Ex-Stargate Head Ed May Unyielding Re Materialism, Slams Dean Radin |341|

Is it plausible pre cog, esp, and remote viewing are caused by unseen and physical matters, but since we can only test the effects of these phenomena and not the cause, and by cause I mean the unseen mechanisms that allow humans to have these experiences, we'll only get half the picture and mostly materialist explanations such as retinal, oxygen, brain damage? Brain chemicals etc? Maybe some kind of field holographic ripple effect in nature?
 
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I was really looking forward to this interview but it was a big disappointment. I'll leave it at that, I'll only add that Alex was not the cause of any disappointment.

Real shame in one way, but revealing too.

Forgot to add. What do people like Ed make of Life Reviews, meeting relatives, or forecasts that invariably come true during NDEs. Does the brain make them up? If so, why?
 
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I'm unconvinced. I read Ed May two papers "Multiphasic Model of Precognition" and "'Precognition: The Only Form of Psi?" and I'm totally unimpressed. In fact, both papers are not very good.
In fact, his argument apparently was just"Entropy is related to the flow of time, entropy is related to sensory perception. Precognition is related to both sensory perception and time, so precognition "functioning" is related to entropy" (not his actual quote). Ok, right. So what?

He doesn't explain any important part of the mechanism (for example he doesn't explain how the precognitive signal is transported and doesn't explain how does the brain "reads" this signal). In fact he writes:

"however, with regard to mechanisms, signal carriers,and transducers, the evidence is circumstantial. Clearly, more work is needed"
"We can keep the nature of a putative PC (precognition) channel an open question until we have a better understanding of the PD (physics domain)."
"As the nature of the putative RC signal is presently unknown, we have to assume that it is different from the normal thresholds perceived by us."
"currently, we do not know what kind of signal to look for, and hence what the concomitant EEG would look like"


A considerable amount of the paper is related to things that are only marginally related to a "model of precognition" (anecdotes from the star gate project and a discussion about synaesthesia).
Also, at some point he writes "At the macroscopic level, time moves in one direction as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. (...) It is beyond the scope of this article to provide technical support of this statement, but the textbooks of any mid-level collegiate course in physics, thermodynamics, or statistical mechanics will provide the details."
Well, as a physicist I want at least to know the reference you are using. Was this paper even peer-reviewed?

In his paper "'Precognition: The Only Form of Psi?" he says that macroPK doesn't exist. However, he cites Stephen Braude's work a lot of times and Braude is a strong advocate of the existence macroPK.

Also, why bother constructing a theory of human precognition? In his paper he spends a lot of time talking about human sensory perception. If precognition is such a natural phenomena, it would be way simpler to just find the "precognition signal" and amplify it. There's no need to involve humans, unless if you think that consciousness is fundamental to precognition (but I'm sure that you believe exactly the opposite)

tl;dr:He may be right, but at the moment his theory is not great and has a lot of "holes". Also, he clearly dismisses everything against his theories. So far, his paper will hardly convince physicists that precognition is a natural phenomena and probably will not convince many parapsychologists either.
 
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I was really looking forward to this interview but it was a big disappointment. I'll leave it at that, I'll only add that Alex was not the cause of any disappointment.

Real shame in one way, but revealing too.

Forgot to add. What do people like Ed make of Life Reviews, meeting relatives, or forecasts that invariably come true during NDEs. Does the brain make them up? If so, why?

Oh boy, did he ever disappoint. This is not the first interview to be cut short, but it's certainly the first where one of the guests went "You are pissing me off!". Ed may have set a new low, even the super skeptics that refused to read the literature kept some etiquette.
 
Yes, but of course he doesn't mention that Stevenson, who was quite cautious and meticulous, concluded after 40 years of research that reincarnation is the most parsimonious explanation for all the cases. Including those with corresponding birthmarks and birth deformities.

Cheers,
Bill

It was a tangent, he was trying to deflect something about NDEs.
 
This is not the first interview to be cut short, but it's certainly the first where one of the guests went "You are pissing me off!".

I don't mind that people showing their emotion, as long as they're willing to discuss things. Ed first implied that he was well up on NDE research, when he had a go at Alex while he was naming Pim VanLommel, Penny Sartori etc, but he later admitted that he didn't know and wasn't interested in it, when he got frustrated.

Edit: I've just looked at the transcript, and what I've said above isn't right. It was the NDE stuff related to Joe McMoneagle when Ed boiled over. It would have been interesting to find out exactly what he knows though.
 
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https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

John von Neumann
In his treatise The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann deeply analyzed the so-called measurement problem. He concluded that the entire physical universe could be made subject to the Schrödinger equation (the universal wave function). Since something "outside the calculation" was needed to collapse the wave function, von Neumann concluded that the collapse was caused by the consciousness of the experimenter.[22]
Wikipedia
Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics)

"Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/325387

Max Planck (Nobel Prize for Physics)

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. As quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)

...

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)
Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize for Physics)

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.
Lots more quotes at the link.
 
Edit: I've just looked at the transcript, and what I've said above isn't right. It was the NDE stuff related to Joe McMoneagle when Ed boiled over. It would have been interesting to find out exactly what he knows though.
I was reading the transcript while listening. There was a decent amount of dialog that was left out of the transcript.

Cheers,
Bill
 
"Why do these guys fumble so badly on the NDE research?"

Every controversy in the history of science shows us that the best explanation for the data is a matter of opinion.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-history-of-scientific-discoveries.html

Doing science makes you narrow minded:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_science

They want recognition from mainstream science but their field is controversial so they try to keep as close to materialism and naturalism as possible and still push their empirical data.

There is prejudice against afterlife research in the parapsychological community.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/near-death-experiences-and-afterlife.html#facts_alternative

I have long suspected that within the parapsychological community there is some prejudice against afterlife phenomena. Parapsycholoigst Dr. Carlos Alvarado confirmed my suspicion in an interview published at aspsi.org. The interview does not seem to be on the internet currently, but the link was: http://www.aspsi.org/feat/life_after/tymn/a076mt-a-Dr_Carlos_S_Alvarado_interview.php

Dr. Alvarado said:

For many workers in the field, survival research is not a main interest. To some extent this is academics as usual. People specialize in some areas and develop interests due to personality traits, life experiences, training, and employment opportunities, and parapsychology is no exception. Then there are concerns such as getting tenure and the belief that the area has many methodological difficulties. However, I believe that in some cases there is more than this. In some circles it is more “respectable” to conduct ESP experiments than working with survival-related phenomena such as apparitions or mediumship. I still remember how the director of a parapsychology unit within an university, wanting to keep a conservative image, discouraged students from pursuing topics such as apparitions for dissertation research.​
 
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Or... I will rephrase this and say... Radin's conclusions only tell us that human meditators can produce a micro-pk effects on elementary particles. That's pretty much all we can say, no?

cheers
yeah, but look at it in the context of all these head-in-the-sand science types that won't let go of materialism. I don't think Radin was trying to blaze a new trail as much as shine light on science knows/has-proven but won't acknowledge.
 
The abnormal brain states, before, during and after cardiac arrest that might hypothetically induce ESP cannot produce lucid experiences. Even if someone has a lucid experience like an NDE "retro-cognitively" due to a cardiac arrest, that still requires out of the body consciousness to explain it.
agreed... total non-starter. my hesitancy discussing such a goofy idea is that it might give it more attention than it deserves. To me it seems like one of those "not even wrong" kinda things.
 
I'm unconvinced. I read Ed May two papers "Multiphasic Model of Precognition" and "'Precognition: The Only Form of Psi?" and I'm totally unimpressed. In fact, both papers are not very good.
In fact, his argument apparently was just"Entropy is related to the flow of time, entropy is related to sensory perception. Precognition is related to both sensory perception and time, so precognition "functioning" is related to entropy" (not his actual quote). Ok, right. So what?

He doesn't explain any important part of the mechanism (for example he doesn't explain how the precognitive signal is transported and doesn't explain how does the brain "reads" this signal). In fact he writes:

"however, with regard to mechanisms, signal carriers,and transducers, the evidence is circumstantial. Clearly, more work is needed"
"We can keep the nature of a putative PC (precognition) channel an open question until we have a better understanding of the PD (physics domain)."
"As the nature of the putative RC signal is presently unknown, we have to assume that it is different from the normal thresholds perceived by us."
"currently, we do not know what kind of signal to look for, and hence what the concomitant EEG would look like"


A considerable amount of the paper is related to things that are only marginally related to a "model of precognition" (anecdotes from the star gate project and a discussion about synaesthesia).
Also, at some point he writes "At the macroscopic level, time moves in one direction as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. (...) It is beyond the scope of this article to provide technical support of this statement, but the textbooks of any mid-level collegiate course in physics, thermodynamics, or statistical mechanics will provide the details."
Well, as a physicist I want at least to know the reference you are using. Was this paper even peer-reviewed?

In his paper "'Precognition: The Only Form of Psi?" he says that macroPK doesn't exist. However, he cites Stephen Braude's work a lot of times and Braude is a strong advocate of the existence macroPK.

Also, why bother constructing a theory of human precognition? In his paper he spends a lot of time talking about human sensory perception. If precognition is such a natural phenomena, it would be way simpler to just find the "precognition signal" and amplify it. There's no need to involve humans, unless if you think that consciousness is fundamental to precognition (but I'm sure that you believe exactly the opposite)

tl;dr:He may be right, but at the moment his theory is not great and has a lot of "holes". Also, he clearly dismisses everything against his theories. So far, his paper will hardly convince physicists that precognition is a natural phenomena and probably will not convince many parapsychologists either.
nice... thx for adding this mini-review of the papers he was referencing during the interview.
 
If I wanted scientific proof of psi, I would ask Dean Radin. If I wanted practical advice on how to use psi, I would ask Ed May. If I wanted a theoretical understanding of how psi worked, I would go to a Spiritualist Church. They won't explain it in scientific terms at the church because consciousness is non physical and science at the present time can only measure and describe things in physical terms ... which is why you have to go to a church and not a laboratory to understand consciousness and psi.

I should also say that I've taken classes in spirit communication at a Spiritualist church and have had experiences with psi, and I still stand by my belief that Ed May is the go to guy for advice on how to use psi for practical purposes.
 
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I thought Alex handled himself well in what was a perplexing interview (for me anyway) . How can you claim to be a materialist and yet accept remote viewing as likely true. Also very interesting to hear his interpretation of NDE data/research.

I might have this wrong but as I understood it, when Alex pressed him to admit that people can get information when they were "dead" (cardiac arrest), he tried to wriggle out of that by citing precognition and retrocognition. Nice :) His definition of death was novel, too, apparently 'that' is only met when one is reduced to a pile of ashes. Makes you wonder why medics even bother resuscitating anyone, clearly they can't really be dead.. ...
 
"Why do these guys fumble so badly on the NDE research?"

Every controversy in the history of science shows us that the best explanation for the data is a matter of opinion.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-history-of-scientific-discoveries.html

Doing science makes you narrow minded:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_science

They want recognition from mainstream science but their field is controversial so they try to keep as close to materialism and naturalism as possible and still push their empirical data.

There is prejudice against afterlife research in the parapsychological community.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/near-death-experiences-and-afterlife.html#facts_alternative

I have long suspected that within the parapsychological community there is some prejudice against afterlife phenomena. Parapsycholoigst Dr. Carlos Alvarado confirmed my suspicion in an interview published at aspsi.org. The interview does not seem to be on the internet currently, but the link was: http://www.aspsi.org/feat/life_after/tymn/a076mt-a-Dr_Carlos_S_Alvarado_interview.php

Dr. Alvarado said:

For many workers in the field, survival research is not a main interest. To some extent this is academics as usual. People specialize in some areas and develop interests due to personality traits, life experiences, training, and employment opportunities, and parapsychology is no exception. Then there are concerns such as getting tenure and the belief that the area has many methodological difficulties. However, I believe that in some cases there is more than this. In some circles it is more “respectable” to conduct ESP experiments than working with survival-related phenomena such as apparitions or mediumship. I still remember how the director of a parapsychology unit within an university, wanting to keep a conservative image, discouraged students from pursuing topics such as apparitions for dissertation research.​

Because consciousness is non physical but science can only measure and describe things in physical terms so scientists don't have the tools or mental inclination to conceive of anything that is non-physical.

Scientists are so habituated to thinking in reductionist terms they can't cope with something like consciousness that is irreducible and can't be explained in terms of anything simpler.

Non-physical + irreducible = scientific fumble

Alex has asked in the past if science can study consciousness. Maybe science as we know it today can't. Maybe consciousness can only be understood through experience?
 
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