tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post404293054801024778..comments2024-03-07T12:48:21.070+00:00Comments on MAGONIA REVIEW: WRONG ABOUT ALMOST EVERYTHINGUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-34745093212972142122017-06-05T20:42:49.924+01:002017-06-05T20:42:49.924+01:00I can weigh in as someone who was very recently sa...I can weigh in as someone who was very recently sandbagged by Tsakiris. He invited me on his show to discuss "pizzagate," the collection of absurdities collated into a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and her operatives were/are running a child sex trafficking ring headquartered in a D.C. pizza restaurant. <br /><br />The whole sordid tale is here, for those who can stomach it:<br />https://medium.com/@michaelmhughes/good-riddance-conspiracy-nuts-why-you-wont-hear-me-talk-about-pizzagate-and-other-conspiracies-a837bb6b9b77<br /><br />But in a nutshell, he opened the show, introduced me, then started yelling and haranguing me. I could barely get a word in as he relentlessly tried to portray me as an idiot. And guess what? He then decided he wasn't going to air the show. Was it because he didn't want his listeners to realize he was a hectoring bully, or because maybe he feared he might get hit with a lawsuit for defaming human beings by accusing them of some of the most horrible crimes imaginable? Guess we'll never know. <br /><br />To anyone considering appearing on his show: Don't do it. Michael M. Hugheshttp://michaelmhughes.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-52551849327710087212015-02-22T18:23:30.281+00:002015-02-22T18:23:30.281+00:00continued ...
Another theory holds that NDE might...continued ...<br /><br />Another theory holds that NDE might be a changing state of consciousness (transcendence), in which identity, cognition, and emotion function independently from the unconscious body, but retain the possibility of non-sensory perception. <br /><br />Obviously this is being kept deliberately vague as to be presentable in a scientific journal like The Lancet and certainly one that may have been overlooked in a quick read. And of course, it is doubtful that one listener in a hundred to Tsakiris’s podcast would have read the Lancet paper, but they are much more likely to have read his popular book Consciousness Beyond Life (HarperOne, 2010,) in which included the usual mixture of science, possible science, speculation, pseudoscience and new age stuff that one expects in such works. Ironically in that book van Lommel declares himself to be an atheist.<br /><br />That would not have gone down well with other “anti-materialist” writers, such as Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, authors of the The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul also published by HarperOne in 2007. This work is clearly influenced by Roman Catholic ideology of the traditionalist variety, and approvingly quotes from the noted Intelligent Design wedge activist William Demski. These authors seem less concerned with life after death, and more with a break from the natural world. They oppose views which argue that chimpanzees can tell us anything about human beings, or that they possess nascent forms of human abilities. They are also firmly in the anti-Darwinist camp. They also claim that while moles and humans both have brains, only human brains can sustain a mind. They do not explain how they know this, possibly because Thomas Aquinas told them so.<br />Their argument, which basically is that moles don’t have souls, puts them at odds with the leading theoretician of the SPR, Frederick Myers. It was his mother telling him as a small child that moles don’t have souls that turned him off conventional religion. In many respects Myers was closer to Darwin than to his critics, in arguing for the unity of the natural world. <br /><br />No doubt many of these arguments are fuelled by language. Materialism seems to be one of those bugaboo words in America, because of its echoes of the crude anti-communist propaganda of the Cold War (godless atheistical communism, etc.). <br /><br />There is, I think, a confusion between what one might be called kitchen sink materialism, that at the operational level of the kitchen, forge or laboratory bench, that which manifests to our senses as matter and energy is what we are dealing with, and ontological materialism which argues that the world is made up of little billiard ball atoms. That went out of the window decades ago. No-one knows what quarks, electrons, photons etc. really are, so we have no idea what brains, or for that matter bodies, chairs, computers, cars etc. really are at the deepest level.<br /><br />A more general way of looking at the world might be unitary naturalism, which argues, by definition, all that exists is an integral part of a unitary nature. This makes no specifications as to what that unitary nature might contain, though it would argue that in some very general sense, all those aspects of it which leave traces on, or acquire information about, the environment are “physical”. <br />Magoniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18201163989347743921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-5466175616021620892015-02-22T18:22:33.151+00:002015-02-22T18:22:33.151+00:00Peter Rogerson writes:
The main controversy was t...Peter Rogerson writes:<br /><br />The main controversy was that surrounding Patrician Churchland’s comments on Pim van Lommel’s study of near-death experiences. The controversy is very fairly summarised here:<br /><br />http://www.integralworld.net/lane67.html<br /><br />The fuss actually seems to have been generated by a botched text in the book. In the first hardback edition this reads:<br /><br />As neuroscientist Pim van Lommel and his colleagues pointed out, a strong reason for saying yes is that experiences similar to those suffering anoxia following cardiac arrest can be induced by electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe and hippocampus, something that may be done in epileptic patients prior to surgery. Similar experiences can also be induced by raising the level of carbon dioxide (hypercapnia, sometimes suffered by scuba divers) or by decreasing oxygen levels in the brain by hyperventilating following the Valsalva maneuver (as when you strain at stool).<br /><br />But van Lommel isn’t a neuroscientist, he’s a cardiologist<br /><br />In the second paperback edition Pim van Lommel becomes changed to Dean Mobbs, who is a neuroscientist, but has only one colleague, and the paragraph following has been taken from van Lommel’s paper.<br /><br />So both references are wrong, and the reference should have read something like “as neuroscientist Dean Mobbs has argued there are strong reasons for arguing that the answer is yes (to their being a neurological basis for NDE); and as van Lommel and his colleagues concede…” which makes perfect sense, whether you agree with her or not.<br />So what has happened is that two papers; that by Dean Mobbs and Caroline Watt <br /><br />http://www.koestler-parapsychology.psy.ed.ac.uk/Documents/MobbsWattNDE.pdf<br /><br />and that by van Lommel and colleagues<br /><br />http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm<br /><br />have become jumbled together. What is also clear is that in the Lancet paper transcendentalist explanations of NDE’s are not pushed “With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? Also, in cardiac arrest the EEG usually becomes flat in most cases within about 10 s from onset of syncope. Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience.1 NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation. <br /><br />Magoniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18201163989347743921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-30371502250748671882015-01-29T15:51:56.048+00:002015-01-29T15:51:56.048+00:00Thank you for stating what is, to me, the obvious....Thank you for stating what is, to me, the obvious. I quit listening to anything coming from him and his and would be thrilled never to hear this type of thing ever again. The blatant venom is more than I will stomach.Lynnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-44277402946908503952015-01-16T17:18:49.613+00:002015-01-16T17:18:49.613+00:00Hi Ross Many decades ago I made a firm decision n...Hi Ross Many decades ago I made a firm decision never to appear on radio, TV or like media and as I haven't got a book I want to flog I will decline to enter the Venus fly-trap. <br /><br />If you want to know what we Brits mean by confrontational try watching this from last night's TV http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04yfff3/question-time-15012015<br /><br />After watching that I wonder if Alex Tsakiris would fancy taking on David Starkey (an ultra-right, semi-absolute monarchist, libertarian gay atheist)<br /><br />I suspect that after Charlie Hebdo there is going to be a backlash against limitations on free speech (that mag would almost certainly have faced numerous legal problems over here, action likely to cause a breach of the peace is probably what the police would have used against it)<br /><br />PRAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-85616162577165854132015-01-14T13:05:02.245+00:002015-01-14T13:05:02.245+00:00Aha! Here we have a supporter of Alex Tsakiris jum...Aha! Here we have a supporter of Alex Tsakiris jumping to his defense with the unassailable argument that if Peter Rogerson and myself don't agree with everything Alex Tsakiris says, we are fools. And also liars if we claim to have listened to even one episode of his podcast without ending up in total agreement with him.<br /><br />May I just point out that this appears to confirm what I said in the first paragraph of my previous comment?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-84323944887413757852015-01-13T01:05:39.547+00:002015-01-13T01:05:39.547+00:00I'm not trying to "disprove" anythin...I'm not trying to "disprove" anything. I'm passing on an invitation, with Tsakiris's own observation that he can't "sandbag" Rogerson. Rogerson can decide what he wants to do with the invitation.Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04726872916865592134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-61425160566124680552015-01-12T11:56:07.386+00:002015-01-12T11:56:07.386+00:00Why use the term "successful PhD"?
Ar...Why use the term "successful PhD"? <br />Are you implying that Count Otto Black, or any of the other contributors, is an unsuccessful PhD?cdahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01005702597775594084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-68627774053758808482015-01-12T01:19:30.507+00:002015-01-12T01:19:30.507+00:00To the author of this blog and Count Otto Black. Y...To the author of this blog and Count Otto Black. You are fools sirs. I'm sure from your false comments you have never even listened to one Skeptiko interview. Dr John Browne (a successful PhD)john brownehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14244621867157862377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-18478366955274903832015-01-11T23:59:40.773+00:002015-01-11T23:59:40.773+00:00Ross, the full charge is that Tsarkis sandbags tho...Ross, the full charge is that Tsarkis sandbags those he disagrees with <i>AND</i> goes soft on people who agree with him. That can be disproven by showing that Tsakiris treats everyone the same, <i>NOT</i> by having Alex merely indulge in more of the same (alleged) partisan behaviour.<br /><br />Please ask Alex to provide examples of him "sandbagging/confronting" paranormal proponents or giving a free ride to materialists.Terry the Censorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07442516952399215568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-16822840638218447932015-01-11T21:47:20.635+00:002015-01-11T21:47:20.635+00:00Alex Tsakiris extends an invitation to Peter Roger...Alex Tsakiris extends an invitation to Peter Rogerson to appear on his show. (This is for real.) Since Peter has already read Alex's book, he can't be "sandbagged."Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04726872916865592134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-64804994724479326762015-01-11T08:38:22.059+00:002015-01-11T08:38:22.059+00:00I think intended ironically as a suggestion as to ...I think intended ironically as a suggestion as to just how far Peter's criticism might have gone!Magoniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18201163989347743921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-42366272088904092302015-01-11T08:37:28.362+00:002015-01-11T08:37:28.362+00:00Thanks, now corrected.Thanks, now corrected.Magoniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18201163989347743921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-10647864263003378022015-01-11T04:15:39.516+00:002015-01-11T04:15:39.516+00:00Gee, if I were you, I would be targeting "law...Gee, if I were you, I would be targeting "laws of libel" and the "Malicious Communications Act" rather than wasting my time on Alex Tsakiris. And they say Muslims are a threat to freedom of speech. What freedom of speech? Pathetic.Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04726872916865592134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-53781505689104813702015-01-10T22:18:46.641+00:002015-01-10T22:18:46.641+00:00It's 'Skeptiko', not Skeptico.It's 'Skeptiko', not Skeptico.Tom Ruffleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03484399305170928582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-66224490528591841722015-01-10T21:56:35.790+00:002015-01-10T21:56:35.790+00:00You've got to hand it to Mr. Tsakiris in one r...You've got to hand it to Mr. Tsakiris in one respect; his choice of title was pure genius! It guarantees that a certain type of reader will automatically buy this book, irrespective of whether they have either the desire or the intellectual ability to follow his complicated without being complex and not terribly interesting philosophical arguments, because the fact that a book with that title exists gives them something to wave while shouting: "See? I told you!"<br /><br />You've also missed a chance to point out a supremely ironic fact about this book. The foreword was contributed by Rupert Sheldrake, who is not exactly an entrenched atheist materialist Darwin groupie. In his introduction, he unequivocally states that the title of the book he's introducing is just plain wrong, and he himself advised Alex to change it. Which tells us two things. Firstly, Alex Tsakiris is too arrogant to take manifestly sensible advice from someone who, in the field of pseudoscience he dabbles in as best a failed PhD student can, is the equivalent of Albert Einstein. And secondly, Rupert Sheldrake really needed that money.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com