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

Interesting. At this moment I can only comment that for complex subjects and issues I usually use the type of thinking called abductive reasoning, which is the appeal, for the leading theory or hypothesis, to the explanation having the preponderance of evidence in favor of it. This method applies for instance to the topic of ID versus Darwinian evolution, considering the fossil, morphological and genetic evidence.

There is a lot of empirical evidence for interactional dualism. There appear to be at least three main areas of this evidence - veridical NDEs, the practical experiences during epilepsy surgery of Wilder Penfield, and the free will and "free won't" experiments of Benjamin Libet. Also a scattering of other paranormal phenomena. There are probably quite a few more. So in my opinion a few outliers that conflict won't change the abductive reasoning conclusion. It seems to me that there is considerably less evidence for idealist monism, plus the observation that it seems to require considerably more additional auxiliary hypotheses to explain the evidence mentioned above - i.e. much more complicated.

Depends on what you mean by Dualism. If you mean two frames of reality then it seems OOBEs are somewhere on the intersection. Given the OOBEr/NDEr can see stuff happening in the "mundane" world there seems to be some way for the sensory information to travel from the "mundane" to the soul/astral-body/whatever-we-call-it. Similarly, that people can see the NDEr having an OOBE in some cases suggests people are seeing with their eyes...though apparently there are apparitions that people can see but cannot be photographed which makes things stranger.

As for the Libet/Penfield data, not sure any hard conclusions can be drawn save perhaps that the standard materialist dogma is false. But once someone accepts that the substance of the brain is not governed by naturalist-materialist laws it seems the findings at best suggest some kind of filter/transmitter function of the brain. But something like Kastrup's Whirlpools, Paul Marshall's Monads, and other Idealists' models of reality would work.

I do agree that many cases are problematic for Idealism, insofar as it seems there needs to be a variety of rules added to explain (explain away?) the varied phenomena. That Rolling Thunder needs to shift the illness from the human body into a pair of steaks suggests there is some continuity from the conceptual to the physical, which may be better explained if "Illness" as a concept as well as the "Physical" are all in some kind of Mind or set of Minds.

OTOH there seem to be issues for Idealism as well, where at best we need to say there are a set of rules held by someone/something like God or the consensus of all Minds. These rules would then have to explain why most of the time physics/chemistry/biology seem to govern the consensus world and at other times Rolling Thunder can transfer illness from a human to steaks. Of course Idealism *could* make these claims but it seems that this would be the kind of pseudo-explanation available to a variety of Simulation Hypotheses. It also feels odd that PK (which arguably includes psychic/magical/shamanic healing) would take so much effort if everything was Mind, and again it feels like while one can give an Idealist explanation not sure there is one that satisfyingly explains this.

Right now I think some kind of "hyper-spatial" pluralism might work best, where we reject any worry about what is "mental" and what is "physical" and just think of our situation as being in an intersection point of at least two realities with their own rules. Eric Weiss even suggests this with his Doctrine of Subtle Worlds:

• The physical world is part of a larger system of interlocking worlds.
  
  
• These other worlds are not physical, and they operate according to laws different from those that govern the physical world. They are, nonetheless, objectively real.
  
  
• Processes taking place in those other worlds directly impact what takes place in the physical world – whether or not human beings are aware of them.
  
  
• Human beings can consciously experience those other worlds, and can operate in those other worlds in ways that significantly affect the unfolding of events here in the physical world.
  

Depends on what you mean by Dualism. If you mean two frames of reality then it seems OOBEs are somewhere on the intersection. Given the OOBEr/NDEr can see stuff happening in the "mundane" world there seems to be some way for the sensory information to travel from the "mundane" to the soul/astral-body/whatever-we-call-it. Similarly, that people can see the NDEr having an OOBE in some cases suggests people are seeing with their eyes...though apparently there are apparitions that people can see but cannot be photographed which makes things stranger.

As for the Libet/Penfield data, not sure any hard conclusions can be drawn save perhaps that the standard materialist dogma is false. But once someone accepts that the substance of the brain is not governed by naturalist-materialist laws it seems the findings at best suggest some kind of filter/transmitter function of the brain. But something like Kastrup's Whirlpools, Paul Marshall's Monads, and other Idealists' models of reality would work.

I do agree that many cases are problematic for Idealism, insofar as it seems there needs to be a variety of rules added to explain (explain away?) the varied phenomena. That Rolling Thunder needs to shift the illness from the human body into a pair of steaks suggests there is some continuity from the conceptual to the physical, which may be better explained if "Illness" as a concept as well as the "Physical" are all in some kind of Mind or set of Minds.

OTOH there seem to be issues for Idealism as well, where at best we need to say there are a set of rules held by someone/something like God or the consensus of all Minds. These rules would then have to explain why most of the time physics/chemistry/biology seem to govern the consensus world and at other times Rolling Thunder can transfer illness from a human to steaks. Of course Idealism *could* make these claims but it seems that this would be the kind of pseudo-explanation available to a variety of Simulation Hypotheses. It also feels odd that PK (which arguably includes psychic/magical/shamanic healing) would take so much effort if everything was Mind, and again it feels like while one can give an Idealist explanation not sure there is one that satisfyingly explains this.

Right now I think some kind of "hyper-spatial" pluralism might work best, where we reject any worry about what is "mental" and what is "physical" and just think of our situation as being in an intersection point of at least two realities with their own rules. Eric Weiss even suggests this with his Doctrine of Subtle Worlds:

I tend to look at it as there being two quasi-separate designed realms of reality with areas of intentional interactive 'intersection' (as you put it). These would be special case rules built into reality for specific purposes such as achieving embodiment of souls in physical matter, human brains and bodies. There would appear to be analogies to this special case interactive intersection concept, in for instance Maxwell's laws of electromagnetics (derivable from deeper levels of physics), enabling interaction between material conductors like copper and immaterial magnetic and electric fields so as to allow Man to develop most of modern technology, especially electric generators, long distance power transmission, electric motors, and a host of other technologies. These special case rules (laws of physics) would be brute facts of Nature purposely built into reality by the powers-that-be and not necessarily understandable in their essence by Man through science or any other human means of understanding.

Paranormal phenomena would be mostly unintended "leakage" from spiritual realms into the physical realm and vice versa, coming about because of the manifold number of engineering tradeoffs inherently necessary in designing these realities for various functional goals such as physical embodiment of mostly immaterial souls. All complex engineering projects absolutely necessarily result in tradeoffs in the resulting systems, where in principle all the sometimes conflicting engineering requirements can't be simultaneously fully met - there has to be a give and take. Resulting for instance in the difficult to achieve but real psychokinetic powers of certain rare physical mediums, perhaps not intended as requirements for reality but accepted as within certain "error bounds".

I tend to look at it as there being two quasi-separate designed realms of reality with areas of intentional interactive 'intersection' (as you put it). These would be special case rules built into reality for specific purposes such as achieving embodiment of souls in physical matter, human brains and bodies. There would appear to be analogies to this special case interactive intersection concept, in for instance Maxwell's laws of electromagnetics (derivable from deeper levels of physics), enabling interaction between material conductors like copper and immaterial magnetic and electric fields so as to allow Man to develop most of modern technology, especially electric generators, long distance power transmission, electric motors, and a host of other technologies. These special case rules (laws of physics) would be brute facts of Nature purposely built into reality by the powers-that-be and not necessarily understandable in their essence by Man through science or any other human means of understanding.

Paranormal phenomena would be mostly unintended "leakage" from spiritual realms into the physical realm and vice versa, coming about because of the manifold number of engineering tradeoffs inherently necessary in designing these realities for various functional goals such as physical embodiment of mostly immaterial souls. All complex engineering projects absolutely necessarily result in tradeoffs in the resulting systems, where in principle all the sometimes conflicting engineering requirements can't be simultaneously fully met - there has to be a give and take. Resulting for instance in the difficult to achieve but real psychokinetic powers of certain rare physical mediums, perhaps not intended as requirements for reality but accepted as within certain "error bounds".

Isn't this ultimately the same layering on of rules type argument the Idealist could use? That some Higher Being(s) made things a certain way?

The problem I think is there don't seem to be steady rules. Some OOBErs are witnessed in their "subtle bodies", some are not. Sometimes someone having an OOBE can communicate or even make some kind of physical contact, other times the person is not detectable at all despite the OOBEr making an effort. Similarly with apparitions some seem to be stuck in a particular form wearing particular clothes, others seem able to transform. Psi seems to follow some patterns, possibly even related to astronomy, but even then it's indeterminate/stochastic rather than clearly measurable.

Beyond that there are the varied reports Vallee has collected across history. There seem to be varied entities that may even share this world that seem to be more like what humans are like when having OOBEs than flesh-and-blood creatures. But their power seems much greater even then...

There may have to be some kind of Supreme Intellect / Prime Mover type entity at the Ground level of reality [if all causation is mental causation like I believe] but this could be quite removed from our current place in creation. That said, it does seem that there are some potentially deliberate attempts to make sure humans are not in easy, constant communication with the afterlife. Also we thankfully are not constantly under physical threat by other entities that seem quite capable of abducting humans for whatever reason.

Isn't this ultimately the same layering on of rules type argument the Idealist could use? That some Higher Being(s) made things a certain way?

The problem I think is there don't seem to be steady rules. Some OOBErs are witnessed in their "subtle bodies", some are not. Sometimes someone having an OOBE can communicate or even make some kind of physical contact, other times the person is not detectable at all despite the OOBEr making an effort. Similarly with apparitions some seem to be stuck in a particular form wearing particular clothes, others seem able to transform. Psi seems to follow some patterns, possibly even related to astronomy, but even then it's indeterminate/stochastic rather than clearly measurable.

Beyond that there are the varied reports Vallee has collected across history. There seem to be varied entities that may even share this world that seem to be more like what humans are like when having OOBEs than flesh-and-blood creatures. But their power seems much greater even then...

There may have to be some kind of Supreme Intellect / Prime Mover type entity at the Ground level of reality [if all causation is mental causation like I believe] but this could be quite removed from our current place in creation. That said, it does seem that there are some potentially deliberate attempts to make sure humans are not in easy, constant communication with the afterlife. Also we thankfully are not constantly under physical threat by other entities that seem quite capable of abducting humans for whatever reason.

I think that this may all be in "hidden variables", built-in variability in paranormal access between different persons/spirits, plus variability in manifestation of the paranormal depending on circumstances, both of which I think are very much to be expected to be exhibited by our reality. As individual personality characteristics obviously vary greatly, so supposedly must esp and psi talents and abilities vary greatly between persons.These variable factors would interact in conjunction with other factors of paranormal functioning where "cracks" in the barrier between spiritual and material realms appear according to complicated relationships of circumstances, artifacts of a complex design of the physical/spiritual realms and the inevitable multiple tradeoffs of the overall design. This phenomenon would ultimately be semi-deterministic but the mechanisms leading to it would be far too complicated for humans to figure out, resulting in the human observation that it is apparently indeterminate/stochastic, as you pointed out.

Of course there is another possible answer, which is to postulate that a certain built-in level of indeterminacy or randomness is part of the basic brute fact design of reality, and probably also has some hidden purpose relative to humans. This would be essentially too easy a way out, though, it seems to me. Such an argument can be used to explain absolutely anything, similarly to the world virtual reality simulation hypothesis.

I think that this may all be in "hidden variables", built-in variability in paranormal access between different persons/spirits, plus variability in manifestation of the paranormal depending on circumstances, both of which I think are very much to be expected to be exhibited by our reality. As individual personality characteristics obviously vary greatly, so supposedly must esp and psi talents and abilities vary greatly between persons.These variable factors would interact in conjunction with other factors of paranormal functioning where "cracks" in the barrier between spiritual and material realms appear according to complicated relationships of circumstances, artifacts of a complex design of the physical/spiritual realms and the inevitable multiple tradeoffs of the overall design. This phenomenon would ultimately be semi-deterministic but the mechanisms leading to it would be far too complicated for humans to figure out, resulting in the human observation that it is apparently indeterminate/stochastic, as you pointed out.

Of course there is another possible answer, which is to postulate that a certain built-in level of indeterminacy or randomness is part of the basic brute fact design of reality, and probably also has some hidden purpose relative to humans. This would be essentially too easy a way out, though, it seems to me. Such an argument can be used to explain absolutely anything, similarly to the world virtual reality simulation hypothesis.

I agree that individual talent seems to be a factor in Psi, just as it can be in math, music, athletics, etc. Though I still feel the gradient of effort seems quite variable - for example in the Kripner dream experiments at times you had the audience of a Grateful Dead concert focusing to send information to sleepers. Other times people have sudden awareness that a loved one is in danger, or that they are being stared at, or that someone is calling. Psi seems to exist in both wilful and "passive" forms, whether it is struggling to slightly move a piece of foil or some kind of poltergeist activity. Though just as poltergeist activity may involve both some subconscious energy manifestation on the part of stressed individuals and spirits making use of those balls of force, perhaps some of what we call "Psi" is a combination of personal ability and spirits being helpful/mischievous/harmful.

Regarding a material world and its natural laws, I am wary of having anything "physical" that would exist as materialists define it. Firstly because part of what we observe as classical laws seems to merely be due to the indeterminacy at the QM level mercifully resolving itself?

Beyond that parapsychology itself seems to suggest otherwise:

If mystical experiences truly are metaphysical windows, then the reports suggest that luminous quality is fundamental to reality, an intrinsic characteristic of the world at large and of consciousness at its deeper levels. Some mystical accounts indicate that the world was not only flooded with luminosity but seemed to be made of it. While the ascription of experiential light qualities to the external world goes against common scientific and philosophical opinion, there is good reason to suppose that luminosity is no mere epiphenomenal “glow” generated by and confined to brain activity. Ever since early modern thinkers revived ancient atomism and banished “secondary qualities” from the universe, including color qualities, it has become a great mystery how the brain can support experience. However, if the brain is itself an intrinsically luminous structure, part of a luminous world, there is no puzzling mind– body gap between visual experience and the brain, and the problematic dualist split of mind and matter is eased in this regard.

-Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality

Upon meeting the carpeted ground, the tin lost its lid and much of its powdery contents. Rather upset at myself, I kneeled to clean up the mess. Then came the electric discovery whose current still flows through me. Enough of the flour had run out to reveal that something was buried at the bottom of the tin. Naturally curious, I dug through the flour with my fingers and then pulled out, of all things, a glass honey jar exactly like the one I had held in my hands and washed a moment ago, a jar completely caked with flour—as if it had been placed in the tin still wet. Puzzled, I turned my head to assure myself that the bottle I had just rinsed was standing where I had left it. It was not.

Strieber, Whitley; Kripal, Jeffrey J.. The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained

There are a variety of other cases, like medium apports seemingly pulling events across distances and possibly across time. Also those cases of time-slips themselves raising questions about space-time rather than just matter. Also one case I'll try to run down that suggests a literal undead body.

One possibility I can draw from Pluralism is that not only are these different realities intersecting/interlocking, but their relation to each other may shift. This might explain why certain times are believed to be auspicious, and other times where it seems the dead are closer.

I still think not everything is fully explained by Pluralism anymore than by Dualism or Idealism, like how mediums seem to need darkness and shamans sometimes use magic tricks to get their patient into a mindset that is amenable to magical healing. Maybe this also has to do with our participation in the intersection where we exist, where certain conditions + our own wills can make the rules shift in just the right way. But, like hidden variables and simulations, this is probably leaning a bit too much into the kind of "explain anything" strategy.

A bit more that, in some way, at least the material and spiritual/mental would arise from some kind of luminosity:

"The concept of this dimension of light, an archetypal dimension because it grounds every being in another self which keeps eternally ahead of him,can provide us with the key to a celestial world inhabited by figures who are constituted and governed in their being by a law of their own, a law with its very own logic. The responses we have just read refer to the twofold plane or twofold state of being which characterizes Mazdean ontology,and which is designated by the two terms menok and getik. We must take care not to reduce the contrast they express to a Platonic schema pure and simple. We are not dealing precisely with an opposition between idea and matter, or between the universal and the perceptible. Menok should, rather,be translated by a celestial, invisible, spiritual, but perfectly concrete state.Getik designates an earthly visible, material state, but of a matter which is in itself wholly luminous, a matter immaterial in relation to the matter that we actually know. For, and this is the peculiarly Mazdean conception,a transition to the state of getik means in itself not a fall but rather fulfillment and plenitude. The state of infirmity, of lesser being and darkness represented by the present condition of the material world, results not from its material condition as such but from the fact that it is the zone invaded by the demonic Contrary Powers, the arena of struggle and also the prize.


Here the stranger to this creation is not the God of Light but the Principle of Darkness. Redemption will bring the flowering of the 'tan i pasen', the"body to come," the corpus resurrection is; it does not tend to destroy the getik world, but to restore it to its luminous state, its archetypal dimension."
-Henri Corbin, Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis



I had already posted this in the Spirituality and Light thread some time ago, but figured it might be of interest - the rest of that thread also suggests that there is a kind of Transcendent Light that may be the Ground of the interlocking realities I argue for in my Pluralism position.

Another good one would be Owen Barfield on Light and Consciousness in his essay Light and the World:

It is indeed very difficult for minds – trained, as ours have mostly been, to assume that there is nothing between a physical force, at one extreme, and an abstract idea at the other – to learn to imagine, or to realize in experience, something which is a force, and yet not a physical force; something whose influence is inward from the periphery, not outward from the centre; and yet which works upon that centre expansively and not contractingly. But when one has overcome this obstacle, at least in some degree; when one has begun, in some dim way, to realize the etheric as etheric, then one begins to move forward into a kind of new and more intimate relationship with the world of plants. One begins, for instance, to feel, like a sort of tenderness in one’s own heart, the infinite delicacy and tenderness that hovers about the growing point of the commonest weed. And at the same time – or it may well be later – it may come about that one will begin to feel a new, and again an intimate, relation with the light itself. One begins to perceive, or rather to feel, that the light itself – this light from the sum that comes to us through the senses – is etheric and that the etheric is a kind of light.

Nobody has addressed my point about the relative simplicity of explaining via dualism much of the paranormal empirical data, including veridical NDE out of body experiences, and past life memories of inhabiting different bodies, coming in to different bodies, etc., all as an immaterial mobile center of consciousness distinct from the physical. All these examples being considerably more simply explained just assuming two fundamentally different kinds of basic substances - physical and spiritual. Again, the actual data and evidence trumps theory, it seems to me.

This is basically my point of view. Genuine scientific theories aren't the eternal structures that people tend to imagine. Theories are followed while they are useful and then replaced - we should look to physics as it is practised! Nobody designs an aeroplane (say) using GR!


Particularly when investigating a new area of science, theories are bound to morph, but important data - such as the ones you mention - get excluded from science because they don't correspond to theory!

Yes, Dualism is by far the simplest theory, and should be used.

This is basically my point of view. Genuine scientific theories aren't the eternal structures that people tend to imagine. Theories are followed while they are useful and then replaced - we should look to physics as it is practised! Nobody designs an aeroplane (say) using GR!


Particularly when investigating a new area of science, theories are bound to morph, but important data - such as the ones you mention - get excluded from science because they don't correspond to theory!

Yes, Dualism is by far the simplest theory, and should be used.

Why no[t] Pluralism then - the idea that there are a variety of non-distinct yet possibly greatly divergent substances exist in reality that seem to have intersection points whereby one substance can causally affect another?

Yes, Dualism is by far the simplest theory, and should be used.

Dualism can seem "simple". Except for a massive problem that Dualism can never really satisfactorily answer ~ how can, nevermind do, two base substances, which are extreme opposites, in terms of nature, interact at all? Mind, being entirely subjective, lacking any and all physical qualities, and matter, lacking in any and all mental qualities.

Dualism can seem "simple", only if this massive problem is ignored, or even minimized.

Interactionism? Sure, it can be posited... but it has always seemed very shoddy and flimsy a solution to me... one that merely attempts to paper over the mind-body problem.

Why not just posit a monist base substance that underlies mind and matter? Where mind and matter are, in basis, of the same origin, but manifested in very different ways. Not being their own base substances, but originating from something more primal. It still has some shortcomings... but at least it tries at make an practical explanation of how mind and matter can interact at all.

Dualism can seem "simple". Except for a massive problem that Dualism can never really satisfactorily answer ~ how can, nevermind do, two base substances, which are extreme opposites, in terms of nature, interact at all? Mind, being entirely subjective, lacking any and all physical qualities, and matter, lacking in any and all mental qualities.

Well the physicist Henry Stapp has already addressed that, assuming that consciousness really is required to collapse wave functions (or at least that it can do it faster than might otherwise be the case).

But suppose by hypothesis that is not how mind and body interact - you have the problem of selecting the philosophical position before the science is settled! You need a theory that matches the state of science - which is still fairly primitive in the case of consciousness.

Maybe this is the real problem here - trying to select the philosophy ahead of establishing the relevant science!

To me, the real blockage is that without a simple theory that can be tested, people end up reporting anomalous results. That implies to many that the experiment was simply done badly, and should be ignored. In turn, that makes people avoid doing experiments that might return anomalous results.

This is not a trivial problem. Most of us here accept that there are masses of 'anomalous' results building up and never taken seriously - just because they can't be classified as evidence for a particular theory.

Most science treats its theories in a much more pragmatic fashion - such as using Newton's theory for most purposes, and SR or GR only if absolutely necessary!