http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/…..alf_a.html

There is a sample chapter on the site of “Half a Brain Is Enough” by Antonio Battro
. The story of the three year old boy is very facinating.

In short, this child, after having one hemisphere removed, develop normal cognitive skills. And similar cases are found with other young children. Apparently the brain can remap itself in amazing ways.

I was just wondering how the Materialist/Darwinist would explain how such an incredible ability evolved through undirected genetic variations and natural selection? One can potentially understand how a feature that adds to the fitness of all or a large number of organisms could evolve. However, how how many young humans or other creatures (presumably we do not know whether this ability is found in other species) would have just the right genetic variation, happen to lose large parts of their brain, and then recover, and survive, while others do not, such that this new genetic code would expand across the population? Talk about an unlikely convergence of events!!

Does this strike anyone else as pushing the limits of credulity way beyond reasonable limits?

And then, does anyone have any idea how gene coding would possibly direct the mental affairs of such a process? Where are our Artificial Intelligence friends on this one?

Oh, I’d agree that the possibilities for God interacting with us through QM are real. One of the reasons I tend to roll my eyes at the ‘miracle v nature’ debate is that, with the discovery of QM combined with foresight, the opportunities for an event to take place that is both ordained by a higher power, amazing, yet still ‘natural’ are tremendous. I think it’s a mistake to distinguish between the natural and miraculous.

I do believe in God, though, as well as miracles. And I’d further agree that God is ultimately in control of everything. That’s more in the philosophy area, where I’m not at all skeptical.

A very interesting story. I’m not sure how to classify it – for me, paranormal is rather specific. Psychic connections, out of body experiences, telekinesis, etc. Not necessarily in the same category as miracles as a whole, or God, etc. I don’t reject their possibility, and I don’t reject the evidence that may point to them – I just am very careful with accepting it, at least in terms of scientific falsification.

So for me, I wouldn’t classify it. Putting a label on that story would serve no purpose (especially since I’m not the one who had it happen). I’d say it was a very interesting event, and if it was a mere coincidence, it was one hell of one. Obviously, based on what you said, the context could be seen as being.. ‘something other than a coincidence’. OTOH, if you called it paranormal, I wouldn’t feel the need to argue. Maybe it was.

How then, can people use Ockham deciding that an “explanation” is a disposable part? How valuable is Ockham if he gave an observation in terms of “explanation” and all that is really necessary is numerical simplicity.

Knowing that Ockham used such extra-scientific concepts such as “explanation”, and knowing that he wasn’t up on 21st-century science, how valuable is his “razor”?

Dennet’s is a simple supposition, it wins if we compare by numbers– so it’s a win for the Hume team, but not by explanation, not really. That I have a mind is a more explicable of how words might actually mean things than that some button or level is pressed in me exciting a distribution of responses. (NOT RANDOM! I realize. May I never say random again.)

In order for their to be a Science of Mind it requires the supposition that we can understand the mind, not run off in a de facto loaded algorithm. Who would feel comfortable running a computer where not even the best experts could say what is on it? It just loads whatever algorithm it does.

I don’t know if you will qualify this next story as “paranormal, but I can assure you that it is indeed a true story.

Strange but true miracle story.

It was in the summer of 1993, I was down in Ft. Myers, Florida. This was about the second year that I was homeless. I was staying at the Salvation Army there in Ft. Myers working Temporary labor and paying 8 bucks a night to stay there. Once again I had come up with yet another grand plan to defeat the destructive desires to drink and use that had kept me bound to the street…I was going to read the Bible cover to cover ,SURELY this would cure me once and for all. Every night before I would go to sleep I made sure that I would read though at least 30 minutes worth of the Bible , while in my bunk, in the open dormitory of the salvation army. Well after a month or so of this I was getting pretty far into the Bible and had pretty much established myself, among the many guys staying there ,as some sort of Jesus freak. Well one evening a man, who like I was’nt fairing to well in this world, comes up to my bunk, as I was reading the Bible, and angrily says this to me,” Where Is God? Just where is God ? If i Knew where God was my life would be alright!!!” So I tell him the truth “Well I know that, sometimes when I really need it, God speaks directly to me from the Bible, and I believe that He may speak directly to you, since you seem to need him pretty badly” so I closed the Bible and handed it to him. So he opens the Bible up ,but instead of gently reading the first words his eyes came upon,as I thought he would do,he goes and stabs his finger down onto the page that the Bible had fell open too; looks over to me and ask “Like This” I shrugged and said “I guess that’ll work. Well his finger landed right on top of Job 23:3 which says

“If only I knew where to find God”

not below or above but right on top!!!

Well, needless to say both of us got real excited about God revealing Himself to him in the Word, and so we went to the chaplain of the Salvation Army and got him a Bible. Boy, I sure wish I knew what he is was up to today .

and that, nullasalus, is the end of my florida miracle story, Would you consider that paranormal?

Woah now. Paranormal is one thing. But I certainly believe the mind exists, and am not sold on materialism at all (In fact, I think materialism is a joke in the light of QM, and naturalism is almost a tautology).

I believe minds exist. I don’t think they’re completely described by the material facts/the brain. (That position seems to be weakening lately, as even the declared naturalists are migrating towards panpsychism or some manners of dualism.) My questions/skepticism about the paranormal relate more to ESP, etc.

gpuccio,

“Materialists” will always and forever have an out. They’ll either plead mysterianism (‘We’ll never know, but the answer is physicalism’) or promissory notes (‘We’ll know someday’). Such is the nature of philosophy. I think for the more politically motivated among them, that just ups the stakes. If they know their position can never be a clear winner on merits of reason and evidence, the next best option is smearing and institutional pressure.

The dictionary definitions — even 1a ones such as this at TheFreeDictionary.com — easily support your position with regard to what should be considered science.

OTOH, when I find myself in these debates the one arguing with me usually insists on limiting “science” to the physical world — the Wiki definition is a good example — and I just generally concede the point to avoid a semantic argument, and because I generally find it not that hard to win the substantive one namely how do we find the truth of the matter.

If you take the broad view of science it means you are not limiting the truth to what is material. If you take the narrow view you have to either recognize that science as per this definition cannot be the arbiter of what is real or claim only the material is real, which is ultimately untenable to any quasi-reasonable person.

i.e.

Only the material is real.
–That’s a statement of faith.
No it’s not!!
–What came before the Big Bang?
We don’t know but we know it’s material and science will find out because I have faith!!!!!
LOLOL.

Heck, if spirituality is you interest, Lily Dale is only a little over a 2 hour drive from Palmyra and Hill Cumorah.

“I’ve followed NDEs closely (back when the ‘main’ site for them online was regularly updated), and honestly find the typical explaining away to be lacking. Particularly “the human mind works strangely, and any and all experiences can have happened before or after they were truly unconscious and they just are confused about the time”. It’s possible, I suppose, but such a position means there’s no real evidence that can clear things up in any direction.”

It’s strange how practical methodological naturalists are ever ready to recur to mysticism when they have difficulties in explaining things. The concept that experience could happen out of the normal perception of time is typycally mystical, and is based on the concept that our common perception of time is part of the limited reconstruction of reality made by our human ego. But yes, if one cannot explain NDEs because one does not want to admit what they really are, then let’s pretend that they occur in some magical suspension of regular time, and that NDEs which last really much can happen in the few seconds when we still can witness brain activity: so, we will be spared the uncomfortable necessity of admitting a phenomenon which happens every day, which seems transcendental, which indeed is transendental.

NDEs are really astonishing evidence. If I were an atheists, I would lose my sleep because of them. There is the astonishing evidence in biological beings. There is the evidence of consciousness. There are NDEs. And, obviously, a lot of other things, if we are willing to look at them. The transcendental nature of reality has never been more evident than it is today. What else do people want to start admitting that reality is not that grey, limited and desolate scenario which modern scientism has drawn? Do we really need God appearing out of the sky, and writing in golden letters (possibly really big ones): “Is it clear”?