How skeptics work
This is a wonderful talk by Rupert Sheldrake on the tactics, rhetoric, and in many cases, the hypocrisy, of prominent skeptics.
Download the mp3 audio file here. Or a higher quality version here. Both are on Rupert Sheldrake's website.
Download the mp3 audio file here. Or a higher quality version here. Both are on Rupert Sheldrake's website.
Comments
As of 12:30 PM on Tues, 02 Dec 08, it seems that the display malfunctioned during the night and that the coherence in global consciousness is somehow phase locked in a non-coherence state. Looks very strange and unusual compared with previous outputs. Any explanation? Thanks.
Randi, Lewis Walpert, Wiseman, Peter Atkins (an Oxford chemistry professor), and Michael Shermer all feature.
Randi, Lewis Walpert, Wiseman, Peter Atkins (an Oxford chemistry professor), and Michael Shermer all feature.
Peter Atkins is the co-author of my favourite physical chemistry book, so when I first heard the radio debate between him and Rupert Sheldrake I was disappointed. It just goes to show that being rigorous and scientific in one field doesn't necessarily carry on into another. Especially not if it clashes with strongly held beliefs.
http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/
Absolutely true, Neal. In fact, that common skeptic's fallacy shows the irrationality and lack of logical thinking of many of these people.
In any logic's handbook, any person can read that a negative claim has the same logical properties than a positive claim (at least, regarding the burden of proof).
If I prove that "X is true", at the same time I'm proving (conclusively) that "Non-X is true" is false.
If I prove that Dean Radin was born in US, I'm proving that he wasn't born in China or Russia (because he couldn't be born in all the 3 countries at the same time). The positive evidence for X, has probatory logical implications for non-X (negative claim).
As argued by philosopher Steven Hales (a materialist skeptic of psi and afterlife) in his paper "You can prove a negative": "It is widely believed that you can’t prove a negative. Some people even think that it is a law of logic—you can’t prove that Santa Claus, unicorns, the Loch Ness Monster, God, pink elephants, WMD in Iraq and Bigfoot don’t exist. This widespread belief is flatly, 100% wrong. In this little essay, I show precisely how one can prove a negative, to the same extent that one can prove anything at all."
http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articles/proveanegative.html
Skeptics often pride themselves as rational thinkers, but actually many of them are pretty irrational and illogical.
A real skeptic is characterized by doubt, not by negative claims. When he doubts, he doesn't have to prove anything, because a doubt is a psychological state, not a claim. But if the "skeptic" makes a claim (positive or negative), he isn't skeptical of that specific claim anymore, and logic demands he offers evidence for his claim.
When a skeptic says that a positive psi result is product of fraud or statistical flaws, he is making a positive claim (of fraud or statistical flaws), and he has to offer specific evidence for his claims.
In that sense, many self-proclaimed "skeptics" aren't real skeptics, but pseudo-skeptics: They deny (not doubt) the existence of psi, and positivaly assert that psi phenomena are impossible, or that are delusions, frauds, fantasies, etc.
ZC
tyrannogenius
Neil, good job on proposing a $10,000,000 test for many worlds/many minds. By the way, I hate to derail this thread (as I normally do) but have you two heard of this idea that MWI is actually *simpler* than Copenhagen? If so, could you please enlighten me as to the logic (if there is any) behind this?
Sheldrake is incredibly patient, still. I'm amazed that people like him, Dean, Marilyn Schlitz etc. still continue, I couldn't. A drink to all you guys this evening.
MWI enthusiasts sometimes use "decoherence" ideas to pretend to explain "collapse" and to support how MWI happens. It's a bogus concept, as I explain at my blog and at http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2008/12/official_neil_b_quantum_measur.php.
BTW, I saw a reference somewhere to the question of unequal probabilities in relation to multiple worlds - I didn't follow it up, but there is supposed to be a way that this works out - perhaps Dean can enlighten us - I mean, how does the universe get duplicated with a .7/.3 probability ratio!
But infinite sets won't work, as you may know from that math issue. So if someone ever had it clue how to get around it, it must be good (not that I want them to succeed, it's rubbish IMHO. But I do get a kick out of "other universes", I just want them to be weird realms of magic etc. and not a gross compendium of every possible happening.)
Here is a reference to a paper (that I have not yet read) by David Deutsch - who seems to think quantum probabilities are possible in a multiverse:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0104033
I think possibly the idea is that the observer finds himself more often in the universe with greater probability!
Of course, all this assumes QM is exactly right - which it can't be because it is inconsistent with general relativity (unfortunately I have to take the word of better maths brains on that!) Maybe the real theory alows branches to reconnect to form a sort of network - much more interesting!
There is a paper by Henry Stapp on the MW issue that you might find interesting.
The Basis Problem in Many-Worlds Theories: http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/bp.PDF
In this paper he argues why MW still doesn't solve the basis problem (choice of a basis, reduction of the wave function etc.). As far as I have seen, there hasn't been a refutation of this paper, only loose non-substantial talk by MW supporters.
Tor
David, I perused the Deutsch paper which gets too technical veering off the standard QM tropes. But so far, I don't think he actually addresses the issue of how many multi-worlds or how to get the probability.
Tor's offering from Stapp is more readable, nearly a philosophical essay with few equations. Stapp makes the good points against glib MW indulgence. The basis problem is not quite identical to my complaint about hashing out probabilities, but Stapp's points lead to the same challenge: MWI really can't handle producing our experience of specific probabilities (even if "we" imagine ourselves as each of the branching version) given what frequentist probability consists of: proportions of outcomes whether all in the same world or combined from different worlds.
You can put thoughts up at a thread on this at my blog also:
http://tyrannogenius.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-forum-dish-against-or-defend-many.html
Happy "X-mass" folks (X for the unknown, since we don't really know the mystery behind it all ...)
"David, I perused the Deutsch paper which gets too technical veering off the standard QM tropes. But so far, I don't think he actually addresses the issue of how many multi-worlds or how to get the probability."
I think you are right - and the basis problem is quite stunning. Naively, one thinks of an electron in a magnetic field (say) splitting the universe in two with wave function bases defined by the direction of the field - but does that field - which could be very tiny - preclude another universe corresponding to another choice of axis - say at 45 degrees?
This is all getting a bit too technical for me - but it adds to my original hunch - which, of course you share - that MW is just a mathematical abstraction.
I guess MW has become popular despite its absurdity, because it gets consciousness out of physics - which has dubious value, since some physical systems are conscious!
I think many scientists just hate the fact that the way things work in the quantum universe doesn't make sense, and they'd rather imagine something that wasn't "paradoxical" (like inexplicable collapse that picks out one of the superposed states) even if that something was IMHO kind of a snow job.