(2023-07-08, 11:25 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: What about data quality and "checkability"? I would contend that the empirical data pointing to dualism is much more extensive and much more verified by investigators to have actually happened, than much of the "weird" stuff. The weird stuff usually can't be verified later by investigators (how about sightings of little green men or man-sized owls with pointed ears and red glowing eyes), whereas NDE OBEs, past life memories and birth defects, and mediumistic communications, can be and have been so verified.
With NDEs/OBEs you have to explain the causal continuity of sensory input where people see their own body or other events in the "material" world.
Past life memories and birth defects seem to point to a continuity between memory/experience and physical bodily incarnation.
Medium communication, if we include ectoplasm, leaves something to be explained that seems neither "physical" nor "spiritual". Even without ectoplasm we have the PK data of rapping on tables and voices heard that are not coming from the medium in particular.
There was at least one video game I recall where if you die you end up a ghost that can wander around, walk through walls, and eventually even get resurrected. You operate in the same game world under different rules, and substances are arguably nothing but rules attached to certain experienced entities/stuff...
'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
- Bertrand Russell