User named Midnightrunner silly argument

He says this "If I get a video camera and place it in a room and turn it on and lock the door, then come back the next day there will be footage on the tape of the room yet no human observer was present. You seem to be saying that nothing exists outside of subjective experience (consciousness). So how do you explain this? It’s clear that an objective material world exists outside of consciousness. The videotape experiment easily demonstrates this".

A clear refutation is found here as I quote from physicist Andre Linde

"A recording device cannot play the role of an observer, because who will read what is written on this recording device? In order for us to see that something happens, and say to one another that something happens, you need to have a universe, you need to have a recording device, and you need to have us. It's not enough for the information to be stored somewhere, completely inaccessible to anybody. It's necessary for somebody to look at it. You need an observer who looks at the universe. In the absence of observers, our universe is dead".

A full rebuttal to the Mrs. Piper criticisms

The first part will be from me the second part all credit goes to user named Ben Steigmann. First the argument that muscle reading can explain Mrs. Piper's readings and thought transference.

I don’t think telepathy had nothing to do with it. This link I will have down before clearly points out that muscle reading has been shown to be inadequate to explain Piper’s readings. Here is a small sample of what Ben Steigmann had to say:

The following shows intellectual dishonesty on the part of McCabe and Rational Wiki (and also the wikipedia article on Myers, which was obviously edited by the same person who put in the info on Rational Wiki):
Part of the Rational Wiki article on Frederic Myers is an attempt to attack him on his sexual activities, including vague allegations of sexual relations with mediums biasing his arguments. Then we come upon this misrepresentative assault (this version is from the Rational Wiki article on Myers as of November 14, 2013, 1:03 PST):
"The skeptic Joseph McCabe discovered false information in Myers book Phantasms of the Living (1886) a book which documented anecdotal experiences of apparitions and phantasms. Myers included an alleged "personal experience" by a retired Judge Edmund Hornby involving a visitation from a spirit, however the whole thing was a hoax and Hornby admitted there was no truth in it. Myers did not do proper research on the subject."
The reality is quite different, and when we conduct a full investigation into this, we gain extreme doubt that the RW coverage of spiritualism or any other subject they don't like is in any way reliable or, in the cases where they may accurately cite sources, if it is in any way objective. As follows:
First, McCabe did repeat such insinuations, but not in the manner alleging that Myers made things up, as RW editors defamatorily insinuate. He states of Edmund Hornby that he "could only mutter that he did not understand his own mistake": https://archive.org/stream/isspiritualismba00mccarich#page/98/mode/2up
Doing relevant primary source research we find, when we come upon commentary concerning this and the argument of Balfour that McCabe cites against this anecdote (The Nineteenth Century, Volume 16, p. 851: http://books.google.com/books?id=K9YaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA75&dq=Visible+apparitions.+Nineteenth+century+1884&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6huFUpefBOOrjAL4g4GIBw&sqi=2&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=courtesy%20in%20sending%20me%20Mr.%20Balfour%27s%20letter&f=false) - you may have to scroll down to the correct page, that Hornby's defense against the assertions of Balfour, showing that even if the story can be disputed, Myers did not fabricate information - and also that McCabe gave a MARKEDLY BIASED presentation that did not represent the substance of the argument - Hornby did not state "that he did not understand his own mistake", but instead, Hornby directly challenges Balfour. He may be wrong, but the fact is that tone of the RW towards Myers on this is over the top (allegations of false information - implying he fabricated it, rather than contentious information - the assertion is that Hornby stated that there was no truth in it, such an assertion ignores his statement "If I had not believed, as I still believe, that every word of it [the story] was accurate, and that my memory was to be relied on, I should not have ever told it as a personal experience.")
Regarding Myers and his sexual activities - possibly he did have an affair with Freer. Possibly he didn't. In McLuhan's mental mediums document he provides the following citation regarding other allegations r.e. Myers: Gauld, Alan & Salter, W.H. FREDERIC MYERS AND ‘PHYLLIS’, Journal 42, 1963-64, pp. 316-24. Defences of Myers against an attack on his integrity regarding his relationship with Annie Marshall.
See also Journal 43, pp. 277-81. CC/MM/s-test
The point is that no proof is given that he faked evidence. What has just been proven is that debunkers faked evidence against him.



All credit to Ben Steigmann in his excellent rebuttals on skeptic arguments against mediums. You can read all the other comments in made here at the link below. Midnightrunner a user on the Neurologica blog mentioned that, Ben is into conspiracy theories. Well I ain't into conspiracy theories at all but, Midnightrunner is using that as a way to counter all the arguments he made refuting skeptical arguments against medium Leonora Piper.

The source of the comments can be found here. http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/2013/12/there-probably-is-an-afterlife.html.

Rebuttal to Adam Who on the Infidels forum

Adam Who recently made some comments on the infidels forum accusing believers as he calls them for making up excuses, lame arguments etc.

Here is what he said about believers

There are countless posters over the years which have come with many tactics but one of the favorites is the 'JAQing off' (Just asking a question) game

1. Come with an agenda. (creationist, psuedoscience, politics you name it... even pedophiles and neo-nazis)

- Talking about agenda how ironic he's made it perfectly clear that he's got an agenda from his responses he gave me as well as other posters.

2. Start with "I am just asking a question" when they had no intention of actually listening or learning something.

3. When confronted with facts they play the "oh your so closed minded" card or if they have taken a philosophy class they might use "but we really cannot know anything"

I don't remember me saying your so closed minded I just refuted him with counter arguments that he didn't like. Also, many times I was listening to their replys to my own posts however none of them hold any water. That of course makes them go on the defensive.

4. When finally cornered and called on their BS. They will either lash-out and windup getting banned, pretend some false humility and start JAQ with the next idea or a new naive poster, or they just might leave.

Yes cornered by a bunch of naturalists who are not willing to consider the possibility that they maybe wrong.

5. Repeat as needed


Not necessary


Adam- The bottom line is that this forum has always been about debunking and that can be an ugly business for the true believers.

Yes your correct Adam and I would urge anyone who has looked at the evidence for life after death and psi to stay clear of the infidels forum. Because they will go to such lengths as attacking your character calling you mentally unstable among other things.


He also goes on and says that pseudoscientists use scientism to discredit naturalist scientists who use facts and evidence.

"In practice it is an attempt to discredit someone who uses facts and evidence to trump the subjective experiences or feelings of a believer".

- No it isn't its naturalist scientists who use apriori assumptions on the nature of reality.

Ad Hoc Excuse?

I seen today a older forum post by a skeptic who says that its an ad hoc excuse to say that patients who have had a out of body experience would not be able to see the signs from near the ceiling because there attention would be on their body and the people around them. He also says that if we don't get the results we want (else believers) from the aware study we will just make up endless ad hoc excuses. However, me along with others see it as a legitimate problem one that has been taken into account.

Why live? rebuttal to youtube video by QualiaSoup and TheraminTrees

It first mentions that death and pain are difficult but are essential parts of life. I agree we all must physically die. Then they go on about false teachings like hell and heaven. Well right there is their bias I would be one to say that the hell and heaven viewed by christians probably doesn't exist but its very difficult to ignore massive amounts of evidence pointing towards there being an afterlife existence that is much different from the ones often depicted by world religions. Heres the video

Rebuttal to Life After Death: Examining the Evidence

There's a blog post out there where the blogger says that the evidence for an afterlife probably doesn't exist based on what the scientific evidence has shown. He couldn't be any more wrong. He says We can think of a simple test setup. Place a target, such as a card with a secret message, on a high shelf in the operating room, facing the ceiling so that it is unreadable not only by the patient on the table but by the hospital staff in the room. Then if a patient has a near-death experience that involves the commonly reported sensation of moving outside her body and floating above the operating table, she should be able to read that message. Yes, but there is one big factor that would play a major role here that is not being accounted for and that is if you were outside your own body would your attention be on seeing a sign. Your main attention would be on seeing our own body laying there on the operating table. That doesn't mean controlled experiments can't be done. They can but they need to rule out this factor. Then says Furthermore, none of these people returned from the dead. A flat EEG us not brain death because it only measures activity on the surface of the brain. And there is no way of determining that the experience actually happened during a flat EEG. Most likely the experience happened before or after, when the brain was highly active I guess this guy never heard what an EEG expert has to say on this skeptic argument. Then he says that no replicable scientific evidence has ever been found for an immaterial mind. Which is wrong and I have mentioned many of the evidence's that supports the view that consciousness probably does survive the death of the brain.

Challenging Questions Skeptics Raise but not so much

Questions racing around my head for awhile now one is Is the Afterlife to good to be true?. I mean as you know a lot of things we as kids that we used to believe in turned out to be to good to be true. Now I would say this is a strong argument even though the evidence I think for an afterlife is very strong I still got that feeling it maybe to good to be true as well. I don't know, even though also had many experiences too with the paranormal I still go back and forth and that echo comes in that it maybe to good to be true.

Another strong argument it seems the skeptics have is why do we think along with all other life forms that we deserve to continue forever in an afterlife? I mean we humans along with other life forms use resources such as water etc. We are given this planet to live on, why do we expect more?. I know the evidence is very strong for an afterlife but these questions wrestle me a lot.

So your wondering why are these challenging questions, well for the reasons I gave above for example the fact that many of things when we were kids turned out to be false. We clearly obviously need to keep an open mind and no jump the gun. Rather, its fully thinking death is the end without investigating the apparent evidence for an afterlife first. Because, if you don't then you obviously can't make a fair judgement on the matter.

So can these questions be answered I would say yes of course they can. Can the overwhelming evidence for an afterlife overrun these questions? By showing that the questions themselves are answered by the evidence itself?. For sure their were some psychical researchers who remained on the fence about the survival of consciousness after death but one by one they came to concede to the evidence. That is the evidence is very strong for an afterlife and we must follow where the evidence leads us.

Anyways, I like to end this post by wishing everyone a happy Valentine's day.

The Scole Experiment Video Now Released!!!

The video is here http://www.vimeo.com/18714325. I would also like to add a couple of questions skeptics would ask about the Scole experiment.

1) Why didn't the researchers bring in infrared cameras?
2) The researchers allowed the medium group to tell the researchers what to do and not to do

My answer to the first question would be that the typical accusation that the mediums were master magicians even in broad daylight and that they still fooled the researchers.

My answer to the second question would be the nature of the otherside, that we have to follow their rules, we don't get to set up our own rules on this side.

Examples Say The Materialists That Show Mind Is Produced By The Brain And My Response

We only know of cognition when there is a functioning brain present, we have seen no cognition where a brain was not present. That is, we have never observed mind without brain.

Leo- I disagree experiments in the cross correspondences for example clearly show mediums can obtain information from the otherside. Also other survival evidence clearly show that the mind can exist independent from the physical brain.


- Animals with more evolved, more complex brains always exhibit more intelligence and emotions than those with less evolved, less complex brains.

Leo- Yes a more advanced tv will take in the channels better too.


- Interventions in very specific parts of the brain result in very specific changes in cognitive function.

Leo- Ok yes just like changes in my tv will cause changes in my reception

- Mental illness has a strong genetic component.

Leo- Yes but this doesn't show that mind is produced by the brain

- We are learning to read brain activity and make sense of it in terms of emotions and thoughts.

Leo- Yes we are but that doesn't tell us if the brain is a producer of consciousness or the receiver of consciousness.

Why Parapsychology And Psychical Research Are Real Science

Commonly Parapsychology and Psychical Research are called pseudoscience because of the phenomena they deal with. For example Parapsychology deals mainly with psi phenomena, sometimes life after death phenomena too. Where Psychical Research main focus is the survival question do we survive?. The claim made by many skeptics is that the evidence for survival and psi are not. Psi phenomena for example is verifiable and repeatable and has been shown to exist for over a century now. Even Richard Wiseman admits this but says that even though the scientific method shows it exists, that we should have a higher standard of evidence for it. This obviously is a cop out based on the fact that the scientific method is the best method we have of testing things.


Read this forum post for a good example of what closed mindeness means.

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=273617

My Response To The Shameless Atheist

Here are my responses of a debate i had with the blogger you owns this blog. To see his responses go to his blog

http://shamelesslyatheist.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/dualism-why-do-people-cling-to-such-archaic-nonsense/




Rather you like it or not their is strong evidence that nde’s are evidence for an afterlife. Let me explain why, yes their is deep level brain activity in deep levels of the brain. However, EEG can read the cortex of the brain and when flat lined people still have nde’s and obe’s. The flat line EEG indicates their is very little brain activity left in the cortex when blood flow is cut to the brain when someone goes into cardiac arrest. Jason Braithwaite said that those deep lower processes of the brain is more than sufficent to account for near death experiences. However it order for his theory to work. Their would have to be evidence that stimulating those processes of the brain when someone is flat lined can bring about complex though processes etc that are reported in nde’s.

I quote

“By late 2008 an advertisement for a previously unknown public appearance by Gage had been discovered, as well as a report of his physical and mental condition during his time in Chile, and a description of what may well have been his daily work routine there as a long-distance coach driver. This new information suggests that the seriously maladapted Gage described by Harlow may have existed for only a limited time after the accident—that Phineas eventually “figured out how to live” despite his injury,[40] and was in later life much more functional, and socially much better adapted, than has been thought”.[41]

So as we see that his personality back, however their is good reasons to doubt Harlows account.

I quote

“The uncertainty of Harlow’s sources for the changes he describes in Gage, combined with the fact that he waited almost twenty years (between his first and second papers) to communicate those changes, constitute one of the main puzzles of the case.”

So as we still it is looking more and more less likely that he suffered dramatic personality change to the point of showing evidence for full blown mind-brain dependency. This case is often cited by full blown support for very strong mind-brain dependency. But as i have shown it’s no where near supportive of it.

As far as free will goes ok go away deny the all so obvious. How do you explain why a person’s arm goes up. Now you can say well that is the thing with the arm sometimes it goes up and sometimes it doesn’t. But the fact is it does.

The chinese room argument, put forth by philosopher John Searle, is a powerful argument that shows why computationalism is wrong. The many world’s interpretation if correct would show that quantum immortality is possible that when a person dies. Consciousness continues on to another parellel universe.




Hello Shamelessly Atheist,

The Phineas Gage case yes their was significant personality changes however that is not incompatiable with dualism. Based on the fact that the issue is the brain producing mind and consciousness like a productive function? or is the brain a receiver of the mind.?

As far as the split brain experiments go they no where near demonstrates their are two separate conscious selves.

http://www.geocities.com/athanasiafoundation/Dualismlives.htm

There are a lot of powerful arguments that the view that materialism is wrong .

http://www.geocities.com/athanasiafoundation/metasubjectivemind.html




Phineas Gage lost his personality permanently?. It looks that is not the case, because of the fact that he was more functional and social shortly after his accident.


“The strange case of Phineas Gage,” History of the Human Sciences

http://hhs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/20/1/115



After his death, Gage slowly morphed into the lecture room legend. According to Kotowicz,

” Most of the subsequent descriptions of Gage were based on hearsay. Some of them were quite florid; Gage was portrayed as having fits of temper when not getting his own way, as being disinclined to work, as having a reduced libido, as being an aimless drifter and so on. A typical description of him would say that before the accident Gage had been a diligent, reliable, polite and socially adept person: after his accident, he subsequently became uncaring, profane and socially inappropriate in his conduct”.

In neurophilosophy we learn this http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/

The Documentary Evidence

Kotowicz begs to differ:

However, after examining closely the accounts of Phineas Gage as given by the doctors who knew him, Harlow and Bigelow, one must conclude that the supposed psychopathic traits are not evident.

The drastic discontinuity was not so much between Phineas Gage pre- and post-tamping rod but between Phineas Gage (1823-1860) and the lecture room legend.

What we can learn from contemporary accounts of Gage’s post-trauma life is this: For a while after the accident, he drifted, and even ended up briefly in P. T. Barnum’s freak show, exhibiting himself and the tamping rod. But he then settled down and worked a year and a half in a stable. Later, he went with a friend to Valparaiso in Chile where he cared for horses and drove a coach and six for eight years.

Kotowicz points out the obvious,

Working in stables is not a job for a psychopath. Horses are very sensitive and they require discipline and calm; they have to be attended to regularly, seven days a week, and work begins early.

Malcolm Macmillan of Deakin University School of Psychology in Victoria, Australia, where he maintains a Phineas Gage page. He writes:

Most of the accounts of Gage’s life after 1848 are strange mixtures of slight fact, considerable fancy, and downright fabrication.

Now contrasts all of the above information to this materialist account of Phineas Gage’s personality.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=_aG5U2ippNkC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=Phineas+Gage+Burlington+skull&source=bl&ots=ZeG5NyLLO8&sig=rF-6PMGWCgSl2xeyaPI4MpvxOT4&hl=en&ei=mdvJSY7cHtTvnQfGrJSNAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#v=onepage&q=Phineas%20Gage%20Burlington%20skull&f=false


As far as i know and yes i read lots of articles, and go to skeptical sites to, neuroscientists haven't been able to induce key aspects of obe's. Instead what the people who had a part of their brain electrically stimulated reported distortions of their body from above [such as their legs becoming shorter, and arms becoming shorter. If you compared nde cases brought on by cardiac arrest with induced ndes you see their are big differences. Yes in some cases that is possible that details can be added but not by patients who were interviewed shortly after being unconscious.

Also what is your opinion on Richard Wiseman's statement that ESP has been proven by the scientific method but requires a higher level of evidence. Denial there for sure, nowhere does he mentions what his higher level of evidence would be?. The scientific method is the best method we have at getting at the truth.

As far as the science of violation goes. The only thing that can be demonstrated by this type of evidence is that there is some brain mechanism involved to facilitate consciousness during our incarnated existence. This does not at all mean the contents of consciousness are themselves caused by the brain mechanism. In other words, the evidence can be perfectly interpreted in terms of the transmitter-receiver hypothesis.





Brain scanners can see your decisions before to make them

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/18/BANFRK1TG.DTL< [One of the main responses seems to me that there is an interaction of brain and mind, so that the role of the brain does not exclude a separate role of the mind[.

Here is a good paper by Titus Rivas and Hein Van Dongen showing why epiphenomenalism is untenable.

http://www.geocities.com/athanasiafoundation/epiphenomenalism.html


Also, other cases of brain damage to the frontal lobes of the brain are similiar to the case of Phineas Gage above. Their is no doubt that his personality was probably changed a lot however not so dramatically changed that it is evidence that the mind and brain are so linked that their is no way that personality could survive death.

Rebuttal To Skeptic's Magazine Jason Braithwaite View That Pim Lommel's NDE Study Doesn't Support The Survival Hypothesis

So what is the problem with his view?. I will explain, first he mentions that quite recently doctors have found some deep level brain activity in persistent vegetative patients and in deep coma's. This is no surprise and it's likely their probably is high level brain activity in the non cortical processes of the brain. However those non cortical processes with high brain activity don't bring about thoughts, memories etc. It usually is assumed to be the cortical regions of the brain which have been shown by a flat EEG to have very little activity there. There no doubt there is a little bit of activity in the cortex but that would no where near account for high complex thought processes, and memories that occur in near death experiences. So for Jason's Braithwaite view to work, their would have to be evidence showing that stimulating deep level non cortical processes of the brain take over high level functions of the brain,and explain high level thought processes. But here is the catch, according to neuropsychology that is very improbable. This is why Pim Van Lommel concluded that his study supports the survival hypothesis because of the observations that it didn't fit into a brain based model.

Jason Braithwaite says and i quote

"He cites evidence that inter-ictal discharges in the hippocampus or amygdala alone are more than sufficient to produce complex meaningful hallucinations - no involvement from the cortex is necessary.

My Response: But here is the catch, those patients report distortion in their bodies legs becoming shorter, not seeing their body down below etc. This is the opposite of what patients with out of body experiences report.

I challenge all skeptics that are skeptical that near death experiences and out of body experiences provide supporting evidence for life after death. For them to show any problems with my reasoning above.

Rebuttal To Positive Claim That Psi Doesn't Exist

There was a post made yesterday from Adamwho which is a member of the forum infidels forum. One of just arguments was that their is no organ in the brain that can receives signals from another person's brain. This is of course assuming that the brain isn't a receiver for the mind[information] itself. According to Adamwho their isn't, but no where in the post does he show why the brain can't be a complex receiver of the mind instead of the producer of the mind. If their is a soul which i see a ton of evidence that support it, it wouldn't be a jump to consider the possibility that the soul itself is the organ that decodes such EM signals in the brain.

Here's his post


http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=273617


Dr. Dean Radin mentions too in a youtube about the electromagnetic conditions and their affect on psi performance.

Is Memories Created, Stored and Retrived In The Brain?

I guess it depends on how you see this problem itself, for example their are many problems in the way memory relates to the brain itself. We as survivalists are apparently suppose to accept the so called hard truth that memories are somehow generated by the brain not filtered or received by the brain. No dualist denies that memory is related to the brain but where we differ from materialists is we see that memory could survive death after the brain is destroyed. Keith Augustine asks what would a survivalist consider proof of personal extinction after death?. First, the word proof their doesn't exist in science. Science deals with probability and evidence. With that said what evidence would convince a survivalist of personal extinction?. Well i'm sure if their was zero evidence for survival or very little of it then extinction would be more likely than not.


In my view that appears not to be the case. So why you may ask after researching and evaluating the evidence from both sides, why have i sided with survival?. Well the evidence looks to be consistent and overwhelming where the case against survival has many holes in it. But not just many holes either but the evidence used to support it can be interpreted to support survival.

Here are the 10 unsolved mysteries of the brain and mind

How is information coded in neural activity?
How are memories stored and retrieved?
What does the baseline activity in the brain represent?
How do brains simulate the future?
What are emotions?
What is intelligence?
How is time represented in the brain?
Why do brains sleep and dream?
How do the specialized systems of the brain integrate with one another?
What is consciousness?

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/unsolved-brain-mysteries/article_view?b_start:int=2&-C=

Rebuttal To Another That Is Used To Refute Mind Body Dualism

Here is another argument i have found recently being used against mind body dualism.

Well, do we have any proof there's such a thing as "immaterial sense organs"? How do they work exactly? For example, sound is the product of pressure oscillations in the air, so the immaterial body would need to have something that reacts to air pressure. But if it's immaterial, air doesn't exert pressure against anything, therefore an immaterial body can't possibly hear anything. Same argument can be made about sight and photons. So can you please explain the mechanisms of these immaterial sense organs?

Response: What we know is to communicate with spirits we do it through other people that are gifted we call them mediums. Not all mediums are genuine of course, many are frauds, deluded etc. However some have withstood the test of time such as Leonard Piper. That's not too say souls don't have immaterial sense organs but it's clear that need a medium another person to get their messages through to the grieving. Now what about out of body experiences and remote viewing evidence that shows that their probably is immaterial sense organs?. My view is that hearing, seeing all of these appear to be their the exact mechanisms of why this happens, is not time at this time. To hear sounds normally, we interact with sound waves. The immaterial soul would interact with these sound waves, remember when i say immaterial i am meaning it's subjective qualities not the entity itself. The entity itself is probably another kind of matter and energy. To a materialist their is no need of a immaterial soul to explain out of body experiences for example because of the fact that we hear sounds, see things etc, with our sensory organs interacting with physical processes. But the fact is when their is cardiac arrest the hearts stops and that cuts blood flow to the brain, the longer this goes on for the more brain damage occurs and so does the level of brain activity dramatically diminishes.

So for that said in order for Keith Augustine's theory of hallucinations to work their needs to be sufficent brain activity to account for the very high mental functions that go on in these experiences. But their is another problem here and that is patients appear to report things while being unconsciousness and very little brain activity that turn out to be accurate. These reports are colloborated by doctors and nurses. A skeptic route to take that some skeptics take is say their is no evidence for psi and survival of bodily death. This is dishonest in the extreme, because even skeptics that have read the literature may say that the evidence is very weak in their opinion but they do say that it's dishonest to say their is no evidence. I would agree with that, but i would not agree on the strength of the evidence being very weak but being very strong and overwhelming.

A Couple Of Critiques On A Article A Sceptical Review Of The Irreducible Mind

I was thinking perhaps, i should also come up with my own rebuttal to a skeptic from a magazine called Skeptic but decided not too based on the fact that two bloggers already have. I find their rebuttals very good, so i feel their is no need to add to that. One of the rebuttals is from Jime, who has a blog called "Subversive thinking" which covers some of the topics i write here. Another rebuttal, is from best selling author Michael Prescott he also writes on some of the topics i write about here.


http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2009/07/wolfgang-amadeus-myers.html

http://subversivethinking.blogspot.com/2009/07/reply-to-sebastian-dieguezs-comments-in.html

http://phantomologist.blogspot.com/2009/07/comments-on-subversive-thinkings.html

Ok ok their one thing, i want to address something that did get under my skin and that is the skeptic mentioned that the cross correspondences etc, are all "GHOST STORIES". Why you ask? because anyone that has actually studied the evidence knows that these are not just ghost stories, making a false statement, such as that one is what Sebastian does to help and protect materialism. True their is a lot of anecdotes in psychical research however their has also been experiments done mediums. To water it all down to ghost stories makes a person wonder if he actually looked at the evidence. I should point out i am really surprised because this is a familiar tactic the skeptic, uses to make a person not familiar with the evidence for survival think that their is nothing there but anecdotes.

A Skeptic On Infidels Forum

I ain't going to mention who his name is but he made a comment that i will summarize here:

"He said that i am committed to my own worldview and ain't interested in what the evidence shows"

Couldn't be more wrong in that statement, i just happen to not think that the evidence points toward physicalism over any other worldview. The evidence that i have looked at from neuroscience, quantum physics, classical physics, biology, parapsycology, psychology etc.] Can be accounted for on a dualistic worldview. That doesn't mean dualism is right and i never said it is the absolute truth. There are many good reasons why i think physicalism is wrong, i have mentioned those many times on here.Anyways,


I was banned from there apparently because of plagiarism and copyright violations not being "ideologically inspired." The person then said the same thing about Adamwho which i do agree with him being ideologically inspired. The reason why is because of saying well the evidence is poor or very weak, he says the evidence is non existent. Big difference there, i remember a skeptic on skeptiko recently, saying that any skeptic who says their is no evidence is just as closed minded as saying their is very strong evidence. I totally agree on the first, the reason obviously is they don't look at the evidence in the first place. The second i disagree on because the evidence is very strong but of course it ain't a fact. But science doesn't deal with facts only the preponderance of evidence.



Adamwho mentions

It amazes me that they can only argue about philosophical stances without ever actually getting to the point: There is no evidence for their position.

But i have many times presenting tons of links, i ain't going to be there to summarize every single piece of evidence that supports psi and life after death. That would take a very long time to do. Then after that what would be the point? he would simply say the evidence is nonexistent.

Bashing The Society For Scientific Exploration

Some skeptics on infidels forum has today bashed a parapsychology organizations saying that the organization will fall for any type of quackery such as this he mentions:


This dude, Paul Hellyer, who talks about "hypothetical relationships between governments and extraterrestrial intelligence" apparently is worried that "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning" (http://www.rense.com/general68/eurdo.htm)

Yes i will say that is far out there for sure, but it's easy to take any view that does have validity such as psi and throw the baby in with the bathwater.

Here is what Adamwho says

They also can't establish guidelines of skepticism about a given claim because that would open the door to questioning their own beliefs. Many times people have asked for criteria for how they would determine what is a real psi claim and what is fraud, what is really cranky and what they would accept.... of course there is no answer... or rather they are forced to accept everything.

Just like Christians when you ask.... "how do you determine that some other religion is false?" then follow up with "how does that differ from how those people see Christianity?"

Its a simple matter of can you perform psi or not. If you can't then that is the criteria, it is based on can you or can't you until controlled conditions. False comparision between Christianity and Parapsychology because one is a religion and another is scientifically testing psi phenomena, and life after death phenomena. So there is a big difference.

Note: The Society for Scientific Exploration has added a bunch of new videos taken at their 2008 meeting.

Here are the very interesting ones

SSE 2009 Courtney Brown, Multiple Universes









Effects of Distant Group Intention on Seedling Growth




Water Memory: Carrier of Conscious Intention






Can You Still Win Yesterday’s Lottery? or Retrocausation: Is it Compatible with Known Physics?





Random Robot Redux: Replications and Reflections





Why ESP is Consciousness’ Only Hope





Gazing at the Mind's Eye

Infidels Member Adamwho has got it wrong!!!

He says on the infidels forum that their is NO EVIDENCE FOR A EXTERNAL MIND/SOUL. He then says their is variable repeatable evidence that the mind is a process of the brain. I said to him that the evidence from brain damage, drugs that effect the mind, lomotomies, alzheimers, dementia and fmri studies are open to interpretation. Even though the production is the simpliest theory that could account for these observations, it may not be true. The opposing theory that i among others have put forth is that the brain is a advanced receiver and filter of consciousness. This theory is consistent with the overwhelming scientific evidence for life after death and psi. Of course he goes ignoring this evidence, with escapes such as.

- Demeaning words such as calling all of my links supportive of psi and life after death as "cranky"
- Claiming that i don't read the links i post on the forum, which i have read them so that is an out and out lie.
- Saying that their is no theory for life after and psi, clearly ignorant of the fact their has been theories put forth.


And here is a very comical statement from him

"You can believe anything you want especially if it helps you get over your fear of death. But, if you sacrifice facts and evidence for comfortable faith then you have no claims to truth... You should admit as much and dedicate your time to understanding your faith rather than justifying it through false means".

Good one lol yes i admit i have had a fear of death, but of course we can't rule out the issue of rather their is life after death or not, by simply saying what that is a fear mechanism build in all humans [among all other species]. That it clouds my judgement and that i must be wrong because of that fact. I also mentioned that another member named Ashurbanipal on the forum has posted evidence from near death experiences and the Benjamin Libet experiments. What did he say?.

"He is posting speculation, feelings, intuitions, philosophical musings but not detail.... besides it is irrelevant anyway since there is no evidence for the existence of the soul... science fiction authors are able to provide lots of details too".


Adamwho mentions

You don't seem to understand, although it has been spelled out to you time and time again:

It doesn't matter what anybody believes (no matter how prominent), what matters is evidence. There is no evidence for you position and mountains of evidence against it.

My response to him was

That is the point i have trying to get to you, i have presented tons and tons of evidence from well respected scientists your excuses are

1. The evidence is too old
2. Cranky sites
3. Has no clue what he is talking about

I ain't saying to accept the work done on epileptics that give evidence for dualism, or Sir John Eccles, as is well known, some physical evidence that does suggest mental causation. Libet et al. suggest parallel tracking of phenomenal experience, brain events and volitional acts (Libet et al., xxi), and Velmans provides a convenient summary of evidence of mental causation from both physical and clinical sources. To weigh and consider, the same with the evidence for the cross correspondences, poltergeist phenomena, apparitions, premonitions, psi phenomena etc. May i ask you something have you ever been suspicious of some of the evidence you see of mind being an emergent property of the brain? If you haven't been the least bit suspicious then obviously you accept everything you see and hear. For me i am truly suspicious of some of the evidence for survival and psi but overall it appears to be mostly genuine.

Anyways if you like to read all of the exchanges we have had with this topic entitled " Poll for mind-body dualism {souls, spirits, or whatever you call them].

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=271494&page=5

My Response To Keith Augustine In Michael Prescott Blog Post Called Rover

Keith,


I am sorry i don't remember about you saying how the production theory could be falsified. I have a lot on my mind these days. I have also offered a plausible explanation for the combination key lock experiment

"Apparently, deceased Thouless could remember Oram and other similar facts. Now Keith says even though that is so the simpler explanation would be because he didn't remember the simple keys would be that he didn't survive his death. But their are certainly more explanations then that. One explanation would be that he was not communicating with thouless at all but some other entity and was being deceived by this entity. To me the explanation that another entity who pretended to know Oram is more plausible than the explanation that Thousless didn't survive death. Why? because apparently this entity knew Oram, did Oram ask this entity if he could know anything that thousless would know when he was alive?. According to Oram this entity just knew him. So what we have hear is no confirmation that this was indeed Thousless or some other entity pretending to be Thouless".


Keith says

Ditto when talking about the causes of OBEs and NDEs, as it is anything but clear that something leaves the body during them, given the mismash of nonexistent things seen during them, clear cultural influences on them, and reports of veridical perceptions. It's not as if these experiences are always clearly veridical or just unknown. Sometimes people see things that don't exist, as Charles Tart even notes in the conclusion of his OBE chapter in his recent _The End of Materialism_. Given that the evidence is all over the map with respect to theory, I think we would have to establish conclusively that real target identification happens during OBEs/NDEs, the sort that simply couldn't be explained by overhearing things or any other normal means. And I think that's an entirely rational point of view.


Leo- I totally agree this appears to be what is happening now with positive results already in the pilot study of the Aware study on near death experiences.

Keith says

If you keep personal survival, you will be doing so in blatant contradiction of the findings of physiological psychology, maintaining the pilot-to-ship simple dualism implied by the TV show-to-TV, Mars rover, Predator drone, and so on analogies.

Not if the brain is an advanced tv receiver, Keith is presumming that mind brain dependency is so tight that it can't be conceivable that the mind could survive death.


Keith says


Transmission implies that the brain plays a major part in shaping what the mind is while "inside" a living organism, not simply in allowing that mind to control the physical world. Hence why PCP, or LSD, can directly alter the mind, instead of just cutting off the mind's ability to control the body, or perceive the physical world.

Leo- Wait a second, the transmission isn't the brain it's a medium of somekind, that can only be speculated on. We can alter receivers, so the brain itself is being altered while the mind is also being altered, which is information. The real issue here is whether than is an immaterial soul or not, neuroscience is shown that yes mind exists [information] and the brain exists. But what about soul? which is i call our subjective experiences, inner life. Can the soul tranferred all the information from the brain to this soul, this i saw is very possible.


Keith i will explain to you the weaknesses in the particular case you just mentioned that of Rosemary. If you have cases that are bullet proof and really deliver the evidence for the production theory instead of the the very weak cases such as Phineas Gage, and Rosemary Kennedy. I love to see them .


Now let's look at the doubtful case you mentioned.

1] "Rosemary has been described as being a shy child whose I.Q. tests reportedly indicated a moderate mental retardation, but this is a question of some controversy".

Strike one it appears that their is indeed some controversy over what amount if little mental retardation occur to her I.Q.

Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. Her mother, Mrs. Rose Kennedy, remarked that although the lobotomy stopped her daughter's violent behavior.

Verbal skills eh, that is the thing, this is explained by the fact that her soul was restricted and constrained by particular damage to part of her brain.


"Ronald Kessler, author of The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded, disagrees with this assessment. He believes that Rosemary's problem was instead mental illness. He says it’s true that Rosemary had always been slower than the other children. But as a teenager, she was able to write endearing letters, dance, and do arithmetic. At the age of nine, Rosemary neatly and correctly multiplied and divided: 428 × 32 = 13696, for example."[7].

So we see that her intelligence was not affected by the lobotomy also her inner subjective character was not affected either .


Keith, sure those five individuals have concluded the same as you, but that doesn't prove your case. As much as me pointing out several neuroscientists who DON'T agree with your position. Such as Dr. Wilder Penfield, Dr. John C Eccles, Karl R. Popper. Keith their is no doubt their is mind brain dependency but how strong is the dependency is the question at stake here. What i am suggesting is yes personality radically changes in many cases, however when the mind brain connection is broken the mind get's immediately restored to an age like 20 years old. It's the soul that get's released from the body and restores all memories, thoughts and feelings after physical death. Also your forgetting that simple dualists know that the mind is information, where the soul is the one that takes over once the body/brain dies.

Perhaps the soul is an abtract entity who uses it's imagination to create an afterlife in the platonic realm.


Would you say that Wilder Penfield's work gave experimental support for mind brain dependency? Wilder Penfield never endorsed this theory, nor did he think that this was the best explanation for his data. Wilder Penfield started out an materialist until he started doing work with epileptic patients.


"For myself, after a professional lifetime spent i trying to discover how the brain accounts for the mind, it comes as a surprise now to discover, during this final examination of the evidence, that the dualist hypothesis seems the more reasonable of the two possible explanations. Mind comes into action and goes out of action with the highest brain-mechanism, it is true. But the mind has energy. The form of that energy is different from that of neuronal potentials that travel the axone pathways. There I must leave it."

You also forget that simple dualism and interaction dualism both propose that the soul is made of a different type of matter, that the soul has a brain too, possibly of dark matter.