Amazing ain’t the word.
Cite?
Cite?
It’s hardly even worth asking him for a cite, DocCathode. He’ll give one, and it’ll be a FOAF, or a medium who noticed a pattern to the questions and made a good guess, or someone who remembered where their car keys were after a seance.
If any of this stuff could actually work, then someone somewhere would have demonstrated it under controlled conditions. Somehow, though, in the hundreds of years since the development of the scientific method, nobody’s ever managed to convincingly (*) demonstrate communicating with dead people.
(*) By “convincingly,” I mean able to convince an open-minded skeptic. It’s easy to convince the credulous folks.
I’m aware that I won’t receive a cite. But, it is worth demonstrating to lurkers, and anybody new to Lekatt that I won’t receive a cite. His claims must be countered.
Have you read Penrose’s Shadows of the Mind and The Emperor’s New Mind? If the mind is a standing probability wave expressed through the medium of the quantum superposition of proteins in the microtubules of the brain and, as Penrose postulates, that consciousness is a side effect of complexity so that any sufficiently complex system exhibits consciousness, then it’s not hard to theorize that consciousness is independent of its medium.
In other words, the brain acts more as the equivalent of a radio receiver for consciousness rather than creating it. If this is the case, then consciousness may well survive the destruction of its medium. One need not posit the “supernatural” in order to conceive of communication with the dead. Perhaps all that’s necessary is a sufficiently complex, pseudo-random medium through which to express the probability wave of a dead person’s consciousness (ie/ Tarot cards, Ouija boards, or a medium’s own brain).
You would get just as bored talking to them today ,as you did when you were a kid. Unless they would give you the meaning of life. Which if the dead actually talked to the living, that would have been given the irrefutable long ago. It is absurd.
Well, it’s an interesting idea, and as likely to be true as anything else.
I’m looking forward to Bishop John Shelby Spong’s new book about life after death. It’ll come out on September 1st. 
I’ve read all of his other books. He’s a fascinating theologian (very much in the tradition of Paul Tillich) who basically has deconstructed absolutely everything having to do with Christianity, so it will definitely be interesting to read what he has to say on the subject! And that’s the type of question this actually is, IMHO-- a religious and spiritual one, and a question of faith. I don’t believe it’s something that belongs in the realm of “let’s have a seance to get Grandma to tell us what she did with all the money” or “now that Uncle Fred is in the next world, maybe he knows what the Powerball numbers are.” :rolleyes:
Quoth SmashTheState:
Allow me to translate that for the layman:
bfvlisev ;ehb ieryl vgeyuialve ervblie baera vwe baliav v bliyuearvbel vb keryuer7 cnl bvcaklugb er wcvbliyeagbfva vblukyear wlaeyiugv eiluuabcc libv elvb ewel earalgvW; frvcbliue wcvbliwl vweblyieragb aw;f rfbvlierobf xwligy ;esvogh wevblyuc aliwvberjvuvre; we afviyerlagwevyul
This version has exactly as much meaning as what you posted, but this way, it’s more clear to the reader just how much meaning that is.
While Chronos’ translation is accurate, I would be remiss not to point out the tautology.
If consciousness is a side effect of complexity, such that any sufficiently complex system exhibits conciousness, then clearly consciousness would be independent of any medium, simply dependent on the presence of a sufficiently complex system.
Of course, if it’s not, then it’s not. But if it is, then it is.
Reminds me of that one Twilight Zone episode where the kid is haunted by the ghost of Hitler. As I recall, the kid became a Nazi and somehow wound up dying in a shootout with the cops. I suspect this was intended as allegory.
I can’t imagine how annoying it would be to have an invisible undead Hitler following you around all the time. I can understand how that could unhinge a person after awhile.
Wouldn’t that be a fine how-do-you-do: on the one hand, you are confronted with verifiable proof of life after death. On the other hand, it’s Hitler. Would it be ethical to establish the existence of the afterlife with Hitler’s help? What if he just wanted to dictate speeches all day?
Who knows if he’d even feel like helping you out with the double-blind experiments? “Look, Hitler, if you would just tell me what the Zener cards say!” “Not a chance. This parapsychologist fellow looks racially impure to me.”
Now that I think about it, Hitler would likely also be speaking German, which would make things even more difficult if he were haunting a non-German speaker. I guess Hitler might have learned other languages after he died.
Or it might just be a demon impersonating Hitler, I suppose. I wonder if that would be considered a plum assignment for demons, or if it’s the sort of job given to demons who aren’t much good at impersonating anyone else.
I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough to make you understand. A good teacher should be able to communicate with even the densest, most obtuse, and unwilling student. Perhaps it would be best if you read the original material rather than relying on my terse summation of it, then.
As you have already been apprised of the rules regarding insults, should I then apply those adjectives to you regarding your failure to grasp the rules?
Knock it off.
[ /Modding ]
I don’t believe I actually applied any of those adjectives to anyone. I apologize for my unclearness. However, in the interest of being a good citizen, I will accede to your superior judgement and restrain myself to stating other members are babbling utter nonsense.
If the proteins denature (which they would after you die) then the consciousness that is you would have nothing to be a side effect of. In other words, what a load of crap.
Well it is nice to know about your concern, but it is not me, but God operating through the body of believers who needs to answer it. If I don’t respond personally I have every confidence that another believer member of the body of Christ will.
Peace
Whether the dead can contact the living is a religious question, spiritual question. one of faith? Not at all. Unless you mean because throughout history there has not been one scintilla of evidence demonstrating it. Of course the field had been riddled with charlatans like Johnathon Edwards , for a century. The scammers have been taking advantage of the gullible for a long ,long time. Apparently they still do.
Oh! No. That’s not what I meant. I was referring to the subject of Spong’s book, and even though it hasn’t come out, I would be willing to bet… well, a LOT… that there will be nothing in it about the dead contacting the living. Rather, it will be fascinating to see what Spong has to say about life after death, particularly considering the way that he always conceptualizes and discusses Christianity. What I meant, actually, is that the idea of the dead contacting the living has always seemed to me to be… well, it doesn’t make sense, it’s never happened to me, it’s never happened to anyone whose story I would trust, and I’ve never seen convincing evidence of its happening. I guess I can’t say for sure it’s NEVER happened, because I haven’t examined every single claim, but I’m not holding my breath, and I’ve got better things to do. Over and above that, however, my feeling about the whole subject is that it’s a trivialization of a subject that should be transcendent, and that subject decidedly does NOT consist of trying to prove that anybody can get the dead to talk. 
To be clear, here, I’m a theoretical physicist by profession. I won’t say that I understand quantum mechanics, but I can at least work with it, and tell the difference between genuine quantum mechanics and pseudoscientific technobabble. To anyone who wishes to put forth a quantum model of consciousness, or the like, I would ask whether you’ve ever solved the Schrödinger equation, or calculated the spectrum of hydrogen. If you can’t do the math of quantum mechanics, then you can’t do anything with it, since the math is the only thing we know about QM.
Y’know, it just seems, well, presumptuous to think that the dead have nothing else to do but try to contact the living and pester us with hauntings. If the afterlife is so groovy, what’s the need to mess with the material world?
Yes, the Dope is often a fount of wisdom.
If I can thusly agree with lekatt, who knows what other miracles may come to pass?
I didn’t invent the model of the quantum brain, Sir Roger Penrose did. And if you want to measure mathematical dicks with Penrose, be my guest.
I think you mean John Edward, the guy on TV who claims to talk to dead people. The best-known Jonathan Edwards is the 16th-century American preacher/theologian.