Admins and a flawed argument against an afterlife

I attempted to submit a post (scroll down to under dashed line) to a private Facebook Group called Science, Philosophy, and Psychology Discussion that currently has a staggering 65,508 members. It was rejected.

I sent the following (in blue) to the moderating thread in that group:

I submitted a post concerning a flawed argument by a certain Matthew Alpe against an afterlife. My post has not been permitted. The following "reason" was given:

to see the blog post one must be a member. this is not going to fly. the mature (sic) of the post is already problematic as it assumes a god and a heaven and is trying to be persuasive that this is true. this is akin to preaching.

My post has absolutely nothing to do with any "God", it is pertaining to an argument by a certain Matthew Alper against the afterlife. His argument is an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum -- namely by assuming the existence of an afterlife, this leads to an intractable problem about what it is that actually survives. My argument in turn essentially is that he is question-begging. I don't want to reiterate the arguments here though. The point being is that to claim I'm assuming either a God or an afterlife displays a complete lack of understanding of my post.

Nor of course do counter-arguments constitute "preaching". Of course, the admins may not agree with my argument. But not allowing an argument to be seen by labeling it as "preaching" is truly deplorable. Is this a group for those who subscribe to the modern western metaphysic and will allow no dissent? It seems so to me. Which contradicts what it says in the description of the group where it states "[t]he entire range of science and philosophy are open to analysis and discussion" and "[t]he administrators of this group pride themselves on free speech and will never censor posts or comments on the grounds of disagreement". To put it mildly, this appears to be contrary to the reality.

If one is an admin and their responsibility is to judge the suitability of posts, they really need to establish what the post is actually about. This involves reading and attempting to understand the content. Being an admin should also involve the capacity to understand arguments. The admins should especially have the capacity to distinguish between demonstrating an argument is flawed, and preaching.

Anyway, here is the post full of preaching about God and Heaven!

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An interview with Matthew Alper author of The "God" Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God.  In the interview he says:

So I have people say, “When I die I’m going to be in heaven with my family.” So I’ll say like, “Okay, you’ll be in heaven. Let’s even assume that’s true. You’re going to go to heaven. Who you are is going to live forever. You, Joe, is going to be around for eternity.” But then I say, “But let me ask, what if Joe gets dementia, Alzheimer’s tomorrow, and then you die a year into it, where your last self didn’t know whether to go to the bathroom or eat an apple, you didn’t know the difference between the two. You didn’t remember the names of your own children, your wife, let alone your own self. So is Joe the demented going to be floating around in this eternal headspace for eternity, or do you have this idealized version that it’s you, Joe, now as you’re talking to me? ”

Dementia is due to an impaired brain. Now, if there is an afterlife, the self/soul would have to be an entirely distinct entity from the brain. Hence, the impaired brain would be an irrelevance to our cognitive abilities. Consider if one has on a pair of eyeglasses. The lenses might be cracked, hence affecting one's vision. But that has no implications for one's vision when we take the eyeglasses off.

Immediately after the above Matthew goes on to say:

Or maybe is it going to be Joe 10 years ago, or Joe when you were five? We’re all chameleons. We’re a thousand different people in our lifetimes based on our periods of life.

We might have a 1000 different pairs of eyeglasses we could wear, all affecting our vision in differing characteristic ways. But our unaided vision is unaffected and perhaps our vision is different from the vision from all of the eyeglasses.

The real self is that which makes one the same self from childhood to adulthood, the same self regardless of whether one is drunk or sober etc. Go into all this in more detail in a blog post.

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I often seem to have problems with moderators both with facebook groups and various discussion boards as I also discuss here.

A Purposeless Existence?

At the following link in the comments underneath a lady called violagirl says:

After my husband died of a 13 year illness I spent a lot of time reading, meditating, doing yoga, hiking, etc and here's what I learned; life is purposeless and meaningless. When we die it is over unless there was something huge we did. My husband was a brilliant NASA engineer, but his work is not "his", it belongs to NASA. We live then we die and it does not matter one little bit what we do in that time. It would be nice to think we would at least aspire to be moral and ethical, but greed and stuff are what is lauded and that is another reason humans and their lives do not matter.

I feel for her and I understand why she and so many others feel this way. Her sentiment is due to the underlying message that our culture is giving us -- namely that we are biological machines with no set purpose apart from living this one life. The Universe just is, there's no meaning behind it, there's no reason for it. We live our very brief lives, and that's it.

But I think she is very wrong. I feel that our lives and the Universe are ultimately mysterious, and we are all on this adventure. That perhaps part of the mystery will be revealed when we die. I feel that life is exciting and even though it may appear to be dreary and monotonous, that this is illusory. We get a brief glimpse of how things truly are during moments like mystical experiences.

Peoples indifference to the coronavirus

It almost feels like I'm in a dream and that I'll wake up at some point then tell everyone on Facebook that I had this bizarre dream -- a worldwide pandemic, people confined to their homes, empty streets, supermarket shelves empty. Then my next-door neighbour starts to cough (which he has) . . the dreaded cough, signalling he's one of the infected... But then I wake up! Or, perhaps I'll wake up after completing this blog post...

It's extraordinary that we've found ourselves in such a mess. This needn't have happened.  Back on the 24th January on Facebook, I said:

"if it's possible that millions might die, it is surely sensible to completely terminate all international flying".

Unfortunately, the vast majority of other people simply didn't share my assessment of the danger.  For example, here's a screenshot of another Facebook post regarding the virus one week later on the 31st of January.

I've rubbed out the names and photographs of the 3 comments made by 3 different people, but they are all good Facebook friends of mine who usually tend to be levelheaded and whose opinions I value. Just in case the comments can't be read, they are as follows:

Person 1:

Whatever happened to "Keep calm and carry on?"

Person 2

This virus is no worse then the flu. It’s much ado about nothing.

Person 3

Incredible amount of sensationalism. The question I'm asking is who benefits from all the hoo-ha? You might want to read this Ian.

My Response:

I make no claims about how much this virus will spread and how many will die. I have absolutely no idea. The one worrying thing is the claim that people can pass it on when displaying no symptoms themselves.

Following from my comment back then, we now know that many people who get the virus -- perhaps as many as 50% -- do not have any symptoms, yet they can still pass the virus on! This is the key to the spread of this virus. What is also extremely important is that each infected person infects on average 2.5 others. Contrast this with seasonal flu where each person infects on average only 1.3 others. Hence, the claim that many people make -- at least until very recently -- that this virus is no more worrying than seasonal flu, is simply preposterous. I elaborate on why it's preposterous here.

All this information was known back in January.  So why on earth was allowing people to gallivant around the planet more important than taking the appropriate measures back then to snuff out any possible danger?  Of course, we didn't know it would end as bad as this, but it was always on the cards.

Even now people are being highly irresponsible.  Last weekend, when it was sunny, many people were visiting seaside resorts.  Many young people justify such behaviour by saying that they'll be unlikely to die.  This misses the point.  Even if they suffer no symptoms whatsoever, they will infect others.  These people will be indirectly responsible for killing many others. They need to dwell on this, they need to grok this.

Yes, it's difficult not socially interacting, especially when we might have to forfeit this pleasure for possibly many months.  I suffer from social anxiety and will not be as anywhere near as bothered by it as others, but even I miss the occasional visit to the pub etc.  But, unless we try to limit our interactions, then the number of infected will continue on its exponential growth rate and the NHS and other countries' health services will be overwhelmed.  If this happens millions could die.  We need to do the right thing and to isolate.

Who's to say what's extraordinary?

Somebody who had spent her whole life in a tropical climate with no contact with the rest of the world would regard the notion that water could turn solid as being contrary to everything she had ever discovered about water. Water simply doesn't, and couldn't, do that sort of thing.

Our science is only applicable to a given domain. With the very fast, or the very small, different laws are required. And I suggest our contemporary physics only applies to non-conscious reality. We need new laws to understand consciousness and how it relates to (fits in with) the rest of reality. Once we have those new laws, once we know how consciousness fits in with the rest of physical reality, then we can say whether psi is to be expected, or a "life after death" etc. But, until that moment, we're simply not in a position to declare psi or an afterlife are extraordinary claims.

When Religion Makes Grief More Difficult

I've just read the following article:

When Religion Makes Grief More Difficult.

It says:

Most Americans grew up with a Sunday school image of God as a protector/punisher, and go through their lives without ever questioning that image. For some, a profound loss or trauma can inspire deeper exploration, but for those don’t – or won’t — question their faith, trying to make that image fit with actual human experience is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole.The square peg is a belief in divine reward and punishment. The round hole is the way life actually works. By the time most of us are young adults we have observed that the good are not necessarily rewarded and the bad are not necessarily punished. Real human experience proves that it just doesn’t work that way.

People have a propensity to subscribe to extreme positions.  Further, others tend to assume if you disagree with their position then you must subscribe to the precise opposite e.g. you disapprove that the bottom 80% of people in the USA only have 11% of all wealth?  Then you must be a communist who is in favour that everyone has precisely the same wealth!  And of course the same applies to concepts of God and an afterlife.  You don't subscribe to the notion that the Universe and our lives are pure happenstance, that we are merely sophisticated biological robots with no free will whose lives have no ultimate purpose?  Then you must believe in a personal God as a protector and punisher; that if you are good you will go to Heaven, if you are bad you will go to Hell.

Personally my beliefs are more along the lines that reality as a whole is somehow infused with awareness, and indeed a manifestation of awareness. And all things, all events, everything that has been, everything that will be, is infused with ultimate meaning. A meaning that eludes us in our daily day to day existence, but whose existence might be very briefly glimpsed with peak experiences and mystical experiences.  But this awareness underlying reality, or all pervading spiritual presence, is not some personal being that watches over us and requires us to worship it.

I don't want to argue about the issue of an appropriate "God" though.  The point I'm making is that people should think more about what they believe, and avoid believing something simply because most others in your camp believe it.  We need to adopt more nuanced positions. 

Reasons not to scoff at ghosts, visions and near-death experiences

The following article is not my own. The author is Andreas Sommer who is a German-born historian of science and magic who runs the Forbidden Histories website. The original article can be found here.

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‘If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good, we ought to idealise and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychology; if not, we ought to make short work with it, no matter what supernatural being may have infused it.’

From The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) by William James

There is a long tradition of scientists and other intellectuals in the West being casually dismissive of people’s spiritual experiences. In 1766, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant declared that people who claim to see spirits, such as his contemporary, the Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg, are mad. Kant, a believer in the immortality of the soul, did not draw on empirical or medical knowledge to make his case, and was not beyond employing a fart joke to get his derision across: ‘If a hypochondriac wind romps in the intestines it depends on the direction it takes; if it descends it becomes a f–––, if it ascends it becomes an apparition or sacred inspiration.’ Another ‘enlightened’ enemy of other-worldly visions was the chemist and devout Christian, Joseph Priestley. His own critique of spirit seership in 1791 did not advance scientific arguments either, but presented biblical ‘proof’ that the only legitimate afterlife was the bodily resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day.

However, there is good cause to question the overzealous pathologisation of spiritual sightings and ghostly visions. About a century after Kant and Priestley scoffed at such experiences, William James, the ‘father’ of American scientific psychology, participated in research on the first international census of hallucinations in ‘healthy’ people. The census was carried out in 1889-97 on behalf of the International Congress of Experimental Psychology, and drew on a sample of 17,000 men and women. This survey showed that hallucinations – including ghostly visions – were remarkably widespread, thus severely undermining contemporary medical views of their inherent pathology. But the project was unorthodox in yet another respect because it scrutinised claims of ‘veridical’ impressions – that is, cases where people reported seeing an apparition of a loved one suffering an accident or other crisis, which they had in fact undergone, but which the hallucinator couldn’t have known about through ‘normal’ means. The vicinity of such positive findings with ‘ghost stories’ was reason enough for most intellectuals not to touch the census report with a bargepole, and the pathological interpretation of hallucinations and visions continued to prevail until the late-20th century.

Things slowly began to change in about 1971, when the British Medical Journal published a study on ‘the hallucinations of widowhood’ by the Welsh physician W Dewi Rees. Of the 293 bereaved women and men in Rees’s sample, 46.7 per cent reported encounters with their deceased spouses. Most important, 69 per cent perceived these encounters as helpful, whereas only 6 per cent found them unsettling. Many of these experiences, which ranged from a sense of presence, to tactile, auditory and visual impressions indistinguishable from interactions with living persons, continued over years. Rees’s paper inspired a trickle of fresh studies that confirmed his initial findings – these ‘hallucinations’ don’t seem inherently pathological nor therapeutically undesirable. On the contrary, whatever their ultimate causes, they often appear to provide the bereaved with much-needed strength to carry on.

Rees’s study coincided with writings by a pioneer of the modern hospice movement, the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in which she emphasised the prevalence of comforting other-worldly visions reported by dying patients – an observation supported by later researchers. Indeed, a 2010 study in the Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics addressed the need for special training for medical personnel regarding these experiences, and in recent years the academic literature on end-of-life care has recurrently examined the constructive functions of death-bed visions in helping the dying come to terms with impending death.

Kübler-Ross was also among the first psychiatrists to write about ‘near-death experiences’ (NDEs) reported by survivors of cardiac arrests and other close brushes with death. Certain elements have pervaded popular culture – impressions of leaving one’s body, passing through a tunnel or barrier, encounters with deceased loved ones, a light representing unconditional acceptance, insights of the interconnectedness of all living beings, and so on. Once you ignore the latest clickbait claiming that scientists studying NDEs have either ‘proven’ life after death or debunked the afterlife by reducing them to brain chemistry, you start to realise that there’s a considerable amount of rigorous research published in mainstream medical journals, whose consensus is in line with neither of these popular polarisations, but which shows the psychological import of the experiences.

For instance, although no two NDEs are identical, they usually have in common that they cause lasting and often dramatic personality changes. Regardless of the survivors’ pre-existing spiritual inclinations, they usually form the conviction that death is not the end. Understandably, this finding alone makes a lot of people rather nervous, as one might fear threats to the secular character of science, or even an abuse of NDE research in the service of fire-and-brimstone evangelism. But the specialist literature provides little justification for such worries. Other attested after-effects of NDEs include dramatic increases in empathy, altruism and environmental responsibility, as well as strongly reduced competitiveness and consumerism.

Virtually all elements of NDEs can also occur in psychedelic ‘mystical’ experiences induced by substances such as psilocybin and DMT. Trials at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Imperial College London have revealed that these experiences can occasion similar personality changes as NDEs, most notably a loss of fear of death and a newfound purpose in life. Psychedelic therapies are now becoming a serious contender in the treatment of severe conditions including addictions, post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment-resistant depressions.

This brings us back to James, whose arguments in The Varieties of Religious Experience for the pragmatic clinical and social value of such transformative episodes have been mostly ignored by the scientific and medical mainstream. If there really are concrete benefits of personality changes following ‘mystical’ experiences, this might justify a question that’s not usually raised: could it be harmful to follow blindly the standard narrative of Western modernity, according to which ‘materialism’ is not only the default metaphysics of science, but an obligatory philosophy of life demanded by centuries of supposedly linear progress based on allegedly impartial research?

Sure, the dangers of gullibility are evident enough in the tragedies caused by religious fanatics, medical quacks and ruthless politicians. And, granted, spiritual worldviews are not good for everybody. Faith in the ultimate benevolence of the cosmos will strike many as hopelessly irrational. Yet, a century on from James’s pragmatic philosophy and psychology of transformative experiences, it might be time to restore a balanced perspective, to acknowledge the damage that has been caused by stigma, misdiagnoses and mis- or overmedication of individuals reporting ‘weird’ experiences. One can be personally skeptical of the ultimate validity of mystical beliefs and leave properly theological questions strictly aside, yet still investigate the salutary and prophylactic potential of these phenomena.

By making this quasi-clinical proposal, I’m aware that I could be overstepping my boundaries as a historian of Western science studying the means by which transcendental positions have been rendered inherently ‘unscientific’ over time. However, questions of belief versus evidence are not the exclusive domain of scientific and historical research. In fact, orthodoxy is often crystallised collective bias starting on a subjective level, which, as James himself urged, is ‘a weakness of our nature from which we must free ourselves, if we can’. No matter if we are committed to scientific orthodoxy or to an open-minded perspective on ghostly visions and other unusual subjective experiences, both will require cultivating a relentless scrutiny of the concrete sources that nourish our most fundamental convictions – including the religious and scientific authorities on which they rest perhaps a little too willingly.

Andreas Sommer

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

If my Essence is an Enduring Self

Throughout our lives, our interests, demeanour, and intelligence and so on will gradually change. Just contrast ourselves as we are now to when we were children.  And even on a day to day basis, and perhaps even from one hour to the next, our moods will change. But, despite this, speaking for myself I cannot help thinking of myself as an enduring being. That is to say, I cannot help thinking that I am the very same person that has undergone all these changes. If I am in a despondent mood, but then hear some good news and my mood consequently undergoes a vast improvement, it seems to me that I am the very same self that experiences these differing moods.

If this is correct than I am not to be equated with these various differing moods, thoughts, or other psychological states. Rather I am a self that underlies and undergoes these differing psychological states. That is to say, I am not the mere sum of various experiences, I am the author or experiencer of all these various experiences. My psychological states constantly change, but I remain the very same self throughout these differing psychological states.

This even extends back to when I was a child.  Despite the fact that as a child I had differing pre-occupations, interests, intelligence and so on compared to now, I still feel I am that very same self.

I suggest that this is simply the commonsensical conception of the self. After all, we don't assume we cease to exist after drinking a few beers due to the consequent change in our emotions and cognitive abilities, only for our selves to return when we become sober.

It may seem here I am belabouring the obvious.  But, in fact, most philosophers and scientists, since they are materialists, do not believe in such an unchanging self.  They do not deny that we have a sense of self and a sense that our selves are enduring.  But, they think that this is simply an illusion.  They believe that a person's "self"  is cashed out entirely by their psychological states.  And since our psychological states constantly change, we must quite literally not survive from one mood to the next, or indeed, strictly speaking, not even survive from one second to the next (see an essay by me here where I attempt to demonstrate materialists are obliged to deny the existence of an enduring/persisting self).

Is such an enduring self consistent with the notion that the brain somehow produces this self? Consider that my brain changes all the time. My psychological states also change all the time. So perhaps we might suppose my brain creates my psychological states. But if my self underlying these psychological states remains unaltered i.e I am the very same self despite my thoughts, emotions etc all changing, can the brain still create such a self?

I do think there is a difficulty here.  Yet I'm sure that the vast majority of subscribe to such an enduring self, yet also think it's commonsensical to suppose we simply cease to exist when we die.  Are they being consistent though?

Edited to add:  I was doing a search on the net on this issue, and I note that Bernardo Kastrup has penned some similar thoughts in the following article:

Conquering the fear of oblivion

A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism

Consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious

It is widely believed by scientists and philosophers, and even the scientifically educated public, that all change in the world is wholly a result of unbroken chains of physical causes and effects. Voluntary behaviour will constitute no exception. More importantly, even the direction our thoughts take will also constitute no exception. But, at least in regards to our thoughts, this does not seem to me to be tenable. Let's see why.

If the scientists and philosophers are correct the direction in which our thoughts develop are not influenced by our consciousness, for they are purely a result of chains of physical causes and effects; presumably the underlying neuronal activity.  Consider, though, that one knows in the most immediate manner possible that oneself is conscious. This awareness, moreover, is not an instantaneous thing, it must be smudged out in time. Hence, one might entertain the thought, 'yes, I know for certain I myself am conscious', even if not expressed explicitly in words. Could this thought, this realisation, be purely due to chains of physical causes and effects without one's actual consciousness playing any role in the fruition of this thought? No, because this certainty, this thought, is clearly due to one's immediate and direct apprehension of one's own consciousness. In other words, it is simply incoherent to suppose one could be certain of one's own consciousness through physical chains of causes and effects alone.  At least in this instance, consciousness is an indispensable ingredient and cannot be causally irrelevant. 

But, once we have understood and agreed with this, the thesis that only physical causation applies in the direction of our thoughts, unravels.  We know that it is false.  For it is scarcely likely that consciousness plays a role in this one thought -- 'yes, I know for certain I myself am conscious' -- but purely chains of physical causes and effects are wholly responsible for all our other thoughts.  It is surely reasonable to infer consciousness is an essential ingredient in the direction of all our thoughts. 

What, though, if I speak out the words, 'yes, I know I am conscious'? Here, unlike my thoughts, I cannot have certainty. Perhaps my thoughts do not cause the verbal expression of such thoughts. That it is just a wholly unrelated fact that everything I think and mentally choose is reflected in the verbal and physical expression of such thoughts and choices. In other words, that I find myself in this body that, contrary to what it seems, I have no control over whatsoever, but nevertheless behaves exactly as if it does! Apart from the outlandish nature of this suggestion, we need to remember that unbroken chains of physical causes and effects were supposed to be universal. If my thoughts are not subject to such unbroken chains of physical causes, then presumably what those thoughts appear to directly cause -- namely the neural correlates and behavioural manifestation of such thoughts -- will also not be so subject.

The causal efficacy of consciousness is not compatible with materialism

The reductive materialist might claim there is no incompatibility between a causally efficacious consciousness on the one hand, and on the other, that all change is the world is characterised by unbroken chains of physical causes and effects. He justifies this by maintaining that conscious experiences, such as our reasoning processes, are literally identical to physical processes in the brain. If a train of thought is literally identical to some physical processes, and these physical processes have causal powers, then it necessarily follows that the train of thought has causal powers too.

So, he will claim that my argument is question-begging since I am assuming at the outset a position called dualism. Dualism is the idea that consciousness is not the same thing as a material process, even though it still might be created by such material processes.  Interactive dualism, in addition, holds that the body affects consciousness with consciousness, in its turn, affecting the body. It's the commonsensical position that we all tend to instinctively believe (even materialists tend to admit we are all instinctively interactive dualists). So, what if reductive materialism is correct. Does my argument still apply?

I have argued in various places elsewhere e.g. here, that I do not regard reductive materialism as being tenable. But, even if it were tenable, reductive materialism cannot circumvent my argument. Let's now see why.

Let's suppose that when we reason something through and reach a sound conclusion, we have the following mental chain:

i) a → b → c → d → e

And, simultaneously, we have the following correlated physical chain in the brain:

ii) A → B → C → D → E

The materialist claims that “a” is identical to “A”, “b” is identical to “B” etc. But, nevertheless, we have two different accounts of how a/A progresses to e/E. In "i", we have a train of reasoning which, when we attain an understanding of something, will have involved rational connections between thoughts. In "ii", we have a chain of physical causes and effects in the form of interactions of physical particles that can be mathematically described by the laws of physics. If any type of materialism is true, then everything has the ability to be explained in terms of the physical as exemplified in account "ii". Account "i" is simply not required since physical laws, which describe physical processes, make no reference to reasoning, nor indeed do they make any reference to intentions, desires, plans, or any other aspect of consciousness. But, it then follows that reasoning something through is causally irrelevant. Hence, identifying reasoning and the rest of our mental life with physical processes doesn't allow us to escape from the conclusion that our consciousness is causally irrelevant. However, as I’ve already explained, this is surely rendered false if we are not to undermine the complete certainty in the existence of our own consciousness.

As an aside, this constitutes an additional reason why reductive materialism could not be correct. Reductive materialism, by definition, only allows physical causation, therefore consciousness, in and of itself, cannot make a difference. But, if the above argument is sound, it must do so.

Various Objections

I do not believe my argument can be circumvented. But, for the sake of completeness, I shall now look at four of the commonest objections that have been advanced against interactive dualism.  That is to say, that have been advanced against the notion that consciousness in and of itself could be causally efficacious.

1. Conservation of Energy

People often assert that if consciousness causally influences the underlying neural activity, then the principle of conservation of energy must be violated. Imagine a billiard ball that starts rolling on its own accord without anything, such as another ball, impacting upon it. Then, if the rest of the world is unchanged, we would have an overall increase in energy that will equal the kinetic energy of the moving ball. Similarly, it is maintained that for consciousness to initiate any material processes instead of any antecedent physical causes, the total energy of the system will be increased. In both cases, conservation of energy is violated.

We need to take a step back here and remind ourselves that current science wholly leaves out consciousness in its description of reality (see a blog post by me). I think, though, that this will eventually be remedied and a theory will be dreamt up that will reveal consciousness to be non-reducible. However, this will be a radical break from existing theories since we are admitting into the domain of science that which is very different from the structure and function that it currently describes and investigates.

The important point is this: any such theory will have consciousness having an impact on the world. Will such a theory, therefore, entail an ever spiralling increase in total energy? Let's consider what is being said here. Essentially, they're saying, we have no idea how consciousness exists and what possible theory will accommodate it, but whatever that theory might transpire to be, a causally efficacious consciousness will result in an increase in the total amount of energy in the world. But, since we have no idea what form such a theory will take, how on earth can they know this? Why on earth can consciousness not use up energy that is matched by a corresponding depletion of energy elsewhere? I submit no-one is in any position to claim that this cannot happen. Certainly, at the very least, they must provide a justification for their allegation rather than simply stating it.

2. How can the immaterial impact on the material?

A related objection is that an immaterial consciousness is wholly different from the physical realm, so how could consciousness affect the physical, or indeed vice versa? I think the idea here relates to the fact that consciousness has no location, no mass, no physical properties whatsoever. So, how could it affect that which does have a location, a mass and other various physical properties? Underpinning this is the notion that all influences must be physical chains of contiguous causes and effects. So, how can consciousness, which has no location, no mass and so on, possibly influence the physical realm?

I suggest that the people who voice this objection have a certain view of reality where only certain types of regularity are permitted; namely a mechanistic view of reality where all changes are captured by such contiguous physical chains of causes and effects. Essentially, they hold the view that A influences B because there is some innate power in the world that travels from A to B and necessitates change in B.

But, why must reality be limited to such regularities? Why must causes be contiguous? What permits us to a priori rule out a reality that admits influences from consciousness, or indeed even mystical principles, or magic and so on? Note that in saying causes may not need to be contiguous, we are not contradicting any physical laws. Rather, we are contradicting the mechanistic view of reality, which at best is a presupposition of science, or at least it was a presupposition of science back in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Physics simply tries to model reality based on observations in the past to predict events in the future. We call these regularities physical laws. I do not believe we can impose a priori constraints on the patterns we find there, that is we cannot say reality must conform to contiguous causes. Empirical investigation should guide our beliefs rather than a priori presuppositions. Should we dismiss the phenomenon of entanglement because it contravenes such assumptions? And, if we don't, then the alleged universality of contiguous physical causes and effects is refuted. Where one exception is found, we can surely not be surprised if we find others. For an elaboration on this topic, I recommend people read this blog post by myself.

3. No influences apart from physical processes have ever been detected

It is often claimed that only material influences in the brain have ever been experimentally detected. The implication here if there were any influence from a non-material consciousness, then it would have been experimentally detected by now.

We need to bear in mind here that neuroscientists are almost exclusively materialists, and certainly, they will assume that only physical causation is at work in the brain. But, that strongly suggests that any influence from consciousness is simply not being looked for at all. Any firing of neurons will simply be taken for granted to have been caused by prior physical events. We also need to bear in mind that any influence from consciousness might well be minute since very small changes can cascade to larger and larger effects. In which case, even if they were looking, our functional MRI's lack the resolution to make any assertions in this regard.

4. Experiments by Libet et al

Experiments by the neurologist Benjamin Libet and others appear to imply that our conscious decisions do not cause our voluntary acts, rather it is the state of the brain immediately prior to the conscious decision that is the real and sole cause of our behaviour. Here is a youtube video briefly outlining Libet's experiment.

So, the experiments seem to suggest that instead of my thought, my decision, flexing my wrist, it was prior activity in my brain. In the original experiment, this prior activity occurred around a third of a second before the conscious decision. Libet himself thought that a role for the will was still present in the form of the veto, or what has been termed "free won't". This veto refers to the fact that even after the initiation of this brain activity, we still have the power to stop ourselves from flexing our wrist. Moreover, this veto is not likewise initiated by its own prior brain activity, hence seemingly representing a genuine power of consciousness.

There have been many objections made against Libet's experiment. I won't go into them here since, recently, there's been news of a claim that we have been mistaken in our interpretation of the significance of this prior brain activity. Go here. It seems, in a nutshell, that the prior brain activity held to cause the decision is largely an artefact of the methods used to analyse the data.

Free Will and Determinism

Having now established at the very least a limited role for the causal efficacy of consciousness per se, and, in addition, seen that the various objections to an immaterial causal consciousness have no bite, can we conclude that we have "free will"? One might think obviously yes, indeed I would count myself as one of them. However, it is frequently claimed that free will involves more than a causally efficacious consciousness. Why is this, and is this claim justified?

Consider the claim that our behaviour is purely the inevitable result of chains of causes and effects stretching back to the distant past. Such a thesis is referred to as causal determinism. Typically, these chains are regarded as physical chains. However, since I have concluded that consciousness plays at least some role, then this is untenable. But, what about mental chains of causes and effects, or a combination of physical and mental chains? Perhaps one's psychological state at any given moment compels all future psychological states? In which case, at least in principle, our behaviour will be just as predictable as that which pertains within the physical realm.

In fact, a great deal of our behaviour does appear to be predictable. For example, the vast majority of us, on spotting a wad of £20 notes on the ground, would stoop down, pick the notes up, and stuff them in our pocket. If someone is parched and water is available, then it is pretty predictable they will have a drink. It is predictable that I will argue against materialism, and not for it. More generally, the more we get to know a person, the more we will be able to predict his behaviour or the views he will express. Does the predictability of our behaviour entail we lack free will?

We need to be leery here of a logical fallacy called affirming the consequent. To give an example:

1. If the lamp is broken the room would be dark.
2. The room is dark.
3. Therefore the lamp is broken.

This is invalid. For example, the lamp might be switched off. Likewise, from the fact that physical processes, which lack free will, are predictable, we cannot definitively conclude that our behaviour, although also often predictable, also lacks free will. Further information is required: namely, whether the predictability of our behaviour is derived from the same type of causes that are responsible for the predictability found in the physical realm.

To cast some light on this question, let's consider the behaviour of objects as described by physical laws. They are typically regarded as being constrained to behave the way they do. In other words, they couldn't possibly behave otherwise than what they do. For example, if the Earth were to suddenly stop in its path around the Sun and start jigging up and down, this would be regarded as miraculous. It's not just the case that it would never happen, rather it seems it could never happen.

Does the same apply to our apparently freely chosen behaviour? Consider the case of ignoring the wad of £20 notes on the ground and simply walking on by. Unless one is rich, it would be irrational to do this and it would never happen, not even if we reran the Universe countless times. But, could it happen?

I think people are often confused here in that they conflate would never with could never. Simply because people may inevitably choose a certain action -- for example to quench their thirst if they are parched -- this does not mean that they could not do otherwise. There is nothing external to consciousness that compels people to pick up that glass of water. Rather the individual decides to do so. But at least he has the capacity to not pick up the glass, even though inevitably he will pick it up.

Further, the idea of a mental chain of cause and effect wholly accounting for the procession of our thoughts and decisions is suspect in any case. It is implied that such a chain will be similar to a physical causal chain, such as exemplified by a chain of dominoes falling on each other. However, in a so-called "mental chain", although the prior links in the chain play some role in one’s current mental state, that doesn’t seem to me to be the full story. Consider when we think something through. The path our thoughts follow in our chain of thought is not just dictated by previous links, that is it’s not just dictated by something already understood. It is also affected and guided by a contemporaneous unfolding understanding derived from our non-material selves.

In addition, we should also bear in mind that physical chains of causes and effects presuppose that there exist genuine impersonal forces in nature. Perhaps, though, something like gravitational force and the other 3 forces, simply do not exist any more than centrifugal force does (physicists do not consider centrifugal force to be a real force). I address this issue here. If indeed there are no impersonal forces that compel reality to behave as it does, then it may be that there is no explanation why reality exhibits the patterns it does – it is just a brute fact. The pertinent point here is that if we do not even know that the physical realm is constrained to behave the way it does, we can infer nothing about any alleged constraints on free will.

So, I conclude we have compelling reasons to suppose that the predictability of our behaviour stems from a differing ultimate cause to that within the physical realm. Hence, this causal determinism argument gives us no reason to doubt our free will.

Free will and not wanting what we want

There are those who have argued that one's desires or interests themselves are not amenable to one's control. In short, I cannot want what I want. For example, I am interested in various philosophical issues. But, I have very little interest in celebrities. I cannot instead choose to be interested in celebrities and uninterested in philosophy.

At least as an objection to the whole concept of free will, I regard this argument to be preposterous. If I could so choose to be interested in celebrities and not in philosophy, then I would be changing my essence, what I essentially am. It is no restriction on free will if it results in my self changing. In response, the free will detractor might then argue that one did not choose to be the self or essence one is. However, this seems to implicitly suppose we are purely material beings that came into being sometime between conception and birth, both of which I have argued against and do not accept. If my essence is non-material, then I am not a result of the accidental collocation of impersonal forces. Rather, I am self-defined, so to speak.

Nevertheless, this “not wanting what we want” argument does at least have a degree of merit. For it seems we could have more control over our wants and desires without it apparently impacting on our essence. For example, surely our free will would be enhanced if one could choose not to feel anger under certain circumstances? Or, if one could choose not to be addicted to unhealthy foods? These and countless other examples point to the fact that our free will is more restricted then we would ideally like it to be. But it does nothing to establish the notion that we wholly lack free will.

Conclusion

I do not believe my argument for the causal efficaciousness per se of consciousness can be circumvented. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, I also considered the various arguments that have been advanced that contend our consciousness, at least if considered to be distinct from its underlying neural activity, cannot be causally efficacious. I do not believe they pass muster. Indeed, the first two arguments -- namely, the alleged violation of the conservation of energy and the impossibility of the immaterial affecting the material -- appear to be ill-thought-out, to say the least. So, we have good reason to suppose our consciousnesses are causally efficacious per se, and no reason, so far as I can see, to doubt such a conclusion.

Of course, such a causally efficacious consciousness does not manifest itself constantly. Much of our behaviour is on what might be labelled auto-pilot. When we're walking somewhere, we're not consciously thinking about putting one foot in front of the other. When playing tennis we do not consciously think of the type of stroke to return. But, we do decide to walk to a particular destination, and we do decide to play a game of tennis. And this is what is important. For it is scarcely any threat to our autonomy that we are not subject to the necessity of having to think of every step we take and every tennis stroke we make.

Finally, what about free will? Does a causally efficacious consciousness constitute free will? It is my consciousness and not any prior physical activity in the world that makes choices. But, of course, our behaviour is nevertheless often perfectly predictable. However, I have argued that this doesn't impact on our free will. I conclude that under any reasonable conception of free will that we have it.

Perceptual illusions show our minds construct reality

via GIPHY


This is Richard Wiseman. He's a skeptic of the paranormal. I think he's especially fond of perceptual illusions as they show how easily people are fooled. The message he's essentially trying to convey is: 'you think you've seen something weird? Look at how easily we're fooled!'

Perhaps so.  But I think it also shows that we might sometimes be unable to see the unusual and anomalous in our visual fields.  Allow me to explain.

We don't just passively see what's out there. All the light that enters our eyes simply gives us a flat 2 dimensional plane of various shades of colour. However, we seem to immediately see a 3D world with objects at various distances. How so?

The answer is that it's derived from our familiarity with the world. In our experience of reality, familiar objects have certain sizes and a certain appearance. The mind uses this background experience to quite literally construct what we see out there. So, even though only a 2 dimensional plane of colour is actually immediately given, we seem to see directly a world in 3D -- a world populated with familiar objects at various distances.

To reiterate, this construction crucially depends on what we're used to seeing. Hence, when we introduce an anomalous object such as an unusually large-sized drinking glass, our minds will be wanting to see it as a normal-sized glass. So, they will be a propensity to see the glass closer and smaller than it really is. However, other cues in the environment normally alert us that what we are seeing is an anomalously large version of a familiar object. But here, in this gif, those other cues are absent, so we naturally see it as a normal-sized glass that is closer than it actually is.

But, what's interesting is that if we were to see something unfamiliar to us, something we've never seen before, there will be a propensity to see it as something more familiar. The upshot of all this is that there might be more unusual and anomalous phenomena out there than we suppose, but we just can't see it.

I suspect it might also have implications for what we appear to see during something like a near-death experience. If our vision in an afterlife realm works anything like normal vision, then our minds with their implicit expectations will shape and mould what we actually perceive.

A similar post by me written a few years ago:  Are Perceptual illusions always necessarily illusions?

Reminiscing about Old Photographs

            Photo is of Ironmongers in Maidenhead in 1900


It is a sobering thought to reflect that in 200 years’ time, in 2219, we will all have been long dead. No-one alive at this future time will remember us. For the vast majority of us nothing we write is likely to have survived. It'll be as if we had never existed. Indeed, time eventually renders us all anonymous.

But, what if a photograph of us still existed? Even if people 200 years hence don’t know our name or who we were, they might reminisce and wonder what we were thinking when the photograph was taken, what our life was like, what it was like to live in the early 21st Century.

Likewise, when we look at old photographs, say from the late 19th or early 20th Centuries, we too may connect to the past. It may initiate an emotional response in us, a whimsical reflection in what it was like to live in those times, how they viewed the world, their preoccupations, what their day to day lives were like.

Perhaps they were worried about their jobs and how to get promoted; perhaps they worried about making ends meet; perhaps they worried about their relationships with spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, or work colleagues. All the everyday concerns that people have, which, when viewed from our perspective 100 years hence, seem no longer important. We are looking at a world that has now disappeared, we are looking at people together with all their preoccupations and everyday concerns, which no longer exist.

What were they feeling when their photograph was taken? Photographs taken back then will have been very few and far between, so they will have been aware their photographs might attract some attention. Perhaps it is even possible for one or two of them to have speculated that people in the future -- perhaps a 100 years hence -- are viewing them “now” just as the photograph were taken. A moment gone just as the shutter clicks, but yet a moment also captured that might last for hundreds of years.

Without photographs we would, to a large measure, be emotionally shut off from the past. Viewing old photographs, that frozen moment in time, allows us that emotional identification.

The Limits of Science

Why can't science tell us why the Universe exists and why physical laws take on the form they do?

Here's an analogy.

Consider the game of chess. Let's suppose one knows nothing about how to play the game. By playing against a chess computer one can gradually discover the rules of chess by trying various moves and seeing which moves the computer will permit you to make. But, discovering the rules of chess tells us nothing about why the pieces are allowed to move the way they do, least of all of who invented the game of chess and why. Nor do we know how the computer works. Why and how does it register certain moves as illegal?

Likewise, discovering the physical laws that describe or govern our physical reality tells us nothing about why physical laws are as they are. Nor can it tell us why there is a Universe at all. Such questions simply do not reside within the scope of science.

(The above is a slightly simpler version of my What philosophical questions does science answer?)

Skeptical Inquirer attempts to explain why psi could not possibly exist.

Introduction:

I read the following article:

Why Parapsychological Claims Cannot Be True

It says:

The entire field [of parapsychology] is bankrupt—and has been from the beginning. Each and every claim made by psi researchers violates fundamental principles of science and, hence, can have no ontological status. 

We did not examine the data for psi, to the consternation of the parapsychologist who was one of the reviewers. Our reason was simple: the data are irrelevant. We used a classic rhetorical device, adynaton, a form of hyperbole so extreme that it is, in effect, impossible. Ours was “pigs cannot fly”—hence data that show they can are the result of flawed methodology, weak controls, inappropriate data analysis, or fraud.

This is pivotal to the impasse between parapsychologists on the one hand, and paranormal skeptics on the other. The latter regard psi as simply being impossible as they regard it as contravening what science has told us about the world. Hence, no matter how compelling the evidence for psi is, it cannot be what it seems.

But how exactly does psi violate science? They go on to say:

We identified four fundamental principles of science that psi effects, were they true, would violate: causality, time’s arrow, thermodynamics, and the inverse square law.

Okay, so let's see what they have to say about each of these.

Causality:

They say:

Effects have causes. Bridging principles identify the causal links for observed effects. The appropriate response to circumstances that lack such a mechanism is skepticism or an existential agnosticism—and, historically, this has been the case. Newton’s notion of gravity as “action at a distance” was considered suspect until rescued by Einstein’s relativity theory.
 ...

Within the study of psi, there are no causal mechanisms, and none have been hypothesized.

There are all sorts of issues here. But the most crucial one is that there is also no mechanism for the production of the very existence of consciousness itself, nor how it is able to affect the body in the case of our voluntary behaviour. Our current physics, dealing as it does only with the measurable aspects of reality, necessarily wholly leaves out consciousness in its description of reality. Indeed, given the immaterial nature of consciousness, no tinkering with current laws can be fruitful in this regard. This is why we have what has been labeled the mind-body problem, a problem that has been particularly acute since the birth of modern science in the 17th Century. We require a radically new theory that doesn't just deal with the measurable aspects of reality but has consciousness at its core.

The important point to make here is that if we have no mechanism or explanation for why consciousness exists, then, of course, we could not expect to be able to discern any mechanism for any possible abilities of consciousness, such as psi. However, if such a mechanism or explanation were to be found, it may be that we will come to understand that psi is brought about as a consequence of that very same mechanism or explanation.

My own view is that I regard it very likely that consciousness is fundamental in the same way that the elementary constituents of reality are (electrons and quarks? superstrings?). We normally explain the existence of something by reference to the parts it is composed of. But, what of the ultimate constituents of reality? Such things simply exist as a brute fact with the properties they possess existing as a brute fact too. So, if consciousness is fundamental, then psi might be such a property, as indeed might the causal power of consciousness initiating our voluntary behaviour. No mechanism for psi is then required, although of course we still do require a scientific theory that incorporates such a fundamental consciousness.

Regardless, the bottom line is that it is only if we have a scientific theory at our disposal that incorporates consciousness could we hope to infer what properties and causal powers it has. Hence, once we have such a theory we will be in a better position to stipulate whether we can expect consciousness to exhibit psi abilities and whether such psi abilities require a mechanism. But, at the present time, we lack any such theory.

I should point out that my response here has no relevance should modern materialism be true since it holds that consciousness is identical to some physical processes, or at least what those processes do. In which case we already know how consciousness is produced. In particular, it is tied to specific brains and arguably, if psi is to exist, we then have a problem in that we need some method of communication between brains. Possible mechanisms to explain such communication would seem to be thin to non-existent.

There are 2 points I should immediately make here:

1. To presuppose modern materialism is largely question-begging.
2. Modern materialism is incoherent.  See a blog post by me.

Largely question begging since most of those who accept the existence of psi will reject modern materialism, and indeed any form of materialism.

But, even if modern materialism were correct, I question whether we necessarily need to propose theoretical mechanisms, that is mechanisms that are not directly observable. They mention Newton's law of gravity and that the concept of a gravitational force was suspect. Then Einstein came along and replaced it with the more satisfactory idea of warped space-time. The idea here is that influences have to be contiguous. Gravitational force fails to fulfill this criterion since it acts at a distance. Warped space-time, in contrast, allegedly does fulfill this criterion. My own position is that the job of physics is merely to map, predict, and manipulate our environment via mathematical models -- a position which Newton himself subscribed to. Proposing that reality exhibits patterns as circumscribed by invisible mechanisms seems to me to completely ignore the underdetermination of scientific theories by data thesis. I briefly talk about this here. More generally, I think they're confusing metaphysics with science (although, to be fair, most scientists are just as guilty). For an elaboration of my views on this topic go here. Finally, I should mention that the phenomenon of entanglement pays scant regard to this demand for a mechanism.

Inverse Square Law:

Related to this issue over a mechanism the article states:

In telepathy, the distance between the two linked persons is never reported to be a factor, a claim that violates the principle that signal strength falls off with the square of the distance traveled.

Should modern materialism be correct this objection has more force than the demand for a mechanism. But what if one rejects materialism? Personally, I do not buy into this idea that each of our streams of consciousness are isolated, that is confined to our individual brains. I think that although our essences are individual selves, we also to a degree partake in a universal consciousness. Telepathy is not then a signal passing from one stream of consciousness to another, nor is there any transference of energy, that is simply an entirely wrong way of looking at it. Rather the ability to sense others feelings, thoughts and so on is innate since our separateness is not as absolute as we might suppose. Indeed, I suspect that communication via telepathy might be the natural state of affairs in an afterlife realm or realms. However, whilst we're embodied, the brain serves to inhibit or diminish such abilities.

Thermodynamics:

They claim that psi, at least in the form of precognition, would violate the conservation of energy. They say:

 Again, take precognition. If the future affected the present, it would violate the thermodynamic principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. The act of choosing a card from a fixed array, a common procedure used in psi research, involves neurological processes that use measurable biomechanical energy. The choice is presumed to be caused by a future that, having no existential reality, lacks energy.

This is all terribly confused. Are they, for the sake of argument, supposing that the future exists or not? They initially appear to assume that it does, but then contradict this by saying it has no existential reality. If the future does exist (implying we exist in a block Universe), then it's not true that the future lacks energy. If the future doesn't exist, implying the past doesn't either, then neither the future or past have energy. But our memories influence present actions without violating energy conservation, so what is problematic for future "memories" doing likewise? In the final analysis, this objection seems to collapse into the time's arrow objection that we will now address.

Time's Arrow:

They say:

Within parapsychology time is turned upon itself, most glaringly in precognition.

Here they are thinking precognition would only work by the future actually existing and causally influencing the past. But, despite some parapsychologists favouring this notion, why assume this? Perhaps only the present exists. In which case, there isn't a future that is causally influencing the present. Instead, precognition might simply be an implicit awareness, similar to telepathy, of how present events will play out should no preventative action be taken. If this strains one's credulity I suggest it's because they have bought into the mechanistic conception of reality. But, as I previously intimated, we are in no position to dictate to reality how it can or cannot behave; specifically, we are in no position to demand that it must exhibit patterns as circumscribed by invisible mechanisms. We must rely on what our experiences tell us.

If psi effects were real

The authors say:

[I]f psi effects were real, they would have already fatally disrupted the rest of the body of science. If one’s wishes and hopes were having a psychokinetic impact on the world—including computers and lab equipment—scientists’ findings would be routinely biased by their hopes and beliefs. Results would differ from lab to lab whenever scientists had different aims. The upshot would be empirical chaos, not the (reasonably) ordered coherent picture developed over the past several centuries.

This implies that scientists' findings are not biased by their hopes and beliefs, and indeed what will be financially lucrative. Is there any good evidence that this is the case? I feel also that they are overstating the effects of psi. I've had a few psi experiences in my life, mostly in my childhood, but I haven't experienced anything that I would judge to be psi for a fair few years. Why do they think that if it exists it has to be operating all the time regardless of one's psychological states? And even if it is omnipresent, why can't the effects be very slight? Or why can't various psychokinetic effects from differing people cancel each other out? If I'm in a casino mightn't any very marginal psychokinetic effect from me wanting a certain outcome be cancelled by other people wanting other outcomes?

It's either science or psi?

They also say:

[P]arapsychology cannot be true unless the rest of science isn’t.

So, psi cannot exist otherwise we wouldn't be able to get to the moon? We wouldn't be able to make smartphones? We wouldn't expect objects near the earth's surface to fall at an acceleration of around 10 m/s^2? This is clearly preposterous.

There's this persistent misunderstanding -- and one that the authors, Arthur S. Reber and James E. Alcock seem to share -- that scientific theories describe reality both with complete precision and in their totality. So if there's some aspect of reality a theory fails to describe -- namely some phenomena that contravenes what we should expect from the theory -- then that theory is simply not correct and hence it cannot adequately describe any aspect of reality. But that's not what we learn from the history of science. The history of science teaches us that our old scientific theories are often perfectly adequate to describe a given domain, but break down when attempting to describe that which resides outside that domain. Also, it teaches us that our theories give approximations only even if those approximations might be very close. Thus, the science prior to relativity and quantum mechanics is, in a sense, "wrong", however, that does nothing to prevent the Newtonian mechanical description of reality being able to be used to get us to the moon and back. In addition, the classical mechanics espoused before the advent of Quantum Mechanics is perfectly adequate to describe the macroscopic realm even though it might be "wrong". Quantum Mechanics is only needed when we describe the microscopic realm.

It seems that our present science describes reality where consciousness is not involved to a very close approximation, just as classical mechanics describes the macroscopic realm to a very close approximation. But that it breaks downs when it comes to consciousness, just as classical mechanics breaks down with the physics of the very small. So we need a new physical theory that incorporates consciousness. Once we have such a theory we might be able to judge from the consequences of such a theory whether consciousness requires a body, whether it is causally efficacious, whether it has psi abilities. But, until then, we can only go on the evidence. And the evidence very firmly says psi does exist, not just the evidence from parapsychological research, but also the collective experience of humankind throughout history and across virtually all cultures.