Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data

I agree there need not be any consciousness to particles moving about randomly in the sense that each particle is conscious. And there need not be spirits for every individual domain - however we carve the world into such domains - of causal relations.

Or to say it succinctly, neither Panpsychism nor Animism has to be true.

I would object however to the idea that clock goes on a temporal sequence of cause-effect relations without any mentality involved. I think this runs into issues ->

- We know that, as per our current best evidence, that the matter which supposedly forms the clock is indeterministic. We also, as per our best current evidence, know the clock is subject to varied forces which will break it down over time.

- Even if the underlying foundation of physical reality were not indeterministic, and there were [no] "entropic" forces acting on the clock...why do the cause-effect relations hold over time?

- How does a Designer impart Its mental intention to the non-mental stuff such that these relations hold. This just leads us back into the apparent necessity for a "mother substance", as you aptly call it or at least some commonality in the substance of the Designer's mentality and the non-mental substance of the clock.

Now I do think one could potentially say a Designer set the cause-effect relations, but I also think said Designer has to hold these relations across time. In fact this is one of the key reasons I started to lean toward some kind of theism...

Some kind of anthropic design-centric theism seems to be inevitable here in order to explain such things, such aspects of our reality. The Designer simply designed into our reality the laws of entropy and the consequent inevitable breakdown over time of the clock and all other machines both inorganic and organic. The basic design requirement was that for various reasons having to do with habitability by intelligent creatures living in this environment, matter at the human level of size would basically have to behave deterministically, which included degradative forces of wear, damage and disorganization. If it didn't, complex organic creatures could not develop and thrive. The principles and rules and laws governing our reality included cause-effect relations, and again for various reasons related to habitability by intelligent creatures, this design of the fabric of our reality was designed to remain fixed over time. If it didn't, Man could not exist.

Some kind of anthropic design-centric theism seems to be inevitable here in order to explain such things, such aspects of our reality. The Designer simply designed into our reality the laws of entropy and the consequent inevitable breakdown over time of the clock and all other machines both inorganic and organic. The basic design requirement was that for various reasons having to do with habitability by intelligent creatures living in this environment, matter at the human level of size would basically have to behave deterministically, which included degradative forces of wear, damage and disorganization. If it didn't, complex organic creatures could not develop and thrive. The principles and rules and laws governing our reality included cause-effect relations, and again for various reasons related to habitability by intelligent creatures, this design of the fabric of our reality was designed to remain fixed over time. If it didn't, Man could not exist.

I agree that the the problem of Cosmic Fine Tuning is very serious for the materialist-atheist.

What I am saying is that when we talk about "designing" a law, or even just some stochastic regularity like in QM, we enter [into a] host of subsequent questions of how this can be done. It's less problematic than the physicalist simply accepting Laws of Nature as part of their faith, but questions remain ->

- What is the nature of reality that keeps a law from changing? If I make a video game with certain rules/laws of reality, what keeps the laws in place is the continual application of the code I wrote to the game's state. So there is an ongoing support for a law of video-game nature.

- For the computer running the video game, what keeps the computer from flying apart or turning into solid glass? Or even having a slight shift in its structure to create a power outage or memory corruption? If we say a law of nature placed by the designer, what is enforcing this law across time?

- What does it mean for a designer to create a law? Does the Designer create matter from Nothing with certain properties? I would say this introduces a Something from Nothing issue. If the Designer uses the "Mother Substance"...how does this Designer add/remove qualities until we get to what we would consider the entities studied by physicists?

One answer that I like, but am not wedded to, is that the Designer is both creator and participant, and the material of Its artistry is a portion of its own Body. (Panentheism)

Of course our universe need not be directly created by the God who is the Ground of All Being, and some lesser spirit(s?) are responsible. But the overarching question of how these spirits are able to create a universe I think leads us back to the God-who-is-Ground. Admittedly I use "God" here because it seems like the best cross-cultural term, though perhaps Divine Light or Tao or Brahman or some other word is less charged...

I fully accept my strong leaning toward the Perennial Wisdom Tradition and Hermeticism could be influencing me here, but I think if we look at the paranormal evidence this idea of Panentheism gets us pretty far in incorporating a lot of the varied cases.

"The Gnostic Error is to hate the Material World. The Material World is the part of Heaven we can touch."
  -Grant Morrison

We've discussed a lot of philosophy, but I do think the other part of this is Survival cases and paranormal cases in general.

I've mentioned ectoplasm and shamanic healing a lot because I think these challenge both Dualism and Idealism. Here are some other cases of potential interest (special thanks to Jack Hunter and others who put the effort to finding these in the literature as part of their work in Paranthrpology ) ->

As I watched them I became intensely aware of their back-and-forth motion. I began to see the goka and the corpse tied together in the undulating rhythms of the singing, the beating of the iron hoes, and the movement of feet and bodies. The I saw the corpse jolt and occasionally pulsate, in a counterpoint to the motions of the goka. At first I thought that my mind was playing tricks wit my eyes, so I cannot say when the experience first occurred; but it began with moments of anticipation and terror, as though I knew something unthinkable was about to happen. The anticipation left me breathless, gasping for air. In the pit of my stomach I felt a jolting and tightening sensation, which corresponded to moments of heightened visual awareness. What I saw in those moments was outside the realm of normal perception. From both the corpse and goka came flashes of light so fleeting that I cannot say exactly where they originated. The hand of the goka would beat down the iron hoe, the spit would fly from his mouth, and suddenly the flashes of light flew like sparks from a fire. The I felt my body become rigid. My jaws tightened and at the base of my skull I felt a jolt as though my head had been snapped off my spinal column. A terrible and beautiful sight burst upon me. Stretching from the amazingly delicate fingers and moths of the goka, strands of fibrous light played upon the head, fingers, and toes of the dead man.

The corpse, shaken by spasms, then rose to its feet, spinning and dancing in a frenzy. As I watched, convulsions in the put of my stomach tied not only my eyes but also my whole being to into this vortex of power. It seemed that the very floor and walls of the compound had come to life, radiating light and power, drawing the dancers in one direction and then another. Then a most wonderful thing happened. The talking drums on the roof of the dead man’s house began to glow with a light so strong that it drew the dancers to the rooftop. The corpse picked up the drumsticks and began to play.”

 - Grindal, B.T. (1983). “Into the Heart of Sisala Experience: Witnessing Death Divination”. Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 39, No. 1, p.68.

And just then, through my tears, the central figure swayed deeply: all leaned forward, this was indeed going to be it. I realised along with them that the barriers were breaking - just as I let go in tears. Something that wanted to be born was now going to be born. Then a certain palpable social integument broke and something calved along with me. I felt the spiritual motion, a tangible feeling of breakthrough going through the whole group. Then Meru fell - the spirit event first and the action afterward...Quite an interval of struggle elapsed while I clapped like one possessed, crouching beside Bill amid a lot of urgent talk, while Singleton pressed Meru's back, guiding and leading out the tooth - Meru's face in a grin of tranced passion, her back quivering rapidly. Suddenly Meru raised her arm, stretched it in liberation, and I saw with my own eyes a giant thing emerging out of the flesh of her back. This thing was a large gray blob about six inches across, a deep gray opaque thing emerging as a sphere. I was amazed - delighted. I still laugh with glee at the realisation of having seen it, the ihamba, and so big! We were all just one in
triumph. The gray thing was actually out there, visible, and you could see Singleton's hands working and scrabbling on the back - and then the thing was there no more. Singleton had it in his pouch, pressing it in with his other hand as well. The receiving can was ready; he transferred whatever it was into the can and capped the castor oil leaf and bark lid over it.

It was done."

-Turner, E. (1998). “Experiencing Ritual”. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 149

“One day I was talking to a ... witch-doctor. I was waiting for my paddlers to bring provisions and I spoke of this to the fellow while wondering aloud if they were far away and if they would bring me the things I’d asked for. “Nothing could be easier to find out!” he cried. Then he took his magic mirror and with great concentration pronounced some incantation. The he said: “At this moment the men are rounding this bend in the river (it was more than a day’s paddling away), the tallest man has just shot a large bird, it falls into the water. They’ve caught it. They’re bringing you back what you asked for.” In fact everything was true: the provisions, the shooting, the bird, and, as I said, they were a day away!”

-RG Trilles as cited in E. de Martino (1972). “Magic: Primitive and Modern”. London: Tom Stacey Ltd. p.17

It was the height of market day and both shops and street vendors had a lively trade going when the thing appeared. It was a three-wheeled open coffin apparently steering itself into the midst of the crowd. There were three lively vultures perched at one end and a dead arm hung limply over the side. As if that weren’t enough, a hollow voice issued from the coffin’s interior repeatedly inquiring the location of one Jim Brown. Hundreds of people saw it - and heard the voice.”

[Joseph] Long was not among them; he was in a nearby area doing other work. Arriving on the scene shortly after the event, he lost no time in questioning those who had seen, and heard, the incident. 

[Long noted:]

It was incredible. There were literally hundreds of people in that square and they all saw it, and heard the same words. More than that – and infinitely more important – they had all instantly reacted with behavior that showed they saw it. Within minutes the shops were empty, even of storekeepers. Everyone ran out to see the coffin and then just milled around, the way people do when they have seen something that has had a powerful effect on them...

...To this day, I can’t explain it except to say there must have been some kind of unique mass telepathic hallucination That's pretty weak, I realize, but how else to explain that several hundred people are in agreement about an event that cannot occur? As for a prank or purely physical explanation: If the CIA got all their geniuses together and developed the most diabolical mind-control device they could think of – well, it would equal that scene. And even if it could, would they pick Mandeville, Jamaica, to try it out?

None of it makes much sense even now.

-  Boulders in the Stream: The Lineage and Founding of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness

Of course one could explain these cases under Idealism, but one can also take Arvan's Dualist position regarding higher and lower frames in the Peer to Peer Simulation Hypothesis. Both would have to say that there is a kind of deliberate rule set up that makes it seem like the spirit and physical have some continuity while also manifesting with certain distinctions. 

Personally I dislike that type of explanation, at least to some degree, because you can explain any and every case with this kind of reasoning. As such it seems to me what we call "mental", "spirit", and "physical" are either ultimately the same substance or there is a bizarre Pluralism, an intersecting of varied realities that results in these oddities.

While I'm not against Pluralism [as per my prior posts], [ultimately] it seems difficult to explain how conscious entities could move between or even experience these realities that only have limited causal relations without some kind of fundamental underlying reality. And if we accept the Interaction Problem it would seem that some kind of Monist explanation would be better even if Idealism isn't satisfactory.

We've discussed a lot of philosophy, but I do think the other part of this is Survival cases and paranormal cases in general.

I've mentioned ectoplasm and shamanic healing a lot because I think these challenge both Dualism and Idealism. Here are some other cases of potential interest (special thanks to Jack Hunter and others who put the effort to finding these in the literature as part of their work in Paranthrpology ->





Of course one could explain these cases under Idealism, but one can also take Arvan's Dualist position regarding higher and lower frames in the Peer to Peer Simulation Hypothesis. Both would have to say that there is a kind of deliberate rule set up that makes it seem like the spirit and physical have some continuity while also manifesting with certain distinctions. 

Personally I dislike that type of explanation, at least to some degree, because you can explain any and every case with this kind of reasoning. As such it seems to me what we call "mental", "spirit", and "physical" are either ultimately the same substance or there is a bizarre Pluralism, an intersecting of varied realities that results in these oddities.

While I'm not against Pluralism [as per my prior posts], [ultimately] it seems difficult to explain how conscious entities could move between or even experience these realities that only have limited causal relations without some kind of fundamental underlying reality. And if we accept the Interaction Problem it would seem that some kind of Monist explanation would be better even if Idealism isn't satisfactory.

Fascinating and incredibly weird phenomena.
 
My point of view would have to be based on those paranormal phenomena for which there is a lot of empirical evidence verified by independent investigators. I think that when the evidence to be considered is so restricted it would primarily consist of the large body of veridical NDE OOBE data, especially as documented in The Self Does Not Die. This data it seems to me is conclusively in favor of an interactional dualist filter/receiver/transmitter type of model.

The extraordinary occurrences you quote still don't change the fact that the many veridical NDE OOBEs also occurred. Assuming, in the absence of verification, that the weird paranormal events you described actually occurred, then reality would have to be assumed to be much more complicated than just a straight interactional dualist model.
 
Whatever is really going on, the veridical NDE data clearly shows that a major part of the picture is the existence of a spiritual mobile center of consciousness or soul which can separate from the body and travel elsewhere in the physical and other spiritual realms. As a practical matter, most human experience seems to fit the filter/receiver/transmitter model. It seems to me that regardless of the incredible experiences such as the ones you quoted, an important part of reality is that we almost certainly experience death as a release from the physical body very much as if an immaterial soul exists and during physical life intricately inhabits the body and manifests in the physical through special interactions with the brain's neurological structures.
 
However, the data you cited (if it all can be assumed to be valid) indicates the existence of a much deeper level of reality that only occasionally under extraordinary circumstances becomes visible. An analogy might be the fact that the vast majority of human experiences in the world can be explained using Newtonian mechanics, but the existence of a vastly different ground reality is revealed by quantum mechanics and relativity.

Fascinating and incredibly weird phenomena.
 
My point of view would have to be based on those paranormal phenomena for which there is a lot of empirical evidence verified by independent investigators. I think that when the evidence to be considered is so restricted it would primarily consist of the large body of veridical NDE OOBE data, especially as documented in The Self Does Not Die. This data it seems to me is conclusively in favor of an interactional dualist filter/receiver/transmitter type of model.

The extraordinary occurrences you quote still don't change the fact that the many veridical NDE OOBEs also occurred. Assuming, in the absence of verification, that the weird paranormal events you described actually occurred, then reality would have to be assumed to be much more complicated than just a straight interactional dualist model.
 
Whatever is really going on, the veridical NDE data clearly shows that a major part of the picture is the existence of a spiritual mobile center of consciousness or soul which can separate from the body and travel elsewhere in the physical and other spiritual realms. As a practical matter, most human experience seems to fit the filter/receiver/transmitter model. It seems to me that regardless of the incredible experiences such as the ones you quoted, an important part of reality is that we almost certainly experience death as a release from the physical body very much as if an immaterial soul exists and during physical life intricately inhabits the body and manifests in the physical through special interactions with the brain's neurological structures.
 
However, the data you cited (if it all can be assumed to be valid) indicates the existence of a much deeper level of reality that only occasionally under extraordinary circumstances becomes visible. An analogy might be the fact that the vast majority of human experiences in the world can be explained using Newtonian mechanics, but the existence of a vastly different ground reality is revealed by quantum mechanics and relativity.

I don't really see what you mean by "verified". Is there something more to verification than interviewing people?

Because the people quoted are all anthropologists who either directly witnessed the phenomena or talked to witnesses - in the case of the self-moving coffin it was witnessed by hundreds of people...probably way more people than have ever corroborated any single NDE...

Beyond that, it seems to me we are agreeing on a functional level that some substance that contains the individual consciousness but is distinct from the brain is the state of affairs describing the relation [of] the body and the conscious self.

Where we disagree seems to be the degree to which there is a separation between that consciousness/soul and the supposed physical world. To me it seems there is at best some kind of state of affairs where the distinction is maintained, akin to the climate of some locale being described as "rainy" or "dry". Not a hard rule, but how things seem to be for the most part and inline with your last paragraph.

OTOH I am not sure even that applies. Maybe the way things work really is some kind of Animism and there are always spirits around influencing the world which is what the varied cases cited above suggest. 

I would also add that NDErs who see the physical world or whose soul-forms are witnessed actually is an argument for causal continuity, so even those cases are not really an argument against the idea that there is a singular Monist metaphysics even if Idealism is inadequate to the task of explaining the breadth of paranormal phenomena.

I don't really see what you mean by "verified". Is there something more to verification than interviewing people?

Because the people quoted are all anthropologists who either directly witnessed the phenomena or talked to witnesses - in the case of the self-moving coffin it was witnessed by hundreds of people...probably way more people than have ever corroborated any single NDE...

Beyond that, it seems to me we are agreeing on a functional level that some substance that contains the individual consciousness but is distinct from the brain is the state of affairs describing the relation [of] the body and the conscious self.

Where we disagree seems to be the degree to which there is a separation between that consciousness/soul and the supposed physical world. To me it seems there is at best some kind of state of affairs where the distinction is maintained, akin to the climate of some locale being described as "rainy" or "dry". Not a hard rule, but how things seem to be for the most part and inline with your last paragraph.

OTOH I am not sure even that applies. Maybe the way things work really is some kind of Animism and there are always spirits around influencing the world which is what the varied cases cited above suggest. 

I would also add that NDErs who see the physical world or whose soul-forms are witnessed actually is an argument for causal continuity, so even those cases are not really an argument against the idea that there is a singular Monist metaphysics even if Idealism is inadequate to the task of explaining the breadth of paranormal phenomena.

You would think that if Animism were actually the case then the great majority of psychic channelers and mediums would sense the constant presence and interventions and meddlings of various spirits in human affairs and describe this as the prevailing situation. But this isn't generally reported by psychics. 

I don't think the veridical NDE OOBE accounts of being a disembodied spirit and apparently visually "seeing" the physical world and people necessarily have to be examples of "causal continuity" between the spiritual and the physical, where the disembodied spirit somehow is able to literally intercept and perceive the physical light waves reflected from physical world objects. This would seemingly even require a complex apparatus incorporating something like an eyeball, optic nerve, and visual processing brain structures. These experiences would much more likely be examples of a sort of synesthesia where the now temporarily disembodied spirit senses the physical world psychically, but this information is unconsciously translated into visual sight perceptions, because this is what the embodied person has been accustomed to over a lifetime. The same type of explanation may apply to apparent visual observations by witnesses, of NDE OOBErs' souls in the form of images of the persons themselves.

You would think that if Animism were actually the case then the great majority of psychic channelers and mediums would sense the constant presence and interventions and meddlings of various spirits in human affairs and describe this as the prevailing situation. But this isn't generally reported by psychics.

Mediums seem to have enough trouble with human communication, where the dead can't always be reached or if contacted don't always give 100% accurate information even when there are really good data "hits".

And there do seem to be meddling and interventions reported across the world, though many of the communities that could have told us more have been wiped out. I do think that these sorts of interactions with the elemental spirits could be "reverse extrapolated" to be a large part of humanity's history by taking the cases we do have, noting the tribal/indigenous communities where they occur today or at least were the origin of such practices, and considering the degree to which all humans lived like that in the past.

I don't think the veridical NDE OOBE accounts of being a disembodied spirit and apparently visually "seeing" the physical world and people necessarily have to be examples of "causal continuity" between the spiritual and the physical, where the disembodied spirit somehow is able to literally intercept and perceive the physical light waves reflected from physical world objects. This would seemingly even require a complex apparatus incorporating something like an eyeball, optic nerve, and visual processing brain structures. These experiences would much more likely be examples of a sort of synesthesia where the now temporarily disembodied spirit senses the physical world psychically, but this information is unconsciously translated into visual sight perceptions, because this is what the embodied person has been accustomed to over a lifetime. The same type of explanation may apply to apparent visual observations by witnesses, of NDE OOBErs' souls in the form of images of the persons themselves.

I don't think you need an optic nerve, the substance of your subtle body / soul / whatever-we-call-it just needs to have some way of being receptive to the physical world. Even in an OOBE case with 360-degree vision information about the world is being transferred, via some causal path, to the consciousness unmoored from its body.

As for the other way around, where embodied humans see an NDEr's subtle body / soul I think it just feels convoluted to say they aren't really seeing with their eyes. This would also mean that in cases with apparitions the same thing happens with the senses, including those instances where their presence brings a sense of coldness. In one case an OOBE of a living woman kissed her husband who was away at sea - do we say this also is not actually a feeling on the skin?

These ideas IMO veer too close to the Super Psi claim, that the apparition or OOBEr is merely a telepathic hallucination and/or a genuine ectoplasm sculpture created by PK. And while I find that ridiculous excuse making for the most part, I will note PK itself does also show the continuity between consciousness and whatever matter is supposed to be.

I'd also point to the cases where the dead are not even apparition-like but have conversations or even a drink with someone as if they are, for a brief period, full participants in the world of the living.

It does remain possible that some Designer(s) have designated a boundary between our world and what we might call the Spirit World. But it seems porous and perhaps one that applies to the dead but not those elemental spirits we seem to continually encounter in Paranthropology.

Mediums seem to have enough trouble with human communication, where the dead can't always be reached or if contacted don't always give 100% accurate information even when there are really good data "hits".

And there do seem to be meddling and interventions reported across the world, though many of the communities that could have told us more have been wiped out. I do think that these sorts of interactions with the elemental spirits could be "reverse extrapolated" to be a large part of humanity's history by taking the cases we do have, noting the tribal/indigenous communities where they occur today or at least were the origin of such practices, and considering the degree to which all humans lived like that in the past.


I don't think you need an optic nerve, the substance of your subtle body / soul / whatever-we-call-it just needs to have some way of being receptive to the physical world. Even in an OOBE case with 360-degree vision information about the world is being transferred, via some causal path, to the consciousness unmoored from its body.

As for the other way around, where embodied humans see an NDEr's subtle body / soul I think it just feels convoluted to say they aren't really seeing with their eyes. This would also mean that in cases with apparitions the same thing happens with the senses, including those instances where their presence brings a sense of coldness. In one case an OOBE of a living woman kissed her husband who was away at sea - do we say this also is not actually a feeling on the skin?

These ideas IMO veer too close to the Super Psi claim, that the apparition or OOBEr is merely a telepathic hallucination and/or a genuine ectoplasm sculpture created by PK. And while I find that ridiculous excuse making for the most part, I will note PK itself does also show the continuity between consciousness and whatever matter is supposed to be.

I'd also point to the cases where the dead are not even apparition-like but have conversations or even a drink with someone as if they are, for a brief period, full participants in the world of the living.

It does remain possible that some Designer(s) have designated a boundary between our world and what we might call the Spirit World. But it seems porous and perhaps one that applies to the dead but not those elemental spirits we seem to continually encounter in Paranthropology.

I have for some time thought that there is some validity to the suggestion that for many reasons the putative Designer or designers may have instituted the observed incomplete separation of the physical and the mental. Embodiment is obviously the most important of these exceptions of allowed interaction.

I think Animism (involving there being a multitude of elemental spirits interfering with and greatly influencing humanity) is not the only explanation for the anthropological data partially cited. What seems to me to be more likely to be going on is the self-selection effect, where these phenomena are being subconsciously generated by the very humans that form the Animist communities. That sort of explanation would explain the fact that Animism and its esoteric practices are not universal, but are characteristic of very limited separate aboriginal cultures, and that also would explain why psychic mediums and channelers in our culture have generally not reported sensing multitudes of intruding and interfering elemental spirits. Animism just isn't part of the prevailing culture, so the phenomena just aren't being created by our population. There have been exceptions of course, especially with physical mediumship during the heyday of Spiritualism and mediumistic seances. Anyway, in other words, Animism could be a cultural phenomenon coupled to the subconscious mind having the capability of wielding powerful psychic powers amplified by there being a large population of believers.

Anyway, in other words, Animism could be a cultural phenomenon coupled to the subconscious mind having the capability of wielding powerful psychic powers.

So....Super-Psi explains Animism but not Survival?

So....Super-Psi explains Animism but not Survival?

I think those questions are in different categories, not comparable.

To me, survival is of the same category as the very existence of consciousness. It would be absurd to attempt to explain our own consciousness by super-psi.