Could psi have a materialist explanation?

Post #4

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 from relations and people important to them, which share real 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.
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Physicalism/Materialism are metaphysical stances - however they are inferred to be based in science.  Science is - at its root a method - THE scientific method.  The scientific methodology describes processes that measure natural events and is be able to place them in the context of scientific models.  They are rooted in solid mathematical models. 

Psi is about, as Linda said, anomalous results, about information gained.  The implicit reference is to the idea that physical signals - and physical signals alone - carry information.  This is merely an assumption that if information transfer has taken place; a signal carried it.

Physical signals of course are measurable in materials science, such as electrical signals in the brain.  The "logic" is that if it didn't have a normative signal transfer - then no information was processed or could be gained.

But observation of reality blows this persisting assumption sky-high.  Once the laws of physics are divided from the principles of information science and assigned to separate but corresponding pathways or levels, exploration of a working model becomes practical.  Hence, the need to embrace Informational Realism, where materialism is a valid method on one of multiple levels, one that excludes processes that cannot be measured as physically manifest and detected by objective equipment.  Physics on one level and set of laws; informational activity on another level and with different laws.

Order, organization, math objects, logical structures, potential energy, information transfer, semantic meaning, coded information and the laws of physics are all abstractions and not subject to direct physical testing.  They are detectable as information structures and objects.

All are open to be rationally modeled in reality as deriving from the principles of information science.  The ability to model reality is expanding beyond Physicalism and has been doing so for decades.  It is time to be open to the facts - that there is ways for information transfer to happen besides means of a physical signal!

Tononi - ITT is an excellent example of presuming an abstract concept - integrated information which looks to information gain greater than the sum of local signalling processes.

No offense to the staunch materialists and the doubters of the importance of information science - but you are flat-earthers believing in an already disproved cultural fallacy.  The below quote was written in 1948.

 Nevertheless, the energy spent per individual operation is almost vanishingly small, and does not even begin to form an adequate measure of the performance of the apparatus. The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/so...ts/wiener/