Academia Embraces Spooky Studies

[PsychoDad]

Academia Embraces Spooky Studies

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,69086,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

At the University of Arizona, a psychology laboratory devotes its time to investigating "dynamic info-energy systems" and a "survival of consciousness hypothesis." University of Virginia cardiologists have been studying whether heart patients enter "transcendental environments" in the operating room. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist colleague compiles records of alleged "transmigration" events from around the world.

Translation? At two of America's best universities, professors and doctors are studying the existence of the soul, near-death experiences and reincarnation.

Sure, plenty of scientists throughout history tried to uncover the mystery of life after death, from Aristotle to Thomas Edison, who took time off from activities like electrocuting an elephant to contemplate a megaphone for the dead. But current-day afterlife research? At accredited institutions of higher learning? Who knew?
...

Despite those glimmers of something concrete, Roach reports being "profoundly disappointed" that paranormal research isn't more convincing. Still, "I'm more open to the possibility that we haven't figured it all out," she said. "Science doesn't necessarily have all the answers."

Do you think this is purely delusion and a waste of money, or do we not yet have the methodology or equipment to measure the phenomena? What could the implications be?

Peace.

[ck4829]

1. I think it's good to teach it

I had an un-natural encounter myself once.

I had a very strange dream that led me to find out about the Council for National Policy.

As long as the money to find out about it comes from the pockets of people who want to investigate it, I think it is OK to teach it.

[PsychoDad]

5. Dream research....

I think, would be a good field to study. At least you have a subject to test. :)

Dream research could be very interesting, particualarly where there is information about a future event or other information parted that should not be available otherwise.

Peace

[ret5hd]

2. If he doesn't think science...

(aka: hypothesize, test, analyse, repeatability, theory , etc etc etc)

has the answers...well then, just proclaim it true and dare somebody to disprove it. That approach would save a lot of time and money.

[htuttle]

3. Too bad they don't invest all that energy in a study of consciousness

Instead of assuming that certain events and sensations have an origin outside the mind (ie., 'paranormal' research), they'd probably learn more if they concentrated on studying consciousness and cognition. What leads humans to associate two events as significantly related, for example? How does memory really work? They know something about these things, but very little of it is conclusive.

It just seems silly to invest time in studying phenomena that not only have no uncontested evidence of existing but by their very nature violate the laws of known physics, when we don't even have a good scientific definition and description of the simplest question: "What is consciousness?"

Maybe if we were able to answer that one first, many of the other questions would simply disappear. If we don't even really know what consciousness is, how can we begin to define what it can do? Several hundred years of Cartesian dualism have messed us up -- why start by assuming the mind is separate from the body, for example?

:shrug:

[NAO]

7. "Center for Consciousness Studies" is at U of A in Tucson, AZ

Center for Consciousness Studies
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/

This is the real thing. Hard-core academics, from philosophy (of mind), psychology (cognitive science), neurology and related disciplines.

They host regular symposiums, "Toward a Science of Consciousness", informally known as "Tucson xx".

These are serious researchers - which mean most of them reject dualism and embrace some form of scientific monism - there are not "spirits" or "souls", just matter - but many also have developed plausible refutations of reductionism (mind is "nothing but" matter).



****

Questions from "The Problem of Consciousness" at CCS:

- What is consciousness?

- Can subjective experience be explained in physical terms?

- What are appropriate and potentially fruitful methods for studying consciousness?

- What are the neural correlates of consciousness?

- Can new methods of brain imaging help clarify the nature and mechanisms of consciousness?

- What is the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes in perception, memory, learning, and other domains?

- What are the properties of conscious experience in specific domains such as vision, emotion, and metacognition?

- How can we understand disorders and unusual forms of consciousness, as found in blindsight, synesthesia, and other syndromes?

- Does consciousness play a functional role, and if so what is that role?

- Can we develop rigorous methods for investigating and formalizing data about conscious experience from the first-person perspective?

- What role does subjective experience play in existing theories within modern science?

- What would be the implications of a science of consciousness for ethics and society?

- Can the study of consciousness provide any clarification of ideas derived from contemplative traditions, and vice versa?

- Must the purview of science be expanded in order to capture the essential elements of conscious phenomena, or are traditional methods sufficient?

http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/index.htm

[shrike]

4. My husband the agnostic has seen ghosts

And experienced supernatural phenomenon. Kinda pisses me off, the fact that I believe in an after-life and he doesn't: why can't I see ghosts?

Don't know how you'd test for this sort of thing, though. I suppose this research has been going on in one form or another for years.

On edit:

Poor Topsy. When we were in Australia, we stopped by a crocodile farm: they raised crocs for leather and meat, but also provided a home for crocs with no where else to go: they used them for breeding purposes. One of them was a former zoo animal who'd killed his keeper. Recognizing that crocodiles do what crocodiles do, they gave him to this place, and he's been there ever since.

I remember reading about Edison's machine. Edison wasn't religious in the least, but was convinced that consciousness survived after death. He completed his machine, but died before he could put it to use. Unfortunately, no one could ever figure out how to make it work, and so there it sat.

[PsychoDad]

6. Edison's machine.

Too bad they couldn't use it to find out from Edison how to finish it. :)

Concerning that, what do you think about EVPs? Are Ghosts and other similar phenomena able to imprint electromagnetic signals? Might they be electromagnetic in origin?


Peace :)

[shrike]

9. There are a lot of theories on that

But they are only theories. Don't know if it's even possible, with today's technology, to prove or disprove them -- besides, how could you prove you actually had contact with a ghost?

Edison's machine was an odd final project -- ironic that he did die without leaving instructions on how to use it. Kind of catch-22 situation -- you'd need a machine to communicate with him from the grave, and but you'd need to get in contact with him in order to learn how to run the machine.

[LaurenG]

8. I don't think it's delusional and hopefully not a waste of money

Scientifically proving the validity of the soul will be very interesting should it happen.

If no one even tries to study energy we won't learn anything.

I've always thought there is much more to our existence than meets the eye. :hi:

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. I am reminded of John Murphy and Psycho-Situational Dynamics from the 60s

Dr. John Murphy was a researcher at UC Berkeley in the early 1960s. He invented a field he called "psycho-situational dynamics", essentially: Why do bad things tend to happen and at the worst possible time?

He was doing serious work and supposedly making progress in providing an observational basis to his famous law and assorted corrollaries. He was done in by a group of animal rights activists when they heard of an experiment he was conducting on cats. The activists raided his laboratory and "rescued" the animals, causing much damage to school property as a result. The publicity brought by the raid drew media scorn on Dr. Murphy's research, and the university fired him and disavowed his work.

The test that caused the ruckus involved tying a slice of buttered bread on the back of a cat, buttered side up, and then knocking the cat off of a table. The experiment was to observe how two mutually impossible results might juxtapose: cat's always land on their feet, and buttered bread always lands butter side down. What Dr. Murphy and his team found was that, consistently, the cat would die mid-fall and land on its back, buttered side down.

From this test and the resulting publicity, Dr. Murphy drew two conclusions: "Given the juxtaposition of two mutually exclusive events, a third event, synergistically worse than the two events combined, will immediately manifest" and "If success can bring misfortune, you will succeed."