Why dualism?

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

…and you do not seem to understand how the search function works. When I search for that paragraph above I get only two replies. One of which is the post above. The other is the thread where it originally appeared.

Which paragraph? And if you have found the thread, why on Earth would you persist in not linking to it?

Why on earth does it matter who it is?

Are you seriously asking why it matters what the source of a quote is?

Really having trouble with that search thingy aren’t you.

Really having trouble with that "burden of proof" thingy aren't you?

Google that quote and see what comes up.

Why should I? Firstly, you are the one that seems to think that it's important. Secondly, it doesn't contradict anything that I've said, so seems irrelevant.

As for whatever there is that is undetected by science…it goes without saying that whatever that may be…we know nothing about that either.

Ah, you appear not to have listened to the talk that you're dismissing out of hand. Okay, then, your position is one of wilful ignorance. Fair enough.

You have also made numerous claims about the well established relationship between the brain and consciousness. As that quote very clearly establishes…that relationship is anything but well-established…and there does not exist anywhere anyhow anything remotely resembling an empirical definition for or understanding of this thing you call consciousness that you keep referring to.

Actually, there is nothing in that quote that questions the fact that there is a relationship between the brain and consciousness.

Nor does there exist anything resembling the most remote capacity to establish that NDE’s or OBE’s or paranormal experiences of any kind what-so-ever cannot or do not happen.

I suppose it depends what you mean by "establish". And, for that matter, "paranormal experiences". I suppose it's entirely possible to argue that night terrors are actually a witch sitting on your chest, stealing your soul as you sleep, but there are more parsimonious explanations that explain the evidence. They are not, however, definitive proof that night terrors are not caused by witches. The same is true for NDEs and OBEs.

You’re a skeptic. You have an aversion to anything that smells of woo.

You really are claiming psychic powers, then? Wonderful. You do know that there's an organisation where talents like yours can win a million dollars, right?

 

[Steve001]

This has been answered in one way, with the response that humans are on a continuum with other animals and that we are bound to share some emotions (whatever emotions are) with other advanced animals. But now I'm wondering about the "common language" thing. Do you mean this literally? That only through verbal communication can we communicate how it feels to mourn?

If a child is suddenly torn away from its mother and harmed, and I observe its parent wailing, tearing her own flesh, banging on her chest etc., do I really have to talk with her in her own language to have some idea of the agony she is feeling? Wouldn't the sudden ripping away of a child be similarly distressing from culture to culture, and perhaps even from species to species?

It's interesting to wonder about pre-verbal humans and whether they shared mutually recognizable emotions before they had the tool of language to compare experiences. In fact comparing experiences may be a relatively new function of language. Human beings would have practical problems to solve before they got down to rap sessions and epic poetry. I can't be sure a spontaneous smile is anything like a universal expression of happiness, but it does seem to be a shared trait across many cultures. Did cavemen smile? Did tears of grief only ever emerge after we had learned how to talk about grief?

I once saw a video of a baby elephant trapped in a muddy hole, when the mother saw her baby was trapped she screamed. With help the baby was extricated from that hole by they herd. I was driving slowly down my alley years ago when ahead of me a small child ran out into the alley the mother saw what might happen and she screamed. The remarkable thing about the elephant screaming was it sounded just like the human mother screaming.

 

[marplots]

I once saw a video of a baby elephant trapped in a muddy hole, when the mother saw her baby was trapped she screamed. With help the baby was extricated from that hole by they herd. I was driving slowly down my alley years ago when ahead of me a small child ran out into the alley the mother saw what might happen and she screamed. The remarkable thing about the elephant screaming was it sounded just like the human mother screaming.

I think this might be the video you mentioned. The "scream" comes in about 1:30 or so...



And then near the end..."They just killed that impala."

 

[Steve001]

I think this might be the video you mentioned. The "scream" comes in about 1:30 or so...



And then near the end..."They just killed that impala."

That's not the vid.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Since earlier in the thread annnnoid claimed that people dropping a subject meant that they were no longer able to support their viewpoint and that the opposite viewpoint is therefore correct, can I take his/her recent silence as an admission that s/he was wrong?

 

[marplots]

Since earlier in the thread annnnoid claimed that people dropping a subject meant that they were no longer able to support their viewpoint and that the opposite viewpoint is therefore correct, can I take his/her recent silence as an admission that s/he was wrong?

Not necessarily. Sometimes you just run out of things to say and don't want to keep repeating yourself.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Not necessarily. Sometimes you just run out of things to say and don't want to keep repeating yourself.

If that's true then the same could be true of the legendary-but-unlinkable thread in which Sean Carroll was thoroughly debunked. But, apparently, the only reason people stopped posting in that thread was that they had been thoroughly defeated. If annnnoid truly believes that that's how it goes, then how else am I supposed to interpret his/her actions (or lack thereof) in this thread? And if there's an alternate explanation for his/her actions, then why should I believe that there cannot be alternate explanations for other people's identical actions (or lack thereof)?

 

[annnnoid]

If that's true then the same could be true of the legendary-but-unlinkable thread in which Sean Carroll was thoroughly debunked. But, apparently, the only reason people stopped posting in that thread was that they had been thoroughly defeated. If annnnoid truly believes that that's how it goes, then how else am I supposed to interpret his/her actions (or lack thereof) in this thread? And if there's an alternate explanation for his/her actions, then why should I believe that there cannot be alternate explanations for other people's identical actions (or lack thereof)?

The other possible reason I don’t bother replying is that you have nothing original, interesting, educated, or enlightening to contribute. There’s another thread in the science section dealing with these issues. The resident skeptics are faring very poorly. I have no doubt that you will do no better.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The other possible reason I don’t bother replying is that you have nothing original, interesting, educated, or enlightening to contribute.

Cool. So then you agree that it's possible to leave a discussion for reasons other than that you know you've lost? Good to know.

There’s another thread in the science section dealing with these issues. The resident skeptics are faring very poorly. I have no doubt that you will do no better.

Let me guess, you will also refuse to link to this thread, even though you have the link to hand and consider it very important that I read it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

So yet again it seems the answer to "Why dualism" is "to manufacturer a gap for the special pleading of Woo."

 

[IanS]

Well, there is evidence against any part of consciousness being non-physical, which I'd take as evidence against an afterlife.

There's a YouTube video somewhere of a talk by Dr. Sean Carroll where he outlines how quantum field theory rules out any interactions between the brain and something that we can't as yet detect. That's very interesting and would rule out any part of our consciousnesses going anywhere after death.

Different evidence for the same thing would be the well-established relationship between the brain and consciousness. If the brain is physically damaged in specific ways it can alter consciousness/personality in predictable, replicable ways. If brain chemistry is altered (such as by taking a psychoactive drug of some kind) that can affect consciousness/personality in predictable, replicable ways. It has been observed that undertaking specific tasks (such as recognising faces) causes specific parts of the brain to be utilised. And so on.

So there's plenty of evidence that consciousness is intrinsically linked to the physical brain, and evidence that there can be no interaction between the physical brain and something as yet undetected by science. I'd count that as evidence that consciousness cannot exist outside of a physical brain. And that is evidence that the afterlife doesn't exist.

There are so many factual mistakes in this post that it is way beyond a waste of my time to correct them. Suffice it to say that Sean Carroll and his stupid theories were thoroughly and utterly demolished in an earlier thread (can’t be bothered to dig up). Feel entirely free to resurrect it (if you can find it). Besides having a relative who’s a physics prof. at Cambridge, I’ve a friend who’s got a masters in theoretical physics…very useful when dealing with retarded physicists spouting garbage. These dumb ideas get thrown around until someone takes the time to examine them…at which point it becomes blindingly obvious just how intellectually bankrupt they actually are.

…but until then they do a great job of feeding the skeptic hoard.

The rest of the points about consciousness this that and the other are equally bankrupt...and could be very easily demonstrated as such. But this is a thread about dualism or something...and digging up the 'consciousness monster' for the thousandth time is just getting boring.

Below is a link to a YouTube film of Sean Carroll and a guy called Steven Novella in a debate with/against two other guys (who are said to be neuroscientists and/or philosophers), where the other side (opposite side to Carroll) are claiming that Near Death Experiences (NDE) and Out of Body Experiences (OBE) are proof that human conciousness exists independently of the brain. I don't know if this was the film that Squeegee Beckenheim was thinking of, but anyway it's an example of what Sean Carroll says about claims of NDE and OBE -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0YtL5eiBYw

I find it very hard to understand how anyone watching a debate such as that, could ever take the NDE/OBE claimants seriously for anything at all. They started off with one of them recounting his own amazing story of NDE/OBE, and continued with various extremely vague and highly unscientific claims about what neuroscience had supposedly established to support a claimed reality of conciousness after death. And from their they went progressively down hill to the point of eventually quite openly having no defence to the fact (pointed out to them by the Moderator and by Carroll) that they were actually asking us to believe that published neuroscience and philosophy had in fact confirmed what amounts to disembodied spirits, souls and ghosts.

Although I say that I find it "hard to believe" how any educated person could seriously make such idiotic and naive claims, not only were these two gentlemen living examples of apparently educated people, actually specialising in a directly related field of academic study, but also when they made some of their remarks supporting their claims of ghostly OBE/NDE, a large section of the audience clapped them enthusiastically. So at least that section of the audience was apparently in agreement that their utterly absurd and frankly uneducated claims, were all perfectly sensible and making a persuasive case.

As for Sean Carroll in particular; he just explained exactly what you would expect any scientist to say about what were really just completely un-evidenced claims of the supernatural. And from what I've seen from Carroll in various YouTube debates, and from reading about half of his book "From Eternity to Here", he seems to me like a perfectly sensible properly clued-up scientist who is careful not to make claims without reliable evidence ... so annnnoid's belief that he should take less notice of Sean Carroll and believe instead his mate with a physics MSc together with some relative who is said to be a "a professor at Cambridge", sounds to me highly implausible and frankly uneducated (much like those who were applauding in the film when the NDE/OBE pair were making their claims of the supernatural) ...

... or to put that last remark more simply - Sean Carroll is definitely not as annnnoid just described him "an intellectually bankrupt ... retarded physicist spouting garbage" ; but perhaps your mate and your prof. relative are idiots spouting garbage (or more likely, if they are in fact properly qualified and not suffering from mental problems, then they are probably not in fact saying what annnnoid claimed them to say).

And one last thing - when the moderator of the debate first introduced the four participants, he described them as "scientists, all". Well as that debate/film shows (as I have tried emphasise in another current thread here) - medics are often very far from being objective "scientists" in the proper sense of that word as it's applied to researchers in core science (i.e., in physics, chemistry, maths, biology, and various directly related fields such as astronomy). In this case the two gentlemen on the NDE side were making claims that were about as unscientific as it's possible to imagine, and were claiming stuff that finally amounted to nothing short of belief in ghosts, spirits and the supernatural.

 

[annnnoid]

Below is a link to a YouTube film of Sean Carroll and a guy called Steven Novella in a debate with/against two other guys (who are said to be neuroscientists and/or philosophers), where the other side (opposite side to Carroll) are claiming that Near Death Experiences (NDE) and Out of Body Experiences (OBE) are proof that human conciousness exists independently of the brain. I don't know if this was the film that Squeegee Beckenheim was thinking of, but anyway it's an example of what Sean Carroll says about claims of NDE and OBE -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0YtL5eiBYw

I find it very hard to understand how anyone watching a debate such as that, could ever take the NDE/OBE claimants seriously for anything at all. They started off with one of them recounting his own amazing story of NDE/OBE, and continued with various extremely vague and highly unscientific claims about what neuroscience had supposedly established to support a claimed reality of conciousness after death. And from their they went progressively down hill to the point of eventually quite openly having no defence to the fact (pointed out to them by the Moderator and by Carroll) that they were actually asking us to believe that published neuroscience and philosophy had in fact confirmed what amounts to disembodied spirits, souls and ghosts.

Although I say that I find it "hard to believe" how any educated person could seriously make such idiotic and naive claims, not only were these two gentlemen living examples of apparently educated people, actually specialising in a directly related field of academic study, but also when they made some of their remarks supporting their claims of ghostly OBE/NDE, a large section of the audience clapped them enthusiastically. So at least that section of the audience was apparently in agreement that their utterly absurd and frankly uneducated claims, were all perfectly sensible and making a persuasive case.

As for Sean Carroll in particular; he just explained exactly what you would expect any scientist to say about what were really just completely un-evidenced claims of the supernatural. And from what I've seen from Carroll in various YouTube debates, and from reading about half of his book "From Eternity to Here", he seems to me like a perfectly sensible properly clued-up scientist who is careful not to make claims without reliable evidence ... so annnnoid's belief that he should take less notice of Sean Carroll and believe instead his mate with a physics MSc together with some relative who is said to be a "a professor at Cambridge", sounds to me highly implausible and frankly uneducated (much like those who were applauding in the film when the NDE/OBE pair were making their claims of the supernatural) ...

... or to put that last remark more simply - Sean Carroll is definitely not as annnnoid just described him "an intellectually bankrupt ... retarded physicist spouting garbage" ; but perhaps your mate and your prof. relative are idiots spouting garbage (or more likely, if they are in fact properly qualified and not suffering from mental problems, then they are probably not in fact saying what annnnoid claimed them to say).

And one last thing - when the moderator of the debate first introduced the four participants, he described them as "scientists, all". Well as that debate/film shows (as I have tried emphasise in another current thread here) - medics are often very far from being objective "scientists" in the proper sense of that word as it's applied to researchers in core science (i.e., in physics, chemistry, maths, biology, and various directly related fields such as astronomy). In this case the two gentlemen on the NDE side were making claims that were about as unscientific as it's possible to imagine, and were claiming stuff that finally amounted to nothing short of belief in ghosts, spirits and the supernatural.

Carroll’s claim boils down to this: That there is no known medium or mechanism that could account for NDE’s / OBE’s etc., and that if they were to occur they would be detectable. This is utter garbage…especially for a qualified physicist (thus I question his credibility…with good reason).

First of all...no one has any definitive idea what consciousness (presumably the medium of NDE's / OBE's) even is...let alone how it is created by the physical activity of the brain...
...so how on earth is it possible for someone to insist that ANYTHING about it can be definitively empirically detected?????

IOW...we don't know what it is or how it's created (not even close)...and yet here we have a (supposedly) qualified physicist flat out insisting that, despite these indisputable facts, we somehow magically have the ability to definitively conclude that it can't be happening like 'this or that'...!?!?!?! Meaning...there is no known mechanism that can account for NDE's, OBE's etc...but there is also no known mechanism that can account for consciousness itself!!!!

....like I said...garbage!

As for the actual physics...this is about that:

I find the claim that "were to occur it would be detectable" somewhat question-begging. It presumes that it (OBEs) would occur in a way that is easily detectable through the known forces of nature (EM, weak, strong, gravity). But in fact, it's not so clear. For example, the electromagnetic vacuum energy of quantum electrodynamics is an enormous energy density, yet we can barely observe its indirect physical effects on visible matter other than in highly controlled experimental setups (e.g. Casimir plates in a hard vacuum). If OBEs (say) were mediated by the E&M vacuum energy (perhaps through correlations in the vacuum field modes or whatever), it would be extremely hard to detect those correlations (much harder than doing a Casimir effect experiment). Then of course, there's the fact that there are mediums in our physical universe whose constituents or physical origins we know next to nothing about - dark matter and dark energy (it's not clear yet if dark energy is really the same as the electromagnetic/weak/strong quantum vacuum energy, or something different). These two mediums constitute around 96% of the mass-energy content of the universe, yet the only way we know how to 'detect' them at the moment is by observing their gravitational effects at galactic and inter-galactic scales. If (say) the medium for OBEs (assuming they really are 'consciousness' displacing itself from the physical brain) was mediated by dark matter and/or dark energy, it would be hopeless right now to try and detect the physical effects of an OBE with earth-bound lab experiments, and probably impossible to infer OBEs from gravitational effects at galactic or inter-galactic scales. I can't think of any evidence or theory that can decisively rule out these two possibilities for the mediums of OBEs, and I highly doubt that your skeptical associates can either. But it would be interesting to hear how they might try.

So far no one on any thread where this paragraph has appeared has managed to produce anything remotely resembling a credible response. A good example is the inimitable Squeegee Beckenheim. Vast quantities of verbal flatulence…but not a single word to say about the actual argument in question.

Do you?

Knock yourself out IanS. Those are the arguments. There’s a science thread here currently thrashing out these issues. So far no one…NO ONE…has come anywhere close to presenting a credible argument explaining and / or dismissing any of these experiences.

…feel entirely free to throw in your two cents for I fear the skeptic bank account is becoming alarmingly barren.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Below is a link to a YouTube film of Sean Carroll and a guy called Steven Novella in a debate with/against two other guys (who are said to be neuroscientists and/or philosophers), where the other side (opposite side to Carroll) are claiming that Near Death Experiences (NDE) and Out of Body Experiences (OBE) are proof that human conciousness exists independently of the brain. I don't know if this was the film that Squeegee Beckenheim was thinking of, but anyway it's an example of what Sean Carroll says about claims of NDE and OBE -

That's not the one, no. It was a talk he gave at a sceptic's conference.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Carroll’s claim boils down to this: That there is no known medium or mechanism that could account for NDE’s / OBE’s etc., and that if they were to occur they would be detectable. This is utter garbage…especially for a qualified physicist (thus I question his credibility…with good reason).

First of all...no one has any definitive idea what consciousness (presumably the medium of NDE's / OBE's) even is...let alone how it is created by the physical activity of the brain...
...so how on earth is it possible for someone to insist that ANYTHING about it can be definitively empirically detected?????

IOW...we don't know what it is or how it's created (not even close)...and yet here we have a (supposedly) qualified physicist flat out insisting that, despite these indisputable facts, we somehow magically have the ability to definitively conclude that it can't be happening like 'this or that'...!?!?!?! Meaning...there is no known mechanism that can account for NDE's, OBE's etc...but there is also no known mechanism that can account for consciousness itself!!!!

....like I said...garbage!

As for the actual physics...this is about that:

I find the claim that "were to occur it would be detectable" somewhat question-begging. It presumes that it (OBEs) would occur in a way that is easily detectable through the known forces of nature (EM, weak, strong, gravity). But in fact, it's not so clear. For example, the electromagnetic vacuum energy of quantum electrodynamics is an enormous energy density, yet we can barely observe its indirect physical effects on visible matter other than in highly controlled experimental setups (e.g. Casimir plates in a hard vacuum). If OBEs (say) were mediated by the E&M vacuum energy (perhaps through correlations in the vacuum field modes or whatever), it would be extremely hard to detect those correlations (much harder than doing a Casimir effect experiment). Then of course, there's the fact that there are mediums in our physical universe whose constituents or physical origins we know next to nothing about - dark matter and dark energy (it's not clear yet if dark energy is really the same as the electromagnetic/weak/strong quantum vacuum energy, or something different). These two mediums constitute around 96% of the mass-energy content of the universe, yet the only way we know how to 'detect' them at the moment is by observing their gravitational effects at galactic and inter-galactic scales. If (say) the medium for OBEs (assuming they really are 'consciousness' displacing itself from the physical brain) was mediated by dark matter and/or dark energy, it would be hopeless right now to try and detect the physical effects of an OBE with earth-bound lab experiments, and probably impossible to infer OBEs from gravitational effects at galactic or inter-galactic scales. I can't think of any evidence or theory that can decisively rule out these two possibilities for the mediums of OBEs, and I highly doubt that your skeptical associates can either. But it would be interesting to hear how they might try.

So far no one on any thread where this paragraph has appeared has managed to produce anything remotely resembling a credible response. A good example is the inimitable Squeegee Beckenheim. Vast quantities of verbal flatulence…but not a single word to say about the actual argument in question.

Do you?

Knock yourself out IanS. Those are the arguments. There’s a science thread here currently thrashing out these issues. So far no one…NO ONE…has come anywhere close to presenting a credible argument explaining and / or dismissing any of these experiences.

…feel entirely free to throw in your two cents for I fear the skeptic bank account is becoming alarmingly barren.

That you think that anything in this post offers any kind of counter-argument to Caroll's talk just demonstrates that either you've not listened to it, or you didn't understand it. The former seems most likely, given how clearly he explains it and how thoroughly it addresses the issues you seem to think are devastating.

Why not listen to it first? It would certainly help to understand what his argument actually is before attempting to prove it wrong.

 

[annnnoid]

That you think that anything in this post offers any kind of counter-argument to Caroll's talk just demonstrates that either you've not listened to it, or you didn't understand it. The former seems most likely, given how clearly he explains it and how thoroughly it addresses the issues you seem to think are devastating.

Why not listen to it first? It would certainly help to understand what his argument actually is before attempting to prove it wrong.

…but I have listened to his talks…and so has the individual who wrote that paragraph.

But enough about us…why don’t you demonstrate your insight into this issue and give us your interpretation of Carroll’s conclusions, just like the folks in the earlier thread did. It didn’t take long to establish how wrong they were…and I have no doubt that your conclusions will vanish just as quickly.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

…but I have listened to his talks…and so has the individual who wrote that paragraph.

Okay, you didn't understand it then. Fair enough.

But enough about us…why don’t you demonstrate your insight into this issue and give us your interpretation of Carroll’s conclusions, just like the folks in the earlier thread did. It didn’t take long to establish how wrong they were…and I have no doubt that your conclusions will vanish just as quickly.

Why not just listen to the talk for yourself? It's quite clear.

You're the one disputing it. If you want to do so, I suggest offering some counter-arguments that actually address what he's said, rather than things which are already addressed within the talk which you claim to have listened to and understood.

 

[annnnoid]

Okay, you didn't understand it then. Fair enough.

Why not just listen to the talk for yourself? It's quite clear.

You're the one disputing it. If you want to do so, I suggest offering some counter-arguments that actually address what he's said, rather than things which are already addressed within the talk which you claim to have listened to and understood.

Everything that is in that paragraph is equally relevant to consciousness itself….which Carroll assumes is a direct function of the physics of bio-chemical activity.

…notice the word ‘assumes’. Nobody has a clue as to the phenomenology of consciousness (or even if it has a distinct phenomenology). There are some…such as Cristof Koch…who believe ‘consciousness’ occurs as some manner of fundamental feature of reality. Nor does anyone have a clue as to the direct relationship between the physical activity of the brain and cognitive activity.

Carroll assumes his conclusion. He assumes consciousness is mediated by the mechanisms he describes in the videos. There isn’t a shred of empirical proof that explicitly confirms this (partly because no one can even begin to empirically measure consciousness), nor does anyone have a clue as to what the actual mechanism is. All we have are correlations…we have absolutely no causation…nor do we have any phenomenology.

That paragraph describes a few possible areas through which consciousness might be mediated that would utterly elude any possibility of detection by currently available technology. Whether ‘consciousness’ can be mediated through these mechanisms is equally unknown because…quite obviously…no-one knows what consciousness even is.

…INCLUDING CARROLL!!!!

…but this doesn’t seem to dissuade the distinguished Carroll from extrapolating all manner of unsupportable conclusions from his stupid arguments.

IOW….Carroll’s argument is garbage.


…so when you want to show up with an actual argument, let me know.

As it is...it's pretty freakin obvious who it is who doesn't understand what they're talking about.

 

[IanS]

Carroll’s claim boils down to this: That there is no known medium or mechanism that could account for NDE’s / OBE’s etc., and that if they were to occur they would be detectable. This is utter garbage…especially for a qualified physicist (thus I question his credibility…with good reason).

Can you point to the part of that debate where Carroll or Novella said anything of the sort?

Carroll was agreeing with Novella, who repeatedly stressed that published neuroscience has long shown that researchers can produce very similar experiences by a whole variety of means inc. drugs, starving the brain of blood &/or oxygen, electrical stimulation etc.

It was very clear that Novella & Carroll were saying the exact opposite of what you just claimed.

Lets get that first point of yours out of the way before I spend any time reading your other claims.

Please listen to what Novella says between 33min.30sec to 40min (that just 6.5 mins of film), where he clearly and repeatedly stresses that the established scientific position is that the brain is effectively the mind, and that comes from mountains of evidence going back over a century. To the point where today in neuroscience we can reproduce every single aspect of any NDE by simple processes such as starving the brain of oxygen and/or blood supply, and also by directly "switching" on or off various circuits within the brain. That's what Novella said.

He also stresses in that short part of the film, that although there are many anecdotal stories and compelling sounding narratives told by all sorts of patients about NDE, and whilst such patients do undoubtedly experience unusual mind activity as a result of their brain damage, in fact there has never been any properly documented case of such mental activity when the brain is actually dead.

Please review that 6 min section of the film, and tell us clearly which of those statements from Novella you are disputing.

Because what happened in the film was that although the opposing side did not wish to agree with Novella's conclusions, and were therefore actually rejecting the published science (in fact, one of their side actually even said that he believed the support for their mind-beyond-brain claims would not come from current science but would come instead in the future from what he called "logic & critical thinking"), iirc that opposing side did not actually claim that what Novella just said was actually untrue and that instead the opposite story was true and that no such conclusions had been published in neuroscience as Novella had just stressed very clearly ... iirc, they (the NDE believers) did NOT try to make that claim (though they came extremely close to saying they did reject science!) ... and that became apparent near the end of the debate with a question from someone in the audience which Carroll and Novella first replied to stressing again that what the opposing NDE-believing side was asking for was to throw out all of real science and take NDE/OBE on trust from those anecdotal stories ... at one point the NDE believer was asked to respond to those claims from Carroll and Novella and he began by replying in what may at first have seemed to the audience as quite convincing style, by saying the exact opposite of Novella and claiming that there is actually a great deal of evidence to show that NDE and life after death were all entirely true and real, however, when the moderator then asked him which researchers he was citing for that evidence, it instantly became clear that he was talking mainly about a book in which the author (several authors I believe) recounted how they had tested psychic mediums and concluded that psychics and mediums are correct and really are in communication with concious spirits that live after death ;- you can see that entire section from 1hour-21.00min up to 1hour-25min-05 sec.

So ... just review that piece of the film, and tell us which of Novella's claims about the published science and it's conclusion that the mind is essentially the brain, is untrue. And quote the section where where Carroll’s claim boils down to this: That there is no known medium or mechanism that could account for NDE’s / OBE’s. Because in that debate Carroll is agreeing with Novella (who says the complete opposite of what you just claimed).

Feel free to give links to properly published genuine science research papers where any genuine scientists claim to have shown that a disembodied mind continues to function without a brain.



Footnote for Squeegee Beckenheim - maybe this is the film you were thinking of ; see the section from 40min 35 sec to 43min 15 sec., and then up to 47min 25sec. -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26a-ztpQs8

Annnnoid should watch the whole of that talk by Carroll. And he should probably pay with his own money to buy a copy of Carroll's book (which that Google talk comes from). That way he could quite easily learn why real scinece shows that he is wrong to believe in paranormal phenomena such as human minds functioning with a brain.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Everything that is in that paragraph is equally relevant to consciousness itself….which Carroll assumes is a direct function of the physics of bio-chemical activity.

…notice the word ‘assumes’. Nobody has a clue as to the phenomenology of consciousness (or even if it has a distinct phenomenology). There are some…such as Cristof Koch…who believe ‘consciousness’ occurs as some manner of fundamental feature of reality. Nor does anyone have a clue as to the direct relationship between the physical activity of the brain and cognitive activity.

Carroll assumes his conclusion. He assumes consciousness is mediated by the mechanisms he describes in the videos. There isn’t a shred of empirical proof that explicitly confirms this (partly because no one can even begin to empirically measure consciousness), nor does anyone have a clue as to what the actual mechanism is. All we have are correlations…we have absolutely no causation…nor do we have any phenomenology.

That paragraph describes a few possible areas through which consciousness might be mediated that would utterly elude any possibility of detection by currently available technology. Whether ‘consciousness’ can be mediated through these mechanisms is equally unknown because…quite obviously…no-one knows what consciousness even is.

…INCLUDING CARROLL!!!!

…but this doesn’t seem to dissuade the distinguished Carroll from extrapolating all manner of unsupportable conclusions from his stupid arguments.

IOW….Carroll’s argument is garbage.


…so when you want to show up with an actual argument, let me know.

As it is...it's pretty freakin obvious who it is who doesn't understand what they're talking about.

Again, I can only suggest that you listen to the talk that you're attempting to discredit, because what you're posting doesn't have anything to do with it. If you want to offer some actual counter-arguments, then I'll happily listen.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Footnote for Squeegee Beckenheim - maybe this is the film you were thinking of ; see the section from 40min 35 sec to 43min 15 sec., and then up to 47min 25sec. -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26a-ztpQs8

Annnnoid should watch the whole of that talk by Carroll. And he should probably pay with his own money to buy a copy of Carroll's book (which that Google talk comes from). That way he could quite easily learn why real scinece shows that he is wrong to believe in paranormal phenomena such as human minds functioning with a brain.

That's not the one, either. And that you twice didn't find the correct video from me just talking about it should serve as a great illustration to annnnoid why the burden of proof is what it is, and why the person referencing something should link to it, rather than just repeatedly shouting "google".

This is it:



Now, I'm sure there are counterpoints which can be offered to that talk (and, indeed, I have seen people in the past offer them), but that we can't know what is unknown, or talking about small effects, or dark matter, or bleating on about the lack of definition of "consciousness" are counterpoints. They are, at best, irrelevant, and at worst, thoroughly addressed in the talk itself.