(2022-05-08, 10:16 PM)Larry Wrote: I wrote this a while back:
Larry Wrote:[url=https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-does-anyone-take-super-psi-seriously?pid=35783#pid35783][/url]
Regarding Braude, survival and the super psi hypothesisnote I haven't read anything recently so the following is an impression of him from a while back)
In listening to Braude discuss the super psi hypothesis and survival, which he seemed ambivalent about, I was struck by his expression of human exceptionalism, that is human as opposed to any sort of higher intelligence. It seemed very parrallel to how scientists talk in terms of "the royal WE".
My sense was that he felt "WE" would some day understand all of this and will be able to attribute it to how amazing we humans are, that is claim it for the modern enlightened heroic ego.
Interesting. For me reading him and Alan Gauld list all the crazy suppositions of the Super Psi argument, things they themselves admit seem far-fetched to the reader (Braude's invocation of "magic wand" Psi that is akin to a genie's wish)...it seems to me what strikes them is some aesthetic opposition to the afterlife.
This seems somewhat in line with your take on how Braude thinks, that no matter how strange Psi was it would eventually be found to at least be within the confines of the mortal realm and governed by some principles/laws. But a world of spirits and alternate realities was too much like something cooked up from the old Dungeon and Dragons books where they just threw in everything from gods to aliens to unicorns.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
(This post was last modified: 2022-05-09, 12:06 AM by Sci. Edited 3 times in total.)
- Bertrand Russell
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