So, to falsify it, I'd need to present brain imaging in controls of a specific type?
Or later studies showing a lack of such effects in "hypnotized" subjects, to show that the earlier result was a fluke.
Because that puts a pretty low bar on hypnosis.
No lower than for anything else. "How do we know if the thing exists? Observe it in the real world." This is not rocket surgery, folks.
Are we then justified in saying that cocaine users are operating in an "altered" state?
I thought that was pretty obviously the whole point of the drug.
There needs to be a bit more of the "how is hypnosis different" in the picture... what's the significance?
That's not part of finding whether or not something exists. That's part of the follow-up to find more details about it, which comes after accepting the fact that it definitely exists. (This is like Creationists acting as if evolutionary biologists were supposed to be trying to finding out whether evolution is real, rather than having passed by that point ages ago and gone on to try to learn new things about it, or race-deniers demanding specific explanations of exactly what every one of the hundreds of racially-distributed genes/alleles does before they'll admit that those genes/alleles even exist. The initial discovery and the detailed follow-up are
two different things.)
We wouldn't for instance, agree that psychic powers were real, simply because practitioners showed a similar, even distinct, fMRI scan when they were receiving visions.
That the power is real, of course not. But that those who claim to have them are experiencing altered brain function when they say (and possibly believe) that they're using them, yes, of course. And the equivalent claim in this case is clearly the latter, not anything in any way comparable to the former.
That, along with the thing about religiously-excited people, is the second attempt that I recall in this thread to equate "accepting the fact that an observed altered mental state is real" with "accepting other unsupported claims about it beyond the mere fact of its existence (such as that those experiencing it have magic powers or are influenced by the magic powers of other beings)".
These are scarecrows, and rather obvious ones, and they've been pointed out before. Why keep trying something you've already been caught at?
Here, for example, is a study using fMRI to show that religious belief can help lessen pain - does it mean I have to agree that God is real?
http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academ...eminar/evo of ritual/pain and virgin mary.pdf
Holy wow, the repeat is right on cue as if this were a Joss Whedon script. I hadn't even read your post down to this point before writing my response to
precisely the same kind of spuriosity just above.
Another forum I used to go to had an emoticon I really wish we had here right now. Its name was "disappointed", and it was looking slightly downward, turning left & right. When people are this flagrantly illogical and full of fallacies & dishonesty & debate-gimmicks on certain other subjects, catching & exposing them at it is what this forum was founded for. But change to another subject they feel differently about, and we get... this.
