Mega-thread for help with rebuttals against skeptical talking points

I think promoting is the right word - for someone "at war" with the physicalists you seem to be quite good at finding skeptic arguments and reproducing them here wholesale without much fact checking.

I found Tucker's report within minutes. You don't even need to read the whole thing, you can search the document for "Larsen".

I'd hate to ever be in a real war with you, guessing I'd get fragged by "friendly" fire within the first week.

As for whether the family could have found out details regarding Larsen's life, Tucker already notes that's a possibility. Not sure what else there is to say that Tim hasn't covered already. Given your skeptic was - barring some evidence to the contrary - already caught in a substantial lie I don't really see much point in taking the rest of his claims too seriously.

I'm being as polite as I can be Sci when I say that was not my intention, nor has it ever been. I actually found this guy because he was referenced on a thread I previously commented on before you suggested I delete that comment and move the discussion here. That is how I found this skeptic's claims about the case. He was a skeptic of the Simulation Theory. I am assuming you know which thread I refer to. 

I am assuming the Kean investigation refers to her book Surviving Death? I'll have to check out that book when I can, which should be soon. I am assuming her analysis is more up to date.

I apologise if I have offended you Sci, but surely you must understand that to see someone start digging up information about the case he claims Tucker never mentioned is alarming/rather shocking to me, even if it shouldn't be taken too seriously ultimately. He (the skeptic) is apparently a historian and anthropologist after all, so I assumed his own analysis would be up to scratch, even if clearly very biased (as I said, I felt there was some mental gymnastics going in with his reasoning and constructing an elaborate alternative scenario, and his pseudo-skeptical logic surrounding the birthmarks indicating the means of death in a past life was also baffling, even dare I say idiotic).

Edit: Dr Tucker has additionally responded to my email and said that he isn't deterred much by this criticism and is clear that James remembered James Huston's crash, not Jack Larsen's. Some of the points are ultimately irrelevant, or even blatantly irrelevant, given how James did not apparently mention a Kamikaze attack at any point (for example).

Hello guys, I noticed on the History for Atheists posts another blog by the name of 'Answers in Reason' was mentioned. I decided to look into this blog and found a mixed bag of posts. There are some good posts on Pseudo-skepticism and Cognitive Bias for example on that blog that I might post, but there was a rather abysmal post from 2016, one that seemed to commit the fallacies and flaws mentioned in the latter articles on skepticism, which is a repost from the guy's website. This is probably because the blog features articles written by multiple people, with one of the less frequent authors posting this one. 

The blogger who reposted this in question is called Paul Anlee, a (rather unknown) author and 'empirical physicalist'. He first gives an excerpt from a book he wrote, featuring a rather tedious, condescending, snarky and unsubtle response from a physicalist to his colleagues, also scientists and philosophers, to them pointing out that the soul is beyond the realms of science. He, the physicalist, declares 'no'. 

The first section is the excerpt from the book, which as a buddying author myself, is rather dull and is as obvious a self-insertion as you can get. I thought I'd post this since he gets into a lot of science surrounding physics that is very reminiscent of Sean Carroll's nonsense. Most of this will be my own responses and criticisms of his argument that I formulated, and so I may as well put this here. 

The following is the ending summary he makes, in which why he thinks that it's almost certain that there's no soul:

The point of the debate here was to challenge the actual basis for the soul. What could it be made of? How could it interact with real matter in the universe? Clearly there are problems with conventional magical thinking about how that might work. In a similar vein, one could even ask, “How does a soul think, or feel, or remember?” The definition of a soul as “energy” is unsatisfying because we know a lot about energy and it doesn’t seem to meet the requirements for soul. Energy transfers between particles, mediated by other particles. When the particles of matter that we use to store and manipulate energy, release energy into the environment, it dissipates. That raises the question of how energy could maintain pattern after the disruption of the matter that imposes that pattern, i.e. the brain, following death.

There are two beliefs about “spirit”: some think it’s a form of energy that is spread throughout the universe after death, and some believe it’s eternal and maintains pattern. The first definition is kind of meaningless to me as it’s indistinguishable from the physical disruption of the brain at death. Without the presence of mind emerging from the conceptual pattern making of the brain, there is no “person” to talk about after death.

Those who believe the second thing: that the soul is eternal and maintains its pattern (memories, knowledge, beliefs, and personality) independent of the brain; are another thing entirely. Darian’s argument makes a strong case that nothing we have discovered could suit as the basis for building such a thing as a soul. So, why do people think there might even be such a thing? I mean, apart from wishful thinking that some part of us persists after death.

I believe this comes from our inability (so far) to understand the nature of cognition and of consciousness. Because we don’t understand how our thinking, our feeling, our experiences could all be emergent properties of a physical (and physiological) brain, we invent the “soul” to explain them. Of course, we have models for cognition; they’re called computers. They’re not good models but they suggest that it’s possible to build devices that have emergent properties not contained in any of their individual elements.

The program for playing chess in a computer is not built up from individual components of hardware or software, each of which knows how to play chess a little (equivalent to the consciousness elements of qualia proposed by some). Instead, the ability to play chess is an emergent property of lots of lines of code and some data, interpreted as instructions by hardware. That’s a model (a very simple model) for cognition in the brain.

So already I think it's clear this guy is rather full of himself, and his pretentious, arrogant bio really doesn't help. Naturally, he hasn't looked into any evidence for the existence of the soul itself just because he doesn't understand how it interacts with the brain/body. Here are the issues I have with this summary:

• Why does the concept of a soul as energy need to necessarily obey the laws that it must dissipate? 
  
• This is comparable to the concept of omnipresence however. One could still maintain some degree of individuality possibly while existing as 'one with everything', or become part of some collective consciousness. Is it also not possible the soul could continue to exist outside of the universe, and thus outside of those natural laws?
  
• The argument is based on assumptions about materialist science and the assumption of emergence. The magical thinking argument can just as easily be applied to materialism/physicalism and the inability to answer the Hard Problem or explain in a convincing or consistent manner how consciousness arises. 
  
• The wishful thinking argument is overused and loathsome. This obviously works the same way for people who don't like the idea of an afterlife. Next. 
  
• Premissory materialism basically. Also, comparing the brain and consciousness to computers is not an objective fact or something that should be said lightly. Plenty of scientists and philosophers can and have adequately explained why the brain is not comparable to a computer.
  
• Of course you'd praise computers given your interest in AI. Computers still aren't cognitive though, and not as special as consciousness at all. 
  
• That is an inadequate model and false equivalency clearly ignoring the point of the Hard Problem. Playing a game of chess is not at all the same thing as the sensations of self and experience. 
  
• If you accuse immaterialists of appealing to magic reasoning, then physicalists can also be said to be just as guilty. Why? Because it is, for many, an unsatisfactory and even illogical explanation for consciousness that often amounts to one saying 'it just emerges and that's that, don't question it or ask why'.  
  

As for the science criticisms in the book, he makes these points through the main character(none of which are honestly that conclusive):

• We don't know how a soul could interact with biological particles, therefore it can't exist because we don't know of any mechanism...The Filter Theory and Salt-Water Theory clearly still apply here, but evidently he hasn't heard of them. 
  
• If the soul isn't energy then it must be some undiscovered particle that interacts with the brain somehow...Why can't it be both matter and energy, or something else entirely? The know-it-all physicalist main character doesn't explore this. 
  
• How does a soul distinguish between the bodies of a human and other animals with similar neural cells?...Why would you assume it needs to do that in the first place? This is under the assumption that animals and other living things wouldn't have souls specialised/adapted for their biologies. Is it not possible that souls can evolve and adapt as well? 
  
• How does the soul recognize when the body is dead? Is it basing it on activity or molecules?...Pretty sure that's an obvious answer. Because the soul is YOU. The soul isn't really said to be exactly equivalent to some organ that operates independently. It's YOUR consciousness. When you die, the consciousness survives presumably at the point of true death, or when the brain can't interact with consciousness anymore. 
  
• I don't even understand how his next point is supposed to undermine the concept of the soul at all. It's basically just thinking of hypotheses for how to identify interactions between the 'soul' and neurons. He admits then that perhaps this may be found in the future. Interestingly, he doesn't consider the possibility, in this segment at least, of a higher consciousness that governs these 'laws'. As Raf once suggested, it could be that we simply aren't meant to develop 'soul tech' and fully understand it, because the consequences would be dire. 
  
• He then suggests that souls/our consciousness is beyond our current understanding of natural laws and then would be considered supernatural. This doesn't at a prove the physicalists point and even the author indicates that.
  
• As a result, I fail to see why Anlee is so confident in his summary when he didn't really write this discussion/debate as something that undermines the concept of a soul all that much, especially when it is the believer who seems to have the last, triumphant laugh by pointing out that that 'Darian' is still wrong in his claim that science can 'accomodate the transcendent' and is appealing to 'scientism'. 
  

The main thing that confuses and troubles me is the whole discussion over how the soul would theoretically be observed in action with the brain. I'm not exactly sure what point he was trying to make by talking about the sections of the brain one would need to examine. I get the feeling Orch-Or could be tied to this somewhere perhaps, but like I said his little rant doesn't really take into consideration the Salt-Water or Transceiver models that much.

It also seems this guy's blog is dedicated to attacking anyone who isn't a physicalist, or at least that's the impression I got from the use of very condescending, dismissive and insulting language:

He dedicates a blog post to basically calling Donald Hoffman deluded and ridiculous. He even compares him to a religious minister, I'm not kidding. This includes him saying the following:

I don’t think it’s fair for Hoffman to ask: “Can we use your physicalist theory to [i]explain[/i] any conscious experience? I don’t think Hoffman or other non-physicalists have defined what “explain” might mean in this context. Especially, given his own example of putting a magnet against the right temporal lobe and removing the experience of color from the left visual field. That, combined with hundreds of neurophysiology experiments, sounds like the start of an explanation to me. I wonder what he thinks it lacks.

It lacks any explanatory power for the relationship between consciousness and the brain other than it's clearly correlative and exists, that's what. He doesn't seem to understand that Hoffman is not claiming to have fully understood consciousness either, he makes NO SUCH CLAIM. His theory is a working hypothesis that doesn't claim to have all the answers, even his critics admit that. 


He so says this, which made my blood boil:

Yet over half a century of neurophysiology (beginning with Wilder Penfield’s electrical stimulation of various areas of the brain in the 1960s) clearly demonstrate that providing a tiny electrical current to distinct areas of the brain [b]does cause[/b] subjective experience. Why Hoffman would ignore this obvious physicalist explanation in favor of some semi-spiritual one is difficult to understand.

That is a lie. Experience and subjectivity has never been stimulated by scientists to such a degree, even materialists admit that. In fact, it was Penfield's experiments that, as nbtruthman explained, showed how it was impossible to arouse abstract thought. That's your credibility down the drain Anlee. 


He also says he's debunked Dean Radin's whole double slit experiment stuff, which I can see why many have been skeptical over, myself included, but I'm not interested in that. He claims he would do a part two to this...in 2018. He hasn't followed up since. I think some discussion has already been conducted on here about the results. 

He has also made a post where he basically dismisses the Hard Problem as irrelevant and that he's convinced computers may already be conscious. Once again, I am dead serious. In his own words he says: "Perhaps my computer has subjective experience as I type. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise". He also seems to think that because we can't define consciousness therefore we shouldn't question that it is just an emergent property, which is just lazy really. He also gives the usual tired criticisms of dualism and monism, things like 'but we have no idea how the immaterial can interact with the material'. 

Anlee also thinks it's silly to think of consciousness as fundamental because he seems to be in agreement with Daniel Dennett's Illusionism...even though many philosophers and scientists scoff at Dennett's views today because they make little to no sense and aren't really consistent with modern science. He even quotes Blackmore at a point (for some reason, again not questioning her credibility and whether her views align with modern science). I don't understand him either: He agrees that consciousness is an illusion, yet it's also emergent and computstional? That doesn't seem consistent. 

Anlee, in a rather smug fashion, also claimed in April 2020 he will next attempt to explain 'how' consciousness is an emergent property, which almost guarantees fallacies, false claims etc. It's now September as I write this. Surely if he's so confident that it's so simple it shouldn't be taking him so long?

I greatly apologise that this has been a rant about someone who is clearly a rather despicable man, IMO at least. I didn't know whether to make this a separate thread or to include it here, so I thought I'd keep it here and vent my thoughts. I'm assuming though that he was incorrect in saying that we've managed to stimulate subjective experience, since I'm 99% sure that we haven't. Penfield was even a dualist, which is why I find that statement even more likely to be an ass-pull.

If the relationship between mind and brain/body is akin to the gamer-as-soul controlling the in-game character-as-body, my guess - as per Arvan's P2P Hypothesis - is that there would have to be some kind of significant quantum biology level observation. This would have be either a special biology-related physics or an observable deviation from normal physics observed outside the brain.

Henry Stapp has written a few books exploring this potential relationship, and Chris Carter makes mention of a few other scientists' quantum biology models for soul/body interaction in his trilogy - IIRC it's in the NDE book.

All that said I'd caution against assuming that such a standard approach is definitively correct, as per the neuroscientist JR Smythies:

"How can the brain be in the head, when the head is in the brain?"

See also Donald Hoffman's essay "Peeking Behind the Icons" on why the brain as observed in consciousness does not have to correspond to whatever the actual reality of consciousness/matter is. 

Eric Weiss has also thought a lot about this question of what survival of the person would mean.

The Irreducible Mind folks also got different possible models and put them in their book Beyond Physicalism.

Happy reading!

The Irreducible Mind folks also got different possible models and put them in their book Beyond Physicalism.

I have just read through most of the introductory section and I'm already impressed. I'm surprised they mentioned PK and mediumship, as I imagine that won't sit well with many of your average scientists, but the mediumship content they hinted at was definitely interesting. The clarification that NDEs DO also occur during general anaesthesia and comas was also appreciated, glad I caught that, though they chose to cite Eben Alexander, and I know several members on here agree he'd not the best to cite on NDEs. They quote a lot of literature covered on here, including Stephen Braude's Immortal Remains! I can't say I'm familiar with most of those Kelly worked with though.

What do you make of the top review on Amazon from a Cartesian dualist who claims there could be flaws in the Filter Theory model that they glossed over? He admits he isn't an expert in this field (and there are other models, e.g. salt and water), and I'm not sure whether he fully understands the jist of the filter theory. He's not a physicalist like I said, especially based on his reading history and who he's following, so I think he's being honest here: 

1. Neruology should be organized primarily to be exclusionary of non-sensory data, rather than integrative and focused on sense data
2. Creatures that lack a sense organ should often be able to compensate with direct knowledge of what is being sensed despite the lack of any sensors
3. Remote viewing and telepathy should be common capabilities, and strong, for humans and animals, and amplified/tuned to be highly effective by evolutionary processes
4. Remote viewing and telepathy should be most apparent in living things with simple neurology
5. Remote viewing and telepathy should be least present in living things with the most complex and largest brains, since in filter theory brains exist to PREVENT these activities.
I think that predictions 1-3 are falsified, 4 and 5 its not as clear, but it is likely they are too. 5 also is a conflict with the assumed teleology of the universe trying to achieve mystics through evolution – if consciousness and brains filter out Mind at Large, then direct awareness of Mind at Large was the starting state, not the end state of evolution.

He argues in his review (which is still largely positive at the end of the day) that their philosophical approach to science is skewed, in that they don't do what The Self Does Not Die does: they don't address more alternative skeptical scenarios and arguments, meaning readers may start thinking of their own that may or may not be misinterpreted. There's plenty of good evidence discussed, but perhaps he means they should have explored the filter model more concretely. 

Fortunately, I think they probably already have done so by now, hence the theory becoming increasingly popular over the last five years, give or take. It's also interesting that they may have mentioned psychosomatic pain, something I think gets overlooked in these topics. Can't say I'm well versed on that area at all. 

Thanks for those other links too as well, I'll be sure to check them out. Dr Kelly is already working on s new book IIRC.

I have just read through most of the introductory section and I'm already impressed. I'm surprised they mentioned PK and mediumship, as I imagine that won't sit well with many of your average scientists, but the mediumship content they hinted at was definitely interesting. The clarification that NDEs DO also occur during general anaesthesia and comas was also appreciated, glad I caught that, though they chose to cite Eben Alexander, and I know several members on here agree he'd not the best to cite on NDEs. They quote a lot of literature covered on here, including Stephen Braude's Immortal Remains! I can't say I'm familiar with most of those Kelly worked with though.

What do you make of the top review on Amazon from a Cartesian dualist who claims there could be flaws in the Filter Theory model that they glossed over? He admits he isn't an expert in this field (and there are other models, e.g. salt and water), and I'm not sure whether he fully understands the jist of the filter theory. He's not a physicalist like I said, especially based on his reading history and who he's following, so I think he's being honest here: 

He argues in his review (which is still largely positive at the end of the day) that their philosophical approach to science is skewed, in that they don't do what The Self Does Not Die does: they don't address more alternative skeptical scenarios and arguments, meaning readers may start thinking of their own that may or may not be misinterpreted. There's plenty of good evidence discussed, but perhaps he means they should have explored the filter model more concretely. 

Fortunately, I think they probably already have done so by now, hence the theory becoming increasingly popular over the last five years, give or take. It's also interesting that they may have mentioned psychosomatic pain, something I think gets overlooked in these topics. Can't say I'm well versed on that area at all. 

Thanks for those other links too as well, I'll be sure to check them out. Dr Kelly is already working on s new book IIRC.

Pretty sure the section on Evolutionary Pantheism gets into some of that, as it isn't that every amobea has only a partial restriction of Ur-Consciousness, and this restriction tightens as you go up the evolutionary ladder...in a reality like [that] you wouldn't even have evolution. I've no idea why remote viewing would be common either.

It seems the reviewer missed the importance of that section regarding the nature of the filter/transmitter model and Psi. Also the book isn't about the evidence - that's covered in Irreducible Mind for the large part and other works. It's odd he mentions the nature of this book as overview then complains there were not enough discussions about testing. The book is part of the large ongoing body of work done at Esalen.

The point of Beyond Physicalism is to discuss the different ways reality might be like that is in accordance with personal survival. The models include, but are not exclusive to, the idea of the brain as a restricting valve on an expanded consciousness.

Again it's an odd review that misses the central point of the book, as an introduction to varied possibilities and the work of numerous authors. Many of the contributors have written a few books and/or many papers themselves, including Stapp who [he unjustly] criticizes. The idea that Stapp is arguing for a Great Deceiver seems like a deep misunderstanding of that section.

All in all, I think this person wanted to stick to their guns about being a Cartesian Dualist and rationalized an argument as to how the book didn't make him change his mind. Which is odd since the soul/body distinction, with the soul going to some afterlife realm, is one of the central ideas of the book. Perhaps there was some religious bias and confusion about what Cartesian Dualism is vs soul/body distinction?

One should read the work themselves, I think you're committing the same deep intellectual failure you did when you didn't actually read Tucker's report.

As a side note, on Chris Carter's NDE book, I noticed in the reviews that quite a debate went on between a somewhat pompous reviewer (IMO anyway), Richard Masloski, and friends Smithy and tim over the Dentures Man case. Makes me wonder if the man ever picked up a copy of The Self Does Not Die. Reading that debate made my day. 

As a side note, on Chris Carter's NDE book, I noticed in the reviews that quite a debate went on between a somewhat pompous reviewer (IMO anyway), Richard Masloski, and friends Smithy and tim over the Dentures Man case. Makes me wonder if the man ever picked up a copy of The Self Does Not Die. Reading that debate made my day. 

I remember that, vaguely, Omni. I don't know what good it did, mind you. but I hope I was polite at least. In the end, you have to make up your own mind based on a consideration of the evidence in total, (NDE's being my preferred category). 

One can postulate that it's beyond reasonable doubt there's something extraordinary going on. If sceptics deny that, they're really just being dishonest. Proof is something else, unfortunately and being the type of animal they are, "proof" is what they will demand. 

Which leaves Parnia and his colleagues the ongoing task of trying to "nail jelly to the wall" (Sabom) while they (sceptics) gleefully sit on their arses, knowing full well how difficult that is. As Novella said, I didn't design the study, he (Parnia) did.

I do hope I'm not speaking ill of the dead however, since this Paul Anlee hasn't posted anything on his blog for nearly 4 months now. I'd check his social media, though he apparently only uses Facebook, which I don't have. His bio on that blog of his seems to indicate he let his ego go to his head, and that he finds it appropriate to vehemently attack dualists, idealists and monists as 'unscientific' and 'irrational' even though, as Dr Greyson found, and increasing number of scientists seem to be turning away from physicalism. How he can be expected to be treated seriously when he resorts to name-calling and bullying is baffling. 

The fact that he made a whole post as well whining about being called close-minded (which he quite clearly is) while also being advertised on another blog that bashes pseudo-skepticism is comedically ironic to me. 

On a serious note though, I was pretty ticked off by his claims about 'scientists stimulating experience' and there being 'hundreds of experiments' indicating such. Of course he didn't cite any examples of these at all, and in fact he rarely does cite his sources or evidence on his blog, but such misinformation and flat out lying is an embarrassing thing to resort to. Then again, he did claim even Hoffman had heard of some experiment that used magnetic stimulation to remove someone's sense of colour in their left eye or something? What's that all about?