How to account for questions unanswered with the scienticic method, materialism, logic and reasoning.

Perhaps you have an idea?

It's no accident I posted examples related to illness and medicine......your words above are spot on.

Many things in life are not explained by any cookie-cutter models.

Your model is useful for some things but not all....I posted but one example.

If we can agree on this, then I don't know what else I can contribute.

I forget some people have no clue about medical practice.

Declaring someone "brain dead" so that they may be filleted open and have their still beating heart removed is a process consisting of the most stringent requirements medical science has to offer....EVERYTHING known about the liklihood of irreversability is put to the test....two or three times over several days....several physicians must sign off...one of which is a nuerosurgeon/nuerologist certified in brain death declaration which also has jurisdictional legal requirements....needless to say, it is something not done "willy-nilly"....the very best of science, logic, reasoning and materialism is put through the ringer.....and guess what?

It has been shown to be completely wrong in some cases......how many more may have had the same recovery?

We do not know.

Perhaps yet another repetition will get through....


I would say it is bad if you were going to cut someones heart out of their chest....and they are not dead yet.


If I contribute nothing....why do you bother?

Maybe you can explain why your little model on "accounting for things" fails miserably on the above cases.....and really....if you can't extrapolate the info from the cases to your models little definitions....then I don't know why I bother.

OK, I knew I had a feeling of deja vue.  This is the last post I made on your Zack Dunlap thread.  You did not answer it.  Maybe you could now, in the light of examining the 'explanation' that I have put forward.    It would be nice to have some ompeting explanation of exactly what happened, so the comparative method of evaluating explanations could be checked out.  However, I am aware that you have no explanationor theory to offer in this case, so we'll have to make do.

Here's the post....




So... my explanation is that "Somewhere deep down in his brain was a circuit that could react and fire up his whole being.  And nobody could find it, because the tests just weren't precise enough, detailed enough, appropriate enough".

Accuracy - well, it accounts for the observable fact that ZD 'woke'.  That he had appeared brain dead i.e that the AAN tests were not sufficient.
Consistency - it is internally consistent, but...
Coherent - ... it does not fit with our present view (that we can currently scan the whole brain and detect potential for recovery - i.e. the theory behind the AAN procedures).
Simplicity - the essence of the explanation is very simple.  It does not rely on many new things, since it basically says that our current tests for brain death are lacking precision and (possibly) there is a condition that we have not previously identified - a sort of "unextinguished potential" (it is a new state, so finding words for it is a bit awkward)
Fecundity - there is a very specific research goal here:  improve the definitions and tests and look for some previously unknown state.  IF such a state can be identified then there is a whole new area of neural potential to be investigated.
Scope - if found, the new state will enhance our understanding of PVS, coma and brain death.

So, on the criteria I suggested, the explanation looks quite plausible... a goer, something we can work from.  You obviously disagree - where does my evaluation of the explanation fail?   Can you offer a better explanation?

To take a line from you.... heaven forfend that you should find anyhting tiresome.    I actually read the AAN procedures that you gave a URL for.  I found it interesting in the way the situation was checked, rechecked and cross-checked (or so it appeared, but I of course have no experienece of dealing with medical issues). 


If you, as a man experienced in medical practice want to generalise from the cases you have presented, yes you are.   If you don't want to so generalise, then the issue is in doubt.


So, you seem to be saying that since people do not believe that the AAN guidelines are deficient, then they wouldn't ever apply the guidelines.  But since they do, then the guidelines must be correct.  However, it is YOU who pointed out the Dunlap case i.e. that the guidelines did not operate correctly in this case.

I am saying that (unless you can come up with some explanation as to why the guidelines did not operate correctly in this case which does not necessitate the whole area of brain death being subject to re-examination) then (a) YOU the medical profession should work towrds redefining brain death and how it is determined and (b) you Patton should accept that the incomplete current guidelines will entail the risk that someone may be declared dead and harvested (I hate that grisly term) while still alive.   



When you find it deficient I am sure that you will show HOW the application of the criteria is wrog and will supply the new criteria you believe should be used.    And never forget that you have furnished no explanation of your own as to what occured in the Dunlap case - so you cannot appeal to any 'better' explanation.

WOW!!!!   You still don't get it, big time!!

I am NOT discussing your obsession with the Dunlap case as my prime concern.  I AM TRYING TO WORK OUT HOW WE SHOULD EVALUATE EXPLANATIONS.    You are rather confused as to what is going on here: you speak demeaningly about my 'little model'  (its not 'a model' but we'll let that pass).  You deny it can be useful because it is like scientific method.  And yet you happily use the criteria to attack the sample explanation!!!   I'll assume from this that you agree that the criteria ARE adequate to evaluate explanations.


The criteria (not model) are to be used in assessing an offered explanation.  Whether the n-b community has offered this or not is immaterial.  Someone has - is it a good explanation... well, lets apply the criteria to find out.


You misunderstand the criterion - does the explanation address all the data?  Show me what data it doesn't address - it takes all the data (the description of what happened), therefore no data needs to be explained away.   Base on that data another explabnation could I am sure be proposed.  You just haven't, despite numerous invitations.


"Internally consistent with what?" - huh?  Do you understand what "internally consistent" means?

What are you talking about?  The explanation ("Somewhere deep down in his brain was a circuit that could react and fire up his whole being.  And nobody could find it, because the tests just weren't precise enough, detailed enough, appropriate enough") is what is being assessed.  No other 'theory or model'.


Errrm, I am simply explaining that the current tests are insufficient and that a research program is needed to try to extend them.  This should take on board that ZD appeared dead, therefore there is possibly a brain condition that needs to be searched out.   Alternatively the sensitivity of the tests could be improved.   You appear by your comments to believe that we know absolutely everything about the brain and can unerringly check every such aspect.  I know for certain this isn't the case.


I think it takes a very strange type of mind to think that discovering that we do not know something is valueless.


This last sentence rather contradicts your own comment above "Unless you can demonstrate that the nuero-biological community believes your thesis...then this is purely a fictional assessement".  There is an internal inconsistency here.     What you think I am 'making it sound like' is your problem, not mine.


If we can be assured that all aspects of the brain are known, and the tests can be sharpenned to be sure that we will not misdiagnose a ZD case, then it won't matter that research for an unknown brain state is fruitless.  If none of these occurs, then the probelm of what happened to Zack Dunlap will remain.



I would evaluate in exactly the same way as I have evaluated my own 'explanation' above.   I suspect however that you cannot give a plausible 'theists interpretation'.  If you do post one, we can assess it according to the criteria I and you have just used.  You seem (more or less, apart from those you don't understand) to be happy with them as a way of evaluating an explanation.  That was what I was trying to achieve - a way, a mark scheme, a formal set of headings for assessing explanations.

So... please -  explain what happened to Zack Dunlap.   You may even give your stood-back evaluation using the criteria - and any other you think we need.


BTW you can take your time (I'm sure you'll need it).  I will be away from tomorrow evening, on a job in India (yea, its exciting!) for the next 10-15 days. 

I wonder that the scope for enquiry would decrease as the whole of knowledge increases. Consider that in the time of Plato, the scope of human knowledge was so narrow that a person could, in rough outline, grasp the entire thought system. However, as science developed, specialization emerged, and continues to branch to this day: half a century ago, quantum physics was a budding science. Now, it has specializations of its own! One cannot predict what new sciences will emerge this century, or the next, and one can certainly not hope to understand the entirety of human knowledge.

As far as 'good' explanations for human knowledge, or myth, there are contradictions even within apparent truth. We cannot predict most things that occur. Patterns change, and are naturally complex. As for the final two, they are only valid if certain assumptions are made - even in modern physics. A theory is an incomplete system of thought (a religious explanation is worse still, as its causal logic is literally backwards), and even laws are often proven wrong, or partially wrong. What we do know we owe to the patterns that do maintain the image of order around us, and on some lucky occasions, we make the right guess.