Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Gumby? Is that who Vandal is? I wouldn't know. Probably Gen X-era pop culture....

Nope, purely Boom/Jones

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Let us know when you get to the green MnM's.

...


Whoah, hey bad dog, here's that damn slot machine circuit diagram we've been after.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The problem here is that "materialist" is such an ambiguous, imprecise word. Science is based on observation.

Suggestion then: don't use the word!

Again, your definition of observation (not necessarily mine) is standing back. A bit different from "experience" and "immersion," as you explained well. But I think "science is based on observation" is good, within your definition of the word.

From a first-person perspective, experience happens in four distinct (but often mixed) modes: sensation, imagination, thought, and emotion. Most of the so-called spiritual realities you are talking about are encountered in the second mode: they are imagined. Now, after my reaction to Vandal's disparaging of the imagination above, you should know that I don't consider this a derogatory comment; imagination is the font of creativity, and it can also reveal truth to us, particularly through symbol and myth. But it's a serious mistake to confuse the imaginary mode of experience with the sensory mode. We don't observe imaginary entities in the same sense we observe sensory ones. I can't point to my vision of, say, the Goddess, and have you see it and verify my observations. I can describe the Goddess to you, and you can then imagine something similar, and connect with the same cosmic principle through your imagination that I connect with through mine, but you can't simply look at it in a shared reality.

We have a different view, as I explained. The spiritual realities I was talking about are in many cases experienced realities. They may not be "observable" in scientific protocols, or through the senses, that much is true, but science can observe their effects and prove them indirectly. If you are requiring that they be observable through scientific protocols, in order to be considered "real" or "valid" as other objects of observation are, but they are not, my answer is: that shows the limits of science, not the limits of reality.

There's a lot of stuff in occult literature that makes the mistake of materializing the imaginary. Talk about other planes, spirits, etc. is often of this type. There is no evidence for the concrete existence of any of this stuff, although in the imagination it is full of meaning and significance, and although there may be phenomena connected with them that can be better described in other ways. For example, people often see spirits or ghosts in locations that are associated with some important (usually traumatic) event. The event was real, and its psychic or magical impact is real, and the vision of a spirit is a manifestation of that, but that doesn't mean the spirit itself is real in any simplistic, crude sense. Certainly it doesn't mean we should regard the "spirit" as a conscious entity, especially when it behaves more like a video recording.

I'll take the simplistic crude sense; that's good enough for me.

When we were talking about spirit and matter as language games, this is what I pointed out to you. You can say they are just labels for the same thing, and in large part you are correct; but the rubber meets the road in what you are open to. I am open to and interested in spirits, ghosts, mind and memory beyond brain, psychic communication directly between spirits with no need to explain it physically, telekinesis, souls, the Goddess, the afterlife, planes, mediumship, reincarnation, out of body experiences, etc. etc. as realities (or possible realities), because I am a spiritualist, and hold that spirit is the primary reality, not matter. That's where our worldview differs. That does not discount that the imagination, myths, metaphors etc. are not also aspects of our experience that might explain or create some of these experiences, or reveal truth to us; etc. My view is just a larger and more open one in this kind of aspect or field of inquiry.

And this is not values lock; this is truth lock. There's no need for me to ditch what I know is true, just because someone (however bright) has a different view.

If I was watching the wrong video, would you please re-link the one you were talking about? Thanks.

I did; it was the end of materialism video linked in my previous post.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Watching an interview with Sheldrake and he mentioned his belief that the idea of the brain as a storage for memory is wrong. I recalled medical studies in which electrical stimulation of the brain caused memory flashbacks to occur, and a Google search led me to this: http://www.brain-and-mind.com/2012/0...-memories.html.

So clearly Sheldrake is wrong about that, and honestly should have known he was wrong.

Not so; he would not "know" such a thing, if his theory, for which he has good research to back it up, is that members of the same species learn and remember things by morphic resonance far away from one another. This memory is not in the brain. Sheldrake and Hancock and others says the brain is involved in consciousness and memory, but no-one can really say how, and that does not mean that any mental activity is limited to the brain, even though the brain is involved (at least while we are in the body). I see below in your EDIT that you expanded your comment (maybe); not that Sheldrake was "wrong," but that you have a different explanation.

EDIT The evidence for conservation of mass/energy is smaller scale than Sheldrake is talking about, and very strong. The cosmological problems he's talking about don't really comment on that; cosmology is the most speculative area of physics and astronomy and it's not appropriate to base criticism of basic physical principles on something like that. To put it simply, it's unlikely we're wrong about conservation of mass/energy and extremely likely that we're wrong about the makeup of the universe in general, so you don't use ideas or findings about the second, which is very probably wrong at this point, to critique the first, which is almost certainly right.

I haven't read Sheldrake's book yet, so I don't know how he demonstrates that this dogma is false. But conventional scientific materialism now holds that matter and energy emerged along with all its laws miraculously in a single instant. As Sheldrake explains their view, "give me one free miracle and we'll explain the rest." There was no "conservation" if matter and energy suddenly came into being from nothing; so why couldn't it happen again and again? The only way around that which occurs to me, which might be a good idea, is that conservation exists because the total amount of matter and energy in the universe is zero. This might be explained physically in terms of anti-matter. Spiritually this is accounted for with the simple statement that there IS no such thing as matter, and energy is the effect of spirit.

ANOTHER EDIT: It occurs to me that many of the effects he's talking about using the term "morphic resonance" can be modeled using probability shifts, and would therefore constitute a psi effect and not "memory" in the usual sense, even though it could sometimes function in a memory-like way.

You can propose that; I won't argue against your theory. I don't think psi is by definition a probability effect; it's a psychic effect of minds communicating. That's my spiritual point of view. It seems a stretch to call these morphic effects probability shifts. Perhaps you might want to flesh that idea out a bit sometime.

ONE MORE EDIT: I will completely agree with what he says about the organized skeptical community, that they're not skeptics at all but true believers trying to root out heresy.

That's right.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Eric, Brian, sorry, but ya'll have been caught on Candid Camera with Alan Funt, replaying the generation gap game. Surprise!

But Rags... we have Vandal on ignore now, so we aren't playing.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

But Rags... we have Vandal on ignore now, so we aren't playing.

Perhaps, but I haven't seen this many intergenerational feathers fly since the 1960's.

[I'm sure at least one of you will yield to temptation and unignore Vandal.] Next, you WILL reply with something and I can go and sit down and eat some more popcorn. Eric, you have had him on ignore and have yielded to temptation once already.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Perhaps, but I haven't seen this many intergenerational feathers fly since the 1960's.

[I'm sure at least one of you will yield to temptation and unignore Vandal.] Next, you WILL reply with something and I can go and sit down and eat some more popcorn. Eric, you have had him on ignore and have yielded to temptation once already.

As I pointed out, he has remained on my ignore list for some time, but I can click where it says "read this post" and read one of his posts anyway. If you had an ignore list, you would know this. But yes, I succumb to temptation and read his posts sometimes, and very rarely engage in some sort of response, but not more long arguments with him.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Yes. Others have already defined telepathy operationally. I see no need to reinvent the wheel. A model is exactly what's missing from the picture.

I don't think so. An operational definition includes a way to measure the thing being defined. The measurement can be quantitative or qualitative, but you need a means to distinguish the thing being defined from other things that are not the thing being defined. From what I have read the approaches towards telepathy attempt to provide a definition as a residual. This definition by difference is inherently hard because it involves trying to assess a small difference between large numbers.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I am presenting a hypothesis to account for certain observations.

But there haven't been any observations. This is Vandal's point. I tried to use the Martian canals and UFOs as examples. The existence of both came from initial observations that are more of less consistent with the science of the day. Both would be very exciting if they panned out. The initial observations (that caused belief in the phenomenon in the first place) for both are now known to have been mistaken through subsequent observation with higher resolution methods that were not available at the time of the initial observations. Since these observations are now known to be incorrect, had they been correct, the phenomenon would never have been described in the first place.

The same thing happened with global warming by rising CO2 levels. It was formally proposed in 1901, I think, and it got attention because the author was a big gun in science. Within a few years laboratory experiments convincingly established that it does not happen. The reason was clear cut. Increasing the amount of CO2 did not affect IR absorption by sufficient amounts to exert any meaningful greenhouse effect. This was done in careful laboratory experiments that would be replicated if done today with modern equipment. Anyone were believed in global warming through rising CO2 in the period 1910-1945 would be akin to a believer in Martian canals or UFOs.

In the late 1940's the US Air Force undertook a project to extensively characterize properties of the upper atmosphere as part of the high speed fight program. It was discovered that CO2 exhibits weak absorption bands at low pressures that are absent at normal pressures. It was no longer the case that the greenhouse effect did not operate in Earth's atmosphere. Warming would happen as CO2 levels rose. Once measurements established that CO2 was rising and an accurate radiation model was implemented on a digital computer, global warming was established as validated theory and the scientific community quickly accepted this. Carl Sagan was the first to implement a greenhouse model (much of it by hand) for the planet Venus that predicted surface temperatures in hundreds of degrees C. Shortly afterward Mariner II verified that this was indeed the case and Sagan became a big gun.

So we have the example of CO2 warming that shows that ideas once considered bunk, can become accepted if newer, more accurate observations appear.
This has not happened with Martian canals, UFOs. the Bermuda triangle etc. and these remain bunk.

Telepathy falls into the same category. Initial observations of the effect were later shown to be false because the subjects admitted they had duped the researchers and showed how they did it. Later experiments were all shown to involve artifacts of experimental design. After decades of false observation one wonders why this notion persisted. But like UFOs it has. So far there has been no clear-cut observation of an effect that is large relative to the noise of experimental artifacts. It is possible to see really tiny effects amidst a field of much larger noise if your observational method has sufficient resolving power (particle physics does this).

If telepathy actually had been detected in the beginning, then its existence would be an accepted fact now unless all subsequent telepathy researchers are incompetent.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

We have a different view, as I explained. The spiritual realities I was talking about are in many cases experienced realities.

I didn't say they weren't. I said there are four modes of experience, sensation, imagination, thought, and emotion. These "realities" you're talking about are indeed experienced, in the second mode, imagination. A dream is also experienced. A daydream is also experienced. An idea, later rejected, is also experienced. The error comes in when we treat something experienced in the imaginary mode as if it had the fundamental properties -- interpersonal verifiability, collective reality, measurability, continuation when not observed -- of the world we construct based on sensory experience. It does not.

Now, there are valid questions to ask about something experienced in the imaginary mode, especially when it produces intense accompanying feelings and sometimes delivers intuitive insights. We can reasonably ask what the vision is associated with, for example, in terms of either intense events or cosmic realities. We can also ask what it means. But we should never treat it as if it were a physical object -- or even a spiritual "object," which generally means a physical object that, somehow or other, isn't physical.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I don't think so. An operational definition includes a way to measure the thing being defined.

That's been done. It would have been impossible to construct an experiment to test for its existence otherwise.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

But there haven't been any observations. This is Vandal's point.

[Shrug.] You and he are wrong. There have been.

I tried to use the Martian canals and UFOs as examples. The existence of both came from initial observations that are more of less consistent with the science of the day.

Yes, and there lies the difference between them and psi. Psi is not consistent with the science, or anyway the psychology and biology, of the mid twentieth century, when the first parapsychology experiments were conducted. As you noted, the apparent discovery of the Martian canals spurred a lot of excitement and attempts to learn more about them, which eventually determined that they didn't exist. Psi research, on the other hand, spurred a small-scale but intense interest in debunking the results by any means necessary, valid or otherwise, against a general background of disinterest. The two examples are not comparable.

I have spent a good deal of time looking into the evidence here, Mike, and I find it convincing. It's true that the scientific community in general does not (at least not officially) agree with me. I believe I know why that is: unlike the Martian canals, psi cannot be accepted as real (absent an actual, workable, non-supernatural model) without so badly overturning things that the science enterprise can no longer be done at all. There is no way this can be accepted. No way. And so there is no way that an unbiased assessment of the evidence on an official level will be possible, until and unless such a model is presented. Even then, it will be very controversial, but that's appropriate.

Really, the fact that the intellectual Powers That Be have rejected the evidence is the only argument that the skeptics have here, and it's not convincing for this reason.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

psi cannot be accepted as real (absent an actual, workable, non-supernatural model) without so badly overturning things that the science enterprise can no longer be done at all. There is no way this can be accepted. No way. And so there is no way that an unbiased assessment of the evidence on an official level will be possible, until and unless such a model is presented.

I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion. Science will go on as usual. Just as physics has become idealist, psychology can admit the spiritual and the psychic. And it can still investigate planets and insects and diseases and anatomy and brains in the same way it has before; it will just grapple (as physics already does) with the fact that there are fields of experience that can't be explained by a materialist worldview. Science does not need that worldview; it will in fact be regenerated (as Sheldrake says) by ditching it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

But we should never treat it as if it were a physical object -- or even a spiritual "object," which generally means a physical object that, somehow or other, isn't physical.

Yes, it isn't. Yes "we" should. Or you can "treat" it as you prefer, and I "treat" it as I prefer, because my worldview is more spiritualist than yours. So be it.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion. Science will go on as usual. Just as physics has become idealist, psychology can admit the spiritual and the psychic.

Physics has not become idealist, but the conception of the nature of the physical world has certainly changed radically since Newton's time. But how has that happened? By the development of new theories that describe certain facts that Newton's physics did not. It did not happen by accepting the reality of the supernatural.

And supernatural is exactly what psi seems to be in the absence of a theory. It is an exception to the laws of nature, an interference with physical reality by a non-physical disembodied (or trans-bodied) "mind" or "soul," and a violation of one of the key assumptions that allow science to be practiced. Nothing in modern physics, radical though it is, crosses that line.

Neither, in my opinion, does psi -- in reality. However, because parapsychologists failed to develop a working non-supernatural model, this was not recognized by skeptics, who were faced with a false dilemma of "reject this, or believe in the supernatural." Naturally, they chose the first option. There was really no other choice, if it did come down to that.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Psi is not consistent with the science, or anyway the psychology and biology, of the mid twentieth century, when the first parapsychology experiments were conducted.

Psi was being researched a long time before 1950. Psi was not necessarily inconsistent with the science of the 1880's as were notions like vitalism. The idea of communication across a distance in the absence of any physical intermediate was a kind of magic that could be accepted by Science, since it came to be in the very near future.

Telepathy could be explained in terms of an invisible radiation that emanated from biological processes in one human brain towards another that was receptive to such a signal. Caloric (IR) and chemical (UV) rays had been discovered earlier in the century, and over the next two decades a whole array of radiations were reported: radio, X, radioactivity, N and gamma would all be reported. There would be nothing out of line with science if a T-ray of biological origin were added to this list in the 1880's. The only thing missing was a way to detect its presence, i.e. a case of clear-cut telepathy that could be demonstrated by others as was the case for all of these other kinds of radiation except N which could not be replicated.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Physics has not become idealist, but the conception of the nature of the physical world has certainly changed radically since Newton's time. But how has that happened? By the development of new theories that describe certain facts that Newton's physics did not. It did not happen by accepting the reality of the supernatural.

And supernatural is exactly what psi seems to be in the absence of a theory. It is an exception to the laws of nature, an interference with physical reality by a non-physical disembodied (or trans-bodied) "mind" or "soul," and a violation of one of the key assumptions that allow science to be practiced. Nothing in modern physics, radical though it is, crosses that line.

Neither, in my opinion, does psi -- in reality. However, because parapsychologists failed to develop a working non-supernatural model, this was not recognized by skeptics, who were faced with a false dilemma of "reject this, or believe in the supernatural." Naturally, they chose the first option. There was really no other choice, if it did come down to that.

To explain what I said above, in relation to your earlier posts, science would look at psi from the point of view of its methods, what you call "third person," but it would not classify the object of its research as "imagination" and conclude that they are not real even if demonstrated. These scientists, when they investigate such things as psi or the afterlife, would not assume that scientific research protocols can explain everything about these phenomena; only a materialist worldview expects science to explain everything about such phenomena, or do so in any kind of materialist terms. It is not necessary for science to do this.

And if science refuses to ditch its worldview, then that is no reflection on the actual facts. What the "scientists" choose to recognize or not, should be ignored. What they are willing to accept, is not a scientific question. And we certainly don't have to impress the "skeptics!" To hell with them.

There is no need to label such "first person" experiences that can't be explained in third person terms, either as "supernatural," or as "imaginary." And as Sheldrake explained, "laws of nature" is one of the dogmas; it is a metaphor based on human laws. What actually happens, in his interesting theory, are "habits." These are the kinds of models that science needs to move toward, if it is going to encompass the psychic and the spiritual within its universe, and still retain its methods of investigation.

Oh, and there is no "physical reality" for a "non-physical disembodied soul" to "violate." All is one, there is no difference between physical and spiritual. There are only differences in knowledge modes.

One model I like to use in discussing the various objects of research, and which ones science can more easily deal with, is degrees of aliveness. This goes back to another of the dogmas Sheldrake discussed: the dogma that evolution has no direction. A model more resembling Teilhard de Chardin's is correct. When I read science textbooks and listen to biology lectures, a scale of life is often presented, such that some forms of life are higher on the scale of evolution than others. It is quite feasible to detect scientifically which animals, for example, can do which kinds of tasks that involve intelligence, and at least on that basis rank them.

So to a degree, many scientists already accept such a concept of degrees of consciousness, to the extent consciousness and intelligence can be compared. In worldview terms, it just means accepting the obvious (but hard to quantify) fact that rocks (and their probability-indetermined behavior at the quantum level) are less alive than crystals, are less alive than viruses, are less alive than bacteria, are less alive than plants, are less alive than fish, are less alive than squirrels, are less alive than cats, are less alive than apes, are less alive than humans, are less alive than spirits.... with life and consciousness existing "all the way down," but in greater degrees as you go "up." The less alive something is, the more predictable is its behavior, and the more it tends to obey what we call "natural laws" or patterns of habit; the more alive it is, the more it can learn, break out of habits, exhibit free, spontaneous behavior, respond consciously to you, know itself, etc.

On the other hand, this need to distinguish between objects, whatever its degree of aliveness, is only due to the scientific method and rational modes of thought; you have to define things in order to investigate them. In fact, all things are interconnected, and in an absolute sense there ARE no things, no souls, no spirits, whatever; all is one. But this realization only happens outside the scientific protocols. In philosophy and mysticism, we can understand that individuals are only provisional or partial views; the world manifests as individuals, but also retains its wholeness. Individuals are holons (as Wilber calls them) within a holographic universe.

Science does not give us a complete understanding of reality. It is not that outside of science, we have "imagination." It is that there are 4 modes of "knowledge," without any one of which, our knowledge is incomplete.

I think there are quantum physicists who are developing models of psi, which it can do since quantum physics is essentially now idealist. A field for more thought and research!

The Science Delusion talk by Rupert Sheldrake

Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

To explain what I said above, in relation to your earlier posts, science would look at psi from the point of view of its methods, what you call "third person," but it would not classify the object of its research as "imagination" and conclude that they are not real even if demonstrated.

Emphasis added. The two phrases in bold are not equivalent in meaning. You need to re-read my post for comprehension. I'm not saying that what you are experiencing (which is similar to, my own experiences) is "not real." I'm saying that you are making a mistake as to the nature of their reality, treating them simplistically as if they were objects in shared reality like the parts of the physical world that we perceive through the senses.

The imagination is VERY real.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Psi was being researched a long time before 1950.

Correct, but the experimental result that generated a firestorm was the work of J.B. Rhine, which occurred -- well, I forget the exact date and can't be bothered to look it up, but it was in the mid-20th sometime.

I'm certainly not saying that a non-supernatural model of psi is impossible, only that one was not created and presented. In fact, Rhine's approach to the subject was not unlike Eric's albeit more rigorous. He wanted to demonstrate an effect of consciousness that could not be explained in terms of any material process -- of the soul, in other words.

About memory:

The problem with what Sheldrake was saying wasn't his concept of morphic resonance. He wasn't saying, "there may be an additional mechanism for memory besides something involving neural processes in the brain." He seemed to be saying that neural processes in the brain do not account for memory in the ordinary everyday sense, where we can recall former experiences after the fact and have a continuity of behavior, connected by memory, that describes and defines the personality. The fact that flashbacks are generated by electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus and nearby areas of the cortex is very strong evidence that this type of "memory" is indeed brain-based.

Now, there are other things in nature that could be called "memory" and that have nothing to do with the brain. We don't even have to go to computers for this, and we don't have to invoke Sheldrake's morphic resonance, either. There are many senses in which natural processes "remember" prior states in the sense of being affected by them or being able to respond to them meaningfully, that clearly employ a completely different mechanism from whatever is going on in our brains that is involved in human memory. It's not totally inconceivable that there might be an interaction between some of these and human memory, too. That's especially true if we do invoke morphic resonance and/or my own probabilistic conception of psi. But there's a difference between saying, "Memory may have other components to it besides this brain function involving the hypothalamus and portions of the cortex," and saying "Memory doesn't involve the brain at all."

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Emphasis added. The two phrases in bold are not equivalent in meaning. You need to re-read my post for comprehension.

What is clear is that the spiritual phenomena (psi, afterlife, spirit communication, etc. etc.) are as "real" as any other object of investigation, whether you call it imagination or not.

I'm saying that you are making a mistake as to the nature of their reality, treating them simplistically as if they were objects in shared reality like the parts of the physical world that we perceive through the senses.

OK, let's go with your edit then.

No, they are not objects of shared reality (defined as demonstrable in empirical experiments) perceived through the senses. Obviously we are talking about a realm that includes going beyond the senses; that's for sure. They might indeed be part of a shared reality ("second person, immersion?"), but not one that can be explained through scientific methods; on the other hand, their effects can be demonstrated, and physics can show through actual empirical studies that consciousness is everything and reality is not material, which opens the door to explaining more of the spiritual realm through science, even if it can never go all the way (and as of yet, only some scientists, and NO skeptics, are willing even to go that far).

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

What is clear is that the spiritual phenomena (psi, afterlife, spirit communication, etc. etc.) are as "real" as any other object of investigation, whether you call it imagination or not. My experience of your discussion of these things, with all the examples you mentioned, is that you do indeed think of "imaginary" as less real.

Then your experience is misleading you. It is, in fact, you who think of the imaginary as unreal, so that you react negatively to the word.

What about spirit communication, for example, partakes of shared reality? Let me ask further: what experiences have you, personally, had with spirit communication, by yourself, not others?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Then your experience is misleading you. It is, in fact, you who think of the imaginary as unreal, so that you react negatively to the word.

OK, so that's why I went with your edit, then.

Mike, here's a link to an article that says very much the same thing I'm saying here, that psi was rejected not for real problems in the research, but because it is impossible (so far as skeptical scientists can tell) to make compatible with current theory, or with the scientific approach itself. Admittedly this article is from a source that is critical of organized skepticism (or "pseudoskepticism" as they are wont to call it), but the quotes presented with it are real, and I'll give some of them below.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/scie...ce-211214.html

Originally Posted by Donald Hebb

Why do we not accept ESP [extrasensory perception] as a psychological fact? [The Rhine Research Center] has offered enough evidence to have convinced us on almost any other issue … Personally, I do not accept ESP for a moment, because it does not make sense. My external criteria, both of physics and of physiology, say that ESP is not a fact despite the behavioral evidence that has been reported. I cannot see what other basis my colleagues have for rejecting it … Rhine may still turn out to be right, improbable as I think that is, and my own rejection of his view is—in the literal sense—prejudice.

Originally Posted by George Price

Believers in psychic phenomena … appear to have won a decisive victory and virtually silenced opposition. … This victory is the result of careful experimentation and intelligent argumentation. Dozens of experimenters have obtained positive results in ESP experiments, and the mathematical procedures have been approved by leading statisticians. … Against all this evidence, almost the only defense remaining to the skeptical scientist is ignorance ... ESP is incompatible with current scientific theory ... If, then, parapsychology and modern science are incompatible, why not reject parapsychology? … The choice is between believing in something ‘truly revolutionary’ and ‘radically contradictory to contemporary thought’ and believing in the occurrence of fraud and self-delusion. Which is more reasonable?”If, then, parapsychology and modern science are incompatible, why not reject parapsychology? … The choice is between believing in something ‘truly revolutionary’ and ‘radically contradictory to contemporary thought’ and believing in the occurrence of fraud and self-delusion. Which is more reasonable?

Originally Posted by James Alcock

[Psi] stand[s] in defiance of the modern scientific worldview. That by itself does not mean that parapsychology is in error, but as the eminent neuropsychologist Donald Hebb pointed out, if the claims of parapsychology prove to be true, then physics and biology and neuroscience are horribly wrong in some fundamental respects.

The article begins with a paraphrase of something allegedly said by Richard Wiseman quite recently. If I can find the direct quote by Wiseman I'll link it. Meanwhile:

Originally Posted by Chris Carter

Recently, journalist Steven Volk was surprised to discover that leading skeptical psychologist Richard Wiseman has admitted that the evidence for telepathy is so good that “by the standards of any other area of science, [telepathy] is proven.” Mr. Volk goes on to write, “Even more incredibly, as I report in Fringe-ology, another leading skeptic, Chris French, agrees with him.”

EDIT: Okay, I found the full Wiseman quote. Here's a link to an article directly quoting him: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...L-psychic.html

And here's the quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Wiseman

I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.

If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me.

But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence.

Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Then your experience is misleading you. It is, in fact, you who think of the imaginary as unreal, so that you react negatively to the word.

It is quite simple. For you, spirit communication, the afterlife, etc., is something you imagine or dream up; "first person," which means something in your own world. For me, these phenomena are shared experiences or real entities or beings (part of the great being, as we all are, and all things are.)

For example, in the spirit world, you meet your parents and friends on the other side, and this is not something you imagine while still alive or unconscious in a body, but after the body dies, and you really are communicating with real spirits who communicate with each other and their spirit world. Sometimes the body recovers, or the returning spirit reawakens the life of the body, and returns to tell the tale. Other times mediums communicate with the dead, and the spirits tell the tale.

What about spirit communication, for example, partakes of shared reality?

Quite simply, the communication with the spirit. The spirit is another being, like me.

Let me ask further: what experiences have you, personally, had with spirit communication, by yourself, not others?

I had a friend who had recently passed give me a massage in bed, as far as I could tell in my half-awake state. I had the impression that this was something happening to me, not something I was creating. Although he was a good friend, I had forgotten, if I had even known, that he was a massage therapist. I had known him as an electronic and world musician who traveled in psychic and new age circles. His name was Tajalli or William Wichman.

I don't have too many such experiences, but I have voluminous reports and studies, including spiritual people who said my recently-deceased father was standing behind me, and that's enough to keep my mind open.