[alancalverd]

Well, judging from your own replies and behaviour here on this forum , you 're either a  vulgar  liar , or a lousy third or x grade "scientist " , sorry : no pain, no gain, truth does hurt sometimes.
No hard feelings , right ?

So, soi-disant Elvis, I take you at your word and offer you the chance to make an amazing comeback and as much money as you want for one night's work, and instead of thanking me, you call me a liar. Hard feelings? Your stupidity is beneath contempt! Or maybe your honesty is questionable. Perhaps you are a priest after all. Never mind! Young Alice will sing for us as usual - and she is in a better state of preservation.

[dlorde]

Incidentally the placebo effect does not always mean that beliefs or expectations made patients better. In experiments, it is used to control for a number of variables, such as diseases healing via physical processes with or without the drug, or patients not wanting to disappoint their caregivers by complaining that the medicine didn't work, etc. I'm not saying a patient's mental state has no effect, just that that isn't the sole purpose of placebos.

As I understand it, it affects the patient's subjective perceived and/or reported symptoms (i.e. they feel it has helped). Meta-studies show no evidence overall for a placebo effect on objectively measured outcomes (although one might have expected a small effect for stress or mood-related physiological problems). They show minor improvements in subjective outcomes, particularly pain.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Well, judging from your own replies and behaviour here on this forum , you 're either a  vulgar  liar , or a lousy third or x grade "scientist " , sorry : no pain, no gain, truth does hurt sometimes.
No hard feelings , right ?

So, soi-disant Elvis, I take you at your word and offer you the chance to make an amazing comeback and as much money as you want for one night's work, and instead of thanking me, you call me a liar. Hard feelings? Your stupidity is beneath contempt! Or maybe your honesty is questionable. Perhaps you are a priest after all. Never mind! Young Alice will sing for us as usual - and she is in a better state of preservation.

Face it , dude , you are  just  a vulgar liar : if you are a scientist , then i am Lady Gaga or Madonna also,not just Elvis  .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Excerpts from "Science Set Free ..." By Sheldrake : Questions for materialists :


Experimenters’ expectations are known to affect the results of research in psychology, parapsychology
and medicine, which is why researchers often use blind methodologies. Do you think that
experimenter effects could play a role in other fields of science too?
Do you think that scientists and science students should write in the passive voice in their reports, or
use the active voice?
Most scientists publish only a small proportion of their results. Do you think that this is likely to
introduce serious biases into the scientific literature?
How should scientists deal with ideologically, politically or commercially motivated skepticism?
SUMMARY
Scientists are often imagined to achieve a superhuman level of objectivity. This belief is sustained by
the ideal of disembodied knowledge, unaffected by ambitions, hopes, fears and other emotions. In the
allegory of the cave, scientists venture forth into the light of objective truth and bring back their
discoveries for the benefit of ordinary people, trapped in a world of opinion, self-interest and illusion.
By writing in the passive voice (“a test tube was taken”) rather than the active voice (“I took a test
tube”) scientists tried to emphasize their objectivity, but many have now abandoned this pretense.
Scientists are, of course, people, and subject to the limitations of personality, politics, peer-group
pressures, fashion and the need for funding. Within medicine, psychology and parapsychology, most
researchers recognize that their expectations can bias their results, which is why they often use blind
or double-blind methodologies. In the so-called hard sciences, most researchers assume that blind
methods are unnecessary. This is no more than an assumption, and needs to be tested experimentally.
In most fields of science, researchers publish only a small proportion of their data, giving plenty of
scope for the selective presentation of results, and scientific journals introduce a further source of bias
through their unwillingness to publish negative findings. Fraud and deceit in science are rarely
detected by the peer-review system and usually come to light as a result of whistle-blowing.
Skepticism is a healthy part of normal science but is often used as a weapon in defense of politically
or ideologically motivated points of view, or to stave off the regulation of toxic chemicals. Productdefense
companies emphasize uncertainty on behalf of big business, influencing policy decisions in
favor of their clients. The separation of facts and values is usually impossible in practice, and many
scientists have to exaggerate the value of their research in order to get it funded. Although the
objectivity of science is a noble ideal, there is more hope of achieving it by recognizing the humanity
of scientists and their limitations than by pretending that science has a unique access to truth.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

I'll have to look into the rat experiment. There have been problems reproducing other research he cites or has done, like the staring experiment. ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ruperts-resonance )

 Any phenomena that is new is worth pursuing, trying to reproduce and explain, no argument from me. But again, if you suggest a mechanism (like morphic fields), the validity of the claim rests on evidence that directly supports, not lack of some other mechanism. Saying "well, this is how it could work...." is a nice start, I guess, but that's all it is.

 The one thing I wondered about the rat experiment, how genetically similar do the rats have to be? And can they access the squirrel channel if they need to?

There are two things that bother me: 1) The repetitive claim that science has somehow "crippled" itself by materialism, when the research productivity is exploding in neurology. You and Sheldrake may not like their conclusions, but it is not grinding to halt for some reason.

The second is, when mystics or fringe scientists invent an alternative model for a process in science, or mystical explanation for a phenomena, they seem to think they are off the hook, and won't have their very own complaints and criticisms turned against them. "But Sheldrake, how can some simple field explain love and poetry and culture, and my unique individuality, blood sweat and tears, hopes and dreams, Duck Dynasty and all of human history and....no way makes no sense! Science proper has been hijacked by morphism!"

Incidentally the placebo effect does not always mean that beliefs or expectations made patients better. In experiments, it is used to control for a number of variables, such as diseases healing via physical processes with or without the drug, or patients not wanting to disappoint their caregivers by complaining that the medicine didn't work, etc. I'm not saying a patient's mental state has no effect, just that that isn't the sole purpose of placebos.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/placebo-cracking-code/

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Incidentally the placebo effect does not always mean that beliefs or expectations made patients better. In experiments, it is used to control for a number of variables, such as diseases healing via physical processes with or without the drug, or patients not wanting to disappoint their caregivers by complaining that the medicine didn't work, etc. I'm not saying a patient's mental state has no effect, just that that isn't the sole purpose of placebos.

As I understand it, it affects the patient's subjective perceived and/or reported symptoms (i.e. they feel it has helped). Meta-studies show no evidence overall for a placebo effect on objectively measured outcomes (although one might have expected a small effect for stress or mood-related physiological problems). They show minor improvements in subjective outcomes, particularly pain.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/placebo-cracking-code/

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Excerpts from "Science Set Free ..." By Sheldrake : Chapter 12 : Scientific Futures :
In other words : dear westerners : you'd better try to get rid of that Eurocentric outdated primitive backward orthodox materialist false secular religion in science, otherwise , you will find yourselves suddenly way behind the rest of the world at the level of the sciences , in plural, at least : you are warned :


The sciences are entering a new phase. The materialist ideology that has ruled them since the
nineteenth century is out of date. All ten of its essential doctrines have been superseded. The
authoritarian structure of the sciences, the illusions of objectivity and the fantasies of omniscience
have all outlived their usefulness.
The sciences will have to change for another reason too: they are now global. Mechanistic science
and the materialist ideology grew up in Europe, and were strongly influenced by the religious disputes
that obsessed Europeans from the seventeenth century onward. But these preoccupations are alien to
cultures and traditions in many other parts of the world.
In 2011, the worldwide expenditure on scientific and technological research and development was
more than $1,000 billion, of which China spent $100 billion.1 Asian countries, especially China and
India, now produce enormous numbers of science and engineering graduates. In 2007, at BSc level
there were 2.5 million science and engineering graduates in India and 1.5 million in China,2 compared
with 515,000 in the United States3 and 100,000 in the UK.4 In addition, many of those studying in the
United States and Europe are from other countries: in 2007, nearly a third of the graduate students in
science and engineering in the United States were foreign, with the majority from India, China and
Korea.5
Yet the sciences as taught in Asia, Africa, the Islamic countries and elsewhere are still packaged in
an ideology shaped by their European past. Materialism gains its persuasive power from the
technological applications of science. But the successes of these applications do not prove that this
ideology is true. Penicillin will go on killing bacteria, jet planes will keep on flying and mobile
telephones will still work if scientists move on to wider views of nature.
No one can foresee how the sciences will evolve, but I believe recognizing that “science” is not one
thing will facilitate their development. “Science” has given way to “the sciences.” By moving beyond
physicalism, the status of physics has changed. By freeing the sciences from the ideology of
materialism, new opportunities for debate and dialogue open up, and so do new possibilities for
research.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Folks :
You all should try to learn about what science proper  really  is all about , what its limitations are , what its nature , function and role are ....
You can't just go on confusing science proper , scientific results , scientific approaches ...with materialism as a false conception of nature , materialism that has thus absolutely nothing to do with science proper , scientific results or scientific approaches whatsoever ...once again .
I see no real challenges here coming from you ,guys , so, i am just gonna head for Scientific American ,for a while,  in order to try to make those silly materialists there wake up from their ideological false outdated materialist  ...slumber , or big lie ....science proper , or rather all sciences for that matter , must be liberated from ....

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Materialism will not only be laughable , ridiculed as it is the case now already in fact , but will be also despised by the next generations , simply because materialism  as a false ideology at least  has been deceiving people since the 19th century at least , in the name of science , the latter has aboslutely nothing to do with ...by pretending to be "scientific " ...

[dlorde]

You all should try to learn about what science proper  really  is all about , what its limitations are , what its nature , function and role are ....
You can't just go on confusing science proper , scientific results , scientific approaches ...with materialism as a false conception of nature , materialism that has thus absolutely nothing to do with science proper , scientific results or scientific approaches whatsoever ...once again .

Some of us have actually worked as scientists, doing real research. You haven't yet clearly defined 'science proper', but all the indications are that it is not something the vast majority of working scientists would recognise or agree with. So, do you get to define science proper, or should it be the consensus of the majority of working scientists? To save confusion, you might be better calling your 'science proper' something else (magic? nonsense?).
 

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

You all should try to learn about what science proper  really  is all about , what its limitations are , what its nature , function and role are ....
You can't just go on confusing science proper , scientific results , scientific approaches ...with materialism as a false conception of nature , materialism that has thus absolutely nothing to do with science proper , scientific results or scientific approaches whatsoever ...once again .

Some of us have actually worked as scientists, doing real research. You haven't yet clearly defined 'science proper', but all the indications are that it is not something the vast majority of working scientists would recognise or agree with. So, do you get to define science proper, or should it be the consensus of the majority of working scientists? To save confusion, you might be better calling your 'science proper' something else (magic? nonsense?).

You're the ones using magic in science ,obviously,  via materialism ,dude , via that magical materialist magical approach of life , consciousness, mind, memory , human cognition , feelings , emotions, love , conscience ....their origins evolution and emergence , don't you see just that yet ?
How can you call yourself a scientist ,if you cannot see these obvious facts ? I wonder ...

Well, since you all, obviously , still cannot but confuse materialism with science after all these kilometers long pages of this thread , then, it's pretty logical to question your own understanding or perception of what science proper is or might be  , don't you think ?
Besides, does it ever occur to you that the "consensus of the majority of working scientists " , as you put it at least, or the mainstream dominating political-correct right -thinking consensus in science might be  wrong ?
Science is not a matter of the opinions of the majority , dude , not a democracy ...Come on .
Unbelievable lack of understanding , unbelievable denials of obvious facts : and you do dare have the nerve to say that some of you, guys , are working scientists doing research
I do fear the worst for science in your hands , obviously , logically ...

I think that your next remarks or questions will be as follows :
What is the alternative to materialism , right ?
Well, dude , that alternative should be , was and has been delivered by some scientists , thinkers ...even though it is still vague ....still in the making thus ...
But , that's not the point :
The point is : one should first define or detect the problem or rather the disease and its sympthoms   first , via the right diagnosis , research , analysis and depistation : the disease and its sympthoms =  materialism and its extensions in all sciences , if one wants to resolve the problem or to cure the disease in question and its sympthoms at least ...don't you think ?

Materialism in science is an incurable lethal disease  in fact  , a bit like cancer , even though some forms of cancer can be cured indeed : the only alternative to rid science from the materialist lethal cancer disease is by eradicating materialism from science ,from all sciences for that matter , by eradicating its symthoms extensions   also in all sciences thus  , and all its left-overs and  traces as well  in all sciences and elsewhere  .............if one wants to have a real healthy science or sciences as a result at least...

[cheryl j]

Incidentally the placebo effect does not always mean that beliefs or expectations made patients better. In experiments, it is used to control for a number of variables, such as diseases healing via physical processes with or without the drug, or patients not wanting to disappoint their caregivers by complaining that the medicine didn't work, etc. I'm not saying a patient's mental state has no effect, just that that isn't the sole purpose of placebos.

As I understand it, it affects the patient's subjective perceived and/or reported symptoms (i.e. they feel it has helped). Meta-studies show no evidence overall for a placebo effect on objectively measured outcomes (although one might have expected a small effect for stress or mood-related physiological problems). They show minor improvements in subjective outcomes, particularly pain.

Yes, that's how I always interpreted it. They also include patients who get neither, but there are so many unidentifiable variables to control for in drug studies. Is a person getting the drug (or what they think is a drug) more careful about what they eat and drink? Do they become more "health minded" because they are being treated for something? Do they they have more overall contact with health professionals and get treated early for other, unrelated, potentially harmful conditions? So inexperiments they try to make the over conditions as similar as possible.

[dlorde]

... you do dare have the nerve to say that some of you, guys , are working scientists doing research

It takes no special nerve to be a scientist, although an appropriate qualification helps. In my case, it was many years ago, but, as the man said, it was what they paid me for; even had my name on some cited papers.

I do fear the worst for science in your hands , obviously , logically ...

Meh; some of the kit I helped design and build is still saving lives (on the Hajj, ironically enough), which puts your distain and 'fears for science' into some perspective.

Materialism in science is an incurable lethal disease  in fact  , a bit like cancer , even though some forms of cancer can be cured indeed : the only alternative to rid science from the materialist lethal cancer disease is by eradicating materialism from science ,from all sciences for that matter , by eradicating its symthoms extensions   also in all sciences thus  , and all its left-overs and  traces as well  in all sciences and elsewhere  .............if one wants to have a real healthy science or sciences as a result at least...

Healthy science as a result? very amusing - confusing a healthy body for a tumour and amputating it to save the head; ouch! should have gone to SpecSavers... The world is grateful you're not a surgeon  

Which puts me in mind of the old adage, "The operation was a great success, but the patient died".

[dlorde]

... there are so many unidentifiable variables to control for in drug studies. Is a person getting the drug (or what they think is a drug) more careful about what they eat and drink? Do they become more "health minded" because they are being treated for something? Do they they have more overall contact with health professionals and get treated early for other, unrelated, potentially harmful conditions? So inexperiments they try to make the over conditions as similar as possible.

Yup, it's a minefield; hard enough to design a robust study, but implementing & controlling one is hard work, very expensive, and very time-consuming, which is why they're very often less than ideal, and why drug companies like to hide negative results.

[cheryl j]

Regarding Sheldrake's criticisms of materialist explanation of memories in the brain:


It was once thought that memory was distributed "across the brain," and that you could not remove a particular cell that would make you forget the day you got married. And I am familiar with the hologram analogy. But now it seems more likely that memories are stored in multiple ways in different areas of the brain. There are brain areas responsible for things, shape of things, the identifying characteristics of things. There brain areas responsible for events that happened to you, called episodic memory. Several different parts of the brain may contribute to the overall memory of your wedding day, so you'd have to destroy a large part of brain to completely wipe it out.

It is, however, surprising how specifically located some memory is in the brain. One lady in a medical study who suffered a stroke  could not identify or remember the names of fruit. Her intelligence, vocabulary and memory seemed normal in every other respect, and she could identify other common house hold objects - a spoon, a hammer, a chair, a toaster, a tooth brush. But bananas, apples, oranges, or any other kind of fruit were all gone from her memory. A person I knew personally had brain surgery for an aneurysm. She said she felt normal, the only thing she noticed afterwords was she could no longer tell time from a dial face clock. She could from a digital one, but not the one with the numbers in a circle and big and small hands that she understood since she was five years old. That is just anecdotal evidence, but I thought it was interesting, none the less.

As for the comment that memory cannot exist in the brain because of molecular turnover, I question it for several reasons. The bones in your body are not the same ones you had in your body five, ten or 30 years ago. There is constant remodeling,  and yet they maintain their form and size and arrangement, with some wear and tear, perhaps a loss of density as you age. Patterns can be replicated.  There is also research that suggests that a memory is not like a file that records the original event and is stored forever. They do fade with time, and the ones that remain do so because you access them, and think about them, and store not the original memory but the newly recalled version of it. When you re-record it, you may re-record a slightly different version of it with missing information,  new embellishments or interpretations of it. That is the basis of false memories, as well as therapeutic techniques to help PTSD patients.

If memory is based on morphic resonance, why should memories fade at all? Why should some memories fade but not others, and why should they not be completely accurate? 

One problem with talking about consciousness is the habit of thinking of it as a "thing" and not a process or an action.  I notice that in discussing consciousness, people like Sheldrake point and say "show me  where a memory is in the brain," but I could just as easily point to your lower limbs and say "Show me where walking is in the legs." A lot of complicated things have to happen together in a precise way, or you're not going anywhere.
 

[dlorde]

The Skeptic's Dictionary has a good summary of Sheldrake's great idea and his current position.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Regarding Sheldrake's criticisms of materialist explanation of memories in the brain:


It was once thought that memory was distributed "across the brain," and that you could not remove a particular cell that would make you forget the day you got married. And I am familiar with the hologram analogy. But now it seems more likely that memories are stored in multiple ways in different areas of the brain. There are brain areas responsible for things, shape of things, the identifying characteristics of things. There brain areas responsible for events that happened to you, called episodic memory. Several different parts of the brain may contribute to the overall memory of your wedding day, so you'd have to destroy a large part of brain to completely wipe it out.

It is, however, surprising how specifically located some memory is in the brain. One lady in a medical study who suffered a stroke  could not identify or remember the names of fruit. Her intelligence, vocabulary and memory seemed normal in every other respect, and she could identify other common house hold objects - a spoon, a hammer, a chair, a toaster, a tooth brush. But bananas, apples, oranges, or any other kind of fruit were all gone from her memory. A person I knew personally had brain surgery for an aneurysm. She said she felt normal, the only thing she noticed afterwords was she could no longer tell time from a dial face clock. She could from a digital one, but not the one with the numbers in a circle and big and small hands that she understood since she was five years old. That is just anecdotal evidence, but I thought it was interesting, none the less.

As for the comment that memory cannot exist in the brain because of molecular turnover, I question it for several reasons. The bones in your body are not the same ones you had in your body five, ten or 30 years ago. There is constant remodeling,  and yet they maintain their form and size and arrangement, with some wear and tear, perhaps a loss of density as you age. Patterns can be replicated.  There is also research that suggests that a memory is not like a file that records the original event and is stored forever. They do fade with time, and the ones that remain do so because you access them, and think about them, and store not the original memory but the newly recalled version of it. When you re-record it, you may re-record a slightly different version of it with missing information,  new embellishments or interpretations of it. That is the basis of false memories, as well as therapeutic techniques to help PTSD patients.

If memory is based on morphic resonance, why should memories fade at all? Why should some memories fade but not others, and why should they not be completely accurate? 

One problem with talking about consciousness is the habit of thinking of it as a "thing" and not a process or an action.  I notice that in discussing consciousness, people like Sheldrake point and say "show me  where a memory is in the brain," but I could just as easily point to your lower limbs and say "Show me where walking is in the legs." A lot of complicated things have to happen together in a precise way, or you're not going anywhere.

I do not agree with Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory ,as i said earlier , simply because it sounds too magical to me to be true  ,but to say that memory is stored in the brain is the epitome of stupidity , or materialist magic .
Sheldrake just replaces the materialist magic by his own in that regard .
But , that does not make the fact go away that materialism is a magical false conception of nature in science .
We'll thus have to wait for future non-materialist approaches of consciousness, life , memory , feelings , emotions, human cognition , ...............their origins emergence and evolution ,after the removal of those materialist cancer  cells and materialist cancer tumors from the brain body and sipirit of science thus .
I cannot yet conceive of any non-materialist approaches of the above yet though ...
Maybe , someone here or elsewhere would succeed in inspiring me someday on the subject , who knows ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

... you do dare have the nerve to say that some of you, guys , are working scientists doing research

It takes no special nerve to be a scientist, although an appropriate qualification helps. In my case, it was many years ago, but, as the man said, it was what they paid me for; even had my name on some cited papers.

What's your name then ? I would be interested in following your work .
Ok, but i was mainly talking about the fact that you do still confuse science with materialism in science , a fact you cannot deny as such , a fact you should have acknowledged and recognized as such a long time ago , as a scientist, don't you think ?
But , you do act think and behave in a worse manner than just the above : you continue "defending "   the obviously undeniably indefensible materialism in science , by continuing to see materialism as  being  "scientific " ...
If you cannot or do not want to accept obvious undeniable facts as such , regarding the fact that materialism is an ideology that has been dominating and hijacking science since the 19 century at least , what kindda scientist are you then ? if you cannot accept such obvious undeniable facts ?
Materialism that has absolutely nothing to do with science , once again .

I do fear the worst for science in your hands , obviously , logically ...

Meh; some of the kit I helped design and build is still saving lives (on the Hajj, ironically enough), which puts your distain and 'fears for science' into some perspective.

You do not get yet again :
I was mainly talking about materialism in science , not about science : in the sense that you still continue to confuse the 2 with each other : one can do or build what you said you built while being an alien from Mars practicing science : science does not care by whom it is practiced ...but, science would be free indeed under a potentially valid conception of nature, as an alternative to materialism in science ...instead of keeping science  confined to that materialist prison,it gotta be liberated from , if science wanna evolve and progress at least : science or rather the sciences , in plural, that have been  even  superseding that outdated false materialism  ,once again  .

Materialism in science is an incurable lethal disease  in fact  , a bit like cancer , even though some forms of cancer can be cured indeed : the only alternative to rid science from the materialist lethal cancer disease is by eradicating materialism from science ,from all sciences for that matter , by eradicating its symthoms extensions   also in all sciences thus  , and all its left-overs and  traces as well  in all sciences and elsewhere  .............if one wants to have a real healthy science or sciences as a result at least...

Healthy science as a result? very amusing - confusing a healthy body for a tumour and amputating it to save the head; ouch! should have gone to SpecSavers... The world is grateful you're not a surgeon  

Which puts me in mind of the old adage, "The operation was a great success, but the patient died".

What kindda scientist are you that twists or distorts people's words beyond any recognition repeatedly ? Unbelievable .
I see a pattern there ...
Materialism and its materialist extensions in science are the cancer cells or cancer tumors and their sympthoms that should be urgently removed from the body brain and spirit of science , if one wanna have a progressive evolving healthy science as a result at least : that's what i meant   by my above mentioned words you should have easily understood , if you only took the time to read them carefully ...

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

"Science Set Free , 10 Paths to New Discovery "  by R.Sheldrake , Chapter 8 : "Are Minds Confined To Brains ?":



Are Minds Confined to Brains?
Materialism is the doctrine that only matter is real. Hence minds are in brains, and mental activity is
nothing but brain activity. This assumption conflicts with our own experience. When we look at a
blackbird, we see a blackbird; we do not experience complex electrical changes in our brains. But
most of us accepted the mind-within-the-brain theory before we ever had a chance to question it. We
took it for granted as children because it seemed to be supported by all the authority of science and the
educational system.
In his study of children’s intellectual development, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget found that
before about the age of ten or eleven, European children were like “primitive” people. They did not
know that the mind was confined to the head; they thought it extended into the world around them. But
by about the age of eleven, most had assimilated what Piaget called the “correct” view: “Images and
thoughts are situated in the head.”1
Educated people rarely question this “scientifically correct” view in public, perhaps because they do
not want to be thought stupid, childish or primitive. Yet the “correct” view conflicts with our most
immediate experience every time we look around us. We see things outside our bodies; we do not
experience images inside our heads. The materialist theory dominated academic psychology for most
of the twentieth century. The long-dominant behavioralist school explicitly denied the reality of
consciousness. The leading American behavioralist, B. F. Skinner, proclaimed in 1953 that mind and
consciousness were non-existent entities “invented for the sole purpose of providing spurious
explanations … Since mental or psychic events are asserted to lack the dimensions of physical
science, we have an additional reason for rejecting them.”2 As discussed in Chapter 4, a similar denial
of conscious experience is still advocated by contemporary philosophers of the school known as
“eliminative materialism.” Paul Churchland, for example, argues that subjectively experienced mental
states should be regarded as non-existent because descriptions of such states cannot be reduced to the
language of neuroscience.3
Likewise, many leading scientists regard conscious experience as nothing but the subjective
experience of brain activity (see Chapter 4). Francis Crick called this the Astonishing Hypothesis:
“You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal
identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and
their associated molecules … This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people alive today
that it can truly be called astonishing.4
This is, indeed, an astonishing claim. But within institutional science it is commonplace. Crick was no
revolutionary: he spoke for the mainstream. Susan Greenfield, an influential neuroscientist, looked at
an exposed brain in an operating theater and reflected, “This was all there was to Sarah, or indeed to
any of us … We are but sludgy brains, and … somehow a character and a mind are generated in this
soupy mess.”5
The traditional alternative to materialism is dualism, the doctrine that minds and brains are
radically different: minds are immaterial and brains are material; minds are outside time and space,
matter is inside time and space. Dualism makes better sense of our experience but makes no sense in
terms of mechanistic science, which is why materialists reject it so vehemently (see Chapter 4).
We need not stay stuck in this materialist-dualist contradiction. There is a way out: a field theory of
minds. We are used to the fact that fields exist both within and outside material objects. The field of a
magnet is inside it and also extends beyond its surface. The gravitational field of the earth is inside the
earth and also stretches out far beyond it, keeping the moon in its orbit. The electromagnetic field of a
mobile phone is both inside it and extends all around it. In this chapter I suggest that the fields of
minds are within brains and extend beyond them.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Extended Minds :



Extended minds:
If we follow Francis Crick and treat materialism as a hypothesis, rather than a philosophical dogma, it
should be testable. As Carl Sagan liked to say, “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary
evidence.” Where is the extraordinary evidence for the materialist claim that the mind is nothing but
the activity of the brain?
There is very little. No one has ever seen a thought or image inside someone else’s brain, or inside
his or her own.6 When we look around us, the images of the things we see are outside us, not in our
heads. Our experiences of our bodies are in our bodies. The feelings in my fingers are in my fingers,
not in my head. Direct experience offers no support for the extraordinary claim that all experiences
are inside brains. Direct experience is not irrelevant to the nature of consciousness: it is
consciousness.
Extended minds are implicit in our language. The words “attention” and “intention” come from the
Latin root tendere, to stretch, as in “tense” and “tension.” “Attention” is ad + tendere, “to stretch
toward”; “intention,” in + tendere, “to stretch into.”