Materialist's attack the Scientific Evidence for Psi

Just recently I have come across several attacks from Materialist's on Psi. One such attack states that Quantum Field Theory shows that Psi Phenomenon doesn't exist because physicist's have discovered all particles and forces in nature. That isn't true, that is why we have the Large Hardon Collider as we are still discovering new particles and forces. For example this particle.


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lhc-physicists-unveil-a-charming-new-particle/


The standard model is incomplete, that of course doesn't lend any credence for Psi Phenomenon, however, it does refute the claim made by Physicist Sean Carroll that physicist's understand all the particles and forces in nature. On top of that, it is said that psi phenomenon should be reproducible on demand. No it doesn't, meteorites are not reproducible but we know they exist, it just goes to show something can exist without it always being reproducible. Another attacks comes from Neurologist Steven Novella who says that a good scientist always is looking to show that their theory is wrong. True and it's not like Parapsychologist's were out to prove that Psi is real, instead they actually looked at the opposing explanations first but soon found out they couldn't explain the data that they were getting. Of course, skeptics are also very upset by the fact that the American Association for the Advancement of Science strongly endorses the Parapsychological Association. The Parapsychological Association has been affiliated with the AAAS since 1969.

A devastating rebuttal to Physicist Sean Carroll's claim that the physics of underlying the "world of everyday experience" is completely understood. This is from another materialist who respects him.


https://quantummoxie.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/why-sean-carroll-is-wrong/




Recently, in the Skeptical Inquirer a magazine where numerous materialist scientists right their own opinion on numerous topics such as the paranormal, alternative medicine etc. Psychologist Stuart Vyse accuses Psychologist and Parapsychologist Daryl Bem of P-Hacking.


https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/p-hacker_confessions_daryl_bem_and_me


Here is the definition of what P-Hacking is from Wikipedia


Data dredging (also data fishing, data snooping, and p-hacking) is the use of data mining to uncover patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, without first devising a specific hypothesis as to the underlying causality.


- I am not sure if Daryl Bem was P-hacking or not however to accuse him of doing so is taking it too far. Unless, Stuart actually has evidence to confirm this or Daryl Bem comes out and says so we would have to apparently believe Stuart's word on this. I don't think we have too. Is this the best the materialist's can do?. They obviously were not happy when Jessica Utts refuted the Wagermaker's who argued that psychologist's should replace their familiar “frequentist” statistical analyses of their data with Bayesian analyses.


http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-21254-001


Psychologist Susan Blackmore had to get involved in this matter as well as she apart of the skeptic community too.

Here is an interesting piece on her where you can find here


http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-16035-001

New Subatomic Particles found that defy the Standard Model of Physics

It looks like new particles have been found that defy the Standard Model of physics. There goes the objection by materialist's such as physicist Sean Carroll who claims that all known particles and laws have been discovered by the Standard Model of Physics. This new finding says not so fast.

This last bit of the article was very interesting. "Lepton universality is truly enshrined in the Standard Model. If this universality is broken, we can say that we’ve found evidence for non-standard physics”, completed Professor Jawahery".


Read more here: http://www.geeksnack.com/2015/09/02/subatomic-particles-that-defy-the-standard-model-of-physics/

Rebuttal to physicist Sean Carroll article "We don't have immortal souls"

I like to rebut the most important points in the article. Here is the link to the article http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/#more-6819

He mentions Sean- "Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter"?

Leo- The laws of physics don't cover the whole of reality. Consciousness has an objective and subjective nature too it I think so its made of a different type of matter that is dual with the ordinary matter we have.

Sean- "Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.

Leo- QFT opens the door that there can be souls.


Sean- Even if you don’t believe that human beings are “simply” collections of atoms evolving and interacting according to rules laid down in the Standard Model of particle physics, most people would grudgingly admit that atoms are part of who we are. If it’s really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death. Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that “new physics” to interact with the atoms that we do have.

Leo- The standard model of physics is known to be wrong. This is why physicists are looking for a unified theory of physics. Atoms (matter) are dual with the soul. No one who thinks a soul maybe true says that the soul is nothing but atoms and the known forces.


Sean- How is the spirit energy supposed to interact with us? Here is the equation that tells us how electrons behave in the everyday world:

[it's the Dirac equation.] . . . As far as every experiment ever done is concerned, this equation is the correct description of how electrons behave at everyday energies. It’s not a complete description; we haven’t included the weak nuclear force, or couplings to hypothetical particles like the Higgs boson. But that’s okay, since those are only important at high energies and/or short distances, very far from the regime of relevance to the human brain. If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that this equation is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. . .

Leo- This is assuming that because we cannot find a soul in a laboratory that it must mean it doesn't exist.

Sean- . . Nobody ever asks these questions out loud, possibly because of how silly they sound. Once you start asking them, the choice you are faced with becomes clear: either overthrow everything we think we have learned about modern physics, or distrust the stew of religious accounts/unreliable testimony/wishful thinking that makes people believe in the possibility of life after death. It’s not a difficult decision, as scientific theory-choice goes.

Indeed! Those who specify the existence of souls and afterlives in this scientific era must do more than issue fuzzy-minded gobbledygook. They must specify more precisely what they’re talking about, and how it’s supposed to work. If we’re supposed to survive after death, what part of us survives, and how? And what is this soul, exactly? We’re no longer in the Middle Ages, so theologians who make empirical claims must be empirically specific. There are biological questions as well. The first ones that occurs to me are these: where, exactly, in the human lineage did the soul emerge? (Or do other species have souls?) Was it put into that lineage by God, or did it evolve? If instilled by God, when? And where in our body does it reside? If we retain our memories and personalities in the afterlife, how do they exist without neurons?

Leo- Nowhere does he mention parallel universes and how they can shed some lights on these questions, nor does he mention how the observer our consciousness seems to be able to collapse the wave function in quantum mechanics. Neither does he mention the fact that atoms are made of mostly empty space. Also neither does he mention that particle appear to be in supposition two places at once. Also that particles can be entangled at large distances across space (Quantum Entanglement). If he did mention these his argument would be far more weaker. The soul is a duplicate of the physical body it vibrates that a higher frequency at death. The soul uses ESP and Telepathy as some of its spiritual senses (opposite of the physical senses).


Sean- Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.


- Yes and quantum physics strongly indicate a hidden reality that can have very different rules than the ones we know.

Interesting, Infinite Dooplegangers May Explain Quantum Probabilities

Infinite Doppelgängers May Explain Quantum Probabilities
Mg20727753.600-1_300Rachel Courtland in New Scientist:

AN IDENTICAL copy of you is also reading this story. This twin is the same in every way, living on an Earth and in a universe that looks exactly like our own. And there may be an infinite number of them. Such doppelgängers could be a natural consequence of our present conception of the universe. Now, some physicists say they could pose a serious problem for quantum mechanics. But a possible fix may also be in sight, and it could help tie abstract quantum concepts to concrete physical causes.

In the uncertain, fuzzy world of quantum mechanics, particles do not have fixed properties until they are observed. Instead, objects that obey quantum rules exist in a "superposition" of all their possible states simultaneously. Schrödinger's famous cat, for example, is both alive and dead until we take a peek inside the booby-trapped box in which it has been placed.

Because the probability that the cat will be found alive is based on a quantum event - the decay of a radioactive substance within the box - it can be calculated using a principle called the Born rule. The rule is used to transform the vague "wave function" of a quantum state, which is essentially a mixture of all possible outcomes, into concrete probabilities of particular observations (in this case, the cat being alive or dead). But this staple of quantum mechanics fails when it is applied to the universe at large, says Don Page at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

At issue is the possibility that there could be a multiplicity of copies of any particular experiment floating about the universe, just as there could be a multiplicity of yous. There could even be an infinite number of them if, as is thought, the early universe underwent a period of exponential growth, called inflation. Although this period ended very soon after the big bang in our observable region of space, inflation may have continued elsewhere, giving rise to a "multiverse", an infinite space containing infinite copies of our Earth. "In an infinite universe, every possible thing would happen, and it would happen an infinite number of times," says cosmologist Alex Vilenkin of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Dr. Robert Lanza Biocentrism A New Theory

Robert Lanza new theory suggests that death is not the end and that their is another reality beyond time and space. His view is idealism that consciousness creates reality. His theory could account for the enormous body of evidence for survival of the soul. For the materialists who are dead certain that they are right they will obviously scoff at this theory. I don't know what he thinks of parapsychological research or the evidence for survival but he does lay out another possible explanation that could account for it. Of course materialists have criticized his work in numerous postings. Read them for yourself and make up your own mind.

PZ Myers

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/nice_debunking_of_biocentrism.php

http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/biocentrism-demystified-a-response-to-deepak-chopra-and-robert-lanzas-notion-of-a-conscious-universe/

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1357


Now some articles with links from Dr.Robert Lanza where he discusses his theory of biocentrism

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31393080/

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos

http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/biocentrism.pdf

Why Quantum Mechanics Not Psi?

This is easy to answer, it's because it's always classified to be under the heading of "paranormal" where quantum mechanics is not. One skeptic was mentioning how even skeptics of the paranormal accepted wacky strange ideas from quantum mechanics such as multiple universes, quantum entanglement etc. However acceptance of those ideas are mainly in physics themselves and not surprisingly if this skeptic did his homework he would find that a lot of quantum physicists accept the overwhelming evidence for psi phenomena. As far as other fields of science go with their thinking on ideas such as multiple universes, quantum entanglement go i can say that biologists, neuroscientists etc don't really understand the implications of such ideas themselves. The relationship psi has with quantum mechanics their are many.

1] Both have replicated experimental evidence [ though psi evidence is always slashed by extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is a cop-out because their is nothing better than the scientific method to get at the truth.

2]. Both have yes wanky ideas that appear to be true.

3] Quantum Mechanics theories appear to have all come true the same that seems to be happening with numerous psi phenomena.


It is typically claimed by skeptics that governmens and universities wasted millions of dollars on psi and found nothing. That is completely not true, for example PEAR founder Dr Robert Jahn:

For 28 years, we've done what we wanted to do, and there's no reason to stay and generate more of the same data. If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will... It's time for a new era; for someone to figure out what the implications of our results are for human culture, for future study, and - if the findings are correct - what they say about our basic scientific attitude.


Duke University's parapsychology lab closed down decades ago, but not because of a lack of results. Joseph Rhine moved DU's parapsychology lab off-campus, and continues to this day as the Rhine Research Centre. Rhine's research reported positive results. Stanford University's interest in parapsychology was disrupted when the Stanford Research Institute separated from the University and became SRI International. SRI International was the nursery for the Stargate remote viewing project, of which statistician Jessica Utts concluded: "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well-established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance...there is little benefit to continuing experiments designed to offer proof, since there is little more to be offered to anyone who does not accept the current collection of data."


So you can see the skeptics are wrong here governments and universities have found very strong replicable evidence for psi.

The Measurement Problem In Quantum Physics

The measurement problem is this an atom appears in an particular place if you measure it. In other words, an atom is spread out all over the place until a conscious observer decides to look at it. Here's a look of different youtube videos which talks about this very subject. Just is all pure speculation, but it is food for thought.

Non Locality And Psychic Phenomena

Can the theories of Non Locality and Quantum Entanglement explain psychic phenomena such as telepathy?. It could, we know that elementary systems cannot communicate from point a to point b because of the non communication theorem. However psi effects could be pure correlations where signaling is not necessary.

Here is what physicist Dean Radin has to say about Quantum Entanglement and Non Locality.

As the latter. Before entanglement, our best understanding of the fabric of reality did not allow for spooky influences transcending space and time. Such influences are, of course, the hallmarks of psi experiences. So now we know that the physical world does allow for these types of connections. That's a major step in the right direction.

The next big advancement will be detection of entanglement in living systems, and I think it is there that the no-signaling prohibitions may be overcome. I.e., so far we've only seen quantum correlations in elementary systems, but that may be because elementary systems are not smart enough to modulate or use those correlations. Or, perhaps we can reframe psi effects into pure correlations, where signaling is not necessary. (I discuss all this in Entangled Minds.)

Here is also an new article in time called " The science behind psychic phenomena".

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1868287,00.html

Here is the amazon review of the book

The review of miss powell new book at Amazon


"In science it is axiomatic that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Powell, a neuropsychiatrist who has taught at Harvard Medical School, certainly makes extraordinary claims about the four basic psychic abilities: telepathy, psychokinesis, clairvoyance and precognition. But her evidence is consistently below par. She relies on self-reported claims by psychics, hundred-year-old newspaper accounts and the results of studies published by organizations like the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research rather than in reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journals (and sometimes she cites no source at all). Powell is woefully short on mechanisms to explain the phenomena she claims are so common, although she does turn to quantum physics to assert that molecular resonance and the space-time continuum are likely responsible, and she finds evolutionary explanations for the existence of psychic phenomena. She claims, for instance, that psychic events are related to dreaming, which may have evolved so babies, who mostly sleep, can detect threats and communicate them psychically to their parents. Undaunted by the weak evidence, Powell asserts that she is on the forefront of a Copernican revolution of the mind. (Jan.)"

My response to that is Powell is trying to find natural explanations for these phenomena. What is wrong with that?. I mean materialists say if psi phenomena is real it must be natural. Also peer reviewed scientific journals only deal with phenomena that is compatible with naturalism. Phenomena outside naturalism is not dealt with by peer reviewed journals, but are dealt with by parapsychological journals.

Unknown Structures Tuggings At Universe Says A New Study

This is called ''dark flow'' which is a named nodded up with two other unexplained astrophysical phenomena[dark matter and dark energy].

The article continues on by saying

The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger—a multiverse—and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The theory could rewrite the laws of physics. Current models say the known, or visible, universe—which extends as far as light could have traveled since the big bang—is essentially the same as the rest of space-time (the three dimensions of space plus time).

You can check out the article here. Which was published in national geographic.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-dark-flow.html

Here's something interesting the phenomena known at Quantum Entanglement looks to be more robust than ever.



Quantum entanglement stronger than suspected




Pairs of photons linked by the weird quantum effect of entanglement can pass through sheets of metal without the entanglement being destroyed. The finding means the quantum linking of particles is far more robust than scientists thought and could help them develop new ways of making quantum computers.

Scientists think quantum computers could be hugely powerful because of their ability to perform many calculations at once, instead of doing one after another like regular computers.

When photons are entangled, the physical properties of one are intimately linked to the other. Measuring the properties of one will instantly tell you the properties of the other. But many scientists believed entanglement broke down if the photons ever interacted with anything.

Now, Erwin Altewischer and his team at Leiden University in the Netherlands have shown this is not true. They used a crystal to split photons into pairs of lower energy photons with different and entangled polarisations. They then fired these entangled photons at gold sheets thick enough to block light.
Surface waves

The sheets were peppered with holes 200 nanometres wide. Although the holes were too small for light to squeeze through, Altewischer found the photons created waves of electrons on the gold surface called plasmons that passed through the holes and re-emitted the photons on the other side. Measurements showed that the emitted photons were still entangled.

"It's a good omen, because it's saying quantum entanglement can survive when you might not expect it to," says Bill Barnes, a photonics expert at the University of Exeter. "If they can survive this, what else can they survive?"

Altewischer says the fact that the entanglement is preserved, even when the light is converted into electron waves, means it could be used to develop new types of quantum computer or quantum cryptography systems.

Japanese particle accelerator hints at 'new physics'

Long ago, antimatter all but vanished from existence, allowing matter to predominate and form the stars and planets of the universe. Exactly why this happened has been a mystery, but a particle accelerator in Japan may have found a new clue, and one that does not seem to fit the standard model of particle physics.

Earlier particle experiments had already seen a slight preference for matter over antimatter. For example, particles called kaons are less apt to self-destruct than their antimatter counterparts, antikaons. This preference can even be explained theoretically within the standard model of particle physics, as a lopsidedness of the weak nuclear force (technically called CP violation).

But that is far too slight to account for the predominance of matter in the universe. With only the standard model effect at work, in the dense early universe there would have been almost as much antimatter as matter.

Most of the antimatter would have collided with matter particles, destroying both in a burst of radiation. The universe today would be filled with light and other electromagnetic radiation, plus just a scattering of protons and electrons far too sparse to have formed stars or solid stuff.

So some other process must have favoured matter. Now an international collaboration working at the KEK accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan, may have seen a sign of it.
New physics

KEK collides electrons and their antiparticles, positrons, to create unstable heavy particles called B mesons. A detector called Belle then monitors how these B mesons break up.

What the team saw was a difference in the way various types of B mesons decay. Uncharged B mesons fell apart more often than their antiparticles, while charged B mesons fell apart less often than their antiparticles.

According to Belle spokesman Tom Browder of the University of Hawaii, that is a sign of new physics. "The standard-model expectation is that the asymmetries in the two decay modes should be the same. We find that they are different."

More evidence of a fundamental preference for matter comes from a European group, which analysed data from several experiments on a similar particle, the BS meson. Their research also shows a non-standard preference for matter.
Connected effects?

Luca Silvestrini of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Rome, a member of the European group, thinks their results are more certain than those from Belle, which he says might be accounted for within the standard model.

But he adds that the results might support one another. "The most exciting possibility is that the two effects are connected," Silvestrini told New Scientist.

It is still unclear whether the odd behaviour of B mesons actually reveals an effect powerful enough to create a preponderance of matter in the universe.

"Making the connection from the low-energy world of quarks or neutrinos to the extremely high-energy scale of the early universe is very difficult," says Browder. "Since we cannot directly probe the extreme energies of the early universe, we take what we can get."
Future tests

Cosmologist Peter Coles of the University of Cardiff in the UK is cautiously positive. "I don't think there is a compelling theoretical understanding of the new CP-violation results. They don't fit naturally within standard model physics and they may therefore point to a resolution of the issue. I don't think you could say that they solve this problem though."

As with so many of today's questions in particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider could soon provide a clearer answer.

Due to begin operation at CERN in Geneva within a few months, this giant particle accelerator includes a detector called LHC-b that is specifically designed to investigate B mesons and their matter-antimatter biases. "It is unlikely that the puzzle will be solved and a full picture emerge before the LHC starts taking data this year," says LHC-b team member Val Gibson of Cambridge University in the UK.