A major but biased new paper on consciousness

So do you consider the evidence exhaustively investigated and elucidated by Ian Stevenson and colleagues of past life memories of small children, and birth defects/deformities strongly correlating  with death traumas of apparent immediate past lives, not empirical evidence? Do you consider the many well investigated and confirmed veridical accounts from NDEers of details of resuscitation teams working on their bodies, communications with and encounters with distant people (and even deceased loved ones not known to be dead), all while their brains were dysfunctional, not empirical evidence? References to this data would be well covered collectively by the winning papers submitted for the Bigelow essay contest, and the book The Self Does Not Die by Rivas, Dirven and Smit, at https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php and https://www.amazon.com/Self-Does-Not-Die...0997560800.

Do you think that a large body of strong empirical evidence should simply be thrown out for serious consideration if it is not accompanied by a detailed "scientific" model explaining all its characteristics? In other words, that data does not trump theory?

Do you consider that all this research work doesn't constitute a source of data that should be seriously considered as relevant to the issue of which current theory of consciousness is the most valid? Or do you think it was rightly excluded mainly because it is taboo to the academic establishment?

As I mentioned in a previous post, it appears that the NDE and reincarnation data was considered by the authors, but ultimately rejected for inclusion, because it would have prevented the survey paper from being published by this mainstream journal.

Do I count most of the above as evidence?  Yes  Do I think Psi exists in such a way it should be accepted and better understood? 

Is what you point to empirical evidence?  No.  Many are results not coming from designed experiments and not standardized by measurement protocols.  I do not believe in reincarnation, but think reports of such are telepathic/empathic.  So, presenting corroborated information about the past is maybe semi-empirical  and then only if stripped of its theory.

I think there is empiricism building in research, in exactly the paper under discussion.  You think is biased, for not seeing it in your context.  Empiricism strives for objective physical observation.  Psi is not a match.

The opposite of empirical is logical.  Logic strives for patterned outcomes.  Psi, in that it is anomalous information transfer, can be measured as patterned outcomes.  Logical evidence is better for our side.

Look at the good work being done by Radin et all.  The there is research focused on designed experiments and standardizing the data.  The data is on our side!!!!!!   But it is data that has logical outcomes.  Not physically repeatable outcomes.

The evidence showing experience occurring after death, is difficult to present, but I do think it raises to the level of empirical.  It may take a while for the data to reach a tipping point. 

Faster route to success (imho) - is a logical account of the outcomes of Psi and mind in the modern environment.  Brits B. Josephson and R. Sheldrake have made significant presentations of ideas in this vain.

I do not believe in reincarnation, but think reports of such are telepathic/empathic.  So, presenting corroborated information about the past is maybe semi-empirical  and then only if stripped of its theory.

I'm curious - do you believe in any kind of afterlife? I ask because I think the Super Psi / Living Agent Psi explanation for reincarnation does not stand up to scrutiny.

I'd be curious who is performing the telepathy/empathy? Adults or the children themselves?

[Ninshub]

And what about people who have pre-birth memories? Who not only remember other incarnations but the reality between them and the process of choosing incarnations and so forth? How could that be merely "psi"?

And what about people who have pre-birth memories? Who not only remember other incarnations but the reality between them and the process of choosing incarnations and so forth? How could that be merely "psi"?

Yeah I would say mediumship has some good cases but I am not unsympathetic to charge of Psi in some other cases.

With reincarnation, especially replacement reincarnation, I find myself in the odd position of accepting someone who simply denies anything is happening more than someone believing these cases are Living Agent Psi...

I don't mean this in a hostile way, I suppose one could believe in some other Survival options but not in reincarnation. Just that if one accepts the cases indicate something anomalous not sure one can make a clear case for how Psi ends up simulating the supposedly reincarnated...

Do I count most of the above as evidence?  Yes  Do I think Psi exists in such a way it should be accepted and better understood? 

Is what you point to empirical evidence?  No.  Many are results not coming from designed experiments and not standardized by measurement protocols.  I do not believe in reincarnation, but think reports of such are telepathic/empathic.  So, presenting corroborated information about the past is maybe semi-empirical  and then only if stripped of its theory.

I think there is empiricism building in research, in exactly the paper under discussion.  You think is biased, for not seeing it in your context.  Empiricism strives for objective physical observation.  Psi is not a match.

The opposite of empirical is logical.  Logic strives for patterned outcomes.  Psi, in that it is anomalous information transfer, can be measured as patterned outcomes.  Logical evidence is better for our side.

Look at the good work being done by Radin et all.  The there is research focused on designed experiments and standardizing the data.  The data is on our side!!!!!!   But it is data that has logical outcomes.  Not physically repeatable outcomes.

The evidence showing experience occurring after death, is difficult to present, but I do think it raises to the level of empirical.  It may take a while for the data to reach a tipping point. 

Faster route to success (imho) - is a logical account of the outcomes of Psi and mind in the modern environment.  Brits B. Josephson and R. Sheldrake have made significant presentations of ideas in this vain.

Though you didn't answer directly, it appears that the bottom line is that your answer is "yes" to most of my queries in #79, especially the second and third: 

"Do you think that a large body of strong empirical evidence should simply be thrown out for serious consideration if it is not accompanied by a detailed "scientific" model explaining all its characteristics? In other words, that data does not trump theory?

Do you consider that all this research work doesn't constitute a source of data that should be seriously considered as relevant to the issue of which current theory of consciousness is the most valid? " 

That indicates a rather fundamental difference in views of what is real in the world.

Most of the data of psychical research into NDEs, reincarnation and other afterlife-related phenomena by their very nature are not replicatable in the laboratory. NDEs and reincarnation can only be accessed by accounts of their spontaneous occurrence after the fact. But they are still real occurrences. In fact, much of human experience and observation in the world is spontaneous and can't be demonstrated at will by scientists. And the arbiter of what is real is not that it has a well worked-out scientific theory predicting its behavior and nature.

Especially if the phenomena violate their deeply held dogmatic materialist belief system, scientistic pseudo-skeptics simply refuse to accept anything that can't be replicated at will by scientific investigators. In the case of NDEs and reincarnation accounts, this means rejecting any and all of these evidences - including experiential first hand accounts, and reports from investigators describing observational confirmation of the veridicality of these accounts in the physical world, regardless of the credibility of the experiencers and the quality of the investigations and multiple expert and qualified witnesses, and it goes on. 

There appears little prospect for useful communication, with such a gulf between world views.

And what about people who have pre-birth memories? Who not only remember other incarnations but the reality between them and the process of choosing incarnations and so forth? How could that be merely "psi"?

Merely Psi????

Yikes!

Yeah I would say mediumship has some good cases but I am not unsympathetic to charge of Psi in some other cases.

With reincarnation, especially replacement reincarnation, I find myself in the odd position of accepting someone who simply denies anything is happening more than someone believing these cases are Living Agent Psi...

I don't mean this in a hostile way, I suppose one could believe in some other Survival options but not in reincarnation. Just that if one accepts the cases indicate something anomalous not sure one can make a clear case for how Psi ends up simulating the supposedly reincarnated...

Sci, in private conversation I have framed my position as one where survival is factual.  Not wanting to get into personal stuff in public, I will simply confirm.

Psi is not simulating anything, it is direct experiences being seen outside of physical time.  Minds communicate with minds, if a past (or future) experience is directly re (pre)-experienced, it is through other minds.  Past and future are clearly separated physically.  Not so, in the environments where telepathy occurs.

Most of the data of psychical research into NDEs, reincarnation and other afterlife-related phenomena by their very nature are not replicatable in the laboratory. NDEs and reincarnation can only be accessed by accounts of their spontaneous occurrence after the fact. But they are still real occurrences. 

There appears little prospect for useful communication, with such a gulf between world views.

I'm not much for politics.  I see no gulf, except my in poor prose.  Your somewhat pleading that they are real occurrences, which you do to me a lot, is wasted.  I have defined them as real occurrences in recent past posts.  Why try to respond to me, as if, I don't?

Your claims that Psi is empirical is playing into the hands of doubters and skeptics.  You, yourself now admit they don't meet most conceptions of what science calls empirical.  In a competitive forum, you will be dismissed immediately for overreaching. 

I am simply trying to steer away from the talk, talk, talk.  And get to the heart of mind and mental evolution.  I suspect that there is spiritual layers on top of a simple natural understanding of the world we perceive.

post script...

Maybe it would help to understand my posts in the context that I am a retired marketing executive.  I am trying to market versions of Psi that can meet the needs of the consumers.  Telling folks white is black is a waste of time in the long run.

Explaining how natural things lead to mental things - leads to thinking about deeper-meanings beyond.

OMG, tim's a cyborg!

(I just couldn't resist that corny joke...)

I still don't get that, Laird but it must be a 'good un' if Brian likes it 

NDE experiences are then collected from those revived. So after death and revival. The actual point in our physical space / time where the NDE events happen have not been determined, to my knowledge. Assume what you will here.

Double Yikes............

The paper under discussion that is a review of non-local consciousness.  Yet the response -- is where is it?  Rather than skeptical it might be a lack of understanding of what non-local conscious is.

 
Nonlocal realism is closely related to the view espoused by Erwin Schrödinger that the overall number of minds within the universe is just one.2 He went further by suggesting that mind has erected the physical outside world out of its own mental stuff [13]. The interconnected universal consciousness implied by the concept of one mind constitutes the nonlocal, singular implicit reality of a universal consciousness that has embedded within itself the local and explicit conscious mind of each individual.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article...ndividual.

The point is --- the activity is not happening at physical locations, but like a field in physics, is happening in a probability distributed manner in the environment.   That it is happening begs -how.  What's wrong with measurement of its variables?