6. Richard McNally – Brain, Mind, and Consciousness – Skeptics Society 2005
This is from the 2005 Skeptics Conference where leading scientists discuss issues that strike at the very heart of the matter, our brains. Topics range from morality to evolution to consciousness to life after death. It’s an absolutely amazing collection of lectures.
As with all of my videos thus far, I do not actually hold the copyright for this material. I am only uploading it here to give it the audience it deserves. If I should be asked to remove it, I will.
However, you should do yourself a favor, and do the entire skeptics community a favor and purchase this from the source: http://shop.skeptic.com/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=SS&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=av560DVD
Or at the very least, donate: http://www.skeptic.com/donate/
I hope you enjoy.
4 Responses to “6. Richard McNally – Brain, Mind, and Consciousness – Skeptics Society 2005”
It appears this speaker is here to satiate Shermer. Note how little real data is provided and the casual nature of the ridicule that the audience readily embraces. This is how a skeptic feeds their brain. By finding ways to validate their belief system. No much of this presentation may in fact be accurate however I would reserve absolute judgement for another day.
The idea of fitting a skeptical belief system is nonsense. The skeptical belief system is to simply believe whatever evidence indicates is true and doubt things it does not, regardless of what those things are.
So what happens when the evidence is a subjective mental state that cannot be shared with anyone due to the ontological gap? Until science can fathom the subjective mental state skeptics simply have their lack of evidence and quite often present this as an absolute truth which is with all due respect … total poppycock.
There’s no way to prove anything with subjective mental states. They may be proof but we can’t know, so we doubt instead. Skeptics never present anything as an absolute truth, that’s the antithesis of skepticism.