Alex Tsakiris and the Skeptiko Podcast - CRITICAL LOOK AND OVERVIEW.

fls said:
The timing is difficult to establish - you would have to have continuous EEG monitoring (which is unusual during an arrest) and you would have to report out-of-body experiences which are specific so that their timing is precise. There was a case where a woman (Pam Reynolds) had continuous EEG monitoring and had an out-of-body experience during that time. She reported specific events during the time she was "out-of-body" so that the timing was precise. But the timing of the events was not during the time when the EEG was flat. I don't know of any other cases which had the perfect convergence of EEG monitoring, an out-of-body experience, and specific event reporting which allowed for precise timing.
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Also, you would need something more high-tech than an EEG, right? The EEG measures cortical activity, but doesn't measure much else. As evidence mounts that consciousness has a lot to do with other parts of the brain, we might be suspicious that EEG isn't telling the whole story.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Also, you would need something more high-tech than an EEG, right? The EEG measures cortical activity, but doesn't measure much else. As evidence mounts that consciousness has a lot to do with other parts of the brain, we might be suspicious that EEG isn't telling the whole story.

~~ Paul
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Yeah. Evoked potentials measure activity when surface EEG's are flat, for example.

Linda
 
Dr B said:
I am hoping to attach a PDF to this..... the points raised in it are long over due in this discussion. An earlier citation of it might have helped the discussion along a little....
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this article has come up before on the Skeptiko forum... the author is incorrect on all his main points... too much to cover all... but here's the scoop on flat EEG

From Skeptiko Interview #90... recognized expert on EEG... also happens to be a self-described skeptic....

Quote:
“It’s very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [someone with no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs. Human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can’t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them”,

- Dr John Greenfield
 
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alex.tsakiris said:
There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can’t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere.
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I think he might have to eat that "of course" eventually.

So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them.
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Excellent. Now let's find all the NDE studies where we can be absolutely sure that the experience of the NDE occurred during hypoperfusion.

~~ Paul
 
alex.tsakiris said:
Quote:
“It’s very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [someone with no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs.
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Therefore...?

To me that statement is congruent with the skeptics' argument that NDEs are not actually produced during flatline EEGs but either before or after.

The error survivalists make is in assuming the the NDE does occur during flatline.

Or was there another point?
 
Just thought I'd give this thread a little bump. I don't feel like I can contribute anything of value, but I do enjoy following the conversation.

By the way, I hadn't listened to Skeptiko in a few months, so I was quite surprised to hear him dabble in 9/11 troofery, "materialist conspiracies" and even evolution denial in some of the most recent episodes. What happened to that podcast? It had always been on the fringe, but now it seems like Alex has completely gone off the deep end, fully embracing the "Me vs. the delusional materialists, who practice scientism and suppress the truth" mindset. He's so condescending and overly confrontational in some of his diatribes, it's hard to listen to him anymore.
 
Atwill said:
Just thought I'd give this thread a little bump. I don't feel like I can contribute anything of value, but I do enjoy following the conversation.

By the way, I hadn't listened to Skeptiko in a few months, so I was quite surprised to hear him dabble in 9/11 troofery, "materialist conspiracies" and even evolution denial in some of the most recent episodes. What happened to that podcast?
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Good question. We are having a sort of debate - MonsterTalk vs Skeptiko - tomorrow. Those very issues are on my question list - maybe he'll answer us?
 
doctoratlantis said:
Good question. We are having a sort of debate - MonsterTalk vs Skeptiko - tomorrow. Those very issues are on my question list - maybe he'll answer us?
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Will you also ask about his experiments? Their apparent failure seems to be what motivated his shift from "replicating over and over again" to "the data doesn't matter".

An ETA would be cool too.
 
I've been away for a while, but still listening Skeptiko. So many points to raise from his recent episodes, but no time. I have to say I was very surprised how many points and opportunities the skeptical crew missed in this interview with Alex. You can listen the whole unedited podcast from here:

http://www.skeptiko.com/skepticality-hosts-skeptiko-blake-smith-ben-radford-karen-stolznow/

Imo, Alex did a good job in this discussion, and to me was overall the better prepared side and more quick to react in a favourable way, it was actually quite embarrassing at some points to hear how the skeptical crew responded (I hope to cover this in more detail with better time).

The psychic detective case in the end (starts around 1 hour 13 minutes) was one of the weaker parts for Alex though, to me it seemed that Ben was clearly better equipped to talk about this. Alex didn't seem to give enough credit to many important questions such as:

  • Why didn't the detectives solve the case at the time if the information given was so accurate? Alex's position is that the police task force did not accept the help of a psychic, etc.

  • Why didn't they find the same things that Ben found out now using the information that the psychic supposedly gave accurately at the time? Alex dodges this issue completely and hits a mine in the end...

  • ...which is the answer of the detectives when Ben asked them this question? Their answer was that the information was not specific enough. Alex pretty much completely dodged this issue and does not seem to understand why this is relevant.

Alex also seemed to completely miss the point about how memory works, and how it can be relevant in this case, OR, at least he didn't seem to entertain that side of the coin at all. It again seems like he gives too much credit to authority, "they are seasoned and well qualified detectives, do you really think that they could be fooled like that", not a straight quote, but that's pretty much the attitude that I've seen before from Alex.
 
By the way, Alex, this is from your forum (I've only read the first few posts):

http://forum.mind-energy.net/skepti...mith-ben-radford-karen-stollznow-podcast.html

Alex Tsakiris said:
the whole "if I can buy it in a gadget it does't matter" argument is silly... and at a deeper level it is a symptom of the problem... i.e. the primacy of materialism.
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You raised this point in the interview too. Do you really think that this is representative of the "materialistic" mind set? That it's "only important if we can use it in an iPhone", or something like that. For example, have you heard Richard Dawkins' take on this? See the video discussion "The Poetry of Science" for his point of view, starting from 52 mins and 10 seconds:



In short:

Richard Dawkins said:
Justifying space exploration because we get non-stick frying pans is like justifying music because it is good exercise for the violinists right arm.
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Of course it's nothing like what you portray the materialist "primacy" to be, he's actually very much in your camp in this regard, and I would suppose so are the rest of us "materialists". We cherish the idea of being able to understand nature as well as we possibly can. We think it's very important, beautiful and inspiring in itself. The skeptics in this interview did not do a good job of conveying this, one of the many points and opportunities I think they missed here.

Richard Dawkins' whole body of work is a good example of this state of mind:

Unweaving the Rainbow said:
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?
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Unveawing the Rainbow said:
The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.
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From an interview by Sheena McDonald:
RD said:
The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realise that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.
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Etc., etc..
 
I'm not much of a podcast listener and I find many skeptic/believer "debates" to be cringeworthy, so I've only listened to about half an hour of that podcast so far. I agree with Kuko that Alex did a fairly decent job and the skeptics weren't completely up on their game.

That whole thing about whether Sheldrake has "proven" that pets are telepathic was a bit dicey. Alex pointed out that there is no proof in science, yet I suspect the skeptics were using the word informally. Their point is correct that Sheldrake is merely assuming that his data should be interpreted as demonstrating telepathy, even if the data was collected accurately and the statistics were valid.

~~ Paul
 
Paul, interestingly, Alex himself refers to a conversation with Sheldrake where he admits that he'd given up on the DTK experiments as they were too difficult.

Reading his protocols, it's pretty easy to see what he means. It's entirely understandable.

I can't bring myself to listen to this cast. Ugh.
 
Alex, about the Global Consciousness project, you left the impression that the data is there, it's solid, and once scientists looked into it they couldn't explain it and just disappeared. I want to track these guys and ask their comments.

You said you funded a professor from the University of Florida to do research. The other guys were Chris French, research assistant Tamas Borbely and Peter Bancel.

I have the emails of Chris and Tamas, but can you give me Bancel's email and the email of the professor in the University of Florida, thanks.

Here's a link to the interview Alex had with Tamas and Bancel:

http://www.skeptiko.com/peter-bancel-global-consciousness-project/
 
I have not listened to the whole podcast but one point I do agree with Alex Tsakiris on is that the "What is it good for?" argument is ridiculous. If someone could move a feather 1 inch with telekinesis and then had to collapse for 24 hours to rest it would be a staggeringly important piece of scientific information, even though useless from a practical standpoint. For the record, I don't believe is psi abilities, I just think this particular argument is wrong.
 
Yep, and I don't even think the skeptical interviewers in that show really mean that it's not interesting or important, I guess they just had some kind of a...syntax error.

Is 'doctoratlantis' Blake? Maybe you can comment on this?

EDIT: Oh, and Alex has contacted me via e-mail and shared the contact information I asked, thanks!
 
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