Exactly. And that’s why such experience, often described as “anecdotal evidence,” has no validity in science. It is of no value whatsoever as proof.
Experience CAN serve as the jumping-off point for a discussion, the seed for an hypothesis, or the spark for an urge to investigate, if you don’t mind me mixing metaphors.
I would say your very act of questioning Doug’s Staff Report constitutes a position, albeit a weak one. Apparently the SR did not satisfy your curiosity. Isn’t that why you started this thread?
As far as “consciousness operating at a distance,” nothing has been brought to the table to suggest that this is possible or has been detected under reliable conditions. Science suggests that it isn’t even likely. Our own CityBoy916’s test has so far produced no results. Others that claim to have the power have not allowed themselves to be properly tested. Repeated requests for good evidence from you or others has not produced any. The evidence for even “questioning” the SR is not getting stronger.
Now, I think a rational person with an open mind, one who has not formed a preconceived notion about AP or who insists on clinging to hopeless causes, would conclude that the alleged phenomena does not exist. If you feel otherwise, how about telling us what the strongest argument that you have seen or heard so far is?
If that were the case, then equipment designed to detect electromagnetic fields would be able to easily find the location of the spirit, as well as measure its properties.
That aside, let me throw your question right back at you. How do we know that the signals we pick up from television broadcasting antennas are really coming from the antenna? After all, they may be coming from another source, like a spirit that likes TV.
The cells cause the reactions via a separation of electric charge across the cell’s membrane, as caused by the membrane’s ability to control the diffusion of ions.
The electrical and chemical properties of neurons are very well understood, and have been scrutinized in great detail, including individual neurons, separated from the brain, exhibiting electrical activity that is exactly in line with what the chemistry of the cell suggests.
To claim that these cells are acting as antennae for some sort of “spirit” is to completely ignore the chemical reaction taking place within those cells. In fact, the only way that the signals detected from the brain could be from some other source would be if every cell in your brain were dead, and thus no longer undergoing any chemical reactions.
What evidence? Please cite.
And note, I have read the “studies” that you linked to above, and I am not impressed in the least.
One study addresses the factors that seem to determine which cardiac patients will experience a NDE. That study never addressed whether or not NDEs (let alone spirits) are “real”. Therefore, that study is useless for your purposes.
Another is a news article discussing a study that is statistically insignificant, having tested only five mediums reading ten people. Once again, this is useless for your purposes, as it is a single, poorly-implemented study.
Yet another “study” instead gives one person’s opinion that regions of the brain are not as well-defined as many would have you believe, since everyone’s brain is different. However, I liken that to the fact that, even though everyone’s voice is different, we can still distinguish different consonants and vowels as spoken by those voices. Having slightly differing brain structure doesn’t mean that there aren’t and overwhelming number of common factors. Also, this article has nothing at all to do with the existence of anything like a spirit.
Those are the only three links that are not anecdotal experiences, and none of them suggest that there is such a thing as a spirit.
Perhaps you would care to present us with actual, well-designed scientific experiments which conclude that spirits or souls exist? Because you have thus far failed to do so. In fact, I am amazed that you are not embarrassed to call your cites real scientific studies, as only two of the six links that branch off from the link you gave are scientific studies, one of which is poorly designed, and the other of which has nothing at all to do with whether souls or NDEs are real at all.
Have you even read your own links?
As I said in the post you quoted this from, the now famous Post # 118.
I said “The ***appearance ** * of consciousness acting at a distance.” A different ball game. I don’t claim… oh, go read post # 118. :smack:
The SR attributed it to the RAS. Since questioning that dismissal we have learned several other mechanisms that may be operating here. So, are you saying that if it’s in a SR it shouldn’t be questioned? That doesn’t make any sense.
Here we go again. :rolleyes:
I consider myself a rational open-minded person who has not formed a preconceived notion re: AP. I don’t insist on clinging to hopeless causes, I look for information about things that interest me. I also don’t feel obligated to accept the first explanation that comes down the pike, given by a self-admitted astral projector who uses a shred of science to write off the “alleged” phenomenon. As we have seen here (have you noticed?) we have solicited a whole s#*tload of alternate explanations. I would be hardly open-minded of me at this point to assume that the experience does not exist.
Certainly I feel convinced that some type of brain electro-chemistry is taking place when people have this experience. However, there’s not agreement yet whether it’s DMT, RAS, SRI or some other three-letter acronym. And just because there is brain chemistry happening doesn’t demonstrate much except that the brain is participating in the process. When I think, my brain chemicals participate. Yet I can’t see, hear, smell, feel or taste my thoughts (too bad). Does that mean our thoughts are hallucinations? Or bunk? Or other four-letter terms? Or that they are unworthy of scientific inquiry? Or that they don’t exist. But applying some of the standards I’ve seen here would lead one to that conclusion.
I have NOT seen adequate evidence here or elsewhere on this MB to indicate that a four-letter term is an adquate explanation. Not that you are bound to produce one. Maybe someone will, plenty have tried and failed. “Because there’s no better explanation and BTW I say so” isn’t an adequate explanation. Nor is it good science, nor is it good inquiry. I don’t claim to be using science, never did, never will (in this thread, anyway), in fact, I started this in the OP by saying I wasn’t doing science.
Musicat, likely you are a sincere and reasonable person. But challenging me will get us nowhere. I have nothing to defend. I have everything to learn. But right now I’m not trying to learn how to slice and dice people on the Internet.
If you are still unconvinced that I am here because I thought the SR was a brush-off and that I am interested in deeper inquiry, well, it’s unlikely I’m going to convince you and I won’t try.
I will listen open-mindedly to any research, experiences or even speculation about the subject. I’ve heard the speculation that it’s a hallucination, that it’s delusion, that it’s bunk, that it doesn’t exist. I weigh these possibilities right along with those that say it’s PSI, or God, or DMT or SRI or RAS. Maybe in all of this there’s even some truth. But I’m not going to find it if I have to keep arguing and restating the same points over and over and over again.
What is it people are so afraid of that they feel the need to attack me because I am curious (teal)? Correct me if I’m wrong: I don’t feel that I am attacking anyone. I have questioned some spurious “conclusions,” but I have diligently tried to attack no one. I have not told anyone they have to prove anything to me (except in jest), or that they were wrong.
I didn’t see anything in the rules that said it was a faux pas to ask for new information.
:smack: ^^%&%%#@ mosquitoes!
Joe, sure you don’t want to re-think this one? It sure assumes a lot.
It assumes that if there is such a thing as spirit it is electromagnetic in nature. Other things than electromagnetic fields can affect brain chemistry and brain neuron firing. And how sensitive is your equipment? What is the lowest threshhold it can detect?
I can’t follow your logic, you seem to be pulling things out of the air that have nothing to do with what we are talking about. I never would think you would be convinced by anything.
Now, In those studies you so readily dismiss there is the case of Pam Reynolds.
She was physically dead for two hours, no blood in her brain. Yet when she came back to life she knew everything that happened while she was dead. This evidence is called veridical because it can be verified. Now before you say this was an accident, let me remind you there are hundreds of such cases in print.
No scientist has even tried to analyze these experiences. The research done by the scientists in the above links agrees these experiences were not caused by physical means. These things are very real and show plenty of evidence as such.
Now, believe what you may, but you can’t honesty say the research means nothing.
Oh, about your cells generating electro-magnetic things and such, no proof exists that the brains waves contain thoughts or memory or anything else. Science knows nothing about the “mind” and where it comes from or anything else about it.
You show us some research that states differently and we will discuss it.
By the way, I don’t give a rat’s behind what inpresses you or doesn’t. I search for truth, I go wherever that search takes me.
Love
Snakespirit, if you are truly trying to understand why you, we, and they believe; how to detect bullshit; how science works and how not to be fooled; I suggest the following course of action. First, beg, borrow or steal these books. They should all interest you.[ul][li]*The Demon-Haunted World, *by Carl Sagan[]Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer[]How We know What Isn’t So, by Thomas Glovich[]How To Think About Weird Things, by Schick & Vaughn[]Voodoo Science, by Robert Park[]Fads & Fallacies in The Name of Science, by Martin Gardner[]Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, by Ian Rowland (Ianzin on SDMB)[]Any book by James Randi[/ul]And I would like to recommend these links (altho curling up with a book is still more fun than with a computer, but YMMV):[ul][]Characterizations of Quack TheoriesIntroduction to the Scientific Method[/ul][/li][quote=Snakespirit]
I don’t claim to be using science, never did, never will (in this thread, anyway), in fact, I started this in the OP by saying I wasn’t doing science.
[/quote]
Science, my friend, is what separates us from the ignorance of the Dark Ages. It is the best tool we have yet found for arriving at the truth. I hope you become acquainted with it just a little more.
All right, I’ll bite. Let’s assume that this “spirit” exists, and is not electromagnetic in nature. Now, the spirit is somehow communicating with the brain. Since no one has ever detected this energy by normal means, there would have to be something special about the brain that allowed it to interface with the spirit.
However, the functioning of neurons is well-understood, and there is nothing particularly special about them that would allow them to intercept some new form of energy that science has never predicted and that no device has ever detected. I mean, otherwise, it would be trivial to construct a sensor, comprised of a culture of neurons, that could detect this spirit energy. But individual neurons, as well as groups of neurons, behave exactly as they would be expected to if there were no spirit energy out there at all.
No, there is no evidence that there exists any such thing as a spirit, save for the phenomena of near death experiences and astral projection. However, these phenomena bear a striking resemblance to things like dreams and hallucinations, and even believers of things like AP and NDEs don’t suggest that normal dreams are really the soul traveling to some place called the “dream world”. This is probably because dreams are commonplace. If everyone had out of body experiences on a regular basis, people would probably treat it with the same dismissal with which we treat dreams – simply a normal mental process that has no bearing on reality.
Actually, your own cites have nothing to do with what we are talking about, which was my point.
You claim that there is scientific evidence for the existence of the soul. When asked for a cite, you gave The Near Death Experience WildCard, however, that URL only links to two actual scientific studies. One of them focuses on who has NDEs, and never determines why, or if we have a soul. The other has too low a sample to be significant. Further, the experimenter of that second study actually admits that he has not yet developed a final protocol for his experiment, meaning that any results so far are, according to the experimenter, possibly flawed.
That is not a study. There were no controls in place, nor was any set procedure followed. That is a piece of anecdotal evidence, which isn’t the same thing as scientific evidence at all. There are two sayings that come to mind. “Anecdotal evidence isn’t,” and “The plural of anecdote isn’t data”.
So then you admit that, even if brain wave are being emitted by the soul and intercepted by the brain (as you once claimed), there is no proof that this “soul energy” contains thoughts or memories or anything else? Do you realize that you just claimed that your “the brain is an antenna” theory is complete bunk by stating that the signals being emitted by the “soul” are devoid of thoughts or memories?
Perhaps, and perhaps not. That really doesn’t matter. You see, even without knowing what the mind is, we can still tell what it isn’t. Consider the following facts:
Damage to the hippocampus hinders a person’s ability to form new memories. If a person’s mind really exists as a soul, they they should always be able to form new memories as long as the information from the sensory organs is reaching the soul. And since a person with hippocampus damage can still do things like walk and talk, and since – if your theory is true – conscious actions are committed by our mind which resides in the soul, external stimulus is obviously reaching the soul. Also, since – again according to your theory – the soul is capable of independent action in the absence of a brain, hippocampus damage should have no effect at all on memory formation, because the soul can form new memories just fine during complete brain shutdown (when the hippocampus is no longer functioning).
Oh, and speaking of sensory perception reaching the soul, if the soul is capable of seeing and hearing without eyes or ears (when a person has a NDE), then why do we need eyes and ears at all? Shouldn’t blind people be able to “see” with their soul instead of their eyes?
If the thoughts and memories exist in our “soul”, then could you kindly explain how physical, electrical, and chemical stimulus to the brain can affect our memories and thoughts?
But you should care that your supposed cite to scientific studies that show that the soul exists as separate from the body actually links to zero useful scientific studies, shouldn’t you? You keep throwing out that same cite time and time again, even though it does not support your case at all (other than on the level of anecdotal evidence).
You hit it right on the fucking dot dude, I was thinking that too.
But, DMT is ALOT more intense than dreams, you must realize. Probably the most intense thing a person can ever experience, that has something to do with it.
If I had no previous drug experience, and all the sudden I was trippin balls and leaving my body, god would be an easy excuse. Luckily, I know better.
Can you provide any workable theory of a spirit at all? What is it made of? What kind of sensory apparatus does it have? How does it think and remember? How does it move? What empirical data exists which would require such a hypothesis in the first place.
I’ve got to get me some of this DMT stuff, man. 
Hey, dude! YOU are the one postulating about the existence of spirit and what it comprises, not I! You said you could detect it with your electromagnetic devices if it exists. Not I.
So, YOU tell ME.
Well, there’s ONE thing upon which we can agree… 
Doing My Tripping…
:eek: 
Sorry, that was Joe Random, not you. But also, NOT ME!!!
Stop assuming you know what I’m assuming unless you READ my assumptions!
(Physician, heal thyself…) et. al.
I’m getting snowed here. hard to tell who is what!
:smack: F@#$%^&ing mosquitos!
Actually, I was responding to lekatt, who claimed (in another thread) that the readings picked up by an EEG were coming from the soul and not from the brain. Since the post where I mentioned this was a direct response to lekatt, it made sense to address his theories.
We can hook the brain up to a machine and measure brain waves. We can hook the heart up to a machine and measure contractions. The machines allow us to monitor the activity of these organs.
Now, how about other organs, can we measure the activity of the liver, or kidneys, or spleen, or whatever. I don’t know, just never heard anyone say we can.
We also know that each organ has a specific function and this is the same from person to person. Organs are different because they have different cell structures.
The brain has a cell structure also, and all brain cells look alike, but we assign many different tasks to them. Some of these tasks include emotional states like depression. No one says the liver causes depression.
Now, if the other organs can’t be monitored, why?
And. of course, as I have said before many times, we don’t know whether the brain waves originate in the brain (at the biological level) or somewhere else (at a spiritual level) and as far as I know there are no studies on this. Unless someone can show how a biological cell produces thought, stores memory, etc.
it will remain a mystery. As a beginning they will need to find stored memory somewhere in the brain. It is easy to find in a computer, why not a brain, could be it’s not in the brain. The scientist only assumes the waves come from the brain, when they could be going to the brain.
Nearly everything written by science on the workings of the brain are based on these observations and assumptions.
More careful thinking about the role of the brain is sorely needed.
Looking at the brain as being directed by spirit (the real you) actually solves a lot of the questions now in limbo. Take another look.
Love
Because the other organs don’t produce electrical impulses. Only the nervous system exhibits electrical activity. “Why, then, can we measure the electrical activity of the heart?” I suppose you may ask. It’s because of the sinus node, which is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, add which produces the electrical impulses that trigger heart contractions.
Yes, we do. You seem not to be familiar with things like ions and electromagnetic fields. Brain waves are simply electromagnetic fields induced by the movement of charged ions through neurons. Neurons have been closely examined, and their workings are very well understood. Brain waves can’t be coming from some sort of soul or spirit, because we already have a chemical explanation for them which is complete, concise, and has been directly observed countless times.
In other words, the only way that brain waves could come from a soul would be if every single brain cell were dead, so that it could not generate its own electrical activity.
We’re pretty close to that, actually. Not that memories are stored in discrete packages like with a computer. Rather, they exist as webs of interconnected neurons. However, we understand many of the mechanisms involved in the creation and retrieval of memories. Here are some links:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/hippocampus
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-05-06-2
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f97/projects97/Warren.html
As I mentioned before, this is only possible if every neuron in the brain is dead. However, we know that when that happens . . . surprise! . . . you’re dead.
I could just as easily solve those questions by saying that all brain waves come from me. I’m actually an all-powerful puppet master controlling everyone. I also created the universe, killed JFK, and made Jimmy Hoffa disappear.
It’s easy to answer questions with wishful thinking, but if the answer doesn’t mesh with the facts, then it’s really of no use to anyone. Your answer of brain waves coming from some sort of soul is in complete contradiction with the chemical reactions we know occur in living neurons, thus it cannot be correct.
Oh, I agree, and pleas stop ASSuming things about me, such as I have little or no acquaintence with science.
I do science in my own field. I expect those in other fields to do their science. Exploration of unexplained phenomenon is not my field, but it is of interest to me. When I see poor science (like the aforementioned staff report) I’ll call it.
Thanks for the references. Some of them are laughable on the same page where science is mentioned, but then all reading has some value. I will get to some of those, though it is not what I’m looking for here.