The Senseless Exclusion of Teleological Considerations From Astrobiology

Currently what can be called a science with no discovered subject matter, astrobiology is the study of life that originated beyond planet Earth. Currently mainstream astrobiology is getting nowhere. An example of the lack of progress is a recent paper entitled "A Search for Technosignatures Around 11,680 Stars with the Green Bank Telescope at 1.15-1.73 GHz." 11,680 carefully selected stars were searched for whether scientists could find any evidence of technical civilizations nearby them. No such evidence was found.

A glaring problem with astrobiology is its exclusion of what we may call teleological considerations. Philosophically teleology has been defined as the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world. An extremely relevant consideration for astrobiologists is: is there some causal agency that may affect the chance of life appearing on other planets? This has the greatest effect on the odds of extraterrestrial life. If there is no causal agency interested in life appearing on other planets, the chance of such life appearing may be negligible.  If there is such a causal agency interested in life appearing on other planets, the chance of such life appearing may be very high. 

Senselessly, astrobiologists publicly claim to pay no attention to this consideration, although (for reasons I will explain) they may be paying much attention to such a question. Below are some comments on this topic. 

Comment #1: Although modified by the corollary of Comment #2 below, the chance of extraterrestrial life having arisen,  by virtue of only unguided chance processes, close enough to Earth to be discovered within a century, is negligible. 

Even the simplest one-celled life involves an incredibly high state of organization. There is no reason to think that such a state of organization would appear by chance even given billions of planets in our galaxy and billions of years.  In 2018 a paper by 21 scientists stated it this way:

"The transformation of an ensemble of appropriately chosen biological monomers (e.g. amino acids, nucleotides) into a primitive living cell capable of further evolution appears to require overcoming an information hurdle of superastronomical proportions (Appendix A), an event that could not have happened within the time frame of the Earth except, we believe, as a miracle (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1981, 1982, 2000). All laboratory experiments attempting to simulate such an event have so far led to dismal failure (Deamer, 2011; Walker and Wickramasinghe, 2015)." 

Three scientists stated it this way:

"The ongoing insistence on defending scientific orthodoxies on these matters, even against a formidable tide of contrary evidence, has turned out to be no less repressive than the discarded superstitions in earlier times. For instance, although all attempts to demonstrate spontaneous generation in the laboratory have led to failure for over half a century, strident assertions of its necessary operation against the most incredible odds continue to dominate the literature."

There is no gradual "every little step rewarded" Darwinian way to reach the origin of life, as nothing like Darwinian natural selection can occur until life already exists.  If you do not include any consideration of teleology, and regard life as always originating on a planet by chance events, you should conclude that life in the universe is so rare that we have basically no chance of discovering it in the next hundred years. 

Comment #2: If there is some purposeful cosmic agency interested in producing intelligent life in the universe, intelligent life may be abundant in our galaxy, despite the overwhelming odds against its accidental appearance. 

Here we may very broadly define "purposeful cosmic agency" as some very powerful intelligence that may or may not be divine or supernatural. An extremely important point senselessly ignored by astrobiologists is that if there is some purposeful cosmic agency interested in producing life in the universe, then intelligent life may be very abundant in our galaxy, no matter how prohibitive are the odds against its accidental appearance.  It makes no sense for astrobiologists to ignore such a point, since it helps provide a justification for their efforts, which might be a complete waste of time if no such agency exists. 

What goes on is that astrobiologists endlessly repeat a very bad argument for extraterrestrial life.  They endlessly repeat the claim that because there are very many planets, there must be much extraterrestrial life.  This is the utterly fallacious "many tries equals many successes" argument I have been reading throughout my life.   No, many tries do not equal many successes.  If something is sufficiently improbable, it will never happen, no matter how many tries or chances there are for it to occur. And it is very, very easy for something to be too hard to ever occur by chance. That can happen whenever you need a special arrangement of only fifty or more components.  If every person in the world spends every leisure hour of their lives throwing a deck of cards into the air, never once will there occur an event in which all 52 cards form into a house of cards.   

It simply isn't true that many tries equals many successes, and whenever you need a special arrangement of many parts, it is not even true that many tries (or even trillions of tries) will cause a single success. Our astrobiologists would be more persuasive if they were to reason like this:

"Our universe suddenly began for no reason we understand, and the fundamental constants of the universe seem very fine-tuned to allow for life to exist. So we should suspect that there's some great power and mind behind the universe. And if such an agency exists, would it not want intelligent life to exist throughout its creation?"

Instead of using this powerful argument, our astrobiologists keep endlessly repeating the utterly fallacious "many tries equals many successes" argument which any good student of biological complexity should realize is fallacious. If something is sufficiently unlikely to occur by chance, and requires a very special arrangement of very many parts,  such a thing will never occur by chance even if there are trillions or quadrillions or quintillions of tries, or even if there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tries.  And even the simplest one-celled life requires a very special arrangement of many thousands of amino acids, as hard to achieve by chance as an ink splash forming a long well-written essay. 

Comment #3: If there is some purposeful cosmic agency interested in producing intelligent life in the universe, that would presumably greatly increase the chance of finding intelligent life on other planets, but would probably not increase the chance of finding primitive life on  places with conditions for life much worse than on Earth. 

If there is some purposeful cosmic agency interested in producing intelligent life in the universe, there might be millions or billions of planets in the universe on which civilized life exists; but the existence of such an agency would not seem to very substantially increase the chance of finding microscopic life on very inhospitable places such as Mars. An interest in producing minds seems more plausible than some interest in producing mere microbes on some planet that can only support microbes. 

Comment #4:  If there is some purposeful cosmic agency interested in producing intelligent life in the universe, such an agency might cause all intelligent life in the galaxy to arise at roughly the same time. 

I have heard countless times astrobiologists make unwarranted claims about the probable ages of extraterrestrial civilizations. Their reasoning goes something like this: (1) the universe is about 13 billion years old; (2) intelligent life could have arisen on other planets at any time in the past few billions of years; (3) therefore if intelligent life arose on some other planet, it would probably have arisen very many thousands or millions of years ago.  

One astronomer using such reasoning was Carl Sagan, who began episode 12 of the original Cosmos TV series by stating,  "In the vastness of the cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours."  More dogmatically,  at about the 1:09 minute mark in the interview here,  Sagan claimed to understand the nature of humanity's status in the galaxy. He stated, “If you look at time scales, you realize that our civilization is the most backward civilization in the galaxy that can communicate.” This was just one of very many groundless misstatements made by Sagan, who would often speak incorrectly on important topics.  

The argument that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, they must be millions of years older than ours is one predicated on the assumption that life appears accidentally.  But the odds are so enormous against the accidental appearance of life anywhere that all notions of the accidental appearance of extraterrestrials lack credibility. Given odds so bad against the accidental appearance of life and equally steep odds against life accidentally evolving into intelligent civilized life, the only plausible possibility involving nearby civilized extraterrestrials is one in which they appeared as a consequence of some purposeful cosmic agency interested in their appearance.  But there is no strong reason to assume that such an agency would be following some "random intervals" plan, and it seems just as likely that some plan would be followed of intelligent life appearing throughout the galaxy more or less simultaneously.  Therefore we have no basis for concluding that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, they must be vastly older than we are. 

Comment #5: The non-observation of "technosignatures" in our galaxy and the non-observation of any sign of extraterrestrials in our galaxy (along with Comment #1 and Comment #4) constitute reasons for doubting that civilizations vastly older than ours exist in our galaxy. 

A civilization vastly older than ours would be expected to have a big "footprint" in the galaxy. If a single planet produced an intelligent species millions of years ago, and such a species or its ancestors persisted ever since, that might mean the colonization of most of the galaxy. Spending out spacecraft at only one-fifth the velocity of light, and founding many colonies on other planets that might themselves then send out colonizing expeditions, a single planet could colonize half of a galaxy within 10 million years. There are all kinds of astronomical engineering feats that could be done, such as the construction of Dyson Spheres to maximize the capture of energy from a star.  But despite all of their efforts, astronomers can find no sign of any other civilization in our galaxy. 

This failure (combined with Comment #4 and Comment  #1) constitute a reason for doubting that civilizations vastly older than ours exist in our galaxy. We should not be assuming that there are probably other planets in our galaxy where there live some civilizations that arose millions of years ago or very many thousands of years ago.  Such a thing would seem to be a possibility, but not necessarily a likelihood. 

Comment #6: Sold as purely scientific undertakings, efforts to discover merely microscopic life on planets or moons with very bad conditions (against enormous odds) seem to be motivated by anti-teleological beliefs, and are attempts at belief system confirmation.  

We can easily understand why someone would want to engage in some activity such as searching for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, or looking for so-called technosignatures which might be evidence of minds elsewhere in the universe. But a puzzling phenomenon is the persistence of very expensive activity to try to search (against enormous odds) for evidence of merely microscopic life (or traces of past microscopic life) on planets, moons or other bodies offering conditions vastly worse for life than planet Earth.  

For example, NASA wants to retrieve rock samples and soil samples from Mars, in an incredibly expensive mission it estimates will cost more than 10 billion dollars.  Conditions on Mars are so bad it is almost universally admitted that the planet has no life.  What the proposed NASA Mars sample mission will be doing is mainly looking for evidence of past life. The chance of the mission finding such a thing is very low, because no one has even found amino acids on Mars. Amino acids are the building blocks of the building blocks of one-celled life. Hoping to find evidence of life on a planet on which no amino acids have been found is like hoping to find books in a house in which searches for paper have failed. 

Why spend so much money on such a long-shot affair unlikely to find anything of biological interest, something that will probably find no more than traces of long-dead microbes? The project is best understood as an anti-teleological research program. Astrobiologists  hope that life could have originated even under the harshest conditions, such as very inhospitable conditions on Mars.  Finding such a thing might then allow them to say that no great luck is required for life to originate.  That's just the kind of thing you want to say if you believe that all life is an accident of nature. 

So while astrobiologists claim to give zero consideration to teleology, it seems that thoughts about teleology are very much in their thinking. They want the public to give them more than 10 billion dollars for a mission that they think may be a great blow against the idea that life in the universe has occurred because of purposeful agency.  Granting such a funding request (motivated by a desire to help prove one's personal belief system) would seem to be like granting a request for 10 billion dollars of public funds to look for Noah's Ark.  

Spookiest Years, Part 4: The Year 1852

In my previous posts in this intermittently-appearing "Spookiest Years" series I analyzed and quoted accounts of the paranormal from the years 1848, 1850 and 1851. Now let us look at accounts of the paranormal dating from 1852.

In 1852 there appeared the book "An exposition of views respecting the principal facts, causes, and peculiarities involved in spirit manifestations : together with interesting phenomenal statements and communications” by Adin Ballou which can be read here.  Adin Ballou (1803-1890) was a Christian clergyman who wrote quote a few books on different topics, including the autobiography that can be read here.  It is always desirable to have lots of information about someone who claims observation about the paranormal, as well as his diverse samples of his writings, as such things are useful in judging whether the witness is a credible one.  

On pages 7-9 the author categorizes various types of event he calls "spirit manifestations," including  a variety of mysterious noises such as raps, and also the following:

• "The moving of material substances, with like indications of intelligence ; such as tables, sofas, light-stands, chairs, and various other articles ; shaking, tipping, sliding, raising them clear of the floor, placing them in new positions, (all this sometimes in spite of athletic and heavy men doing their utmost to hold them down ;) taking up the passive body of a person, and carrying it from one position to another across the room, through mid air ; opening and shutting doors ; thrumming musical instruments ; undoing well clasped pocket-books, taking out their contents, and then, by request, replacing them as before ; writing with pens, pencils, and other substances both liquid and solid, sometimes on paper, sometimes on common slates, and sometimes on the ceilings of a room, &.c.... "
• "Presenting apparitions, in some instances, of a spirit hand and arm, in others, of the whole human form, and in others, of several deceased persons conversing together ; causing distinct touches to be felt by the mortal living, grasping and shaking their hands; and giving many other sensible demonstrations of their existence."
• "Through these various manifestations communicating to men in the flesh numberless affectionate and intelligent assurances of an immortal existence, messages of consolation, and annunciations of distant events unknown at the time, but subsequently corroborated ; predictions of forth-coming occurrences subsequently verified, forewarnings against impending danger, medicinal prescriptions of great efficacy, wholesome reproofs, admonitions and counsels, expositions of spiritual, theological, religious, moral and philosophical truths appertaining to the present and future states, and important to human welfare in every sphere of existence, sometimes comprised in a single sentence, and sometimes in an ample book."

Most of those who have studied this topic are aware of how such claims eventually appeared in the decades following 1848. But it is remarkable to see a claim in 1852 that such things were already occurring at that date. We then have in the book several pages that are quoted from the work described in my previous post.  On page 39 we have a long 1850 statement by a Charles Hammond quoted "from a pamphlet by D. M. Dewey." I have not been able to find the original document.  On page 46 Ballou gives some eyewitness testimony, claiming he saw some amazing things:

"I have seen tables and lightstands of various size moved about in the most astonishing manner, by what purported to be the same invisible agency, with only the gentle and passive resting of the hands or finger-ends of the Medium on one of their edges. Also, many distinct movings of such objects, by request, without the touch of the Medium at all. I have sat and conversed by the hour together with the authors of these sounds and motions, by means of signals first agreed on ; asking questions and obtaining answers — receiving communications spelled out by the alphabet — discussing propositions sometimes made by them to me, and vice versa — all by a slow process, indeed, but with every possible demonstration of intelligence, though not without incidental misapprehensions and mistakes. I have witnessed the asking of mental questions by inquirers, who received as prompt and correct answers as when the questions were asked audibly to the cognition of the Medium.

I have known these invisibles, by request, to write their names with a common plumbago pencil on a clean sheet of paper — half a dozen of them, each in a different hand....I have requested what purported to be the spirit of a friend many years deceased, to go to a particular place, several miles distant from that of the sitting, and to bring me back intelligence respecting the then health and doings of a certain relative well-known to the parties. In three minutes of time the intelligence was obtained, numerous particulars given, some of them rather improbable, but every one exactly confirmed the next day, by personal inquiries made for that purpose...."

There follows a great deal of metaphysical speculation by Ballou. Notably on pages 54-55 he denounces slavery as sinful, and also denounces other things such as war and intemperance. He tells us  on page 56  that these speculations and moral teachings are what is taught by "ninety-nine one hundredths of the communications of reliable spirits throughout the country," but fails to back up such a claim with specifics. There then follows a very long and rather tedious section of the book in which Ballou answers objections that could be made to the reports and teachings he has given. 

On page 127 Ballou begins a chapter quoting what critics are saying about reports of spiritual manifestations.  He documents the enormous hatred and calumny and character assassination that went on by those desperate to suppress the flourishing spiritual movement he was part of. Finally on page 176 Ballou gives us some more testimony regarding paranormal events. There follows about two dozen pages that are not worth summarizing, because they fail to mention specific witnesses. 

In the last part of the book we have a long series of questions and answers. The answers purport to be from Ballou's deceased son. Ballou says he got the answers from a medium, but does not tell the exact method by which the medium produced them.  He tells us that "the ideas were strongly impressed on her mind, and written out with her hand, by a spiritual intelligence superior and distinct from her own." Since we don't have any very strong reason to believe in a paranormal effect here, I won't bother to summarize the answers given, which easily could have come solely from the mind of the medium herself. 

Ballou's book dates from 1852. In that year we have the start of another stream of information on this topic: a weekly periodical called the Spiritual Telegraph, one published in New York City. The first edition of that publication (dated May 8, 1852) has an account of an  April 4, 1852 meeting in the house of Rufus Elmer in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Four named witnesses (including David A. Wells, a professor of chemistry at Harvard) state this:

"The table was moved in every possible direction, and with great force, when we could not perceive any cause of motion...In two instances, at least, while the hands of all the members of the circle were placed on the top of the table—and while no visible power was employed to raise the table, or otherwise move it from its position—it was seen to rise clear of the floor, and to float in the atmosphere for several seconds, as if sustained by some denser medium than air...Mr. Wells seated himself on the table, which was rocked to and fro with great violence, and at length it poised itself on two legs, and remained in this position for some thirty seconds, when no other person was in contact with the table....In conclusion, we may observe that D. D. Hume, the medium, frequently urged us to hold his hands and feet. During these occurrences the room was well lighted, the lamp was frequently placed on and under the table, and every possible opportunity was afforded us for the closest inspection, and we submit this one emphatic declaration : we know that we were not imposed op on nor deceived." 

This is the same Daniel Dunglas Home mentioned in the middle of my post on observations of the paranormal in 1851.  Again, Home's name is misspelled as Hume.  We seem to have some interesting progress reported. While the 1851 account mentioned a table merely rising up on two legs, this account describes the table as fully levitating above the ground.  In the August 21, 1852 edition of the Spiritual Telegraph, we have an even more astounding claim:  the claim that Home was observed levitating. We read this (again, Home's name is misspelled):

"Suddenly, and without any expectation on the part of the company the medium, Mr. Hume, was taken up in the air! I had hold of his band at the time, and I felt of his feet—they were lifted a foot from the flour! He palpitated from head to foot with the contending emotions of joy and fear which choked his utterance. Again and again he was taken from the floor, and the third time he was carried to the lofty ceiling of the apartment, with which his hands and head came in gentle contact. I felt the distance from the soles of bis boot* to the floor and it was nearly three feet ! Others touched his feet to satisfy themselves."

The author of this statement is identified merely as F--------. If there was no further confirmation of this claim, we might have to dismiss it as some reckless lie. But, in fact, in the coming years very many named witnesses would claim that they saw the same wonder of Daniel Dunglas Home levitating (as you can see by reading the link here and future installments of this series). 

An 1853 book reiterates the claim above, telling us that it occurred on the 8th of August, 1852, in the home of Ward Cheney of Manchester,  Connecticut, and that the person making the report above was one of the editors of the Hartford Times. 

The same book tells us that levitations were also seen in connection with the medium Henry C. Gordon. We read this:

"Mr. Gordon has several times been taken up in a similar manner. This has twice occurred in this city — in both cases at the residence of our distinguished friend, Dr. John F. Gray, in Lafayette-place. In both instances the phenomenon transpired in presence of a number of intelligent and scientific observers. In one case Gordon was carried not less than sixty feet through different apartments, and was supported at irregular distances of from four to eight feet from the floor, while performing this aerial journey."

1852 also saw the publication of the book "The Spiritual Teacher" by R. P. Ambler (Russell Perkins Ambler).  The book's full title claims that it was "written by spirits of the Sixth Circle." At the book's beginning we have a testimony by five witnesses that the book was produced with extraordinary speed, rather as if some supernatural or paranormal power was controlling or inspiring the person (Ambler) who wrote down the text. The testimony states this:

"By reference to the facts in the case, it is found that this book has been written with vast and almost incredible rapidity. On this point the undersigned would state that the whole book, which comprises a series of twelve lectures, extending over two hundred and six pages of foolscap paper, was written within four days this process having been commenced on the morning of Wednesday, March 10th, 1852, and completed on the following Saturday evening, March 13th. The average time per day employed in writing was ten hours and fifty-five minutes, and the maximum number of pages produced on a single day was fifty-five, the shortest time occupied in writing a single page being eight minutes.

With relation to the manner in which this book was written, the undersigned would state that the hand and arm of the medium were suspended during the whole time of writing in such a manner as not to rest on the desk or manuscript and that, upheld in this way, the pen glided rapidly over, the paper with an even and continuous movement without any apparent thought or care on the part of the writer, and without any perceptible pause at the commencement of sentences or paragraphs ...

JAMES WILSON,

JOHN D. LORD,

MRS. G, W. HARRISON,

MISS. DELPHINA P. DUBNAR,

MRS. R. P. AMBLER. 

Springfield, March 20, 1852."

The book is a very sophisticated work from a philosophical and literary standpoint.  A claim often made by skeptics about the wonders of the nineteenth century and claimed communications from the Great Beyond (or claimed paranormal communications) is something like this: "Nothing ever arises from such supposed communication except low-quality material."  Such a generalization simply isn't true. "The Spiritual Teacher" is actually a work of very high literary and philosophical sophistication, the type of work we might expect from a philosophy professor with very good writing skills. Similarly, the literary works of Patience Worth (arising from an ouija board) are works of superb quality, with the best poems of Patience Worth equaling in quality the best poems of Shelley and Keats.  

In the 1854 book "The Spiritual Telegraph" compiled by S. B. Brittan from writings in the periodical "The Spiritual Telegraph," we have this account of events in the year 1852 (the reference to being magnetized refers to falling into a trance):

"Mrs. Harriet Porter was magnetized by Spirits, at Bridgeport, Conn., on the 27th day of July, 1852 — the day before the steamer Henry Clay was destroyed — when the following singular manifestation occurred. The medium being entranced, was suddenly impelled to leave the table and go to a closet, where she took a newspaper from among a number that were lying on a shelf. As she came out of the closet the index finger of her right hand commenced moving over the paper with the greatest rapidity. After a moment the finger was suddenly fastened to the paper, and on examination it was found to be resting on the name Henry Clay. It was thereupon conjectured that the circumstance was either purely accidental or else that some Spirit, for some purpose as yet unexplained, desired to refer to the great statesman. But this finger moved again, rapidly as before, and gain it was as suddenly arrested. On lifting the medium's finger from the paper, it was found that the word steamboat was directly under it. Once more the finger moved spasmodically over the printed sheet, and when at length it stopped abruptly, it was discovered that it pointed to the word burnt. It will be perceived that this is the sum of the communication from the invisible powers : ' Henry Clay, STEAMBOAT, BURNT.' Such an announcement was not, of course, anticipated by any one. The eyes of the medium were closed during this performance, and she certainly could not have known, by any mode of external observation, what the words were, much less what the whole really implied. No one in the circle had any knowledge of the existence of such a steamer. One after another the members of the circle departed, and we know not that any special importance was attached to what had occurred.

The next day, at about three o'clock, p.m., Mrs. Porter was again and unexpectedly entranced in presence of several persons, and proceeded to describe the terrible catastrophe which was then, as she affirmed, being enacted before her. She declared that a steamboat was burning on the Hudson River, that the name, Henry Clay, was distinctly visible, and then proceeded to describe the village of Yonkers. The medium appeared to be greatly terrified by the scene, and expressed the deepest anguish on account of the loss of so many lives. It is needless to add that the public journals on the following morning contained the details of the mournful tragedy, so mysteriously foreshadowed and so graphically portrayed at the very hour of the fatal occurrence."

The steamboat Henry Clay caught on fire on July 28, 1852, with nearly 50 of its 500 passengers dying. If true, this account would be a very powerful case of evidence of precognition. The only shortcoming of this account is that it was written more than a year after the alleged events occurred. An account closer to July, 1852 would be better evidence. In another post I will discuss a rather similar account that is like this, but meets higher standards of evidence. 

In an 1853  book we have this account by S. B. Brittan of 1852 events (one in which the name Home is misspelled as Hume):

"On the evening of April 15th, 1852, I was at the house of Rufus Elmer, Esq., in Springfield, Mass., when David A. Wells, Professor of Electricity and Chemistry at Cambridge, was present with other intelligent gentlemen for the purpose of witnessing the mysterious phenomena. Remarkable manifestations occurred on that occasion through Daniel D. Hume. Prof. Wells and several other gentlemen, all of whom had been previously skeptical, made a written statement of what transpired in their presence, which was subsequently published in the Eastern papers. I have only space for the following extract :

' While no visible power was employed to raise the table, or otherwise move it from its position — it was seen to rise clear of the floor, and to float in the atmosphere for several seconds as if sustained by some denser medium than air. Mr. Wells seated himself on the table, which was rocked to and fro with great violence, and at length it poised itself on two legs, and remained in this position for some thirty seconds, when no other person was in contact with the table.'

' Occasionally we were made conscious of the occurrence of a powerful shock which produced a vibratory movement of the floor of the apartment. It seemed like the motion occasioned by distant thunder or the firing of ordnance far away — causing the tables, chairs, and other inanimate objects, and all of us to tremble in such a manner that the effect was both seen and felt. In the whole exhibition we were constrained to admit that there was an almost constant manifestation of some intelligence which seemed to be independent of the circle.'

' During these occurrences the room was well lighted, the lamp was frequently placed on and under the table, and every possible opportunity was afforded us for the closest inspection, and we submit this one emphatic declaration : We know that we were not imposed upon nor deceived.'

The statement from which the above is extracted, was signed by David A. Wells and others."

The statement above matches a statement in the autobiography of Daniel Dunglas Home, in which he lists the signers of the statement as Wm. Bryant, B. K Bliss, Wm. Edwards and David A. Wells. I may note that television or movie depictions of the seances of the nineteenth century almost always fail to depict any of the more dramatic phenomena that were reported. We may see some depiction of people with their hands on a table, and the table moving a little bit, or some bell shaking. Chances are 99% that you will see a depiction failing to depict any of the more dramatic phenomena that were reported, such as tables levitating, people levitating, musical instruments playing by themselves, mysterious spirit hands appearing and objects levitated to the tops of tables. An example of the kind of the depictions we get is in Episode 3 of the Netflix series "Bodies." Similarly, 95% or more of this century's mainstream accounts of the spooky events around this time will fail to list any of the more dramatic phenomena reported. 

Around Christmas of 1851 in Ohio a young orphan medium by the name of Abby Warner was charged with the crime of disturbing a church service. It seems that a service at a church was disturbed by mysterious raps one day that Abby attended.  Putting Abby on trial, the state of Ohio tried to prove that Abby had caused the rapping sound, violating a law against disturbing church services. But a judge ruled that the state had failed to prove that Abby had caused the sounds.  The official ruling by a judge states this:

"After three days patient investigation the guilty party is undiscovered, and thus far that investigation seems fruitless, for which the court can only express its sincere regret. Being unable, in the light of the proof to find the defendant guilty, she is discharged."

An investigation committee was organized in early 1852 to further investigate the matter of Abby Warner and the mysterious raps. Members of the committee claimed that raps occurred corresponding to their silent thoughts, an effect widely reported by others. We read that this occurred on January 5, 1852 at the office of F. M. Keith:

"Mental questions were then asked, one by each person at the table, except Dr. Underhill and medium, which questions and answers were as follows:

By R. Partridge. Rap five times?

Answer. Five raps.

By O. Dresel. Rap four times on the back of my chair.

Answer. Four raps on the table.

By C. K. Skinner. Will the spirit rap six times ?

Answer. Six raps.

By A. Pease. Shall I remain with the committee during their subsequent sittings; if so give me four distinct raps?

Answer. Four raps.

By F. M. Keith. Shall we continue our examination three sittings more; if so rap seven times, slow and distinct ?

Answer. Seven raps." 

A statement asserting the above was signed by these persons: F. M. KEITH, R. PARTRIDGE, A. PEASE, C. K. SKINNER. These four people are all mentioned in the quote above. Only O. Dresel failed to sign the attestation. As evidence, this meets a very high standard. We have an attestation published the same year as the reported events, quoting signed testimony apparently made on the same day as the events witnessed, with multiple named witnesses.  The effect is one of five consecutive people mentally thinking of a number between about 1 and 10, with each thought-of number being followed by the same number of raps. You could explain the results by coincidence, but by a coincidence that would have a total improbability of about 1 in 10 to fifth power, about 1 in 100,000. Meeting at the same place on the next day, the same four witnesses and an additional witness attested the following:

"The committee are constrained to say, from the facts they have witnessed, that the table was caused to move by some power as yet unknown to them. That they are satisfied that neither the medium, nor any other person in the room moved it."

I have quite a few additional installments of this "Spookiest Years" series, and they will appear at intermittent intervals at various times over the next months. I may note that I am very interested in studying first-hand accounts of anomalous or hard-to-explain phenomena, particularly when they are written dated accounts by a named witness describing something very astounding he or she saw soon after he or she saw it.  I am also also very interested in getting the earliest published accounts of hard-to-explain phenomena that end up being widely discussed. If you know of any cases of such accounts that you think may be of interest to me,  please email me with a link to such accounts. 

Be very wary of articles about the paranormal appearing in mainstream publications, which tend to peak in the days leading up to Halloween (October 31). Remember that the vast majority of such articles are written by people who are not serious scholars of the paranormal.  A typical late October article about the paranormal will be written by some dilletante who has merely waded his feet in the topic of reports of the paranormal, a topic of oceanic depth. 

Some Professors Senselessly Say Minerals, Suns and People Are "Conceptually Equivalent"

 At the Reuters web site we have a headline of "Scientists propose sweeping new law of nature, expanding on evolution." In the article we read this:

"Nine scientists and philosophers on Monday proposed a new law of nature that includes the biological evolution described by Darwin as a vibrant example of a much broader phenomenon, one that appears at the level of atoms, minerals, planetary atmospheres, planets, stars and more. It holds that complex natural systems evolve to states of greater patterning, diversity and complexity. 'We see evolution as a universal process that applies to numerous systems, both living and nonliving, that increase in diversity and patterning through time,' said Carnegie Institution for Science mineralogist and astrobiologist Robert Hazen, a co-author of the scientific paper describing the law in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

We have a link to a paper entitled "On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems." It's a very pretentious affair that starts out like this:

"The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws do not seem to adequately describe these systems. Recognizing that the identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature, we approach a potential 'missing law' by looking for equivalencies among evolving systems. We suggest that all evolving systems—including but not limited to life—are composed of diverse components that can combine into configurational states that are then selected for or against based on function. We then identify the fundamental sources of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—and propose a time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s)." 

We see no promising signs in this opening. For one thing, the very first phrase is the claim that "the universe is replete with complex evolving systems," and we don't know that at all. Life has only been discovered on our planet, and compared to the vast complexity and vast organization of earthly life, nothing we know of outside of Earth is complex or organized in comparison. Stars like our sun are as simple as can be compared to the physical complexity of organisms such as humans. What goes on in the article is that the authors try to place stars like our sun under the category of "complex evolving systems," which makes no sense at all.  Physically the sun has no complexity to speak of compared to the vast complexity and organization of mammals.  Our sun is not organized at all. It is a ball of hydrogen and helium particles that bounce around in an incredibly disorganized manner. 

The authors try some misguided strategy that involves trying to stretch the word "evolution" to the limits, so that it applies to pretty much anything that changes over time. It's kind of a "stars evolve, galaxies evolve, so of course life can evolve" kind of affair.  It makes no sense to try to lump living things and nonliving things into the same conceptual bucket, and suggesting they all evolve for a similar reason. Lifeless things are lifeless things, and living things are living things. Let us consider some of the differences between stars (suns) and humans. 

	Humans	Stars (suns)
Mass	Not very massive	A trillion times more massive than humans
Level of physical complexity and organization	Vast levels of hierarchical organization. Physically humans contain subatomic particles, which are organized into atomic nuclei, which (along with electrons) are organized into atoms, which are organized into small molecules such as amino acids, which are organized into very large molecules called proteins, which are organized into protein complexes (sometimes called molecular machines), which are organized into organelles, which are organized into cells, which are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems, which (along with a skeletal system) make up the main part of a human body.	Stars have almost no organization or physical complexity. Stars like the sun consist of disorganized hydrogen nuclei and helium nuclei along with disorganized electrons. Stars like the sun are too hot for any  molecules to exist in them. Stars may “evolve” to other states such as white dwarves or neutron stars, but such states have very little physical organization compared to the bodies of mammals.
Mental complexity	Inadequately studied by biologists, the human mind is something of    oceanic depth and complexity.	Stars do not have any minds.
Composition	By mass, mostly oxygen and carbon	By mass, mostly hydrogen and helium
Number of types	There are many thousands or millions of types of humans.	There are not very many types of stars. Astronomy courses typically list only about 10 types.
Amount of change	Humans rapidly change  physically and mental, and the most profound constructive changes often  occur in a single year or month.	Stars like the sun undergo little change over billions of years, other than a very slow and gradual increase in the amount of helium. A star can suddenly change when a supernova occurs, but that's only a destructive change, not a constructive change.
What forms them?	An unfathomably complex still-not-understood morphogenesis process not involving gravitation or nuclear fusion.	Stars form from gas and dust clouds by simple gravitation, and then later start lighting up because of simple nuclear fusion.
Capable of reproduction?	Yes, humans can reproduce.	Stars don't reproduce. A star never splits into two stars. A star can explode in a supernova, sending gases into space; and eons later such gases may collapse to become one or more stars. But that isn't really "star reproduction."
Physical lifespan	About 75 years	Billions of years

There's just no comparing humans and stars.  So trying to speak like lifeless things like stars are kind of like living things because "they both evolve" makes no sense. And it is not true that everything evolves. A star like the sun undergoes an incredible gradual change that could fancifully be called "evolution" as its percentage of helium slowly increases over billions of years. But things like moon rocks and lifeless asteroids undergo no change at all over billions of years.  

The science paper goes "off the rails" with the very silly statement below:

"A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function."

So lifeless things are "conceptually equivalent" to living things such as humans? Hogwash. Baloney. Bunk. Humbug. BS. Large living things such as human beings have dramatic characteristics unlike anything in natural lifeless things, including vast levels of hierarchical organization, very high levels of internal information involving symbolic representations, and also minds and memories.  

It's so goofy to call these "conceptually equivalent"

What's going on here sounds like nonsense similar to the nonsense of arguing for panpsychism. What goes on there is this:

Step 1: use shrink-speaking language that tries to describe the incredibly rich, deep and varied diversity of the human mind in the most shrunken and minimal way you can, by calling human minds mere "consciousness." 

Step 2: then say "why of course humans are conscious -- everything is conscious." 

Something similar is going on in this new paper:

Step 1: use shrink-speaking language that tries to describe the vast levels of hierarchical organization and information richness and reproduction ability of living things as being mere "combinations of different configurations" involving "evolution" (very broadly defined as just change over time). 

Step 2: then say something "why of course life evolves -- everything evolves." 

One of the reasons the first case fails is that it is nonsense to think that rocks and stones are conscious. One of the reasons the second case fails is that it just isn't true that everything evolves. Billion-year-old moon rocks haven't changed a bit in a billion years, nor have most asteroids. And in both cases we have the absurdity of describing things as if they were vastly  simpler than they are. 

Anyone who thinks that by studying the minimal unimpressive "chump change" level of organization in stars and minerals will help explain how we got the almost infinitely greater level of organization in human bodies is probably someone who did not sufficiently study the level of organization and fine-tuned complexity in human bodies.  I could write on a single page an algorithm for duplicating the level of organization in a mineral crystal, such as the organization we see below. An instruction manual of 10,000 pages would never be sufficient to specify how to artificially manufacture the level of organization and fine-tuned dynamic functionality in a human body. Below is the very simple structure of a mineral crystal. Crystals with such a structure are as old as planet Earth, and are not the result of any thing that is reasonably called evolution (unless you want to stretch the term "evolution" so that it means basically any change, so that you can talk about things like the evolution of the meal you cooked last night).

The statement quoted above has argued that stars are "conceptually equivalent" to living things because both "form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations."  This is not true. Stars like the sun are spheres filled with simple hydrogen and helium, with only three zones, as shown in the diagram below.  Stars  do not "adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations."  Every star of the same class has basically the same configuration, and there are only a few classes of stars: O, B, F, G, K, M, L and T. 

It is easy to understand why Darwinism fans would be looking for some "law of evolution" they could state. It is an embarrassing fact that Darwinian theory involves no credible claims of any law, unlike physics which does involve a description of real laws such as the law of gravitation and Coulomb's law describing the force between electrical charges. 

 In science a law is something that invariably happens, with the effect occurring in a precise way that is mathematically predictable.  For example, the main law of electromagnetism (Coulomb's law) is a very precise description telling us exactly how much force of attraction or repulsion will occur between any two charges separated by a particular distance. There is a precise equation telling us the exact force that arises from this law. 

But there is no "law of evolution."  It is not a law that over large periods of time species evolve into other species. We know of quite a few species that have existed without significant change for eons. We can understand how Darwinists with a kind of "physics envy" might want to suggest that Darwinian evolution is an example of some law of nature. But the moment these nine people started claiming that lifeless things and living things are "conceptually equivalent," they went way, way off the rails, and went way into the realm of silly speaking.  

The paper has some attempt to proliferate the faulty misleading speech at the core of Darwinism into some faulty misleading speech involving the whole natural world.  Darwin used the misleading trick of creating the phrase "natural selection" for something that was not actually selection (a word meaning a choice by a conscious agent).  Our nine paper authors try to extend this language abuse to cover a host of things in the lifeless world.  So we read in the paper not-really-true "language abuse" statements like this:

"Stellar nucleosynthesis depends on the selection of stable configurations of protons and neutrons. Mineral evolution relies on selection of new, locally stable arrangements of chemical elements."

So the authors have taken us from the "natural selection that isn't actually selection" of evolutionary biologists to some "stellar selection" that isn't actually selection and some "mineral selection" that isn't actually selection.  The paper also makes many uses of the doubly-misleading phrase "selection pressure" so loved by evolutionary biologists, a term describing some alleged thing that involves no actual selection and no actual pressure. 

What is pressure in the world of physics? In physics pressure is usually a force caused by the motion of particles. Consider a balloon.  Why doesn't an inflated balloon collapse, given that there is the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere acting on it cause such a collapse? The reason is that inside the balloon are oxygen molecules speeding around rapidly, many of which are making contact with the inner surface of the balloon, providing an outward force. That outward force keeps the inflated balloon from collapsing.  A very similar story explains why stars like the sun do not collapse. Every star like the sun is subjected to an enormous inward gravitational force, which if not balanced by an opposite force would cause the star to collapse inwardly. But the star does not collapse because of the pressure caused by all the very hot particles within it. Moving around very rapidly because of the high temperature, such particles cause an outward force that balances the inward force caused by the star's high gravity. 

So those are some examples of pressure. Is there any kind of pressure involved when biologists speak of "selection pressure" in relation to evolution? None whatsoever. When such a term is used, we have a "double the duplicity" affair.  When biologists claim that miracles of biological innovation occurred because of "selection pressure," it's a case of so-called selection that isn't actually selection (since no conscious agent is choosing) and so-called pressure that isn't actually pressure (since nothing is being pushed, and no actual force is going on).  It's a very bad case of misleading language, which occurs partially because biologists are trying to make their lame explanation attempts sound a little like physics. 

The statement I quoted above making the ludicrous claim that stars, minerals and life are "conceptually equivalent" also makes the untrue claim that in all three of these things "configurations are preferentially selected based on function." No, the configurations of stars and minerals are not not "preferentially selected based on function" except when humans choose to use particular minerals because they are more useful. 

In their paper the authors start using the term "functional information" in an erroneous way, as if the term meant "function."  Information can be defined as facts or knowledge or instructions or similar content declared using some particular system of representation involving symbols or tokens. The tokens may be any of a large number of things: letters, numbers, sounds, symbols, words, or particular combinations of low-level tokens such as binary tokens (0 or 1) or nucleotide tokens (those used in the genetic code).  "Functional information" can be defined as some data or information telling how to do something. DNA really does contains functional information, because the individual genes in DNA tell how to combine amino acids to get started making particular protein molecules.  

The authors of the "On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems" paper start using "functional information" as if there was lots of functional information in stars and minerals. This makes no sense. Stars do not have functional information. All real functional information uses some scheme of representation or symbolism in which particular combinations of symbols or tokens represent something. Stars and minerals do not use any system of representation, and do not contain any information.  You can write information about the sun, but the sun contains no information. Nowhere in a sun is there anything telling you how to do something. It isn't even possible to write information on an object like the sun. 

The lack of any functional information in stars like the sun is one of the reasons why it is nonsensical to try to talk about some "evolution of stars" and compare that with an evolution of organisms.  As imagined by Neo-Darwinists, the evolution of a species hinges mainly on a change in its functional information, its DNA.  Nothing like that can ever occur in stars, because stars don't have functional information. The fact that each cell in our bodies contains very much functional information in its DNA is a very important clue worth knowing. That fact points us in the right direction, because the only improvement humans ever observe in functional information occurs through purposeful activity.  We should beware of anyone trying to distort the important concept of functional information by defining it in some weird way that makes it apply to practically anything.  

Misusing the term "functional information" as if meant "function," the authors incorrectly claim "the functional information of every enzyme is greater than zero." No, enzymes and other proteins have no functional information (although they do have functions).  Functional information always involves symbols or tokens or representations, and enzymes have no such things. There is a gene corresponding to each protein, and each such gene does have functional information, in which there are symbolic tokens (nucleotides that represent or stand for particular amino acids).  Just as incorrectly, the authors state, "so stars’ functional information could be said to increase with time." You can write information about stars, but stars do not contain any type of information. Stars have a function, but they do not have functional information. Seemingly trying to maximize their use of the word "information" (perhaps to give their musings a little information science glamour), the authors have misused the phrase "functional information" many different times. There are functions, and there is functional information, instructions that help you perform functions.  You should not be using the term "functional information" when you merely mean a function. 

When the authors claim to have discovered a "law of increasing functional information," they merely mean a law of increasing function. You do not explain the appearance of highly functional and fantastically organized things on our planet by evoking some cosmic law of increasing function. That would be as vacuous as claiming to explain the appearance of strange spaceships in the sky by evoking a "law of atmospheric complexity increase." In the universe there is no general law of increasing function operating throughout time and space. As "function" is a word referring to the purposes of living things, any claim that function grew in the first eight billion years of a lifeless universe would be very weak. Looking around the galaxy and other galaxies, we have found only one planet where there are high levels of biological function (our own) despite 60 years of searching for radio signals from other solar systems. When something seems to occur only nearby and relatively recently, you are not on firm ground claiming there is a cosmic law to produce such a thing. Conversely, studies of objects on opposite sides of the universe show that the law of gravitation and Coulomb's law have been operating constantly through every part of the universe since its early days. 

In the same week that we had this "off the rails" professor talk, we had another piece of "off the rails" professor talk. A press release quotes some professor giving us this little explanation for the origin of humans:

"" 'When the universe began 13.8 billion years ago in a hot big bang, there were no objects like protons, atoms, people, planets, stars or galaxies. Now the universe is full of such objects,' he said. 'The relatively simple answer to where they came from is that, as the universe cooled, all of these objects condensed out of a hot background.' "

This little "humans are just some condensation" claim is as false as false can be. According to scientists, the universe had already cooled to its cold current background temperature billions of years before the Earth and the sun originated.  Scientists don't believe any type of life formed by condensation. 

Sinking their fangs of rhetoric into you, some professors try to use words to suck out your humanity, by trying to make you think you're like a monkey, a rock, a robot, or just some condensation or bag of chemicals.  This occurs largely because such professors lack credible explanations of humans, so they try to use shrink-speaking diminutive language to paint humans as mere shadows of humans, thinking they can offer something to explain such measly shadows. It's dumb to dehumanize. 

What the authors of this paper have done is use very carefully chosen words to suggest that things utterly dissimilar are conceptually equivalent. By choosing your words very carefully, it is easy to paint some similarity between things almost totally dissimilar. So, for example, if I wanted to suggest that a human is like a trash can, I might say something like this:

"Why humans and trash cans are very similar -- they both have a shape, and both are made of atoms. And just as a trash can may be filled, a human woman can be filled during sex or filled with a growing child during pregnancy. And just as a trash can may be filled with trash, the mind of a human may be filled with bad ideas. And just as a trash can may rest on a street corner, a human may rest on a street corner."

Such nonsense is like what the writers of this science paper have done -- using very carefully chosen words to make us think things having almost nothing in common are similar or equivalent. 

This Brain-Zapping Bungled Mess Sheds No Light on Out-of-Body Experiences

One of the oldest tricks used by people who don't understand something is to claim that they are "starting to understand" the thing. Very often someone making such a claim has no understanding at all of the topic. For example, there might occur a conversation like this on a blind date:

Sally: I'm looking for a very smart person, like someone smart enough to understand quantum mechanics.

Willy: Yes, I've done some reading on that. I'm starting to understand it. 

The odds here are ten to one that Willy has no understanding of quantum mechanics. 

We see such language sometimes used by scientists and science journalists. There will be a mention of some phenomenon that is not at all explicable under the assumptions of today's scientists.  But we will be reassured with a claim that "scientists are starting to understand" the phenomenon. Typically the justification for the claim is entirely groundless.  

An example is a recent Discover magazine article with a subtitle groundlessly claiming that "Now, scientists are starting to understand what causes out-of-body experiences." Out-of-body experiences are experiences in which report floating out of their bodies, often seeing their bodies from a position high above their bodies.  Out-of-body experiences can occur during near-death experiences, or when there is no danger of death. Some people report them occurring spontaneously, and a small number of people claim to be able to produce them at will through methods such as relaxation techniques. 

In the Discover article we read about this doubly-ridiculous methodology:

"Parvizi and his team worked with nine epilepsy patients who had electrodes inserted into their brains as part of their treatment for severe seizures. With their consent, the researchers stimulated regions of the patients' brains with electrical pulses and asked whether the patients experienced self-dissociation, or out-of-body experiences, as a result."

In the scientific paper described above, a paper entitled "Causal evidence for the processing of bodily self in the anterior precuneus." we hear quotes from the brain-zapped people, and we get some carefully selected fragments trying to make it sound like one or two of them had something a bit like an out-of-body experience. But  a review of the full spreadsheet showing the questions scientists asked and the answers patients gave provides no support for the claim that anything like an out-of-body experience occurred. The doctors interviewing the patients again and again asked "leading questions" as if they were trying to encourage reports that would sound something like out-of-body experiences or near-death experiences. There are several things objectionable about this methodology:

(1) The overwhelming majority of out-of-body experiences (more than 95%) occur to people who do not have the fairly rare disease of epilepsy and are not suffering seizures. Also, all of the more severe seizures result in unconsciousness rather than experiences that people remember.  A person having a "grand mal" tonic-clonic seizure will not remember the experience at all. So the idea of trying to explain out-of-body experiences by artificial brain zapping is fundamentally misguided. 

(2) The people who report having out-of-body experiences were not people having their brains stimulated by electrodes. It makes no sense to zap some part of a brain with electricity and offer that as an explanation for out-of-body experiences that do not occur under such stimulation. Doing that is as silly as twisting someone's arm, asking them whether this makes them feel sad, and then offering arm twisting as an explanation for depression. 

(3) The doctors asking questions of the patients repeatedly used "leading questions" as if they were trying to elicit responses from patients that sounded like something you would hear in an account of a near-death experience or out-of-body experience. 

Hiding their "dirty linen" in a place where almost no one would tend to find it, the authors of the paper have placed their list of questions and answers outside of the main paper, in a spreadsheet attachment within their supplemental information document. You can only get this list of questions and answers if you are diligent enough to (1) click on the Supplemental Information link in the pdf file of their main paper, and (2) then also click on the Supplemental Information link on the left of the URL that arises, and (3) then click on the "Download .xlsx" link allowing you to download a spreadsheet. You will then get a spreadsheet in which you can see how "leading questions" were used to try to get spooky-sounding answers from the poor brain-zapped subjects (but only if you have software allowing you to read spreadsheets). 

Below are some examples of how "leading questions" were used, after some part of the brains of these very sick people was needlessly electrically zapped. I will put into boldface examples of "leading question" improperly pulling the respondents in some particular direction. The duration of these zaps varied between 1 second and 10 seconds. 

Rows 194-202:

Patient: Yeah I feel it

Doctor: What happened?

Patient: I feel I don't know how to say it but my body lift up for a minute, just for a second

Doctor: Ah, is that right, I see. You were inside your body or did your body leave you?

Patient: My body leave me

Doctor: Your body left you. Where did you end up being if your body left you?

Patient: In the bed

Doctor: Ok, but where did your body leave

Patient: Up  

We have here some glaring examples of "leading questions." After being brain zapped, a patient reports his body lifting up for just a second, which sounds like a reflexive jolt response you might get from being zapped. The doctor then asks the extremely suggestive question "did your body leave you," thereby planting in the patient's mind the suggestion of an out-of-body experience. The patient is then asked where his body ended up, and is given an answer of "in the bed." Not accepting this answer, an answer suggesting no actual out-of-body experience, the doctor then speaks like he is refusing to accept the answer, and asks the additional "leading question" of  "where did you body leave?" Any answers received from such leading questions are worthless, and merely show the power of suggestion. 

Rows 230-247

Doctor: What happened?

Patient: Swing

Doctor: Do you feel like you're floating like on a boat up and down or side to side?

Patient: Side to side. I just feel like I'm swinging

Doctor: Is the entire world swinging or only you?

Patient: Only me because I feel like I'm outside and I would sit down

Doctor: If you were outside and this happened you would sit down?

Patient: Yeah

After a 5-second brain zap resulting in a "No change" report, the next statements (after additional brain zaps) are these:

Patient: Right now, yeah

Doctor: What is happening? Is it you or is it the world?

Patient: It's me. I feel inside like something

Doctor: Keep yes closed please. Was the feeling of floating the same or different?

Patient: The same.

Doctor: Is this feeling something you would want more or less of?

Patient: Less of, I feel like it's unsafe

Doctor: Unsafe, but do you feel like you're free like you're relieved like a bird?

Patient: No, I feel more confused

We have here some more glaring examples of "leading questions." After being brain zapped, a patient merely uses the word "swing" to describe how it felt. Without any provocation, the doctor then asks "do you feel like you're floating," just as if he was trying to plant in the subject's mind some idea of something like an out-of-body experience.  Later "out of nowhere" without anything to justify such  a question, the doctor asks "was the feeling of floating the same or different," even though the patient's previous response was not anything having to do with floating, but a vague report of "feel inside like something." Then the doctor speaks like he is trying to plant some idea of flying into the patient's mind, by asking if he felt like a bird. Any responses given to such "leading questions" are worthless, merely showing the power of suggestion. 

Rows 253-255:

Patient: Yes, yes, I'm feeling it - the swing. Like a cold feeling. I can feel something come up - it's cold in my mind.

Doctor: Are you feeling the floating?

Patient: Yeah.

Again, we have a glaring examples of a "leading question." Utilizing the power of suggestion, the doctor asks, "are you feeling the floating?" to a patient just after he reported no such thing, but a mere cold or swinging feeling.  The "yeah" answer is worthless as evidence, and merely shows the power of suggestion.  

Row 309: 

Again "out of nowhere" the doctor tells the patient "last time you mentioned were floating," even though the patient never independently or spontaneously said anything about floating, but merely responded (like someone under the influence of suggestion) to "leading questions" asked by the doctor, questions that introduced the word "floating."

Row 408-415

Doctor: What happened?

Patient: The same thing as before like I couldn't really focus.

Doctor: Same thing as before you can't focus on anything. Okay. Did you mind become absent?

Patient: Kind of

Doctor: Kind of? Did the position where you were lying, did it change?

Patient: *shakes head*

Doctor: Not at all?

Patient: *shakes head*

The doctor here is clearly asking more "leading questions." He sounds like he is trying to get out of the patient some report that the patient has floated out of his body, but the patient does not agree with the suggested idea. 

Row 416 - 433

We have more attempts by a doctor to get answers that might suggest floating out of the body or a change in body vertical position, but the patient says nothing in agreement with such suggestions. 

Rows 483-488

Doctor: What happened?

Patient: I don't really feel my body

Doctor: You don't feel your body? Okay. Did you lift up at all this time?

Patient: Kind of.

Doctor: Kind of? Right now or before?

Patient: Right now.

The doctor here is clearly asking another "leading question." Without any provocation, he asks about whether a "lifting up" occurred, as if he was hoping to get some report of a mind floating out a body. The "kind of" response is worthless as evidence, being probably the mere result of suggestion. 

Rows 591-595

Patient: That was much stronger.

Doctor: Got it. Do you think you can explain more? What would cause this feeling if you're up and going, and running, and walking?

Patient: I don't know.

Doctor: Have you seen the movies of astronauts of space? Have you seen them floating?

Patient: Not that last one, no. That was not painful, but my heart was beating really fast, and my hands were sweating. 

The doctor here is clearly asking another "leading question." Without any provocation, he reminds the patient of movies of astronauts floating in zero gravity, as if he was trying to get the patient to say he experienced something like that.  This time the patient does not fall for such a suggestion. 

Lines 621- 636

Doctor: What happened?

Patient: [inaudible] lightheaded.

Doctor: lightheaded?  

Patient: Yeah. That's the only way I can describe it.

Doctor: Tell me a little bit more about this lightheadedness.

Patient: Not like you're gonna pass out of anything, it just makes my head feel like compressed.

Doctor: What's happening?

Patient: Yeah, it's just kinda like got like thrown up on the clouds.

Doctor:  Thrown up on the clouds.

Patient: Yeah, like higher up floating.

Doctor: Floating in the clouds?

Patient: Yeah.

Doctor: Was that you, the whole you or part of you?

Patient: No, just my head. Just this portion [gestures to face head area]

We have here no actual report of an out-of-body experience. The brain zapping has merely produced some dizziness or a "lightheaded" feeling. Continuing to press for descriptions rather than just sticking with the original description, the doctor has got from the patient a statement that "it's just kinda like got like thrown up on the clouds." There is no reason to think that this weak "just kinda like" claim is anything more than a lyrical or poetic simile. When asked whether this involved the whole body or just part of him, the patient says "just my head." This does not match what is reported in out-of-body experiences, which are very vivid experiences no one describes using "just kinda like" language. 

Lines 659 -- 660

Doctor: You were out there floating?

Patient: Yeah, kind of.  

Here the doctor "out of the blue" without any provocation asks the patient whether he was floating. The patient had previously reported no such thing in response to the latest brain zap, merely previously reporting (in response to "leading questions") some euphoria and dizziness. The "kind of" response to a leading question has no evidence value. 

Lines 728- 731

Doctor: Did you feel any floating?

Patient: No.

Doctor: Any change in your perception of time?

Patient: No.

Another "leading question" asked without any provocation. 

Lines 752 - 765

Doctor: What happened?

Patient: Uh just a pronounced increase in that lightheaded feeling.

Doctor: Tell me more about that lightheaded feeling.

Patient: It almost feels like low blood sugar but not bad right. It's sort of like floating.

Doctor: Tell me more.

Patient: It's kind of like floating but with a heightened sense of clarity, I guess.

Doctor: Can you elaborate on that? I'm purposely not looking at your face when you're reporting. Cause we don't want to nod or to say anything to lead you. We don't want to bias you.

Patient: Just like a heightened sense of clarity in terms of like when I was like looking at the clock it just made the clock and the pictures around it seem more robust, I guess. Like an awareness of a kind. Seemed more coherent or clear.

Doctor: Was it a positive feeling or negative feeling?

Patient: Oh positive.

Doctor: Did your vision change now?

Patient: No.

Doctor: Did we cause blurriness this time?

Patient: No.

The doctor's statement "we don't want to nod or to say anything to lead you" and that "we don't want to bias you" is at this point extremely laughable, because we have seen in the quotes (from line 650 to line 731) that this patient had been repeatedly asked "leading questions" trying to get him or her to report feelings of floating.  By now we can assume that the patient had been trained to learn that the questioning doctor or doctors are very interested in hearing about anything that might be a little like floating. So his or her claim at this point to have experienced (after brain zapping) something "sort of like floating" and "kind of like floating" is no evidence of an out-of-body experiences, in which people do not use such "kind of like" qualifiers.  

Lines 766-786

Patient: Oh that was like in my body.

Doctor: Tell me more.

Patient: Like that floating feeling in your body.

Doctor: Tell me more.

Patient: Like a positive feeling in terms of ... I wouldn't necessarily call it floating but like I feel lighter than I did before.  

Doctor: Tell me more.

Patient: Kind of made my chest feel lighter.

Doctor: Chest feel lighter

Patient: Yeah

Doctor: Did your position in space change? Did you kind of move in space?

Patient: Yeah.

Doctor: Which way did you go?

Patient: Forward.

Doctor: Did you go up?

Patient: Yeah

Doctor: Were you up like almost out of bed or no?

Patient: No.  

Doctor: But did you feel floatiness?

Patient: Yes.

Doctor: Did you feel kind of lightweight?

Patient: Yes.

Here we have a classic example of a doctor asking a "leading question" as if he were trying to move the patient's testimony away from what was originally reported. The patient does not report floating out of his body, but merely "that floating feeling in your body," which he then walks back by saying " I wouldn't necessarily call it floating." The doctor tries hard to push the patient towards saying that he floated out of his body, but it's a failure. After getting a few "yes" answers (probably involving the mere power of suggestion) the doctor asks whether the patient was out of his bed, and the answer is "no." So there's no out-of-body experience here. 

Lines 810 to 823:

Doctor: Okay. What exactly happened?

Patient: Like my head.. uhh.. just kinda like you're floating on clouds almost just like.. I mean I'm still here obviously but kind of like you're floating a little bit more than normal.

Doctor: Was this a positive feeling or a negative feeling?

Patient: Positive.

Doctor: You were saying a little bit on the ketamine study. How does this relate?

Patient: Just like that uhh floating. Ketamine gave me that out-of-body experience. Like it started that feeling of getting out of body but not that full-on out-of-body experience.

Doctor: Got it. Would you say that it was similar?

Patient: Yeah.

Doctor: Less intense?

Patient: For sure less intense. 

The patient makes a weak claim to have felt something "just kinda like you're floating on clouds... kind of like you're floating a little bit more than normal." Seeming to engage in more attempts to stretch the patient's account into something like an out-of-body experience, the doctor asks the patient to compare this brain zapping to his experience with a hallucinogenic drug. The patient first says that ketamine "gave me that out-of-body experience" but then seems to walk back that statement, apparently saying that ketamine merely "started that feeling of getting out of body but not that full-on out-of-body experience." No matter how you interpret the language, there is no report here of an out-of-body experience during brain zapping. 

I carefully read the entire spreadsheet listing all of the patient responses. None of the patients reported anything that can be accurately described as an out-of-body experience. Like very many neuroscience papers these days, the scientific paper described above ( entitled "Causal evidence for the processing of bodily self in the anterior precuneus") contains some inaccurate statements about its results. Specifically:

• The paper incorrectly states, "Three of the nine participants reported a sense of self-dissociation after the stimulation of the right aPCu." Excluding one statement with a question mark and the word "maybe," none of the patients reported such a thing, judging from the statements contained in the spreadsheet listing their statements. One of the patients reported that it "kind of feels like slipping, but it's not my whole body," which is not a report of self-dissociation.  (In Table 2 the paper includes quotes from a patient S09 that do not match anything in the question-and-answer spreadsheet, so we don't know whether those statements occurred from brain zapping, and don't know whether they are responses to "leading questions." We read, "When the subject was asked if he was floating in space, the patient replied: 'No. I was floating more in myself.' ")  
• The paper incorrectly states, "Participant S01 reported feelings of floating up in the clouds and losing focus associated with an analogy of ‘frontal lobe getting dumber.’" The responses of Participant S01 are recorded in rows 3 to 36 of the spreadsheet. Participant S01 did not report anything like "feelings of floating up in the clouds" nor any feeling at all of floating. His statement about the frontal part of the brain was "My frontal cortex got almost dumber?" which is a question, not an assertion.
• The science paper incorrectly states, " Participant S08 also reported a state of being thrown up on the clouds and out-of-body." Judging from the spreadsheet statements attributed to this patient, that claim is untrue.  The patient never claimed to be out of his body, and merely made (among many of his statements reporting dizziness or lightheadedness in a variety of ways) the very weak poetical-sounding statement that "it's just kinda like got like thrown up on the clouds."  No statement having the qualifier of "just kinda" (i.e. "just kind of") should be regarded seriously as evidence.  
• The paper misleadingly states, "Both S08 and S01 reported that their experience reminded them of their previous dissociative feelings on psychedelics." The statement by S01 was weak and only occurred in response to a "leading question" by a doctor, asking "how does this compare to what you felt yesterday on ketamine," to which the patient answered "probably pretty similar" because it made him feel "just like a sedated monkey," which is not a report of a brain zap producing a feeling of dissociation.  Patient S08 also mentioned psychedelics only after being pushed towards such a comparison by a doctor. We read this on rows to 801 to 804, in which patient S08 is questioned about a brain zap just given:

Doctor: So you feel like this feeling can be related to ketamine?

Patient: No, that was just a feeling reference point I had so [inaudible] words

Doctor: I understand. Just to be clear, how does feeling resemble or not what you felt during ketamine?

Patient: Just the way the body feels in terms of like that lightweight feeling and perception of space and time. 

Good heavens, it's rather hard to imagine a more flagrant use of  "leading questions" to try to push someone to answer in a particular way.  First the doctor tries to get from the patient a ketamine comparison that the patient did not naturally make. Then, after being told "no," the doctor persists, as if he was trying to signal to the patient that he wasn't satisfied with the patient's "no" answer, and was hoping for a "yes" answer. This is "leading questions" at its worst. 

The statement in the paper's "highlights" section that "stimulation of aPCu caused distortions in core body schema and self-dissociation" is untrue. No reliable reports of self-dissociation by such stimulation have occurred, except for weak, hesitant statements occurring after "plant an idea in their minds" interrogative prodding trying to elicit reports sounding like reports of self-dissociation.  The study has provided no insight at all about out-of-body experiences, and none of the statements by the patients is an account of an out-of-body experience. The claim by Discover magazine that the study shows that scientists are "starting to understand what causes out-of-body experiences" is entirely untrue. 

The paper has also provided no basis for any claim that some part of the brain helps to produce your sense of self. The title of the paper is "Causal evidence for the processing of bodily self in the anterior precuneus."  No such evidence was provided.  None of the spreadsheet statements by any of the patients after brain zapping describe any alteration in the state of the self. None of the brain zap patients said anything like "now I'm not my self" or "now I don't feel like a person" or "now I don't feel like a self" or "now I feel like only half my self" or "now my self is outside of my body." The transcript of the patient provides no justification for any claim that the brain zapping sheds any light on a brain cause of the self. Search for the word "self" in the spreadsheet of patient responses, and you will find no such justification. 

What kind of care would be taken if a study like this followed proper methods? For one thing, there would be no "leading questions" planting ideas in people's minds.  A person might be questioned only with entirely neutral questions like this after a brain zap was given:

Doctor: So how did that feel?

Patient:  Well, I felt a little strange on my left side. 

Doctor: Can you give me more details?

Patient: Well, there was a weird kind of tingling in my left hand. 

Doctor: Can you give me any more details?

Patient: I almost felt like my left hand was going to fall off. 

This would be the correct way to ask interview questions in a study like this. Every single one of the responses and ideas is coming entirely from the patient, without the patient being led in a particular direction, and without any "leading questions" that plant some particular idea in a patient's mind.  Instead of such an approach, the spreadsheet of the paper reveals an appalling methodology in which doctors keep trying to gin up particular answers from the patients. 

If you used a technique avoiding any "leading questions," could you then rely on the results if patients reported something sounding a little like an out-of-body experience? Probably not, unless the patients were "blind" about what the study was looking for. If you sign people up for a brain zapping study, telling them scientists are looking to see whether zapping a particular part of the brain produces something like an out-of-body experience, that itself through the power of suggestion will make it more likely for people to report something like what they think the scientists are hoping to find. The famous Milgram Experiment showed that people will do things they would never normally do to try to please authority figures in white coats. 

Since this post has got quite long, I will say little about my ethical concerns about this study, which are very grave concerns. The subjects here were all people with severe epilepsy, all very sick people. Zapping the brains of very sick people in a trial and error fashion and asking what the results were raises many grave ethical concerns that I won't fully discuss here. A paper tracking complications in people given deep-brain stimulation (DBS) ("Surgical complications in 502 DBS patients operated over 20 years") reports  "stimulation induced hypophonia (0.7%), blepharospasm (9%), psychic disorders (8.3%), and one suicide (0.3%)." Such a paper makes me worry about people needlessly suffering risks during experiments like the one I have described. A paper says, "The complications that require revision surgery after DBS exhaust patients physically, mentally, and economically." Another paper says that "comparatively little information is available on the complications of neurostimulation in patients with epilepsy," making it sound like the procedure may be hazardous. It is particularly objectionable when very sick people are subjected to unnecessary risks for the sake of shoddy science studies that don't follow proper methods and produce results that are not accurately described in their papers. 

Overall, the results of this study are quite consistent with the claim that the brain is not the source of the human mind, and not the storage place of human memories. A group of subjects have been brain-zapped in different areas of the brain. None of the subjects reported any recall of memory produced by such zapping, nor have they reported any serious change in their mental state. All of the reported effects sound trivial, and almost all of the descriptions of the effects are loaded with weak qualifiers such as "kind of," "sort of," "a little" or "a wee bit." No clear mental effect has been produced by any of this brain zapping.  Take away the answers that are responses to "leading questions" and may be mere results of suggestion, and you have nothing in the study that supports claims that brains make minds. 

Contrary to the claim of Discover magazine, scientists are not at all "starting to understand what causes out-of-body experiences." To the contrary, out-of-body experiences are a phenomenon that completely contradicts the dogma of neuroscientists that your brain makes your mind. What typically happens in an out-of-body experience is that a person reports viewing his body from above the body, separated by a distance of two meters or more. Such reports are utterly inexplicable under the assumption that the brain produces the mind, and are one of the strongest types of evidence against such a claim.  If your brain makes your mind, no one should ever report observing his body from two meters away or more.  But if your mind is your soul or part of your soul, then we might expect such reports to occur.   

The high prevalence of out-of-body experiences is one of the reasons they are such powerful evidence against claims that the mind is produced by the brain. Below is a graph from page 185 of a paper on this topic, the paper "Out-of-Body Experiences" by Carlos S. Alvarado. 

Most people don't have out-of-body experiences. But all of us throughout our lives have a very strong sense of a unified self. The simple fact of ordinary self-hood is one of the strongest pieces of evidence against claims that the brain makes the mind.  The brain consists of billions of neurons, located in two different hemispheres.  It is illogical to think that the action of so many tiny little things would ever add up to a lifelong sense of a unified self.  And when the connection between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain is severed, a single unified self persists, rather than two separate selves you would expect if the brain makes the mind.  The lies told about this topic are some of the worst of the many misstatements materialists have made about the brain.  Two selves have never resulted from an operation splitting the fibers connecting the hemispheres of the brain. The famous savant Kim Peek was born without any of the corpus callosum that connects the hemisphere of the brain. He had a single unified self, and also extraordinary powers of memory recall. 

Critics of panpsychism (usually materialists) often refer to what they call the "combination problem." This is the problem that if individual atoms were conscious, there is no reason why a vast number of tiny "experiences of being an atom" would ever add up to be the experience of being a human.  What such materialists fail to recognize is that exactly the same "combination problem" exists for anyone claiming that the brain produces the mind. There is no reason why a huge number of tiny little neuron effects could ever add up to be the effect of being a single unified human person. You have always been a single unified human person because you have always been a soul or spirit. 

Attempts to naturally explain out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences have very often been guilty of inaccurate statements, as I discuss in the post here.  The study I have discussed gives more examples of such a thing.