I was just curious if anyone here feels Super Psi is a serious explanation?
I can't seem to grasp how this is anything more than something someone thought up to be clever, or to escape the implications of an afterlife after being convinced the evidence for something "supernatural" happening was sound.
I don't take it seriously because if it were true you should see way more instances of high level poltergeists and etc. If peoples unconscious were really able to conjure up multiple complex physical yet metaphorical representations of their unconscious, then why don't we see way more of that? It's much like why I reject the idea that psi works in some non energetic, purely informational way because it doesn't obey inverse square law and goes across time and space. If that were true, people should be getting effects as huge as knocking planets out of orbit as often as they make a psi wheel twitch, since energy isn't involved. Yet it seems the largest scale effects can only ever move things up to a hundred kilograms or so in mass and not very much at that. Seems like an energy output limit to me, certainly that's the most likely explanation.
I tend to consider it is proposed by those who would usually reject 'ordinary' psi, but are prepared to go full-on in favour of the 'super' version as a way of dismissing some phenomenon which would otherwise break a person's worldview. As such it is a rhetorical device rather than an actual phenomenon. I'm not aware of any serious research or data on the topic of Super Psi in its own right.
Have just reached the point in the article at which a definition is attempted:
Quote:So let us tentatively define ‘super psi’ (admittedly, rather loosely) as ‘psi functioning of a highly controlled or refined nature, or else psi of great magnitude (whether refined or not)’. Obviously, that definition is still vague, and some types of frequently reported phenomena will still be difficult to classify. For example, some might question whether the object levitations and materializations reported during the heyday of spiritualism are sufficiently large-scale or refined to count as instances of super psi. They might consider those phenomena to be impressive, but reserve the honorific term ‘super psi’ for something even more remarkable.3 In any case, borderline cases are to be expected and should not prevent us from dealing profitably with some important and interesting issues.
Is this the same understanding as Sci's in the OP?
OK, I've finished the article (Max, you must be some kind of anomalously good speed-reader! Were you using super psi to get halfway through the article so quickly?!). A couple of thoughts on it:
- It doesn't seem to address the concern of Sci's opening post: the scenario in which "super psi" is used as a comprehensive explanation of everything "paranormal" or "anomalous", including such anomalous phenomena as deathbed visions and mediumship.
- It otherwise seems to list and address several meaningful objections to the notion of super psi, although obviously from the pro-super psi position of the author (Stephen Braude).
Worth a read, guys.
Haven’t other posters (here and at the other place) historically referred to Max’s explanations for veridical NDEs as “super psi”?
Stephen Braude comes to mind as often comparing the super-psi and survival hypotheses. (So answering Sciborg's question in the thread's title, the answer is "Yes, Stephen Braude".)
Here is one place he does this:
Survival or Super-psi?
Here's Mishlove's presentation of the hypothesis, mentioning Braude.
(2020-05-06, 12:39 AM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]Haven’t other posters (here and at the other place) historically referred to Max’s explanations for veridical NDEs as “super psi”?
I wouldn't - Max's explanation just seems like regular Psi to me. It's contentious but not, IMO, and example of super psi.
I was thinking more in terms of mediumship where one's own psychic powers seems to come through as a communication from the afterlife. That, and the idea that PK can be so strong it actually creates events that seem to be foretold through precognition.