Questions Physicalists have a very hard time answering

There are numerous questions physicalists have a hard time answering. One of them is the fact that I can easily imagine life without consciousness. That would definitely signal a strong scientific confidence that Physicalism is right.However, we don't have that we have subjectivity an inner life that at least humans possess. What evolutionary advantage is there in having conscious beings instead of zombie like humans?. Another is the fact that I can easily imagine the earth being just a tad closer to the sun. If that was the case life would not exist. It would be too hot on earth. Let's put aside the overwhelming evidence for psi and for an afterlife to the side for a moment. Physicalist's claim that consciousness ends when physical life ends when the brain stops. However, consciousness is subjective in nature. How can subjective have an ending. Be that a temporary ending or a permanent ending like Physicalist's insist it must. Well, I just wanted to share these questions with you. I have been thinking about them for a long time now. Physicalists never have any proper answers to these questions. Though many of them seem to be very certain of their positions. They never have any doubt in their convictions. So what about Idealism?. Well, it seems to suffer the same problem that Physicalism does and that is assuming everything is reduced down to one single substance. Instead of matter/energy being primary, we have consciousness as primary. Substance Dualism seems to be the best answer as it doesn't make reality be simple. After all, reality isn't so simple. As new discoveries like Quantum Physics are teaching us.


On a side note, the weather here has been downright awful, with constant rain and more coming too.

Refuting an article done by two naturalist scientists

I came across this site lately by two naturalist scientists who challenge view that consciousness may in fact survive the death of the brain. http://philosophyofbrains.com/2011/07/11/against-afterlife.aspx

Abstract: The paper samples the large body of neuroscientific evidence suggesting that each mental function takes place within specific neural structures. For instance, vision appears to occur in the visual cortex, motor control in the motor cortex, spatial memory in the hippocampus, and cognitive control in the prefrontal cortex. Evidence comes from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, brain stimulation, neuroimaging, lesion studies, and behavioral genetics. If mental functions take place within neural structures, mental functions cannot survive brain death. Therefore, there is no mental life after brain death.

My response: Surprise surprise the volume is being edited by no other than Keith Augustine. Sure mental functions are strongly correlated with neural structures. If mental functions were within neural structures the hard problem of consciousness would be solved. But it isn't. Its an assumption but the two scientists believe they can make a conclusion on the evidence they have gathered over the past decades. They never mention any of the evidence from the other side such as psi, afterlife experiments etc.

Why Substance Dualism is indeed still alive

It is often claimed throughtout the web and textbooks and lectures that substance dualism is dead!!!. Nothing can be further from the truth, the naturalists proclaim that substance dualism invokes a non physical substance dualism that can't be detected. No naturalist admits that a substance dualist, sees the soul as a different type of matter that has different properties as well as its not bound by the known physical laws that we are know of.

That this different type of matter obeys a different set of physical laws where time doesn't exist. We know now that there is more than one type of matter than what we know of as well as possible universes with different physical laws as well. We also can very imagine different types of matter that are totally indestructible from the matter that makes up our physical bodies.

Naturalists say that brain damage affects personality radically as well as the fact that personality doesn't back. But they couldn't be more wrong, it appears that personality, memories etc can come back just shortly before death. As in people who have near death experiences where can physical impairment, also with any mental impairment is restored.

The Observer in Quantum Physics plus what would be evidence that mind is somehow produced by the brain?

Skeptics have asked me what would be evidence that would show strongly that there is no mind and brain separation. My answer to that is if there was evidence of consciousness permanately erased after radicial damage coupled with approaching death. However that hasn't happen what we have in cases of people with radical personality damages changes after strokes, and brain damage however we have cases that show memories often come back when we approach death. Read about those cases here if you haven't done so i posted this link awhile back.

http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/2009/12000/Terminal_Lucidity_in_Patients_With_Chronic.12.aspx

Also i want to talk about the observer in Quantum Physics, what it means is not just human observers but all living observers that interact with a mechanical instrument such as a telescope. Its been assumed that just a telescope can cause the collapse in the wave function so for example the moon doesn't exist with just the telescope present. But that isn't true that experiment has already been done to try to disprove that living observers had to be present. But it looks like indeed living observers not only have to be present but they must make the observation themselves by looking into the telescope for the moon to exist. If they don't look at the moon the moon will not exist. This strongly suggest that consciousness which is what were using to see the moon has some independent existence from matter. Also it has its own degree of freedom. This conclusion is not good for materialists, naturalists, physicalists who assert that consciousness has not real important role in reality.

Naturalism the Dominant View of Mainstream Science

One of the reasons is the major successes it has, however when it fails which it has it's hard to give it up. The evidence against naturalism in general is overwhelming their is no way the evidence for survival can be accommodated in a naturalist worldview. Science can be used to favor a particular worldview over another if the evidence is uncovered. The evidence for survival fits well in a substance dualist worldview but doesn't fit in a naturalist worldview. That is one of the major reasons why I cannot take naturalism as the answer to why were here, who we are etc. Another reason is the evidence for psi phenomena that have been replicated over and over with positive results. This evidence also doesn't fit a naturalist worldview but does fit substance dualist and can also fit the view that all of reality is created by consciousness itself.


One thing can seems very straight forward naturalism isn't the answer however nothing can be ruled out completely. If all of the evidence for survival is just scientists chasing over something that really doesn't exist and psi doesn't exist either like naturalists assert. Well then they have won this debate hands down. One way to know for certain who's right and who's wrong is those last minutes of our lives when our bodies shutdown. Then we will all know the answer with 100 percent certainity.


Here's a quick poll for all of you here.

Does Science Need Naturalism?

Many philosophers along with scientists would concede so. That any alternatives to naturalism must be avoided. That would include idealism along with dualism. It is true in nature all we see is natural phenomena, even though naturalism has succeeded in many frontiers. It runs a road block when it comes to consciousness itself and the nature of reality. The fact is dualism can explain all of the successes that naturalism can because dualism implies both natural phenomena and paranormal phenomena. Of course, if you concede that consciousness is just an illusion generated by the brain along with free will, and that no paranormal phenomena exist, then just monism[naturalism] is correct. One of the big reasons why most scientists are naturalists is because of the fear of god or religion is one of the best reasons for believing naturalism is right.


Of course, that reasoning is an appeal to fear than it is of following the evidence wherever that may leads us. When i say a fear of religion i don't mean a fear of going to church. What i mean is a fear of being associated with anything that sounds religious such as ghosts, poltergeists, mental mediumship etc. Of course, while mainstream scientists who the majority are naturalists feel no need to be associated with anything that sounds religious. Some mainstream scientists such as William James along with other scientists gathered an enormous amount repeatable scientific evidence that support the survival hypothesis. This is of course not what these psychical researchers ever imagine would happen. They wanted to show that all psychics were frauds, cold readers etc. I will say however there are some naturalist's are are openfully honest about their position [Searle, Lycan, Nagel along with a few others].

Free Will Is It Real Or An Illusion?

Some believe free will is real while others believe it's just a illusion. A powerful illusion that we strongly believe we have but we don't. While i strongly disagree, it's very evident that we have free will to some degree anyways. One such example that we have some free will is the fact that are arms go up when we get out of bed in the morning. You can say well that is the thing with the old arm sometimes it goes up and someones it doesn't. But the fact remains the arms go up. For a epiphenomenalism to work it has to show why a simple observation of the arm moving up and down is just an illusion. Of course free will conflicts with the current scientific worldview which is naturalism.


On a off-topic note on my father: He is doing good, my mom had to go to the Halifax hospital to see my father. The doctors there are running tests on his heart to see if another blood clot form in his heart.

Naturalism

I mentioned before how the universe is finely tuned. But not just the laws but it also seems that the cosmological constant is very finely tuned. Anthropic scientists had no other alternative but to consider an intelligent designer. That was the very last thing they wanted to do. So after awhile came the many world's interpretation that their are an infinite number of parallel universes. However again the need for a intelligent deisigner came about because some of those universes are likely to be very complex. So now their is speculation that we are living in an computer stimulation, this offers a natural mechanism. So as you see nothing can knock of naturalism. Naturalism is held as a position, and it more tightly defended when contrary evidence comes along like mentioned above. Of course, other contrary evidence is survival of bodily which their is vasts amounts of evidence supporting it. Also psi phenomena and other type of phenomena such as stigmata etc.

Here's is an interesting pdf lecture by Alan Gauld on memory traces.

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~thegroundoffaith/Lecture_3.pdf

At the end of the lecture Alan Gauld conclusion is follows

An viable theory of memory will accommodate:

1. Top down rather than bottom up. Laws characterizing the system as a whole, rather than the whole being derived from the parts.

2. Memories cannot be tied to particular anatomical loci. Memories can be transferred to different parts of the brain.

3. It will regard nerve tracts that transmit nerve impulses to one part of the brain to another not as conduits for the transmission of 'information' in the loose sense commonly adopted by psychologists, but as means by which spatiotemporal patterns of activity in different regions may be fined tuned to create overarching patterns.

4. We cannot regard the matter as decided and clear....work in progress