Reply to Skeptics

As I may have mentioned (!) I gave a talk on skeptic psychology (see November 2) at the SPR recently. I wouldn't bring it up again, but it produced a couple of responses from skeptics, which I thought I'd reply to here. Here are the posts, followed by my response.

Dave W: Interestingly, it would be easy to write this same piece from a diametrically opposed viewpoint - that the nasty and corrosive responses of some psychic believers to criticism are due to fear that parapsychological effects are not real, confounded with a massive dose of cognitive dissonance. Anecdotes abound, for example, of psi researchers who were taken in by an admitted hoax but dogmatically refused to believe it. If the skeptics were to paint with a brush as broad as you have used, and portray all psi advocates as terrified of facing reality, I'm sure that you would (rightly) object to such a simple-minded generalization. As for the ridicule, it seems to be par for the course. Perhaps you are more polite with your language, but the idea that parapsychologists and their supporters are less insulting to their critics is clearly implied in the above piece, and is also clearly shown to be wrong by the same text. Leiter is obviously intending to be insulting, for just one example. What might be most insulting is your suggestion that cynics, climate-change denialists and creationists are the same sort of "skeptics" as Randi, Shermer, Gardener and the like. Creationists are not "evolution skeptics," they are evolution denialists with nothing but religious ideology to support their position. Such a comparison is at least as personal, divisive and rude as calling Randi a nitwit. But in only avoiding schoolyard-style name-calling (while still being a clear insult), it certainly is not a claiming of the moral high ground. So, obviously this post is at best a double-edged sword. A much more interesting thesis might have been about why the voices (on both sides) are often seen as being nothing more than reactionary cynics, resorting to insult over substance. Undoubtedly, some are, but why? If it's better to communicate without taunts, why doesn't everyone do so? You couldn't, so what drove you to step over the boundary of rational, insult-free discourse?

Greg T: "I'm going to wrap this up by suggesting that parapsychology could usefully devote a bit more time and resources to understanding how sceptics think, and making it part of its case." I wholeheartedly concur. Please do make a concerted effort to understand how skeptics think. You might discover that, when you do, you will be disabused of much of your confusion... but not necessarily in the way you may intend. For example, it might help if you could present a clear idea of what a skeptic is, rather than just hodgepodging groupings of various naysayers (hand-selected of course, to be depicted as universally mistaken) together and equating them all as one demonized group of opponents. From your discussion above, I cannot extricate what it is you mean by the word "skeptic," except that you seem to conclude that being one is a bad thing. Especially if one disagrees with you. It seems you have a rather wordy, and frankly abusive, way of trying to posit some kind of conspiracy of mental and/or emotional illness on the part of people who disagree with you. A singularly uninventive way of vilifying and deriding the person, rather than dealing with the failings of your subject matter. What you seem to be calling for is for this method to be adopted as a means of battling critics on a rhetorical level. How precisely does one make "understanding how skeptics think....part of [your]cause[?]" Again, I wholeheartedly endorse understanding how skeptics think. It likely will have quite a different effect than you are anticipating though... Just this style of rhetoric is precisely why we need an objective means for evaluation of claims. Hence methods of verification. Words are words. Evidence is evidence. What you have presented are a host of insulting, derogatory words attacking something you don't even have a clear idea of yourself. As such, your words are pretty much devoid of content.

This piece was a talk for members of the Society for Psychical Research. Hence it's one-sided tone. I don't mean that I don't stand by everything I said, but if I'd been talking to a mixed or uncommitted audience I'd have chosen a different subject, or presented some of these points in a different way. This particular audience understands the subject well and would have readily empathised with my points.

It's not clear from the written text, but I did acknowledge - since Professor Chris French was present and brought it up - that I was specifically talking about militant skeptics like James Randi, and the more extreme behaviours of psychologists like Richard Wiseman and Susan Blackmore. I certainly didn't mean to imply that everyone who disbelieves in the genuiness of psychical phenomena is an idiot.

I'm also fully aware that committed believers have their own mental blocks. But 'nasty and corrosive' - that's not something I generally recognise among paranormalists, and certainly not serious parapsychologists, except in a reaction of anger and frustration at assaults by people like James Randi, to whom that description really does apply in spades - and for that reason is at least understandable. 

'Angry and excitable' might be a fair description of some (Victor Zammit). But those of us who are serious about this know that's not the way to communicate. All of us are affected by temperamental biases. The only difference is that some of us strive to recognise them and take them into account; others simply let themselves be controlled by them.

'Anecdotes abound ... of psi researchers who were taken in by an admitted hoax but dogmatically refused to believe it.' Yes, the Conan Doyle syndrome. You're right that some paranormal believers insist that a magician must be psychic because they can't figure out the trick. It's embarrassing and doesn't help our argument. But no serious psi researcher can afford to behave this way - the possibility of hoaxing has to be a constant preoccupation. If it isn't - as in the case of Randi's Project Alpha, for instance - the result is instant loss of credibility among their peers, let alone skeptics. 

'... the idea that parapsychologists and their supporters are less insulting to their critics is clearly implied'. Yes I did imply that, and I can't think of any reason not to. Parapsychologists complain bitterly about dogmatic disbelievers, ideologues and so on. But they don't indulge in the casual playground jeering that Randi employs, as I understand it, as a deliberate technique to publicly shame the fools and fraudsters that he assumes us all to be. They don't have that luxury; they have to use arguments and persuasion. If you can come up with examples I'd be interested to hear them, but I'd argue it's not typical.

My perception is that skeptics are free with insults and abuse in a way that I don't find anywhere else - although I suspect it may be quite common in scientific controversies. I don't recall reading anywhere in psychical literature that skeptics are nincompoops, or not rowing with both oars in the water, or might have thinking defects or disturbed relations with reality - as Randi described parapsychologists in Flim-Flam!. It may exist on the margins but that sort of polemic just isn't characteristic of mainstream parapsychological discourse, as it so richly is of some of their militant opponents.

'Leiter is obviously intending to be insulting ...' Don't agree. He was recording his ideas and observations about the way skeptics behave, which you're free to disagree with - he wasn't laughing and pointing.

'What might be most insulting is your suggestion that cynics, climate-change denialists and creationists are the same sort of "skeptics" as Randi, Shermer, Gardener and the like.'... Creationists are not "evolution skeptics," they are evolution denialists with nothing but religious ideology to support their position.'

That was a bit provoking, I agree. Creationists and skeptics of the paranormal are at opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum. But it's legitimate to argue that militant skeptics are not really 'skeptics' in the literal sense, but denalists arguing from a profound and unshakeable belief in the mechanistic worldview. That may seriously get you going, but as long as militant skeptics like Randi and Gardner behave the way they do it's a reasonable conclusion to come to.

I don't know how much you know about psychical investigations, but this is the nub of my argument. It's one thing to disbelieve in the paranormal in a general way - from the beliefs of family, colleagues, peers; from a scientific education; from atheistic convictions and so on - but it's something else when, in order to protect this commitment, one has to perform all sorts of questionable intellectual manoevres, such as:

• refusing to engage with parapsychological investigations on any level as being of no interest, undoubtedly fraudulent, obviously nonsense, etc.

• engaging with them, but explaining them away with all kinds of implausible scenarios which in any other context no one would entertain for a moment

• carrying out experiments with psychics on television with a very precisely determined pre-agreed protocol, getting highly signficant results, and then refusing to accept the results as valid

• carrying out experiments in order to prove that, when properly conducted, the effect will not appear, getting an effect, and then explaining it away on the grounds of 'experimental flaws'

'If it's better to communicate without taunts, why doesn't everyone do so? You couldn't, so what drove you to step over the boundary of rational, insult-free discourse?'  The creationist thing wasn't intended as a taunt - I can't think of anything else that could be remotely construed that way. My discussion was a serious attempt to get at what movitates extreme skeptics, and it's valid to point out that the fear of psi is a real phenomenon with identifiable effects.

If you found all this so insulting, could it be that you're just not used to skeptics being discussed in this way? Surely it's tame stuff compared with what gets said about psi researchers - in print, on your websites and at meetings in skeptics organisations - and it has the virtue of being reasoned argument supported by examples and evidence. Which you're welcome to disagree with, but preferably on questions of substance, rather than because it upsets you. You may not think this applies to you, but I've noticed that debunkers like Randi are often surprisingly thin-skinned when it's them being criticised.

In the end, it shouldn't be about hurt feelings but about the evidence. I spent several years getting to grips with psychical literature, and the investigations and arguments eventually convinced me that psychism is a genuine phenomenon. I'd like to be able to discuss my reasons with skeptics, but it's difficult when they're so certain it's all nonsense, refuse to listen, and use all kinds of colourful language to make that point. That's what motivates me to understand how they think.

Comments

[Tony M]

Frankly Robert, I found your lecture disappointingly mild mannered. :-)

I think you have spent a lot of time here responding to criticism attacking points you made that anyone who has a modicum of objectivity would recognize as indisputable and targeted. But as radical skeptics everywhere do, your correspondents accuse you of doing exactly what they themselves do. There is a typical example above:

"'What might be most insulting is your suggestion that cynics, climate-change denialists and creationists are the same sort of "skeptics" as Randi, Shermer, Gardener and the like.'... Creationists are not "evolution skeptics," they are evolution denialists with nothing but religious ideology to support their position"

How often do radical skeptics group together ESP (they never say Psi, by the way) with Big Foot and Alien Abductions. They try to equate accepting one aspect of the paranormal as genuine with accepting outlandish claims as well. It's why Randi and his pals like to claim that Gary Schwartz believes in the Tooth Fairy.They like to pretend that accepting any part of his research leads to madness.

Your lecture was clearly about the psychology of a type of denial, about the refusal of some people to engage in evidence and debate. (Hence the title, folks.) Therefore the remark about creationists was approproiate. Nothing in your comments suggests that Randi, for instance, is also a creationanalist. What you do suggest, accurately, I believe, is that Randi suffers from the same psychological "mechanism" (for want of a better word), that he has the same relationship to his subjects debate as creationalists do to theirs. That's a point your critics above have failed to account or address.

[Mark]

First of all, to Tony M, I don't know if you were suggesting this, but I don't think that alien abductions and Bigfoot are necessarily outlandish.

Second, I want to talk about this idea that was brought up in the main post that skeptics are driven by a want to protect their materialist/mechanistic world-view. This is true, but I do not believe that it is the only thing that motivates skeptics. If it was, why would they care to attack things like Bigfoot, UFOs, Hollow Earth theory, conspiracy theories, or animal rights? (Seriously, if skeptics were telling the truth about wanting to "protect the integrity of the scientific method" they would not care to get involved with attacking things like conspiracy theories and animal rights - it's hard for any reasonable person to deny that this skeptic movement is a political advocacy movement trying to protect a specific world-paradigm) None of these things that I just mentioned necessarily have anything to say about materialism - pro or con - and yet the skeptics are every bit as angry at proponents of these ideas. I think that what motivates the typical skeptic, much more than the fear of materialism crumbling, is a deep-seated arrogance and refusal to believe that there is any chance in hell that he might be wrong.

[Dave W.]

Mr. McLuhan,

Accepting, for the sake of argument, "that skeptics are free with insults and abuse" in outrageous amounts, you've clearly missed my point. You're complaining primarily about name-calling, and my reply in the previous thread was to point out that one need not call people names in order to heap insult and abuse upon them.

Take Leiter as a case-in-point. He is making an analogy between PhACT and AA, which comes with the clear implication that PhACT members are diseased addicts, who have hit bottom and are looking for help. No, Leiter didn't laugh and point, he stuck the rhetorical shiv right into PhACT's throat and twisted. That's not abusive?

Or, look at yourself. You toss around the word "militant" so much that one might think James Randi is about to bust through your door and unload an AK-47 in your living room. The word has a meaning, and it's not a synonym for "passionate" or "strident" or even "evil and brutish." Randi may be a lot of things, but he's not looking to overthrow the hegemony of the psi believers through force. Repeatedly asserting that he is (by your use of that adjective) is insulting in its hyperbole.

Perhaps you've got some "examples and evidence" which would make your claims of Randi's (and others') militancy a "reasoned argument," but I suspect that what you've got there is a purely emotional response leading to attempts at demonizing your opposition.

Note well that none of this is a defense of any name-calling. I'm not objecting to your complaints themselves, I'm objecting to your hypocrisy. You appear to me to be trying to claim victim status while simultaneously engaging in the same behavior yourself, you're just keeping your (the general "your") insults and abuse to a more-refined level of rhetoric than grade school. You might think you can claim the moral high-ground that way, but it'd only be a superficial victory.

On another note, I'm nobody of import in this debate, but I'm very much interested if anyone's got a solidly consistent and plausible theory of how something that's not "mechanistic" affects something that is. By analogy, some "Intelligent Design" proponents complain about science's reliance on "materialism," but not one of them has ever put forth anything resembling a non-materialistic science. I think telekinesis, telepathy, etc., would be way frikkin' cool, but as soon as you suggest there's something "non-mechanistic" about psi, you lose me because that sort of verbiage implies that it's something we simply cannot effectively study with our current epistemologies.

[The Major]

Well, just quickly Dave W on the militant point. Encarta defines the word as:

1. aggressive: extremely active in the defense or support of a cause, often to the point of extremism

2. involved in fighting: engaged in fighting or warfare

So, maybe Randi doesn't fit no.2, but you're telling me he truly doesn't belong in no.1?

With regard to your last point, that's neither really here nor there. If you're uninterested in something because we know so very little of how it works, or even how to test it, then I guess you don't have too much interest in science then.

Also, Sheldrake's morphic resonance, Josephson's theories, Radin's work and the concept of the holographic universe (cue Art) are attempts to provide that non-materialistic science.

[Dave W.]

Even if I'm flat-out wrong about the definition of "militant," other examples abound of the "polite insults" I was discussing. Aside from Leiter's example, McLuhan (in this post) makes a clear connection between a few skeptics and the label "idiot." There's his "Silly Sceptic Tricks" post title, too.

It's quite probable that there is no intention to insult behind these examples, but the abuse appears obvious to this observer.

And on the other subject, if we're unsure how to test psi, then all of the "examples and evidence" get thrown out the window. Science is unquestionably our best method of gaining understanding of our universe, but if that method fails with regards to psi, then the evidence gathered using it is worthless.

Last, Sheldrake appears to be trying to offer an entirely "mechanistic" theory. Josephson likewise. The holographic universe only attempts to add another "level" of mechanism to what we've already got.

Radin I only know as someone who's done a lot of research attempting to show psi. I was unaware that he'd put forth an explanatory theory. Got a link to a summary?

[Greg T.]

On "Militant:" Let us suppose that the definition you quote for us is an appropriate understanding of "militant." I find myself wondering at what point one draws the line between someone expressing an opinion and being militant in this way. You present an argument in a public venue, Paranormalia, in which some strident accusations are made. Are you militant? If not, why should we not apply this definition to you? Sometimes, and I think you might, on reflection, recognize this as true, stipulations are made for political purpose or to affect persuasive influence rather than accurate representation of the case. If one can water down a term in order to then apply it at a specific target, while hoping to keep the emotive content, then that can be persuasive, even if disingenuous. From the tone of your discussion, I suspect you may have some familiarity with this phenomenon, yes?

We have established a kind of understanding that one has the freedom to swing one's fist right up to the point where it hits someone's nose and there are good reasons for this line-drawing. We must, as freedom-loving people, never forget why we draw that line at (roughly) that point. That someone says to you or to me that we are respectively wrong is not an act of militancy in a democratic, free society. It is only those who would curtail such freedoms that try to equate freedom of speech with violent enforcement. Let us try to keep perspective, shall we?

Is everyone who has the temerity to express an opinion a militant? Or is person X a militant when what is said disagrees with person Y? When did disagreement become a bad thing? At what point does the word "militant" lose its meaning...

Tony M.: Among differing camps of persons and perspectives it is quite a common tactic to disparage others with misnomers. Atheists and skeptics have been called "moral nihilists" for as long as there have been ethical-absolutist dogmas (as if there were no other possible sources of morality). To characterize all "skeptics" as "naysayers" and "deniers" is a profound error. Now I am not saying that there aren't self-professed skeptics who are merely naysayers (I, personally, find them rather embarrassing), but to claim that all are simply deniers is a unequivocal error, just as it is an error to say that anyone who engages in discussion of non-materialist subject matter is a nut job. And, to an epistemic skeptic such as myself, it is just as insulting. Among skeptics, there are as many variations, with varying degrees of sophistication, just as there are with any other group, probably including within your own ranks. For my own part, I recognize clearly that doubt is not denial, however much the perveyers of dichotomous, dogmatic stances proclaim it to be so.

Back on-topic:

Now, to say that there is one or more principle ideas that are foundations of worldviews is, I'm sorry to say, hardly controversial. However, if one is going to depict this as an psychological ailment, lack of faculty, or the catastrophic result of some past trauma, as is attempted quite commonly against skeptics and atheists, then one is making a different kind of claim, one which a particularly onerous and needs to be more carefully considered if it is to be defensible. For example, do you not posit certain ideas at the core of your understandings, perhaps upon which much of your view rests? Well, so it is for individual skeptics. Is that alone a sign of some mental or emotional failure or even error? I would suggest not (assuming of course that they are held provisionally), since without at least some premises, no conclusions at all can be reached. It has actually been humanity's chief exercise in our history to try to develop underlying principles of understanding that grant us predictive power. So far, (note the "so far") science has been wildly successful where almost all alternatives have been abject, often tragic, failures. So it is not enough merely to say that there are premises to prove error. One must consider the content of the premises themselves.

However, all this said, I would like to extend my apologies for interrupting your private forum with the alien and strange ideas you speak of understanding. For my own part, if you can find a flaw in my thinking, I am happy to revise. That is precisely why I, as an epistemic skeptic, maintain the eschewing of certainty - the possibility of growth and progress. It's not just so I can fervently believe whatever I want. At the same time, however, if one is going to overturn a worldview that is stunningly and demonstrably successful, it will probably be expected one provide a very good reason for doing so. Does that really sound so terribly unreasonable?

[The Major]

Admittedly no. I don't want to appear misleading there. I think the idea I was trying to present is that theories are being offered- it's not all pure speculation.

It's just maybe the idea of what's material and what isn't is something worth exploring.

Also, I can't seem to find where Robert refers to skeptics as 'idiots' and 'Silly Sceptic Tricks' refers to the tricks, rather than sceptics. Petty points maybe, but this argument does seem to be resorting to semantics.

[The Major]

My last post was in reply to Dave W. With regard to Greg T, I would say that you seem very specific that someone who is 'militant' is someone who uses violence to their own ends.

To quote: "It is only those who would curtail such freedoms that try to equate freedom of speech with violent enforcement."

However, that's not the whole picture. What about someone who dishonestly distorts someone else's point of view? Who lies about someone's actions and statements in order to discredit them?

Maybe by militant, we could draw an analogy with bully (please note this is my analogy, not anyone else's). A bully isn't only someone who uses physical force. Bullies can also abuse mentally, they can turn others against their intended victims through nefarious ends.

I think the most important point here is that we're not talking about every skeptic. That's clear. Robert speaks well of Chris French, for example. We're talking about a particular group of people here.

Robert states :

"But it's legitimate to argue that militant skeptics are not really 'skeptics' in the literal sense, but denalists arguing from a profound and unshakeable belief in the mechanistic worldview. That may seriously get you going, but as long as militant skeptics like Randi and Gardner behave the way they do it's a reasonable conclusion to come to."

Then, he comments that although one may hold certain views like a disbelief in God etc, but that 'it is another thing' to do it by dishonest means.

There is definitely a lot of emotion being played here.

[Dave W.]

Major: absolutely it's important to explore what's material and what isn't. What isn't?

My objection didn't rest upon something being speculative or not. If there's a phenomenon to be investigated, then by all means let's investigate it to the best of our abilities. Claiming that the critics of such investigation are beholden to some mechanistic wordlview implies that the phenomenon in question isn't investigatable, at all, by our current best techniques (which are, unapologetically, mechanistic). It's a non-substantive argument inside a post which begs for the end of personal attacks and a return to substance.

On the insult subject, if I were to say something like, "I'm only talking about The Major here, I don't mean to suggest that all psi believers are idiots," you would be correct to ask, "did Dave just call me an idiot?" It is in that fashion that Mr. McLuhan called Randi, Wisemean and Blackmore idiots.

And "Stupid Human Tricks," the clear inspiration for Mr. McLuhan's previous post title, was just one of many of Letterman's tools for the humiliation of random people. Sure, the tricks were silly, but the bit was all about pointing and laughing at the people who were willing to perform them on national TV.

But the point is, again, that examples of "polite insults" are all over the place, here and elsewhere among psi advocates. You've objected to three of the four examples I've presented, examples drawn from just three of Mr. McLuhan's recent posts. This is barely scratching the surface. Even if I were to grant that these particular examples aren't insulting (and I've already granted that perhaps they weren't _intended_ to be insulting), other examples aren't hard to find at all.

[Dave W.]

More examples. In the June 7th post "Humbug," Mr. McLuhan calls Randi "the old fraud." In the June 17th post "Psi Rage," he calls the majority of psi skeptics "a rabble of sarky-sneery gremlins."

I found these by clicking category "sceptics," blindly scrolling about halfway down the page and then starting to read at the next post. "Writer's Block" and "Great Global Warming!" were the only other two posts I read for this "experiment." I can now say that out of seven posts of Mr. McLuhan's that I've read in their entirety, four contained clear insults of psi critics, some more egregious than others (these latest two examples can only be described as intentional name-calling).

Sure, it's nowhere close to being a representative example, but if Mr. McLuhan is correct in his thesis that fear that their opponents are correct is what drives skeptics to insult, I must conclude that Mr. McLuhan is driven by fear that psi critics are correct. That's only fair, yes?

[The Major]

By that logic, yes. Possibly...

Some of those comments probably do support your arguments and some don't. After all, calling Randi a fraud when you feel his actions in dealing with certain people have been fraudelent isn't exactly unfair.

Randi and CSIcop have ruined people's careers and destroyed reputations (http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/Mediaskeptics/index.html) and (http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/Mediaskeptics/Randi_dogs.html_).

Although Robert occassionally falls into a little bit of namecalling, it's nothing compared to what the skeptics do. This is the crux of the argument.

Put it this way. I'm a big Manchester United fan. I am disparaging of Liverpool and Chelsea fans. Occassionally, in conversations I will refer to their fans in less than glowing terms. To an extent, I expect this back.

However, there are always those who will be extreme in their actions. People who choose to belittle you in social situations for the team you support. Those who threaten physical violence.

In the nature of debate, there are always loaded terms. Always will be as well. However, we're now talking about the extreme examples. Like those football fans who take it too far.

The important thing to take from this is that all-non Manchester United supporters are idiots.

Only joking... we're talking about an extreme end of the spectrum.

[Mark]

God damn, such bad reasoning that some of you people are using. It makes it hard for me to even want to take you seriously.

"If there's a phenomenon to be investigated, then by all means let's investigate it to the best of our abilities. Claiming that the critics of such investigation are beholden to some mechanistic wordlview implies that the phenomenon in question isn't investigatable, at all, by our current best techniques (which are, unapologetically, mechanistic)."

Uhhh, no, it doesn't necessarily imply that. It is possible for the critics of such investigation to be beholden to a mechanistic worldview and, at the same time, the phenomenon in question is investigable by our current best techniques. I mean, what you said is one possible reason why people would criticize investigations into non-materialist phenomena, but not the only one. Another possible reason that some people might criticize investigation into non-materialist phenomena is because they think that it is possible to investigate such phenomena using current methods and that they are scared that materialism will fall because of such investigation. You skeptics are always jumping to the conclusion that suits your side best.

[Mark]

Christ, you did it again!

"Sure, it's nowhere close to being a representative example, but if Mr. McLuhan is correct in his thesis that fear that their opponents are correct is what drives skeptics to insult, I must conclude that Mr. McLuhan is driven by fear that psi critics are correct. That's only fair, yes?"

No! It isn't fair! There are a lot of reasons why people could be driven to insult. Just because Robert made the argument that some skeptics are driven to insult because of reason A - that does not mean that another group of people are necessarily going to be driven to insult because of reason A. This other group might have a totally different reason for being driven to insult. Damn. I think that you are either not very bright or are being intentionally misleading.

[Dave W.]

Major, the crux of the argument is that name-calling and other abusive behavior was _the_ evidence that Mr. McLuhan provided to make his case that skeptics are afraid of the possibility of psi. Under such conditions, identical behavior (even if different in scale) must point to the same conclusion.

And here is Mark to insult me. Perhaps not the best strategy considering what is being discussed. Neither is misrepresenting my arguments.

There _are_ a lot of reasons that people might be abusive. I tend towards concluding that it's almost all due to frustration, myself, with perhaps a large dollop of copy-catting. Mr. McLuhan comes to a very different conclusion about the psychology of skeptics after starting with the same observations. His (as mine) applies to all parties equally was my point.

There's nothing special about psi advocates (or their critics) that means that we should diverge in our thinking about what drives them. At least there's been no psychological evidence presented that we should conclude "skeptics are abusive because they're afraid" while we should also conclude "psi advocates are abusive only in reaction to abuse" (for another possible alternative).

If you want to, Mark, please present such evidence. Don't just jump to "the conclusion that suits your side best," including that I'm stupid or being unethical.

By the way, materialism shows no signs of falling when the tools being used to investigate psi are all strictly materialistic and the theories being proposed to explain psi are materialistic, also. Assertions to the non-materialism of psi are transparent distractions when the foremost proponents of psi claim to be able to use the normal methods of science to measure its effects.

But clearly the problem is the term itself. It's highly amorphous, in that it means different things to different people. Communications tend to break down under such conditions.

[Mark]

Dave W. I didn't misrepresent your position at all, you liar. Nothing you said changed anything. Everything I said in my previous posts still stands. As far as being insulting, maybe it was, but at least everything I said was necessary. That's different than unnecessary insult. I just called you a liar because you are one. Yes it's insulting, but it's necessary. I can't think of a nicer way to tell someone that he is a liar. That's something much different than the unnecessary insult spewed out every day on Randi's website - like making generalizations about how everyone who would even try to research this stuff is idiotic. I have no problem with necessary insult. I have a serious problem with unnecessary insult.

[Dave W.]

What can I say to that, Mark? You faulted me for not generalizing from a specific situation, and now you call me a liar for not agreeing with your insistence that I should. In the face of such a vehement attitude, what could I possibly say to convince you that you might be mistaken?

For what it's worth, of course I disagree most strenuously with your assessment that your insults were "necessary." I could simply be wrong without being a liar, stupid and/or unethical, couldn't I? Lots of other people are honest and smart and still wrong, but not me, apparently. I am necessarily one (or more) of those things, and you felt a need to express it in the plainest of ways. And then you pre-emptively defend your behavior with a classically fallacious argument, that no matter what faults might be perceived in you, you're still better than those who've done you wrong.

Clearly, however, none of what you've said in your comments has actually addressed the core of my position, and so you've created a pretty massive irony in the face of Mr. McLuhan's repeated calls for skeptics to drop the personal insults and return to the substance. Unless, of course, you don't think that you should be held to the same standards?

[H.H.]

Mark, you are insane, unstable, and totally disconnected from reality. That may be taken as an insult, but consider it a necessary insult, as I have no other way to bring this to your attention.

[Greg T.]

What a shame. There we were with the possibility of a more or less productive and civil discourse and then Mark had to clang in...

I request recommendations from the other involved Paranormalia participants on how Mark can best be addressed. How can one rationally converse with that kind of vitriol?

[Mark]

Robert's position is his own. He was also talking about prominent members of both the skeptic community and the escoteric communities - not message board posters like me. Skeptics love to try to link everyone together, saying that I caused an irony when I don't speak for Robert or anyone else other than myself. Greg T. and H. H. can go to hell. I need to find a forum where dishonest, disrespectful people (in other words, skeptics) are banned.

Oh, and in this case, at least, no you can't be wrong without being a liar.

[Dave W.]

Sure, sure, Mark. But you're a guest in Mr. McLuhan's virtual home, here. You and he aren't two equal members in some third-party forum. It's his blog, he sets the tone, so if he says that people should be less insulting and stick to substance, a person's options are generally limited to either compliance or retreat.

Unless, of course, that person knows that the host only intends for his suggestions to apply to one group of people. I don't know any such thing (because in Mr. McLuhan's reply to me, he didn't say, "oh, I only meant that towards the skeptics"), and here I am, behaving nicely (I haven't been anything but honest with you, despite what you think). You sound like you're about to leave.

And since you've not offered any clarification whatsoever, I can only conclude that your charge against me - that I'm a liar - will remain unsupported. I'm no stranger to that, but it still sucks.

H., I know that you know (because we've been around the block a few times together) that I've sometimes advocated for the "Reverse Golden Rule" in dealing with other people (that one should do unto others as they do unto you, since that must be how they want you to treat them), but wowzers!, this wasn't one of those times.

And Greg: as I said above, this is Mr. McLuhan's blog, it's really only his opinion that matters. Isn't it?

[The Major]

Mark, for crying out loud, couldn't you keep a lid on your anger? We were having a civil discourse even if we did have vastly different view points. That's kind of been blown out of the water and all you've done is undermine mine and Robert's argument.

You left the Michael Prescott blog in a huff as well because, shock upon shock, he doesn't vote the same way as you. You were pretty offensive on here with the global warming debate as well.

I think it would be fair for you to find a forum with people who only share the exact same ideas as you. However, it's not much fun talking to yourself is there?

I'll come back to the main debate shortly.

[The Major]

The idea of why 'skeptics' (and we're talking about those identified in particular) act the way they do has been much debated on this blog. Robert feels that fear and anxiety plays a massive part, and backs this up with examples.

I feel there are a combination of factors. One I feel is, in a sense, arrogance. People love to feel they are an authority on a subject.

It's something inside all of us I feel. Those who spend their careers in science will feel their opinion counts more than others and as a result, may be dismissive. I can be like this when talking about cinema for example.

That's only one reason. There's also the idea that some people are genuinely just not nice people.

My point is, there are a number of reasons people act the way they do. Robert has offered an example of one particular group of the skeptic movement.

Dave, take a look at this forum on your webpage (http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10552) and ask yourself why exactly it is those people feel it is neccessary to express their opinions that way.

[robert mcluhan]

Dave / Greg – I take it for granted that skeptics understand this has two sides to it, that each one’s arguments are unpalatable to the other, and that they will express themselves forcefully – that’s the nature of any controversy.

I can understand why you might disagree with my reasoning, but not why you should be surprised or offended by it. Is it that skeptics don’t really expect to be criticised, or to have to defend their own stance? When I got into this subject years ago I read books by Martin Gardner and James Randi, and was astonished at their aggressive language, which I understood they justified on the grounds that ridicule is a potent weapon against fakery and gullibility. That tradition is absolutely fundamental to the skeptic movement. For me to call Randi an old fraud is pretty tame in that context – it was actually meant to be jocular - and it’s not as though he doesn’t invite it.

Major (above) makes the point about ‘militant’ – I can’t accept that my use of the word is controversial, and I don’t even believe Randi would either. The reason I repeated it was merely to differentiate between people who use arguments for disbelieving in psychism from those who seem to view it as an evil that must be extirpated.

The point of my talk was not to shaft skeptics or make them feel uncomfortable, it wasn’t really addressed to them at all. I should add that any skeptic with whom I could have a conversation exchanging views about the evidence, not matter how impervious to my arguments they continued to be, is not remotely someone who I should wish to insult. I don’t mind being taken to task for my language or arguments, and will willingly review my own approach. But we can’t have a conversation if you feel aggrieved about seeing an unwelcome perspective on your own position in print.

Am I militant? Good question. I acknowledge that I express forceful opinions in this blog, and clearly state my positions and responses about people and incidents relating to the subject. Sometimes that may seem provoking. But actually it’s what any good columnist does. Anyone who reads an opinion piece that expresses an opposite viewpoint to the one they hold may find their blood boiling, and that gets a response, as has happened here. What do you want me to do, sit on the fence? I’m guessing every columnist gets a truck load of emails after each piece, but is that going to make them change their minds, or express themselves differently? What would be the point?

Anyway, I’m glad you took the trouble to comment, and I’d be glad to hear your comments on future posts. I’ll spend some time looking through your site also.

Incidentally, James Randi has offered a very reasonable and plausible response to my insults in the SPR talk, (the old fraud), for anyone who’s interested or would like to respond.

[Paul Welsh]

Interesting topic. I agree with Major that there may be many different reasons for being sceptical about psi. Indeed scepticism itself represents a continuum from people at one end who simply ask for reasonable evidence to support claims and for the meantime until that evidence is produced are inclined not to accept, and people at the other end who have formed a view based on no examination of evidence at all, will not consider evidence with an open mind and will defend that viewpoint at all costs. I suspect the majority of us are scattered between these two points of view.

I do think though that if we believe a person is at the latter extreme then there is very little point in wasting effort trying to convince them unless one enjoys the mental gymnastics. Personal attacks the last resort of a person losing an argument IMHO.

[Mark]

Actually, yes, I do think it would be fun talking to myself. Seriously, though, now that everyone is against me I probably should leave, unless Robert bans all of you people who are against me. I mean, even Major - and Major should be on my side, at least on this issue. All you believers wonder why you're getting your asses kicked by skeptics - it's because you are not willing to do what it takes. You can't play nice with these people. I understand not being insulting when it's not necessary, but a lot of times it is. Like now. Goodbye, and fuck all of you!

[The Major]

We'll miss you, Mark.

[Dave W.]

Major, I agree that there are lots of potential reasons for people to behave they way they do. I think that when looking at groups of people, especially, any conclusion that there is a single primary factor at work will invariably be wrong.

Ridicule isn't always a symptom of fear. Dismissiveness isn't always a symptom of arrogance.

On my part, I find that the urge to ridicule is born of anger, typically caused by my attempts at getting through to someone being consistently frustrated. Well, then and when someone is doing something so mind-bogglingly stupid as to be ridiculous (worthy of ridicule).

I can see both in Randi, _and_ a healthy dollop of arrogance. I don't think it helps that he's got thousands - if not millions - of adoring fans, some percentage of whom will overlook his faults because he is who he is (thus missing one of his core messages completely).

He could also just be a mean old man. I've never met him, and I've never seen him have "off camera" moments that might show some truth behind the facade.

But fear? Maybe it's because I've got no fear whatsoever of my own pragmatic evidencialism being overturned (ever) and so cannot empathize, but I'm just not seeing it. As I said before, psi abilities would be awesomely cool. I really can't imagine Randi thinking otherwise.

Now perhaps that's just my own bias. Randi is a very public face within a group with which I self-identify, so it's probably only natural that I'd want him to be like me, and I'd be pretty disappointed if he weren't (witness the many Republicans over here who expressed disappointment with McCain's campaign while endorsing Obama). But I don't think Mr. McLuhan is immune to such bias, and so it's possible that he sees fear and anxiety because he would prefer the public figures arrayed against his conclusions to be cowards.

I submit that without detailed psychological studies of all the main participants by multiple independent observers, we'll never know. And the sort of armchair psychology that I'm engaged in right now (and in which Mr. McLuhan has also engaged) is about the worst possible tool with which to find an answer. What we think of other people's unstated motivations probably speaks more about _us_ than it does about the people in question.

Which is, really, why I was avoiding the question. My point was simpler, and didn't depend on being able to glean someone's deep-down intimate motivators. And that point is simply that if Mr. McLuhan is going to complain about skeptics' nasty ways (which he does), then he'd better have all of his ducks in a row regarding the same issues (which he does not - or at least did not). Otherwise, he risks looking like a hypocrite, even if he's got the best of intentions.

On another note, Major, it appears that the automatic link-maker in this blog software likes to include punctuation at the end of URLs, so in the future you'll want to think about sticking a space between the URL and the close-parenthesis, even though it looks ugly that way. That link is, again:

http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10552

Why do the folks in that thread feel the need "to express their opinions that way?" Well, I see about a dozen people in that discussion, expressing their opinions in about a dozen different ways. None of them are theists, but the question as posed doesn't really apply to theists, anyway. And we've got a range of respondent views from "theistic beliefs are generally harmless" all the way to "theistic beliefs represent a clear and present danger to freedom-loving people," and they more-or-less answered accordingly.

But I may be too close to them to see accurately. I've known some of them for years. Why do _you_ think they answered as they did?

[Dave W.]

(Wow, only one tiny little symbol for "next page" around here? I spent a good two or three minutes wondering where the heck my previous comment went. Hehehe.)

Mr. McLuhan: I wasn't surprised, offended or aggrieved by your posts. My reply was more a warning that you should avoid creating a double standard. I'm not sure how much more clear I could have made myself, but by your latest reply you seem to have missed my point almost entirely.

Mr. Welsh: I would suggest that the continuum runs from hopeless credulity on the one end to brazen cynicism on the other. "True" skeptics would inhabit a position much closer to the cynic's end than the other (for good reason), but not close enough that they could be considered synonymous.

Mark: You're about where I am regarding fundamentalist theists. Except I'll give them a chance before laying into them, because every once-in-a-while, you find one who's not like the others. Who would have guessed that stereotypes aren't always correct?

[Michael Prescott]

I used to argue against skeptical positions, but I've come to feel this debate is mostly a waste of time.

The fact is, skeptics and paranormalists (for want of a better word) simply have different worldviews. The two sides end up talking past each other, because they start from different sets of assumptions. Those assumptions are so fundamental and so deeply engrained that in most cases they cannot be overcome. As prominent skeptic Ray Hyman put it, "I do not have control over my beliefs."

The argument has been going on for thousands of years. Barring some breakthrough evidence that eliminates all doubt about the paranormal, I would expect the war of words to continue indefinitely.

Maybe it would be best to simply agree to disagree.

[Michael Prescott]

Just to expand on my above comment, I think another reason for the conflict between skeptics and paranormalists has to do with the approach that parapsychologists themselves have taken. Too often, they have suffered from "hard science envy," and have tried to adapt the methods of the hard sciences to their own field.

Certainly it would be nice if psi could be captured in a laboratory and replicated on demand, or if it could be proved with statistics. But psi isn't that kind of thing. It's an aspect of human interaction - subtle, unpredictable, and very much dependent on mood, motivation, and environmental influences. Trying to force psi phenomena in a lab is like holding a gun to a musician's head and ordering him to improvise a melody on the spot.

Instead of thinking of parapsychology as a hard science, it might be better to approach it as a social science, like cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropologists don't rely on laboratory data. They do fieldwork. They immerse themselves in native culture, meeting the natives more than halfway in order to understand their perspective. Their conclusions are never as airtight as the conclusions of physicists and chemists; there is always an element of subjective interpretation. But cultural anthropology is still science. It's just not laboratory science.

In my opinion, parapsychology would be benefit by adopting the social science paradigm and largely discarding the hard science paradigm. If parapsychology stops trying to be something it's not, perhaps it will produce more robust results and invite less criticism.

[Godofpie]

*

" refusing to engage with parapsychological investigations on any level as being of no interest, undoubtedly fraudulent, obviously nonsense, etc."
*
Evidence?

"engaging with them, but explaining them away with all kinds of implausible scenarios which in any other context no one would entertain for a moment"
*
Evidence?
"carrying out experiments with psychics on television with a very precisely determined pre-agreed protocol, getting highly signficant results, and then refusing to accept the results as valid"
*
Evidence?
" carrying out experiments in order to prove that, when properly conducted, the effect will not appear, getting an effect, and then explaining it away on the grounds of 'experimental flaws'"
Evidence?
Thanks!

[The Major]

Godofpie, take a look around this website just for starters:

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/New/index.html

[Ben]

I would like to comment on something Greg said: that science is “stunningly and demonstrably successful”. It has been successful at describing and predicting physical phenomena. But it is not at all successful at describing or dealing with anything involving consciousness. Physical processes are ruled by cause and effect, but at a certain level, particularly when consciousness becomes ‘self-conscious’, the factor of ‘free-will’ must be considered. We all know we have free will, and our decisions are not necessarily determined by physical factors – we can choose to disregard our instincts (eg hunger strikers, celibate monks…). This, and the impossible dilemma of trying to describe how consciousness can arise from electrochemical impulses in the brain (when is an electrical impulse more than an electrical impulse? Answer: when it produces consciousness) makes me believe that consciousness is not actually physical.

There is also another sense in which science might eventually be considered to be unsuccessful, by its own criteria (to be successful is to have survival value). Suppose technology (science in action) allows us to outgrow our place in nature and foul our own nest? Reductions in biodiversity are currently occurring at an alarming rate, apparently due to the “success” of human science. This is a controversial topic, but it is worth mentioning to you, because you said that science is never “certain” that it is right, yet you did also say that it was “stunningly and demonstrably successful”. Whatever success it has is being judged from a very limited standpoint, is it not?

Michael Prescott said:
“Certainly it would be nice if psi could be captured in a laboratory and replicated on demand, or if it could be proved with statistics. But psi isn't that kind of thing. It's an aspect of human interaction - subtle, unpredictable, and very much dependent on mood, motivation, and environmental influences. Trying to force psi phenomena in a lab is like holding a gun to a musician's head and ordering him to improvise a melody on the spot.”

Very nicely put, Michael. I've been thinking exactly this lately, and have even suggested to my son that when he does his thesis at college (he’s studying psychology) that he tries to do telepathic tests involving people very well known to the subject (who, Rupert Sheldrake would suggest, are part of the same group, so are more closely linked in consciousness); in addition, instead of “guess the number” or “guess the shape”, what about “guess the photo or picture which has emotional significance to both of us”. If Rupert Sheldrake is right, I would expect better results, maybe even out of the proper environmental context in a sterile lab.

[Dave W.]

Ben wrote:
"We all know we have free will..."

No, we don't. We've got no evidence that the universe is anything but deterministic, our own brains included. If that's true, then we exist as nothing more than highly complex stimulus/response engines, and that complexity leads to an illusion of unpredictability which people label "free will."

"...we can choose to disregard our instincts (eg hunger strikers, celibate monks...)..."

Sure, but there is always some other motivator present. Our desire for justice overrides our instinct for food in the case of hunger strikes, and our desire for enlightenment can override our instinct for procreation. But these desires are themselves little more than instinctive, emotional responses to still other stimuli.

"This, and the impossible dilemma of trying to describe how consciousness can arise from electrochemical impulses in the brain..."

I'm sure that thousands of cognitive researchers and neuroscientists disagree with your assessment that what they are actively researching is "impossible." That's really an unfair premise on your part, Ben.

"...to be successful is to have survival value..."

That is not a criteria of science. Within science, success means adding to our knowledge base in a reliable (replicable) manner, it has nothing to do with survival. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is the goal of science - a very narrow criteria, indeed.

And it's really not science that's fouling our own nest, it's technology. Technologists take the knowledge gleaned by scientists and put it to practical use. Their goal is also generally not survival, but is instead comfort.

(What with all the stereotypical science nerds in film and on TV, it is clear that becoming a scientist actually has a large negative survival value in terms of evolutionary theory. At least for some sciences. Scientists who blow stuff up get all the chicks.)

[The Major]

No evidence at all, Dave, that our mind is not deterministic? What about Dean Radin's research, or indeed a lot of the evidence provided in 'Irreducible Mind'. Now whether you find that evidence not exactly overwhelming or conclusive, or even if you think it is pretty weak, by saying there is no evidence is to try and finish an argument with a false claim.

Your point about other causes for decision making in the mind is certainly plausible. People overcome addictions because it reaps other benefits, for example. However, your conclusion assumes that a deterministic point of view is correct. Again, this is an incorrect argument.

I should point out that Ben is also wrong to point out that we definitely have free will. However, you felt it was necessary to argue against his definitive statement which didn't consider alternatives, with pretty much a definitive statement that doesn't consider the alternatives.

Also, whether neuroscientists and cognitive researchers feel that calling their goal 'pointless' is neither here nor there. Of course they should continue in case they do come up with the overwhelming evidence. However, if someone feels that consciousness does not arise from the brain alone then they are going to feel that the enterprise is ultimately 'impossible'. It's a harsh statement maybe, but could you honestly say that neither you nor any of your like-minded associates don't feel the works of parapsychologists attempting to prove a non-deterministic model of the universe is pointless?

[Michael Prescott]

If there's no free will, then how can we have confidence in our ideas or beliefs? Our beliefs would be, after all, only the result of blind mechanistic processes. This would include all our beliefs about science and philosophy, including the belief that we have no free will.

It is, of course, true that we know we have free will. We know it by direct introspection, which means we know it more surely than we know that there's an external world. We know it more surely than we know that we can trust our physical senses.

The whole attempt to reduce humanity to mere machinery is deeply misguided, in my view, and is responsible for much of the suffering of the past century. Again, though, this is why skeptics and paranormalists will never see eye to eye: different worldviews. One side sees consciousness as no more than an epiphenomenon of matter. The other side sees consciousness as a fundamental property of reality itself, arguably more fundamental even than matter.

Never the twain shall meet. Each side is talking past the other.

[Dave W.]

Major, I think you're making a mistake in thinking that determinism somehow argues against psi. At least, I cannot find anything on Radin or "The Irreducible Mind" that suggests that either one presents evidence contrary to determinism. I honestly had no clue whatsoever that any parapsychologists are "attempting to prove a non-deterministic model of the universe," and I don't see why it matters. Hypothetically, psi could just as easily exist in a deterministic universe as it could in a non-deterministic one. It is just "free will" that conflicts with determinism.

Mr. Prescott, if free will is an illusion, then your direct introspection is also an illusion, the answer you get being provided by nothing more than "mere machinery" that's been shaped by millions of years of evolution to provide just that answer.

After all, the concepts of personal responsibility and fairness benefit society, and so provide a survival benefit, whether they are real or not. With no sense of free will, those concepts are meaningless, and humans would all still be squabbling over who gets to eat the latest kill (if we were to exist at all). An instinctive _feeling_ of free will (and those concepts which follow from it) is a benefit to our species, whether that feeling reflects something that actually exists or not.

And as with my reply to The Major, I fail to see how determinism would conflict at all with the idea that consciousness is "a fundamental property of matter." The questions of where consciousness comes from and whether it is deterministic are largely independent. If consciousness is nothing more than brain chemistry, it could still be the case that brain chemistry is not deterministic, and then free will _exists_, but as nothing more than an epiphenomenon of matter itself (for example).

[Dave W.]

In case it's been missed, James Randi has replied directly to Mr. McLuhan:

http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/2008/11/spr-study-day---the-psychology-of-the-sceptic.html#comment-140868300

Also see here:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/322-willing-to-be-shown.html

I point it out to say that the armchair psychology we've been engaged in has become moot.

[Shelagh]

"It is, of course, true that we know we have free will. We know it by direct introspection, which means we know it more surely than we know that there's an external world. We know it more surely than we know that we can trust our physical senses."

Now that is the kind of logic I find convincing. Let's hear it for Free Will!!

[Michael Prescott]

if free will is an illusion, then your direct introspection is also an illusion, the answer you get being provided by nothing more than "mere machinery" that's been shaped by millions of years of evolution to provide just that answer.

Which is precisely why it is intellectually incoherent to maintain that free will is illusory. Any answer you get, on any subject at all, will be "provided by nothing more than 'mere machinery' that's been shaped by millions of years of evolution to provide just that answer." Your whole belief that there have been millions of years of evolution, or that you have a physical body, or any belief of any kind whatsoever, would be nothing but the result of automatic processes, and therefore could not be relied on.

Free will is axiomatic; you must tacitly accept it in the very act of denying it. I.e., you must assume that your thought processes are reliable, that your judgment is not entirely conditioned by instinct and reflex; otherwise you could have no confidence in any conclusion you reach, including conclusions about free will.

[Michael Prescott]

Sorry, the first paragraph of my above comment was supposed to be italicized, but the html formatting didn't work. The first paragraph is a quote from Dave W.

[Dave W.]

Actually, I've only got 42 years of experiences stored away in my head. Having my decisions informed by millions of years of evolutionarily honed instincts would be a very much more reliable method of coming to conclusions.

Extraordinarily complex and wholly deterministic algorithms result in correct answers in a very high percentage of cases. I don't understand how adding free will to the mix would create an improvement. Perhaps you could explain the mechanism?

Until then, your premise that free will somehow makes for more-reliable judgement cannot be accepted, and so your conclusion that free will is axiomatic must also be rejected. For the time being.

[Michael Prescott]

"Now that is the kind of logic I find convincing."

Well, you know, "cogito ergo sum" is Philosophy 101. You can doubt the external world, you can doubt yesterday and tomorrow, you can doubt almost anything, but you can't doubt the existence of the consciousness that's doing the doubting!

In this sense, our own awareness is the surest thing we know (the thing least open to doubt).

[Dude]

Wow, solipsism is pointless... who'd a thunk it?

[Michael Prescott]

"Extraordinarily complex and wholly deterministic algorithms result in correct answers in a very high percentage of cases. I don't understand how adding free will to the mix would create an improvement."

Because the algorithm does not know that the answer it obtains is correct. In fact, the algorithm does not even know that it is obtaining an answer.

A self-aware consciousness, on the other hand, not only is aware of the problems it is trying to solve, but is aware of the possibility of error in reaching a solution. And there is no way to guard against error if all mental processes are mechanistic. Mechanistic processes will churn out conclusions automatically. The conclusions may be right or they may be right. How could we ever know?

In order to know, we would have to stand outside all our deterministic mental processes and view our conclusions from some other perspective. And this is, tacitly, what determinists try to do. They say all human thinking is deterministic, but (often without realizing it) they grant themselves an exemption. *Their* conclusions are grounded in logic, not automatic nonrational processes. Thus their conclusions are reliable.

The point is not that automatic processes couldn't lead to correct conclusions. They might, or they might not. The point is that we would have no way to know, one way or the other, and thus no grounds for embracing or defending any idea, including the idea of determinism. (Any attempt to obtain certainty by "reality-testing" or further analysis or what-have-you would simply push the problem back a step: how could we be sure that our judgments about our reality tests, analysis, etc. were correct?)

[Dave W.]

Determinism is not an argument against self-aware consciousness. Free will or not, nobody knows if they've got a correct answer until they check it against something else. And as soon as you dip into solipsism, you're dooming your argument to self-refutation, because the only thing that's trustworthy then is your own mind, so it's impossible to tell if you've got free will or not (you've got nothing reliable to test your putative free will against).

Whether I have free will or not, I can't tell whether my answers are correct by simple introspection. And as soon as you deny that reality-checking is a valid tool, then whether I have free will or not is moot, because I can't tell whether _anything_ is correct. "I think therefore I am" only demonstrates the existence of my ego. Nothing _follows_ from that, not even that I am a conscious being (those terms are meaning-free if my ego is generated by nothing more than an intensely sophisticated computer program).

So, _with_ free will, Mr. Prescott, how can you be sure that your judgement is correct, given that you can't make any reality checks, either?

[Bill I.]

I generally take as dim a view of parapsychology and its practitioners as I do of skeptics of the paranormal, with certain exceptions. (I truly enjoyed Deborah Blum's Ghost Hunters while noting that the conflict of beliefs we see here, on this site, was no less active in the time of William James and Frederick Myers.)

I've explored psychical areas throughout much of my life and frequently with others.

My motives were initially based on experiences for which few existing explanations seemed at all satisfying, particularly those wedded to the scientific method.

That method is simply not suited for such explorations, owing to its frequently unexamined underlying assumptions. (There are some definite exceptions but I'm afraid that, say, statistical proof of telepathy is nothing that interests me, particularly when I've recorded my own instances of telepathy and pre-cognition many times. Why would anyone in my situation need or care for such statistics?)

I would like nothing better than to see great progress made in understanding psychical areas, demonstrating certain realities beyond a shadow of a doubt, but such progress isn't likely to emanate from the activity of official parapsychologists.

(How long have they been at this?)

We live only a certain number of days.

So far as I'm concerned, the best way for anyone to get on with these issues is in a much more informal, personal, and direct way.

The techniques for doing so are easily discovered and not at all difficult to learn and practice. They've existed for untold thousands of years.

When sufficient numbers do so, mass beliefs will change accordingly.

Even if this never happens, even if only a tiny minority of the populace ever chooses to embark in such directions, at least those who do so will have satisfied their desire to know and understand.

Of course whatever they discover will be dismissed and discounted by those who simply can't believe in such experiences.

So what? Who cares? Expending energy in an attempt to convince them to open up their minds is almost a complete waste of effort. (Not entirely -- such efforts do provide an opportunity to tinker with and improve communication of such nearly-impossible-to-communicate topics, while maybe such energy will be what's required to inspire one or two fence sitters to finally stop sitting.)

Regards

Bill I.
RealityTest

[Greg T.]

For your amusement...

Quoth Ben:
I would like to comment on something Greg said: that science is “stunningly and demonstrably successful”. It has been successful at describing and predicting physical phenomena. But it is not at all successful at describing or dealing with anything involving consciousness. Physical processes are ruled by cause and effect, but at a certain level, particularly when consciousness becomes ‘self-conscious’, the factor of ‘free-will’ must be considered. We all know we have free will, and our decisions are not necessarily determined by physical factors – we can choose to disregard our instincts (eg hunger strikers, celibate monks…). This, and the impossible dilemma of trying to describe how consciousness can arise from electrochemical impulses in the brain (when is an electrical impulse more than an electrical impulse? Answer: when it produces consciousness) makes me believe that consciousness is not actually physical.

There is also another sense in which science might eventually be considered to be unsuccessful, by its own criteria (to be successful is to have survival value). Suppose technology (science in action) allows us to outgrow our place in nature and foul our own nest? Reductions in biodiversity are currently occurring at an alarming rate, apparently due to the “success” of human science. This is a controversial topic, but it is worth mentioning to you, because you said that science is never “certain” that it is right, yet you did also say that it was “stunningly and demonstrably successful”. Whatever success it has is being judged from a very limited standpoint, is it not?

Thank you for your reply, Ben. If I may...

Before I begin, I should make a disclaimer. My views are my own and do not necessarily represent those of all, or indeed any, other skeptics.

As a brittle diabetic, reliant on insulin, I have discovered something very interesting, Ben, that perhaps you may not be aware of. Sugar levels in my blood do, in fact, have an effect on my moods and my state of consciousness. I have also had the unfortunate benefit of being around at least two clinically depressed persons, both of whom found chemistry, yes chemistry, alleviated their distress and helped them out of crippling emotional states. That we can see such consistent and measurable physical interactions having such profound influence upon mental/emotional states doesn't help your case for the independence of consciousness from physical phenomena. Varying states of consciousness can be induced by quite physical means, some of which are less than subtle. I'm afraid you are going to have to account for these if you are going to make a claim about he independence of consciousness from the material world. The evidence suggests, quite firmly, that the presumed realm of independent self-ness is not so independent as some of the claims being made.

Now, why is it "impossible" to describe how consciousness can arise from electrochemical impulses in the brain? Could that be a matter of definition? Much like trying to disprove the existence of God, the "impossibility" you refer to might very well be a matter of nonsensical stipulations.Why does one assume that consciousness is any more mysterious that say that gold appears yellow? I have no problems with consciousness; it doesn't create any particular difficulties for me because I do not attribute anything mystical to it. Who knows, maybe I'll feel differently at 30 mmol/L or .5 mmol/L.

In short, we may know more about consciousness than we suspect, and the meaning of the word "consciousness" sometimes used may be specifically designed to refuse to admit of material considerations, in which case what we are struggling with is a matter of mere stipulation.

I'll be honest with you, Ben: We've done to death the "mystical self" business over thousands of years and really progressed not at all, that is until we started allowing for scientific understanding of it - then we started discovering that we can influence brain capability, consciousness and emotional states through quite physical means. This is how it usually goes. Once, we assumed illnesses were demonic possessions and shook rattles at them for thousands of years, to no effect. Once we started thinking in terms of microbiological infection, suddenly vast realms of possibilities and human efficacy were opened. But the shift in thinking was more subtle than that. The shift in thinking was about the possibility of understanding, predicting and affecting - not just one or two "special" people, but everyone in a systematic means. The average life span is three times what it was because of our use of science and the simple shift in thinking that assumed we can understand, rather than thinking that things are mystical and beyond us.

So far, I see no reason to mystify consciousness, and I even have qualms about strict determinism (as a concept). But that's a topic for another day...

The Purpose of Science
As far as the purpose of science is concerned, you said it right once and then wrong the next. The purpose, one of our contriving, is predictive power and in this respect science has indeed been "stunningly successful," (in terms of possibilities, choices, efficacy and potential) whole orders of magnitude more so than anything that has come before. The technology you refer to are not just amusing toys, they are artifacts/products/results of a particular way of viewing the world, one in which we assume we can understand and predict happenings in the world. How we use that predictive power (survival value) is another issue, although one might make a solid argument that being armed with an efficacious methodology for predictive power gives one an advantage in the "survival value" game.

To say that some technology have resulted in some unfortunate results is not an indictment of the technology itself. One does not blame the hammer if some psycho uses it to bash in skulls. One does not blame the message service is someone hurls hurtful vitriol across it. What you point to as a failure of human science is really a failure in human judgment and management, arising in part from a tragically misplaced notion of humanity and nature as being opposed, that presented and perpetuated by some rather twisted archaic mindsets.

Intuitively Obvious
Now, the "intuitively obvious" argument has been tattered and worried to an ignoble death by most for quite some time now. It is a shame to see it rear its ugly head again as a defence for something as ambiguous as free will.

After all, we all know that the intuitively obvious argument is a faulty one. That's just intuitively obvious, right? All pointed flippancy aside, the number of times things we have "just known" have turned out to be false are almost too numerous to count. A firm, determined belief alone does not make truth. We've had to learn that the very hard way and we are still in the process of learning it.

There are many different ideas about what "free will" means, if anything. Is it some kind of objective fact? Is it some kind of mystical, extra-physical property? Is it a concept of self arising from a social context? Like consciousness, whether one attributes extra-real properties to free will or not is a matter of definition. As such, like consciousness, I don't have the problems with the idea of free will that many do. I see no need for mystical qualities.

My apologies for the wordiness.

[The Major]

Greg, with reference to your post, I won't have time to go in to all the points as it is a long comment with lots of interesting points.

However, I will say that no one would claim that the mind is completely independent from the brain. Even William James I believe comment that we know the effect a blow on the head does for the state of our mind. The question is not whether it is soley or not at all independent, but to what extent that it is.

Alternative evidence for this (even if not overwhelming at this stage) would be those with small brain masses who still possess a high level of intelligence, and possibly the day of clarity that some people with degenerative diseases like Alzheimers experience the day they pass away. Now whether this evidence changes your mind or not is sort of irrelevant at this stage. We're asking questions that contradict what we appear to 'know'.

Also, with regard to the mystical self being 'done to death' and only understood when scientists became involved. What about the Buddhist monks who have reaped the benefits of their approach to consciousness and the mind? Okay, so it's not exactly caught on like the ipod, but that is perhaps due to Western perceptions of an Eastern culture. Also, science has based a deal of their understand by studying the aforementioned monks.

You also say the intuitive argument has been 'done to death' and that it is a 'shame to see it rear it's ugly head'. I will say you seem to have a great deal of knowledge of what debates should and shouldn't be argued. Even if you felt someone provided a clear cut argument a while back, it doesn't mean it can't be brought up again.

"There are many different ideas about what "free will" means, if anything. Is it some kind of objective fact? Is it some kind of mystical, extra-physical property? Is it a concept of self arising from a social context? Like consciousness, whether one attributes extra-real properties to free will or not is a matter of definition. As such, like consciousness, I don't have the problems with the idea of free will that many do. I see no need for mystical qualities."

Well, some do I guess. Dave, for example, has a problem with the concept of free will. It's interesting that two people approaching from a similar argument can have such differing views.

With regards to the questions about free will, however, I will say... we don't know. These are questions we are trying to find the answers to. To take it back to the main topic thread, these are questions worth exploring even if it does come to a dead end, and therefore, it's unneccessary for certain scientific groups to try and close ranks and stop the concepts being studied.

By now, I'm sure you've guessed I did have time to reply to your whole post! Now I'm late for work, but I look forward to your response.

[Kato]

IMHO, the recent work by Jeffrey Schwartz on the neuroplasticity of the brain,Andrew Newburgs findings and Mario Beauregards FMRI experiments with Carmelite nuns as well as the placebo affect et al, make the currently accepted materialistic view of the brain held by the neuroscientific majority hard to hold on to,but no doubt "Promissory Materialism" will raise its ugly head as usual.