Deepak Chopra Issues $1 Million Prize Challenge to Richard Dawkins, New Atheists...

[trotsky]

wait for it....

...to Explain Biological Basis for Ideas



http://global.christianpost.com/news/deepak-chopra-issues-1-million-prize-challenge-to-richard-dawkins-new-atheists-to-explain-biological-basis-for-ideas-123368/

New-age author and physician Deepak Chopra has offered prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins a $1 million prize challenge to offer a scientific explanation for the biological basis of thoughts and ideas.

Addressing what he called a "tribe of militant new atheists," naming Dawkins, James Randi, and Daniel Dennett, Chopra announced the challenge in a video uploaded on Youtube earlier this week.

"Can you please offer a scientific understanding for the biological basis of a first-person experience? Any experience – mental experience, or perceptual experience. So for cognition, or for perception. And I'll even make it more simple. Can you offer a scientific understanding for the biological basis of an idea, a thought?" Chopra asks in the video.

"Just tell me how does electrochemistry produce a thought, an idea, and you get the million dollars. I will live up to this. But it has to be a valid, scientific explanation for the biological basis of an idea."

CHECK FREAKING MATE, ATHEISTS! LOL

[JoeyT]

1. Ideas form at the quantum level of the brain.

They stem from the synergistic pattern of synapse quantum entanglement, effecting awareness patterns on a macro level.

Hey Chopra, where's my million bucks, fucker?

[DetlefK]

3. All the buzz-words in one sentence! It must be right!

[AlbertCat]

12. the synergistic pattern of synapse quantum entanglement

I LOVE it!


It's so scientific-y and groovy at the same time!




And to appropriate a Dennett reducto ad absurdum about a similar claim....

If you had a severed hand.... wouldn't the synergistic pattern of synapse quantum entanglement of the neurons in the nerves of that hand create thoughts? Like "Shit....where'd the rest of the body go? Hello? HELLO?"

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. Consciousness simply is the expression of the manifold interconnected universal emotions.

Where's the money, Lebowski?

[AtheistCrusader]

4. I just had an idea to eat something. My stomach lining is producing the hormone Ghrelin.

Problem solved, pay me motherfucker.

[edhopper]

40. Actually

It might be the symbiotic organism in your stomach. So it might not even be your idea.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Well we have a pretty good idea about the basic mechanics, the 'easy' problems of consciousness.

How thoughts become experience and what that means is the hard part. But so what? Does Deepak think he has a point? Hard problems of consciousness are something we haven't figured out yet. Oh I see, therefore "god".

[djean111]

6. What a facile joke.

[DetlefK]

7. Very easy to simulate. Seriously.

1. Take a software simulating a neural network.
2. Make sure, the network has feedback-loops.
3. Add random noise to the fuzzy-logic transfer-function. (Forgot the actual name. The distribution-function that decides how strong a signal is passed on from one neuron to the next.)
4. Noise + amplifying feedback -> signal where no signal should be -> idea

Where does the noise come from? Local chemical imbalance, thermal electric noise...

Sketching it out and writing down the calculations is a matter of hours. If you know your way around this particular discipline of IT, actually programming this could be done within a few days and weeks.

[Lordquinton]

8. giving this kind of offer to Randi

just highlights that his offer has never been answered by them.

[arcane1]

9. "$1 million to adhere to higher standards than I hold for my own kooky claims"

[Mr.Bill]

11. Exactly.

Where is his scientific evidence?

[Curmudgeoness]

20. Excellent point.

We have more proof of how the brain works than we do for the existence of god.

[AlbertCat]

10. Keep your money, Honey

I'm sure scientists and philosophers will continue to work on the problem with rigor, logic, and understanding without your challenge. And they STILL won't fall for or give credence to your loopy claptrap.

[beam me up scottie]

13. Deepak Chopra random woo-woo generator:

Your random fictional Deepak Chopra quote:

"Love is the womb of formless belonging"

http://www.wisdomofchopra.com

[arcane1]

14. Bless the interwebs, for having such creative hilarity!

[beam me up scottie]

15. I know, right?

Sometimes it's like Christmas morning!

[Lordquinton]

16. "Hidden meaning expresses personal phenomena"

Sounds like every response you'll get in the other place.

also: Pure internet gold. I'd award you the internet, but I have been informed that it is not my place to do so, so I shall not be so humbled as to infer that I may impart some, or all of the majesteys of which in therfore we believe that our faiths unquestioningly belong to hitherfor due to quantum phalanges wherein the spirit passes.

[beam me up scottie]

23. There are other ways of knowing...

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. "Hidden meaning arises and subsides in existential truth"

"Perception is rooted in subjective facts"

"Our consciousness transforms the light of timelessness"

Damn, are you sure these aren't just from his archive?

[beam me up scottie]

25. It's almost impossible to tell the difference.

I found that gem in the comments at http://www.thinkatheist.com/video/richard-dawkins-deepak-chopra-english-2013-dangerous-ideas re: Dawkins vs Chopra circa 2013.

Comment by Gallup's Mirror on December 2, 2013 at 9:40am

From Deepak Chopra's actual statements in this debate:

"All belief is a cover up for insecurity."
"Biological organisms are purpose driven."
"There is a deeper consciousness that throws out this universe at the speed of light."
"Awareness is a singularity, perceptual experiences are many, and the evolution of species is actually the evolution of consciousness to express itself."
"We are the eyes of the universe looking at itself."

From the Deepak Chopra random woo-woo generator:

"Knowledge grows through the expansion of facts."
"The human nervous system gives rise to universal human observation."
"Quantum physics is rooted in new potentiality."
"Death shapes exponential experiences."
"Your body regulates total excellence."
"Your consciousness illuminates intrinsic energy."

For hours of fun, keep hitting the generator button, then string the output together to construct your own Deepak Chopra debate thesis, best-selling book, or scholarly paper!

[Lordquinton]

29. "We are the eyes of the universe looking at itself."

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” -Carl Sagan, out of context. Me thinks Chopra has just a bit of plagiarism, with just enough exestintalistic filter to avoid a lawsuit.

[beam me up scottie]

30. Good catch, I missed that.

You are probably right.

[Lordquinton]

31. For those reading here's Sagan's full quote

“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

He's imparting knowledge that, for most folks, would take years of higher education to just get the basics down (which is the problem with a lot of the big atheist types) so he's turning it into poetry so it's also beautiful and memorable, as well as something said by a person who actually knows wtf he's talking about.

This line stuck out to me because I have this song on my mp3 player:

[beam me up scottie]

32. "he's turning it into poetry so it's also beautiful and memorable"

Nailed it.

I love the sound of Carl Sagan's voice, I have the Original Cosmos series on our DVR and use it a refuge.

[progressoid]

21. "Making tea is the path to the doorway to chaos"

[beam me up scottie]

26. Whenever I see the word 'path' in this context my eyes glaze over.

Completely instinctual.

[Capt. Obvious]

39. Perception relies on the barrier of space time events

[defacto7]

18. I would like to offer Deepak Chopra ten bucks...

to provide a scientific explanation for a non-biological basis of thoughts and ideas. Only facts please.

[Curmudgeoness]

19. And in the times of Jesus,

the great thinkers believed that mental illness was just demon possession. And there were times when it was scientific certainty that illnesses came from the air. I am not sure what he wants that we cannot explain, or what his point is here, but just because we do not have all the answers yet doesn't mean that they are not there....waiting for us to figure them out.

[edhopper]

22. Ideas obviously come from

Some external etherial other realm.
How could simple humans develop ideas for themselves.
It must come from the cosmic God thingie.

[progressoid]

24. Daniel Dennett is a militant atheist?

[AlbertCat]

34. Daniel Dennett is a militant atheist?

He's the guru of "scientism"..... or something.....

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. If you don't shut up, or write a book, Cthulhu forbid, you're a MILITANT atheist!!

You didn't know that?????

I hate the fact that woo-woo spreaders like Sixpak Chopsockie take the ideas of subatomic physics and misuse those concepts.

Since I live with a person who tells me all about quarks and speaks in equations, this misuse of physics pisses me off.



Buzzwords. Nuthin' but buzzwords!!

[Gore1FL]

28. I don't know things, therefore God! LOL n/t

[onager]

33. See also "American Greed" this week...

...on CNBC.

Nothing about Chop-Shop, but deals with one of his fellow-travelers - JZ Knight, the con artist who channels the 35,000 year old warrior Ramtha. And who, thanks to copious amounts of plastic surgery, currently looks about 35,000 years old her damn self.

Don't want to give too much away, but this is one amazing clusterfuck of a story. Knight and Ram-Tha-Lam-Tha-Ding-Dong got the attention of an Ascended Spiritual Master and chiropractor, Lou Souterio.

Souterio used his chiroprac to magically heal the wife of a Vermont entertainer named Mac Parker. When boring old conventional doctors hadn't been able to help her! I think it was the Therapeutic Touch that did the trick.

And $28 million dollars of stolen money later...

Among many other Magickal Powers, Mr. Souterio claimed he would eventually be able to time-travel and get winning lottery numbers in advance.

He also claimed he could walk thru walls. And he will have plenty of time to hone that skill for the next 7 years, which he will be spending behind the walls of a prison.

[progressoid]

35. Speaking of entertainers and the magical...

Emma Stone on Letterman last night telling about her dead Grandfather leaving quarters (yes, 25 cents) for her.

https://tv.yahoo.com/video/david-letterman-emma-stones-supernatural-223551118-cbs.html

[onager]

36. Thanks! ALERT!!! ALERT!!!

The Tooth Fairy must have been busy...

ALERT: Scanning the TV channels, I see that tomorrow, 7/19, Lifetime Movie Network is running a marathon of "haunted" shows. Including "The Haunting Of..."

Vince Neil and Wayne Newton.



Also starring psychic medium Kim Russo!1!

Hey Lifetime - I guarantee to watch forever AND start worshipping the Dark Spirits. If you just run a show where Russo is, on-screen in real time, grabbed by Cthulthu and dragged off to stand trial before the Old Ones. For the crime of being a fraudulent annoying asshole.

Sort of like the Mom character in the movie "Rapture-Palooza." Who does indeed get raptured up to Heaven to spend eternity with Jesus..but gets sent back to earth for "being annoying."

[deucemagnet]

37. Oh great.

First Laura Prepon becomes a Scientologist, now this. I might be running out of beautiful young redheads to lust after.

[progressoid]

41. Oh man, I had to look that up.

Prepon has been a scientologist since 99. That's sad.

[djean111]

38. Maybe we should offer Deepak a million dollars if he can prove that his god enables thought.....

his challenge has no basis in fact, just belief and assumption.