En pro-rysk Unabomber?

 

What the fuck...

Observera det särpräglade eko-fascistiska inslaget. Vad i allsin dar är detta för något? En pro-rysk unabombare? Förresten oklart varför han ville attackera ESC. För att han inte gillar HBT-personer? 

Den s.k. överklassnazisten

Nixa snixarna

 

Credit: LastDodo (?)

Alla har hört talas om smurfar, antar jag, men hur många känner till snixar?  

Quantumized nonsense

 

A new theory in quantum physics does away with all the "scientific" quantum woo about collapsing wave functions and whatever. The prize? There is no free will. Anywhere in the universe. Indeed, even the measurements which supposedly prove the collapse of the wave function were determined at the Big Bang! LOL. But apparently, free will doesn´t exist in the classical interpretation either. So there´s that. 

Sabine´s main problem with the new theory (proposed by a Nobel Prize winner but largely ignored by his quantum-determined colleagues) is that it proposes strange new "cellular automata" as the ontological entities underlying all of Reality. Apparently, the automata don´t fit very well with the more reasonable portions of Einstein´s theories. Interestingly, however, the existence of the "automata" can be falsified. 

According to Hooft, we will never be able to build quantum computers above a certain threshold of efficiency. So presumbly a young tech geek could disprove this TOE by engineering a computer that breaks the cellular-automata-threshold. 

Personally, I wonder about the free will thing. Is it really true that all common forms of materialism denies free will? If so, believers in Free Spirit just got an open goal...

The Phantom World hypothesis

 

A somewhat unusual take on Near Death Experiences c/o Bernardo Kastrup (the Idealist philosopher). He seems to be suggesting two things. 

First, that patients during NDEs acquire a kind of telepathy, which makes it possible for them to "read" other people´s minds. Second, that there is a kind of collective "memory" of the entire world - the "phantom world" of the title. When patients near death are having out-of-body experiences and (for instance) see the hospital room while their soul is "floating" in the air, they are really tapping into this collective memory bank, rather than experiencing the real world.

Kastrup finds it mystifying that we need physical sense-organs (such as eyes), which has taken millions of years of evolution to develop, if our immortal souls can see just as well without them! However, he doesn´t deny the objective reality of NDEs either, connecting it to his Idealist-derived conception that consciousness at death expands rather than dies. And hence can "see" without eyes. But what it sees is the Phantom World rather than the actual material world it left behind. The concept seems to be inspired by the Akashic Chronicle from occultist lore.

Pondering...

The Phantom World hypothesis of NDEs/OBEs      

Passport to Magonia

 

Idealist philosopher Bernardo Kastrup actually believes in UFOs and ultra-terrestrials. In his scenario, however, the "ultra"-terrestrials are remnants of a terrestrial civilization, albeit one very different from humans. Think fairies, but of a somewhat more "physical" kind. (Compare my review of Staffan Andersson´s book "Danaiderna".)  

However, there is also another phenomenon altogether, which seems to be spiritual in nature and is connected to alien abductions, apparitions, and so on. Kastrup references Jacques Vallée but not (as far as I can see) John Keel. Too controversial? 

While interesting, I admit that I´m currently quite skeptical of these kinds of speculations. Surely, it´s more reasonable to think that the entire UAP spectacle is just disinformation to cover up very human-terrestrial "black technology"...    

UAPs and non-human intelligence

Cosmic disassociation

 

- No, we only exist inside your mind,
muh-hah-hah!

Since the AI mentioned Idealist philosopher Bernardo Kastrup (and quite charitably) in a previous blog post, here is a atheist-materialist polemic against the same c/o Richard Carrier. Who considers Kastrup´s speculations to be quite insane. Good luck with this material! 

Bernardo Kastrup´s attempt to bootstrap Idealism

Terminal lucidity

 

- Hello, we are figments of
the universal mind´s imagination!

My fireside chat with the AI continues. Here are some excerpts from a much longer "discussion"... 

People who are dualists and believe in a soul often argue that the brain is like a "radio reciever" which somehow picks up consciousness from the outside. This explains the correlation between conscious states and brain states. But the brain doesn´t cause the consciousness. It comes from another source. If this perspective is *not* true, how can we prove that it´s not true?

This is a deep and important question—you’ve hit on one of the most enduring philosophical and scientific challenges in consciousness studies. The "radio receiver" analogy is a classic dualist argument, and it’s difficult to disprove directly, because it’s structured in a way that makes it almost unfalsifiable. Still, there are important responses and challenges to the idea, both philosophical and empirical.

Let’s unpack the issue:

---

📻 The “Radio Receiver” Model of the Brain

This view suggests:

• The brain does not generate consciousness.

• It merely receives or filters it from somewhere else (a “transcendent” source, the soul, the universe, God, etc.).

• The correlation between brain activity and consciousness is analogous to how tuning a radio affects the music it plays, without generating the music.

This is non-materialist dualism, or filter theory.

---

🧪 Can We Disprove It?

Here’s the short answer:
We cannot decisively disprove it, because it is:

• Non-falsifiable: It makes no specific predictions that can be tested or refuted.

• Metaphysical: It posits entities (“soul”, “cosmic mind”) beyond the empirical domain.

However, scientific materialism doesn't just shrug and accept it. Instead, it asks:

“What extra explanatory value does this add beyond what we already know?”

---

🔬 Empirical Arguments Against the Radio Analogy

1. Lesions and Injuries Correlate Precisely With Cognitive Deficits

• Damage to specific brain regions reliably alters specific aspects of consciousness:

  • Damage to the fusiform gyrus → prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces)

  • Damage to Broca’s area → language production impairment

  • Damage to parietal lobe → disturbed body ownership or spatial awareness

🧠 If the brain were just a receiver, why would damaging the receiver alter the content of the experience in such specific ways?

---

2. Anesthesia and Unconsciousness

• Consciousness fades predictably with changes in brain chemistry, particularly GABAergic inhibition and disruption of fronto-parietal networks.

• No sign of a hidden “external signal” that persists independently.

If consciousness came from elsewhere, shouldn't it remain accessible during unconscious states?

---

3. Split-Brain Studies

• Severing the corpus callosum creates two independent streams of consciousness in one body.

• Each hemisphere behaves as if it has its own thoughts, perceptions, and volition.

🧩 If there's one external “consciousness signal,” why can it be split by a brain procedure?

---

4. Stimulation Studies

• Electrically stimulating parts of the brain can:

  • Trigger memories

  • Cause hallucinations

  • Induce emotional states

  • Create out-of-body experiences

These are internally generated, directly by neural activity. If consciousness was beamed in, how could local stimulation generate content?

---

🧠 Philosophical Challenges

🧱 Occam’s Razor

Materialism asks:

Why posit a separate source of consciousness when the brain already explains it?

The dualist must justify why we need a non-physical source when physical explanations suffice in every known case.

---

🤷‍♂️ Lack of Mechanism

If consciousness is "transmitted"—how? What medium? What signal? How does it interact with neurons?

Dualism has yet to offer a testable, mechanistic model for this transmission.

---

🔄 Possible Rebuttals from Dualists

Dualists often respond:

• Brain = filter, not generator. You can still alter the filter and change the output.

• Consciousness is always present, but the brain modulates our access to it.

• Near-death experiences, psychedelics, and mystical states suggest a broader consciousness than the brain alone can explain.

These are interesting points, but they remain interpretive—they don’t falsify the physical basis of consciousness.

---

🧩 Final Thought

The radio analogy can’t be disproven in a strict sense, but:

• It lacks predictive power

• It lacks independent evidence

• And it fails to explain phenomena that materialist neuroscience handles well

So scientists and philosophers ask:

"Which model offers the best explanatory fit with the evidence we have?"

So far, the answer is: consciousness arises from, and depends on, brain function—at least based on everything we can test.

---

Would you like a side-by-side comparison of dualism vs. physicalism? Or an exploration of more exotic views like panpsychism or integrated information theory (IIT)?

Is Kastrup right about terminal lucidity and the idea more generally that less brain activity can lead to more and richer experiences?

This is a fascinating and controversial point—and one of the strongest arguments made by Bernardo Kastrup and other idealists: that less brain activity can correlate with more or richer conscious experience. Let’s explore this carefully from a scientific and philosophical standpoint.

---

🧠 TL;DR

• There are scientifically documented cases where reduced brain activity correlates with vivid experiences (e.g., during near-death experiences, psychedelic states, or terminal lucidity).

• However, this doesn't necessarily disprove materialism, nor does it prove idealism.

• It does, however, challenge simplistic materialist assumptions that "more experience = more brain activity".

---

🔬 1. Terminal Lucidity

🧾 What it is:

• A phenomenon where people with severe brain damage or dementia suddenly regain clarity, memory, and lucid communication shortly before death.

• This has been reported in cases of:

  • Advanced Alzheimer's

  • Tumor-induced dementia

  • Schizophrenia

🧠 Brain expectation (materialism):

• Such cognition should be impossible given the extent of brain degeneration.

🧠 Kastrup’s take:

• This suggests consciousness is not produced by the brain, but rather filtered or constrained by it.

• As the brain deteriorates, the "filter" weakens, and greater consciousness emerges.

🔍 Scientific view:

• Documented by researchers like Michael Nahm and Bruce Greyson.

• Still not well understood.

• Some materialists suggest a "final neurochemical surge" or release of latent cognitive capacities.

• No consensus—this is open territory.

---

🍄 2. Psychedelics and Brain Activity

🔬 Scientific studies (e.g., with psilocybin, LSD, DMT):

• Reduced activity in default mode network (DMN)—the "ego center" of the brain.

• Subjective reports: Vivid, expansive, more intense experiences of self, reality, and interconnectedness.

🧠 Materialist puzzle:

• You’d expect richer experiences to correlate with more activity.

• But we see "less is more": Decreased brain activity → richer consciousness.

Kastrup’s interpretation:

• Brain = filter.

• Psychedelics temporarily diminish the filtering function, letting wider consciousness in.

🧬 Mainstream view:

• Brain becomes more entropic (more randomness, less control).

• Rich experience may come from disinhibition of perception and cognition.

• Still, this does not fit neatly into the idea that “more neural firing = more consciousness”.

---

⚡ 3. Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

🚑 Clinical reports:

• People in cardiac arrest (flat EEG, no cortical activity) later describe vivid experiences—often coherent, meaningful, and deeply emotional.

• Examples include: seeing lights, deceased relatives, life reviews, out-of-body sensations.

🧠 Challenge:

• How do vivid memories form without measurable brain function?

🧠 Kastrup’s point:

• If the brain is offline but the mind is active, then consciousness must be non-local to the brain.

🧬 Mainstream hypothesis:

• Experiences happen just before or after flatlining.

• They’re constructed retroactively and remembered as if they occurred during unconsciousness.

• Still, there's no direct measurement of conscious awareness during full arrest.

---

📌 Summary Table

Phenomenon	Observed Effect	Kastrup’s Interpretation	Mainstream Scientific View
Terminal Lucidity	Lucid mind with damaged brain	Filter breaks → clarity returns	Unknown; possibly last energy surge
Psychedelics	↓ Brain activity, ↑ experience	Filter loosened = richer mind	Disinhibited cognition
Near-Death Experience	Vivid mind in flat EEG state	Consciousness ≠ brain-based	Experience may occur just before/after unconsciousness

---

🧠 So—Is Kastrup Right?

🔎 Yes—in raising serious questions:

• The assumption that "more brain = more mind" is too simplistic.

• Empirical findings don’t always support strict materialism.

❓ But—does this prove idealism?

• Not conclusively.

• These findings are open to multiple interpretations.

• More research is needed—especially real-time brain monitoring during NDEs, lucid dying, or advanced dementia.

---

Would you like a visual chart or diagram summarizing this comparison? Or a deeper dive into psychedelic neuroscience?

Big Mind

 

So where Ken Wilber at? I haven´t read his most recent book "Finding Radical Wholeness", but the link below goes to a critical review by his constant shadow Frank Visser over at Integral World (yes, that site still exists). 

Make of the critique what ye wish, but I get the impression that Wilber is pretty much at the same place as, say, 20 years ago. The Tantric aspect is supposedly new, but hasn´t Wilber always been inspired by Tibetan Buddhism somehow?

And yes, Visser himself seems to be mostly stuck in the same place as always, too!    

The search for a "Big Wholeness"

Folkmord

 

ICC har äntligen lyckats hitta *någon* att lagföra. Kan ju bli en intressant rättegång. Särskilt om det visar sig att det faktiskt var kriminella gäng The Punisher utplånade...  

Duterte anklagas för folkmord på kriminella

Debunking materialism?

 

Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup debunks materialism in three short YouTube clips. They seem to be posted on a spiritual channel! 

Arresteringsorder

 

Har Cantwell smuttat för mycket på rödvinet, eller vad? Visst, Netanyahu kommer självklart inte att besöka Sverige så länge "arresteringsordern" gäller, men att han skulle utlämnas till Haag i den händelse ett gripande faktiskt bleve möjligt (vid en nödlandning på Arlanda på väg till USA?) är givetvis uteslutet. Om inte Sverige vill trigga den största diplomatiska krisen sedan...jag vet inte när. Observera också att Cantwell erkänner att det är regeringen som fattar beslut om eventuell utlämning, vilket givetvis betyder att den nuvarande debatten om regeringens "velande" inte är helt bakvänd...

Och varför kallar han Viktor Orbans inbjudan för "fåneri"? Tror han att ICC kan skicka tungt beväpnade kommandosoldater till Budapest för att arrestera Netanyahu om Orban vägrar följa EU-direktiven bläh bläh?

Netanyahu kommer aldrig att bli arresterad och förd till Haag, och det kommer Putin inte bli heller. ICC:s "arresteringsorder" är antingen symbolpolitik eller en typ av de facto diplomatiska sanktioner. Vilket väl är ungefär samma sak. ICC är ett lika stort skämt som Nationernas Förbund. Och för att klargöra: jag stödjer Israel men inte Ryssland... 

Benjamin Netanyahu grips om han kommer till Sverige

Cruising

 

- Yes, earthling, the pulsar disfigured our bodies,
but what´s left is still alive, a new kind of life,
to be sure, mu-hah-hah!

The Stellivore Hypothesis is making the obligatory rounds, before being shelved...or becoming nische nerd material on YouTube, alongside the Silurian Hypothesis, the Dark Forest hypothesis and similar stuff.  

Fast-moving stars are piloted by aliens, new study suggests

Make Hungary great again

 

So Viktor Orban wouldn´t arrest Netanyahu if he showed up in Hungary, indeed, Orban has actually invited the Israeli PM to Budapest to protest the ICC´s recent "arrest warrant". 

Orban´s multi-vectoralism never ceases to amaze me. I mean, is this the same Orban to blocked with Hamas-supporting Turkey to delay Sweden´s NATO membership as long as possible? But sure, I suppose they are "right" this U-turn around.

As for the ICC, they are a bigger joke than the League of Nations. Maybe just as well, all things considered! 

*That* Edward Dutton

 

LOL. This provocatively titled article from 2017 at the site Live Science actually references - wait for it - Edward Dutton?!

The idea seems to be that atheists are more intelligent than religious people since religion is an instinct, and you need intelligence to rise above your instincts. Maybe, but as a critic astutely points out, how do you define "religion"? Communism is atheist and used to be very strong, veganism is popular among many atheists today, but are they really "smart"?

Personally, I wonder about the instinct part. Our instincts must have survival value, otherwise they wouldn´t have evolved, so how did religion evolve if religious beliefs lack a referent? Social insects have created "complex societies" based on pure instinct, so it´s not even clear whether "intelligence" is needed at all, evolutionarily speaking. 

Still, an interesting little article.   

Why are atheists generally smarter than religious people?

Just asking

 

Unless I´m mistaken: France, Germany and the Netherlands have all re-introduced border controls. That is, border controls directed at *other EU member states*. Does that mean that the Schengen agreement has died in the dark?

Homo diluvii testis

 

An old classic. That time when a fossil of a giant salamander was misinterpreted as the remains of a man who witnessed the Biblical Flood. Note, however, that the final scientific name of the specimen honors both the original discoverer and his mistake! From Wikipedia. 

>>>In his book Lithographia Helvetica from 1726, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer described a Miocene fossil found in Öhningen as Homo diluvii testis (Latin: Man, witness of the Deluuge), believing it to be the remains of a human that drowned in the biblical Deluge. The fossil was about 1 m (3 ft) long, lacked its tail and hind legs, and could thus be interpreted as showing some resemblance to the remains of a violently trampled human child.

>>>In 1758, the first to doubt his theory in print was Johannes Gessner, who thought it was a giant catfish (Siluris). In 1787 Petrus Camper thought it was a lizard (Lacerta); at that time, scholars and the scientific community generally did not differentiate between reptiles and amphibians. In 1802 Martin van Marum bought this fossil for Teyler´s Museum in Haarlem from Scheuchzer's grandson in Zürich, along with a fossilized swordfish, for 14 Louis d´or. It can still be seen in Teyler's Museum, in the original showcase.

>>>Seven years later, the fossil again came under scrutiny when the famous Georges Cuvier published an article in which he claimed the fossil was "nothing but a salamander, or rather a proteus of gigantic dimensions and of an unknown species". He proceeded to examine the fossil in Haarlem, by then a part of the French Empire, in 1811. After hacking away gently at the fossil, he uncovered the foremost limbs and the specimen was recognized as a giant salamander. The difference in color of the stone shows what Scheuchzer saw and what Cuvier later could see.

>>>The specimen was renamed Salamandra scheuchzeri by Friedrich Holl in 1831. The genus Andrias was only coined six years later by Johann Jakob von Tschudi. In doing so, both the genus, Andrias (which means image of man), and the specific name, scheuchzeri, ended up honouring Scheuchzer and his beliefs. The Teylers Museum has several other specimens in their collection in addition to this one.

Andrias scheuchzeri

Avenging Agincourt

 

I don´t believe a word of Boris Johnson´s recent claim that he seriously considered an invasion of the Netherlands to grab COVID vaccines he believed were rightfully British.

A *what* of *what* do to *what*..?!

"Boris" is generally regarded as an inveterate liar, madman and perhaps psycho, so why believe him here? Not even the Don is this crazy. Unless, of course, the idea of an armed intervention against a fellow NATO ally was part of Johnson´s utter madness.

Maybe it was a good thing that the British were kept in line by the European Union? I mean, has anything in the UK actually *improved* after Brexit? Perhaps it´s time to avenge Agincourt. The British are our bitches, make England a French backwater, re-activate the Auld Alliance with Scotland, make Hibernia great again!

Or am I saying this at 2:37am just because I munched at a highly potent Dutch tulip? 

Or maybe he was just insane

 

So a madman was better at science than the actual scientists, while the dreamy Romantics and Impressionists were simply painting air pollution?!

Everything falls apart, can the center hold... 

Van Gogh understood hidden dynamism of the sky 

Monet and Turner painted air pollution

Cults like us

 

Nah, the strangest sect/cult was the Swedish "Efraims budbärare" (Messengers of Ephraim), which believed that the Swedish working class was a lost tribe of Israel. Guess which one? Clue: not Manasseh (that was the Norwegian working class). 

Rasifiering

 

Tobias Hübinette har gjort en intressant upptäckt...

Invandringskritiska partier har allt oftare ledare med invandrarbakgrund