lekatt's "Great Debate"

Great Debates
61

JThunder, we’ve been through this over and over again. The scientific method used in this case is called “observation”. It’s under O in the dictionary. As I’ve told you before, if you know a non-scientific method that has produced accurate and reproducible results, tell us. Otherwise, you’re just wasting everyone’s time. This is the last I’ll say to you in this thread, if all you’re going to do is drag this overdone and unimpressive tirade into the discussion.

lekatt, sorry that isn’t going to fly. We’re not going to play nice this time, and pretend you’re debating when you’re not. I’ll simply do what SentientMeat suggested and maintain a list of stuff you have yet to respond to.

Stuff Lekatt Refuses To Respond To:
What reason is there to believe there is a “mind” separate from the body?
What evidence is there that “brain waves” come from outside the brain?
Why is it strange that the brain isn’t as well understood as other organs, given its enormous complexity?
How can you and van Lommel find it justified to say that NDEs have no physiological cause when physiological factors such as age have been linked to NDEs?
Why do you selectively quote articles, such as the one quoting Dr Parnia, so that it seems like they agree with you?
What is your response to Dr Parnia’s critics, also quoted in the same article?
Where is the documentation of the Pam Reynolds surgery, according to you the best documented NDE, showing the correlation between Reynolds’s memories and reality?
Finally: you’ve stated that you have knowledge about the afterlife. You’ve been there, done that. You’re not guessing, you know. Then how come you contradict yourself? How come you first state that there will be a judgment and then that there won’t? One of those is clearly wrong, and if your infallible NDE-given knowledge fails on this point, how can you or we know that it hasn’t on others?

62

[QUOTE=Priceguy]
JThunder, we’ve been through this over and over again. The scientific method used in this case is called “observation”. ]/QUOTE]
No, it is not. Observation is just the initial phase of the scientific method. It is not an example of the scientific method itself.

No, you’re the one who’s wasting everyone’s time unless you can demonstrate how the scientific method can be used to determine that the scientific method is the only valid means to the truth. If you cannot, then your statement is self-refuting, and thus crumbles under its own weight.

63

The scientific method is the only method that has been shown to work so far, and we have all of recorded history to show as evidence. If you can provide verifiable and repeatable evidence of another method that works even half as well, please do so now.

64

lekatt, now I’m back I’ll address your original posts

You quoted the director of UCLA’s brain mapping project who said that it was difficult to tell the difference between brains and asked

Firstly, brains are not “hardwired”. Neural connections form over time - they are not all there at birth. Dr Mazziotta was not suggesting that there is anything supernatural about the fact that no brain is the same. No snowflake or fingerprint is exactly the same either, but we do not seek a supernatural explanation for those. The brain is merely very very complex - that is why the research is more difficult than, say, heart imaging.

Next, you cited a New Scientist article and quoted one researcher:

I think you are misinterpreting him here. He is suggesting that NDE’s might have a significant psychological factor, to do with “letting go” when one realises that death is imminent. He is saying that purely physiological factors cannot be the sole factor, because then anybody who had a heart attack would have an NDE. There is no medical explanation for my musical preferences, my dreams or any number of psychological phenomena associated with this incredible piece of offal called the brain. But there is still no reason to appeal to the supernatural.

Thirdly, you cited a BBC news article. Again, this supported the claim that people have profound experiences when near death. But there was simply no evidence that these happened DURING brain inactivity:

Finally, you cited Pam Reynold’s surgery. This has been debunked time and again, yet you still appeal to it. Can you remind me which specific detail could not have been guessed?

You have shown no such thing. Scientists admit that Near Death Experiences happen - heck, all of us do. But you have not shown any evidence that demands a supernatural explanation. I do not pretend that science can experimentally demonstrate an explanation for every single aspect of human thought - that is the challenge of this millennium. But there is no phenomenon that is consistently reproducible that science cannot propose a feasible explanation for.

This is crucial. You are perfectly welcome to believe whatever you like. But you keep saying that you have evidence which shows or proves the existence of the supernatural. If science is irrelevant, why does evidence matter?

You also keep saying things like this:

What evidence would convince you that NDE’s were not supernatural? If certain drugs and equipment could induce one in you at will, would it not be reasonable to say that those drugs/equipment caused the NDE, and that appeals to the “spirit” were unnecessary?

65

You’re dodging my question. Unless you can scientifically prove that the scientific method is the only valid path to the truth, then your argument is self-refuting. Indeed, every time that you offer an argument which does not use the scientific method, you are proving my point.

Heck, your own argument appeals to history in its putative proof. Well, if the truth can only be known through the scientific method, then we cannot deign to use history to butress one’s argument, since history does not use the scientific method.

Mind you, I’m not denying that science is a wonderful and powerful tool. Heck, I have degrees in multiple scientific fields, I spent a good amount of time as a college physics instructor, and I recently wrote a patent application which makes copious use of physics equations. However, I’m not about to claim that truth can only be known through the scientific method. That argument refutes itself, and so by the principle of reductio ad absurdum, it is demonstrably false.

66

And even this, I don’t agree with. People react differently to drugs, different types of food and whatnot. The reactions still have physiological causes, even though not everybody has the same reactions. Take allergies, for example.

67

Guys, JThunder’s right.

The scientific method is a way to find things out. It’s a tool. It is not The Truth. It is not infalliable.

It is, however, a way to codify and analyze the world around us in a way that can be both repeated reliably, and explained to other people. And, if operated properly, it is always true to fact.

Philosophy is another way to find things out. By logical deduction and induction about the world. The problem with it is that it can become false to fact, witness the concept of logical paradoxes.

Belief is another way to find the truth. The problem is that the truths it leads to are not objectively verifiable, can not be repeated meaningfully, and may also be false to fact.
It is a counterpart to the scientific method. This I believe: That it is the duty and honor of mankind to search, to seek, to guard knowlege, to codify that which we know, for it is the cornerstone of all civilization.

But you can’t prove that with the scientific method.

68

my use of the adverb, perhaps incorrect (cf, the often misused, “thankfully” was meant to convey:

“by the mercy of providence I have been spared the bulk of your contributions”

nothing that you have posted since then has made me less grateful for my prior ignorance–a state which I will endeavor to preserve.
I do find it amusing that your self-referential epistomology spills over to pollute your understanding of a rather simple declaration of ignorance framed, perhaps, in a less than neutral context.

69

No.

Logical deduction and induction are parts of science.

They get solved.

Listen to yourself. Belief finds truths that may be false? Then they’re, quite obviously, not truths.

I’m really tired of discussing this, so just consider that there is no evidence of a nonscientific method ever producing real, true results. Then realize that this is enough to say that science is the way to go if you want real, true results.

70

To hopefully terminate this sidetrack, science, mathematics and logic are epistemologies which are relevant only under certain definitions of “truth”. One would not, for example, use them to establish the truth of the statement “This painting is beautiful”. No principle can be used to prove itself. We must merely agree which epistemologies are relevant for discussion in the same way that we must agree a common language.

Since we all (with perhaps one exception) agree that they are relevant epistemologies here, perhaps we could move the debate over the unfalsifiable nature of falsifiability to another thread?

71

Suits me. I apologize for participating in the hijack.

72

What SentientMeat said.

(I seperated philosophy out because it existed before the scientific method. Any further discussion of that would be best suited for another thread)

73

I don’t try to imagine what someone meant other than what he said. This process is called rationalization. I take his statements at face value.

If researchers don’t think brains are hardwired why do they insist on mapping them. Seems a waste of time. I believe most scientists do believe brains are hardwired, but agree they are not.

I don’t believe the brain is more difficult than any other organ, it just seems that way because scientists believe it contains “mind” which it doesn’t, and keep trying to find what is not there. In doing so they create ever increasing levels of difficulty trying to prove what is not provable.

I quoted the good Doctor exactly. There was no misrepresentation here, what you saw, was what he said. So you need to debate him, not me.

I believe his logic is correct, we are not talking about individual personality traits, we are talking about death. His finding are similar to other researchers.

Let me say that there is no such thing as the supernatural. Man’s spiritual nature is very natural, we all are spirit.

If you mean by debunked that the Pam Reynold’s surgery has been proven a fraud, then you need to show some cite for this. As far as I know no one has come forth with anything even remotely resembling evidence that it was not accurate. Remember this surgery was experiemental, therefor it was monitored at every aspect and level. Including video taped.

http://thegroundoffaith.orcon.net.nz/pam.html

Here is another link to some of the transcripts, I could furnish many more.

As for other veridical NDEs, there have been hundreds of them. The University of Virginia Psy dept. is studying them and you might look there.

Actually there is a huge amount of evidence that consciousness lives on after the death of the body.

As I have said before a lot of evidence exists, and scientific studies show NDEs to not be physical. NDEs are caused by dying. anything that brings a person to cross the threshhold of death will produce a NDE.

Now it is time for you to show cites backing up your claims.
Love

74

I don’t think you and SentientMeat mean the same thing when you say “hardwired”.

Do you find it strange that everyone who researches the brain thinks it is, and you don’t?

Why do you keep saying this without answering the simple questions I ask about it? And, if you truly do not care about scientific methods, as you have stated, why do you continue to drag scientific studies into the discussion? You don’t care about them, do you?

I won’t repost my entire “Stuff Lekatt Refuses To Respond To” yet, I’ll just repost the one part I really want to hear your answer to:
You’ve stated that you have knowledge about the afterlife. You’ve been there, done that. You’re not guessing, you know. Then how come you contradict yourself? How come you first state that there will be a judgment and then that there won’t? One of those is clearly wrong, and if your infallible NDE-given knowledge fails on this point, how can you or we know that it hasn’t on others?

75

If you will go through my first post you will find all the material you seek. I don’t want to keep reposting it either.

As for the “contradiction” you believe you caught me saying. Both are true and do not contradict themselves at all. The first refers to the judgement you will perform on your own actions. That will take place as said. The second refers to “judgement day” the Christian concept of God’s judging us all on the “day of judgement” and that will not happen as said.

Yes, I have been there in my NDE and afterwards. I know God exists. Below is another of the many studies that agree.
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=609&id=999952003
Love

76

It is more complex than any other organ. Liver=protective cover on the outside, homogenous liver within. Gallbladder= It’s a bladder, with gall in it. Lungs=covering that allows for gases to pass through, but blocks solids and liquids, inside are many alveoli. Heart=protective cover, cardiac muscle (different from striated or smooth muscle tissue found elsewhere in the body), valves, complex electrical system. Stomach=Big bag, the interior is lined with a layer of soapy mucous to protect against digestive acids.Ears=outside they’re baroque things of skin and cartilage, middle they’re tubes lined with hair and waxy buildup, the inner ear is a drum connected to a set of three bones and the cochlea.

Brain= Better protected than nearly all other organs. Inside of a very thick skull, we find three membrane coverings- the dura mater, the pia mater and the arachnoid. Inside these, the brain sits in a bath of sweet, salty water to nourish it and cushion it. The blood vessels in the brain have a special covering which prevents many chemicals from passing through (this is the blood brain barrier). Then we find an outer layer. One that is visibly and distinctly different from what’s beneath it. There are also obvious differences in the tissue of the medula oblongata and hypothalmus. All this is easily seen by the naked eye and by laypeople. A good microscope will reveal still more differences, all neurons do not look the same. The neurons connect in extremely complex patterns.

More, assuming purely for the sake of discussion that you’re right that the brain is just an interface for the spirit, wouldn’t it still have to be more complex than all the other organs?

77

For those of you who do not wish to sort through the many claims that lekatt has made on this this board, here’s a bit of information that might help you decide on his veracity: According to his own testimony, he didn’t exactly have an NDE himself-what he had was a bad dream that might have been about an NDE. I once dreamed that I piloted a 747, but I wouldn’t presume to step forward and volunteer my services if a pilot became ill.

78

You are attacking me, you are insulting me, lying about me, and this isn’t the first time. It seems to go on and on. I know it’s useless to tell a moderator since you are one.

I will again leave the link to my experience for those who want to make up their own minds. Then if they want to question I will be available, I have been researching NDEs for 17 years, I started right after experiencing one.

http://www.aleroy.com/Ndee.htm

I forgive you.

Love

79

According to what you just posted, you dreamed about having an NDE. You were not near death. You were nowhere near death. You didn’t even have a papercut at the time. Every time you post on this message board that you had an NDE, I will be there to correct you.
Every time.
I don’t care if you post your opinions about what NDEs are.
I don’t care if you never give actual evidence to back up your claims.
But I will correct you every single time you claim to have had an NDE.

80

Administrators outrank Moderators. In those rare past instances in which a Mod has stepped out of line, an Admin has disciplined them.

Your NonCorporealConsciousnessField has no Residium. It has never disjoined from your physical body. I don’t doubt that you experienced something. But it was not a spiritual experience.

I forgive you as well. Again, I remind posters that Lekatt has had his MetaConsciousMind destroyed by Pseudotheizine. He can never have a genuine spiritual experience. He can never be shown that what he holds as profound truths are lies. He has become a pawn in a long and terrible battle.