-important real spiritual component, part of which includes human survival of physical death in some sort of afterlife.

To explain or not to explain, that is the question!

Indeed. That's what God has been thinking for 4,500 million years. Or six thousand years if you believe what you read.

[Laird]

Indeed. That's what God has been thinking for 4,500 million years. Or six thousand years if you believe what you read.

Looks like I'm quicker at deciding than God then! If it's boorish to explain one's own jokes, then call me a boor:

Computer technology has always been one of my greatest worst attributes.

Computer tech as an attribute of you implies that it is a part of you, hence, that you are part computer tech, hence, a cyborg (part biological; part robot, i.e., computer tech). That was the premise of the joke, which I've now ruined.

Looks like I'm quicker at deciding than God then! If it's boorish to explain one's own jokes, then call me a boor:


Computer tech as an attribute of you implies that it is a part of you, hence, that you are part computer tech, hence, a cyborg (part biological; part robot, i.e., computer tech). That was the premise of the joke, which I've now ruined.

All good humour, Laird. 

Perhaps it would help to understand my posts in the context that I am a retired electronics engineer and fighter aircraft weapons systems, radar, avionics and software designer. A field where success depends on finding engineering solutions to problems, complicated solutions that necessarily have to be in accordance with the underlying laws of how things really work. This work breeds great respect for the truth.

And I'm not trying to market anything, much less a watered-down version of psi that can be accepted by academia or meet the needs of anybody. Oh well, I suppose to a dedicated carpenter with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I'm just looking for the truth, just something more closely approaching the truth about psi and the afterlife, regardless of whether it is acceptable to materialism-brainwashed academia or the public in general. Of course, naturally I'm concerned about the glacial slowness of the inchwise social trend away from materialism, but I'm not an activist.  

Your remark about not wanting to waste your time promulgating the doctrine that white is black is telling. My version of that is that I don't want to waste my time trying to convince brainwashed materialism-indoctrinated mainstream academics, or for that matter similarly brainwashed (or Bible-thumping) members of the general public, that the world and reality in general contain an all-important real spiritual component, part of which includes human survival of physical death in some sort of afterlife.

I don't think the shift is "inch-wise" though...If anything it seems to be going at an exponential increase to the point it seems the pseudo-skeptics were caught off guard.

That said...I think ideas like Trickster and the Paranormal will always be a minority view because it sounds like excuse making...though I would agree there are some very odd accounts like when parapsychologists themselves will seem to forget about certain results until they re-read their own reports.

Once Psi is accepted I would say Survival can't really be far behind. There seems to have been a certain...regret? by some academics about placing their humanist hopes in Scientism but the fear of religion seems to remain. Likely after the current crop leave their respective fields we'll have more public acceptance of at least Psi, which already seems to be happening.

Once Psi is accepted I would say Survival can't really be far behind. There seems to have been a certain...regret? by some academics about placing their humanist hopes in Scientism but the fear of religion seems to remain. Likely after the current crop leave their respective fields we'll have more public acceptance of at least Psi, which already seems to be happening.

Most strongly agree.

Perhaps it would help to understand my posts in the context that I am a retired electronics engineer and fighter aircraft weapons systems, radar, avionics and software designer. A field where success depends on finding engineering solutions to problems, complicated solutions that necessarily have to be in accordance with the underlying laws of how things really work. This work breeds great respect for the truth.

I admire your background.  Detection systems are the basis of information tech, I hope you comment on the subject when it is referenced.  Like you, the defined patterned structures predicting outcomes (laws) are revered in my worldview.

As said before, things with science and math modeled "essences" are better taken pragmatically, where our understandings of them are better parsed with truth-tables and not emotional stances.

Truth is not empirical - it is logical and contextual.  Psi evidence using abstract notions - and being called empirical - is not going to communicate well, as it will be seen as an exaggeration.

Psi evidence using abstract notions, which bind together in a well-formed model, can be tested as to outcomes (altho not directly by experiment) and be received by science.  I find the paper, under examination in this thread, to be just the stuff we need to integrate Psi patterns with those already discovered.

Please comment.

I admire your background.  Detection systems are the basis of information tech, I hope you comment on the subject when it is referenced.  Like you, the defined patterned structures predicting outcomes (laws) are revered in my worldview.

As said before, things with science and math modeled "essences" are better taken pragmatically, where our understandings of them are better parsed with truth-tables and not emotional stances.

Truth is not empirical - it is logical and contextual.  Psi evidence using abstract notions - and being called empirical - is not going to communicate well, as it will be seen as an exaggeration.

Psi evidence using abstract notions, which bind together in a well-formed model, can be tested as to outcomes (altho not directly by experiment) and be received by science.  I find the paper, under examination in this thread, to be just the stuff we need to integrate Psi patterns with those already discovered.

Please comment.

Unfortunately, I have to strongly disagree with your statement above. You quite evidently answer "Yes" to the two main questions I posed in #79 (below in italics), which as I indicated, denotes a fundamental difference in the views of what constitutes something being real in the world. 

 "Do you think that a large body of strong empirical evidence should simply be thrown out for serious consideration if it is not accompanied by a detailed "scientific" model explaining all its characteristics? In other words, that data does not trump theory?

Do you consider that all this research work doesn't constitute a source of data that should be seriously considered as relevant to the issue of which current theory of consciousness is the most valid? " 

In contrary to your bolded statement, I believe that truth is fundamentally empirical - that is, our understanding of what truth is, is ultimately based on empirical observations of the real world, not theory, no matter how accurate or compelling. Theory is a model of some sort, usually mathematical, a set of elaborate abstractions. Empirical observations are as fundamentally real as Descartes' famous observation, "I think, therefore I am".

PSI, and in particular NDEs and reincarnation, as I mentioned, are paranormal phenomena fundamentally impossible or in some cases very hard to replicate in the laboratory, occur mostly spontaneously, and cannot very well or at all be subject to scientific methods. 

Most importantly, it is their very nature for paranormal phenomena to be extemely elusive as to discovering their inner nature. I believe the "system" whatever it really is loads the dice strongly against mankind ever understanding these paranormal phenomena using the methods of science, or likely by any method of cognition. 

Accordingly, your true observation that science will much more readily accept paranormal phenomena if there is a well worked-out and verified scientific theory or model, is pie in the sky - because it probably will never happen. Wake up and smell the roses - this is the real deal of reality.

I think, for any significant progress in transformation of paradigms, there will need to be a realization that this is a fundamental limitation of science in delving into the nature of the world and reality. That there is a wholly and fundamentally different realm of reality, of existence, impenetrable to the scientific method, existing simultaneously and interpenetrating our physical world. 

Unfortunately this will impede and presently is greatly impeding any progress in transformation away from scientistic materialist fundamentalism, but that is reality. So be it. 

Accordingly, your true observation that science will much more readily accept paranormal phenomena if there is a well worked-out and verified scientific theory or model, is pie in the sky - because it probably will never happen. Wake up and smell the roses - this is the real deal of reality.

I am much more hopeful than you.  I like the paper's take on changing the paradigm.  Here is the logic ladder from my point of view.

Psi happens.

Psi happens due to detectable process capabilities.

Define Psi.  Delineate the process as to major variables and their active environment.

Measure the variables diligently and carefully record the outcomes.  Graph the results in a modeled environment. (in a space such as non-local consciousness, as the paper discusses) 

Go to town on pattern matching.


Here is another paper that goes right to the work at hand. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/...124v1.full

 Encoded as a holographic wave pattern, the same information reaches all conscious cortex regions: the same world view, and it integrates actions (“will”).

 Short abstract

Brain world representation emerges not by philosophy but from integrating simple followed by more complex actions (due to drives, instincts) with sensory feedback and inputs such as rewards. Our simulation provides this world representation holistically by identical information encoded as holographic wave patterns for all associative cortex regions. Observed circular activation in cell culture experiments provides building blocks from which such an integrative circuit can evolve just by excitation and inhibition transfer to neighbouring neurons. Large-scale grid-computing of the simulation brought no new emergent phenomena but rather linear gains and losses regarding performance. The circuit integrates perceptions and actions. The resulting simulation compares well with data from electrophysiology, visual perception tasks, and oscillations in cortical areas. Non-local, wave-like information processing in the cortex agrees well with EEG observations such as cortical alpha, beta, and gamma oscillations. Non-local information processing has powerful emergent properties, including key features of conscious information processing.