Greg Moffitt, the Placebo Effect is Consciousness |477|

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Greg Moffitt, the Placebo Effect is Consciousness |477|
by Alex Tsakiris | Dec 15 | Consciousness Science
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Greg Moffitt explores the placebo effect and evil science.
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Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:00] Greg, we just wrapped up our interview and I thought we had an awesome conversation. I wanted to share it with the Skeptiko audience. We did part one and we’re going to do a part two and I’d love to share both parts with them. So as a way of an introduction because we didn’t really plan on completely doing it that way as kind of a swap cast kind of thing. Can you let people know a little bit more about, you know, who is Greg Moffitt, your background and what you do.
Greg Moffitt: [00:00:28] Just to keep it brief, Alex, if people go to legalize dash freedom.com, you can spell legalize with an S or a Z, they’ll find a bio there and that’s where I host most of my current work. Podcasts I’ve been doing since 2012. Over 300 shows there,Inquiry into Life, The Universe and everything If people are familiar with Skeptico, I think they’ll find a lot to interest in there. There’s also a series of free articles and yeah, so legalize dash freedom.com with an S if you’re in Europe with a Z if you’re in the US. That’s about it, I think. Hello and welcome Alex and thank you so much for joining us today on legalize freedom com.
 
Alex - the file name you use for the download isn't in the usual format - it should include the number 477. I know this sounds nitpicky, but I keep the podcasts and I use that number to index what I have. I imagine I will not be the only person who does something of this sort.

David
 
I very much liked Alex's take down of the idea of a Jungian analysis of AGW (or indeed COVID). The problem is that it side-steps the question of the validity of the science completely!

I am not too sure if sea levels are the key to rejecting AGW, however, because the oceans have an enormous heat capacity, so there could be warming taking place, but we wouldn't notice the expansion of the oceans for a long time (I think). However, I'd certainly bow to Judith Curry if she disagrees.
However, of course, the fact is that they predicted these huge sea level changes in the space of a few years - so sure the fact that they haven't happened is important!

To me, the crucial issue is that the officially 'measured' global temperature rise of 1.0 C in 140 years is too small to be believable, because it is smaller than many of the corrections that have to be made to the raw data. Indeed, by adjusting these corrections, the current accepted value is 1.0 C, whereas it used to be taken as 0.8 C (and the difference isn't caused by additional warming). The warming curve over that interval, also doesn't resemble the CO2 concentration curve over the same time period.

David
 
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I feel like Alex & Greg are closing in on what people need to awaken to. It's likely a number of things, but I think one of the major ones is don't be one of the sheeple; think for yourself. I won't be vaccinated; I haven't had the flu in over 25 years b/c I avoid most any large gathering over 8 people, eat properly & exercise often, & I don't take flu shots. After I read that flu shots gave a certain percentage of sheeple the flu, I decided I'd find some other avenue to stay healthy.
If I was going to produce a killer movie right now, it would include the intention of the One World forces to take advantage of a 'plandemic' to stampede the masses into getting vaccinated. Included w/ the vitamins & other substances to make those who cooperated feel a bit stronger & better, there would also be nano-devices to allow GPS tracking & RNA fragments that would make dottering slaves of them the way some ants & other creatures exploit other species to serve them. It just occurred to me that the right-wing program to make the schools the 'mothers' & educators of our children does sound a lot like what one ant species does. They invade a specific ant nest & carry away the eggs so that the ants that hatch out serve their kidnappers all their lives. Some groups apparently want everyone dependent on & serving the state, i.e., the rich & powerful, by destroying the economy & forcing a welfare/subsistence existence on us.
That extreme view aside, it IS obvious that the some of the very wealthy don't care if you know they don't give a shit about you. One of the front men for Mind Valley called out Elon Musk for saying that to succeed, you must work a 60 hour week. tRump is the most bald-faced example of a user of people who will call them losers as he wrings every last drop of blood out of their carcasses. Shedding our hyper-dependence on fossil fuels carries so many benefits that who cares if they are contributing to global climate change? All the downsides of F.F. makes it imperative that we change our ways. Atomic power is the same kind of lunacy; it carries a vague promise of 'clean energy' but at what a cost? It's just like F.F.: it's dangerous to mine, process, transport, use, & depose of. There is an article about New Zealand finishing storage facilities deep in the earth for nuclear waste for 3 power plants. The designers used some creative & thoughtful ways to warn our descendants not to tunnel any deeper, but they readily admit that communicating w/ sentient beings 25,000 to 250,000 years in the future is guesswork at best.
 
I feel like Alex & Greg are closing in on what people need to awaken to. It's likely a number of things, but I think one of the major ones is don't be one of the sheeple; think for yourself. I won't be vaccinated; I haven't had the flu in over 25 years b/c I avoid most any large gathering over 8 people, eat properly & exercise often, & I don't take flu shots. After I read that flu shots gave a certain percentage of sheeple the flu, I decided I'd find some other avenue to stay healthy.
Agreed! I would advise taking Vitamin D every day, unless you live in a very sunny part of the world, and actually get out in it. I don't intend taking the vaccine, at least until we see how people fare with it. It has not been properly tested.
If I was going to produce a killer movie right now, it would include the intention of the One World forces to take advantage of a 'plandemic' to stampede the masses into getting vaccinated. Included w/ the vitamins & other substances to make those who cooperated feel a bit stronger & better, there would also be nano-devices to allow GPS tracking & RNA fragments that would make dottering slaves of them the way some ants & other creatures exploit other species to serve them.
Sorry, I simply do not believe the nano-device scare - because I do not think it is technically possible.
It just occurred to me that the right-wing program to make the schools the 'mothers' & educators of our children does sound a lot like what one ant species does. They invade a specific ant nest & carry away the eggs so that the ants that hatch out serve their kidnappers all their lives. Some groups apparently want everyone dependent on & serving the state, i.e., the rich & powerful, by destroying the economy & forcing a welfare/subsistence existence on us.
I don't know, I have heard this rumour, but it does sound a bit vague. OTH, the money that Bill Gates and others may earn from the vaccine (not to mention the COVID tests) might motivate this scam.
That extreme view aside, it IS obvious that the some of the very wealthy don't care if you know they don't give a shit about you. One of the front men for Mind Valley called out Elon Musk for saying that to succeed, you must work a 60 hour week.
A man like that may be simply describing how he behaved at the start of his carreer.
tRump is the most bald-faced example of a user of people who will call them losers as he wrings every last drop of blood out of their carcasses.
I value Trump for his aversion to war. For me avoiding war is the highest priority.
Shedding our hyper-dependence on fosil fuels carries so many benefits that who cares if they are contributing to global climate change? All the downsides of F.F. makes it imperative that we change our ways.
The trouble with things like windmills, is that, deployed on a large scale they despoil vast tracts of land, and standing on the shoreline isn't quite the same if there is a forest of windmills out there too. They also supply intermittent power - can you imagine what that may be like? At the moment gas fired power stations are maintained on idle to buffer the supply - thus reducing the reduction of CO2 achieved! Solar arrays, obviously do not work at night, and produce much lower power outputs in cloudy conditions.
Atomic power is the same kind of lunacy; it carries a vague promise of 'clean energy' but at what a cost? It's just like F.F.: it's dangerous to mine, process, transport, use, & depose of. There is an article about New Zealand finishing storage facilities deep in the earth for nuclear waste for 3 power plants. The designers used some creative & thoughtful ways to warn our descendants not to tunnel any deeper, but they readily admit that communicating w/ sentient beings 25,000 to 250,000 years in the future is guesswork at best.

You should read about the Hormesis effect. This is the discovery that many poisons (probably including radiation) are actually beneficial at lower concentrations. This is obviously true of many things - too much alcohol will kill you, whereas moderate drinking is reconed to be beneficial.
However the dangers of radiation are calculated by looking at the effect of really large doses and scaling down to doses on the assumption that half the dose causes half the number of cancers, etc.

One reason why low levels of radiation may be beneficial is that they stimulate the DNA repair mechanisms in the cell. Indeed, many spa waters used to be valued for their minute traces of radium!

I would rather we went on using fosil fuels such as natural gas until there is a sensible replacement. Again, I think Trump appreciates this. Remember the elites of which you spoke earlier, don't care if the masses struggle with intermittent power - they wil have huge expensive battery arrays, or generators on their premises.

Michael Shellenburger was a climate activist who actually worked in the field. He became very dissillusioned and wrote about it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apocalypse...keywords=schellenberger&qid=1608223766&sr=8-1

I'd strongly recommend this book, regardless of your views on AGW etc.

David
 
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Hi. I just listened to this interview and toward the end Greg mentioned digging in a bit more into the conspiratorial angle and the "gaming" of things in a future conversation. This reminded me of this documentary that I just watched called Imperium.

This is a compilation of multiple documentaries exploring Satanic sexual abuse and also mind control. Toward the end of this documentary is an interview (in Dutch with English subtitles) with former high level banker Ronald Bernard who claims to have bailed out of the system that he was in when he rediscovered his moral compass and refused to go along with ritual murder of children.

I'd heard him being interviewed in the past, but in this interview he actually mentions how this very high level of finance steers the majority of humanity into whatever direction they want to as if they were sheep.

I realize that this perspective is nothing that hasn't been said before but I found his point of view to be different by way of the position that he held as a high level banker.

Imperium is laid out in two parts each of which has five or six sections. Another section earlier in this link has Paul Bonacci, a victim of Monarch mind contro,l in a deposition where one of his alters is speaking. When the questioner insists on an answer by saying that he had sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the alter says that he had not sworn to this. Apparently Paul Bonacci swore to tell the truth but not this alter. I found this very chilling.


I copied this link at the point where Ronald Bernard begins.
 
Agreed! I would advise taking Vitamin D every day, unless you live in a very sunny part of the world, and actually get out in it. I don't intend taking the vaccine, at least until we see how people fare with it. It has not been properly tested.

Sorry, I simply do not believe the nano-device scare - because I do not think it is technically possible.

I don't know, I have heard this rumour, but it does sound a bit vague. OTH, the money that Bill Gates and others may earn from the vaccine (not to mention the COVID tests) might motivate this scam.

A man like that may be simply describing how he behaved at the start of his carreer.

I value Trump for his aversion to war. For me avoiding war is the highest priority.

The trouble with things like windmills, is that, deployed on a large scale they despoil vast tracts of land, and standing on the shoreline isn't quite the same if there is a forest of windmills out there too. They also supply intermittent power - can you imagine what that may be like? At the moment gas fired power stations are maintained on idle to buffer the supply - thus reducing the reduction of CO2 achieved! Solar arrays, obviously do not work at night, and produce much lower power outputs in cloudy conditions.


You should read about the Hormesis effect. This is the discovery that many poisons (probably including radiation) are actually beneficial at lower concentrations. This is obviously true of many things - too much alcohol will kill you, whereas moderate drinking is reconed to be beneficial.
However the dangers of radiation are calculated by looking at the effect of really large doses and scaling down to doses on the assumption that half the dose causes half the number of cancers, etc.

One reason why low levels of radiation may be beneficial is that they stimulate the DNA repair mechanisms in the cell. Indeed, many spa waters used to be valued for their minute traces of radium!

I would rather we went on using fosil fuels such as natural gas until there is a sensible replacement. Again, I think Trump appreciates this. Remember the elites of which you spoke earlier, don't care if the masses struggle with intermittent power - they wil have huge expensive battery arrays, or generators on their premises.

Michael Shellenburger was a climate activist who actually worked in the field. He became very dissillusioned and wrote about it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apocalypse...keywords=schellenberger&qid=1608223766&sr=8-1

I'd strongly recommend this book, regardless of your views on AGW etc.

David
Thanks for the comments. I don't trust anything tRump says. If a war was to his advantage, he'd march off the losers (everyone but himself) without batting an eye. It is remarkable that people actually thought he'd work to avoid war when he's shown over & over his word means nothing because he will lie as long as it serves him & even after it doesn't. He continues to tout evidence of voter fraud pouring in even though practically no one wants hear about it because they don't believe it. Most people are so happy to be rid of him soon that they've stopped listening to him. I honestly expect him to do something dramatic as he's forced out of the WH, like beat the hell out of Melanie. If she disappears for weeks after he's removed, I will bet she spent them in a private hospital.

The whole issue of what we're going to replace F.F. w/ is a big mess. I certainly agree w/ you that we can't abandon sensible stuff like natural gas any time soon, but we must move on to the alternatives. We must develop all the sensible alternatives ASAP, w/ the exclusion of atomic power unless there is a breakthrough w/ the plans to bombard nuclear waste until it's safe to bury. Maybe you've heard of the massive program in Turkey. They're building these huge hydroelectric projects b/c they know F.F. will soon be a thing of the past.
 
Thanks for the comments. I don't trust anything tRump says. If a war was to his advantage, he'd march off the losers (everyone but himself) without batting an eye.
There came a point in the standoff with Iran, when the Iranians had attacked a US base in Iraq (I think without killing anyone). He asked his generals to select an appropriate response. He set the wheels turning, but then asked them for an estimated death toll (of Iranians). They came back with a figure of just over 200 (I forget exactly) and he said that was too great a loss of life - and cancelled the attack. He got a lot of flak for that, but a lot of admiration from me, and Nigel Farage, and other peace loving people.

Something slightly different happened regarding the fake gas attacks in Syria, but his attack killed nobody (or almost nobody - it is hard to be certain about these things), and of course it did not pull the US into a wider war.

The only war he actively pursued was to clear out ISIS. When people reach the point where they simply want to kill themselves plus as many others as possible, what else can you do - what would you have done in his position.

He has also managed to arrange a number of Middle East peace deals - getting Arabs and Jews cooperating in their various lands seems pretty constructive to me.

If we don't have a decent substitute for F.F. and give them up anyway, a LOT of people are going to die. Food distribution will fail, people in Canada, Britain and many other colder countries will simply freeze to death in the winter. Please read the book I lined to, and remember, he worked in the Third World actively to promote a Green agenda. He doesn't even argue the Climate Change issue - but I think this is also a fraud. I used to assume it was true until I tried looking into it. As I said the evidence is really lost in the noise of computer corrections made to the data.

Obviously some terrains make hydroelectric schemes feasible, others don't. Remember that every proposed hydroelectric scheme is opposed on environmental grounds.

The first question should be whether there is any real need to abandon natural gas right now.

David
 
Well, I think Mr Gates has enough potential malevolence to release on the world with vaccines, so please don't let him anywhere near nuclear power! As for, 'we won't be able to run the world without nuclear power', well maybe physics has also been censored and denied to the the vast majority of humanity, just as much - if not more - than the other sciences. Do we really need to explode the nuclei of atoms and spew radioactive billiard ball particles all over Mother Earth just to keep the lights on? There is something called implosion energy, but that would require an appreciation of the feminine on a metaphysical level, which is absent from our culture. That's the real cause of the crisis we are now facing, and it goes back a long way into our past; to the time that the Yamnaya warriors forced their Y chromosomes into the genome of Old Europe to be exact. It's been patriarchal imperialism - powered by rampant patriarchal consciousness - ever since.

Rene Descartes has a lot to answer for. It was he who invented psycho-physical dualism, thereby opening up the chasm between consciousness and matter. This allowed the materialist ideologues to brush consciousness aside as a mere epiphenomenon and to get right to the heart of the matter, which is where the action is if you want to dominate and control the world. The Cartesian schism between mind and matter also forced philosophy and science apart, allowing the latter to focus exclusively on 'mechanistic materialistic nature'. Yet this division is very uneasy, if not false. if I may paraphrase A N Whitehead. Without wishing to sound melodramatic, I think we are now entering a period when we will need to deal with this toxic cultural inheritance, for the sake of humanity and the entire planet. The body politic needs its very own placebo effect.
 
A show about the Placebo Effect would be highly worthwhile...

But instead we get the usual crazy conspiracy rant...

And as usual, no evidence is provided for the conspiracies...

And as usual, Alex takes over the interview and ignores the guest...

And as usual, Alex pretends to be apolitical, but all the while spouting Qanon/pizzagate/climatehoax/plandemic/gates/Icke/Trumpisjesus/jumpthetrumpsharkTrumpwon...

...And only americans and canadians can think freely...

...It makes me want to go to Tasmania and drink a nice cup of tea at the Theosophical Society cafe.
 
Hi. I just listened to this interview and toward the end Greg mentioned digging in a bit more into the conspiratorial angle and the "gaming" of things in a future conversation. This reminded me of this documentary that I just watched called Imperium.

This is a compilation of multiple documentaries exploring Satanic sexual abuse and also mind control. Toward the end of this documentary is an interview (in Dutch with English subtitles) with former high level banker Ronald Bernard who claims to have bailed out of the system that he was in when he rediscovered his moral compass and refused to go along with ritual murder of children.

I'd heard him being interviewed in the past, but in this interview he actually mentions how this very high level of finance steers the majority of humanity into whatever direction they want to as if they were sheep.

I realize that this perspective is nothing that hasn't been said before but I found his point of view to be different by way of the position that he held as a high level banker.

Imperium is laid out in two parts each of which has five or six sections. Another section earlier in this link has Paul Bonacci, a victim of Monarch mind contro,l in a deposition where one of his alters is speaking. When the questioner insists on an answer by saying that he had sworn to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the alter says that he had not sworn to this. Apparently Paul Bonacci swore to tell the truth but not this alter. I found this very chilling.


I copied this link at the point where Ronald Bernard begins.
thx. I'll check it out
 
January 9, 2021. San Diego County public health officials reported a record 4,550 new COVID-19 infections Friday along with 33 deaths from the virus as hospitalizations again reached a new record. Friday's cases surpass the 4,478 cases reported last Friday and 4,427 on Saturday. They mark the 39th consecutive day with more than 1,000 new diagnoses.

Hospitalizations resulting from the virus rose to a record 1,753 on Friday. Of those, 401 COVID-19 patients are in ICU beds. The HHSA reported a 89% increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the last 30 days and a 67% increase in ICU admittance in the same period.

"It's not a real virus." David Icke on Skeptiko.
 
You do know this data is fraudulent, yes ?

Whether or not the data is fraudulent has no bearing on whether it's a real virus. It would still be a real virus if there was no data or perfect data. David Icke's statement, "It's not a real virus," is demonstratively false and contributed to uncontrolled spread of disease and large death toll. It was mistaken of Alex to laud him as a truth teller when he is spreading false claims.
 
Whether or not the data is fraudulent has no bearing on whether it's a real virus. It would still be a real virus if there was no data or perfect data. David Icke's statement, "It's not a real virus," is demonstratively false and contributed to uncontrolled spread of disease and large death toll. It was mistaken of Alex to laud him as a truth teller when he is spreading false claims.
Dan, I don't think it is quite that simple.

If you think back over your life, I am sure you have encountered a variety of unnamed bugs that made you ill for a few days, or even slightly longer, but which you just had to ride out.

What you may not be aware of, is that all those bugs are potentially deadly for someone with a compromised immune system or other problems. Often people used to die of cancer, although technically they died of one of these nameless bugs.

For some strange reason, anyone who tests positive for COVID and dies within 28 days, is assumed to have died of the virus, even though they had plenty wrong with them to explain their death. Thus IMHO it is disingenuous to talk about the large death toll without somehow disentangling who died of COVID and who died with COVID.

The big difference from those previous bugs, is that it is now possible to explicitly test for the presence of the COVID virus - with the PCR test., however, it is not at all clear how often these tests record a false positive.

Certainly for the vast majority of people, this is an unpleasant bug just like the ones we have all met before. Indeed, in the UK the advice to people with COVID symptoms is to get tested, but then stay at home for 10 days to recover.

I base what I have said partly from a blog run by a UK doctor, who is exasperated by what is going on right now - I don't base it on David Icke.

David
 
That is a hyperbolic exaggeration, and you know it.

Thus one can only conclude that some grudge motivates your slander of David Icke.
it's not an exaggeration. The exaggeration is the death toll exaggerated by virus deniers. My grudge is directed towards Alex, whom I have learned from and respected for many years. He's mantra is "follow the data where it leads." It leads to 400,000 deaths and 25,000,000 infections. How he continues to go on-air and promote David Icke for a Nobel Prize is beyond my comprehension.
 
Dan, I don't think it is quite that simple.
Certainly for the vast majority of people, this is an unpleasant bug just like the ones we have all met before.
David

In Belmont Manor, a 5-Star assisted living facility outside Boston, 56 people in the 135-bed facility died from confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections between April to September. That’s more than four deaths per 10 beds. A friend of mine's father died there. It's more than 4 times the expected death rate. David Icke said, "It's not a real virus." That's false. He's a fraud.
 
Dan,

I am 71 - not quite in the real danger zone for COVID, but I would not want to extend my life one bit at the expense of the utter tragedy the lockdowns are imposing on the young people and people at school.

In Britain the summer exams have been cancelled - which means whatever learning from home is going on has become aimless. We will never be able to make up to those children. There are also masses and masses of people who were running their own businesses, but are now seeing them wrecked. I know a group of young people who had set up a very successful cafe which has run off and on through the lockdowns. I asked them at one point, and yes they still have to pay the rent on the shop - even with no income coming in.

The issue is not the technical one of whether the virus exists - it is the utter obscenity of wrecking the lives of people in their youth - who have hardly started on life - for the sake of very old people kept alive by chemo, which leaves them vulnerable to just about any virus.

David
 
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