Supernatural can never be "proved" to exist (Split from Hypothetical Million...)

[GzuzKryzt]

Being new to these forums I'm am only going off of what I've observed in THIS particular thread. And what I observed was maatorc using terminology that enrages many of the responders and they, in turn, resorted to ad hominem and account suspension.

Specifically which responder has resorted to "suspension"? In all seriousness: Do you understand how a moderated forum works?

Well, hopefully, maatorc is reading our responses in his absence and will grace us with links to studies supporting his assertions (what ever they happen to be) as soon as his suspension expires. And hopefully, the rest of us can suspend our knee-jerk aversion to "woo-woo" terminology long enough to not participate in character assassination and get to the core of what maatorc is trying to say.

What ever they happen to be? Seriously: Do you read the posts, AkuManiMani? Maatorc said:

That consciousness is a universal energy embracing phenomenal and noumenal reality, and not merely a function of material brain chemistry.

And in the merged part from another thread:

...
If the transmitter and receiver are attuned to each other it does not matter where they are.
Further, the transmitter does not have to 'go' anywhere for the receiver to register the character of the transmission, or for the transmitter to register the reception of its transmission.
Analogously, we are infinitely complex conscious-living transmitter-receivers.
...

Nice hypotheses. Or just opinions?

Find out after these messages.

 

[steenkh]

Seeing as how he just got suspended on what I would view as questionable grounds I would rate the question of his ability to answer anything as nil.

He was only suspended for 24 hours, so he should have plenty of opportunity to come back. But I agree that his offence was not of a kind that I would give a suspension.

Considering that "consciousness" itself is poorly defined, and even the full implications of our current (and incomplete) theoretical models of of physics and neurobiology aren't fully articulated its more that a little premature to say that his view of consciousness as a vague "Universal energy embracing phenomenon" is a contradiction of anything

How complete does physics theory have to be in order to rule out the existence of universally energy embracing phenomena? As far as I know, physics theories are quite complete when we talk about the energy range of biological systems. It is in the very lowest and very highest energy ranges that surprises might be hidden.

This discussion has devolved into nothing more than one person (maatorc) using vague "woo-woo" terminology in a community with a predisposition to have a negative emotional reaction to anything that triggers their "woo-woo" detection algorithms.

Maatorc has a history here. You might not be aware of it, but we have heard him say exactly the same nonsense over and over again. It is not a question of reacting to vague woo-woo terminology, but rather of seeing the same person bringing up the same flawed arguments again and again: psi/esp is noumenal and cannot be tested; the MDC can never achieve its goals; there is an inner school of psychics whose rules (which are not public but also not secret) prevent real psychics from applying to tests that would show psi/esp to be real, and so on.

 

[Darat]

maatorc - I have just deleted a post by maatorc and again suspended him/her (this time for 3 days) for immediately breaching his/her Membership Agreement after his/her 24 hours suspension was lifted.

Note: Discussion and comments regarding moderation of this Forum are not appropriate for this section of the Forum.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[Gr8wight]

Being new to these forums I'm am only going off of what I've observed in THIS particular thread. And what I observed was maatorc using terminology that enrages many of the responders and they, in turn, resorted to ad hominem and account suspension.

Well, hopefully, maatorc is reading our responses in his absence and will grace us with links to studies supporting his assertions (what ever they happen to be) as soon as his suspension expires. And hopefully, the rest of us can suspend our knee-jerk aversion to "woo-woo" terminology long enough to not participate in character assassination and get to the core of what maatorc is trying to say.

Being new to this forum, what you are missing is the context. It isn't maatorc's meaningless pseudo-philosophical psycho-babble that "enrages" his responders. It's the fact that his fallacious reasoning has been pointed out to him literally dozens of times, yet he continues to hijack other people's threads in order to re-assert his empty rhetoric over and over again. He "enrages" us because, quite frankly, that is his exact aim. He is a troll.

We are weak for repeatedly rising to his bait.

 

[AkuManiMani]

...
If the transmitter and receiver are attuned to each other it does not matter where they are.
Further, the transmitter does not have to 'go' anywhere for the receiver to register the character of the transmission, or for the transmitter to register the reception of its transmission.
Analogously, we are infinitely complex conscious-living transmitter-receivers.

Nice hypotheses. Or just opinions?

Find out after these messages.

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

 

[steenkh]

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

The effects that you are talking about are very transitory and much more short-lived than biological time frames. How come that quantum physicists never bring these assertions, but every other kind of scientist seem willing to entertain this concept?

 

[GzuzKryzt]

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

Hence we have asked him to provide something verifiable which led him to make said assertions.

Steenkh's right. The concept is often abused by people who have not yet understood its complexity and limitation.



AkuManiMani, specifically which responder has resorted to "suspension" to counter maatorc's claims?

 

[nathan]

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

The quantum mechanical 'action at a distance' behaviour does not allow one to pass information. I.e., separating two entangled particles and measuring one of them allows you to predict something about the other. It does not allow you to pass information to who ever has that second particle.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

The effects that you are talking about are very transitory and much more short-lived than biological time frames. How come that quantum physicists never bring these assertions, but every other kind of scientist seem willing to entertain this concept?

Biological entities are based upon chemical processes and these processes are based on the rules of quantum mechanics. It stands to reason that many of the "bizarre" effects of quantum mechanics are utilized by (or even integral to) organisms. Right now quantum physics, and its full implications, are not completely understood -- especially when it comes to the realm of biological processes.

Right now quantum physicists are studying quantum phenomenon in hopes of developing quantum computers. In the process some have found that entanglement phenomenon can occur under conditions that were assumed would cause decoherence and eliminate its affects.

[I suggest you look up "macroscopic entanglement" on google if you get the chance]

And there are quantum physicists (and scientists of other fields) who not only consider quantum effects in biology (and the macroscopic scale) possible but are seriously investigating it:

Quantum information processing is at the crossroads of physics, mathematics and computer science. It is concerned with that we can and cannot do with quantum information that goes beyond the abilities of classical information processing devices. Communication complexity is an area of classical computer science that aims at quantifying the amount of communication necessary to solve distributed computational problems. Quantum communication complexity uses quantum mechanics to reduce the amount of communication that would be classically required. Pseudo-telepathy is a surprising application of quantum information processing to communication complexity. Thanks to entanglement, perhaps the most nonclassical manifestation of quantum mechanics, two or more quantum players can accomplish a distributed task with no need for communication whatsoever, which would be an impossible feat for classical players. After a detailed overview of the principle and purpose of pseudo-telepathy, we present a survey of recent and no-so-recent work on the subject. In particular, we describe and analyse all the pseudo-telepathy games currently known to the authors.

http://www.citebase.org/abstract?id=oai:arXiv.org:quant-ph/0407221

Here are a few more links I could dig up:

http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/quantum_biology/

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/PBD-quantum-secrets.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/e...bmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlusDrugs1

Why is it that scientists outside of a particular field are more likely to propose new theories about it? Good question. I'm sure the the reasons are many and complex but I think a major one is a problem of imagination. Many scientists are just technicians with only a superficial grasp of philosophy/epistemology and often have a very hard time seeing beyond confines of their narrow fields of study to consider a bigger picture. The ones that can often keep their "radical" ideas to themselves for fear of ruining their careers/reputations. Einstein once commented on this subject in a reply letter to a colleague:

[...]

I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth."

[...]

IMO, the same is as true today as it was back then.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Sorry -- double post >_<

 

[nathan]

Biological entities are based upon chemical processes and these processes are based on the rules of quantum mechanics. It stands to reason that many of the "bizarre" effects of quantum mechanics are utilized by (or even integral to) organisms. Right now quantum physics, and its full implications, are not completely understood -- especially when it comes to the realm of biological processes.

Sure, quantum effects may well be significant at the atomic level of biological processes. but what's your point?

 

[AkuManiMani]

Sure, quantum effects may well be significant at the atomic level of biological processes. but what's your point?

Its in the rest of the post that you apparently just skimmed over.

 

[JoeEllison]

Its in the rest of the post that you apparently just skimmed over.

No... I don't think so.

 

[AkuManiMani]

No... I don't think so.

What don't you think so?

 

[nathan]

double

 

[nathan]

double

 

[nathan]

Its in the rest of the post that you apparently just skimmed over.

ok, so you're postulating a hypothesis about an unproven phenomena. Sounds like a cart/horse situation.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Biological entities are based upon chemical processes and these processes are based on the rules of quantum mechanics. It stands to reason that many of the "bizarre" effects of quantum mechanics are utilized by (or even integral to) organisms. Right now quantum physics, and its full implications, are not completely understood -- especially when it comes to the realm of biological processes.

Sure, quantum effects may well be significant at the atomic level of biological processes. but what's your point?

Its in the rest of the post that you apparently just skimmed over.

ok, so you're postulating a hypothesis about an unproven phenomena. Sounds like a cart/horse situation.

......

Judging from that exchange, either you're deliberately playing coy or you genuinely have a reading comprehension problem. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you honestly didn't understand what I typed in post #189. Here I will summarize my main points and what they were in response to.

Point [1]

In direct response to:

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

The effects that you are talking about are very transitory and much more short-lived than biological time frames.[1] How come that quantum physicists never bring these assertions, but every other kind of scientist seem willing to entertain this concept?

[1]In post #189 I supported my assertion that macroscopic quantum effects do, in fact, occur and therefore can be manifest at the scale of macroscopic biological processes.



Points [2-3]

In direct response to:

Non-local causation, according to quantum mechanics, is a very real phenomenon so it is possible -- atleast in principle -- for biological entities to exploit said phenomenon. The real question is do these effects actually occur in biological systems. Its an open question so maatorc's assertions (the intelligible ones anyway) aren't completely implausible, imo.

The effects that you are talking about are very transitory and much more short-lived than biological time frames. How come that quantum physicists never bring these assertions, but every other kind of scientist seem willing to entertain this concept?[2-3]

[2]In my supporting links [again, see post #189] I demonstrated that there are quantum physicists that "bring these assertions".

[3]I then continued by explaining one of the many possible reasons why scientists in other fields seem more likely to propose more radical theories.

My central point was not to present a hypothesis. I was stating that certain "paranormal" hypotheses do not violate known laws of physics and, therefore, should not be dismissed on the grounds that they do.

 

[GzuzKryzt]

AkuManiMani, specifically which responder has resorted to "suspension" to counter maatorc's claims?

 

[AkuManiMani]

AkuManiMani, specifically which responder has resorted to "suspension" to counter maatorc's claims?

I wouldn't necessarily consider many of the responders to this thread "rational adults" after watching them gang up on and attack the integrity of someone for not immediately addressing a challenge to provide "evidence" and then suspending said individual's ability to respond. You are right; the problem here is not one of science. The problem concerns the integrity and maturity of participants in this web forum.

Being new to these forums I'm am only going off of what I've observed in THIS particular thread. And what I observed was maatorc using terminology that enrages many of the responders and they, in turn, resorted to ad hominem and account suspension.

And from the split thread:

Unfortunately [maatorc] has been suspended so he cannot provide anything, atm. Apparently this was necessary because he derailed his own thread and people had to attack his character

As you can see I never claimed that maactorc was suspended to counter his claims. I stated that he was the victim of ad hominem and subsequent suspension due, at least partially, to said attacks on his character. As to which responder suspended him I can only point out that it could only be the one participant in this thread that has powers to do so. Seeing as how they expressly forbade discussion on this topic I will not name them, for fear of incurring their wrath.

Edit: Or perhaps you we're already aware of this and made your query in a deliberate attempt to cause me to suffer the same fate as the afore-mentioned person? If so, kudos to you for your clever move