Mega-thread for help with rebuttals against skeptical talking points

So ATP is providing energy [whatever that is], but how does providing energy prevent a soul from influencing the body?

Of course this assumes the body/soul relationship is functionally dualist.

Also seems like "Shannon Q" just has an undergrad degree in biology? I suspect she made this ATP argument up and then her fellow skeptics praised her for it and thus she deceived herself into believing she'd said something worthwhile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate

When it provides "energy" it's actually being kind of literal. ATP is like, THE go to essential that life uses up to do stuff. We need that energy to make the body go, and we know a soul isn't mysterious making any more of it in the brain which is what I believe she is saying. We know that chemical reactions are required to do stuff in the brain, but we aren't seening anything other than chemical reactions that don't need any soul to make them happen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate

When it provides "energy" it's actually being kind of literal. ATP is like, THE go to essential that life uses up to do stuff. We need that energy to make the body go, and we know a soul isn't mysterious making any more of it in the brain which is what I believe she is saying. We know that chemical reactions are required to do stuff in the brain, but we aren't seening anything other than chemical reactions that don't need any soul to make them happen.

Yeah I also looked at the Wiki entry for the discovery history (see below), I was asking what is "energy" in physics? Is there a way to define this term that isn't circular, as in we know it exists because of measurements of change and then we explain those measurements by referring to energy.

ATP was discovered in 1929, there's a paper reviewing ATP & brain function in 1989, and neurophysiologist Eccles proposed his interactionist model in 1992 with the physicist Friedrich Beck.

Though he's moved on to his own maybe panpsychic(?) quantum mind theory,  Danko D. Georgiev (MD, PhD Pharmacology) wrote a paper with James F. Glazebrook (PhD Maths) supporting an interactionist theory, along with his own paper supporting Eccles basic idea.

And while it's sadly behind an expensive paywall the biologist Stuart Kauffman recently wrote this paper entitled "Cosmic Mind?" :

This article explores the remote scientific possibility of something like “cosmic mind” or “cosmic minds.” Descartes proposed his famous dualism, res cogitans (mental reality) plus res extensa (physical reality). With Isaac Newton and classical physics, res extensa won in Western science and with it, we lost our minds; we lost our subjective pole. Quantum mechanics has seemed to many, since its formulation in the Schrödinger equation in 1926, to hint beyond physics to a role for the human conscious observer in quantum measurement. At least two interpretations of quantum mechanics, or its extension—the latter by Penrose and Hameroff, and the former by myself—suggest a new panpsychism where conscious awareness and possibly free will occur at quantum measurements anywhere in the universe. If so, then we live in a vastly participatory universe. More: entangled quantum variables may conceivably share some form of consciousness and free will, whether embodied in us, or living forms elsewhere in the universe, or disembodied; hence, something like cosmic mind or minds are not ruled out. If true, life anywhere in the universe will have evolved with mind and free will. Souls are not impossible.

Hammeroff being an anesthesiologist, Penrose a now Nobel Physicist.

If ATP were a serious barrier to interactionism we'd probably not have any credentialed academic making these propositions even as possibilities.

edit: Actually as memory serves only Hammeroff thinks Orch-OR opens the door to Survival, though Penrose is a Platonist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate

When it provides "energy" it's actually being kind of literal. ATP is like, THE go to essential that life uses up to do stuff. We need that energy to make the body go, and we know a soul isn't mysterious making any more of it in the brain which is what I believe she is saying. We know that chemical reactions are required to do stuff in the brain, but we aren't seeing anything other than chemical reactions that don't need any soul to make them happen.

ATP isn't some "magic" chemical that life uses, it is just a key chemical compound in the Krebs cycle.  I see something different than just the organic chem.  I see chemicals organized. They operate in a regulated fashion, with all aspects and outcomes from the electrochemistry of the Krebs cycle being functionally controlled.

Cell regulation, the applied logic, the thermodynamic system and the signaling within the mitochondria are all observables in information science.  There is a lot of data being gathered about information structures that make the molecules dance.

Chemicals do not regulate themselves, structured information does.

Though he's moved on to his own maybe panpsychic(?) quantum mind theory,  Danko D. Georgiev (MD, PhD Pharmacology) wrote a paper with James F. Glazebrook (PhD Maths) supporting an interactionist theory, along with his own paper supporting Eccles basic idea.

 The wavefunction ψ depends on the boundary conditions that include the initial position of the particle and its environment. If one knows the boundary conditions, one can solve the  Schrödinger equation and see  how  the wave-function ψ evolves in a deterministic way through space and time. What makes the theory extraordinary is the fact that the wavefunction ψ of a quantum system cannot be observed. The wavefunction ψ is sometimes described as pre-probability because it is the square of the wavefunction |ψ|2 that gives the probability to and the quantum particle at a certain position at a certain time.  - Danko Georgiev

John Wheeler called his version, pre-geometry, Sheldrake calls it a morphological field and Floridi calls it the infosphere.  In each case, it formulates a "space" (like Hilbert space) where communication activity counts more than chemistry.  Existing as an environment where there is an ecology of meanings and intents.

This article was posted during a Zoom call I attended (hosted by Seeking I) when Surviving Death was mentioned. This guy apparently has background experience in neuroscience:

https://psi-fi-channel.medium.com/beauty...bfabd4d9bf

He refutes the specific claims made by Greyson and Fenwick at times:

Dr. Bruce attempts to undermine the brain deoxygenation theory of NDEs by claiming that when someone’s hypoxic they become “frightened, belligerent and terrified — much unlike the calm, consistent, blissful NDEs”. This is a very unconvincing rebuttal, since obviously the former are experiencing lack of oxygen prior to the point of losing consciousness while the latter NDEs are reported only after such unconsciousness. Indeed, as he himself says, the hypoxia theory is ultimately appealing since it is the final common pathway regardless of any cause of the dying episode. What he doesn't mention is the host of downstream neural events that may come of this hypoxia — namely release of neurochemicals (not least endogenous psychedelics) which could mediate the ‘calm, consistency and bliss’ intrinsic to the NDE.

We also hear from preeminent neuropsychiatrist, non-dual aficionado and rather light-being-reminiscent (white-haired, imposing stature and kindly, elderly father-figure) Peter Fenwick. He states that skeptics will enthusiastically point out that the given NDEr from cardiac arrest still has preserved a sliver of brain “which you’ve all missed”, but he continues that such a naive view betrays that these nay-sayers “don't understand consciousness”. That is, you can’t maintain consciousness unless you have a highly organised brain — and the brain during NDEs is anything but organised. Greyson tag-teams to again substantiate this stance, saying flatlining occurs 20 seconds after the heart stops which means no brain activity — “yet NDEs are reported after flatlining for longer”. Fenwick is quick to pick-up again, reiterating that there’s a “wide expansion of consciousness even when there’s no brain function — it cannot be all brain”. My opinion is that the data is much more nuanced than these good doctors may have one believe. Contrary to these connoisseurs of consciousness’ conceptions, there is evidence of some brain activity post-cardiac-arrest — meaning instead of a perplexing irony, some neuronal machinations may still be instrumental to the NDErs’ testimonies. Specifically, an unleashing of neurotransmitters and a storm of coherent, high-frequency (albeit low power) electrical activity — at least after ‘experimentally’ killing lab-rats. Though these high-frequency surges (in the frontal brain) are identified in humans taken off life-support as well.

If one is throwing out the brain with the (cerebrospinal) bathwater to make claims of NDE’s illustrating mind-beyond-brain, a persevering scientist would look for some processes embedded in the dying brain activity which is of the tremendously organised nature expected to produce such lucid, vivid conscious experiences…and indeed these data suggest none other than that. Yet the two physicians simply don't talk about it (or aren't shown to). One main problem with these neural results, however, is the timing — the NDE’s occurrence is hard to pin down, anytime between the shutting down and reanimation processes of the brain as well as the period of apparent silence in between, but no longer than a matter of minutes. The experimental data reflects different time-courses too — for the electrical surge, from within 30 seconds after rodent cardiac arrest to several minutes in humans after blood-pressure loss. For the neurotransmitter deluge, again from one to many minutes after rodent experimental death. So while the two theoretically may align — despite the comparison, admittedly, being near-death against actual death — the exact correlation has not been demonstrated. Even if it is demonstrated, there will forever be the contention of the ‘hard problem of consciousness’, that is, we cannot even explain the link between the brain and the mind in general, let alone that between this sudden terminal brain activity and the profound experiences near-death.

I'm fairly certain the 'neurotransmitters' argument has been addressed before by both of them, and it's likely the 'brain activity after cardiac arrest' is referring to one of those sensationalised studies from the past few years. Additionally, as Dr Greyson has pointed out, these aren't 'storms' of activity. He seems to be conflating the Borjigin study results as well. But as you can see, he's more open-minded than the usual skeptic. During the Zoom call, he claims to have spoke with them and says he's not convinced they 'are fully aware of the neuropharmacological details (Dean et al, 2019 - for recent endogenous DMT rodent study)'. Parnia has also addressed this AFAIK. Needless to say, he didn't respond to me after I explained this to him.

Am I missing something here?

Did you email Greyson, given you've mentioned you're in email contact with him?

Also any proof of the qualification? Hopefully it's more than "Shannon Q" and her undergraduate psychology degree which was apparently never used in any professional capacity.

Did you email Greyson, given you've mentioned you're in email contact with him?

Also any proof of the qualification? Hopefully it's more than "Shannon Q" and her undergraduate psychology degree which was apparently never used in any professional capacity.

I didn't want to pester him as I've sent him an email somewhat recently which he replied to, so Seeking I has kindly on my behalf. In the meantime, am I justified in my criticisms?

Well I'm going by his claim in the Zoom call that he had a neuroscientific background and he used neuroscientific terms when discussing a potential, possibly skeptical (though it may not have been, I couldn't tell given the way it was worded) explanation for some culturally-influenced content in NDEs. His blog on medium doesn't mention his specific qualifications. 

Regardless, he's making some bold claims here, particularly that he's been in contact with Greyson and still doesn't think he's as 'informed'...even though Greyson has responded to the 'surge in brain activity' thing before, whether in interviews or over emails. He also admits the Pam Reynolds case is impressive, and he gave the impression he's unfamiliar with veridical NDEs.

I didn't want to pester him as I've sent him an email somewhat recently which he replied to, so Seeking I has kindly on my behalf. In the meantime, am I justified in my criticisms?

I don't even see the point in posting the quote until Greyson responds.

Y'know, for all the time it sounds like you spend stressing about your inevitable, unavoidable death, you also sound like you're letting your life pass you by. Do you really want to spend your life, whether its one or many, doing little more than worrying about how much time you have left to spend worrying about it? Soon enough you won't have any time left to do much of anything, so you might as well just go eat some ice cream or something.

Y'know, for all the time it sounds like you spend stressing about your inevitable, unavoidable death, you also sound like you're letting your life pass you by. Do you really want to spend your life, whether its one or many, doing little more than worrying about how much time you have left to spend worrying about it? Soon enough you won't have any time left to do much of anything, so you might as well just go eat some ice cream or something.

Given the current lockdown conditions at the time of typing this, I don't have much of a choice other than doing work, getting out occasionally, trying to distract myself etc. 

If you're telling me to just 'get over it' then I suggest you read my earliest posts to understand why I can't do that, at least not yet.