Cryptographic proof of survival

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here are a couple of blog posts about Robert Thouless's attempts to provide proof of survival by leaving coded messages, which could be deciphered by keywords to be communicated after his death:
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/02/1...-delivery/
http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-ko...the-crypt/

Interestingly, the first message was deciphered by a cryptographer soon after it was published, and another was similarly deciphered after his death. Another remains undeciphered, as does a message published by one T. E. A. Wood after Thouless encouraged others to do so.

If one of the correct keywords were received by a medium, what would it prove, I wonder?

In my opinion it would prove ‘everything’. The issue is that to my knowledge these ‘indisputable’ after death messages have a 0% success rate. Ian Stevenson also left behind a combination lock riddle still be ‘deciphered’ (I think his old department at university of Virginia still accepts proposals).

You kinda wonder if it's even worth the time. It's been debated here plenty whether what here seems to be something of importance is the same to some one who has passed on? The idea that they let go a lot of their earthly yearns when they reach the other side makes you wonder if some of these people just lose interest in the idea

You kinda wonder if it's even worth the time. It's been debated here plenty whether what here seems to be something of importance is the same to some one who has passed on? The idea that they let go a lot of their earthly yearns when they reach the other side makes you wonder if some of these people just lose interest in the idea

That point of view can also be extended beyond the individual. Just as here we have researchers working together in groups, from the 'other side' there may also be conscious entities working together in groups - and then it may be a matter of what are the aims of the group. It has been suggested that this life is a place to learn how to love. The question of survival may be considered a distraction leading attention away from that goal. At least that's an idea I've heard, not saying whether it is correct or not.

I've often thought that there is a real possibility that proof - absolute and incontrovertible - is something which is withheld from us. Perhaps, to paraphrase the great Jack Nicholson,  we can't handle the truth. So we have little truths - those which satisfy individuals or those of a particular philosophical leaning but nothing which would shift the awareness of the whole race into certainty. But there's always room for doubt and that doubt is seized upon by people of a different philosophical leaning.

Perhaps, in the big picture, that makes sense. Perhaps it helps us, as a whole community, question and learn? The same applies to many of the big questions: there is theory but no certainty. Is life designed or is it all an incredible accident? Is the universe precisely tuned for life or is it just one of a gazillion universes? Looking back at history, it seems that just when we become almost certain that we have all the answers, a new horizon appears with a host of new questions. Just when Newtonian physics seemed to adequately define reality, along came Einstein with relativity and he, in turn, ushered in quantum mechanics which moved the questions into - to use Einstein's word - spooky territory.

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here are a couple of blog posts about Robert Thouless's attempts to provide proof of survival by leaving coded messages, which could be deciphered by keywords to be communicated after his death:
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/02/1...-delivery/
http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-ko...the-crypt/

Interestingly, the first message was deciphered by a cryptographer soon after it was published, and another was similarly deciphered after his death. Another remains undeciphered, as does a message published by one T. E. A. Wood after Thouless encouraged others to do so.

If one of the correct keywords were received by a medium, what would it prove, I wonder?

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page - the final message has now been deciphered, by dint of downloading the whole of Project Gutenberg and testing all the phrases of the right length:
http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-ko...o-mystery/

The keyword came from Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven" - "I fled him down the nights and down the days ..." Perhaps that should have been guessable?

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page - the final message has now been deciphered, by dint of downloading the whole of Project Gutenberg and testing all the phrases of the right length:
http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-ko...o-mystery/

The keyword came from Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven" - "I fled him down the nights and down the days ..." Perhaps that should have been guessable?

Quite a nail in the coffin of mediumsship.

Quite a nail in the coffin of mediumsship.

Mediumship is mostly fake, no big deal. I'm inclined to think that all of it is either coincidence or fake, but I'm open to the chance of some of it being real  

People leaving messages behind them will always go unanswered. Even if mediumship was real (I doubt), contact with the deceased proving that afterlife is real would be banned from us.

Mediumship is mostly fake, no big deal. I'm inclined to think that all of it is either coincidence or fake, but I'm open to the chance of some of it being real  

People leaving messages behind them will always go unanswered. Even if mediumship was real (I doubt), contact with the deceased proving that afterlife is real would be banned from us.

Yes I share your believes. There’s just too many issues with mediumship. The same could be said with NDEs they also never bring any information back they couldn’t know beforehand (from the departed). We will most likely never get any irrefutable evidence for the existence of an afterlife. Only tiny straws to put ones hope on to.

Mediumship is mostly fake, no big deal. I'm inclined to think that all of it is either coincidence or fake, but I'm open to the chance of some of it being real  

People leaving messages behind them will always go unanswered. Even if mediumship was real (I doubt), contact with the deceased proving that afterlife is real would be banned from us.

I don't think the word 'banned' is appropriate. It presumes a particular description of the larger reality. I'd gently suggest that there are other possible descriptions of reality which lead to different ideas of the difficulties involved.

To take a historical example, our knowledge of astronomy and the nature of heavenly bodies such as the stars and planets was pretty much an unknown quantity for most of humankind's history. There may even have been those who declared that such knowledge was banned from us. But what it really took was a combination of increasingly accurate observations, together with appropriate tools in the form of theoretical ideas and mathematics with which to manipulate them. One might even argue that at present, these theoretical, mathematical constructs are rushing on ahead without concrete support in the form of observations. Nevertheless, it wasn't correct to say that knowledge of astronomy was banned.