Mega-thread for help with rebuttals against skeptical talking points

Well, I tried but I can't find it. I looked on Lexscien and the Psi Encyclopaedia (where I thought I'd first read about it) but got nothing. Relying on my unreliable memory, I think the code was solved but only after part of the solution was made public. Sorry I can't be more help.

From memory alone, the cross correspondence was a series of individually delivered (by medium) messages to a number of recipients around the world. The messages made no sense until they were put together as one text. And then it did make sense, I believe. But sceptics paid no attention to it. Could be wrong, though.

From memory alone, the cross correspondence was a series of individually delivered (by medium) messages to a number of recipients around the world. The messages made no sense until they were put together as one text. And then it did make sense, I believe. But sceptics paid no attention to it. Could be wrong, though.

You're right. Chris Carter goes over them in his trilogy.

Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about the cross-correspondences, but you can read about them here

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...spondences

Can somebody explain what this claim is trying to say?

"Ganglia in the brain are the only medium by which there can be consciousness"

I saw this on my Instagram feed in the comments under a post about veganism when people were arguing over whether plants can 'feel pain', leading to studies being posted, accusations/name-calling, misunderstandings etc. Some young man claiming to be a chemical engineer made this quoted claim when he went around the comments 'correcting' the many people claiming they do/can. Someone (fortunately) responded pointing out something like "well actually science doesn't tell us that much about consciousness besides what we know from neural activity so you may be wrong". I'm aware that the whole 'plants being conscious' is a controversial topic that has been debated over the years, including on here. The many commenters claiming it's been 'proven' that plants feel pain and the resulting bickering in the responses made that clear (this is social media after all). I'm confused by what he means though referring to ganglia, I've never seen someone refer to this before.

Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about the cross-correspondences, but you can read about them here

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...spondences

No worries, thanks for the suggestions for where to possibly look.

Video from the aforementioned Kurzgesagt/In a Nutshell channel on 'uploading minds'. I was surprised to see they took a much more neutral approach to this and didn't just start by making assertions about consciousness (like they did in their previous video on how consciousness 'evolved' from hunger, which wasn't considered their best work by fans). 

Their list of resources for their claims can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/sources-mindupload . They seem to be fans of Koch from what I've seen of their videos. 

It should be noted that they were sponsored to make this video following the recent release of the highly anticipated video game Cyberpunk 2077. So naturally, there's going to be some bias here. They also go off on a tangent as well, which only weakened the strength of their video. 

It was certainly surprising that they (correctly, at least IMO) referred to physicalism...as an assumption! They also largely address the issues with this concept scientifically and, to a limited degree, ethically. A few of the commenters on the video just didn't seem to get that, nor the problems with the emergence argument or the Hard Problem of Consciousness. When someone seemed to question emergence, they were accused of 'spreading bullsh*t'. I shouldn't be surprised though given that this channel is very clearly aimed towards younger audiences and schools, many of whom are teens that are fans of this video game and so naturally would more likely be in favour of this.

No worries, thanks for the suggestions for where to possibly look.

I found it. And you were right - it was Oliver Lodge. The paper summarising this experiment is in the JSPR and its reference is "Anon. REPORT ON THE OLIVER LODGE POSTHUMOUS TEST, JSPR 38, 1955/6, pp. 121-34."
Abstract: Several mediums are able partially to divine the contents of the sealed packet left by the deceased researcher as a test of survival. The closest hit comes from Geraldine Cummins who, in an automatic script two weeks before the envelope is opened, correctly writes that it concerns Lodge's habit of drumming with his fingers in particular rhythms. However, various clues given in earlier envelopes, and intended to help the deceased communicator remember, have been made known to some researchers and mediums, which tends to reduce the evidentiality of the exercise.

If you've have access to Lexscien, you can find it by searching for the title. Otherwise PM me and I'll extract the pdfs and send them to you.

This video makes some pretty accurate as well as pretty funny criticisms of the 'mind uploading' idea as well, though it's from early 2018. Just thought I'd share this referring back to that earlier video. My favourite part of this video is, to paraphrase:

If anyone gives you an answer to the question "What is consciousness?" that basically isn't "I don't f*cking know" then they're probably lying...We have no idea.

I ended up stumbling upon this video in Arabic (comes with subtitles) trying to demonstrate the soul as being a myth from 2017:

For the stuff on consciousness and self-awareness skip to around 14:00. 

The video is specifically aimed towards debunking claims of Muslims AFAIK, hence why it goes on about stuff most wouldn't really see as relevant. He lists a bunch of resources which he cherry-picks from, which range from some talk from Christof Koch, to a speech Anthony Hopkins gave in the TV series WestWorld asserting that 'consciousness does not exist' as though that somehow strengthens his argument. 

He also quotes claims from Sean Carroll (and possibly Steven Novella) in video clips...including one amusingly taken from that Intelligence2 debate with Moody and Alexander IIRC. So of course he doesn't include their clips on what they had to say.

He goes on to make some wild speculative assertion about consciousness which is seemingly unsourced. He just vaguely asserts its 'many processes put together reacting to the environment' and that 'AI and robots would have consciousness', with no supporting sources their either. He just cherry-picks some video from Michio Kaku claiming it may be possible some day. Just the usual 'brain chemistry gets affected by alcohol and drugs that can affect your personality and consciousness' etc. Naturally he does not refute any actual evidence for the 'soul' either anywhere in his video, instead promoting the possibility of delaying death. 

He does however reference in this video some conference from 2012 at Cambridge where neurologists announced identifying the 'substrates' for consciousness in animals. The 'declaration' can be read here: http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDe...usness.pdf ...I assume the assertions about substrates are just that and given how this was from 2012 this is largely irrelevant to today. 

On the topic of self-awareness though, he makes a point I've seen before that studies have shown how self-awareness develops during childhood with the brain: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar...0003000813
He uses this to then claim we aren't born with self-awareness and it is a product from 'the area of the brain that generates it'. I understand that self-awareness is apparently not the same thing as consciousness, but is this relevant to supposedly supporting physicalism/materialism?

Not only that, but he claims that there are robots who have already passed self-recognition tests for self-awareness. He shows an image of the paper but doesn't list it in the links. Skip to 15:00 to see this paper. Since he doesn't seem to link to it AFAIK I have no idea when it's from. But I personally suspect he's grossly exaggerating this study/blowing it out of proportion, which happens to a lot of these studies. Has anyone here heard of this paper before, or even this 'Sherif Aber' guy?