Adventures in Psienceland

Recently I ventured into a place with different ideas, ideas that are sometimes referred to as woo. All this takes place at Psience Quest, “a discussion site for everyone who’s interested in psi, evidence of survival after death and related subjects.”

I had learned about the site when somebody there posted links to two of my pages (#13). I joined in the discussion and met a lot of interesting people. I started with a statement of my position: [1]

As I see it, the mind is nothing more than a set of actions, such as remembering, being aware, thinking, and deciding.

What is doing these actions? Surely the brain is a key player. Are other physical entities involved? Perhaps…

If there are other entities involved in the set of actions that we refer to as mind, I do not see that their contribution to any continuation of those activities after death would be significant. For, from all we can see, when the brain is damaged, it affects all those activities. One would think that death, which is the ultimate in brain damage, would be the ultimate in shutting down all mental activities.

#23

That led to a discussion of memory loss after a stroke. I wrote:

My grandmother experienced anterograde amnesia, finding it hard to remember anything that happened after her stroke. If such brain damage can destroy the ability of the soul to remember things it experiences, would not death, the ultimate in brain damage, cause the deceased person to lose all memory of [her] NDE, even if [she] had one?

#27

The Filter Model Fails

Many people tried to pass off the effects of the stroke as just the brain acting as a filter on the soul as shown below. But that doesn’t seem to describe what happened after my grandmother’s stroke. If the brain was damaged, and the soul was distinct from the brain, why did the soul lose most of the ability to remember events that happened after the stroke?

In response, the filter model seems to grow, in that not only does the brain filter communication between the body and the soul, but somehow filters communication within the soul itself. Thus, it can be claimed that the soul has knowledge of many things but does not have immediate access to all its own knowledge. Somehow the brain limits the soul. At death, the brain’s filter is removed, and the soul then has access to increased communication with the outside world (light gray lines on the outside in the diagram above), with other souls, and with aspects of itself that had been restricted when it was tied to the brain of a living person.

But how can any of that explain what happens in anterograde amnesia when one loses the ability to efficiently store new memories? If the soul is doing the remembering, the thinking, and the communicating, how can this soul no longer remember conversations in which it was actively participating? How can it not think about the conversation it just had, and communicate about it?

And how can the filter model explain loss of memory of past events, loss of consciousness, and language issues after damage to specific areas of the brain? I found little attempt to seriously address these questions.

One person argued that it is entirely possible that such damage could hinder the soul. Possible? OK, sure, many things are possible. Is it not also possible that I will become omnipotent tomorrow and rule the entire universe? Simply saying something is possible is not the same thing as that thing being probable. I certainly don’t find it likely that I will some day become omnipotent. Nor do I find it likely that brain injuries would somehow sabotage the soul and prevent that soul from remembering conversations in which that soul had actively participated after the injury.

When one turns to ideas about brains somehow limiting what an external soul does, is this argument not an ad hoc fallacy, an arbitrary modification of the theory to make it work? If one says souls exist and get inputs from the brain, then how does that in any way predict that the soul of a stroke victim will be fully aware of my visit in the moment but will be unable to later recall that visit? 

On the other hand, if the brain does the remembering, then there is nothing ad hoc about saying a damaged brain could lose function. 

If you and I are on a call, and I drive through a tunnel, you might predict the call would get cut off. But you would never predict that my voice would come through clear, with you unable to remember anything you heard while I was in the tunnel. (#128)

That argument never seemed to get through, so I tried again. The filter theory, I explained, agrees grandma’s eyes and ears sensed my presence and transmitted data to her brain. The brain somehow manipulated that into information that the soul could understand. Had the brain been functioning normally, the essence of the message could be described as:

Brain to soul: There is a guy here that looks like your grandson. He says, “Hi, how are you doing.” Over.

If the filter theory is true, then one might expect grandma’s soul to hear something like:

Brain to soul: [static] a guy [static] that looks like someb…[static] er uh [static] Hi are [static] doing [static]

And grandma, that is, her soul, would still be grandma, still alert, and would be trying to figure out the garbled messages coming from the brain. All of that is consistent with the filter theory.

But what actually happens could be illustrated as:

Brain to soul: There is a guy here that looks like your grandson. He says, “Hi, how are you doing.” This message will self-destruct in 30 seconds…..[pffft!].

That is the part that makes no sense from filter theory. Altering the message that got to grandma would be expected. But adding in that self-destructing aspect of the message, that simply makes no sense.

If we say that a damaged brain can indeed generate such a message, that is an ad hoc fallacy. It is simply making up that brains can make their messages to the soul become self destructing. There is no way dualism or idealism predicts this. It is simply an ad hoc explanation thrown in there to explain what is observed. #132

Nbtruthman had an interesting approach:

So your grandmother’s  soul, being a superior being that includes as a small part of itself her human identity, personality and memories, wasn’t damaged or impaired by the stroke, but her human self as experienced in body definitely was impaired, since human spirit embodiment mostly in the brain involves the human spirit becoming intricately and closely intertwined with the neurological structure of the brain, in order to achieve the mind-body interaction required for embodiment and manifesting in the physical world. That close intertwining and interaction between spirit and brain matter in physical life means the human mind self as experienced in the body will, as we well know, experience much apparent damage due to damage of the brain and body.

#31

I don’t see how Nrtruthman’s claim of a spirit entangled with the brain differs that much from the view that the mind depends on the brain. If the spirit, when entangled with the brain, becomes so helpless that it cannot remember what it did, how can it do anything when the brain is gone? Sure, one could argue that it is possible, but would it be probable? Unless one can establish that an entangled soul is likely to become a surviving version of myself, the claim seems rather empty to me.

Later I wrote to him:

And so, somehow, grandma’s spirit was communicating with me, but somehow grandma’s spirit was no longer able to remember when it did things like talk to me? If grandma’s spirit was so intertwined with her brain that her spirit was not even able to remember what her own spirit did, how is that different from saying that the mind is dependent on the brain?

If a different part of grandma’s brain had been damaged, her “spirit” would have lost the ability to assign meaning to words, or use grammar, or maintain the same personality, or remember past events, or feel certain emotions, or even be conscious. All of this could be predicted by knowing the part of the brain that was damaged. And yet somehow we are to believe that, if the entire brain is damaged at death, somehow the deceased would pull together memory, personality, and mental abilities from somewhere and put it all back together. And this non-entangled spirit would still be grandma.

If you want to believe it, fine, but I find that no more likely than the claim that the Heaven’s Gate Cult members, by committing suicide, went to join up with a spacecraft that was coming to them with the comet Hale-Bopp. Is it possible there really was a spacecraft waiting for them? Not likely. If one wants to believe such things without good evidence, one can. But I find it completely unlikely.

#593

Others agreed that memories were stored in the brain (#437). It is difficult to see how this is substantially different from the idea that the mind is dependent on the brain.

If memories are stored in the brain, how can the soul make conversation? Does it have no mental dictionary? Every time the soul creates a sentence, does it ask the brain for the meanings of all the words it knows, use those words to form a sentence, and then immediately forget it all? Seems quite awkward. Or does the brain actually write our sentences? If the brain is deciding what to say, and driving the mouth to say it, why do we even need a soul? Can we engage in conversation just fine without a soul?

Materialism

Others had little to say about all the evidence for brain-mind dependence, and wanted only to refute “materialism” or “physicalism”. But this just leads to endless discussion of what exactly these words mean. I have agreed multiple times that our minds may be empowered, not only by our physical brains, but by something like electromagnetic waves associated with our brains, or something currently unknown to science, something akin to dark energy or dark matter that somehow is involved in mental functioning. Would those things be “physical” or “material”? Different people define those words differently. ( #229, #265, #274) The discussion of these words, unfortunately, filled much of that thread, and it led nowhere.

I wrote:

Sciborg_S_Patel concentrated on showing materialism false, rather than arguing for a specific meaning of a soul that could survive. But his arguments didn’t seem to address my arguments on survival. He wrote:

Materialism being false does not mean there are souls.

I’ve said this a few times over explicitly. Also said it implicitly by saying the falsity of Materialism does not make Survival true.

(#175

So, if his arguments against materialism do not lead to the conclusion that there are souls, and do not lead to the conclusion that we survive with our personal identity intact after death, where exactly do we differ? We seem only to be engaged in an argument of semantics over the meaning of the words “materialism” and “physicalism”.

Consciousness

A more serious endless diversion was the topic of consciousness. Nobody seemed interested in discussing the science that shows mental functions depend on the brain. Rather, they wanted to talk about where consciousness comes from.

Basically I see consciousness as a construct of the brain:

I think the brain is affected by the consciousness, but the consciousness is just a model that the brain builds of its mental functioning. This model of the brain’s mental functioning feeds back into the brain’s mental processes. It is as though consciousness walks unto the stage and becomes an actor in the play in which consciousness is being created.

At its base, I think thoughts are patterns of firings of neurons. At the lowest level, signals from senses like the eye and the sense of balance in the ear send signals to the brain. The brain organizes these signals into models, which are patterns of neuron firings based on these inputs from the senses. The brain compares these with previously saved models of these inputs. The brain can then identify what it sees based on what it had seen previously. It can also link these visual models to models of words that it hears and speaks, thus tying in words to match images. Thus, a person can see a tennis ball coming toward his racquet and think “that’s the ball”.

These patterns of neuron firings associated with the sensing of the position of the ball and tennis racquet link to patterns of neuron firings that control motions. If one is playing tennis, for instance, and upper levels of the mind have decided to hit the ball, then the brain looks at these models of the ball’s and racquet’s positions and movements, and builds a model of the future movement of the arm and racquet needed to cleanly hit that ball. Deciding to execute on this plan, the brain’s neural models direct other neurons which have models on how to move arm and body muscles such that they cause the racquet to hit the ball.

Hitting that tennis ball cleanly and making it go where you want it to go is a complex task. But if you have done it many times, your brain has saved models of what it means to hit a ball cleanly and calls on these models from its memory. Combining the inputs from the senses and its model of good strokes, the brain calculates the unique muscle movements needed to perform the stroke in this new situation. As the arm starts to move, there is constant feedback on the position of the racquet and ball, all of which are fed back into the models to make corrections to the stroke as needed. This basically all happens outside of the realm of consciousness. If you are a skilled tennis player, you might consciously decide to lob the ball into the far right corner of the court, for instance, and the brain takes over from there.

Even on dualism, the basic mechanics of the control of a tennis stroke must be similar to what I just described.

I contend that the brain builds multiple neural models of what it means to play tennis. It builds neural models of the geometry of the court, how to run without falling, how gravity affects a ball, where your body is positioned with respect to the court, etc. Then it combines all these models into higher level models that define the rules, strategy, purpose, and ethics of the game. Putting it all together, you play tennis.

The brain also has similar models for cooking, working, reading, or living life, for instance. These neural models build on top of other neural models. Ultimately, these upper level models direct lower models of neurons that direct lower models all the way down to models that drive the muscles of the body.

In, my view, all this is done by neurons. On dualism, it gets a little murky, because somehow a “non-physical soul” entwines itself with this process at the executive level. Where exactly the duties divide out between brain and soul, and how the signals get back and forth between the two are not clear at all. To me, dualism is an unneeded complication that does nothing to our understanding of the mental processes needed to play tennis or live life.

In my view, on top of all those models, we find another model, the model of the self, which I see as a neural model in the brain that puts all this together with an identity of “self”. The brain refers to this model of the self when playing tennis, just like it refers to the models on how to run without losing one’s balance, how to swing a racquet, and where strategically to hit the ball to win the point. The model of the conscious self puts it all together. The mind sees itself as not merely a robot chasing a ball, but as an entire human being controlled by a self that is directing the show with a clear overall purpose. 

That’s what I think is happening. Obviously, nobody knows exactly what is going on. I think this view fits the available evidence far better than dualism.

#290

One person disagreed with that summary of the mental functions of hitting a tennis ball, but didn’t offer much as far as an alternate explanation of what was going on (#292). If you disagree that this is what is happening, then what do you offer as an alternate?

I continued with a series of questions about the soul. I listed my answer to each question, and asked people to respond with their answers:

What is consciousness?

Consciousness is a construct of the brain. It is basically an overall model of the many models that the brain builds of itself and the world. [edit to include: Consciousness is basically the act of viewing this model. ]

How did it come into existence?

The brain constructs this model of a conscious self out of patterns of neurons firing that are based on a series of other patterns of neurons firing, that are ultimately derived from present and past base level neuron firings due to the body’s senses.

What is it made of?

Consciousness is not a physical object. It is not made of anything. It is a set of states that is saved in constantly updating neuron memory in the brain.

How does consciousness know what the body senses?

The body senses sets of patterns in the neurons that combine with remembered neuron patterns to form an overall summary of the bodily senses that modify the model of what the consciousness (the “self”) knows. All is driven by the brain’s physical machinery (possibly in conjunction with some other factors).

How does the consciousness control the body?

It doesn’t. Neurons work on a consensus basis with neurons throughout the brain contributing in parallel. There is no central control room.  These neurons build a consensus on what to do this millisecond, this second, this minute, this day, and this lifetime. All the neuron patterns that form all the mental models (including this model of self) participate in these decisions, with the winners taking control this millisecond, this second, this minute, this day, and this lifetime.

Why does consciousness feel so real?

Now that is a hard problem. I don’t know.

What happens to consciousness when the body dies?

It’s gone.

#293

I tried to get people to answer these questions with their views. Nobody took me up on that. Instead, they took potshots at my model of consciousness without saying what they themselves thought.

If your model of consciousness is something other than a construct of the brain, then it seems to me that it is basically a magical, supernatural thing. Nobody liked me calling it magic, but nobody could seem to describe a consciousness that I could differentiate from magic.

I wrote another post on consciousness:

As I have said before, I believe the brain creates a model that summarizes the brains’ activity. We might call this our self model. It is important. It tells our brains the overall picture of what is going on, and the specific thing that is going on now. For instance, at this moment, my self model is saying that I am writing a post about consciousness. As I started this paragraph, this model updated to say I am working on a paragraph on something that I call a self model.

At each point in time there are ideas that dominate our brains’ mental activities. I will call that attention to those ideas that reach domination our attention. I can only hold a limited amount of ideas in attention at any one time. Many ideas are vying to reach attention, but there is not room for everything. As the ideas struggle beneath the surface to reach attention, they build a coalition supporting them. It is much like using Slido during a group call, in which everybody gets a vote, and the ideas with the highest number of votes float to the top. In my brain, my self model gets to cast a lot of votes. Since it says I am writing this post, any idea that is related to what I am writing gets an easy pass to the state I call attention. More granular, while building this particular sentence, any word that would likely come next gets an easy pass up to attention. But my self model is not a dictator. Other ideas can win out. For instance, if there is a sudden loud noise behind me when I am typing, the neurons in my brain will quickly get onboard with responding to this noise, vote it quickly to the top, and this paragraph will become second in importance.

That overall stream of ideas through our attention gets summarized and stored in our self model.

Can my self model itself come to the center of attention? Certainly. When it does, my brain’s attention is on who I am and what I am thinking and doing. I would call this state where our attention focuses on our self model by the name consciousness. Since the self model is constantly updated with the latest mental events at attention , it now updates to say my attention is on my self model. And so, as I continue this attention to my self model, I am now paying attention to my self model being aware of my attention to my self model. And it can loop multiple times, so I become conscious of being conscious of being conscious of being conscious.

I remember the first time something like this happened to me. As I remember it, I was standing in our living room waiting for my ride to kindergarten. And then I started to think about the fact that I was standing there waiting. And then suddenly I started to think about the fact that I was thinking about standing there waiting. And then I started thinking about thinking about thinking about standing there waiting. Suddenly the mental light came on, and I felt an unexpected realness. It was a surreal experience. I was not simply an automaton doing things. No! I was alive, really alive, really contemplating something stunning going on right in my mind. I will never forget that day. It left a huge impression. It is the first clear memory I have of anything that happened in my life up to that point. I was now conscious of being conscious of being conscious.

So anyway, yes, our awareness can become aware of being self aware, even though consciousness itself is not the thing making the decisions.

#330

If you are interested in reading more about consciousness, Richard Carrier goes into more detail: What Does It Mean to Call Consciousness an Illusion?, The Mind Is a Process Not an Object: On Not Understanding Mind-Brain Physicalism, The Bogus Idea of the Bogus Mysteries of Consciousness, and chapter 6 of Sense and Goodness without God.

The ultimate nature of the universe

One idea that kept coming up is that there must be a consciousness that is somehow behind the universe. I don’t see how this has any relevance to the topic at hand, but it kept coming up. One post referred to numerous quotes of scientists suggesting there is some sort of consciousness behind the universe (#124). This included a quote from famed physicist Max Planck:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

– Max Planck

In response I wrote:

You turn to a series of quotes from scientists, but this is not the way science is done. In the scientific literature, we look at the arguments, evidence and reasons of other scientists, rather than quotes. 

You have found a rather impressive list of quotes. Some of these are a little hard to know what they are talking about in context. Some are translations that might not pick up the nuance of the original statement of the original language. 

Let’s look at the quote above from a scientist I have a lot of respect for, Max Planck. What is he saying? He appears to be saying that, when we look for the fundamental source behind molecules, for instance, we find something else like atoms. And if we look for the fundamental source behind atoms, we find smaller particles and quantum mechanics. When we get to the bottom of it all, and ask for the fundamental source behind that, Planck says we find consciousness.

What consciousness does he mean by that? We don’t know. But if we look at his religious background, there is little doubt he is talking about God. He might mean a deist God rather than a Christian God; we don’t really know.

Planck was Lutheran. He wrote, “Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations … To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”

So we know he sometimes made statements in line with Christian faith. At other times he appeared to be more deist or universalist, so we don’t really know his inner beliefs. But he certainly did sometimes make statements in line with his inherited Lutheran faith.  

He also wrote, “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent spirit… This spirit is the matrix of all matter.”

And that certainly looks like a theological statement, declaring God as being behind it all.

In light of these other statements, it looks to me like the consciousness he said was fundamental to all existence was God. In other words, this statement you quoted above appears to be a statement of theistic (or perhaps deist) belief. It is not a statement of scientific discovery.

So yes, as I said, many great scientists were theists, and yes when speaking theology, they often used faith as their criteria, not science. And no, we cannot take Planck’s statements of faith as holding the same scientific weight as his statements based on science. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck [and Max Planck Quotes ]

#201

When we get to the ultimate nature of reality, and what is behind it all, many simply turn to religious statements. None of this is relevant to the discussion at hand, but we kept getting sidetracked. I discuss my views at Is There a God?

Three views of consciousness

Consciousness is mysterious. If one accepts the idea that it comes from a consciousness that is behind the universe that animates humans, one can easily end up believing that many things could be animated into a conscious state, including components of bacteria (#179 ), waterfalls (#256) and nails (#278).

So it was a little hard to accept the complete rejection that brains could be conscious while others were arguing that nails could be conscious. But I was told that the view that nails are conscious was acceptable (#278), for the source of this consciousness was attributed to something innate in the universe that animates nails. I responded:

Where does consciousness come from? I see three alternatives:

1. The underlying unconscious nature of reality is such that, when humans exist, they are conscious. (e.g., Physicalism)
2. The underlying conscious nature of reality is such that, when humans exist, they are conscious. (e.g., Pansychism)
3. The underlying nature of reality is such that, conscious souls exist that interact with human bodies to make conscious humans. (e.g., Dualism)

Views 2 and 3 are definitely the most popular here. If we were to take a poll, I don’t know which of those two is the most popular.

If view #1 is correct, than survival after death is not likely. Of course, one could argue that humans have a physical astral body in addition to their physical material body, and that the astral body survives death. So this view does not automatically rule out life after death. But seeing all the problems with a separate astral body, this view makes life after death unlikely.

If view #2 is correct, any survival of my self after death would hardly be described as being “me”. Instead, the underlying consciousness that exists in my person would somehow break up. Later people might include some of my atoms and some of the underlying consciousness of the universe that made up me, but they would not be me… Overall, this view does little to make survival after death more likely. Discussion of #2 versus #1 is more of an academic exercise [of] where our consciousness comes from. You find that topic fascinating, but to me, it is a diversion.

If view #3 is correct, survival would be much more likely. However, it leaves open many questions. Where did souls come from? Why does one soul get linked to exactly one body? How can souls interface with the molecules of a body? Why does so much evidence indicate the brain is foundational to our mental life? How can we explain all the issues with a disembodied soul retaining our self-identity? ( If Only Souls Had a Brain. )

You have argued incessantly that option #1 is impossible. But through it all, I don’t actually see a significant reason posted here that proves it is impossible. Yes, you endlessly quote people like Sam Harris, who apparently does not think #1 is the correct answer. But when it comes down to it, all you and Harris can seem to express is a sense of awe at the mere possibility that matter can produce consciousness. I find no solid arguments from you proving that #1 cannot be the answer, just continued statements of personal incredulity. Harris, however, seems to say statement #1 is possible, but he leans toward #2.

Even if you could prove statement #2 is far more likely than statement #1, so what? I have already acknowledged that statement #2 may be true. It really doesn’t make much difference to this conversation. Either way, my personal survival as an identifiable continuation of myself remains unlikely.

So, unless somebody wants to make a case that statement #3 is correct and wants to deal with the questions I have about statement #3, I don’t find much here that seriously makes a case for soul survival.

I know you think that molecules cannot produce consciousness. Do you think that molecules could do any of these functions without input from some non-material something?

1. Make a sunflower follow the path of the sun.
2. Make a jellyfish–that has neurons but no brain–respond to simple physical signals.
3. Make a toad have brain states that direct it to jump.
4. Make a monkey have brain states that direct it to do its monkey business.
5. Make a Homo habalis do what the Homo habalis entities did.
6. Make a “philosophical zombie”, that is, a human body and brain without consciousness, do something similar to what humans do.
7. Make the full experience of human thought.

After all this discussion, I am well aware you think molecules cannot do # 7. But I still don’t know how you would answer the other six.

I think molecules can possibly do all of this, but the further you go up the scale, the stronger case can be made that something (either material or nonmaterial) that is currently unknown is involved.

#424

It would have been nice if those questions were addressed. Then I would know what I was dealing with. Instead, I saw endless repeats of canned arguments against materialism. But what was offered as an alternate? It was all kind of mushy. And no, I could not address that mush, any more than I can nail jello to the wall.

Objections to physical consciousness

I don’t know if there is a consciousness behind the universe that animates humans, but I tend to think that the brain and physical forces alone can do this, without the boost of some universal consciousness. Several objections were raised to the brain being the source of consciousness.

1. Something from nothing.

It was argued that, if the mind is a creation of the brain, that this would involve something coming from nothing. But I do not think the mind is a physical object. Rather, it is a set of actions done by the brain, including remembering, thinking, and deciding. And there is no law that says physical things cannot do a set of actions, and that we cannot give these sets of actions a name. Other sets of actions that we call by a name include a conversation, a war, a cattle stampede, a ballgame, an avalanche, a party, or a viral infection. The fact that we can give a name to a set of actions should not be controversial. We can call the set of actions that the brain does by a name–the mind. That is different from the brain magically creating a new object–the mind.

2. Nails can’t think.

Another argument was that nails or an abacus cannot think, so therefore brains cannot think. It was rather odd to hear this argument at the same time people were suggesting nails and waterfalls indeed might be conscious.

Nails have no way to store memories and do basic logic functions as our neurons do. Our neurons are made of complex hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons can combine in special ways to make the tail of a peacock, the strong muscles of an ox, the wings of an eagle, or the complex brain of a human. Hydrogen and carbon atoms can do things that iron atoms cannot do.

If the inability of nails to be conscious proves brains cannot be conscious, does the inability of nails to function as telephones prove that phones do not exist? Does the inability of nails to do computations prove that computers don’t exist?

3. Atheists agree that brains can’t think about things.

This argument went on endlessly, with repeated quotes of atheists saying things that can be interpreted as saying that brains cannot think. But the quotes simply misinterpret people like Alex Rosenberg, who argued that neurons are doing rote mechanical calculations to decide what we do, while building a consciousness that makes it look like a supervisory mind is doing the decisions. His words were quoted continuously out of context to make it look like he didn’t think neurons were doing our mental activity, which is the opposite of what he said (see #486 and #493).

Also, there were endless quotations of Sam Harris, who argues that the source of consciousness is mysterious and unknowable. In no sense is Harris arguing for souls that survive death as a continuation of our current self, which is the point in question. Harris apparently leans toward some sort of universal consciousness being behind our consciousness. However, Harris specifically does not rule out that the process might be totally the action of physical forces that have no conscious basis behind them (see #409 and #447).

4.Consciousness couldn’t know itself

This argument is based on the mistaken view that consciousness is epiphenomenal, that is, that it is just a phenomenon created by the brain with no purpose. That is not my view. The brain creates consciousness for a purpose.

Animals build mental models of their worlds and simulate those models to drive their actions. A cat, for instance, will look at the intended jump before it leaps. During this interval, it models what would happen if various muscles are activated in a particular fashion. The cat does not need to physically try each combination of movements until it comes up with a good jump. Rather it runs through these all in mental models, until a clear winning jump is selected. It then follows through, and leaps based on the model of the world in its brain.

Human interaction is much more complex, especially when it involves conversation. This requires us to build mental models of extreme complexity. It would be difficult, for instance, to have any coordinated discussion of a planned hunting expedition without having words that mean “I”, “you” and “they”. So, just like cats build models of body movements before they jump, we build models of what “I”, “you” and “they” will do in our plan. For the conversation to work, there needs to be a strong sense of self. When we as humans think about this internal model of the self that our brains build, that is basically consciousness.

Counterevidence

People next turned to claims of evidence for life after death. The evidence is very weak. Regarding the existing state of survival evidence see How not to Do Survival Research by Keith Augustine. For a response to this by Baude et al, see  Not So Fast: A Response to Augustine’s Critique of the BICS Contest. For Augustine’s response, see  When Will Survival Researchers Move Past Defending the Indefensible? See also, The Myth of an Afterlife.

1. Near-death experiences

One person posted numerous stories of people seeing things when near death and being aware of details in the scene while they were unconscious. (See #345 , #348 and #438.) There are many ways these stories can be explained. A person can hear things as he goes in and out of consciousness, can hear people talk about it afterwards, or can simply make common sense guesses of what was going on. Also, when people later tell their stories, people hearing them can hear what they want to hear. The listeners can subconsciously guide people to say what they want them to say.

When these claims are submitted to controlled tests, in which the person with the NDE is asked about something particular that was setup in the room, he is generally not able to identify it. I don’t see a lot of validity to these NDE claims, but it is beyond my scope here to address them fully.

Regarding one of the stories that I was asked to respond to, I wrote:

This is a story of somebody who had been revived, followed by four days in a coma, and then spent 2 days awake before talking about the experience. During that time there was plenty of time to overhear details of what happened. When later asked about it, she could repeat these details as something remembered.

How would this have stood up in cross-examination and careful investigation? Is this something she vividly remembered, or was she repeating what she had overheard? What did she also say about the experience that was wrong? Did she say these things after leading questions had been asked? Did the questioners misunderstand her replies? Were they driven by a desire to interpret things the way they wanted?

This type of anecdotal evidence is notoriously unreliable. Many, for instance, have been wrongly sentenced based on anecdotal evidence. Others have been wrongly convicted after children were led to give false evidence by repeatedly asking them leading questions. The hard physical evidence later showed those convicted were innocent.

You can also hear stories of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, but neither can be confirmed with physical evidence. People hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see. Anecdotes are not reliable evidence.

Science looks to controlled studies, not occasional anecdotes, to establish scientific truths.

#451

Also, in this case, it appears that the person may not have been fully unconscious when the events in question happened.

2. Reincarnation

Others turned to stories of people saying things that could have happened in a past life before they were reincarnated.

One link that was posted included this statement by a 2-year-old:

At bedtime, he said: “I’ve come to mom’s belly from a faraway place. I’ve come,
hurry, hurry! (I’ve come in a hurry.)” His mother was 41 years old when Kanon was
born, and she interpreted his words to mean that he had cared about her age and
had come to her as quickly as possible. [Source]

It seems to me that it is quite a stretch to say this 2-year-old remembered being in an intermediate state trying to anxiously get into mom’s belly in a hurry before her biological clock ticks out. Rather, it is more likely that the mom, believing in reincarnation, had told the child this story many times. One time he repeated it back, or something close to this. The mom remembered this as evidence of the child being aware of reincarnation. Many of us our skeptical.

Children can repeat back what they heard. Years ago, I was driving and said something like, “I want to go home.” Suddenly, out of nowhere, my young son who had spoken few words before this, blurted out, “Daddy wants to go home.” He was able to put that sentence together, even though he was at the earliest stages of learning spoken language. Likewise, the child in the story above could simply have been saying what he heard.

3. Mediums

Finally, we have the evidence of mediums. I must admit, this is one area that surprised me, and I do not have all the answers.

I do know that there has been a lot of fraud by mediums throughout the years. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship.

One interesting claim of a study of mediums was:

…meta-analysis of various studies of information provided by mediums under controlled [conditions] actually find strong support of anomalous cognition on the part of mediums.

Sarraf, M., Woodley, M., Tressoldi, P. (2020). Anomalous information reception by mediums: A meta-analysis of the scientific evidence. Explore 17, 10.1016/j.explore.2020.04.002.

#477

To which I responded:

OK, I read the study you reference…

It does have some merit. It is a compilation of 18 studies of mediums. In each of these studies, mediums were told the name of the deceased that the person in another room wanted to hear from. These mediums then prepared reported messages they were hearing from the named deceased person.

Later the person requesting the reading would be presented two readings, one reportedly from the requested departed person, and one reportedly from somebody else. In general, the people requesting the services of the medium guessed the right message about half the time. In some studies, they guessed correctly slightly more than half the time. In other studies, they guessed wrong more than half the time…

[This meta-analysis] combines many studies of mediums, each with a small positive or negative affect, and concludes that overall there is a slight significant positive correlation with guessing the right message rather than the wrong one.

That could mean that, there is a slight tendency to hear from the deceased. Or it could mean there is a slight tendency to somehow get transmissions from the person in the other room in ways not currently understood. Or it could mean that there are things in the experimental design that change the odds just slightly in favor of right guesses.

For instance, a medium who is a skilled cold reader might make a different reading for a request for a deceased man named “Peter” compared with one for a man named “Pedro”. The person who is looking for a reading from Uncle Peter might then find that the reading prepared for Peter is closer to what he expected compared to the reading for Pedro. Thus, there may be a few occasions where the name helps to give the medium a slight clue, and that may be enough to show slightly more positive readings.

So, what is causing the small favoring toward correct readings? I think experimental design, such as using the name as a hint on how to make the reading, is the most likely cause. The second most likely cause is that the medium was somehow sensing something from the living. The least likely cause, in my opinion, is that the medium was hearing from the deceased. This is because, as I have argued here, I find it extremely unlikely that people survive death. So, I find one of these other causes more likely.

One other option is that there is a publishing bias. Positive results are much easier to publish than one that shows no effect or perhaps a small negative effect. Perhaps if unpublished reports had been included in this meta-analysis, the results would have been quite different.

Another possibility, due to the fact that there are many studies involved, is that some of the studies may have had a significant flaw in the design. A few bad pieces of beef ruin the whole beef stew.

So, I find this study interesting, but the small observed affect does nothing to overthrow all of neuroscience, which finds that the mind is dependent on the brain, and hence is unlikely to survive death.

#562

This was followed up with two specific claims of particular recent studies that look impressive. First, we have:

What about this follow-on study of mediumship accuracy from 2022, which employed 28 mediums, also with a triple-blind protocol:

Is There Someone in the Hereafter? Mediumship Accuracy of 100 Readings Obtained with a Triple Level of Blinding Protocol

Patrizio Tressoldi, Laura Liberale, and Fernando Sinesio.

Note: the calculated cumulative p value was 0.000048.

http://www.patriziotressoldi.it/cmssimpl…ter_22.pdf

#586

Here we have another study with blinded mediums apparently giving readings, with the readings being at least partially recognizable as from the intended deceased person.

100 sitters had come and asked for readings from a particular deceased person. Mediums were given only the first name of the deceased and came up with readings for that person. Later the sitters were grouped in pairs, where both sitters received both readings. The sitters apparently picked the reading intended for their requested deceased person 65% of the time.

In the past such studies were often plagued with methodological flaws or showed no significant conclusion for the mediums. (Battista et al, The Myth of an Afterlife, p615) This study claims to have a more rigid control and to be clearly positive for mediumship accuracy.

If we assume that nobody altered the readings or biased the study to filter out the results they wanted, we are left with reports from the mediums that had a slight tendency to match the requested person. They were not a perfect match, but they were accurate enough for 65% to choose the “correct” reading. How did these reports come to contain this level of correct information? I can think of three ways it could happen:

1. The mediums got their information from the deceased.
2. The mediums go their information from the living through PSI.
3. The mediums got their information from some physical means.

Option 1 is clearly incredible. I find no evidence that a mind could continue after death. I have seen no post in that thread that gives an answer for anterograde amnesia after brain injury that is reasonably consistent with an afterlife. I think the same applies to retrograde amnesia, loss of consciousness under anesthesia, language difficulties after brain injury, etc. So, I find it hard to believe that the dead are communicating in this study.

Even if the dead could communicate with the living, how did the mediums contact the right person? All they had was the first name. If the medium was told the name was Teresa, how did he contact the right Teresa? There were three different people named Teresa whom the mediums were told to contact (full data is at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13311710). How did they get the right one when they were told the next reading was to come from Teresa?

Option 2 is also clearly incredible, as it makes an unrealistic claim for PSI. But at least the supposed source would be alive, which I would think is more likely compared with getting information from the dead. Dead men tell no tales.

Option 3 is also incredible, as the controls in place should have prevented the mediums from getting information from elsewhere. But I suspect this is the case. For mediums have long used fraud to verify their skills (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship). If they had real powers, why did many mediums resort to fraud? In this study, could some of the sitters have found a way to contact the mediums before the study? Could the mediums, who gave their readings over Skype or WhatsApp without anybody supervising them, have had assistants on the Internet gleaning information to use in the readings? I don’t know, but I find this possibility more credible than options 1 and 2.

A very similar study is found at:

Explore (NY); 2015 Mar-Apr;11(2):136-42. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2015.01.001. Epub 2015 Jan 7.
Anomalous information reception by research mediums under blinded conditions II: replication and extension
by Julie Beischel, Mark Boccuzzi, Michael Biuso, Adam J Rock    (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25666383/) (#490)

Again, I suspect the mediums somehow got information fraudulently. I would like to see these studies reviewed in more detail.

I would like to see a study like this done where the medium does not even know the questions. Questions could be asked at random to the sitter in another room, with the deceased directed to give the answer to the medium in a nearby room. The deceased would supposedly know the question, but the medium would not. If the answers are just coming from the medium’s mind, rather than coming from the deceased, this would reveal the problem. (#603)

I had suggested another study that I would find impressive: Believers in an afterlife could all agree here on a time and place where the first person to die would meet the others to reveal the card held in a dealer’s hand to the others who would be sitting in designated rooms. If that’s not plausible, revise the experiment such as having trained mediums. Then see if survival believers can do better than others who have no access to the deceased and are simply guessing.

If mediums could really hear from the dead, imagine what we could learn from Socrates, the Apostle Paul, or George Washington by simply holding a conversation with their souls. Imagine what the dead could do for us as spies or at the gambling table. Imagine the books they could write about their experiences beyond. If only they could send emails or even ring bells to answer yes and no questions. Instead, we have only what comes through the mind of a medium. Some of us think we are just hearing what the medium wants to say, not what the dead tell those mediums.

Conclusion

It was an interesting experience, and I learned a lot. Overall, nothing that I read in that thread overrides the evidence that death ends our conscious existence, for our minds could not continue as an identifiable self without a brain.

Notes:

1. If you are interested in reading the original posts in that thread, I reference the post numbers. If you prefer, you can read the entire thread, but there are a lot of diversions. Alternatively, you can just read my posts. I generally quote the posts I am replying to, so you can get most of the content of the thread from just reading my posts. Back arrows at each post allow you to go back and read the context.