Do you believe in past lives?

Great Debates
442

We will not pursue this line of questioning.

Those questions were asked ad nauseam several years ago and, based on the quality of his answers along with the hostility that they engendered, lekatt is under a prohibition to refrain from posting more of his claims until he has something new to offer. As he has produced nothing new in the ensuing period, it would seem that his original claims of evidence remain as his only sources, so he will not be able to respond without reviving old feuds.

Leave him alone. If you need to see his evidence, search the old threads for his efforts.

[ /Moderating ]

443

With all due respect, you have no idea about the quality or quantity or depth of scientific research that is ongoing. I have the privilage of working at the largest national medical research fascility in the US. The scale of research and the funding is staggering. And if the budget was doubled - and I (among many) sincerely wish it were - it would still not be enough as far as being able to answer all the questions that are in want for answers.

So researchers must often choose the kinds of research that would most benefit humanity. If you have to choose to spend finite research funds on finding cures for childhood leukemia or whether or not NDE have any legitimacy, which proposal would you grant the research funds for? The one that has the greatest potential to save the lives of children or the ones that make people feel better about their hallucinations?

And no, this is not a false dichotomy. It is a real choice that research grant committees have to make all the time. Do we try to improve and save lives of those who are already here or will be born, or do we concern ourselves with solving the problems of the dead?

444

Everyone knows there ain’t no Sanity Clause.

445

I haven’t yet figured out how to include quotes from multiple posts, so please bear with me:

Voyager:* “Given limits on money available for science, research only gets funded if there is some reasonable chance that something will come of it.”*

This is part of the basis for my comments regarding the decline in the quality of scientific research. It used to be that the research was done first, then the hypothesis and usefulness of the research was based on the results.

Now it is a matter of formulating a saleable hypothesis, structuring it to conform to current fashion, then filtering the results to ensure continued funding.

Follow the money.

Regarding spiritual research: Contrary to your opinion, I suggest that organizations like “Society for Psychical Research” would contend that their research has produced useful results. You are passing judgment on their work, apparently based on your opinion. Have you analyzed their work?

So the issue of what constitutes useful research is really a matter of opinion and fashion.

QuickSilver:* “With all due respect, you have no idea about the quality or quantity or depth of scientific research that is ongoing. I have the privilege of working at the largest national medical research facility in the US. The scale of research and the funding is staggering. And if the budget was doubled - and I (among many) sincerely wish it were - it would still not be enough as far as being able to answer all the questions that are in want for answers.”*

On the contrary, I am well aware of both the quality and the quantity of research ongoing.

This is why I feel both competent and confident to make the comments I have made about the decline in science.

The amount of money really is staggering; and is very fertile ground for corruption, fraud, misconduct, and incompetence. Small wonder that the cheerleaders get nervous when the talk turns to redirecting funding.

While the issue of the quality and quantity of research is off topic, and probably deserves a thread of its own, I will just provide one quote from Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief of “The New England Journal of Medicine”.

"Let me tell you the dirty secret of medical journals: it is very hard to find enough articles to publish. With a rejection rate of 90 percent for original research, we were hard pressed to find 10 percent that were worth publishing.

So you end up publishing weak studies because there is so much bad work out there"

Quoted in “Discover”; July 2008. Page 49.

But to your point: I have no problem with money being diverted from current research and into “woo studies”.

If we follow your line of logic to its logical conclusion: if research proves that there is an afterlife, then why waste time and effort prolonging existing life? Under those circumstances, it would seem most reasonable to devote resources to making the transition from life to death more comfortable, as opposed to artificially prolonging life.

So, on a cost-benefit basis, it is more effective to provide funding for woo studies.

446

Based on my experience reviewing NSF grant proposals, actually much of the initial research is indeed done before the grant is proposed to increase the odds that it will be found useful. Probably not a great way of doing it, but with cuts to funding, what do you expect? That is not saying that the research is unadventurous, just that it helps to show some decent chance of success. I helped define a research funding mechanism inside industry. We did the same thing - anyone could spend a little bit of money on just about any crazy idea, but there had better be some plausible results shown before we spent lots of money on it.
BTW, filtering results is a serious charge. If you mean research that fails doesn’t get published, correct. If you mean someone changes results in order to get published, it does happen sometimes, but it is a serious crime against science. And I’d like to know what metric you use in saying research is worse. If you read old papers referenced today, they are clearly the cream of the crop. It is not at all clear that the average paper 50 years ago is any better than papers today.

As for SPR - consider what physics was working on at the time SPR began - and compare progress in physics and progress in spiritual research. They still haven’t demonstrated there is anything to do research on. The difference is rather clear.

447

Research can’t tell if some one is having a personal dream or an hallucination. No one can say anything in truth of God, all is human speculation.No one knows if God exists or not, it is belief, or non belief.What is fact can be proven. There is nothing wrong as far as I can tell with belief, just cannot be proven one way or the other.

I do belive that God could not be the way He/ She/ or it, the way it is portrayed in the Abrahamic beliefs, there is too much contradiction and to me a Supreme Being would not be the way it is portrayed. I also realize that is my belief and don’t state it as fact.

448

Agreed - this is off topic. However, I’ve done a little googling. It seems your argument has merit. Color me enlightened.

We need compelling evidence that there is something after death that isn’t the natural process of dying, i.e.: the brain hallucinates as it is starved of oxygen and chemical process shut down. And there may be an argument to be made for studying that process. I think this guyis trying to make it. Woo enough for you? :wink:

449

I will agree with you that God is not defined by Jewish, Christian, Biblical, or the laws of any religion. These are all the doctrine and laws of men and have nothing to do with the real nature of God. Those who have been in the presence of God find a completely different kind of Creator.

450

Do you really believe that he meant to say that God is not defined by Jewish, Christian, Biblical, or the laws of any religion, but that you could define God? Dude, when he said that nobody has the answers, that includes you.

451

God is unknown and if the Bible contains any truth, your God told Moses, no one could see him and live! Also if he had a back side then it would mean he has dementions. I believe you Believe you were in God’s presence if you think of God being as the Bible says, then you would go by the Psalmist who is quoted as saying “I said you are gods and sons of the most high”. Jesus backs this up in John 10 so everyone(or just Jewish men) are gods. In that sense any one who is by anyone is in the presence of God,…nothing special!

452

I’m not a science historian, but that doesn’t match what little I know about past funding. Back in the time when science was a way for gentlemen to pass their time and buff up their personal reputations, there were perhaps no funding issues. As soon as anyone asked anyone for money, the twin lures of Usefulness and Glory were used in persuasion.

453

You are partially right. But no cigar.
It is true we all are created in the image of God, as a child is created in the image of the mother. We have a long way to go to be a co creator with God. We must learn a great deal. When you are in the presence of the Creator it is an awesome experience. Life changing.

454

Quicksilver: “As for SPR - consider what physics was working on at the time SPR began - and compare progress in physics and progress in spiritual research. They still haven’t demonstrated there is anything to do research on. The difference is rather clear.”

This is clearly an invalid comparison.

About a hundred years or so ago, the body of knowledge in the natural sciences was very small and the methods were comparatively primitive.

In medicine, leeches and bleeding were considered state of the art. The guy who suggested doctors wash their hands before examining patients was hounded into an early grave by his “peers”.

Since then zillions of dollars, and millions of scientists have worked to get the sciences to where they are today.

If a similar commitment of money and resources had been committed to woo studies, who knows where we would be today. Maybe a phone booth on every corner connecting us to the dearly departed? Or maybe we would definitively know it is a bunch of crap.

Either way money plus resources equals knowledge.

*“We need compelling evidence that there is something after death that isn’t the natural process of dying, i.e.: the brain hallucinates as it is starved of oxygen and chemical process shut down. And there may be an argument to be made for studying that process. I think this guy is trying to make it. Woo enough for you?” *

I assume you meant “near death experiences”; otherwise your post makes no sense at all.
But thank you for the link to the book; I have placed my order with “Amazon”. The “others also bought” list looks interesting as well.

Seems it will be a while before I get back to using Miller time for the purpose it was intended.

Yllara:* “I’m not a science historian, but that doesn’t match what little I know about past funding. Back in the time when science was a way for gentlemen to pass their time and buff up their personal reputations, there were perhaps no funding issues. As soon as anyone asked anyone for money, the twin lures of Usefulness and Glory were used in persuasion.”*

I agree that while there were “gentlemen scientists”, they could conduct their research without fear or favor; so their research could be considered uncontaminated.

However, with the advent of public funding for scientists, the majority of scientists became defacto government employees, that’s when the politicization and rot set in.

455

First, a hundred years ago must have been from when you were young. Not too many leeches used in 1913, and sanitation was understood.

NSF began in 1950. Before that time, not counting the war, of course, scientific research was not heavily funded by the government. (I can’t find any data before the late 1970s, though I know there was funding before that, since I got paid by it.)

Relatively inexpensive and useful scientific discoveries include X-rays and Pasteur’s work. Einstein was not well funded in 1905, and the reasonably expensive expeditions to study Mercury to test relativity had a specific goal. Has psychic research ever come up with anything resembling X-rays? Don’t you think that if Rhine had come up with something repeatable the money would have flowed to him? The Manhattan Project existed because physicists with a track record of discovery supported it. I’m sure the Army would have loved far viewing or some sort of psychic bomb. The lack of funding comes from a lack of results, not vice versa.

True, and the knowledge we have found is that there is apparently nothing there.
If you want there to be funding, answer this: is there a theory of the supernatural? What falsifiable hypotheses have you come up with? When will you give up? Rhine and many others did come up with some, and there were no real positive results.

456

Of course that is just a belief of yours, and nto proof, any more than a person who dreams of something. Your beliefs may be a help to you so I wouldn’t discourage you ,but The more you try to make your case the more I can see it is not truth, can’t be proven, and is your right. At least you have stopped giving Demons the power you used to.

457

I would add,that you first have to prove something about a creator, and if we are in the image of a creator such as yours we are invisible!

458

The issue here is not whether or not I got the timeline right, but whether or not you are making a valid comparison. The fact is that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between money and other resources applied, and the results obtained.

If the kind of money and resources applied to the natural sciences were applied to the study of woo, then we may not be having this conversation; we may be chatting with our dead grannies instead.

Since there is an ideological bias against the financing of studies of woo, as your comments continually affirm, we are not likely to find out any time soon.

Your examples of discoveries made by individuals engaged in conventional science illustrate part of the issue very succinctly: they illustrate the fact that despite the fact that literally millions of scientists have labored away every day for a hundred years or so, the real advances have been made by a very small handful of individuals.

The bulk of scientists are merely drones who produce nothing much of importance, then fade into obscurity.

Apply these facts to the study of woo, and it is not surprising that few world changing discoveries have been made in the area.

Imagine if millions of scientists were working at woo, then just as in conventional science, the bulk of their work would be worthless. But a small proportion of them would produce the foundation discoveries.

To repeat the point: until such time as proportionately equal money and resources are applied to the study of woo, as to the study of conventional science, direct comparison of results is not a valid argument.

Regarding falsifiable hypotheses, you can start with these:

  1. Life is the product of a chain of specific and identifiable chemical name reactions, which can be reproduced in the laboratory.
  2. Consciousness and brain function are the direct product of chemical name reactions and associated electrochemical processes that can be reproduced in the laboratory.
  3. Control and co-ordination of all the biochemical processes identified as being required for the survival and function of the biological cell is a consequence of chemical name reactions, which can be reproduced in the laboratory.
459

The more likely scenario here is that serious scientists don’t waste time researching woo. Not then and not now.

If a legitimate scientists, attention and recognition seeking whores that they are, were to have a clear path to putting themselves in the pantheon of history’s greatest by finding a legitimate way of contacting the dearly departed, they would have done so by now.

460

You seem to think that scientific progress is a function of money applied. Actually it is a function of money applied and the factor of if there is anything there to be discovered. (And some luck, but that factor is reduced when money is applied.) Throwing money at a worthless scientific endeavor does not create discoveries. The funding process exists to provide some evidence that the planned research is not looking at something worthless and that the investigator is qualified to do the work.

I’m not sure I’d call it ideological, but there is a bias against it, based on lack of results and lack of even a decent theoretical framework. There is also an ideological bias against investigation of phlogiston and the ether. Are you disturbed by this also?

Since there are a relatively small number of major advances to be made, this can be expected. Scientific discovery is a problem of searching the discovery space. Like in any space search problem most of the probes are going to return empty - that does not mean they were useless.

Are they drones because they didn’t find out anything vitally important, or did they not find out anything vitally important because they were drones? I suspect neither. The layman might not grasp how important the minor contributions of others are to a major discovery, if only to show what does not work.

Sez you. Where do you think this money should go? If you test enough people you might be able to detect a tiny statistical variation on predicting cards or something. But if ESP works the way it is claimed to, you should get good results from a very few of the right people. Should we mount cameras in every old house to look for ghosts. We’ve already pretty much done this - they are called cellphones.
Charles Honorton had a lab around Princeton where he had funding to work on this stuff, and I went to a talk by him. He was reasonably well funded. What did he come up with? Nada. Let’s wait until there is a glimmer of evidence for something before funding it - that is how science actually works.

And, as I said, this did happen a bit over 100 years ago. That science has more funding now is the result of science making progress, not any sort of bias against woo.

“Can be produced in the laboratory” is kind of hard to falsify, since when can we prove that something cannot be reproduced? Just like ESP, we can verify that these things can happen, but we can’t prove that they cannot happen. Actual research on life and the brain is biting off smaller chunks which can be done, for instance identifying the area of the brain which regulates various of our thought processes, or building a virus from scratch.

461

Right. If anyone had any real evidence of the survival of the soul after death the money would be pouring in, from the churches if nowhere else. Hell, NSA or the CIA funded some psychic research, and the Soviets supposedly funded more. Anything from this? Nope.
What bugged me (among other things) about Ghostbusters II is that people who demonstrated the existence of ghosts like they did would not be doing children’s parties, they be hip deep in grant money.