Evolution through the Back Door

I am amused by the radio analogy. Suppose my "real" mind resides in some safe place, perhaps with God. My body is just a radio, a transmitter an receiver of information.

Now suppose something goes wrong with the radio -- it gets wacked by a crowbar or sloshed in drugs. Isn't this somewhat analogous to my foot going to sleep? After all, my real mind cannot be influenced by mere physical events. So how come I don't interpret brain damage as a temporary loss of signal?

More importantly, why is the Iness affected? If my foot is damaged, it's my foot, not my mind. So why is the Iness of my mind affected by alcohol?

"Two extravangances:
To exclude reason, to admit only reason"
Blaise Pascal

To be replaced by something better does not mean that the earlier versions were invalid in their time.

Nothing is "invalid" if, upon recognizing your "mistake," it moves you closer to the truth.

Here's the nub of the difference between your position and mine: I would assume the problem can be solved and devote resources to its solution; I don't know what you would do.

If you don't know what I would do, then why do you say there is a difference between your position and mine? I never said the problem was insoluable in principle. I would like to see it resolved, and would devote resources and effort to that end. I don't have any difficulty with the naturalist approach, provide nature hasn't been so "reduced" as to become "de-natured." To assume that nature is merely mechanism is, I think, such a reduction.

To assume that nature is merely mechanism is, I think, such a reduction.

But not to make that assumption reduces the incentive to find "mechanisms."

I am disturbed by the frequent use of the word "mere." There is nothing mere about a mechanism that is infinitely deep and complex. Perhaps where we differ is that I believe the complexity is continuous, and you believe it is discontinuous (some parts invisible). I simply don't believe there is a difference between what is physical and what is God.

I am amused by the radio analogy. Suppose my "real" mind resides in some safe place, perhaps with God. My body is just a radio, a transmitter an receiver of information.

An other problem I have with this scenario is how this "real" mind connects to the brain that only consists of ordinary matter. Also, this transceiver has to emit and receive some strange kind of radiation which apparently does not consist of electromagnetic waves.

Also, this transceiver has to emit and receive some strange kind of radiation which apparently does not consist of electromagnetic waves.

A good reason to be skeptical of testimony about psychic phenomena. We have pretty convincing evidence that even honest people are lousy witnesses. Not to mention that dishonest and nutty people are even worse witnesses. That is why science demands mustiple, competing sources of testimony. And why science has to occasionally purge itself of false and incorrect testimony.

When you study the fringes of what is known, some of your beliefs are based on intuition rather than evidence. I call it worldview. I don't think you ever have much hope of changing someone's worldview.

But not to make that assumption reduces the incentive to find "mechanisms."

I think the reverse of your position, as I understand it, is true. How could anybody take apart a watch, say, and study its mechanism so to understand what it is and does, without reference to what a watch is for -- to enable us to tell time (an "immaterial" purpose)? I think you believe one can understand the watch without understanding the purpose it serves. On the other hand, to understand the purpose the watch serves is to provide the strongest incentive to investigate its mechanism.

I simply don't believe there is a difference between what is physical and what is God.

To me, that looks like a "reductionism" of the first order.

"Two extravangances: To exclude reason, to admit only reason" -- Blaise Pascal

Thank you so much for posting the Pascal, djf! Either of these two "extravagances," overemphasized at the expense of the other, unbalances the mind...or so it seems to me.

The second step in the SM is hypothesis. In the case of the origin of life, the hypothesis (step 2) precedes the observation (step 1). Of course the prediction step (step 3) would tell us that something that naturally happened once is likely to happen again. If not, it should be able to be reproduced under controlled conditions. So much for step 3. Step 4, testing, is also out of the question since spontaneous generation is beyond testing.

Funny that you should bring that up, Dataman. If I recall right I remember way back into grade school, being taught that the SM begins with hypothesis! I argued that didn't make sense and it has to begin with observation, or else how would anyone know how come up with a hypothesis! (Now, I'd say observation, or in some cases imagination yet founded upon the extension of science, reason, or forensics, kind of a virtual observation.) Do you suppose the it is merely a coincidence that evolution spontaneously appears at the stage of hypothesis?

So just what exactly is scientific about abiogenesis?

Um... nothing?

Blessings! Get well...!

I don't have any difficulty with the naturalist approach, provide nature hasn't been so "reduced" as to become "de-natured." To assume that nature is merely mechanism is, I think, such a reduction.

TAA DAAAAA !!!

A good reason to be skeptical of testimony about psychic phenomena. We have pretty convincing evidence that even honest people are lousy witnesses. Not to mention that dishonest and nutty people are even worse witnesses. That is why science demands mustiple, competing sources of testimony. And why science has to occasionally purge itself of false and incorrect testimony.

If I may humbly interject, "I know someone who can help you!" said the scarecrow:

1.		The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature -- by Rupert Sheldrake; Paperback Buy new: $13.27 -- Used & new from: $11.70
2.		The Sense of Being Stared at: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind -- by Rupert Sheldrake; Hardcover Buy new: $17.50 -- Used & new from: $9.50
3.		Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals -- by Rupert Sheldrake; Paperback Buy new: $11.20 -- Used & new from: $4.25

When you study the fringes of what is known, some of your beliefs are based on intuition rather than evidence. I call it worldview. I don't think you ever have much hope of changing someone's worldview.

1. Please portray any thought that isn't of intuition based upon the empirical. Point is that intuition is intrinsic to our very ability to relate with reality.
2. People's worldviews change constantly, to one degree and another, often grossly. Please anyone, tell me if your worldview has never changed (I hope so, it is a matter of human development, i.e., maturation, see Ericksons, Piaget, Adler, Maslow, Tournier, etc.).

Also, per the immediately earlier point, it contradicts the study of evolution to say that we do not look for purpose, even when we hold to the most obdurate position of randomness. In that thought, ramdomness serves the purpose: making what one wants with one's life and those it is concerned with. Just get between a mother bear or lion and her cubs and ask her about if that isn't so.

If I recall right I remember way back into grade school, being taught that the SM begins with hypothesis!

You ain't a-kiddin'!

Parallel universes,
infinite sets outside the mind such as infinite regressions and infinite big bangs,
Dark matter (at least an effect inspired its creation),
Aryans,
Martians,
Geckos "grabbing for air" and sprouting wings,
poltergiests,
Bandersnatches,
Wisps,
Cheshire cats,
and spontaneous generation.

Also, this transceiver has to emit and receive some strange kind of radiation which apparently does not consist of electromagnetic waves.

But what if we took the analogy to a different level. Let’s say someone wanted to build a real-time transmitter from Pluto to the Earth and they insisted that we could only use electromagnetic waves. Knowing what we know about physics, this is not possible. I would not think that anyone would say this is just a gap in our knowledge.

Obviously some things are not physically possible but I would say that it is even more so when we constrain or insist ‘how’ we want something to be done physically.

Now I could see how this could relate (or transmit) to consciousness, as some believe it must only be a materialistic process. But that is merely my conscious opinion : )

It might be interesting for you to do some well controlled experiments to see if people know when they're being stared at. It might open your eyes to a whole new world of knowledge. It's been done, but it's fun and doesn't cost anything.

These types of genotyping tests will become increasingly common and will be a multibillion dollar industry in just the next few years. I have no idea how anyone will keep track of all the data generated. Seems like another business opportunity for someone.

I believe you are correct and obviously these tests ‘can’ serve a useful purpose. If taken to an extreme though, what ‘could’ these types of tests (sequencing-based testing) have told the parents of a Hawkins or Beethoven? I guess it is not only how genetic information is used, but also information in general. IMHO.

I do wish you and your company success in possibly curing or at least helping those with the HIV virus - A noble cause.

I have thought about a somewhat similar experiment. Ask 500 people who have been blind since birth, "What is a star?" Then try to filter out any kind of cultural bias, etc, and see if you can come up with any themes that seem to unexplainably run through the descriptions. Look for some kind of Jungian "Universal mind"

I think there is some confusion about what a physical process is. Anything that interacts with a physical entity, such as our brains, can be studied as a physical process. Most of the things of interest to physics are invisible and can only be inferred by their effects.

Then try to filter out any kind of cultural bias, etc,

Good luck. This is what makes psychology and sociology the precision sciences they are. ;^)

It might be interesting for you to do some well controlled experiments to see if people know when they're being stared at. It might open your eyes to a whole new world of knowledge. It's been done, but it's fun and doesn't cost anything.

You might want to check out these reviews. I confess I haven't read the book. Still waiting to pick up the Dogs.... book. Although much of what this refers to is anecdotal, it is more scientific than what we have in the case of macroevolution theory, for example. At least in the case of psychic research, there are definable anecdotes to study.

Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly
Extending the line of thought propounded in his Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, Sheldrake continues his investigations of perceptions that don't seem to correlate to our known senses. It's a project that carries risks of which he is well aware ("[t]o go against this taboo involves a serious loss of intellectual standing, a relegation to the ranks of the uneducated"), and is careful to base his arguments on sustained research. Using a database of more than 4,500 case histories of "apparently unexplained perceptiveness by people and by nonhuman animals," Sheldrake investigates a wide range of psychic phenomena, organizing his inquiries by specific media. One chapter covers "Telephone Telepathy," whereby one can be thinking of a person who then calls or can "actively induce" someone to call. He also covers cats who rush to the phone when it is their owner on the line, but of particular interest are the studies and anecdotes presenting evidence of other sorts of telepathic or psychic communication between children and parents, as well as the tales of dreams and visions that seem to have predicted the tragic events of September 11. Some of the material fails to convince (such as the woman who says her husband can sense the correct Trivial Pursuit answer if she thinks about it), and some readers may wish that Sheldrake had more fully dealt with selective memory and retrospective narration where details are unconsciously embellished. Nevertheless, the title chapter is extremely convincing, dealing with those moments in which we "know" someone is looking at us, and turn around to find it to be so: Sheldrake has data on response rates that differ as to place, gender and type of gaze (curiosity, sexual desire, anger, etc.), and goes on to devote a whole chapter to "Surveillance and Wariness."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Innovative biologist Sheldrake tackles the thorny questions that science, a bastion of rationalism and materialism, steadfastly avoids. Questions such as what force drives plants to grow? Or what exactly is at work in such unexplained animal and human abilities as telepathy, premonition, and the sense of being stared at? Sheldrake has postulated the existence of morphic fields to explain biological phenomena, and now suggests that we emit mental fields resembling electrical and magnetic fields. This seemingly radical perception of an "extended mind" is in fact an ancient if neglected understanding of consciousness. Sheldrake's mission, therefore, is to take what for so long has been dismissed as paranormal or supernatural occurrences and reclaim them as normal and natural abilities favored in evolution's selection process. In his best-selling Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home (1999), Sheldrake analyzed the ability of dogs and other animals to sense impending disasters. Here Sheldrake offers another round of profoundly affecting animal case studies as a bridge to documenting such rarely considered but common human phenomena as "telephone telepathy," lifesaving premonitions (his accounts of the disaster dreams of New Yorkers just prior to September 11 are startling to say the least), and the phenomenon that gives this utterly compelling and gratifying book its title, the power of the gaze, the sense that you're being looked at, even from afar, and the source of the so-called evil eye. Sheldrake thoroughly chronicles his meticulous methodology in studying these significant mental capacities, but keeps interpretation to a minimum, confident, and rightly so, in the resounding impact of his findings. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Most of us know it well—the almost physical sensation that we are the object of someone’s attention. Is the feeling all in our head? And what about related phenomena, such as telepathy and premonitions? Are they merely subjective beliefs? In The Sense of Being Stared At, renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake explores the intricacies of the mind and discovers that our perceptive abilities are stronger than many of us could have imagined.

Despite a traditional academic background, Sheldrake has devoted his notable career as a scientist and writer to challenging the boundaries of “acceptable” science. A firm believer in the power of an experiment to yield answers about nature, he has dedicated years of intense research to investigating our common beliefs about what he calls our “seventh sense.” After compiling a database of 4,000 case histories, 2,000 questionnaires, 1,500 telephone interviews, and the results of a decade of scientifically controlled experiments, Sheldrake argues persuasively in this compelling, innovative book that such phenomena are real. In fact, he rejects the label of “paranormal” and shows how these psychic occurrences are a normal part of human nature.

As an explanation for this more intimate connection with the external world, Sheldrake suggests that our minds are not limited to our brains, but rather stretch outward to touch the beings and objects that we perceive. Once this extended influence of the mind is taken into consideration, many puzzling phenomena begin to make sense, including telepathy and phantom limbs.

Sheldrake shows that telepathy depends on social bonds. He traces its evolution from the connections between members of animal groups such as flocks, schools, and packs. In the modern world, telepathy occurs most commonly just before telephone calls.

Sheldrake summarizes startling new experimental evidence for the reality of telephone telepathy, and shows how readers can do tests for themselves. Combining the tradition of pragmatic experimentation with a refusal to allow science to fall into dogmatism, Sheldrake pioneers an intriguing new inquiry into the mysteries of our deepest nature. Rigorously researched, yet completely accessible, this groundbreaking book provides a refreshing new way of thinking about ourselves and our relationships with other people, with animals, and with the world around us.

From: amazon.com.....