If qualia is real, why does it have to be paranormal

You certainly provoke my ego. Am I smart? I love to think so, yet my arguments, amount to questions at the basic levels before we get to much data.

Despite my addiction to my own rightness, should convincing them truly be my goal? Ultimately have I convinced myself? . ?

Well, having set out your position on Skeptiko:

Assuming that human consciousness does survive death, and\or that it can access some sort of global consciousness, then it seems to me that any AI equivalent would have to have whatever we have in our brains that does this.

Insane assumption, no? I mean, we have no evidence for any of these assumptions and no means to test for them. While we shouldn't delude ourselves to implying untestable things don't exist, why do we feel anythimg is outside?

then yes, you have convinced me of your position. The question is, would you like to find out about that evidence, the stuff which you say does not exist?

It is easy to make bold pronouncements about zero evidence. In fairness and honesty I have done exactly the same thing myself, in the past. There is no shame in that, we all start somewhere.

At this stage however, this is not about anyone convincing anyone of anything. It is only about how and in what direction we, any of us, choose to increase our knowledge.

One of the proverbial characteristics of the cat is its great curiosity. I wonder whether perhaps your own curiosity might sneak up on you and have you taking a sneaky peek at all that scary knowledge out there. You know, the stuff you say has no evidence and is untestable. What if you should find out that there is mountains of evidence and lots of ways in which it can be tested? What then?

But don't expect to be spoon fed. This isn't a battle where nourishment is presented to you, and you spit it out. Eat when you are hungry. Make this your own research, become a seeker of knowledge, when you are ready. No-one can make you want to learn. That is something you have to choose for yourself.

In my own case, I picked up a book about relativity in my school library (explained with cartoons for 12 year olds) and suddenly realised that my science class was teaching all the wrong stuff. My science teacher didn't have a clue what I was asking him about. Then I moved on to reading about
quantum mechanics and was blown away. I am still blown away with the implications of it all but at that stage I had few, if any, thoughts about PSI or metaphysics and I was hopeless at mathematics at school so no chance of me going into higher education. 

So if that's what you mean by modern physics, then yes - I was inspired. Much later in life, when I read more about the likes of Bohr, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, etc., I was already into a more idealistic view of the world and was encouraged to find that their worldviews were not at odds with mine in many ways.

Cartoons? I am a huge fan. Finally, society is starting to realize their true value.


Totally what I meant, yes. Modern is a relative term. You don't need to understand the
math to understand that it's weird, counter intuitive and world view changing.
The curious thing is, classic physics is still valid. It still works. Unless you
are looking at bizarre accuracies, Newton accurately describes the things we
see everyday. But when we look at the very small or very large, ...

The case of Mr A in Parnia's Aware study is a good example, for instance. A case recorded during a clinical trial (not an anecdote) looking for that effect. He heard the automated machine advising the medics to shock him (the patient) twice. This is impossible because he must have been in ventricular fibrillation (heart stoppage) for at least two minutes. (It takes that amount of time for the machine to analyse the heart rhythm). The brain shuts down completely after 10-20 seconds (no electrical activity) including the brain stem which is responsible for hearing. 

The machine can't make a mistake--the man was dead (in cardiac arrest the first stage of death) and yet he heard the automated instructions clearly and remembered them, too, despite cardiac arrest being a massive insult to the brain which usually eradicates the patient's memories (according to experts).

NB. If he had been conscious in a normal way, he would have felt the excruciating physical pain of the electrical shocks and reported that, along with the intense pummelling/compression of his chest, but he never mentioned any pain at 
But you'll say it is, though, so there we have it

Your jadedness comes across in many threads.


I looked on some videos and articles on Dr Parnia. His interpretation 
of his experiments and yours seem quite at odds with each other.

Dr. Parnia claims, the brain cells aren't really dead yet, that they are
still active in some way. That the point of “death" being an on and
off switch is an incorrect model.  In effect, he is still looking at
the brain as the agent of this consciousness.

I saw some mention about this non-pain. Certainly something I would want to
understand better.

As you can imagine, claims that a person truly perceives something in another
room or far away, is something ppl would want independent confirmation on.
Naturally skeptics are going to point this out, ad nauseam.  True to with claims
of astral projection.   None of these objections proves these effects don't happen.

Anecdotes are actually valid. They can amount to
small uncontrolled trials that certainly generate hypotheses.
roomm

Despite my addiction to my own rightness, should convincing them truly be my goal? Ultimately have I convinced myself? . ?

You've made salient realizations. The goal was never to convince anyone they are wrong or even to change minds. It was to have them ask: why do I think I am right?, in a sober manner. That is a question few in my experience here actually seem to ask themselves. Ultimately convincing yourself is oh so easy, but that does not necessarily mean one is right.


P.S. About Parnia you are correct in your understanding. At his first announcement members of Skeptico whom would go to form this forum were giddy with hope. That hope appears to be wanting now.

Your jadedness comes across in many threads.


I looked on some videos and articles on Dr Parnia. His interpretation 
of his experiments and yours seem quite at odds with each other.

Dr. Parnia claims, the brain cells aren't really dead yet, that they are
still active in some way. That the point of “death" being an on and
off switch is an incorrect model.  In effect, he is still looking at
the brain as the agent of this consciousness.

I saw some mention about this non-pain. Certainly something I would want to
understand better.

As you can imagine, claims that a person truly perceives something in another
room or far away, is something ppl would want independent confirmation on.
Naturally skeptics are going to point this out, ad nauseam.  True to with claims
of astral projection.   None of these objections proves these effects don't happen.

Anecdotes are actually valid. They can amount to
small uncontrolled trials that certainly generate hypotheses.
roomm

I'm not sure why you would bring up the topic of anecdotes in a thread where Tim was describing a case from a formal research study in a controlled and fully-documented environment. There was no anecdote there.

I'm not sure why you would bring up the topic of anecdotes in a thread where Tim was describing a case from a formal research study in a controlled and fully-documented environment. There was no anecdote there.

He brought the idea himself. Re-read his post. . "... this is not an anecdote". This addresses the frequent atheist approach of dismissing anecdotes as if science never started with intuition. I am not a vanilla atheist. My grandfather was an experimental physicsist who actually met Oppenheimer, Rutherford, Fermi et al. Sadly, unsure if he met Feynman. Think of me as a Cappuccino atheist who likes tea and espressos as well.

My counter point to his myriad of posts (multiple threads, I'm sure), on Parnia, is Parnia himself doesn't appear
to agree with Tim.

Parnia apparently contends brain cells are still active after "death", that death is a process that takes longer than ppl previously thought.   I am unsure what he says about pain, more reading there. Many systems have shut down. But some perception is there. Why not pain? Is pain suppressed by something. (Edit: I have heard a dangerous practice that causes many deaths, is to get "high" by temporary asphyxiation. The body, aiming for survival may supress pain perhaps. The practice is scary.)

Now Tim, to his credit, presents an elegant high level argument for why he believes. It's a reasonable argument. It might be partially testable. Ppl exist who claim to have tested it. The objections to it lie in trusting said tests and in independent reprocducibility. Further researchers have to feel its worth their time to reproduce.    But, invoking Parnia, one should note, Parnia think the brain is the agent of consciousness.

 You know, the stuff you say has no evidence and is untestable. What if you should find out that there is mountains of evidence and lots of ways in which it can be tested? What then?

This probably can be another thread on the science of limitations. Modern science and modern math have firmly established questions exists which are inherently unknowable. Heisenberg, Goedel, the Big Bang among others. Our vision is limited compared to the vision of a shrimp or squid. Who knows what's real tyat we cannot detect?

Back on topic, we can indeed try to find a heuristic to measure consciousness but we
can't measure it directly. I cannot see what you see. I can try to show that we have some
property in common, for example in a brain scan and conclude we perceive the same thing
but I can't prove it.

My model might not tell me if a neural network or a squid is conscious.

You've made salient realizations. The goal was never to convince anyone they are wrong or even to change minds. It was to have them ask: why do I think I am right?, in a sober manner. That is a question few in my experience here actually seem to ask themselves. Ultimately convincing yourself is oh so easy, but that does not necessarily mean one is right.

But you've never asked this of yourself, or been able to defend your position. Can you point to a thread where you actually managed to win an argument?

Even the JREF physicists laughed you off as memory serves.

Isn't it Parnia reporting the OBEs Tim mentions?

If that's the case I don't see how what Tim says is wrong.

Isn't it Parnia reporting the OBEs Tim mentions?

If that's the case I don't see how what Tim says is wrong.

Thanks, Sci and just to clarify, I'm not wrong in how I have framed the research according to Parnia and his colleagues. Entangled cat has either misunderstood what Parnia is talking about there (with the still active cells) or he is quoting the Daily Express, which continually misquotes Parnia. 

Parnia is only referring to the viability of brain cells after the heart has stopped and for how long those brain cells can survive, so that the patient can be brought back. He's not referring to consciousness as such, but his position that consciousness continues in the first period after death is still the same. 

I don't have time tonight to elaborate, though, but I'm not sure I really want to keep repeating the message, nor the forum wants to hear it (again I'm sure). The sceptics always get it wrong and Steve...well, I've no idea what he's talking about.