Merged The razor of Hitchens and the Spirits!

Calderaro said:
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So what am I to take from a fireside chat between a vlogger whose biggest exposure is in the christian far right and a priest who has no scientific qualifications nor any relevant experience*?

And if you tell me to watch the video, I'll remind you that you have to explain to me why it's worth watching. It's your job to persuade me of your point, after all.

*Yet who the vlogger lyingly describes as a scientist.
 
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Calderaro said:
Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) is a theory proposed by physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff that suggests a connection between quantum mechanics and human consciousness.
The Orch OR theory also raises questions about life after death. Hameroff suggests that after physical death, the quantum information contained in microtubules is not destroyed, but rather dispersed throughout the universe. This implies that consciousness may continue to exist at some level outside the physical body, possibly in other universes or realities.This view is in line with some spiritual and philosophical beliefs about reincarnation and the continuity of the soul.
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Please explain to me the difference between "destroyed" and "dispersed throughout the universe."

Most things when they're destroyed are dispersed through a more local region. A shredded document ends up dispersed in a bin full of paper confetti. A demolished building ends up dispersed among various landfills and recycling facilities. Parts of Hiroshima were dispersed throughout a big mushroom cloud. A star that goes supernova is gradually dispersed throughout many light-years of space (but still within a small portion of a single galaxy). Being dispersed throughout the universe is the ultimate extent of how destroyed something can be!
 
JayUtah said:
It's very rude to expect people to watch a 40 minute video without identifying what point you think it makes.

The guest is advertised as a scientist, but he is also a Catholic priest. He appears in clerical garb and is clearly intending his remarks for a Catholic Christian audience. It's interesting that you would claim that reincarnation is the evident model of afterlife when the guest you're asking us to accept as an expert affirmatively claims something different. You are not credible when you cherry pick evidence.

The guest prefaces his remarks with attempts to elevate the experience of mind from its obviously subjective roots to the status of evidence. He claims that the intuitive belief in a soul has value as scientific evidence for the existence of a soul. This is not at all scientific. Most of his rhetoric is just a fairly standard Catholic theological exercise. He raises and manipulates topics from a purely religious point of view. While these axioms are likely to appeal to people who already believe in souls, in a larger context they're merely begging the question.

The guest commits the typical mistake of arguing that emergent properties must have an identifiable seat—a fallacy of limited depth. When he finally gets around to talking about physics, it's utter gibberish. He throws around various philosophical conjectures as if they were "laws of physics." And at long last (two thirds of the way into the video) when we get to see his scientific evidence, it's just the standard pop-science treatment of near-death experiences. There's nothing profound or new there. It's the same anecdotes that everyone else invokes, taking them all at face value with little critical commentary.
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The priest isn't a scientist, he's a theologian with som catholic philosophy sprinkled on top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spitzer_(priest)
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
The priest isn't a scientist, he's a theologian with som catholic philosophy sprinkled on top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spitzer_(priest)
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Indeed, which is why I said he's "advertised" as a scientist. Of all the theological pursuits, I get along best with Jesuits. I was even once accused of being one, but with kind intent. But in my experience, someone wearing a Roman collar and telling you he's about to talk about science is probably best left alone.
 
Myriad said:
Please explain to me the difference between "destroyed" and "dispersed throughout the universe."
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Perhaps it involves succussion against a leather-bound Bible, and this preserves the information in the space where it no longer is.
 
JayUtah said:
Indeed, which is why I said he's "advertised" as a scientist. Of all the theological pursuits, I get along best with Jesuits. I was even once accused of being one, but with kind intent. But in my experience, someone wearing a Roman collar and telling you he's about to talk about science is probably best left alone.
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Unless he's somebody like Msgr. Georges Lemâitres, who went to the bother of getting relevant science degrees before opining on the universe.
 
Calderaro said:
What are spirits to you?
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*Looks over at cupboard*

Scotch, especially rather niché single malts (Carrot Flower Queen has interesting tastes), good gin, good vodka.

To address what I assume you mean by the word: an evidence free concept which some folk used to explain things for which, in days gone by, there were no clear alternative explanations; these days an out-moded concept some hang on to, as science is too hard for them to grasp and would take a load of time to study and understand, which is a bit too much like hard work.
 
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