Quizzes & Puzzles14 mins ago
More To Mind Than Brain?
.... plus a lot more. Rupert Sheldrake asks some interesting questions.
If you would like ammunition to attack him, I'll give you a helping hand; https:/
If you would like ammunition to attack him, I'll give you a helping hand; https:/
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We aren't in a position to answer the question, really. But by the same token it's way too early to rule out the idea that the brain is, after all, the entire vessel of the mind.
On questions like this, it's generally better not to get too far ahead of yourself -- simpler explanations are, at least, easier to investigate and then rule out. Better to ... keep an open mind.
On questions like this, it's generally better not to get too far ahead of yourself -- simpler explanations are, at least, easier to investigate and then rule out. Better to ... keep an open mind.
Good answer jim, nicely open-minded. He makes several assertions, can he be wrong on everything? (I thought only I have that attribute).
I have been intrigued by the Stoic Greek philosopher, Posidonius, considered to be the most learned man of his time. He was the first person to study the effect of the moon on our tides and believed in the inter connectedness of the cosmos in all its parts - including the human mind.
Also he [Sheldrake] says, for an animal to be aware that it was being observed by a predator, if possible, would be an enormous advantage in the evolutionary development of that species.
I have been intrigued by the Stoic Greek philosopher, Posidonius, considered to be the most learned man of his time. He was the first person to study the effect of the moon on our tides and believed in the inter connectedness of the cosmos in all its parts - including the human mind.
Also he [Sheldrake] says, for an animal to be aware that it was being observed by a predator, if possible, would be an enormous advantage in the evolutionary development of that species.
Interesting, but the idea constants might vary over time or distance is hardly new.
Everyone knows, constants vary, variables don't.
We are also aware that in order to force one option from reality space to become our present moment "reality", our mind must observe it. So surely it follows that the mind is the starting point and the universe created by it; rather than the universe being there, it creating the brain, and the mind emerging from that ? You create your reality from the probabilities, moment by moment, as you consider what you believe you recall from your past, and what you predict for the future, over and over: I create my reality each moment too. The real question is why we create such awful options instead of a paradise.
Everyone knows, constants vary, variables don't.
We are also aware that in order to force one option from reality space to become our present moment "reality", our mind must observe it. So surely it follows that the mind is the starting point and the universe created by it; rather than the universe being there, it creating the brain, and the mind emerging from that ? You create your reality from the probabilities, moment by moment, as you consider what you believe you recall from your past, and what you predict for the future, over and over: I create my reality each moment too. The real question is why we create such awful options instead of a paradise.
Khandro, Thank you for posting that. Excellent. A man after my own heart. I like the idea of a regular version of a stock market report listing the variations in what science describes as Fundamental Constants. Rupert Sheldrake echoes my thoughts – posted here many times - that the world view aspect of science and its dogmatic assumptions inhibit free enquiry - and that restricts the very lifeblood of what I think should be scientific endeavour. In that respect science disappoints me.
//have you ever, for no apparent reason, turned your head to look somewhere to see some one looking at you?//
Not just to look somewhere, but because I’ve ‘felt’ someone looking at me. (Remember Amsterdam?).
//have you ever, for no apparent reason, turned your head to look somewhere to see some one looking at you?//
Not just to look somewhere, but because I’ve ‘felt’ someone looking at me. (Remember Amsterdam?).
However, i don't think your entire reality consists in your head. I think your body has a large affect on mood and thoughts. For example, if i feel my heart beat it affects my thoughts and mood. Yes i'm not thinking in my heart but the organ affects the brains perception.
Just like sound, sight, smell and touch, your brain uses components of the body to grasp an understanding of the environment its in.
Just like sound, sight, smell and touch, your brain uses components of the body to grasp an understanding of the environment its in.
As to why no paradise. Perhaps the answer is that there are infinite instances of us all experiencing a single moment, all thinking we are the only one in reality; the rest are mere probabilities that aren't real. Maybe some of us are experiencing the worst of all possible realities, some the best, most something in between. Maybe each thinks time passes, but it's an illusion; all we have is the eternal now and a belief as to how we got there and where we're heading. In fact all possibilities are already here at once, and one can draw multiple valid life paths from one potential reality to another as if time was actually passing.
Or not :-D
Or not :-D
It seems to me that his assertion of the ten dogmas is false. Science tries to discover how the world works. It comes up with ideas and tries to find out whether these ideas seem to fit in with observation. If they don't, then science rethinks the ideas and tries again. All scientific theories are open to investigation and disproval.
Dogmas are beliefs which do not change, whatever evidence there might be to the contrary. So science is based on open-minded investigation, not dogmatic assertion.
Dogmas are beliefs which do not change, whatever evidence there might be to the contrary. So science is based on open-minded investigation, not dogmatic assertion.
I watched the video finally (apart from the last five minutes) -- mainly because I was wondering what this "constants stock market" thing was about.
It's an unfortunate argument, because he's presenting an unfair caricature of how science works. Leaving that aside briefly, though, the most serious flaw is that he's attributing perfection to experimental tests, and that's frankly unrealistic. No experiment is ever perfect, and as a result of you would of course expect that measuring fundamental constants might give different answers, either because of changes in technique, or different groups, or any number of other factors. Hence all the averaging, because it's sensible to try and remove and correct for these experimental errors. It sounded to me rather like Sheldrake was dismissing, or even mocking, this approach -- but it has to be the first starting point, rather than something brushed to one side.
As I typed that it occurred to me that this plays in to one of the dogmas he was talking about, the idea that the laws of nature are the same everywhere (or if he didn't say this explicitly then it must certainly be implicit). There is a sensible reason for this dogma, though. Well, two: firstly, it does actually fit with observations very well, and secondly, abandoning this dogma would essentially destroy any chance of replicating somebody else's results or testing them. If there is no requirement for two experiments, or two observations, to ever be the same, then the first one cannot be falsified. It would ironically hold back progress rather than advance it: Joe Bloggs could claim to have discovered some wonderful new pattern in, say, varying speeds of light, and then dismiss any attempts to test this that came out negative by explaining that the variation only happened that Tuesday in his backyard.
The bit about "intellectual phase locking" that was laughed at so derisively, almost as if it were an excuse, is odd too. It's a real problem. Call it fudging, call it something slightly more posh-sounding that means the same thing, it amounts to the same: scientists can have a tendency to "follow the crowd". They try not to, and over the decades increasingly sophisticated techniques to avoid this can be employed, but it does happen that one group gets hold of a result, and a bunch of other scientists get a little too excited about it. The most recent example I can think of would be the "faster-than-light neutrino" measurement of 2011(ish). An experimental group at CERN claimed that neutrinos travelled faster than light, which is supposed to be impossible. Dozens of papers, or even a couple of hundred, came out over the next few months, proposing various theoretical explanations of this. Then the first measurement turned out to be flawed after all. Excitement over. It seems remarkable that Sheldrake's explanation would presumably be that neutrinos did briefly travel faster than light, rather than that the experimentalists messed up!
Or you can have "fudging" when one group makes an error and nobody notices it for a while, so that the original result is allowed to survive. I speak from painful experience here -- long story short, these things do go noticed eventually, and corrected, but my impression again is that Sheldrake would claim that the first error was right after all!
In a nutshell, my criticism of his passage on the constants is that he seems to be attributing to scientists simultaneously the ability of perfect measurement but of hopeless vision. Whatever your views on the second part, whether you find science "disappointing" or not, the first bit is extraordinary. No measurement is perfect, or no measurement can be interpreted perfectly.
It's an unfortunate argument, because he's presenting an unfair caricature of how science works. Leaving that aside briefly, though, the most serious flaw is that he's attributing perfection to experimental tests, and that's frankly unrealistic. No experiment is ever perfect, and as a result of you would of course expect that measuring fundamental constants might give different answers, either because of changes in technique, or different groups, or any number of other factors. Hence all the averaging, because it's sensible to try and remove and correct for these experimental errors. It sounded to me rather like Sheldrake was dismissing, or even mocking, this approach -- but it has to be the first starting point, rather than something brushed to one side.
As I typed that it occurred to me that this plays in to one of the dogmas he was talking about, the idea that the laws of nature are the same everywhere (or if he didn't say this explicitly then it must certainly be implicit). There is a sensible reason for this dogma, though. Well, two: firstly, it does actually fit with observations very well, and secondly, abandoning this dogma would essentially destroy any chance of replicating somebody else's results or testing them. If there is no requirement for two experiments, or two observations, to ever be the same, then the first one cannot be falsified. It would ironically hold back progress rather than advance it: Joe Bloggs could claim to have discovered some wonderful new pattern in, say, varying speeds of light, and then dismiss any attempts to test this that came out negative by explaining that the variation only happened that Tuesday in his backyard.
The bit about "intellectual phase locking" that was laughed at so derisively, almost as if it were an excuse, is odd too. It's a real problem. Call it fudging, call it something slightly more posh-sounding that means the same thing, it amounts to the same: scientists can have a tendency to "follow the crowd". They try not to, and over the decades increasingly sophisticated techniques to avoid this can be employed, but it does happen that one group gets hold of a result, and a bunch of other scientists get a little too excited about it. The most recent example I can think of would be the "faster-than-light neutrino" measurement of 2011(ish). An experimental group at CERN claimed that neutrinos travelled faster than light, which is supposed to be impossible. Dozens of papers, or even a couple of hundred, came out over the next few months, proposing various theoretical explanations of this. Then the first measurement turned out to be flawed after all. Excitement over. It seems remarkable that Sheldrake's explanation would presumably be that neutrinos did briefly travel faster than light, rather than that the experimentalists messed up!
Or you can have "fudging" when one group makes an error and nobody notices it for a while, so that the original result is allowed to survive. I speak from painful experience here -- long story short, these things do go noticed eventually, and corrected, but my impression again is that Sheldrake would claim that the first error was right after all!
In a nutshell, my criticism of his passage on the constants is that he seems to be attributing to scientists simultaneously the ability of perfect measurement but of hopeless vision. Whatever your views on the second part, whether you find science "disappointing" or not, the first bit is extraordinary. No measurement is perfect, or no measurement can be interpreted perfectly.
Since I was approaching the character limit I guess I ranted for a while longer than intended, but still. It's an interesting video, but I would encourage people who are critical of science and scientists to be listen to what *they* have to say, rather than just what their critics say.
Doesn't help matters that Sheldrake starts off with "in my book". The guy who's trying to sell something and make money ought to be taken with at least somewhat of a pinch of salt. He has a self-interest, and a financial interest, to think about.
In either case, if you are sceptical of science and how it works, it must be important and sensible to listen to what scientists have to say, and why they do, and think, what they do, before coming to such derisive and dismissive judgements of the field.
Doesn't help matters that Sheldrake starts off with "in my book". The guy who's trying to sell something and make money ought to be taken with at least somewhat of a pinch of salt. He has a self-interest, and a financial interest, to think about.
In either case, if you are sceptical of science and how it works, it must be important and sensible to listen to what scientists have to say, and why they do, and think, what they do, before coming to such derisive and dismissive judgements of the field.
-- answer removed --
jim; I hope I don't sound patronising, but more good posts!
Re. the 'constants' - Mathematics main contain something that qualifies; 1 + 1 = 2, as far as we can imagine, should apply universally, but what if he is right that the speed of light could be (slightly) variable? if this was true, then the CERN data might have been true at that moment of the experiment
Not so long ago we thought light only travelled in straight lines and a for that matter, even a bit further back, we laughed a those who said the world was round.
Re. the 'constants' - Mathematics main contain something that qualifies; 1 + 1 = 2, as far as we can imagine, should apply universally, but what if he is right that the speed of light could be (slightly) variable? if this was true, then the CERN data might have been true at that moment of the experiment
Not so long ago we thought light only travelled in straight lines and a for that matter, even a bit further back, we laughed a those who said the world was round.
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