Here's some citations from Neil Grossman's article. Unforunately as Michael Prescott says his article is not online.
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2008/11/four-errors.html
Let me go though some of Keith Augustine's responses in the comment section he made in Michael Prescott blog.
Keith Augustine says, "being unconvinced of the reality of the supernatural, paranormal, or survival doesn't make one a dogmatic, close-minded, or "hard-core" skeptic; it simply makes one a skeptic."
Really a lot of scientists were skeptical of survival, paranormal and the supernatural until they could no longer ignore the massive amounts of evidence. Also, Keith is trying to protect an outdated worldview. We know now that reality is much bigger than we ever imagined.
Keith calls people a pundit because they disagree with him. No one likes to be called names.
I have always considered that materialism could be true. Of course you can say I don't consider materialism which is downright false.
Also I think we know the evidence Keith, it was summarized in the article the case against immortality. Their is ways to falisfy the transmission theory one would be to demonstrate that the brain is a generator. Now you can say that has already happened. But what most of us argue is that the brain is a complex receiver of consciousness.For example some of the evidence Keith uses is from the brain split experiments and Wilder Penfield's experimental findings. Benjamin Libet's finding that brain activity precedes a conscious decision, which is routinely presented by sceptics, in their dull way, as 'another nail in the coffin for dualism' (Blackmore, Dying to Live, p. 237), and which of course is open to contrary interpretations, as Libet himself pointed out. Wilder Penfield's experimental findings on the neurological basis of memory is also used by sceptics in an anti-dualist sense which Penfield himself did not endorse.
“Edwards puts the last nail in the coffin for a version of astral body theories when he observes that:”
“If the astral body is an exact duplicate of the regular body it must die along with the regular body ... If the secular body died as the result of a brain tumor or as the result of being shot through the heart, the astral brain and astral heart must have been similarly injured (22).”
Wait a second, what dualist says the astral body is made of ordinary matter?. None that I know of. This is a straw man. I see the astral body as a different type of matter but isn't affected by death. But this different type of matter can mimic the physical body.
I found an interesting comment down in the footnotes that read: "[1] We have no more reason to believe that human consciousness continues to exist after death than we have to believe that water buffalo or other animals continue to have experiences after they have died."
Umm no reason to believe?. How about our inner life?, experiences, empirical evidence that support psi and survival after death. Now if that isn't reason to believe that what is?. Also, the multiverse theory doesn't fit well with materialism. I mean the mystics have been saying for a long long time now that their are other realities/universes/dimensions.
I'm here to discuss topics such as the Paranormal, Life After Death and other topics like weather, music, terrorism, wrestling etc.]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The production model v.s the Receiver/filter/reducing valve theory
It is often said by Materialists that the dramatic alterations of the brain on the mind/consciousness demonstrates that the brain somehow pr...
-
A long time ago Dayton Miller was doing experiments to see if there really is a background medium called aether what he found it yes there i...
-
Ghosts want to be noticed. Ghosts have no sense of passing time. Often, they do not know that they are dead. Sometimes they exist in a state...
-
It is often said by Materialists that the dramatic alterations of the brain on the mind/consciousness demonstrates that the brain somehow pr...
3 comments:
Keith Augustines position is not outdated. I admire your position and your tenacity to support such a position, however K.A.'s position on an afterlife, and the paranormal evidence is not outdated. The evidence is not as clear as us dualist would like it to be. PSI does not necessarily mean life after death is possible. We must tread lightly when we make bold assertions. I prefer to wait it out, Dr. Sam Parnia has a study he is conducting that should put this to rest once and for all.
You don't think that worldview of materialism is not outdated?. Just look at quantum physics and you will see materialism doesn't fit well there.
Not materialism itself, but his critique of the paranormal evidence is really good, materialism itself seems off base, but not his position on the phenomenon that we both use as support for our beliefs
Post a Comment