Could psi have a materialist explanation?

Now, something to note here: I'm talking about actual explanations beyond the usual coincidence and fraud hand waves. As in if psi is a real phenomenon, then could it have a materialistic mechanism? Like what Ed May has tried to claim with his "retrocausality" approach. Just the topic for one second. 

I've heard a number of people point out quite a number of holes in even just the possibility of such a thing. And I bet they'll bring up these points again. Honestly I'm not too convinced of the idea myself, but that's besides the point, because there are a (small) few parapsychologists taking the route and I think it's an interesting thing to discuss. It's definitely been on my mind recently

I guess my problem is, I look at psi and survival evidence together sometimes and wonder what the other says about the nature of the other. And so on. In this case, I don't see how envoking materialist theories for psi defeats survival at all. If they think psi can explain survival evidence, they're in a losing battle. We've been over the old super psi idea a million times and it's quite far fetched

I guess my problem is, I look at psi and survival evidence together sometimes and wonder what the other says about the nature of the other.

Personally, I had no particular view on survival  at all in the past. I suppose I considered it unlikely but not entirely ruled out, but mostly it was a topic which didn't concern me greatly.

On the other hand psi simply forced its way into my life. It wasn't something I sought out or studied, it just happened. I'm not intending to go into the whole personal experience story in this thread, let's just say it was an ordinary part of my life, something I came to take for granted. Oddly though, this wasn't the case throughout my whole life, it was as though something happened as I transitioned into adulthood which released a blockage and allowed things to flow more freely.

So what of survival? Well psi convinced me that it could not have an ordinary physical explanation, and then I started exploring out of body experiences for myself. By the time I'd had several OOBEs of my own, basic though they were, it was clear that consciousness could operate independently of the body and not limited by time and space. That did I suppose open the door to the possibility of survival, yet still it was not a subject which interested or concerned me at all.

It was only when reincarnation thrust its way into my life that I took survival seriously, it went from not particularly interesting to completely obvious in a brief interval of time.

By the time I got to that point, re-reading the title of this thread, "Could psi have a materialist explanation?", the only way to answer 'yes' to that question would be to re-define the term 'material' to mean something else. Such wordplay does happen; though it doesn't seem to be in the spirit of fairness, it might be done as a face-saving exercise to try to minimise the amount of 'egg-on-face' at some future point.

If consciousness could have a material basis, then I think in principle the laws of physics could be modified to produce the kind of consciousness-related deviations from chance expectation that are seen in psi experiments. (I mean they could be produced even if the kind of conventional explanations proposed by sceptics were ruled out.) So in that sense my answer would be "yes".

Now, something to note here: I'm talking about actual explanations beyond the usual coincidence and fraud hand waves. As in if psi is a real phenomenon, then could it have a materialistic mechanism? 

Psi is not in the category of material sciences outcomes, except by the inference  that a physical signal is required to communicate information.  Psi is clearly a communication of information; and therefore is appropriately measured and analyzed by information science.The pervasive idea that information/real-world meanings are properties of materials -- is the underlying logical fallacy.

Physics discovered that states of information are prior to physical manifestation nearly 100 years ago.  At this stage in our knowledgebase of the outcomes of real phenomena - that there is a magical essence to materials that dictates mechanically, meanings and understandings of the past and future, appears as ludicrous.  It is as silly as a flat earth or that blood has the "life force" in living things.

People dream and receive communication that relations and people important to them share meanings.  Any real-world information transfer from such an event is a clear counter-factual to the belief in magic matter that holds all meanings.  Another logical fallacy is that there are materials (memory traces) that hold a motion-picture like event of the past and future.  In fact, no such material has been found.  What is found is that information recall is a state of order and organization.

Now, something to note here: I'm talking about actual explanations beyond the usual coincidence and fraud hand waves. As in if psi is a real phenomenon, then could it have a materialistic mechanism? Like what Ed May has tried to claim with his "retrocausality" approach. Just the topic for one second. 

I've heard a number of people point out quite a number of holes in even just the possibility of such a thing. And I bet they'll bring up these points again. Honestly I'm not too convinced of the idea myself, but that's besides the point, because there are a (small) few parapsychologists taking the route and I think it's an interesting thing to discuss. It's definitely been on my mind recently

I guess my problem is, I look at psi and survival evidence together sometimes and wonder what the other says about the nature of the other. And so on. In this case, I don't see how envoking materialist theories for psi defeats survival at all. If they think psi can explain survival evidence, they're in a losing battle. We've been over the old super psi idea a million times and it's quite far fetched

The claims made for psi/survival depend upon reference to events and experiences, which can be addressed under the umbrella of methodological naturalism (MN). I don't see why any explanations which are uncovered would be excluded from the remainder of what we have already discovered using MN, a priori. It's already discovered some weird shit which makes psi look pretty tame in comparison.

Linda

Now, something to note here: I'm talking about actual explanations beyond the usual coincidence and fraud hand waves. As in if psi is a real phenomenon, then could it have a materialistic mechanism? Like what Ed May has tried to claim with his "retrocausality" approach. Just the topic for one second. 

I've heard a number of people point out quite a number of holes in even just the possibility of such a thing. And I bet they'll bring up these points again. Honestly I'm not too convinced of the idea myself, but that's besides the point, because there are a (small) few parapsychologists taking the route and I think it's an interesting thing to discuss. It's definitely been on my mind recently

I guess my problem is, I look at psi and survival evidence together sometimes and wonder what the other says about the nature of the other. And so on. In this case, I don't see how envoking materialist theories for psi defeats survival at all. If they think psi can explain survival evidence, they're in a losing battle. We've been over the old super psi idea a million times and it's quite far fetched

You're asking "could [a label] have a [label] explanation?", which doesn't really make any sense to me. Those labels (psi, materialism) are as enlightening as a turd, they are so vague and murky. It's far better to discuss the very-specific-observations you are interested in, and then the very-specific way you/we understand them.

Then you can ask "might we understand these observations differently...?" the answer is a resounding "yes"... It seems obvious to me that the way we understand nature today, has some problems. For example, I would argue that there are different (better?) ways to understand... Why we decorate the interior of our homes? Why brands are so successful? What is the purpose of fashion? Why we go on holiday? Why we change jobs?

These and other poorly understood phenomena have something to do with how we understand things like 'learning' and 'memory' etc. Ultimately, they have something to do with 'information', and how information is stored, processed and manipulated. In my view, something seems wrong with how we currently understand these things...

But until someone comes up with a better way of understanding nature (which is also compatible with all our other observations), we're stuck with our current ways of understanding nature. We only swap an existing theory, for a better theory. We don't jettison an existing theory, just because people see something wrong with it, unless the people have something better to replace it with.

I guess I should rephrase it as how pluasable is a physicalist explanation for psi, as most treat it as a paradigm shifter if it does exist. Especially with the way it's tied to consciousness. 

Shouldve realized the term materialism is quite expandable actually, as what we consider "material" and the nature of it changes all the time

I guess I should rephrase it as how pluasable is a physicalist explanation for psi, as most treat it as a paradigm shifter if it does exist. Especially with the way it's tied to consciousness. 

Shouldve realized the term materialism is quite expandable actually, as what we consider "material" and the nature of it changes all the time

Are you meaning here that the term "physicalist" is not open to interpretation but "materialist" is?

I also would like to extend an invitation for you to tell us more about your own thoughts and ideas, that would make for a more  interesting discussion than simply posing questions. The forum and all of us would be the richer for it.

I guess I should rephrase it as how pluasable is a physicalist explanation for psi, as most treat it as a paradigm shifter if it does exist. Especially with the way it's tied to consciousness. 

Shouldve realized the term materialism is quite expandable actually, as what we consider "material" and the nature of it changes all the time

I don’t think you’re getting it? The label physicalism is just another turd, a [label].

We make observations of the world. We tie those observations together with stories, our way of telling ourselves how one observation transforms to another observation. If a story we have told ourselves has more accurate predictions of future observations, compared to a different story we previously told ourselves, then the new story may replace the old story.

The observations are real, but the stories which we use to tie them together are not, they are not how nature works. The stories are merely our way of understanding nature.

We can only depreciate stories, when a better story gets created. It doesn’t matter what the story is, as long as it’s predictive of our future observations of nature.

If we can’t currently observe it, (measure it) then it’s really difficult to make up a story, because we don’t have any observations we can tie together with a story.

The observations happen at all sorts of different perspectives (scales etc), but the stories we tell ourselves to explain the transformation of one observations to another observation just don’t matter, the more accurate the stories are when we test them for their predictive value of a future observation. The more useful we tend to find them.

Yes, we’re going to come up with new stories, no it doesn’t matter what they are, and yes it’s pointless to discuss labels. Only the actual observations, and the stories matter.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense?

If psi were anything like our folk science conception of it, it would be paradigm changing. But it's highly that unlikely whatever underlies these phenomena looks anything like what we currently call "psi", so it's hard to tell if it would be as paradigm changing as quantum mechanics, for example. 

Per Kennedy (who is a proponent):

"Most parapsychological experiments do not manifest actual paranormal phenomena. The experiments are dominated by methodological noise, various types of experimenter misconduct, and wishful thinking. These obstacles severely hinder scientific understanding and could be avoided with established methodological practices. 

Most (probably more than 80%) of the spontaneous paranormal experiences that people report are not actually paranormal. Most research on spontaneous cases is actually investigating characteristics of wishful thinking."

The discovery that consciousness is fundamental would be paradigm changing, though.

Linda