No God in The Machine

You, I believe. I checked, it was you.
But I never "tried to explain how the brain filters non local consciousness," I simply said that any theory regarding the brain and consciousness needed to account for psychic functioning in addition to normal waking consciousness.

Cheers,
Bill
 
But I never "tried to explain how the brain filters non local consciousness," I simply said that any theory regarding the brain and consciousness needed to account for psychic functioning in addition to normal waking consciousness.

Cheers,
Bill
I don't want to argue, but your first reply had nothing directly pertinent to do with what FDRS and I were talking about. Which was to have FRDS explain by finding some site that explains how the brain filters external non local consciousness.
Sincerely,
Steve
 
I don't want to argue, but your first reply had nothing directly pertinent to do with what FDRS and I were talking about. Which was to have FRDS explain by finding some site that explains how the brain filters external non local consciousness.
Sincerely,
Steve
Good then don't argue, but my comment pertained to this:

I have only followed the filter idea here. From what I've read so far, I find it not worthy of further off site inquiry. It is an ad hoc explanation despite the mounting data that the human brain is capable of creating consciousness. Now you have two choices. You can ignore me or if you feel compelled enough to explain how and why the filter model is a viable idea do so.
All I was saying is that if the mounting data suggests that the brain is capable of "creating consciousness" we must also show that it is capable of producing psychic phenomena.

Cheers,
Bill
 
Well Steve, a good way to look at the filter model would be to read irreducible mind, the coming sequel which discusses it in detail, you could also read the actual parapsychologal publications, which I don't think you actually have done. None of your posts seem to indicate your engagement with the literature in any shape or form. If however I'm wrong about that, I recant my statement.
 
Good then don't argue, but my comment pertained to this:


All I was saying is that if the mounting data suggests that the brain is capable of "creating consciousness" we must also show that it is capable of producing psychic phenomena.

Cheers,
Bill
I certainly think this is correct.
 
The fundamental substance, not requiring any substrate? Ooh, that's tricky.

~~ Paul

I wouldn't say it's definitive, and information as a concept is problematic given there's the "information" Shannon was talking about and the "information" humans obtain from each other and the world.

There is no weather in physics, just like there is no consciousness. Why is consciousness special when the weather is not? The fact that we have an (incomplete) explanation for the weather and not for consciousness does not make consciousness special.

Weather is a subset of physical phenomenon occurring in the universe, grouped together because of our subjective experience. As such physics can explain a good bit if not all weather in terms of structure and dynamics.

Consciousness is our first person experience of physical - and mental - phenomenon. It's a wholly different category from weather, which is why we separate the Phenomenal from the Material.

We can't explain their interaction now. Why does it make an explanation untenable for all time?

So you think it's possible we have souls that direct our bodies?
 
Well Steve, a good way to look at the filter model would be to read irreducible mind, the coming sequel which discusses it in detail, you could also read the actual parapsychologal publications, which I don't think you actually have done. None of your posts seem to indicate your engagement with the literature in any shape or form. If however I'm wrong about that, I recant my statement.

The review on Anti-Matters is actually pretty extensive, though I admittedly have not gone through it all.

I figure I'll buy the updated edition at some point. I'm interested in seeing how they deal with advances in memory and if that affects their argument at all.
 
Weather is a subset of physical phenomenon occurring in the universe, grouped together because of our subjective experience. As such physics can explain a good bit if not all weather in terms of structure and dynamics.

Consciousness is our first person experience of physical - and mental - phenomenon. It's a wholly different category from weather, which is why we separate the Phenomenal from the Material.
What puts consciousness in a wholly different category?

So you think it's possible we have souls that direct our bodies?
Sorry, don't understand the question.

~~ Paul
 
I was thinking that much of parapsychology depends upon memory loss through overwriting by feedback. For example, Eban Alexander's 'memory' of seeing his unknown sister is overwritten by the photographic image he sees later of her. Most (all?) of the "remarkably accurate" events only occur under conditions of feedback.

This would be testable, I suspect. Comparisons could be made between brain activations when exposed to original vs. overwritten memories.

Linda

I'm not convinced this could be tested, or it would explain much. First you'd have to find people with definitively overwritten memories? And if this could be proven, perhaps it might challenge some reincarnation & NDE cases, but beyond that I think one would have to start doubting memory altogether if this ends up an accepted explanation.

For example, what would happen to abuse/assault cases where the only witness is the victim? Would we say the need for justice is so visceral it overwrites the image of a suspect's face onto the criminal event?

There's also the reverse effect. People overwrite memories that would have caused them to believe in a paranormal world given the fear and incomprehensibility of such a world, which allows them to dismiss veridical information.
 
I'm not convinced this could be tested, or it would explain much. First you'd have to find people with definitively overwritten memories? And if this could be proven, perhaps it might challenge some reincarnation & NDE cases, but beyond that I think one would have to start doubting memory altogether if this ends up an accepted explanation.

For example, what would happen to abuse/assault cases where the only witness is the victim? Would we say the need for justice is so visceral it overwrites the image of a suspect's face onto the criminal event?

You can experimentally manipulate the overwriting of people's memories. We already know that we can do so using feedback and repetition. For example, subjects watch a video of a person performing some actions. Later they are told that the person was in the act of performing a crime and they are asked to identify the person from a line-up. When someone similar in appearance is substituted for the actual suspect and the subject is given feedback that "this is the one", it would be evidence of overwritten memories when they subsequently confirm the identification of the substitute in preference to the actual suspect.

This also takes place in abuse/assault cases (and your suggestion about the visceral need for justice probably contributes). The Innocence Project provides examples of this phenomenon. Cases in which the victim was so sure of their identification that the conviction was based on this identification have been over-turned on DNA evidence. And it isn't the case that the victim recognizes the actual perpetrator, if they are subsequently exposed to the real perpetrator. The misidentified subject is still identified as the actual perpetrator, even if placed beside the real perpetrator. This suggests that this memory has been lost by being overwritten.

It seems pretty clear that explicit memory can be lost. In order to more definitively answer the question about lossless memory, though, I suspect that we would need to move on to the area of implicit memory testing, which is where psi phenomena seem to operate.

Linda
 
You can't say that if you are claiming that undocumented stories are comprised of unreliable information. The term "unreliable information" reflects an uncertainty as to whether that information is accurate or inaccurate. Realistically, you simply don't know to what extent cognitive bias and error are contributing to the information contained in a story that you have deemed unreliable (due to lack of appropriate documentation).

Don't mistake "unreliable" and "uncertain" as reflecting to the same thing. An account can be unreliable because the accuracy is unknown ("uncertainty") and it can be unreliable because the information is known to be inaccurate ("certainty"). Even when the accuracy of individual elements are unknown, the purview also tells you whether the information is reliable. ("These are the conditions under which unreliable stories are produced and these are the conditions under which reliable stories are produced. What conditions are present in this case?").

Additionally, the effect and its size can be measured directly, without knowing the accuracy of individual elements of the undocumented stories, by comparison with a control group of documented stories. This is how we know that aspirin is effective in the secondary prevention of heart attacks, even though we don't know whether aspirin has had any effect, or the size of that effect, in an individual.

There are multiple ways to get information about the effects of cognitive biases and memory errors from undocumented stories.

In the example you gave, the information about source misattribution came from the documented portion of the story (from what Sartori says in the interview). Without that information, there would be no way for you to claim that source misattribution had occurred in that respect. So the documented portion of the story is essential for identifying that particular bias (whether you are justified in concluding that source misattribution has occurred is another matter).

Right.

And the same for me. But I'm already confident that we agree on the fact that information deemed "unreliable" cannot tell us anything reliable about bias, memory error or psi.

Oops. I don't agree with that. There are many ways that unreliable information can tell us something reliable. That's one of the super-cool things about scientific methods. For example, subjective impressions of pain are highly unreliable when it comes to determining whether a particular treatment has an effect. But put those subjective impressions into a well-designed trial of a pain killer and they give highly reliable information about its effectiveness.

Linda
 
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