Lest we forget

[Amberxiao]

That film is just fiction. I don't think anybody in the team has claimed any of it is true. Like all good science fiction they take real science and change it a bit to make it more entertaining. Nothing wrong with that but you shouldn't confuse it with theories put forward by real researchers.

I saw it as an interesting "What if" question.

I supose this new "mockumentary" trend can get quite confusing for people who don't have experience from the academic world.

Indeed. Though I wish you had worded it as "the scientific academic world". I have plenty of experience with the academic world, just in humanities rather than science. You will note that I said I wasn't sure I agreed with it or not.

All it means to be an atheist is that one doesn't believe that there is a force in the world that can break the laws of nature.

Fascinating! Then, yes, I would be an atheist by your definition. As would a good number of pagans.

I hope you don't believe that the spirits can comunicate with us because even here there's been masses and masses of research and science have come up with nothing.

However, here you define "laws of nature" as something that can be proven by our scientific methods of today. I don't know what I think about spirit communication, but the one thing I believe is that IF it does exist, it's not something that can be commanded by the receiver for just anything. The spirit would likely only communicate if it had something important it wanted to say... which means that shyness would not be a reason for it not to show up under research conditions, but rather that research conditions would not be a reason for it *to* show up.

I think our understanding of the world is limited by our technology. Surely you don't think we've reached the end of discovery about the world? That science today is capable of understanding *everything*?

Without certain tools (i.e. the telescope), we would still be thinking that the Earth was in the center of the universe.

Personally, I hope that we never do learn everything, because then, there would be no point in living. Nothing new to discover. It would be terribly boring.

Assuming from this that all spirits are shy in the presence of scientists is a bit naive, wouldn't you agree? We do know how neurons send messages within the brain so we can measure any thoughts being transfered from an external source and it just doesn't happen. We just haven't figured out exactly how complex thought works mechanically or chemically.

But does this work if internal=external?

Human perception was part of my degree so I can pull research out my ass to back my shit up all day.

Cool. That must have been really fascinating! My degrees are, alas, in French and Russian, and therefore, not at all helpful in this debate. I wish I had more time to learn everything I want to learn, and this is one area that I'm definitely interested in.

[TomOfSweden]

Indeed. Though I wish you had worded it as "the scientific academic world". I have plenty of experience with the academic world, just in humanities rather than science. You will note that I said I wasn't sure I agreed with it or not.

Well actually. Nearly all the academic subjects are based on aplying the scientific method. There's only a very few subjects that are exempt. The study of aesthetics being the prime example. Language is very much a scientific subject. It doesn't need more than a glance at linguistic theories to understand that. It's pretty far from unsubstantiated opinions or vague feelings.

However, here you define "laws of nature" as something that can be proven by our scientific methods of today. I don't know what I think about spirit communication, but the one thing I believe is that IF it does exist, it's not something that can be commanded by the receiver for just anything. The spirit would likely only communicate if it had something important it wanted to say... which means that shyness would not be a reason for it not to show up under research conditions, but rather that research conditions would not be a reason for it *to* show up.

I think our understanding of the world is limited by our technology. Surely you don't think we've reached the end of discovery about the world? That science today is capable of understanding *everything*?

Without certain tools (i.e. the telescope), we would still be thinking that the Earth was in the center of the universe.

Personally, I hope that we never do learn everything, because then, there would be no point in living. Nothing new to discover. It would be terribly boring.

But does this work if internal=external?

You got me. All very good points. But as you say. These are all what if sceniaros without evidence. I'm not denying any of it. I think chances are pretty good that if we encounter an intelligence out there in space somewhere, we probably wouldn't register it as intelligence, or understand it's comunication if they tried it. It could go either way. The aliens could have allready come here and colonized earth, but without our understanding or knowledge, and they could just as well have judged human comunication as just random noise. We will never be sure.

As soon as anybody floats a theory like this I always compare it's merits to the flying spagheti monster theory. If the evidence is as unsubstatiated as it is for that one, then we might as well ignore it.

But most supernatural theories ignore the premises of how the brain works. It's just a chemical computer. There's no magic involved and there's no soul. If it is, it dies when we die. There's nothing that leaves the body when we die. This has all been searched for and measured to eterntity. I understand the philosophical premise where the external and internal are the same. But then you're in a quagmire of definitions. What is you? Is your actions the result of your decisions? If you somehow have power over your body, then we can define the external as being that which is not part of your chemical make-up in the brain. Now we're in a position where we can measure external influence. If there's no border between the internal and external then there's no you, right? If you do a line of coke, it's your brain that gets high, not the person next to you, right?

Cool. That must have been really fascinating! My degrees are, alas, in French and Russian, and therefore, not at all helpful in this debate. I wish I had more time to learn everything I want to learn, and this is one area that I'm definitely interested in.

Now I think you're underestimating yourself. Intelligence or academic prowess isn't equated to skills in maths or sciences. I'd say that the most successful academics are the most critical minds. The ones that are the last to accept any theory. The ones who would never make do with, "sounds about right". That needs a sharp mind.