>> ^chilaxe:
Re:HadouKen24
You do seem well-informed on this topic.

1) "These give us an "in" for something like an empirical analysis."
It doesn't seem similar to empirical analysis if people's experiences of mystical feelings are all mutually contradictory. One person believes he or she senses one thing when reading a religious book, and another person senses nothing.

Strictly speaking, simply having a feeling when reading a book is not a mystical feeling. It is just a feeling. I am referring more to things like the [i]writing[/i] of the Bible or the contact that the Oracle of Delphi was said to have with Apollo.

2) "Why should we expect it to conform to the standards of a scientific epistemology?"
These videos are intended for the portion of the population that's open to a rationalist approach. If scientific thought builds civilizations, with their advanced medicine and space travel, and religious thought doesn't have a history of verifiable achievements, a portion of the population will regard the balance of evidence as favoring a rationalist approach.

Sure, a scientific approach is extremely useful for developing new kinds of vehicles, safer homes, and so on. No one denies that. It is not at all clear to me how or why a scientific approach ought to be taken for all phenomena or to explain all ways of thinking about things.

There are a number of philosophical and religious positions which are utterly undecidable on the grounds of science and, if correct, render science woefully incomplete. One must evaluate these positions according to criteria other than scientific, such as coherency, consistency, etc.

3) "If an image of the Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu were to materialize and defuse all our nuclear weapons, I don't think it would be unreasonable to take as our starting hypothesis that Amaterasu really did just finally prevent a nuclear holocaust. "
Yes, if there was a verifiable supernatural event, that would constitute some evidence.
However, using mystical feelings as evidence, as most people would, doesn't seem to be supported by the balance of evidence when neurotheology, the neuroscience of theology, is taken into account. (Since 1994, neuroscience has been breaking down exactly what happens in order to (assumedly) create mystical feelings... e.g. turn off the neural circuits responsible for the sense of division between self and world, and suddenly we feel "connected to all things.")
Not everyone believes in relying on the balance of evidence, but this video is intended for those who do, or to at least give folks a sense of the advantages of relying on the balance of evidence.


The "balance of the evidence" is that, when you put people having similar religious experiences in an MRI machine, you see similar things happening in their brains, and the things you see are more or less the kinds of things you'd expect to see whether or not you believe there is an anomalous element to the experience.

"Neurotheology" is not nearly advanced enough to come to any conclusions about the ultimate nature of such experiences, and may in fact be incapable of making such conclusions.

Re:HadouKen24

You do seem well-informed on this topic.


1) "These give us an "in" for something like an empirical analysis."

It doesn't seem similar to empirical analysis if people's experiences of mystical feelings are all mutually contradictory. One person believes he or she senses one thing when reading a religious book, and another person senses nothing.


2) "Why should we expect it to conform to the standards of a scientific epistemology?"

These videos are intended for the portion of the population that's open to a rationalist approach. If scientific thought builds civilizations, with their advanced medicine and space travel, and religious thought doesn't have a history of verifiable achievements, a portion of the population will regard the balance of evidence as favoring a rationalist approach.


3) "If an image of the Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu were to materialize and defuse all our nuclear weapons, I don't think it would be unreasonable to take as our starting hypothesis that Amaterasu really did just finally prevent a nuclear holocaust. "

Yes, if there was a verifiable supernatural event, that would constitute some evidence.

However, using mystical feelings as evidence, as most people would, doesn't seem to be supported by the balance of evidence when neurotheology, the neuroscience of theology, is taken into account. (Since 1994, neuroscience has been breaking down exactly what happens in order to (assumedly) create mystical feelings... e.g. turn off the neural circuits responsible for the sense of division between self and world, and suddenly we feel "connected to all things.")

Not everyone believes in relying on the balance of evidence, but this video is intended for those who do, or to at least give folks a sense of the advantages of relying on the balance of evidence.

arigatou gozaimasu

In reply to this comment by rasch187:
*promote *1sttube

Mysterious 'Neural Noise' Actually Primes Brain For Peak Performance

ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2006) — Researchers at the University of Rochester may have answered one of neuroscience's most vexing questions—how can it be that our neurons, which are responsible for our crystal-clear thoughts, seem to fire in utterly random ways?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061112094812.htm

congratulations on reaching gold!

*1 the people that committed the act were part of an extremist muslim group, basically a cult. they would not have done this act if they weren't in this group and reasoned in that way. thus being motivated by it, yes.

*2 yes, "he is currently pursuing a doctorate in neuroscience at UCLA, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research"

*3 an illogical belief like believing something supernatural which any intelligent person would easily see why such a thing should be dismissed (such as fairies at the end of my garden). nothing like eating a vegetarian pizza, i could just tell someone was peeved at a reasonable person because i suspect they have vested interests in the beliefs being dismissed.

check out this short talk by sam harris, the best thing by him i think :
http://www.videosift.com/video/Sam-Harris-lectures-on-the-dangers-of-both-religious-fundamentalism-and-religious-moderation

also, i'd add that john searle and alan watts are bad recommendations for views on such subjects. john searle is like a small child in comparison to derek parfit's knowledge of the brain and self. also i'd recommend susan greenfield instead of alan watts (he just talks half truths loosely based on buddhism).

>> ^vairetube:
"I'm not making an argument for the supernatural, but there are weird coincidences I've seen that stats would have a hard time explaining as simple coincidence."
uh yea... that's the entirety of the problem. You don't understand, therefore it can't be possible?

Time to put the crack pipe down, bro. I never said anything about what is or is not possible in world of the perfectly natural. If it helps, let me clarify a bit. I come from a background in neuroscience and AI. I'm agnostic (as I expect you'd describe it, but atheist will do just as well in this context).

I specifically chose an example for which I nor anyone else I know can find any scientifically plausible explanation, based on current human knowledge. That choice was never meant to imply (nor did I) that because something cannot be currently explained that it is somehow "unexplainable" and thus must be attributed to some supernatural being. In fact, looking at my previous comments, I made it quite clear that I do not ascribe the event to the supernatural.

The essence of the point that I was trying to make is that human knowledge is not only imperfect, but it relies on the ability of our brains to recognize patterns, i.e., statistical correlations. I've seen a number of videos like this describing the likelihood of coincidence. My point is the viewer would be better served by a video which explains the mathematics and informs him or her as to when to suspect a pattern emerging as well as when to expect coincidence.

Here's a statistical correlation I've recently noticed. There is a distinct pattern of VideoSift users flying off the handle at even the remotest suggestion that the human mind is somehow incapable of any and all knowledge. Well, guess what - it is incapable of certain knowledge. Unless you care to ascribe certain (possibly) supernatural powers to it. Are you familiar with Gödel's Theorem and its consequences? If not, then you should probably STFU.

I dunno, lucky - not that uneducated. I think the analogy has more to do with the claims made by the YT poster in the description. And I've heard enough "change the world" claims in computer science/engineering before to take 'em all with a grain of salt now.

As for the claim that "scientists are discovering the mathematic equations used to govern memristors are similiar to those which govern synapses in the brain" - that's pretty ridiculous. On the one hand, if all he means is that there is a current discharge in the device when it's depolarized, well, there are lots of biological and synthetic devices that do that. If on the other hand, he means they have similar voltage-gated ion channels that produce a specific response to a huge variety of inputs that are not at all clearly understood by neuroscience, well, then he's just blowing smoke.

I'm not saying it's not a cool tech, but claims of "changing the world" are rather silly for a device whose mechanisms aren't even totally understood, much less how to mass produce them with consistent properties.

btw - why Kurzweil in the tags? Is he involved in developing these? Or because it's something he'd appreciate?

You're missing the point a bit, dude. The rabbi is making claims that enter into the realm of science. His comment on consciousness, for example. There have been a ton of advances in neuroscience over the past half century that completely contradict the concept of an immaterial soul. Also, I'm not sure literature and poetry can be categorized as knowledge. At least not in the way Harris and this rabbi are using the term.

Science is a tool. And it is the best tool that we have for understanding the world around us.

hah!

yeah, i have a fondness for science history, particularly in biology (more particularly in neuroscience), and thought this was a cute explanation of what evolution by natural selection is and is not.

In reply to this comment by MycroftHomlz:
From my biologist fiancee:

This is the retard version of evolution. Why are you even debating it?

Lolz.

Nietzsche here points out one of the things I really dislike about most modern atheists--Richard Dawkins, etc. Most of them reject Christianity, but nonetheless adopt values derived from Christianity--and don't bother really trying to question it or put it on some kind of philosophical grounding. Were they really to look closely at it, many of their moral tenets would evaporate like mist in the sunlight.

While I dislike Sam Harris in general, his remarks on morality are essential for an intellectually honest atheism. He proposes that we ground morality on scientific rationality and analysis of neuroscience and psychology. Which at the very least gives an atheist standing to make moral claims.

However, I do not believe that this will, as Harris hopes, be sufficient for a society wide morality or the end of moral dispute. There are too many lines of attack one can take. Nietzsche himself, for example, would raise the point that the scientific attitude Harris espouses is simply a manifestation of the will to nothing--the inversion of the will to power caused by socialization into a society that limits freedom of action, and overall an unhealthy way to be. It is out of the will to nothing that Judaism arose, he claims, and then later Christianity. In fact, he even says that the scientific attitude arose as the victory of the will to nothing over lingering elements of the will to power in Christianity.

To overcome nihilism, we must overcome the will to nothing. And so much for Sam Harris, if we're to follow Nietzsche's schema.

Beyond that, a couple of interesting notes.

The fact that the Madman carries a lantern is a reference to Diogenes of Sinope, one of the founders of the Cynic school of Greek philosophy. (Really more of a way of life than a school, though.) He was famous for living in a tub and carrying a lantern wherever he went. He was perceived as crazy, but all he was really trying to do was show the Athenians how ridiculous and irrational their customs and values were. The connection with questioning the values of modern man is obvious.

It isn't necessarily clear that Nietzsche thought the Ubermensch was an actual man who would live, or an ideal to strive for. It's essential to keep this ambiguity in mind when talking about the Ubermensch.

Alright, I started reading his webpage, http://www.jesusofmalibu.com and I just can't tell if he's being honestly serious, or just absorbing himself into this fictitious character for a more dramatic effect. I share with you this quote from his own page:

Billy Yeager completed a complex surgery of the body, spirit and soul for the character of the film Jesus of Malibu. Yeager was not satisfied to just temporarily become his character, but by developing quantum leap multi dimensional thinking, Yeager’s studies and experiments in neuroscience have allowed him to reconfigure his brain neurons and reverse his dna patterns with sacred geometry and music vibration, Yeager has actually transformed himself into his character and he is now


Jesus of Malibu.

(Emphasis added.)

He gave the keynote speech at Society for Neuroscience conference last year... he's turned over a new leaf now that he has nearly zero political power and influence.

... bastard.

hey all-

i'm another 25-y.o. david, born on the west coast of the US, went to school in the midwest, and now residing on the east coast. i have meaningless pieces of paper that say i know something about philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, film & media studies, and business, and am trying to get another one that'll let me treat people for diseases in my spare time i like running marathons, drawing, playing piano and accordion, hiking, doing magic, making badass halloween costumes that serve as supplemental income, and sifting. oh, and coffee. cheers!

... hope there wasn't a post about this site before.



I've found this video publication to be the most interesting so far, (CAUTION!!! Mouse used as animal subject for this neuroscience technique!)
http://www.jove.com/index/details.stp?ID=678
... which references this video publication, (CAUTION!!! Mouse surgery technique in this one!)
http://www.jove.com/index/details.stp?ID=680

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

She's almost completed a neuroscience PHD at UCLA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayim_Bialik

No crack cocaine and degredation for this child star.