RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

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willbeurdaddy -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/23/2011 9:47:43 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster http://dailygrail.com/Interviews/2004/4/Dr-Rick-Strassman-Conversation-DMT Yep, and here's one for you... Johns Hopkins study finds Psilocybin dosage 'sweet spot' for positive and lasting effect K. Careful, yoiu may give him flashbacks.

lickenforyou -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/23/2011 11:32:56 PM)
No, we are not talking past each other. I said that “The NDEs and OBEs that people point to as "evidence" have almost all been artificially recreated” I did not say that it had been artificially recreated during a flatline. I was trying to find some common ground. Or, as you put it, “...set some things aside by stipulating to a few points of agreement.” So, we agree to stipulate that individuals can be caused to have experiences artificially, by a variety of interventions, etc... I then posted a quote from Dr. John Greenfield: Professor of Neurology at the University of Toledo, College of Medicine. Who is a believer in NDEs and OBEs. Talking about having a complex near-death experience, as it’s described, without anything showing up on their EEG. Dr. John Greenfield: “Well, as I mentioned to you before, I think the likelihood of that is pretty low.” Dr. Greenfield is saying what you are saying. Except that he qualifies it with ”the likelihood of that is pretty low” I’m saying that he is not willing to go all the way and absolutely state that there is no brain activity at all when the EEG is flatlined. I’m saying that there is the possibility that there is undetected brain activity. Not definitely, but maybe. quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata And those aside, despite the National Geographic headline consider the following from the article body: The one difficulty in arguing that CO2 is the cause is that in cardiac arrests, everybody has high CO2 but only 10 percent have NDEs," The writer of the article is clearly misunderstanding the data here "We found that in those patients who experienced the phenomenon, blood carbon-dioxide levels were significantly higher than in those who did not," quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata said neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. What's more, in heart attack patients, Fenwick said, "there is no coherent cerebral activity which could support consciousness, let alone an experience with the clarity of an NDE." I simply don’t believe that enough is known about the brain to make that statement. As I said before I hope that you’re right and I’m wrong. But, I’ll believe when I see it. And I posted that article to show that there may be different explanations and that the research continues. Edited to correct format

DomKen -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/24/2011 2:38:07 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen Do you even know what string theory is? I know English. You should learn it. We use it a lot around here. Ok so you don't know. I recommend you find out and then you'll know how utterly ridiculous your claims are compared to what the scientist said directly.

Kirata -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/24/2011 12:24:15 PM)
I would like to ask you nicely to observe a certain convention in responding to posts, namely, that what someone says is what they said. Not what they didn't say, not what you hallucinated, and not what your supernatural powers told you the words "really" meant. Will you try to work on that? Thank you. K.

DomKen -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/24/2011 12:50:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata I would like to ask you nicely to observe a certain convention in responding to posts, namely, that what someone says is what they said. Not what they didn't say, not what you hallucinated, and not what your supernatural powers told you the words "really" meant. Will you try to work on that? Thank you. K. Then explain string theory. And don't just quote wiki or some other source. Then tell me how what the scientist said doesn't indicate he doesn't consider his math and proposed experiment to be evidence for a unified field theory. IOW your claim in the previous post is at variance with what string theory is supposed to be and showed fairly convincingly that you don't know what you are talking about. I even gave you the opportunity to clarify your post and you replied with snark so I took the only available option, that you have no idea what string theory is. Also I will point out that you brought snark and insult into this debate before I did and your tone has failed to improve. So if you want to be treated respectfully I suggest you try being respectful of others.

Kirata -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/24/2011 1:41:28 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: lickenforyou I’m saying that there is the possibility that there is undetected brain activity. Not definitely, but maybe. I don't see why you think this would make any difference. One of the reasons many people are convinced that consciousness is simply brain activity is that we have established so many correlates between experience and the brain. We can tell, for example, whether someone is conscious, dreaming, in a dreamless sleep, or totally unconscious. And none of these states is consistent with an absence of detectable brain activity, even if we grant the possibility that such may exist. K.

Kirata -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/24/2011 10:54:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen That's why I cautioned against reading press releases if you do not know the subject well enough to spot the hype inserted by the author. String theory has long been criticized for being a interesting pastime, but not much beyond that because of its failure to produce any testable falsifiable predictions. The only claim that I see being made here is that string theory does in fact appear to make falsifiable predictions about quantum entanglement that can be tested in the laboratory. quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen However this will have no bearing on whether string theory accurately models the 4 fundamental forces nor will it shed light on whether electrons and quarks are strings or not which is what string theory is about. Well, granted. And in all fairness, I'll allow that a "test of string theory" might be construed in broader terms than the body of the article supports. But in equal fairness, the article did take pains to correct any such impression. However, given your view that string theory predicts nothing and not ever likely to, I gather you think the applicability of the math here is just a coincidence? K.

DomKen -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/25/2011 5:15:17 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen That's why I cautioned against reading press releases if you do not know the subject well enough to spot the hype inserted by the author. String theory has long been criticized for being a interesting pastime, but not much beyond that because of its failure to produce any testable falsifiable predictions. The only claim that I see being made here is that string theory does in fact appear to make falsifiable predictions about quantum entanglement that can be tested in the laboratory. quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen However this will have no bearing on whether string theory accurately models the 4 fundamental forces nor will it shed light on whether electrons and quarks are strings or not which is what string theory is about. Well, granted. And in all fairness, I'll allow that a "test of string theory" might be construed in broader terms than the body of the article supports. But in equal fairness, the article did take pains to correct any such impression. However, given your view that string theory predicts nothing and not ever likely to, I gather you think the applicability of the math here is just a coincidence? K. Coincidence is not quite right, tangential is more what I think. The guy was trying to develop string theory based math for what goes on near the event horizon of a black hole and his calculations bore a strong resemblance to someone elses work on explaining what is going on in quantum entanglement. If his work adapted to QE made some prediction not otherwise made by QM and GR then that actually would be evidence in favor of string theory as a whole but he has taken care to say it won't. So, taking him at his word, it appears he does not think his work can lead to a falsifiable prediction made by string theory.

VideoAdminXi -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/25/2011 6:07:07 AM)
The personal attacks need to stop right now. I had to pull some informative, well written posts because a few are spitting venom. Xi

lickenforyou -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/25/2011 10:21:00 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: lickenforyou I’m saying that there is the possibility that there is undetected brain activity. Not definitely, but maybe. I don't see why you think this would make any difference. One of the reasons many people are convinced that consciousness is simply brain activity is that we have established so many correlates between experience and the brain. We can tell, for example, whether someone is conscious, dreaming, in a dreamless sleep, or totally unconscious. And none of these states is consistent with an absence of detectable brain activity, even if we grant the possibility that such may exist. K. I really don't understand how that could be an argument against the possibility. The question here is what is happening when the brain or body is experiencing trauma. We know that the body does amazing things in traumatic and/or life threatening situations. I don't know much about the following website, but I agree with some of the statements I found here so far http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/near-death-experience4.htm The experiences of people whose out-of-body adventures allow them to see and hear events that their unconscious body shouldn't be able to perceive are more difficult to explain. However, it is plausible that unconscious people can still register sensory cues and prior knowledge and incorporate them into their NDE. Whether this is more plausible than the subject's soul floating out of their body is a matter of personal opinion. Of course, this only scratches the surface of all the possible explanations for an NDE. NDEs seem to offer some hope that death is not necessarily something to be feared, nor is it the end of consciousness. Even science has a difficult time grasping death -- the medical community has struggled with specific definitions for clinical death, organ death and brain death for decades. For every aspect of an NDE, there is at least one scientific explanation for it. And for every scientific explanation, there seem to be five NDE cases that defy it.

Kirata -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/25/2011 10:34:06 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: lickenforyou However, it is plausible that unconscious people can still register sensory cues and prior knowledge and incorporate them into their NDE. I just want to point out, yet again, that in the cases that impress me we're not just talking about people who are simply unconscious. There is still plenty of detectable electrical activity going on even in the brain of an unconscious person. We're talking about no detectable brain activity. Zip. The "consciousness-server" is down. If the brain is still somehow supporting consciousness, then all our hard-won knowledge about the brain and conscious experience is wrong. Because something's gotta give, one way or the other. And I think our research is pretty solid in that respect. K.

lickenforyou -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/25/2011 11:31:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: lickenforyou However, it is plausible that unconscious people can still register sensory cues and prior knowledge and incorporate them into their NDE. I just want to point out, yet again, that in the cases that impress me we're not just talking about people who are simply unconscious. There is still plenty of detectable electrical activity going on even in the brain of an unconscious person. We're talking about no detectable brain activity. Zip. The "consciousness-server" is down. If the brain is still somehow supporting consciousness, then all our hard-won knowledge about the brain and conscious experience is wrong. Because something's gotta give, one way or the other. And I think our research is pretty solid in that respect. K. And, I'll point out, yet again, that I don't think we know enough about the brain to make such declarative statements. And again, most people who do research on the brain admit we know very little. And, I don't think it matters how hard information was to come by, if it's wrong it's wrong. And, the cases that I've read have too much room for exaggeration and many/most/all have plausible explanations.

Kirata -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 12:27:54 AM)
Your attitude toward this issue has ranged from the absurd ("Dig a corpse up after six months and he tells the same story, then I'll believe it") to the point where now you're even willing to toss away decades of neurological science if that's what it takes to avoid having to credit the existence of a known phenomenon. Tell ya what... have it your way. [:D] K.

lickenforyou -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 1:23:20 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata Your attitude toward this issue has ranged from the absurd ("Dig a corpse up after six months and he tells the same story, then I'll believe it") to the point where now you're even willing to toss away decades of neurological science if that's what it takes to avoid having to credit the existence of a known phenomenon. Tell ya what... have it your way. [:D] K. *"Dig a corpse up after six months and he tells the same story, then I'll believe it"* Seriously? You didn't pick up on the sarcasm? You thought that was an actual argument? And, it was from a different thread. I won't tell you to "have it your way" because I know that you will. After years of debating religion I know that I'm not going to change someone's mind who believes that they're going to live forever. As far as your assertion that I'm "willing to toss away decades of neurological science" I've provided the following quote from the Miami Brain Endowment Bank Director Neuroscientist Deborah Mash We've learned more about the human brain during the last ten years than throughout all of history. Yet neuroscience is still in its infancy. http://www6.miami.edu/miami-magazine/spring98/brains.html Edited for formatting

DeviantlyD -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 1:51:36 AM)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23768436/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/dead-man-recovering-after-atv-accident/ http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/11/husband-celebrates-miracle-brain-dead-wife-wakes-hospital/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113681104

lickenforyou -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 2:38:14 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DeviantlyD http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23768436/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/t/dead-man-recovering-after-atv-accident/ http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/11/husband-celebrates-miracle-brain-dead-wife-wakes-hospital/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113681104 You posted this in reply to me? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

DeviantlyD -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 2:50:19 AM)
I was just supporting your commentary in the sense that what is currently defined as "brain dead" isn't always the case and that much more about the brain has yet to be discovered. I saw an interesting documentary years ago, produced by the BBC. It was about three individuals of average or above average intelligence who had virtually no brain matter. According to various scans, they had a layer of brain tissue and a mass of cerebral fluid, but that was it. I wish I could recall more details.

lickenforyou -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 3:15:38 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DeviantlyD I was just supporting your commentary in the sense that what is currently defined as "brain dead" isn't always the case and that much more about the brain has yet to be discovered. I saw an interesting documentary years ago, produced by the BBC. It was about three individuals of average or above average intelligence who had virtually no brain matter. According to various scans, they had a layer of brain tissue and a mass of cerebral fluid, but that was it. I wish I could recall more details. Okay, that's what I thought. Thanks for the info! "individuals of average or above average intelligence who had virtually no brain matter" That's weird, I know several people who are just the opposite.

DeviantlyD -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 3:24:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: lickenforyou "individuals of average or above average intelligence who had virtually no brain matter" That's weird, I know several people who are just the opposite. LOL!!!! Gee, hope my neighbours don't hear me crackin' up here.

rawtape -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/26/2011 10:57:16 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: rawtape I think Descartes was wrong too regarding "Cogito ergo sum," but for me the error lies in his trying to sneak in a bunch of premises that he never explicitly articulates. When people try to unpack cogito ergo sum they frequently manage to pull more things out of the bag than it contains. Descartes arrived at his famous formulation by engaging in an exercise of hyperbolic doubt, casting aside everything he possibly could until he found that there was one thing he was unable to doubt, namely, that he was an experiencing being. K, sorry, didn't catch this response the first time around. I think one of the hidden premises there lies in "I think" or, as Descartes really meant, "I doubt". I think a more accurate statement would be "Thoughts occur." Implicit, but not explicitly articulated, in his formulation is the premise that for thoughts to occur, there must be a thinking entity, him.

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