Aware II results

I decided to take a break from this forum because I don't enjoy arguments (although the arguments that triggered that action were less to do with the core subject matter of this forum than this particular thread). Anyhow, I'll just add one comment and hope that it doesn't stir too many negative emotions.

Anecdotal is, IMHO, not the absolute disqualifier it is made out to be. Most studies of human behaviour or conscious experiences are anecdotal - necessarily so. A psychologist must compare the anecdotal data collected from many subjects in order to study human behaviour and develop techniques of treating disorders. There are certainly many other examples I don't have the time or incliniation to detail here and now but this article covers the subject quite succinctly:

https://scientificprogrammer.net/2019/08...-evidence/

Sceptics love to bandy around phrases like "anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron" but only when it suits their argument. I bet they use anecdotal evidence all the time, either to prove a point or to add weight to an argument. When it comes to the subjects we discuss here, there is no large-scale scientific study (AWARE aside) by which statistical and empirical evidence can be gathered. One of the reasons for that lack is due to the taboo against serious study of such phenomena in the scientific community which is overwhelmingly materialistic in its ideology. Personally, I would consider the vast research on past-life memories undertaken by Ian Stevenson and continued by Jim Tucker to be serious scientific research but all of it is, again, anecdotal.

Another reason is the self-limiting parameters which constrain science itself, namely scientific (or methodological) naturalism. This decrees that science must be restricted to the study and investigation of subjects deemed to be naturalistic - i.e. arising out of nature. Thus, by definition, anything deemed to be "supernatural" is therefore NOT scientific and, by implication, should not be studied by "real" scientists. That's why even people like Dean Radin, with impeccable scientific credentials, have been lableled "pseudo-scientists". Even psychology and other consciousness research efforts struggle to maintain scientific respectability in a world where many practicing scientists are not only materialists but are Eliminative Materialists - claiming that consciousness is merely an illusion (Dennett, Churchland, etc.).

I decided to take a break from this forum because I don't enjoy arguments (although the arguments that triggered that action were less to do with the core subject matter of this forum than this particular thread). Anyhow, I'll just add one comment and hope that it doesn't stir too many negative emotions.

Anecdotal is, IMHO, not the absolute disqualifier it is made out to be. Most studies of human behaviour or conscious experiences are anecdotal - necessarily so. A psychologist must compare the anecdotal data collected from many subjects in order to study human behaviour and develop techniques of treating disorders. There are certainly many other examples I don't have the time or incliniation to detail here and now but this article covers the subject quite succinctly:

https://scientificprogrammer.net/2019/08...-evidence/

Sceptics love to bandy around phrases like "anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron" but only when it suits their argument. I bet they use anecdotal evidence all the time, either to prove a point or to add weight to an argument. When it comes to the subjects we discuss here, there is no large-scale scientific study (AWARE aside) by which statistical and empirical evidence can be gathered. One of the reasons for that lack is due to the taboo against serious study of such phenomena in the scientific community which is overwhelmingly materialistic in its ideology. Personally, I would consider the vast research on past-life memories undertaken by Ian Stevenson and continued by Jim Tucker to be serious scientific research but all of it is, again, anecdotal.

Another reason is the self-limiting parameters which constrain science itself, namely scientific (or methodological) naturalism. This decrees that science must be restricted to the study and investigation of subjects deemed to be naturalistic - i.e. arising out of nature. Thus, by definition, anything deemed to be "supernatural" is therefore NOT scientific and, by implication, should not be studied by "real" scientists. That's why even people like Dean Radin, with impeccable scientific credentials, have been lableled "pseudo-scientists". Even psychology and other consciousness research efforts struggle to maintain scientific respectability in a world where many practicing scientists are not only materialists but are Eliminative Materialists - claiming that consciousness is merely an illusion (Dennett, Churchland, etc.).

Thanks for the thought-provoking link and post. I would argue the following points to anyone endorsing that reports of anomalous information transfer are - all in all - considered anecdotal and each individual account is based on an effort to make a story.

Third party evidence is anecdotal because it is a retelling and open to error.  A collection of first person accounts is different.  They can be confirmed and questioned.  They can be scientific evidence in large enough samples.  Or in long enough in time-duration occurrences.  Any individual report my be deemed as weak evidence, but manifestations noted in - all places and all times - makes Psi a pattern.  A significant pattern of experiences in need of a model for how its outcomes occur.

Being subjective information - does NOT mean anecdotal.  There is scientific methods to handle data from people.  Dean Radin and others do so well.   Science is on our side.

My personal view is that the brain is primarily associated with control of the body and the senses such as sight. These are very much the material, physical part of the body. Also with human languages and speech. These are practical necessities of living in a physical environment, not something required by consciousness itself. For example during an NDE (and in some other experiences) communication takes place far more effectively than the clumsy necessities of our waking use of language.

It’s not as simple as that I’m afraid. It’s well known that damage to the brain can damage cognitive abilities while leaving the senses completely unchanged. There’s something called acquired prosopagnosia for example, I know of because a family member have aquired the condition after a stroke. The same can be concluded from e.g. Alzheimers patitients. I’m well aware about ‘terminal lucidity’, but I’m unsure if it is as spectacular as it sounds.

It’s not as simple as that I’m afraid. It’s well known that damage to the brain can damage cognitive abilities while leaving the senses completely unchanged. There’s something called acquired prosopagnosia for example, I know of because a family member have aquired the condition after a stroke. The same can be concluded from e.g. Alzheimers patitients. I’m well aware about ‘terminal lucidity’, but I’m unsure if it is as spectacular as it sounds.

Under filter theories, one could argue that conditions like prosopagnosia represent damage to a receiver, not hardware.

Under filter theories, one could argue that conditions like prosopagnosia represent damage to a receiver, not hardware.

So it’s the receiver that’s responsible for the “face recognition” you think? But that means all “data” required for the face recognition is stored at the receiver.

So it’s the receiver that’s responsible for the “face recognition” you think? But that means all “data” required for the face recognition is stored at the receiver.

probably just the input/output, associations and weighting with some processing... plus the mechanism/s that allows access to experience.

We know all data isn't stored in the experient, photons bounce off the page of a diary you may be reading, into your eyes, is processed and sent to the brain, where the appropriate access to the experience seems to occur.

Face recognition is a side-track, I think. An ordinary present-day camera can recognise faces which have previously been stored and then selectively adjust the focus so that among a group of people, the 'known' person is in sharp focus. There is no suggestion that this has anything to do with either consciousness or experience.

Face recognition is a side-track, I think. An ordinary present-day camera can recognise faces which have previously been stored and then selectively adjust the focus so that among a group of people, the 'known' person is in sharp focus. There is no suggestion that this has anything to do with either consciousness or experience.

well granted, it's emulating a process that we take for granted using a classic processor, that is, it may be an approximation, or perhaps some type of dual of our own process, and surely this isolated device does not have sufficient information, binding, speed or freedom to have an experience.

However, the choices that were made to bring about it's creation were surely made by something that does have experience. And from my own point of view, one's experience is only the result of processing something else, hence the camera and its creators, and the camera's usefulness to me, are all bound up within my experience. It's not really possible to separate the creator from the camera, and the camera from my experience IMO.

Face recognition is a side-track, I think. An ordinary present-day camera can recognise faces which have previously been stored and then selectively adjust the focus so that among a group of people, the 'known' person is in sharp focus. There is no suggestion that this has anything to do with either consciousness or experience.

I agree with this, even machine "learning" doesn't seem to do any actual thinking - as can sometimes be clearly seen when the program faces issues relating to math/logic.

That said, I do think the idea of the brain as simply functioning like a radio or TV receiving a signal doesn't work as a perfect analogy. There do seem to be constraints the brain imposes which are worked around in terminal lucidity:

One Last Goodbye: The Strange Case of Terminal Lucidity

I'm as sworn to radical rationalism as the next neo-Darwinian materialist. That said, over the years I've had to "quarantine," for lack of a better word, a few anomalous personal experiences that have stubbornly defied my own logical understanding of them.

For me the plausibility of an afterlife starts with the bizarre claim that matter which lacks consciousness can produce consciousness as an "illusion", then continues into all the varied accounts and research.

Since no one has a real explanation for how personal consciousness is created, it becomes difficult to offer an explanation for how it's destroyed. As for the varied accounts of afterlives/reincarnation/apparitions gathered across millennia around the world, after a point the idea that everyone is making it up or easily fooled just seems less plausible to me than the idea that there is some personal survival.

That said I'm not sure how to describe the brain/soul relationship as the brain does seem to severely constrain the mind. Though of course since there is no real account of what matter is there is no real account of what a brain is, especially since all our understanding of matter & thus the brain is through consciousness.

Is Matter Conscious? Why the central problem in neuroscience is mirrored in physics. by Hedda Hassel Mørch

I agree with this, even machine "learning" doesn't seem to do any actual thinking - as can sometimes be clearly seen when the program faces issues relating to math/logic.

That said, I do think the idea of the brain as simply functioning like a radio or TV receiving a signal doesn't work as a perfect analogy. There do seem to be constraints the brain imposes which are worked around in terminal lucidity:

One Last Goodbye: The Strange Case of Terminal Lucidity


For me the plausibility of an afterlife starts with the bizarre claim that matter which lacks consciousness can produce consciousness as an "illusion", then continues into all the varied accounts and research.

Since no one has a real explanation for how personal consciousness is created, it becomes difficult to offer an explanation for how it's destroyed. As for the varied accounts of afterlives/reincarnation/apparitions gathered across millennia around the world, after a point the idea that everyone is making it up or easily fooled just seems less plausible to me than the idea that there is some personal survival.

That said I'm not sure how to describe the brain/soul relationship as the brain does seem to severely constrain the mind. Though of course since there is no real account of what matter is there is no real account of what a brain is, especially since all our understanding of matter & thus the brain is through consciousness.

Is Matter Conscious? Why the central problem in neuroscience is mirrored in physics. by Hedda Hassel Mørch

When the spirit is in body. During NDEs the brain can be totally dysfunctional, with the mind and spirit having separated from it and obviously not constrained by it. It occurs to me that an analogy would be the sound of music heard in the home from a poor audio system, say a table radio, versus live at a concert. In the home the music RF signal has to be detected, amplified and transduced by a physical electronic system or machine in order to hear a poor facsimile, whereas in the concert hall the music is gloriously live in the presence of the musicians playing away, and the state of the poor little table radio at home matters nothing.