Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electromagnetic theories of consciousness


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep.  Sandstein  05:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Electromagnetic theories of consciousness

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The whole thing appears to be yet another crank theory by a non-physicist who allowed misconceptions of physics get the better of him. Read the article for a good laugh. 99% of the refs are cranky, personal, unpublished papers. Watch for doozies like "topological geometro dynamic theory" and "solitonic singularity formation." Dmitry Brant (talk) 20:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC) Fences and windows (talk) 22:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete though I know little more topology than elementary fixed point theorems; I can spot this as a cranky piece of nonsense. Bigdaddy1981 (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 23:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 23:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - There seems to be the kitchen sink in there. How does this compare to other fringe theories? Bearian (talk) 14:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. The theory is very fringe, but it has received some coverage in reliable sources, e.g. Wired article, a chapter in a book by McFadden proposing what he calls CEMI. The article needs heavy work to weed out the self-published work and non-peer reviewed science, but it can be salvaged without deletion. Book search, Scholar search. Fences and windows (talk) 22:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've given the article some order to make it easier to work on, and highlighted two sections I think should be excised from the article. Fences and windows (talk) 22:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Michael Persinger is another who has ideas in this area, e.g. . The first link has vanished from the journal homepage, possibly they realised how odd the paper was after they published it, but it's unusual just to vanish a paper like that. Fences and windows (talk) 23:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Some more articles:
 * Lindahl BI, Arhem P: Mind as a force field: comments on a new interactionistic hypothesis. J Theor Biol 1994, 171(1):111-22
 * Steele RH: Harmonic oscillators: the quantization of simple systems in the old quantum theory and their functional roles in biology. Mol Cell Biochem 2008, 310(1-2):19-42.
 * Lipkind M: Consciousness enigma: the "hard problem"--binding problem entanglement, "extra ingredient" and field principle. Indian J Exp Biol 2008, 46(5):395-402.
 * Laberge D, Kasevich R: The apical dendrite theory of consciousness. Neural Netw 2007, 20(9):1004-20.Fences and windows (talk) 23:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

something about anesthesia. I have also corresponded with Persinger in the past and I think this is one of those areas where fMRI may not have proven anything yet ( or course you may have seen the Vul Voodoo papers LOL on a related topic). As you probably know, brain-independent mind would make it possible for things like spirits and ghosts and an origin of conscioness theory would go a long way towards proving something about religion( is there a soul?). What is interesting of course is that the article needs to document the known state of knowledge about an obviously open and controversial issue. There are plenty of theories, and maybe they are all fringe. Everyone who thinks has some theories. I wouldn't scrap it based just on some passing refs I noted as AFAIK these are credible but I wouldn't throw out an article on cold fusion quickly either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nerdseeksblonde (talk • contribs) 00:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: I have heard of Penrose Hameroff and quick GOOG search reminds me

this case, when dealing with something new and confusing, it is possible you need to start with the pompous until you get a better understanding. In particular, solitons and nonlinear phenomena look like a good place to look- either for real emergent traits, real consciousness, or pretenders and false starts. If you concede these are all fringe theories, but yet notable and maybe even eventually a step along the way, I'm not sure I would worry too much about merit. If a wiki reader can use this as a starting point, even to see how bad the field is,that is the job of an encyclopedia ( without actually being a review article maybe). Also note, related to merit, are coo-coo clocks intelligent social creatures? Afterall, Entrainment_(physics). My point being that small nonlinear effects can produce things that are macroscopically notable and many people never get past the first Taylor term...
 * Comment: Re jargon, this is a great place for an idiot to hide :) But, in

Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 12:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep based on the sources Fences and windows found. Nice work.   D r e a m Focus  02:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep due to sources found; the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. -- Explodicle (T/C) 15:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I would normally call for a delete for entries on crank theories. If the entry is going to stay, it should make clear that it's a crank theory (in the most NPOV way possible of course).Hairhorn (talk) 11:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * To be fair to the theory, most theories of consciousness are speculative. The main theory of Pockett and McFadden isn't complete kookery, it does have some merit as a theory, and they're not the only ones to suggest that fields might be involved in consciousness. So "crank" wouldn't be the right word to use - try "fringe". Fences  &amp;  Windows  00:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * How would you treat the "Theory of Spontaneous Generation" now known

to be wrong? There is a wiki entry on it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation, because it is notable and in retrospect everyone can rationalize "gee, how could these people distort the evidence enough to believe this stuff" but at the time deductive logic hadn't gotten there to inform those silly people. Or even alchemy or astrology? When you don't have a periodic table, you have confusing observations and jargon- even think about particle wave duality - does this make sense? So, to make a point on consciousness, " just who the heck do you think you are ?" LOL... Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 11:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.