survival after death

[Yahzi]

I said that it is not possible to imagine your own non-existence.

I have no problems imagining this state, in exactly as much detail and verisimilitude as imagining that I had nothing for dinner last night.

You've suggested an interesting possiblity; that the mechanics of imagination are so heavily censored by the ego as to make some thoughts impossible; and while I agree that seems to be the case for some people, I don't think it's a mechanical limit.

 

[SirPhilip]

Seems very silly but.......At last a new book has been published setting out the secular scientific case for survival after death. This former stage magician tells us everything that his fellow magician James Randi is very careful not to tell us. more...

I never understand these people. If the book vaguely refers to metempsychosis (the impossibility of permanent death) there's nothing uplifting about it. I don't understand why he'd make James a focal point of this though. Sure, almost everyone who's met him regards him as an important activist for public mental health, but he simply goes after superstition-flavored fraud, not superstition and philosophical positions themselves, although I'm sure he considers them regressive tendencies, or not of any worth. If you've ever stepped foot in his library, clearly he's very interested in these subjects.

 

[Dr B]

While on this subject. I am assuming many of you have read this already but here is a link to an exchange between Michael Shermer and Deepak Chopra on the subject of life after death. http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/debates/afterlife.html Now I warn you the Deepak Chopra reply is (in my humble skeptic opinion) painful to read and is riddled with all sorts of woo and mentions of "Quantum consciousnous". But it is nonetheless an interesting exchange and something I'll keep in mind next time I have a discussion with an after life believer.

Thats a good read - many thanks I am quite amazed at how bad the arguments against mind being what the brain does actually are

...and sooooo many ad homs against Shermer........

 

[Dr B]

One probelm I find with discussion like this (and one other elsewhere on this forum) is that some people think that because one cannot 'prove' survival is impossible, it could be true (argument to ignorance). There is also an additional distortion in that from this, some say "because one cannot 'prove' survival is impossible, it is therefore probable". Note the difference - from a statement with logical form one leaps to an illogical one.

Possibility does not equal probability (in the sense that if something is possible it is thus highly likely).

I also think views like this misrepresent science, what it is, what it does, and how it does what it does....

 

[Humphreys]

I am not sure i've encountered the claim in the hard sense you imply. Maybe you could provide an example. If they do, then I would agree with you - no one can claim to 'know' (with respect to 100% proof) and it is logically questionable. However, this does not make it true or false - thats all i was adding.

I remember a poll on this board some time ago where people were asked how sure they were there was no life after death, and a high percentage were near certain, and the majority were very confident.

We could start a poll again, but I'm sure the results wouldn't have changed much. The consensus amongst skeptics is that there almost certainly isn't one. I'm wondering where this "almost certainly" is coming from, since it seems to be grounded in a confident belief that WYSIWYG as far as reality is concerned.

Again, to reiterate, I don't believe in one either.

I am still confused what you mean - but dont worry - its probably me. Anyone else get a handle on this metaphor?

Have you seen the Matrix films? It's just an example of what I'm talking about.

Otherwise, take dreaming and hallucinating as examples. Some dreams, hallucinations, and especially NDEs can seem incredibly real a lot of the time, especially while we are experiencing them, and they can seem perfectly normal, make sense, and we often don't even question the possibility that it might just be an illusion.

Where does our confidence come from that reality itself is not a dream, or a computer simulation?

How is brain science compatible with a notion of duality? Do you have any examples for us all to consider?

Not duality, that would imply a soul communicating with the brain, right? I'm talking about a different type of monism, involving consciousness, or in the case of a computer simulation, I've no idea what you would call that, but it isn't dualism.

As for examples, let's take the most simple example we have - whacking someone over the head. The fact people lose consciousness when this happens could imply that reality is created by the material brain, however, I think this notion is completely compatible with every other underlying reality example I have mentioned.

If reality is a computer simulation, we would expect this functionality to have been programmed in. I've had many dreams where shaking my head would cause me to lose dream consciousness, falling down would cause me to wake up completely, and hitting my head in the dream would certainly cause me to regain consciousness. If consciousness creates the material world, we would also expect it to have created the brain, and to utilize it. Therefore, we would expect playing with the brain to have the same affect as in a material reality.

None of these experiments seems to be more suited to materialism than its opposite, or illusionary reality hypotheses.

Is there some circularity here? - you say it 'should' make us prefer brain-based models (I totally agree). I have my reasons - what are yours? You will proabably find when you identify your reasons you will answer the second part of your question to some degree.

My reasons are mostly practical reasons, not evidence based. In order for us to conduct science successfully, we have to have faith to some extent that the Universe is predictable, consistent, explainable, sensical, and that attaining a theory of everything eventually is a likelihood.

However, if we accept any model other than materialism as an axiom, all that is thrown into doubt. We could have the urge to give up on a problem because it is fundamentally unsolvable, nonsensical, or just a weird computer glitch of some kind, or even something deliberately programmed in to baffle us forever.

Most people will now say that the fact science has been successful is proof that there is a consistent material reality, but by the same token, we can cite any current failures or lack of knowledge of science as evidence of the opposite - like QM.

Although this is an argument from ignorance, it does not mean it's likely that QM will ever be understood, or ever could be, because solving it seems the biggest challenege to science to date.

Could it be so difficult to understand because our underlying reality model is incorrect? It's certainly a possibility.

 

[Dr B]

I remember a poll on this board some time ago where people were asked how sure they were there was no life after death, and a high percentage were near certain, and the majority were very confident.

Ah - I see. However, 'very confident' is a relative term and not an absolute one. I dont think that means people around here are 'absolutely certain' of anything and you should not mistake that difference. I would count myself as saying I am 'very confident' that the evidence shows mind is what the brain does. However, this does not exclude other possibilities - its just makes them so extremely unlikely it would be perverse to assume them true at this stage. I am a big advocate of 'more research needed' - but if I were a gambling man i know where my money is going.

Have you seen the Matrix films? It's just an example of what I'm talking about.

Yes but i do not like the metaphorically laden thinking you are using from it - again, maybe thats just me.

Otherwise, take dreaming and hallucinating as examples. Some dreams, hallucinations, and especially NDEs can seem incredibly real a lot of the time, especially while we are experiencing them,

I dont see how this questions a brain-based approach as there are a few good neuro-cognitive accounts for these experiences and why they feel real. For example, excessive neural disinhibition in sensory areas leads to execessively vivid experiences. Vividness is one dimension that makes people view certain experiences as real or not. This has been researched for about the last 60 years.

Where does our confidence come from that reality itself is not a dream...

That is a good question - though the issue of vividness is one dimension for this. As is stability and coherence of stimulation across multi-sensory areas. You could say the brain acts like a scientist, it generates a fiction and tests it against the sensorium - if it stands up to a few tests - you take it as real. Various parts of the brian are known to be involved in this reality-monitoring process and known to breakdown with drugs, stimulation, pathology and disease.

I see normal percpetion (and hence reality) as a form of controlled hallucination. It is a fiction - but a lesser fiction than others. This is an emerging trend in science.

As for examples, let's take the most simple example we have - whacking someone over the head. The fact people lose consciousness when this happens could imply that reality is created by the material brain, however, I think this notion is completely compatible with every other underlying reality example I have mentioned.

How? I'm lost again, sorry.

If consciousness creates the material world, we would also expect it to have created the brain, and to utilize it. Therefore, we would expect playing with the brain to have the same affect as in a material reality.

Consciousness does not have a unidirectional relationship with the brain or the environment and I know of no scientist making such a claim. Thius the earlier part of this statement seems unfounded - at least to me.

None of these experiments seems to be more suited to materialism than its opposite, or illusionary reality hypotheses.

Hold on - you have not made your case yet.....

My reasons are mostly practical reasons, not evidence based.

I did note the lack of evidence

In order for us to conduct science successfully, we have to have faith to some extent that the Universe is predictable, consistent, explainable, sensical, and that attaining a theory of everything eventually is a likelihood.

Faith? You are joking right? Faith needs no evidence - are you saying science is the same as religion? - if you are there are thousands of posts around here tackling this and i am not repeating them here.

Although this is an argument from ignorance, it does not mean it's likely that QM will ever be understood, or ever could be, because solving it seems the biggest challenege to science to date.

Indeed it is - and yet you still try to make it. You seem to already know why its nonsense. I get bored when people start banging on about QM - no offence.

Could it be so difficult to understand because our underlying reality model is incorrect? It's certainly a possibility.

But its not difficult to understand! You also dont convince me you know how scientists view the brains reality process so i think you are criticising something you show a limited knowledge of. Maybe that explains it - thats one possibility.

 

[Humphreys]

Ah - I see. However, 'very confident' is a relative term and not an absolute one. I dont think that means people around here are 'absolutely certain' of anything and you should not mistake that difference. I would count myself as saying I am 'very confident' that the evidence shows mind is what the brain does. However, this does not exclude other possibilities - its just makes them so extremely unlikely it would be perverse to assume them true at this stage. I am a big advocate of 'more research needed' - but if I were a gambling man i know where my money is going.

But you still haven't made the case that a WYSIWYG reality is more likely than reality being an illusion, or computer simulation.

As I explained, every piece of evidence there is for brain created consciousness is compatible with its opposite.

I dont see how this questions a brain-based approach as there are a few good neuro-cognitive accounts for these experiences and why they feel real.

For example, excessive neural disinhibition in sensory areas leads to execessively vivid experiences. Vividness is one dimension that makes people view certain experiences as real or not. This has been researched for about the last 60 years.

Fine, but this all misses the point.

If I can have a dream that seems more real and vivid than the reality I experience when I am awake, what evidence do you have that this reality is itself not a dream?

That is a good question - though the issue of vividness is one dimension for this. As is stability and coherence of stimulation across multi-sensory areas. You could say the brain acts like a scientist, it generates a fiction and tests it against the sensorium - if it stands up to a few tests - you take it as real.

This make sense to us in this Universe, and we take it as evidence, but when I am dreaming, what occurs in that dream makes sense to me too. Then I awake, and most of what occured seems like incoherent nonsense.

How do you know you won't awake to the same realization tomorrow, only to find this was all a dream or hallucination?

Consciousness does not have a unidirectional relationship with the brain or the environment and I know of no scientist making such a claim. Thius the earlier part of this statement seems unfounded - at least to me.

You've lost me here, I don't see what this has to do with my comments.

I did note the lack of evidence

Rather the present fresh evidence, and rather than presenting my own case, I'm trying to show how the evidence you have could be used to support other versions of reality, like a computer simulation reality.

And if not support, they're certainly not evidence against such possibilities.

I don't see that evidence of that kind is even attainable in theory.

Faith? You are joking right? Faith needs no evidence - are you saying science is the same as religion? - if you are there are thousands of posts around here tackling this and i am not repeating them here.

Sigh. I'm saying absolutely no such thing. Maybe faith was a bad word, since it has so many negative connotations.

Let's just say that science is grounded in certain axioms. We must accept certain things, without evidence, in order to get started. Namely that the Universe is inherently sensical, consistent, that there is a material reality "out there", that random chance/nature is the force behind everything, that we are not in a dream or computer simulation, that past experience is a good indicator for future experience.

We also must accept, without evidence, that the past really occured and wasn't just set out by some external force, or wasn't planted in our brains one second ago, and so on, and so on. Call it faith, call it common sense, call it a necessary axiom, parsimony, whatever, but these beliefs are not actually supported by evidence.

Indeed it is - and yet you still try to make it. You seem to already know why its nonsense. I get bored when people start banging on about QM - no offence.

Why do you get bored? I think it's one of the most fascinating subjects around. Maybe it bothers you because we really don't have any good answers as to what is happening at the quantum level and why, and that it really is a worry for science.

If space exists, how can particles communicate instantaneously from any distance?

But its not difficult to understand! You also dont convince me you know how scientists view the brains reality process so i think you are criticising something you show a limited knowledge of. Maybe that explains it - thats one possibility.

I don't think I need to know a great deal about the brain, because philosophically, no evidence that could possibly be presented could discount a dream or Matrix reality, or solipsism, or the possibility that we're just being told what to do and think by an external force, or that your memories of these brain experiments weren't just planted in your head a second ago.

The fact that each of those scenarios are very real possibilities shows how much we need to accept materialism for practical reasons, otherwise we'd never get anything done, but accepting that they're possibilities and therefore being wary of having certainty in anything is what skepticism should really be about, in my opinion.

I always like to take that into account when declaring confidence in anything, not least the fact that death is the end.

 

[Dr B]

But you still haven't made the case that a WYSIWYG reality is more likely than reality being an illusion, or computer simulation.

eeerrr - its for you to make the case for your metaphor. You cant simply make a statement and assume you have made a case. You are confused here. I can state the moon is made of cheese - but that is not me making a case - its a statement, and a nonsense one at that.

As I explained, every piece of evidence there is for brain created consciousness is compatible with its opposite.

Wrong - you have not explained this at all - you just keep stating it. Maybe we should wait for others to comment on your apprent 'case' you think you have made. I see no explanation from you at all - or at least not one that would qualify as a scientific one. Dont take my word for it - see what others say. I have seen no such equality in your posts.

If I can have a dream that seems more real and vivid than the reality I experience when I am awake, what evidence do you have that this reality is itself not a dream?

Now you are missing the point.....and its circular.....convinction in an experience does not make it correct.

How do you know you won't awake to the same realization tomorrow, only to find this was all a dream or hallucination?

My previous posts speak to this - but you will need to do some further reading.

You've lost me here, I don't see what this has to do with my comments.

You said consciosuness creates the material world. Is it not also the case that experience with the material world has developed the neural machinery to form consciousness? See - its not unidirectional. You have a simplistic view of consciousness which might explain your confusion

Rather the present fresh evidence, and rather than presenting my own case, I'm trying to show how the evidence you have could be used to support other versions of reality, like a computer simulation reality.

But you have not made any such case or provided any such explanation that I can see.

And if not support, they're certainly not evidence against such possibilities.

you keep making these fallacies

Sigh. I'm saying absolutely no such thing. Maybe faith was a bad word, since it has so many negative connotations.

It was factually incorrect as is the paragraph that follows it

Why do you get bored? I think it's one of the most fascinating subjects around. Maybe it bothers you because we really don't have any good answers as to what is happening at the quantum level and why, and that it really is a worry for science.

Please make the case for why QM has anything to do with consciousness - and for that you will need evidence - metaphor will not do!

If space exists, how can particles communicate instantaneously from any distance?

Neurons communicate via axons which radiate through extracellular space to other neurons - whats the mystery here?

I don't think I need to know a great deal about the brain, because philosophically, no evidence that could possibly be presented could discount a dream or Matrix reality, or solipsism, or the possibility that we're just being told what to do and think by an external force, or that your memories of these brain experiments weren't just planted in your head a second ago.

Wrong - you do need to know about the brain to examine your statements in the appropriate context. Of course there are philisophical apsects, but there are emiprical ones as well, and you seem unaware of them due to your lack of knowledge about the brain - thats why its boring to talk about QM.

The fact that each of those scenarios are very real possibilities

what about probabilities? - I have made this point numerous times above. You seem to confuse the two and have consistently avoided the distinction
Clearly we disagree - however, lets see what others say about your 'insightful' comments.

 

[Dr B]

btw....scientists do not say that perception is reality - they say the brain represents information coming from the sensorium. These statements are not the same.

I am also unclear on whether you are talking about reality as an external thing (hence your awful Matrix metaphor) or at the level of experience. We may be getting some of our wires crossed on these and many other assumptions you are making. Nontheless, its worth thinking about.

 

[baron]

Please make the case for why QM has anything to do with consciousness - and for that you will need evidence - metaphor will not do!

One of the theories on waveform collapse? Not heard of Wigner's friend paradox? The work of Roger Penrose? David Bohm? Amongst many others who are proponents of the theory that consciousness and QM are intrinsically linked. Of course there are some (Amit Goswami springs to mind, having just read one of his books) who are slightly off at the deep end, but many respected physicists take the QM / mind linkage very seriously.

A couple that I Google, I'm sure hundreds more articles exist out on the web ~

http://members.aol.com/Mszlazak/BOHM.html
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n6_v15/ai_15447461

 

[Humphreys]

eeerrr - its for you to make the case for your metaphor. You cant simply make a statement and assume you have made a case. You are confused here. I can state the moon is made of cheese - but that is not me making a case - its a statement, and a nonsense one at that.

What do you mean "make the case for my metaphor"? Are you even aware what I am/am not arguing?

I am not doing the equivalent of stating the moon is cheese or anything like it. I am claiming that the results of various brain experiments are compatible with world views other than materialism, yet I still accept materalism as true for practical reasons. Why is the onus more on me to prove this than it is on you to prove the opposite, I wonder? Especially since it is you interpreting the results as implying materialism, and I am merely suggesting that they don't necessarily need to be interpreted that way.

Even though I don't see why I should have the onus, apart from the fact that science is materialistic by default, I have still presented an example of how manipulating the brain could illicit the same reactions in a computer simulation or dream reality as it would in a material reality.

If one were to program a computer simulation reality and then stick a person into it, they would surely program the brain as something functional. It would be programmed in that damage to the brain would have an affect on the experiences of the player, and so on. It would basically be programmed to work the same way as a real brain in a real material world. Therefore, any experiments done on brains will produce results compatible with either scenario. In the example of a dream existence, results do not matter anyway, because things make sense in dreams that turn out to be complete nonsense when you awake. You cannot provide evidence that upon awakening from the dream you are in now, you won't suddenly realize what a load of nonsense we've all been talking.

Wrong - you have not explained this at all - you just keep stating it. Maybe we should wait for others to comment on your apprent 'case' you think you have made. I see no explanation from you at all - or at least not one that would qualify as a scientific one. Dont take my word for it - see what others say. I have seen no such equality in your posts.

I've yet to see you present evidence that proves a metarialistic world view over any other example mentioned.

You said consciosuness creates the material world. Is it not also the case that experience with the material world has developed the neural machinery to form consciousness? See - its not unidirectional. You have a simplistic view of consciousness which might explain your confusion

I did not state that consciousess creates the material world, I am actually a materalist, I just presented it as a plausible scenario we have yet to prove false. The rest of your paragraph really seems to suggest you still don't know what I'm trying to argue. Maybe that's my fault.

Please make the case for why QM has anything to do with consciousness - and for that you will need evidence - metaphor will not do!

QM is a good example of something science struggles to come to terms with and is just one possibility of a problem that may be more easily answered if we look to the possibility of a non-materialistic underlying reality. It could also be that we'll figure it all out soon and it's completely explainable within our current framework, and I sure hope so, but the point is we cannot have any confidence in statements regarding the afterlife and such because we cannot even have confidence that we are right in our assumptions about the underlying nature of reality.

Neurons communicate via axons which radiate through extracellular space to other neurons - whats the mystery here?

The problem is, we're supposed to be living in space, and yet particles are able to communicate instantaneously as if there was no such thing.

If you don't consider that at least interesting, then I'm at a loss.

Wrong - you do need to know about the brain to examine your statements in the appropriate context. Of course there are philisophical apsects, but there are emiprical ones as well, and you seem unaware of them due to your lack of knowledge about the brain - thats why its boring to talk about QM.

Well, I disagree. I think it is a philosophical certainty that no brain experiment can disprove the Matrix, as just one example. If you think otherwise, show me a study.

what about probabilities? - I have made this point numerous times above. You seem to confuse the two and have consistently avoided the distinction
Clearly we disagree - however, lets see what others say about your 'insightful' comments.

Fine, I'm sure I know what kind of response I'll get, but I don't like the idea you're almost baiting others to come in and attack me, and I note your use of quotation marks around the word "insightful", which is unecessary.

 

[Moochie]

Way I see it, why would I want to survive death?

M.

 

[Dr B]

One of the theories on waveform collapse? Not heard of Wigner's friend paradox? The work of Roger Penrose? David Bohm? Amongst many others who are proponents of the theory that consciousness and QM are intrinsically linked. Of course there are some (Amit Goswami springs to mind, having just read one of his books) who are slightly off at the deep end, but many respected physicists take the QM / mind linkage very seriously.

A couple that I Google, I'm sure hundreds more articles exist out on the web ~

http://members.aol.com/Mszlazak/BOHM.html
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n6_v15/ai_15447461

I am well aware of this - but none of it establsihes any testable / evidence link between QM and consciousness - so there is a huge explanatory gap between the QM and consciousness. More neuroscintists ignore the Penrose model for these reasons. It suffers terribly at being able to explain anything at a 'meta' level. Or maybe you have some evidence that bridges the gap?

 

[Harlequin]

I don't know about that, but I have always contended that it's not possible for someone to believe conclusively that there is no life after death. Certainly such a position can be convincingly argued on the basis of evidence and to a certain extent logic, but the inability of the human mind to imagine oblivion - nothingness - means that we cannot envisage not being alive and thus our belief cannot be total. Similarly, it is not possible to imagine a world that does not contain us, because to do so we would need to put ourselves in the role of observer, and once we do that the original premise of a world in which we don't exist is destroyed.

What if I don't envisage myself not being alive, but rather another person. I can imagine a world that does not contain my neighbour (a blissfull paradise...). If I can imagine it for him then he can surely imagine it for me in return (and probably is). That way both of us get to die. Yay! I believe!!

Of course, I don't agree with your theory that we can only believe in things that we can imagine. There are apparently millions of people believing in invisible sky-daddies. Most of them will tell you that it is impossible to imagine exactly what god is. Does this mean they are not believing?

I don't think "believing" is like "knowing" in the sense that many would claim something must be true for it to be "known". I can have a belief based on a totally false imagining. If I think that "no life after death" will be like the feeling I get just as I fall asleep, then I could believe in it. Just because oblivion is nothing like that (?) doesn't mean I don't believe it.

Wow, I've got all kinds of double and triple negatives in this. What marvelous clarity...

 

[Harlequin]

Way I see it, why would I want to survive death?

M.

For the insurance, why else?

 

[Moochie]

For the insurance, why else?

Don't got no insurance, bro. Don't believe in it.

M.

 

[aggle-rithm]

No, you cannot. If you imagine something then you are the observer. If you are the observer then you are part of that scenario.

I am happy to argue this point, but so far nobody has grasped it.

I think I understand what you're saying, but it's a slippery concept. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that the brain is unable to self-reference, which in turn is the basis for dualism, which in turn is the basis for the belief in life after death.

One thing life has taught me is that I can imagine a lot of scenarios, and convince myself that because I can imagine them I understand them. One example is the death of a parent. This is something we all take for granted will probably happen within our lifetimes, but we don't really "get it" until it happens (at least, that was the case for me when my father died).

There is no substitute for first-hand experience, and if you are dead you can't experience anything.

 

[baron]

I am well aware of this - but none of it establsihes any testable / evidence link between QM and consciousness - so there is a huge explanatory gap between the QM and consciousness.

That is correct, many scientists do ignore this avenue of research because of its lack of testability using current methods. However, it is still a viable theory that could explain the results of certain QM experiments, bearing in mind that alternative explanations are equally unproven.

 

[Dr B]

What do you mean "make the case for my metaphor"? Are you even aware what I am/am not arguing?

At the risk of going around in circles, you are just making statements - not providing explanations. How, where, and why are the explanations equally supportive in the manner you suggest? You simply say there equal - thats your claim. I know debate rages on models etc - but all within the accepted framework I have mentioned. There are other threads where similar discussions have been taking place and i have made similar cases there.

I am not doing the equivalent of stating the moon is cheese or anything like it.

In the absence of evidence - yes you are.

Even though I don't see why I should have the onus, apart from the fact that science is materialistic by default, I have still presented an example of how manipulating the brain could illicit the same reactions in a computer simulation or dream reality as it would in a material reality.

How is this support for your case?

You cannot provide evidence that upon awakening from the dream you are in now, you won't suddenly realize what a load of nonsense we've all been talking.

I think you are the one talking the nonsense - again - for all the reasons already discssed. You just simply make statements all the time, then say 'if they are true...blah...' and you then go on to think it is true....now thats nonsense.

I did not state that consciousess creates the material world...

Yes you did - go back over the discussion.

QM is a good example of something science struggles to come to terms with and is just one possibility of a problem that may be more easily answered if we look to the possibility of a non-materialistic underlying reality. It could also be that we'll figure it all out soon and it's completely explainable within our current framework, and I sure hope so, but the point is we cannot have any confidence in statements regarding the afterlife and such because we cannot even have confidence that we are right in our assumptions about the underlying nature of reality.

Dont get me wrong QM is interesting in its own right - its when people apply it to consciosuness in the absence of evidence or testable links that I get bored.

The problem is, we're supposed to be living in space, and yet particles are able to communicate instantaneously as if there was no such thing.

The problem is - its unlikely to have any implication for consciousness -as the evidence currently stands. However, of course this may well change in the future....but I cant see how......

If you don't consider that at least interesting, then I'm at a loss.

Its your links to consciousness that are not interesting not QM itself. Did you bring any evidence with you for this link...I missed it???

Fine, I'm sure I know what kind of response I'll get, but I don't like the idea you're almost baiting others to come in and attack me, and I note your use of quotation marks around the word "insightful", which is unecessary.

I certainly hope no one reads that they should attack any one here. If anyone attacks you then they are fools. You are right in that i do not find your comments that 'insightful' - but i resent the implication i have asked other to attack you.

You know, i might have been asking others to make the case better than you....did you consider that possibility?

edit - I have said on more than one occassion that i struggle to understand some of your reasoning and openly admitted that its probably me.....

 

[Dr B]

That is correct, many scientists do ignore this avenue of research because of its lack of testability using current methods. However, it is still a viable theory that could explain the results of certain QM experiments, bearing in mind that alternative explanations are equally unproven.

I totally agree with you - a viable theory for QM effects it may well be. Though a viable theory for consciousness it is not - at least in its current guise.... I see no implication for high-level brain function....but again, that could be me..