To what extent are claims of the unexplained possible from a scientific or philosophical standpoint? Does science always require empirical evidence in order to be valid? To what extent should we accept evidence that is non-material? These are some of the questions to be explored here using whatever examples you like.
I'll start off by posing the question: What material evidence do we have for consciousness, and by that I mean our subjective perceptual experience? For example most of us can visualize an object or imagine a sound, yet for such objects and sounds, there is no photon reflecting off the surface of a real object, and for the song we have stuck in our head there are no pressure waves. Somehow it's all done in the virtual space inside our heads that we call consciousness.
One theory proposes that something called virtual photons might be the carrier of consciousness. This is a theory similar to the explanation science has for what a magnetic field is ( not to be confused with the description of its effects ). Here's a PDF link to an introductory publication: http://www.astro.sk/~msaniga/pub/ftp/neuro.pdf
The example of consciousness is one where despite an absence of objective material evidence, we tend to assume that we and the other humans around us possess this property. But how can we really be sure? Ask your friend to visualize an aircraft. Can you bounce a radar off it to prove it's there? No. Can an air force jet be scrambled to have a look to confirm it's there? No. Yet we tend not to doubt our friend is visualizing an aircraft. Why believe that more than a claim where perhaps a radar does indicate some unexplained phenomenon is there and other witnesses also see it via an objective stimulus response?
I'll start off by posing the question: What material evidence do we have for consciousness, and by that I mean our subjective perceptual experience? For example most of us can visualize an object or imagine a sound, yet for such objects and sounds, there is no photon reflecting off the surface of a real object, and for the song we have stuck in our head there are no pressure waves. Somehow it's all done in the virtual space inside our heads that we call consciousness.
One theory proposes that something called virtual photons might be the carrier of consciousness. This is a theory similar to the explanation science has for what a magnetic field is ( not to be confused with the description of its effects ). Here's a PDF link to an introductory publication: http://www.astro.sk/~msaniga/pub/ftp/neuro.pdf
The example of consciousness is one where despite an absence of objective material evidence, we tend to assume that we and the other humans around us possess this property. But how can we really be sure? Ask your friend to visualize an aircraft. Can you bounce a radar off it to prove it's there? No. Can an air force jet be scrambled to have a look to confirm it's there? No. Yet we tend not to doubt our friend is visualizing an aircraft. Why believe that more than a claim where perhaps a radar does indicate some unexplained phenomenon is there and other witnesses also see it via an objective stimulus response?
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=268913&goto=newpost
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