Sheldrake's recent morphic resonance talk (2013)

Bucky

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Here's a recent talk by Sheldrake (October 2013) that sums up pretty well the latest updates on his proposed model of "morphic resonance". I look forward to hearing about the results about some of the ongoing experiments that may provide further evidence to this hypothesis.

 
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Instead of your ''further evidence'', you might have better said ANY EVIDENCE. Since Oct 2013, there has been none.

What Sheldrake publications are you familiar with?

Personally I am not convinced by his arguments as of yet, but AFAICTell he has collected some evidence.
 
I did listen to it, when it was originally given, and have followed the notion ever since, and there is not evidence that it's true, but is just another mystical, magical, woo-woo concept.

Clearly you have never ever looked at the evidence at all, I doubt you've so much as glanced at any of the papers in parapsychology and have instead resorted to the stock response. "woo-woo"

http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm - feel free to peruse the literature, quite a few of those papers are published in mainstream journals.
 
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I did listen to it, when it was originally given, and have followed the notion ever since, and there is not evidence that it's true, but is just another mystical, magical, woo-woo concept.

I find many materialist evangelicals rely on the conditioning in society that makes people feel insecure about diverging from materialist doctrine. So you'll see "woo-woo" used, along with other pejoratives, designed to sway the reader with shaming tactics invoking in-group/out-group status selection.

It may not even be fully conscious on their part - neither the schoolyard bully nor the manipulative romantic partner need a degree in psychology after all.

While not unexpected, it is disappointing to see a self-proclaimed philosopher employ such tactics.
 
I did listen to it, when it was originally given, and have followed the notion ever since, and there is not evidence that it's true, but is just another mystical, magical, woo-woo concept.
Well my friend, you'll have to give us much more than slogans over here.
The presentation is chock full of substance, actual replicated studies and confirmatory experiments. The theory might be controversial but it's far from being devoid of evidence.

So, are you up to a serious discussion or is it just about selling cheap catchphrases?
 
I did listen to it, when it was originally given, and have followed the notion ever since, and there is not evidence that it's true, but is just another mystical, magical, woo-woo concept.
I've just given you some time to do more research. If you have a chance to study any parapsychological reseach over the next couple of days, please feel free to share it when you return. Otherwise, please refrain from posting until you understand the subject beyond the few slogans you keep repeating.

AP
 
I've just given you some time to do more research. If you have a chance to study any parapsychological reseach over the next couple of days, please feel free to share it when you return. Otherwise, please refrain from posting until you understand the subject beyond the few slogans you keep repeating.

AP
Sorry, the segregation is going to stay. It is too disruptive to have the kind of totally uninformed posts we formerly got in the old forum. If people want to debate things on the level of mind=brain, there is no evidence for psi, etc, they can do it here, with our blessings.

AP
 
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If trolling is presenting the "mainstream materialist" view (we are in the CD subforum)... I think some of the proponents might want to pause and consider what brings someone to the Skeptiko forum to test out those views. This was my point about the difference between the tone of the podcast and the forum in the other thread; if one is unaware of the history here it is a confusing place.

Bannings and post burnings belie the robustness of the debate on Alex's show, and transmit insecurity.
 
(It was clear dude was trolling, but I think discussion of banning goes in the Guideline forum? Seems unfair to derail Bucky's thread.)

On topic, as mentioned in the lost thread relating to morphic resonance I think McGinn's Consciousness and Space gives some arguments as to why the nonlocality of consciousness Sheldrake talks about might be on to something.

Consider a visual experience, E, as of a yellow flash. Associated with E in the cortex is a complex of neural structures and events, N, which does admit of spatial description. N occurs, say, an inch from the back of the head; it extends over some specific area of the cortex; it has some kind of configuration or contour; it is composed of spatial parts that aggregate into a structured whole; it exists in three spatial dimensions; it excludes other neural complexes from its spatial location. N is a regular denizen of space, as much as any other physical entity. But E seems not to have any of these spatial characteristics: it is not located at any specific place; it takes up no particular volume of space; it has no shape; it is not made up of spatially distributed parts; it has no spatial dimensionality; it is not solid. Even to ask for its spatial properties is to commit some sort of category mistake, analogous to asking for the spatial properties of numbers. E seems not to be the kind of thing that falls under spatial predicates. It falls under temporal predicates and it can obviously be described in other ways - by specifying its owner, its intentional content, its phenomenal character - but it resists being cast as a regular inhabitant of the space we see around us and within which the material world has its existence. Spatial occupancy is not (at least on the face of it) the mind's preferred mode of being.

No doubt this is connected with the fact that conscious states are not perceived. We perceive, by our various sense organs, a variety of material objects laid out in space, taking up certain volumes and separated by certain distances. We thus conceive of these perceptual objects as spatial entities; perception informs us directly of their spatiality. But conscious subjects and their mental states are not in this way perceptual objects. We do not see or hear or smell or touch them, and a fortiori do not perceive them as spatially individuated.(2) This holds both for the first- and third-person perspectives. Since we do not observe our own states of consciousness, nor those of others, we do not apprehend these states as spatial. So our modes of cognition of mental states do not bring them under the kinds of spatial concepts appropriate to perceptual acquaintance. Perceptual geometry gets no purchase on them. And this is not just a contingent fact about the mind.(3)

Nor do we think of conscious states as occupying an unperceived space, as we think of the unobservable entities of physics. We have no conception of what it would even be to perceive them as spatial entities. God may see the elementary particles as arrayed in space, but even He does not perceive our conscious states as spatially defined - no more than He sees numbers as spatially defined. It is not that experiences have location, shape and dimensionality for eyes that are sharper than ours. Since they are non-spatial they are in principle unperceivable.

This is I think what people have in mind when they aver that 'consciousness is not a thing'. The thought expressed here is not the trivial one that to refer to consciousness is to invoke a category of events or states or processes and not a category of objects or continuant particulars. Our intuition that conscious states are not spatial is not the intuition that no state is an object. For ordinary physical states and events are spatial entities in the intended sense: we apprehend events as occurring in space, and states are features of spatially constituted objects. So it would be wrong to offer a deflationary interpretation of our non-spatial conception of consciousness by insisting that it comes to nothing more than a recognition that talk of consciousness is talk of events and states - just like talk of explosions and motions and electric charge. The non-spatial nature of consciousness, as we conceive it, is much more radical than that diagnosis suggests. Descartes was not committing the simple howler of failing to notice that conscious phenomena are not objects at all and hence not spatial objects. In fact, even when we do speak of something that belongs to the category of continuant object, namely the subject of consciousness, we are still insistent upon its non-spatial character.(4) The self is not a 'thing' either, in the intended sense. The realm of the mental is just not bound up in the world of objects in space in the way that ordinary physical events are so bound up. So, at any rate, our pretheoretical view assures us.
 
If trolling is presenting the "mainstream materialist" view (we are in the CD subforum)... I think some of the proponents might want to pause and consider what brings someone to the Skeptiko forum to test out those views. This was my point about the difference between the tone of the podcast and the forum in the other thread; if one is unaware of the history here it is a confusing place.

Bannings and post burnings belie the robustness of the debate on Alex's show, and transmit insecurity.

I completely agree. Didn't like what he was saying, but that doesn't mean he should have been banned. That's sinking to the level of TED.
 
I completely agree. Didn't like what he was saying, but that doesn't mean he should have been banned. That's sinking to the level of TED.
I don't really think it is... it's not a matter of labels. You can be anything you wish to be... "mainstream materialist", "fervent christian", "hardcore new ager", ...it doesn't really matter if you have arguments instead of slogans. On the other hand when people jump in conversation just to fire their derogatory one-liners it is of no help to the conversation. It's just annoying and distracting those who participate. It doesn't add anything, it doesn't help people new to the topic to understand contrasting opinions.

cheers
 
I don't really think it is... it's not a matter of labels. You can be anything you wish to be... "mainstream materialist", "fervent christian", "hardcore new ager", ...it doesn't really matter if you have arguments instead of slogans. On the other hand when people jump in conversation just to fire their derogatory one-liners it is of no help to the conversation. It's just annoying and distracting those who participate. It doesn't add anything, it doesn't help people new to the topic to understand contrasting opinions.

cheers
Once again the defenders of debate support drive-by trolling as a human rights issue. Not once did D. Shropshire address any of the points Rupert Sheldrake made.

I understand where your both coming from... All I'd say is the mitigating factor is the forum that we are in; look how incongruous Andy's two posts are next to each other.

If people want to debate things on the level of mind=brain, there is no evidence for psi, etc, they can do it here, with our blessings.

Ignore poor arguments or try and engage if you fancy it. Ban and burn if you want to give the impression you've got a dogmatic worldvew to protect.



 
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Ignore poor arguments or try and engage if you fancy it. Ban and burn if you want to give the impression you've got a dogmatic worldvew to protect.
D. Shropshire showed no sign of engagement. Why should the board attempt to re-educate every militant skeptic who breezes through looking for an argument? There are numerous websites that welcome that kind of bun fight. The problem isn't posters like D. Shropshire who have their bit of fun and move on, it's resident skeptics who represent such mindless jibes as meaningful debate, and gripe when it's called for the rudeness it is.
 
D. Shropshire showed no sign of engagement.

Ok.

Why should the board attempt to re-educate every militant skeptic who breezes through looking for an argument?

Nobody is asking them to. But what you consider tired old arguments, may not seem that way to new members.

There are numerous websites that welcome that kind of bun fight.

This one? "If people want to debate things on the level of mind=brain, there is no evidence for psi, etc, they can do it here, with our blessings."

The problem isn't posters like D. Shropshire who have their bit of fun and move on, it's resident skeptics who represent such mindless jibes as meaningful debate, and gripe when it's called for the rudeness it is.

Charming. Maybe this isn't the sub forum for you gabriel?
 
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