Sunday, November 17, 2013

Dubious theory noted

I seem to have missed "biocentrism," as coined by medical Professor Robert Lanza, but it got a run in The Indpendent the other day, in a somewhat confusing article which says Lanza thinks his theory means that there is definitely life after death.  It sounds rather like Hugh Everett's idea that he would continue living in another corner of the multiverse - but not quite.   (I don't know that anyone has put this "multiple versions of everyone" idea to much philosophical, theological or science fiction consideration yet.  It always seems to me that it must be good for some interesting conjecture about God and the meaning of the universe, and it's a topic I often find myself thinking about in the shower.  Never with any worthwhile result, however.) 

Reddit has an article on it which contains more criticism, and there is a Wikipedia entry too.

Doesn't seem all that promising to me...

5 comments:

John said...

He is using a mysterty, the dual slit experiment, to explain another mystery. Wrong.

John said...

On the other hand this is very interesting and not to be lightly dismissed

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2013/11/02/ian-stevensons-case-for-the-afterlife-are-we-skeptics-really-just-cynics/

Steve said...

Oh, good link, thanks for that.

I've read of Stevenson's work every now and then over the years, and think I have read at least one article with a skeptical take on it. In a way, because reincarnation does not culturally appeal, and has such a flaky Shirley McLean air about it to Western ears, I have never bothered reading too closely into it. My mistake, perhaps.

John said...

The error is to assume reincarnation is the explanation. The cause, if it exists, is a different question from the determination of the phenomena.

I don't really care about any of this Steve. I have neither time or inclination to investigate it but I have come across numerous accounts that are difficult to dismiss.

John said...

Steve,

On my little email list(I've largely abandoned public forums because the noise factor is too high)I followed this through. This is an interesting experiment currently being conducted in relation to near death experiences. Below are some extracts from my comments:

The problem is that when these types of accounts arise they are typically dismissed without any follow through. What is required is some form of blinding or having cynics do the confirmation exercise. Keep in mind though that the author may well have started out as a cynic and then became convinced.



That both the author and the engineer who did the statistical analysis made an obvious logical error in asserting reincarnation as the explanation is troubling, especially since I picked that up straight away. Even if the data is good that does not prove the existence of souls or reincarnation. If the data is good the cause remains a mystery. Using mysteries to explain other mysteries is bad but common.



I'm very wary of top down rebuttals because there is a long history of that a dangerous strategy. Consider the charge of malingering levelled against those with Multiple Sclerosis, minor brain injury, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. We know better now but for decades the patients' claims were rejected because there was no theoretic underpinning to explain their symptoms.



So to read the accounts is not to be convinced because the methodology is probably flawed. There is nothing I can do about that so I'm not reading the book, though I should add that in the past I have read books by other scientists on this matter. The most recent, a couple of years, Brain Wars, was by a neuroscientist who was convinced that something was going on.

http://www.dailygrail.com/Spirit-World/2013/1/Have-Scientists-Found-Proof-We-Leave-Our-Bodies-Nobodys-Telling-Just-Yet


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-89926/Scientists-discover-near-death-evidence.html#ixzz2l3XhCVro