Video: Doug Ell Discusses the Evidence for Intelligent Design

Here is an excellent video of Doug Ell giving a talk at MIT about his book Counting To God. The book is about the scientific evidence for intelligent design.

As I watched this video, I realized that mainstream science (astronomy, biology, and physics) has provided much of the evidence for intelligent design, but most scientists don't interpret it as such because of their materialist bias. It says something important about science that even though many of the scientists carrying it out are confused and in denial about the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the evolution of species, science still produces the truth.

Before the scientific revolution, many people thought, correctly, that it was self-evident that the universe and all life was created, and therefore there must be a creator. The first scientists all believed that by studying science they would learn about God - about how God designed the world. They didn't see any conflict between science and belief in God.

Later, atheist scientists, claiming they were devoted to truth and as scientists uniquely qualified to find it, came along and confused so many people about what had once been self-evident. As John Lennox points out, modern atheists have created a false dichotomy between science and God by claiming God is a god of the gaps who's role is limited to what science can't explain and diminished by every new scientific discovery. But this is a deception. Theists believe that God created the universe including all the natural laws that scientists are so pleased to have discovered. Now after many years of collecting scientific data, that data interpreted by scientists studying intelligent design is demonstrating those pre-scientific people and the early scientists were right all along and the atheist scientists were wrong. It would be comical if it wasn't such a tragedy.

Scientists believe they are seeking the truth, and it would seem that the scientific truth leads to God. As Lennox points out, in John 14:6 it is written, "I am the truth..." There are some modern scientists who understood this. Werner Heisenberg winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics is one of them. He said:

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

At the beginning of the talk, Ell says that the reason he is able to write on this subject is because he is not at a university... so, when one tries to understand the problems of science, one has to consider the university system as part of the problem.

The talk is only 40 minutes and it covers a lot of ground. If you are interested in more information a good place to start is the Intelligent Design section on the Articles Arranged by Subject page.

A series of video interviews of Stephen Meyer (and transcripts) on this subject, which covers some of the same evidence, can be found at The Cosmological Argument for a Transcendent Designer of the Universe.

Doug Ell's talk is an excellent overview of the wide variety of empirical evidence that supports intelligent design. Below is a list of links to articles on subjects related to the video organized in order the subjects were discussed in the talk:

Physics

• Articles Arranged by Subject: Intelligent Design
  
• The Cosmological Argument for a Transcendent Designer of the Universe
  
• Atheists: "Science shows there is no good reason to believe in God". Nobel Prize Winning Scientists: "The scientific evidence is best explained by the existence of God"
  

Biology

Origin and Technology of Life

• Problems with the Natural Chemical "Origin of Life" (updated) by Casey Luskin
  
• Materialism Cannot Explain the Origin of the Genetic Code
  
• The fine-tuning of the genetic code could not have arisen through the unguided action of natural laws.
  

Macroevolution

• Primer: Summary of Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution
  
• Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories
  
• DNA analysis fails to confirm the evolutionary tree
  
• The Evidence said to support neo-Darwinism, doesn't
  
• Articles Arranged by Subject: Human Origins
  

Human Origins

• Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence
  
• Does Genome Evidence Support Human-Ape Common Ancestry?
  

More Physics

The Universe is nonmaterial (quantum physics)

• Evidence for the Afterlife: Quantum Mechanics
  

Intellectual Freedom

• The Politics of Suppression of Intelligent Design
  
• Survival of the Fakest
  

Below I have included, with the author's permission, the text of the slides shown during the talk by Doug Ell (typographical errors are most likely my own):

---

Science

• Observation, experimental verification, and explanation of natural phenomenon
  
• Figuring it out
  
• Follow the evidence wherever it leads
  
• "If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong" - Richard Feynman
  

God

• Abrahamic faith
  
  • Accident or design?
    

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Seven Wonders of Modern Science

• Physics
  

  1. Created Universe
  
  2. Fine-Tuned Universe
  

• Biology
  

  3. Origin of Life
  
  4. Technology of Life
  
  5. Puzzles of Macroevolution
  

• More Physics
  

  6. Special Earth
  
  7. Universe is nonmaterial (quantum physics)
  

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Counting To God
1. Creation

Why does anything exist?

Throughout history, two basic answers

• It just does, and always has
  
• God
  

Believers in eternal and infinite universe

• Aristotle
  
• Newton
  
• Einstein (originally)
  

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1. Creation (cont'd)

• Dark night sky - Olber's "paradox"
  
• 1914: Vesto Silpher
  
  • fuzzy spots in the sky have "redshift"
    
• 1920s: Edwin Hubble
  
  • galaxies
    
  • speed proportional to distance (Hubble's law)
    

  Einstein - "I see the need for a beginning"

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6:181. Creation (cont'd)

• Then two theories compete
  
  • "Big Bang" theory
    
    • All time/space and matter/energy created in a single instant from absolute nothingness
      
  • "Steady State" theory
    
    • matter created in voids keeps universe constant
      
• 1965: Penzias and Wilson at Bell Labs discover "cosmic microwave background radiation" by accident:
  
  • "relic"' photons rom the Big Bang (380K years after)
    

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Counting To God
2. Fine-Tuning

• How can it all be so perfect?
  

• In physics, there are
  
  • 3 dimensions of space
    
  • 1 dimension of time
    
  • 4 fundamental forces
    
  • Many constants
    

• Accepted scientific fact:
  

  "the values of the numbers seem to have been very finely tuned to make possible the development of life"
  - Stephen Hawking
  

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While explaining the above slide, Doug Ell said, "if we didn't have three dimensions of space, gravity wouldn't obey the inverse square law and planets wouldn't have stable orbits."

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8:582. Fine-tuning (cont'd)

• Examples
  
  • Critical density of the universe/gravitational constant (less than one part in 10⁶⁰)
    
  • Nuclear resonance levels
    
    • Produce carbon and oxygen inside stars
      
    • "A superintellect has monkeyed with physics" - Fred Hoyle
      
  • Water
    
• Is there information in the structure of the universe?
  

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9:232.Fine-tuning (cont'd)

• Atheist counter - "Multiverse"
  
• Multiverse concept based on 3 key beliefs
  
  • Our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes
    
  • Somehow, these universes have the ability to create other universes with different dimensions, laws, constants, and other features of physics
    
  • Somehow, for no special reason, all of this just exists
    
• But:
  
  • No scientific evidence of other universes
    
  • No idea how laws of physics can change
    
  • Infinity is an alien concept
    
  • Turtles all the way down?
    

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11:17Counting To God
3. Origin of Life

• How did life begin?
  
• Ground rules:
  
  • Laws of physics and chemistry have not changed
    
  • No "natural selection"
    

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12:203. Origin of Life (cont'd)

• Miller-Urey Experiment (1953)
  
  • Amino acids can be created by electrical charges
    
  • Later disavowed by both Miller and Urey as an explanation of the origin of life
    
  • Experiment now discredited - wrong atmosphere, no "primordial" soup, no way to link amino acids, can't set large amounts of information by accident
    
  • But, still in most high school textbooks
    

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13:383. Origin of Life (cont'd)

• "Chicken and egg" problem
  
  • Need DNA to build proteins
    
  • Need proteins to read DNA
    
  • Which came first?
    
• Yale physicist Harold Morowitz calculated odds of life arising by chance as 1 in 10^{100,000,000,000}
  
• Harvard's failed Origin of Life Initiative
  
• where did the information come from to create life?
  
• "No one knows how it got started" - Richard Dawkins
  

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15:01Counting To God
4. Technology of Life

• How does life work?
  
• 150 years ago, cells were "homogeneous globules of protoplasm"
  
• Now know all life has same advanced digital operating system ("Central Dogma"):
  
  • Stores code in "letters" of DNA
    
  • Machines make copies of parts of code (messenger RNA)
    
  • Send copies to factories (ribosomes)
    
  • Factories (ribosomes) read code three "letters" at a time, to build proteins
    

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16:39 4. Technology of Life (cont'd)

• By chance?
  
  • Genetic code (algorithm that "maps" 3 DNA "letters" to amino acids) is "highly optimal - significantly out performed 1 million randomly chosen alternate codes
    
  • No evidence of a different operating system
    
  • No known way operating system can evolve
    
• Futuristic information technology: "DNA is biological computer code, only far, far more advanced than anything we have ever built" - Bill Gates
  

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4. Technology of Life (cont'd)

• Other amazing technology
  
  • DNA storage technology (histones)
    
  • Information retrieval technology
    
  • Splicing technology
    
  • Replication technology
    
    • 1,000 "letters" per second
      
    • Proofreading machines
      
    • Accurate to 1 letter in 1 billion
      
  • Repair technology
    
• Consider protein Histone H4: 102 amino acids, "highly conserved," 100 of these are the same in a pea and a cow (chance odds around 1 in 20¹⁰⁰?)
  

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18:394. Technology of Life (cont'd)

• Where does information come from?
  
  • Imagine blind monkeys typing
    
  • If every particle in the universe (proton, neutron, and electron) was a monkey
    
  • Typing a letter every 10⁴³ seconds (typing ten million trillion trillion trillion letters a second, which if printed into books would fill a sphere 100 million miles in diameter every second)
    
  • For 14 billion years
    
• Highly unlikely that there will ever appear more than about 100 letters of specified information!
  

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20:15Counting To God
5. Puzzles of Macroevolution

• "Evolution" commonly defined as "any process of formation or change"
  
• Charles Darwin in 1859: all species arose solely because of accidental mutations and natural selection
  
• Can natural selection create new information?
  
  • Problem is not the survival of the fittest, but the arrival of the fittest
    
  • Today more than 10 million species
    

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21:265. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Your choice:
  
  • Accident (Darwin)?
    
  • Design (God)?
    
• Let's look at the facts
  

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21:395. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Fact 1: Fossil Record
  
  • "Cambrian explosion": 70% of all "body plans" of all animals came into existence in a relatively short period
    
  • Biology's "big bang" - "Darwin's Doubt"
    
  • "Top-down" fossil record contradicts Darwin
    
  • Very few transitional organisms
    
    • "no one has ever found any in-between creatures" - Niles Eldredge
      
    • "Absence of fossil evidence for intermediate stages...has been a nagging and persistent problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution" - Stephen Jay Gould
      

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23:275. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Fact 2: Little or no "Junk" DNA
  
  • Once thought only 1.5% of human DNA is useful
    
  • ENCODE (450 scientists) Sept. 2012
    
    • 80% of human genome has function
      
    • "It's likely 80% will go to 100%"
      
  • ENCODE Dec.2012
    
    • DNA contains a second code, multiple layers of information
      
  • ENCODE Jan. 2014
    
    At least 75% has function, may be underestimate

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24:335. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Fact 3: Extreme Rarity of Functional Proteins
  
  • 1990 estimate by two MIT biologists: odds of getting a sequence of 92 amino acids to perform a specified function are 1 in 10⁶³
    
  • 2004 estimate: For 150 amino acids, odds of getting a specified function are 1 in 10⁷⁷; odds of getting any function are 1 in 10⁷⁴
    
  • But, in history of life, maybe 10⁴⁰ organisms, almost all one-celled
    
• Darwinian response: "cumulative selection"
  
  • Hang on to only "good" mistakes?
    
  • Gradual improvement of an engine while it is still running?
    

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26:585. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Fact 4: Orphan Genes
  
  • All species sequenced to date have "orphan" genes ("designer" genes?) with no known relatives in other species
    
  • Help to make that species distinct - toxins in jellyfish, prevent freezing in polar cod
    
  • Leaf-cutter ant has 9,361 unique proteins, most of its genome
    
  • Darwinian theory has no mathematical clothes
    

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28:285. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Fact 5: Many biological systems defy Darwinian logic
  
  • Loggerhead turtles navigate by Earth's magnetic field (also some fish and birds)
    
  • Caribbean reef squids communicate by the colors, patterns, and textures on their skin
    
  • Appendix "evolved" separately at least 32 times
    
  • Common Design, not common descent
    

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29:575. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• Human beings
  
  • 30 trillion cells - 30,000,000,000,000 cells
    
  • Almost all have 3.2 billion "letters" of DNA
    
  • Codes for perhaps 100,000 proteins (mean length perhaps 430 amino acids)
    

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30:325. Puzzles of Macroevolution (cont'd)

• To walk upright
  
  • 16 coordinated anatomical changes (spine, pelvis, knees, feet, toes, skull, etc.)
    
  • But time for specific mutation requiring two new DNA binding sites to happen and then becomes fixed estimated at 216 million years - Cornell scientists 2008
    
• The human brain
  
  • 54 human orphan genes that code for brain proteins
    
  • How can reason and creativity arise from a Darwinian process?
    
  • What is consciousness?
    

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31:51Counting To God
6. Special Earth

Earth is special in its ability to sustain life over billions of years

• Right galaxy
  
  • Maybe 98% have less metal
• Right distance from the galactic center
  
  • Only 10% of stars are in GHZ
• Safe path through the galaxy
  
  • Nearly circular, inner edge of the Orion arm

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23:146. Special Earth (cont'd)

• Right sun
  
  • Big (greater than 95%) but not too big
    
  • Stable life in 10 billion years
    
  • Solitary star, not in globular cluster
    
  • Stable energy output (one part in 1,000 over 11 year cycle)
    
• Right Solar System
  
  • Planets have circular orbits, spaced apart, same direction
    
  • Jupiter (vacuum cleaner of the solar system)
    
• Right place in the Solar System
  
  • CHZ permits liquid water
    

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34:166. Special Earth (cont'd)

• Right Moon
  
  • No good theory on how mood was formed
    
  • Creates tides
    
  • Eclipse coincidence?
    
• Right ingredients
  
  • Water
    
  • Carbon
    
  • Molten iron core
    
  • Plate tectonics
    
• Odds of finding another equally suitable planet in our galaxy may be less than one in 100
  

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34:19Counting To God
7. Universe is Nonmaterial

• Mathematics describes everything in physics
  
  • Mathematics is ideas
    
  • Whose ideas?
    
• Quantum physics defies materialistic concepts of reality
  
  • One-slit/two-slit experiment
    
  • Quantum entanglement
    
  • Quantum Zeno effect
    
• "In the beginning was the word"
  
  • Greek word "logos" - divine thought
    
• Could the foundation of the universe be mathematical concepts? - string theory
  

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36:60The Logic of Belief

• Only intelligence can create meaningful information
  
• There is tremendous information in the structure of the universe, the origin of life, and every species
  

---

37:23Final Score:
God 7, Atheism 0

• Stand up for the wonder
  
  • Awe, astonishment, surprise, and admiration
    
• Stand up for the truth
  
• Stand up for tolerance
  countingtogod.com

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

The multiverse argument for the existence of paranormal phenomena.

Belief in God and intelligent design is supported by the evidence that our universe seems to have been improbably finely tuned for the existence of life. But even so, scientific knowledge of chemistry indicates the probability of life arising and evolving on earth is vanishingly small. Materialist have responded to these facts by proposing a "multiverse theory", a theory that there are a nearly infinite number of universes, each slightly different so that there is a chance of one like ours existing.

However, postulating a large number of universes does not help he materialist cause. In fact, it hurts it. In addition to the fact the multiverse theories themselves require fine tuning, one cannot escape the fact that if there are enough universes to explain the existence of our "improbable" universe as the result of chance, then there should be enough universes to provide the chance that our universe could also include God, spirits, Sasquatch, intelligent designer(s), UFOs, alien abductions, psi, etc, etc. The possibility of the multiverse is no reason to favor naturalism, but it is a reason for accepting the evidence for any paranormal phenomenon. If you believe in the multiverse, then anything is possible and you have no grounds to reject any paranormal phenomenon.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Why doesn't everyone who survives a near fatal illness or injury have a near-death experience?

Many people who lose consciousness when they are seriously injured or ill say that during the time they were unconscious, they were visiting the afterlife. These experiences are called near-death experiences and they represent strong evidence of life after death. None of the materialist explanations for near-death experiences can explain the anomalies associated with the phenomena. But there are many people who are seriously injured or ill and lose consciousness who do not have an NDE. Why is that? There are a few possible explanations for this:

• Memories of NDEs may not initially be stored in the brain because the brain is not active, for example, during cardiac arrest. When the patient regains consciousness he might not remember his experiences in the afterlife because the brain normally functions to filter out memories that are in the spirit mind. This is why we don't remember that we were spirits before we were born. Only those people who have some type of brain damage that creates a leak in the filter will be able to remember their out-of-body experiences. That may be why many NDErs also report an increased frequency of psychic experiences after their NDE.
  

• Many NDEs involve spirits guiding the experiencer on a tour of the afterlife and include meetings with deceased relatives. That implies some planning by the spirits so the guides and deceased relatives are available to host the experiencer. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that some NDEs are organized on the spirit side.
  

  There are several reasons an NDE might not be organized for someone:
  

  • One reason for being given an NDE is that it would allow the experiencer to learn spiritual truths and then come back and tell the rest of us what it is like in the afterlife. However, not everyone who suffers cardiac arrest would make a good spiritual messenger so such individuals might not be selected to have an NDE.
    

  • Some people might need to be a materialist atheist to learn the lessons they have incarnated here to learn. Being given an NDE might interfere with their spiritual growth.
    

  • Some NDErs seem to be given their NDE because their life is not on the right track and they need spiritual guidance in order for them to get from life what they came here to learn. So, some people might not be given NDEs if their life is already on the right track.
    

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Para-Pseudo-Skeptics

I have previously written about the harm done to individuals and to society by pseudo-skeptics who don't believe in the evidence for psi and the afterlife. But there is a special kind of pseudo-skeptic who does believe in psi but who thinks that the evidence for the afterlife is caused by unconscious psi from living people. In essence, these para-pseudo-skeptics, as I call them, who are often parapsychologists (scientists who study paranormal phenomena), believe that people who have experienced afterlife phenomena are self-deluded fools who can't tell reality from fantasy. This prejudice against experiencers is an example of the arrogance of scientists who hold ordinary people in contempt because the scientists believe that scientists are the only people capable of discerning the truth. Some people may try to defend the para-pseudo-skeptics by saying that they don't have as much information about afterlife phenomena as the experiencers. However, ignorance is not an excuse for prejudice, it is a cause of prejudice. No persecuted minority has ever won the respect and rights they deserve without demanding them. Therefore, when para-pseudo-skeptics advance these disgraceful hypotheses about afterlife experiencers, they should be confronted with the truth. As I shall explain below, psi cannot explain the evidence for the afterlife and there are good reasons to believe it is the para-pseudo-skeptics themselves who have problems telling fantasy from reality because they would rather believe any number of absurdities than believe the evidence for the afterlife. And while the para-pseudo-skeptics assert that the experiencers have unconscious motivations to fabricate evidence for the afterlife, the para-pseudo-skeptics unconscious motives are, in fact, highly suspect and may lead them to biased interpretations of the evidence.

In fact, there are many, many reasons to doubt the para-pseudo-skeptics ability to tell fantasy from reality, and to question their unconscious motivations for denying the evidence for the afterlife. These reasons are the many, many independent lines of evidence which show that the afterlife is real, that it cannot be explained by psi, and that the para-pseudo-skeptics are wrong:

• ESP cannot explain the evidence for the afterlife. Spirits have initiative, they act for their own purposes independently of any living purpose, they retain specialized knowledge they had while embodied, and they have problem solving capabilities.
  
• Mrs Piper's mediumship shows that psi is not a good explanation for mediumship because the characteristics of the spirit communications she brought through varied with the spirit not the medium or the sitters.
  
• The best explanation for veridical NDEs is out-of-the-body consciousness. Veridical NDEs demonstrate consciousness is not produced by the brain and that memory can be stored outside the brain. The abnormal brain states before, during, and after, cardiac arrest that cause veridical NDEs are not capable of supporting memories or coherent lucid experiences that NDErs remember.
  
• Consciousness is not produced by the brain.
  
• ESP is not produced by the brain. The very existence of ESP is evidence that consciousness is not physical. No physical process, not even quantum entanglement, is capable of producing ESP.
  
• Philosopher Chris Carter's work shows that super-psi is pseudo-science.
  
• Joe McMoneagle and Eben Alexander both conclude NDEs represent proof of life after death. Joe McMoneagle is highly respected by parapsychologists, he helped develop the US military remote viewing program, he was a remote viewer for that program, and he had an NDE. Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon who had an NDE. He says that because of the way the brain is wired, his NDE could not be produced by the brain.
  
• Guy Lyon Playfair, William Roll, and Ian Stevenson all concluded some poltergeist phenomena are caused by spirits. They knew about unconscious PK but they believed cases that were not dependent on the presence of any one individual were better explained as the action of spirits.
  

Afterlife experiencers know the evidence better than any para-pseudo-skeptic. Mediums live with afterlife phenomena every day and know all the fine details of it that don't get published in books and parapsychology papers. They often also experience psi and can tell the difference between psi and spirit communication. Mediums know the phenomena infinitely better than para-pseudo-skeptics who often know the phenomenon only from reading the reports of other people. Also, near-death experiencers say their experiencers are real. To the experiencer, a near-death experience seems realer-than-real, and their memories of the experience are more detailed than normal memories. The the para-pseudo-skeptics disregard the opinion of non-scientists experts, the experiencers, who know more about the phenomena than they do. This attitude of the para-pseudo-skeptics is caused by their absurdly arrogant false belief that they are the only people who have the ability to discern the truth.

Since para-pseudo-skeptics believe that people who have experienced afterlife phenomena are self-deluded fools who can't tell reality from fantasy, the para-pseudo-skeptics should understand that it is only fair for their own rationality to be disputed. For example, it is very likely that para-pseudo-skeptics themselves suffer from perceptual bias (which they are not shy about accusing mainstream scientists of suffering from). Because these para-pseudo-skeptics spend so much time studying psi, they see psi everywhere, even where it is not present. Because of this, para-pseudo-skeptics do not have the ability to make an objective assessment of the facts, this causes them to suspend logic in order to allow them to maintain their mistaken belief that the brain produces consciousness and ESP. The result is that they believe absurd things. For example, para-pseudo-skeptics may believe that quantum entanglement can be established between two human brains separated by miles in order to produce telepathy, and that the neuronal patterns in a human brain, the result of a lifetime of varied and unique experiences, and constantly changing due to neuroplasticity, can have meaning to the consciousness of another person. Or that consciousness which consists entirely of subjective experiences, which can never be measured objectively, can be the product of fundamentally different measurable objective phenomenon such as neuronal activity through some unexplainable means. Or that NDEs, where dead people have lucid conscious experiences that seem realer than real and which produce memories that are more detailed than normal memories, are produced by the brain when electrical activity in the brain is entirely absent or barely measurable which by all theories of brain function should not permit the brain to sustain consciousness or produce memories. Or that poltergeist phenomenon that does not depend on the presence of any one individual is caused by some unknown PK master who could be located anywhere and anytime in the universe. Or that multiple mediums unconsciously cooperate to produce characteristics of communication that depend on the spirit not the medium or sitter, and they unconsciously conspired to produce the cross correspondences. Or when poltergeist phenomena that cause multiple successive tenants to flee a home is stopped by the intercession of a psychic medium, that the medium used her PK abilities to produce the phenomenon even before she consciously knew the house was haunted. Or that fetuses are capable of unconscious PK that enables them to be born with birthmarks at the sites of injuries sustained by some random person they will later impersonate the reincarnation of. Etc, etc,

The para-pseudo-skeptics have no respect for the intelligence of many, many people who have experienced afterlife phenomena, such as near-death experiencers, people who have had contact with spirits including many evidential mediums, and people who remember past lives. However, the para-pseudo-skeptics should be willing to receive the same type of psychological analysis that they perform on afterlife experiencers. For example, one of the excuses the para-pseudo-skeptics give for their biased beliefs is that experiencers have unconscious motivations to simulate afterlife phenomenon and use psi unconsciously to fulfill that motive. If the para-pseudo-skeptics are going to bring up the subject of unconscious motives, the para-pseudo-skeptics should also consider the possibility that they have unconscious motives themselves that influence their beliefs. For example, It is possible that they have some type of unconscious motivation to discredit the evidence for the afterlife. There are probably as many motivations as there are para-pseudo-skeptics. In some cases the motive might be the desire to appear to be a serious philosopher so they can write books and papers. In some cases it might be to inflate the powers of psi so they can magnify the importance of studying it. In some cases it might be fear of punishment in the afterlife. In depressed individuals it might be the desire for the end of suffering that will come with extinction at death. In some parapsychologists it might be fear of attacks by pseudo-skeptics. Or, some para-pseudo-skeptics may be misanthropes who hate the fact that knowledge of the afterlife eases grief and reduces the incidence of suicide so they try to discredit the phenomenon of mediumship because they want people to suffer mental anguish over the loss of their loved ones. Or, para-pseudo-skeptics might feel so much envy for the power of pseudo-skeptics who publish nonsense about psi that the parapsychologists have to refute over and over, that the para-pseudo-skeptics want to exert a similar power over afterlife researchers.

The para-pseudo-skeptics rarely consider that those who experience afterlife phenomena are real people, and that the experiencers know the phenomena infinitely better than the para-pseudo-skeptics. By spreading their metaphysical faith disguised and scientific possibility, the para-pseudo-skeptics risk harming real people and making it harder for them to get accurate information that can help them make sense out of their experiences. For the para-pseudo-skeptics it is an academic question but there are real people going through real experiences and having real problems. People take immense comfort from mediumship when it eases their grief. People who experience spirit contact can go through real trauma, they may be ostracized at school or their family may think they are demonic or crazy and send them to a psychiatric facility. NDErs may keep their experiences to themselves if they are told the experiences are not real and it is much healthier for them if they feel they can talk about their experiences with others. The para-pseudo-skeptics should stop spreading their misinformation. They should recognize that they are prejudiced by their perceptual bias and unconscious motivations which causes them to believe all sorts of absurd things. Para-pseudo-skeptics think afterlife experiencers are self deluded fools who can't tell fantasy from reality but it is that para-pseudo-skeptics who are fooling themselves. Some people may try to defend the para-pseudo-skeptics by saying they don't have the same information as experiencers. But ignorance is not an excuse for prejudice, it is a cause of prejudice. No persecuted minority ever obtained the rights and respect they deserved without demanding it, and afterlife experiencers should speak out against the prejudiced, and deluded, misinformation being spread by para-pseudo-skeptics.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle: "A superintellect has monkeyed with physics."

I have updated my web page on eminent researchers who believed in the evidence for some type of paranormal phenomena with the following entry on Fred Hoyle. I also added an entry for Hoyle in a recent post about scientists who believed that the scientific evidence shows that the universe was designed.

Sir Fred Hoyle

The article for Sir Fred Hoyle in Wikipedia describes him as an English astronomer who is most remembered for his work on how chemical elements are synthesized in stars (nucleosynthesis). He received many honors during his life including: Fellow of the Royal Society, Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Royal Medal. He was Knighted in 1972. Hoyle did not win the Nobel Prize but many people thought he was unfairly excluded in 1983 when the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded for nucleosynthesis in which he "had been one of the key and original workers". Hoyle resisted the implications of the Big Bang theory, a name which he was first to use. He tried to find a theory that would describe a steady state universe that did not have a beginning.

However, Hoyle believed the evidence that the universe was fine tuned by an intelligence and that life arose and evolved through intelligent design. This is similar to the cosmological argument that the universe must have been designed by an intelligent creator. Hoyle also believed the universe was designed for a purpose.

The following quotes explain Hoyle's views in his own words:

On the fine tuning of the universe:

Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." (Wikipedia)

Life is the product of intelligent design:

If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure or order must be the outcome of intelligent design. (Wikipedia)

Higher life forms did not evolve naturally:

The chance that higher life forms might have emerged [naturally] in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.

- Hoyle on evolution, Nature, Vol. 294, No. 5837 (November 12, 1981), p. 105 (Wikiquote)

Life did not arise naturally:

The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

- The Big Bang in Astronomy, New Scientist, Vol. 92, No. 1280 (November 19, 1981), p. 527 (Wikiquote)

The universe was designed for a purpose:

There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

- Attributed in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) edited by Elizabeth Knowles and Angela Partington (Wikiquote)

The blog "Uncommon Descent", quotes science historian Michael Flannery writing that Hoyle believed that the universe was designed by an intelligent creator.

I think it is a fair assessment to consider Hoyle a creationist in the broadest sense of the term. Yes, he rejected Darwinian evolution, and yes, he held to panspermia, but his book The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution (1983) and other writings I think substantiate Theodore Walker’s assessment that Hoyle’s views accorded “with the religious idea of a supremely intelligent Creator-Provider-Sustainer of the universe” that was essentially panenthic and at least implicitly pro-theistic

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Consciousness, a subjective phenomena that cannot be measured objectively, cannot be produced by physical processes all of which are in principle measurable.

Consciousness is subjective experience. Subjective experience cannot be measured objectively. I know what blue looks like to me, but I cannot know what blue looks like to another person. We assume blue looks the same to everyone but we cannot know it does. All physical phenomenon are objective and measurable. In principle, physical phenomenon cannot produce something that cannot be measured. Since consciousness is a subjective phenomena that cannot be measured objectively, consciousness cannot be the result of any objective physical process. Consciousness must non-physical and therefore cannot be produced by the brain.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Anomalous Characteristics of Near-death Experiences

Below is a list of anomalies that occur during near-death experiences. None of the materialist attempts to explain these and other NDE anomalies can actually explain them, and ESP or veridical perceptions that occur during an NDE are best explained as out-of-the-body consciousness.

Anomalous Characteristics of Near-death Experiences

1. Enhanced consciousness such as realer-than-real detail, 360 degree vision, and colors not seen before.
   

2. Blind people see during NDEs. (Hogan)
   

3. Memories of NDEs are more detailed than normal memories.
   

4. Visions of deceased people, sometimes deceased people the experiencer had never met or seen pictures of. (Hogan)
   

5. A life review where the experiencer feels how he affected other people from their point of view.
   

6. Veridical (verifiable) perceptions where the experiencer perceived something when their brain was not functioning, and or perceived something that they could not have perceived with their normal senses even if they were conscious.
   

7. NDEs have been experienced by people not close to death.
   

8. "Lucid consciousness, well-structured thought processes, and clear reasoning" (Beauregard), calmness and tranquility (near-death.com), when their medical condition should cause confusion and amnesia, disorientation and fear.
   

9. Spiritual transformation.
   

10. NDEs involve a subjectively conscious experience while the experiencer is objectively unconscious. Hallucinations almost always occur when the subject is awake and conscious. (near-death.com)
    

11. NDEs occur more often during flat EEGs and not during abnormal EEGs. (Hogan)
    

12. "NDEs are remarkably consistent across virtually all experiencers regardless of age, nationality, religious background, and all other demographics", including atheists. (Hogan)
    

13. "Many parts of the brain must be coherent for lucid experiences to occur yet NDEs occur when there is no EEG activity." (Hogan)
    

14. NDErs experience "heightened awareness, attention, and memory at a time when consciousness and memory formation are not expected to be functioning" and "only confusional and paranoid thinking... should occur" (Hogan)
    

15. "In some cases, a third party has observed visionary figures seen by the experiencers" (Tymn)
    

16. Healthy people attending the dying sometimes share in the NDE. (Facco and Christian)
    

17. Because of the way the brain is wired, it cannot produce an NDE. (Alexander)
    

18. Many NDEs occur during anesthesia when the patient should be unconscious. (Long)
    

19. "The most important objection to the adequacy of all ... reductionistic hypotheses is that mental clarity, vivid sensory imagery, a clear memory of the experience, and a conviction that the experience seemed more real than ordinary consciousness are the norm for NDEs. They occur even in conditions of drastically altered cerebral physiology under which the production theory would deem consciousness impossible. (Greyson)
    

Sources

1. Chapter 2 in "Your Eternal Self by R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D.
   
2. Debunking the NDE Debunkers by Michael Tymn (Summary of the above chapter.)
   
3. Irreducible Mind and the NDE Michael Prescott discusses chapter 6 of the book "Irreducible Mind" by Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, et al.
   
4. Near-death experiences between science and prejudice by Enrico Facco and Christian. (2012) Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 6:209. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00209
   
5. Near death, explained Near death, explained By Mario Beauregard at Salon.com, Saturday, Apr 21, 2012
   
6. Cosmological Implications of Near-Death Experiences by Bruce Greyson, Journal of Cosmology, 2011, Vol. 14.
   
7. Scientific theories of the near-death experience at near-death.com
   
8. Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon, near-death experiencer.
   
9. NDE Researcher Dr. Jeffrey Long M.D. Refutes Materialist explanations for Near-death Experiences.
   
   

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Update: ESP is not Produced by the Brain.

Update to the update: Additional updates have been made. Please see ESP is not produced by the brain. for the most up-to-date version.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Near-death Experiences and Afterlife Phenomena

Recently I have learned of some beliefs about near-death experiences and afterlife phenomena which I disagree with. In this post, I provide information to support my own beliefs on these issues.

Contents

• ESP or veridical perceptions that occur during an NDE are best explained by out-of-the-body consciousness.
  

• ESP is not produced by the brain.
  

• None of the materialist explanations can explain any of the many anomalous characterisitcs of NDEs such as how people are conscious when their brain is not functioning.
  

• There are multiple independent forms of evidence which show that mind does not require matter for its existence.
  

• There is ample evidence that memory can be stored outside the brain.
  

• Consciousness, mind, or spirit is required for matter to exist.
  

• Scientists are fallible. Alternative sources of truth exist.
  

• Experiencers may be harmed by misinformation about afterlife phenomena especially if it comes from medical personnel.
  

• References
  

ESP or veridical perceptions that occur during an NDE are best explained by out-of-the-body consciousness.

During a near-death experience, sometimes people with no brain activity perceive something happening around them or they may perceive something they could not perceive with their normal senses even if they were conscious such as a vision of the operating room looking down from the ceiling, or a vision of a distant location. When the events in these perceptions can be verified as true, they are called veridical perceptions. These veridical perceptions are best explained by out-of-the-body consciousness. Some people may call these perceptions ESP, but they are still best explained as out-of-the-body consciousness.

Many NDEs occur during cardiac arrest. Residual brain activity is not sufficient to explain memories or conscious experiences that occur during cardiac arrest. And cardiac arrest causes amnesia and confusion shortly before and after the event.

Some people may suggest an abnormal brain state during the onset or recovery from cardiac arrest may produce clairvoyant visions of events that occur during cardiac arrest. If this is true, the clairvoyance must still be due to out-of-the-body consciousness. The same argument by which NDE researchers conclude that the lucid conscious experience of the NDE cannot be explained by it occuring before or after cardiac arrest can be used to conclude that clairvoyance occurring at the onset or recovery from cardiac arrest must be due to out-of-the-body consciousness. That argument is that the brain activity that occurs at the onset to, or recovery from, cardiac arrest is not capable of supporting lucid consciousness or memories. Any lucid conscious memories, such as those characteristic of NDEs, that occur anytime from the onset to cardiac arrest through the recovery from cardiac arrest, whether psychic or mundane, must be due to out-of-the-body consciousness.

In other words, if anyone is going to suggest that an abnormal brain state induced by cardiac arrest is responsible for producing ESP, that ESP must be due to consciousness existing out-of-the-body because the abnormal brain states that occur at the onset, duration, and ending of cardiac arrest are not capable of producing memories or supporting the lucid consciousness that is experienced during an NDE. At other times than the onset, duration, or ending of cardiac arrest, the brain is functioning normally and there is no abnormal brain state that might be attributed to the production of ESP. If ESP can produce conscious experiences that do not require the brain, then ESP must be due to out-of-the-body consciousness. In fact, in a subsequent section it will be shown that the best explanation for all forms of ESP is that ESP is not produced by the brain but is a capability of non-physical consciousness. In consideration of this and of all the evidence (below) that the mind can exist separate from the brain, the best explanation for veridical perceptions during NDEs is the spirit leaving the body and retaining memory of the event.

No physiological explanation can fully explain NDEs. Nothing that produces an abnormal brain state that can produce ESP, such as natural brain chemicals, or states of relaxation can produce experiences like NDEs. So it is not credible that veridical perceptions in NDEs could be caused by abnormal brain states that are known to cause ESP.

In most abnormal states the experiencer knows he is hallucinating or experiencing clairvoyance, but NDErs consistently say their experience is real. Those states in which hallucinations are mistaken for reality do not share significant characteristics with NDEs. Those states in which ESP is mistaken for out-of-body experiences involve hypnosis, self-hypnosis, or some type of induction technique. However NDEs are not induced, they are spontaneous, and they are not caused by anything remotely like hypnotic induction such as religious expectations, or cultural expectations.

Joe McMoneagle is a highly regarded parapsychologist, a remote viewer, and a near-death experiencer, and his statements on the subject indicate he believes that NDEs show that the afterlife is real. NDEs demonstrate, he says, "..that consciousness continues, and you don't really cease to exist as an individual..."

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ESP is not produced by the brain.

There is ample proof that ESP is real. However it is not possible for ESP to be caused by the brain because none of the laws of physics, including quantum entanglement, can explain how the brain might produce ESP. And in the case of telepathy, the unique structures in one brain will be meaningless to another brain. The existence of ESP is consistent with and mutually reinforcing to many other lines of reasoning that lead to the conclusions that consciousness is not produced by the brain and that consciousness can exist separate from the body.

No physical mechanism in the brain has been demonstrated to cause ESP. ESP has been shown not to be limited by time and distance. ESP can reach into the past and future and is just as strong over short distances as it is for long distances. None of the known laws of physics can explain this. It has been hypothesized that quantum entanglement could explain ESP, because when two particles are entangled, determining a property of one particle will also determine a property of the other instantly, independent of distance between the two particles. However, quantum entanglement can not be the mechanism by which ESP occurs because for entanglement to occur, there has to be some mechanism by which entanglement is established. In lab experiments on entanglement, the entangled particles are created deliberately at the same time in the same location and then separated to demonstrate entanglement effects. While entanglement can occur in biological systems, as is seen in photosynthesis, in a biological system like photosynthesis, a mechanism for establishing entanglement is easy to explain because it occurs in a very small region at a specific time. However in the case of ESP, there is no mechanism by which entanglement between objects at separate locations could be established to produce forms of ESP such as telepathy and clairvoyance. Microtubules in brain cells have been proposed, by Stuart Hammeroff, as a mechanism for producing consciousness. It has also been proposed that quantum entanglement in that system could explain ESP, but again there is no way entanglement could be established between separate individuals.

Furthermore, even if there were some way to entangle a physical structure in one brain with, for example in the case of telepathy, a structure in another brain, there would be no correspondence between the meaning of those two structures to the consciousness of the individuals. The patterns in one person's brain will not make sense to any another person's brain. The pattens of neurons in the brain develop differently in each person according to their genetics and environment, and those patterns change over time due to neuroplasticity. The meaning of a physical structure or pattern in the brain of one person will be unintelligible to another person. Entangling two structures in different brains would not be able to convey any meaning to either person. Therefore, telepathy cannot be produced by the brain by means of quantum entanglement or any other physical means. The very existence of telepathy, therefore, is evidence that ESP is not produced by the brain, and also that consciousness is not produced by the brain i.e. that conscious is non-physical.

There are also several other independent lines of reasoning that lead to the conclusion that consciousness is non-physical and not-produced by the brain. One of these lines of reasoning, for example, is based on the fact that that consciousness is a subjective phenomena that cannot be measured objectively and therefore cannot be produced by physical processes since all physical processes are, in principle, measurable. The only way to know what is in the mind of another person is through ESP, such as telepathy, or telempathy, both of which are themselves subjective and unmeasurable by any objective physical means. Since consciousness is subjective and non-physical and cannot be measured by any physical process, ESP which can perceive aspects of another consciousness, must also be non-physical, and cannot be the result of any physical process in the brain.

People who believe that ESP is produced by the brain believe that some quantum effect must cause ESP because ESP is independent of time and distance. But there is a much better explanation for ESP that also explains why ESP is independent of time and distance. That explanation is the filter model of the brain. According to the filter model, consciousness is not physical and the brain does not produce consciousness but only filters it. The filter model explains all the facts that are explained by the production model such as the correlation between mental states and brain states, and the loss of functions due to brain injury. But the filter model also explains ESP and why it is not dependent on time and distance. According to the filter model, ESP is the means by which non-physical consciousness naturally interacts with its environment and because consciousness is non-physical it is not subject to the laws of physics or limited by physical parameters such as time and distance. The filter model also explains acquired savant syndrome where brain injury causes new talents to be uncovered and why brain injury sometimes result in development of ESP. These two effects are caused by brain injury that is like a hole in the filter that allows new aspects of consciousness to pass through it. The filter model explains loss of function injuries, such as amnesia, as being like a clog in the filter. The filter model also explains the unfiltered consciousness experienced by NDErs that includes veridical perceptions, 360 degree vision and colors not seen while in the body.

Philosopher Chris Carter believes consciousness is not produced by the brain and that the brain transmits consciousness. Parapsychologists who do not believe in survival have to explain afterlife phenomena as the result of ESP produced in the brain of a living person. Chris Carter's work demonstrates that those theories are pseudo-science.

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None of the materialist explanations can explain any of the many anomalous characterisitcs of NDEs such as how people are conscious when their brain is not functioning.

All of the materialist attempts to explain NDEs fail to explain any of the many anomalous characteristics of NDEs. NDEs cannot be explained by a lack of oxygen, a dying brain, hallucinations, religious expectations, cultural expectations, hearing about medical procedures after the fact, brain dysfunction, retinal dysfunction causing an image of a tunnel, brain chemicals such as ketamine, endogenous opioids, neurotransmitter imbalances, or hallucinogens including DMT, REM intrusions, epilepsy or seizures, psychopathology, unique personality traits, residual brain activity during unconsciousness, the experience occurring before or after brain activity stopped, evolutionary adaptation, depersonalization, memory of birth, medication, defense against dying, or partial anesthesia.

Dr. Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon who experienced an NDE and he believes NDEs are are genuine afterlife experiences and that because of the way the brain is wired NDEs cannot be produced by the brain. He said, "...consciousness outside of the brain is a fact. It’s an established fact."

NDErs report their experiences seem more real than real, and memories of near-death experiences are more detailed than normal memories. This is the complete opposite of what you would expect from the fact of severely reduced or zero brain function during the NDE. NDEs due to cardiac arrest cannot be explained by residual brain activity during cardiac arrest or by having occurred before or after cardiac arrest. This demonstrates that NDEs involve a state of consciousness that is independent of the brain.

"The most important objection to the adequacy of all ... reductionistic hypotheses is that mental clarity, vivid sensory imagery, a clear memory of the experience, and a conviction that the experience seemed more real than ordinary consciousness are the norm for NDEs. They occur even in conditions of drastically altered cerebral physiology under which the production theory would deem consciousness impossible.

- Bruce Greyson

A listener to a radio interview with NDE researcher Dr. Sam Parnia paraphrased his statements, "We now routinely overcome death, and the people he’s studying are 'like astronauts – we send them out to explore this other dimension' – they are going to the other side, and they’re able to tell us what they’ve experienced on the other side of death"

Interview of NDE Researcher Dr. Pim van Lommel

Interview with NDE researcher Dr. Melvin Morse.

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There are multiple independent forms of evidence which show that mind does not require matter for its existence.

Evidence for the Afterlife.

• Mediumship
  
  • Proxy sittings
    
  • Drop-in communicators
    
  • Cross-correspondences
    
• Near-death experiences, veridical near-death experiences, and shared near-death experiences.
  
• Death-bed visions and shared death-bed visions.
  
• Apparitions and multiple witness apparitions.
  
• Children who remember past lives including those with an unusual type of birth mark on their body where an injury was sustained in the previous live.
  

Neither ESP nor Super-psi can explain the evidence for the afterlife.

• The evidence for the afterlife cannot be explained as super-psi.
  
  • Guy Lyon Playfair, William Roll, and Ian Stevenson all thought some poltergeist phenomenon were caused by spirits. They knew about unconscious PK but thougth survival was a better explanation when the phenomenon did not depend on the presence of a single individual.
    
  • Drop-in communicators demonstrate spirits have initiative and problem solving ability.
    
  • Cross-correspondences demonstrate spirits have initiative and are able to plan complex projects.
    
  • Others (see above link).
    
• The Mediumship of Mrs. Piper
  
  • Certain characteristics of spirit communication vary with the spirit independently of the medium or the sitter. This is evidence that mediumship is due to communication with spirits and not a form of unconscious ESP. Some of these characteristics were: the speed at which the spirit learned to communicate, the spirit's skill at communicating once they learned to communicate, ability to communicate names. Many more of these characteristics are explained at the link.
    
• Philosopher Chris Carter's work demonstrates that super-psi is pseudo-science. In an interview on SubversiveThinking.blogspot.com he says:
  

  In my work I present the evidence that provides a prima facie case for survival; demonstrate that alternative explanations, to the extent that they are testable, have been proven false; and then argue that to the extent these alternative explanations are not testable (such as elaborate fraud scenarios, or super-ESP) they are pseudo-scientific excuses for refusing to accept an otherwise straightforward inference from the evidence.
  

• Mediums live with afterlife phenomena every day. They know all the fine details that do not get published in books and parapsychological studies. Many also experience other forms of ESP and they can tell the difference between spirit communication and ESP. Mediums say they perceive and communicate with spirits. They are the foremost experts in spirit communication and there are no better qualified experts on ESP and survival.
  

The Cosmological Argument for a transcendent designer of the universe or multiverse shows that the universe or multiverse was designed by a mind that existed before there was any matter or even space itself. Our universe is so finely tuned to support life that it seems to have been designed. This was accepted by astronomers and cosmologists and caused them to invent multiverse theories. However in those theories the multiverse would have to be fine tuned so it doesn't really solve the problem. The conclusion is that a mind capable of design existed before any matter existed. This argument is so convincing to astronomers it converted many materialists to believers including astronomer Fred Hoyle. Albert Einstein also believed the universe was designed, as did Charles Darwin.

Materialism Cannot Explain Consciousness

Max Planck (Nobel Prize for Physics)

Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics)

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There is ample evidence that memory can be stored outside the brain.

The facts of this have been covered above. Veridical perceptions that occur during NDEs, the evidence that NDErs are conscious when their brain is not functioning, all the evidence that mind does not require matter for its existence, and all the evidence for the afterlife all demonstrate that memory can be stored outside brain.

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Consciousness, mind, or spirit is required for matter to exist.

Those who believe that mind requires a brain to exist, such as parapsychologists who mistakenly believe that ESP is produced by the brain are confounded by the results of quantum mechanics that show consciousness is required for matter to exist. You can't have any matter or any brain without consciousness first. In order to avoid this problem they may postulate an undeveloped awareness existed to bring matter into being. However if the facts are understood correctly, that, as shown above, that mind does not require matter for its existence, then there is no reason to postulate anything as unparsimonious as undeveloped awareness. In fact the founders of quantum mechanics , Max Planck (Nobel Prize for Physics) and Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics), did not believe in undeveloped awareness, they understood that consciousness, mind, spirit was what caused matter to come into being.

Another reason that undeveloped awareness is an unnecessary complication is that the cosmological argument demonstrates that the universe was designed by a mind. So there already exists a mind that could cause the matter of the universe to come into existence.

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Scientists are fallible. Alternative sources of truth exist.

Scientists are fallible.

Science is not a licensed profession. And scientist are not the only people who have the ability to discern truth. In fact, perceptual bias is a chronic problem that may cause Dr. Scientist to misjudge things that Joe Sixpack can assess objectively.

I have long suspected that within the parapsychological community there is some prejudice against afterlife phenomena. Parapsycholoigst Dr. Carlos Alvarado confirmed my suspicion in an interview published at aspsi.org. The interview does not seem to be on the internet currently, but the link was: http://www.aspsi.org/feat/life_after/tymn/a076mt-a-Dr_Carlos_S_Alvarado_interview.php

Dr. Alvarado said:

For many workers in the field, survival research is not a main interest. To some extent this is academics as usual. People specialize in some areas and develop interests due to personality traits, life experiences, training, and employment opportunities, and parapsychology is no exception. Then there are concerns such as getting tenure and the belief that the area has many methodological difficulties. However, I believe that in some cases there is more than this. In some circles it is more “respectable” to conduct ESP experiments than working with survival-related phenomena such as apparitions or mediumship. I still remember how the director of a parapsychology unit within an university, wanting to keep a conservative image, discouraged students from pursuing topics such as apparitions for dissertation research.

Because of this prejudice, one may be justifiably suspicious of the views of those parapsychologists who may deny the genuineness of afterlife phenomena and claim they may be caused by ESP.

Some people may try to excuse this prejudice as being due to ignorance. However ignorance is not an excuse for prejudice, it is a cause of prejudice. And I am less concerned with the feelings of parapsychologists and other pseudo-skeptics than I am concerned for the well being of experiencers that may be harmed by this prejudice. No persecuted minority ever won the rights and respect they deserve without fighting for them. And in our society, experiencers of afterlife phenomena are a persecuted minority. And this is one reason I am writing this post. To explain the seriousness of misinformation about afterlife phenomena, and the harm caused by claims that afterlife phenomena are due to ESP.

It is unfortunate that in addition to the pseudo-skeptics who refuse to recognize the validity of any paranormal phenomena and who are preventing some sectors of society from accepting the evidence for the afterlife, there are also some parapsychologists who are muddying the waters with claims that ESP is the cause of afterlife phenomena. These parapsychologists ought to know from their own experience when someone from outside their field who is dreadfully ignorant about ESP publishes some pseudo-skeptical nonsense, how it creates unnecessary distractions for them because they have to constantly refute the same old canards. Yet the same parapsychologists are creating confusion and spreading misinformation and causing distractions for genuine afterlife researchers, such as those studying NDEs, and they are hindering the progress of the spread of the truth of the afterlife throughout society. Whether some parapsychologists do this intentionally to create greater appreciation for the capabilities of ESP and magnify the importance of their chosen field of study at the price of discrediting survival research, or because they are blinded by perceptual bias, it is harmful to individuals and society as will explained in a subsequent section.

Alternative sources of truth exist.

When deciding the best explanation for a phenomenon, the beliefs of experiencers must be considered. They are there on the spot. There is no one more qualified to asses their experiences than they are. NDErs consistently say their experiences are real and that is a strong argument in favor of the reality of their experiences. As shown above, none of the known causes of hallucinations or ESP can explain NDEs.

The opinions of non-scientist experts should also be given due weight. The expertise of mediums is shown above in the links to different forms of mediumship. Mediums live with afterlife phenomena every day. They know all the fine details that do not get published in books and parapsychological studies. Many mediums also experience other forms of ESP and they can tell the difference between spirit communication and ESP. Mediums say they perceive and communicate with spirits. They are the foremost experts in spirit communication and there are no better qualified experts on ESP and survival of consciousness.

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Experiencers may be harmed by misinformation about afterlife phenomena especially if it comes from medical personnel.

Misinformation about afterlife phenomena is harmful to experiencers like NDErs, people who experience spirit contact, and those suffering from grief. Misinformation published in medical journals can be particularly harmful. An NDEr who wakes up and starts to tell about her experience and is told, "it wasn't real it was just clairvoyance" will be harmed by that misinformation. Research shows that if the first person a near-death experiencer tells about her experience does not accept it as real, then it affects how she copes with it. She may keep it inside and not share it with other people. Feeling the need to keep secret something as awesome and life changing as a visit to heaven and meeting God can be painful. Sharing her experience with others is healthy for her and it also helps other people to learn about the afterlife.

Mediums, like George Anderson, who during childhood are taken for psychiatric evaluation because they see spirits, are harmed if they are told their veridical perceptions are just ESP.

It is very important for medical personnel to understand these experiences are real.

I've seen many times the good mediumship can do. Even some parapsychologists acknowledge it may be therapeutic for those suffering from grief. I have been there at many Spiritualist church services where a grieving mother is given relief from the unimaginable distress caused by the loss of her child, when a medium brings through a communication from her child that shows her the child has not really died but is with Grandma in another realm.

I've been involved in helping people experiencing spirit contact, children and adults, understand and cope with their experiences. I know the harm and confusion that misinformation about life after death causes. It is psychologically damaging for a person who is having these experiences, who may be ostracized at school, or who may have family members who thinks she is either crazy or satanic to be told her experiences are not real. When a person is having contact with spirits and she is getting veridical information and she exhibits no dysfunctions associated with mental illness, she needs accurate information about afterlife phenomena. Parapsychologists who should know better but won't admit the reality of spirits are part of the problem not part of the solution.

Lastly, what could be more important to humanity than to know the universe was created and designed by an intelligence and that each human consciousness survives death?

The Harm Caused by Pseudoskepticism

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References:

• Materialism Cannot Explain Consciousness
  
• Eminent Researchers
  
• Evidence for the Afterlife.
  
• Materialist Explanations of NDEs fail to explain the phenomena.
  
• Perceptual Bias in Parapsychology
  
• Notable Near-death Experiencers Believe the Afterlife is Real.
  
• Neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander: Heaven is real and consciousness is not produced by the brain.
  
• The Harm Caused by Pseudoskepticism
  
• Near-death Experiences are Real
  
• Memories of Near-death experiences are more real than real.
  
• Interview with Near-death Researcher Sam Parnia
  
• Interview of NDE Researcher Dr. Pim van Lommel
  
• Interview with Dr. Melvin Morse.
  
• Survival and Super-psi
  
• The Mediumship of Mrs. Piper
  
• Philosopher Chris Carter: Super-psi is Pseudo-science.
  
• Interview with Chris Carter On Subversive Thinking
  
• The Cosmological Argument for a Transcendent Designer of the Universe.
  
• Max Planck (Nobel Prize for Physics)
  
• Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics)
  
• Joe McMoneagle
  

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Update to "Evidence That God Exists: People Who Have Near Death Experiences Meet God."

I have updated an earlier post, Evidence That God Exists: People Who Have Near Death Experiences Meet God., with the following:

In this video from an IANDS conference, Jessica Haynes discusses her near-death experience. She says that she had died and after reviewing her life she wanted to come back and live her life better. Unfortunately, she was dead and she was told, "You can't get back you don't have a body to get back to". But she insisted, repeatedly. So they took her to talk to God who enabled her to come back. She describes her experience of God as, "Pure love.", and "The most loving light you could imagine." He tells her "I am all, I created everything." The part where she describes this is from 10:30 to 15:00.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Philosopher Chris Carter: Super-psi is Pseudo-science.

I have updated my web page on Eminent Researchers to include the following entry on philosopher Chris Carter:

Oxford educated philosopher Chris Carter is author of several books on the afterlife, including Science and the Near-Death Experience, and Science and the Afterlife Experience. Carter believes that consciousness is not produced by the brain. In his essay, Does Consciousness depend on the Brain?, he justifies this belief by stating that the brain is more likely to transmit consciousness than it is to produce consciousness because the transmission hypothesis explains more facts than the production hypothesis. The transmission hypothesis explains how the brain can influence consciousness without causing consciousness by comparing the brain to a radio. When you listen to music on a radio, the radio seems to produce music, and if you damage the radio it will affect the music, but the music is actually originating from a radio station transmitting the broadcast. This analogy is similar to the filter model of the brain.

In an interview on Subversivethinking.blogspot.com Carter sums up his work on the afterlife:

In my work I present the evidence that provides a prima facie case for survival; demonstrate that alternative explanations, to the extent that they are testable, have been proven false; and then argue that to the extent these alternative explanations are not testable (such as elaborate fraud scenarios, or super-ESP) they are pseudo-scientific excuses for refusing to accept an otherwise straightforward inference from the evidence.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Perceptual Bias in Parapsychology

Some parapsychologists suffer from the mistaken belief that ESP from a living person can explain the evidence for the afterlife. However, afterlife phenomena cannot be explained by ESP. One may wonder why some parapsychologists hold that mistaken belief, despite the strong evidence that ESP is produced by non-physical consciousness and that veridical perceptions during near-death experiences are best explained by out-of-the-body consciousness. The answer may be found in The Conscious Universe, a book by parapsychologist Dean Radin, which has a chapter Seeing Psi which discusses why some mainstream materialist scientists do not believe the evidence for psi (ESP). The chapter explains how a scientist's commitment to the mainstream scientific world view can cause a him to ignore the evidence for psi because it is not consistent with that worldview. This is a scientific way of saying that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But this same phenomenon might apply to parapsychologists who have spent a lifetime studying psi. They might be so committed to psi that they are unable to accept the evidence for the afterlife because they can only see it as psi. The title of the chapter Seeing Psi is about why some scientists can't see evidence for psi. But it might just as well be about why some parapsychologists are always seeing psi and are blind to the evidence for the afterlife.

In this excerpt from The Conscious Universe, Dean Radin discusses this phenomenon:

All this leads us to predict that a person's level of commitment to the current scientific worldview will determine his or her beliefs about psi. Because perception is linked so closely to one's adopted view of reality, people who do not wish to "see" psi will in fact not see it. Nor will they view any evidence for psi, scientific or otherwise, as valid. This effect should be strongest in people who are committed to a particular view, motivated to maintain it, and clever enough to create good rationalizations for ignoring conflicting evidence.

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[T]he expectations of the scientific elite actually put them more at risk for being swayed by perceptual biases than the general public. After all, the scientific elite have lifelong careers and their credibility is on the line. They are strongly motivated to maintain certain belief systems. By contrast, most members of the general public do not know or care about the expectations of science. So if Joe Sixpack and Dr. Scientist both witness a remarkable feat of clairvoyance, we can predict that later, when we ask Joe what he saw, he will describe the incident in matter-of-fact terms. In contrast when we ask Dr. Scientist what he saw he may become angry or confused, or deny having seen anything unusual at all.

I have written elsewhere about the harm that denial of the afterlife can cause to individuals and society. Part of the problem is that individuals who are grieving or having difficulties with their own psychic experiences may turn to the parapsychological literature for information about the afterlife. It would be tragic if someone who turned to parapsychology for help was misinformed about the afterlife or the genuineness of mediumship. Health care providers also need accurate information on this subject. The way near-death experiencers are treated by medical staff can affect how they cope with their experiences, and sometimes people experiencing spirit contact seek help from psychiatrists because they may wonder if they are hallucinating.

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Copyright © 2014 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.