Saturday, December 27, 2014

My Reading Took A Hit This Year

A review of my Netflix activity suggests why...



Seems having a DVD player, a TV monitor, and an iMac will ruin a fella's literary intentions and pretensions. My Reading Challenge at Goodreads has not lived up to expectations (31 of 48 for 2014) while my Netflix queue has never been more expansive, eclectic, or low brow. Movies in theatrical release were mostly watched at the Picture Show in Prescott, AZ. Among my viewing treats, classics, and mistakes:

6 Souls

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Absentia (Review)

All Is Lost

American Mary *




Frankenstein's Army *

Frozen

Fury

Galaxy Quest

Game of Thrones

Godzilla

Grabbers

Guardians of the Galaxy

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

Haunter

Helix: Season 1: "Pilot" *

Hellbound?

Her (Review)

Hobbit III

Holy Mountain

House of Voices

Ice Spiders *

Iliza Shlesinger: War Paint

Interstellar

Iron Sky: Director's Cut

Jodorworsky's Dune

John Dies at the End

John Wick 

 Joseph Campbell: Suhkavati

Jug Face

Kathleen Madigan: Madigan Again 

 La Belle et la Bette (Review)

Lewis Black: Old Yeller: Live at the Borgata

Limitless

Lone Survivor

Lovelace

Lucy

Machete Kills

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell *

Mama

Melanie Comarcho: Hello!

Mockingjay I

Monique Marvez: Not Skinny Not Blonde

Monster on the Campus

Morgan Murphy: Irish Goodbye

Mr. Nobody (Review)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Attack of the Giant Leeches

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Crash of Moons

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Devil Fish

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Gamera vs. Barugon

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Hamlet *

Mystery Science Theater 3000: I Accuse My Parents

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Jack Frost

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Lost Continent

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Manos: The Hands of Fate

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mitchell

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mr. B's Lost Shorts

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Parts: The Clonus Horror

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Teenage Strangler

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Teenagers from Outer Space

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Beast of Yucca Flats

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Beatniks

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Brain That Wouldn't Die

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Giant Spider Invasion

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Girl in Lovers' Lane

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Indestructible Man

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Wild Rebels 

Sin City II

Snowpiercer

Solomon Kane

Sommore: Chandelier Status

Son of Frankenstein / Ghost of Frankenstein

Splintered

Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: "These Are the Voyages..."

Star Trek: Season 1: "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

Tammy Pescatelli: Finding the Funny

Thale

The Amazing Transparent Man

The Artist

The Bay

The Colony

The Conqueror Worm

The Cosmic Man

The Deadly Spawn

The Dreamers

The Eternal *

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Review)

The Gift

The Gorgon / Scream of Fear

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Homesman

The Host

The Island at the Top of the World

The Lair of the White Worm

The Land Unknown / The Deadly Mantis

The Last Days

The Last Days on Mars

The Legend of Hell House

The Lego Movie

The Machine

The Numbers Station

The Prophecy 2

The Prophecy 3: The Ascent

The Prophecy: Forsaken

The Prophecy: Uprising

The Reeds

The Wall (Review)

The Warrior's Way

The Wildest Dream

Tiny: A Story About Living Small

Trance

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil 

Twixt *

Under the Skin *

Upstream Color (Review)

Val Lewton: I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher

Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead / Bedlam

Val Lewton: The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship

Violet & Daisy

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

We're the Millers

White Zombie

Wings *

Wings of Desire

Women Who Kill

X-Men: Days of Future Past 

 Zombies of Mora Tau / The Werewolf

I also watched Seasons 1-3 of Game of Thrones (no spoilers for seasons 4-5 please!), Season Five of The Walking Dead and Archer. There were a variety of episodes of MST3K, Rifftrax , The Film Crew, and Cinematic Titanic as well.

There are worse ways to escape a rough day and the prospect of a sleepless night, but the classics are certainly collecting more dust on the bookshelf.

 [Update: I'm concerned that someone might consider this a list of movies that they should see. No, not true at all. Thus, those now tagged with an asterisk may be skipped without risk.]
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Sunday, December 21, 2014

The Reason For The Season

Is that our planet is tilted...


Happy Solstice to All and to All a Short Day!

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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Near Death Experiences: The Only Thing Missing Is "Death"

More fun from Unbelievable...


The good folks at Unbelievable from Premier Christian Radio in the UK had an interesting episode Saturday the 6th of December. The topic was Near Death Experiences (NDE). The True Believers were represented by Eben Alexander, a physician who recovered from a grievous illness with an interesting story, and Graham Nicholls, who claims to be able to have Out of Body Experiences (OBE) at will, complete with veridical accounts no less. Defending the scientific view was neuroscientist Dr. Jane Aspell, PhD, MBPsS (Dr. Steven Novella of Neurologica blog and The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, was originally slated to participate but did not). Host Justin Brierly was evenhanded, even favoring the science side of things, perhaps because his evangelical outlook is cautious of non-biblical mystical experiences. These are my comments on the show sent to Justin via email and posted under the show notes:
When it comes to the Near Death Experience (NDE) the first and most important thing to remember is that they don’t involve death. The brain is not dead. It may be poorly oxygenated and operating well below normal levels, but the reason there are reports of NDEs is because the resuscitation effort was both continuous and effective. When does the brain stop perceiving stimuli and stop laying down memories? We don’t know for sure, but the brain doesn’t quit the moment we close our eyes and remain dormant until the moment we open them again. As in dreams, we have no reason to believe “reality testing” and our sense of elapsed time are accurate while in a coma. The more we learn about the limitations of eyewitness testimony the more we realize that memory is a highly mutable thing. If the ability to lay out events accurately and in their proper sequence is challenging in a waking state, imagine how the brain might conflate images, memories, wishes, and stimuli while its body fights for its life. 
Apart from 20th century quantum mumbo jumbo, the allegedly new pseudoscience of non-local consciousness is essentially a rehash of ancient theological, philosophical, and pre-scientific intuitions regarding the body, soul, spirit, life, death, the cosmos, and the nature of reality. Except for the minority of those whose NDE takes them on a visit to hell, the beatific visions frequently share some common features, but are also wildly divergent in the fine details. As with mystical religious experiences, newly minted true believers promptly cleave to their holy books and discard their former commitments to science, logic, and critical thinking. Among the first things a new pseudoscientist does (other than to write a book) is ask that long accepted standards of evidence be relaxed. There is no such thing as “materialist science,” there is only science. There is of course rigorous science and poorly done science. Most studies of NDE and OBE necessarily take the form of phenomenology - evaluating reports of subjective experience - which is not science in the way we normally think of it. Randomized, placebo-controlled, blinded studies that can be duplicated remain the Gold Standard of scientific evidence. True Believers would insist on it if it supported their case, until then they will rely on special pleading. 
Spiritualists, mind readers, and faith healers are notorious for the number of hucksters in their ranks. Then there are the credulous wishful thinkers who no longer recognize their confirmation bias. As for those who claim veridical experience, there is precious little evidence for it and none of it is good. While we can all agree that creating NDEs in the lab is unethical, those who claim the ability to have OBEs at will (like Graham Nicholls) ought to be able to prove their claims, using criteria established in advance. That hasn’t happened, even though there’s a million dollar prize on offer for anyone who could actually do it. The few names - Greyson, Parnia, Sartori, Van Lommel - repeated over and over by Alexander and Nicholls are just about all the big names in this pseudoscientific parapsychological field. Alexander touts four books (two of them his; buy them for the details), but the overlapping fields of neurology, psychology, psychiatry, cognitive science, neuro-imaging, etc. publish thousands of papers and hundreds of books each year. 
NDE and OBE effects can be duplicated by stimulation of the temporal lobes, hallucinogens, meditation, breath control, hypoxia, brain injury, certain forms of epilepsy, extreme emotion, virtual reality machinery, and other stressors. As with other mystical experiences, several of which have given rise to whole religions, there is no reason to believe these events occur anywhere but within our embodied brains.

 UPDATE: Dr. Novella did debate Dr. Alexander earlier this year.

 ANOTHER UPDATE: In the immortal words of John Candy in Splash "They published my letter!"  Justin read about half of my email during the comments sections the following week.
When it comes to the Near Death Experience (NDE) the first and most important thing to remember is that they don’t involve death. The brain is not dead. It may be poorly oxygenated and operating well below normal levels, but the reason there are reports of NDEs is because the resuscitation effort was both continuous and effective. When does the brain stop perceiving stimuli and stop laying down memories? We don’t know for sure, but the brain doesn’t quit the moment we close our eyes and remain dormant until the moment we open them again. As in dreams, we have no reason to believe “reality testing” and our sense of elapsed time are accurate while in a coma. The more we learn about the limitations of eyewitness testimony the more we realize that memory is a highly mutable thing. If the ability to lay out events accurately and in their proper sequence is challenging in a waking state, imagine how the brain might conflate images, memories, wishes, and stimuli while its body fights for its life.  
Apart from 20th century quantum mumbo jumbo, the allegedly new pseudoscience of non-local consciousness is essentially a rehash of ancient theological, philosophical, and pre-scientific intuitions regarding the body, soul, spirit, life, death, the cosmos, and the nature of reality.  
NDE and OBE effects can be duplicated by stimulation of the temporal lobes, hallucinogens, meditation, breath control, hypoxia, brain injury, certain forms of epilepsy, extreme emotion, virtual reality machinery, and other stressors. As with other mystical experiences, several of which have given rise to whole religions, there is no reason to believe these events occur anywhere but within our embodied brains. 

 Image credit: Ascent of the Blessed by Hieronymus Bosch
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