Quantum Field Theory: The Woo Stops Here

[Ed Glosser]

...do you understand the "Texas Sharpshooter" fallacy? Do you understand the similar "New Mexico Tourist" fallacy?

Why not try to use all this amazing knowledge and string together an argument, instead of arguing by naming cognitive fallacies? You don't have to do that, of course, but you'll have to if you want an answer from me.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Yes, it certainly was easier when I believed that the only purpose of anyone's life was whatever they want it to be. There's less pressure in that.

Why do you fall for the teleology trap? Why do you, opersonally, think it is easier to hold everything to a standard of evidence than to simply swallow the woo! du jour?

 

[Ed Glosser]

How can it be "truth", if it contradicts evidence?

Something cannot be true if it contradicts something else that is true.

However, something can be true if it contradicts something that is wrongly perceived to be true, no matter how much evidence supports it.

 

[Ed Glosser]

Why do you fall for the teleology trap? Why do you, opersonally, think it is easier to hold everything to a standard of evidence than to simply swallow the woo! du jour?

I'm intrigued by the question, but I'm not 100% I get it. Could you try and restate it for me, please. Pretty please, because I don't want to get it wrong.

I'll go feed my cat while I wait.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Right there, when you say "no plausible mechanism", you are making a subjective evaluation of scientific work that I see no reason to blow off so easily.

I've read many skeptical accounts of parapsychological studies and they are not convincing to me. However, there is no point in denying that your side of the argument stands as the winner. Majority rules, or in this case, an informed minority whose efforts mankind depend on.

I mean the scientists. But you guys are great too.

OK, slugger you're up:

What plausible mechanism, that does not flatly contradict the standard model an what we know about forces-and-particles in our lepto-baryonic universe, has ever, in the history of history, been offered to explain how, for instance, "communication with the dead", or "clairvoyance" works? In what way is telepathy nor subject to the inverse-square law?

I will be fascinated to read your evidence.

 

[Aridas]

I'll be honest, that was the most confusing thing I've ever read. You can't write off young earth creationism without pause?

That's admirable, but I'll never get it. Good on you, though. I don't even know what their arguments are, but I know they're wrong.

Good on you. You're a true skeptic.

I apologize for being confusing. Understanding the fallacy fallacy might help you understand my position a little better, though, as well as the nature of unfalsifiable possibilities.

Yes, it certainly was easier when I believed that the only purpose of anyone's life was whatever they want it to be. There's less pressure in that.

It's not about pressure or being easier. With that said, I do simply disagree with what you said. As a general rule, it's easier to be "given" purpose than choose it for oneself and 'the only purpose of anyone's life was whatever they want it to be' is an oversimplification of the relevant issues. That's getting into what I consider to be too off topic for this thread, though.

 

[Pixel42]

What would you accept as evidence for reincarnation?

The problem, as I'm sure you realise, is remembering information about a past life which can be verified but which cannot also have been obtained in the same way. Something like the location of a body or stolen goods, perhaps, long enough afterwards that anyone who knew about the matter was dead. Even then it might be possible for the information to have been handed down or lost and rediscovered, so quite a few compelling cases would be required to make a convincing case.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I'm not gonna post a bunch of links to Ian Stevenson and whatnot. What's the point in that? You've already read about regression therapy and all that, and you've come to a different conclusion than I have.

It would be hubris to believe that I can influence your thoughts by sharing my ideas of how reincarnation might work, and I'm not in the mood for ridicule, so I'm just gonna not do it.

The intellectually honest thing for you to do here is to admit that I'm right about where this discussion would be heading. Am I wrong in assuming there is no evidence and no theories that could sway your mind?

Speaking of hybris, this is why I asked you to present (get used to the litany) practical, empirical, physical, non-anecdotal, objective, congruent, fruitful, and luminous" evidence. It is intellectually dishonesty of the highest order for you to pretend that discredited studies were discredited out of prejudice, that ghost stories and campfire tales are not considered evidence because of prejudice, and that beliefs are not accorded the same pride of place as evidence because of prejudice.

Further, unlike some, the position I am defending is, in fact, my evidence-based conviction, not a rhetorical device. No matter how beautiful, or well-executed, la Verónica Grande, it is still a deception.

What would that be? That's the million dollar question skeptics never answer, because that locks you into something you can't take back.

"Can't take back?" Really? How many times have I, in this thread alone, invited you to present objective, empirical, practical, concrete, congruent, fruitful, and luminous evidence for any claim you have made?

A decent start to providing evidence for "reincarnation" would be explaining (and demonstrating) how consciousness (which certainly acts as if it is an emergent property of a specific neurosystem) can exist independently of a neurosystem. What mechanism? What process? demonstrated by what evidence?

Are you aware of the pitfalls of regression therapy, and "recovered memory"?

How do you handle the problem of the population explosion? Where have all those extra souls been?

However, demonstrating (not just telling a cool story about, bro, but providing evidence for) how the "soul" exists in the first place would be a good start.

And do mind the quality of your evidence. "Plural of anecdote" and all that; there's a bonzer buck...

 

[Ed Glosser]

The problem, as I'm sure you realise, is remembering information about a past life which can be verified but which cannot also have been obtained in the same way. Something like the location of a body or stolen goods, perhaps, long enough afterwards that anyone who knew about the matter was dead. Even then it might be possible for the information to have been handed down or lost and rediscovered, so quite a few compelling cases would be required to make a convincing case.

Look, there are (regression) cases where people have discovered buried stuff, where whole villages have remembered the same thing independently, where a group of people have tested each other to see if they can trick each other into remembering the wrong thing, where people have drawn maps of places they've never even heard of, but...

None of this matters if you decide beforehand that reincarnation is impossible, and then state that everyone involved in these cases, or in Ian Stevenson's research into children who remember past lives, et cetera, that all those people are lying, intentionally or unintentionally.

Everyone lies, like Dr. House famously stated, but not all the time and not about everything. I don't blame you for doubting, though. It's the sensible thing to do.

 

[Ed Glosser]

Speaking of hybris

We can spell it your way. It's more classy with a y, I think.

This is why I asked you to present (get used to the litany) practical, empirical, physical, non-anecdotal, objective, congruent, fruitful, and luminous" evidence.

The thing is, I don't think it's right for a non-scientist like myself to criticize scientists for not agreeing with me about the worth of a precognition study or Ian Stevenson asking little boys to take off their shirts, to look at their birth marks, because if it doesn't feel right to them, even though it's their own people who did the work, meaning other scientists, then they shouldn't accept it. I wouldn't want them to. And as far as the evidence you're asking me to present, it would mostly, or exclusively, be things you've already heard of and already discarded.

You may be right that it is intellectually dishonesty to pretend that discredited studies were discredited because of prejudice, or maybe it's intellectually dishonesty to pretend that prejudice has nothing to do with it, and that only scientist who are pro-paranormalia can be dishonest, not the ones who are con.

On a side note, I don't know what your Verónica Grande reference was about, but thank you for the lovely Google images.

"Can't take back?" Really? How many times have I, in this thread alone, invited you to present objective, empirical, practical, concrete, congruent, fruitful, and luminous evidence for any claim you have made?

I think it's a moving goal post thing. I don't have a link.

A decent start to providing evidence for "reincarnation" would be explaining (and demonstrating) how consciousness (which certainly acts as if it is an emergent property of a specific neurosystem) can exist independently of a neurosystem. What mechanism? What process? demonstrated by what evidence?

Well, if you follow the history of parapsychology from its early days to here and now, you can see how all of these things have already been tested and proven again and again. The skeptics then tear every study apart for reasons that aren't made clear to the unbiased bystander. You'll disagree, of course, but that's my answer.

Are you aware of the pitfalls of regression therapy, and "recovered memory"?

Yes. That's why the client needs to be tested, in tricky ways that circumsomething those hazards. Which has been done, but which you will now insist has not been done.

How do you handle the problem of the population explosion? Where have all those extra souls been?

That's easy. They're animal souls. Same thing as evolution, only not just with apes. This is evident in that most people are sheep. Smiley face.

However, demonstrating (not just telling a cool story about, bro, but providing evidence for) how the "soul" exists in the first place would be a good start.

That would be a good place to start. Agreed.

 

[Fizil]

I just want to mention something that has always struck me as fairly conclusive evidence against any sort of "brain as receiver/tuner" scenario. Psychoactive drugs work by messing with brain chemistry, altering the way brain circuits respond to stimuli, both internal and external. Thus, because the way your brain reacts to external stimuli is altered, the texture of a dogs coat may give you the impression that the dog is made of clay as a visual hallucination, or you may see things that are not even there as your perceptual circuits misfire.

Now that is still consistent with a disembodied mind which interacts with the body through the brain. However, what is not consistent with that idea is that psychoactive drugs (and various other things we can do to brains), can effect a person's sense of self. They can affect their personality and moral judgement. They can affect their memory. If the mind is disembodied and imposes it's will through the body by way of the brain, messing with brain chemistry should not affect these internal processes. The fact that they do is exceedingly strong evidence that the mind is nothing more than a product of brain function. If the mind is nothing more than a product of brain function, then it is governed by the rules of biology, which are governed by the rules of chemistry, which are governed by the rules of physics. QFT being a complete description of all physics at the scale of brains excludes any new force of nature that could possibly cause the information present in a brain to transcend the death of an individual.

 

[Resume]

How do you know they aren't experiencing anything?

Their experiencer machine (brain) is dead.

 

[Ed Glosser]

Their experiencer machine (brain) is dead.

You're assuming that consciousness exists as a result of brain activity. Without that assumption, it's not self-evident why the experience of being should cease.

 

[Resume]

You're assuming that consciousness exists as a result of brain activity. Without that assumption, it's not self-evident why the experience of being should cease.

Where do you experience things? Hint-- the same place as the rest of us.

 

[Ed Glosser]

Where do you experience things? Hint-- the same place as the rest of us.

Here's an analogy for you:

Imagine that you're building a robot. You get a camera for his eyes, a microphone as ears, et cetera, and to crown it all you have a computer processor to which all this information is sent. At what point does any of this hardware began to experience things? Or is it the software that experiences things? How advanced would a toaster oven need to be, before it develops self-awareness?

AI is not a viable idea, but neither is the brain as machine. The same principles apply: When does living tissue and electricity turn into an experiencer? How?

 

[Ed Glosser]

Goodnight, everybody.

Don't wait up for me.

 

[Fizil]

Here's an analogy for you:

Imagine that you're building a robot. You get a camera for his eyes, a microphone as ears, et cetera, and to crown it all you have a computer processor to which all this information is sent. At what point does any of this hardware began to experience things? Or is it the software that experiences things? How advanced would a toaster oven need to be, before it develops self-awareness?

AI is not a viable idea, but neither is the brain as machine. The same principles apply: When does living tissue and electricity turn into an experiencer? How?

Then how do drugs that alter brain function alter consciousness? How is it that they alter internal experience? Your only possible answer is that ALL the functions of consciousness are mapped to the brain, thus allowing alterations in brain state to "transfer up" to the disembodied consciousness. But if that is the case, then all the actions of consciousness are duplicated by physical actions of brain activity. There is no need for the external consciousness anymore!

 

[Resume]

Here's an analogy for you:

No thanks, I have to drive.

Do you have any evidence for this non-corporeal experiencer jig-a-mabob?

 

[Resume]

Goodnight, everybody.

Don't wait up for me.

When you get up, please explain where the non-corporeal experiencer machine goes when your brain gets scrambled? I mean, body is still alive but you aren't you anymore. It's like the damage to your corporeal experiencer machine had something to do with it.

Weird, huh?

 

[Apathia]

Pixy Misa,

Thanks for the link to that lecture. I was finally able to watch it after three days of Century Link not giving me the broadband umph I'm paying for. ["Umph" isn't a proper technical term.)

I'm not a physicist but a well educated layman who reads widely. The lecture wasn't hard for me to follow. The analogs of how the Higgs Field works are familiar ones.

Where I frowned a little was the strong implication that the Standard Model is "complete" and has all interactions in the bag. He qualifies, but it still seems that "Standard Model" becomes one rule to ring them all.
It doesn't seem to me that physics really has such an overconfidence about it.

But I think that point that is dead on is that actual field theory models of reality must exclude this kind of crappy usage:

http://www.amazon.com/Hands-Light-Healing-Through-Energy/dp/0553345397

There's just nowhere in reality for Qi Fields, Biomorphic Fields, or whatever fields of healing energy. If they use that language, they need to show the force fields that must be integral to observable natural behavior.
Any Field model must eventually exclude these impossible forces.

I'm not going to complain when someone feels better because they have gotten some nicey-nicey personal attention.
But don't call it a "Field," because that won't give it a scrap of objective existence.
And don't be telling people they can dismiss their doctors for spiritual healing. That's more than bad usage, it's criminal.

"I'm going to tell my New Age Friends they'd be better off calling it "Umph."