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

[Ninshub]

I haven't read through it so can't fully respond to you. I did skim the part on veridicality, however, and my impression was that she was coming from the philosophy of epistemology and the philosophy of truth, and how veridicality can be defined in different ways (?). (In any event, I'll state that I posted that resource because I found it, but I haven't read through it and don't endorse its contents!)

I haven't read through it so can't fully respond to you. I did skim the part on veridicality, however, and my impression was that she was coming from the philosophy of epistemology and the philosophy of truth, and how veridicality can be defined in different ways (?). (In any event, I'll state that I posted that resource because I found it, but I haven't read through it and don't endorse its contents!)

It just got my goat so to speak to have a philosophy PHD candidate apparently claim that philosophical investigation and study is needed to be brought to bear in order to determine if NDEs can be veridical. Such effrontery. Let her say that to Bruce Greyson, who has spent a very large amount of time and effort over the last 50 years in investigating many NDEs in order to confirm their veridicality. Would Greyson, or any of the other scientific and medical investigators of these cases, agree and abandon their work because this philosopher decided that the correct definitions of veridicality and truth and reality don't allow empirical physical investigative verification of the truth of reported events during NDEs? I don't think so.

[Ninshub]

This brings up a question that isn't only of academic interest to me. Do all philosophical idealisms or monisms necessarily entail a "non-epistemic conception of truth" or whatever it is that Mandoki defends as a position towards truth? I'm not versed enough in epistemology or metaphysical theories of truth to answer this.

Does Bernardo Kastrup, for example, hold to an epistemologically relativist or a correspondance theory of truth? It's not entirely clear to me what all the positions on the question of truth are, and what they assert? Any enlightenment here would be welcomed.

This brings to mind by contrast philosopher Robert Almeder, whose main interest is/was epistemology and theories of truth, and who defended what is supposed to be an "epistemic conception of truth" against correspondance theory and all non-episteimic theories of truth. (I got only half way through his book Truth and Skepticism.) Of course I got to know him because of his reaction and appreciation of reincarnation data. His theory of truth must be such that it allows him to view the data as most of us here do.

[Ninshub]

I think I've something by Kastrup that explains his views, which quotes what he says in one of his books:

In examining the implications of the defeat of realism, we have concluded that we must abandon logical bivalence as well; that is, the idea that things must be either true or false. Indeed, without realism there is no correspondence theory of truth to substantiate bivalence. Things can indeed be true and false, real and imaginary, so long as we construct them to be so. We have thus been led into intuitionistic logic and constructivism as, respectively, a coherent mode of thinking and a worldview that remained consistent with all the latest experimental results, as well as with the calls of the absurd. We discovered that reality is the outcome of a coherent mental construction, whose coherence constraints nonetheless do not leave much room for relativism. The historical review of the evolution of scientific thought, as done by Thomas Kuhn, seemed to confirm all this.

Am I right in thinking that an epistemic theory of truth is the "verificationist" position? And in concluding that, from the above, Kastrup is not a verificationist, but holds a coherence view of truth (which is nevertheless non-relativistic)?

(And what is the difference between verificationism and correspondence theory?)

EDIT: Reading up, I see verificationism cannot be Almeder's theory of truth. Verificationism is non-realist and tied to pragmatist views. Almeder's is a defense of realism.

This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on truth seems to spell out the various theories.

Would defending research into the veridicality of NDEs necessarily entail a realist theory of truth?

Let her say that to Bruce Greyson, who has spent a very large amount of time and effort over the last 50 years in investigating many NDEs in order to confirm their veridicality. Would Greyson, or any of the other scientific and medical investigators of these cases, agree and abandon their work because this philosopher decided that the correct definitions of veridicality and truth and reality don't allow empirical physical investigative verification of the truth of reported events during NDEs? I don't think so.

No I don't think so, either. Isn't this based partly on the fact there is no model for how veridical out of body experiences can possibly happen, even though they do without doubt? Also, the way philosophy is disciplined not to be illogical...life after death is a nonsensical statement according to philosophy. That's why Van Lommel uses continuation of consciousness to describe it, which of course it is.

[Ninshub]

Also, the way philosophy is disciplined not to be illogical...life after death is a nonsensical statement according to philosophy. 

I'm guessing that's true depending on the philosophy? We can probably connect some of Raymond Moody's stated views in the recent past with his particular philosophical outlook (which I'm not knowledgeable about).

I think I've something by Kastrup that explains his views, which quotes what he says in one of his books:


Am I right in thinking that an epistemic theory of truth is the "verificationist" position? And in concluding that, from the above, Kastrup is not a verificationist, but holds a coherence view of truth (which is nevertheless non-relativistic)?

(And what is the difference between verificationism and correspondence theory?)

EDIT: Reading up, I see verificationism cannot be Almeder's theory of truth. Verificationism is non-realist and tied to pragmatist views. Almeder's is a defense of realism.

This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on truth seems to spell out the various theories.

Would defending research into the veridicality of NDEs necessarily entail a realist theory of truth?

Derived from the above linked essay at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/:

- The basic idea of the correspondence theory of truth is that what we believe or say is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are – to the facts.
- According to the identity theory of truth, a true proposition is identical to a fact.
- The basic idea of the coherence theory of truth is that a belief is true if and only if it is part of a coherent system of beliefs.

And (from Wiki), according to perspectivism and relativism, a proposition is only true relative to a particular perspective. A proposition is true relative to a perspective if and only if it is accepted, endorsed, or legitimized by that perspective.
And it gets worse from there.

It appears that these proposed understandings are laid out in order of intuitive plausibility, from most to least.

I'll go with the correspondence theory of truth, and that there really is an objective reality consisting of "the way things are". I think that in science (for the most part), engineering, and life in general, as a practical matter we of necessity have to be of this persuasion whenever we consider such a question, which is hopefully seldom. Certainly that is the case for any persons carrying out investigations into the "truth" of events and experiences, whether it is scientists and medical doctors , or detectives, or whatever. Looking into the evidence and how it applies to the truth of various propositions absolutely requires a "common sense" conception of truth and objective reality.

Does Bernardo Kastrup, for example, hold to an epistemologically relativist or a correspondance theory of truth? It's not entirely clear to me what all the positions on the question of truth are, and what they assert? Any enlightenment here would be welcomed.

It's a bit odd, I've seen Kastrup calmly say will/morality of the individual are illusory...but then go on about the Evil of some current event or other.

It seems to me that the academic aspect of thought vanishes when rubber meets road. As one person said of the materialist eliminativists, just withhold their paychecks and suddenly they will act as if they believe in what they dismiss as mere "folk psychology".

[Ninshub]

Would defending research into the veridicality of NDEs necessarily entail a realist theory of truth?

Reading a bit through the Stanford Encyclopedia article linked above, I come to this:

It is possible to be an idealist without adopting a coherence theory. (For instance, many scholars read Bradley as holding a version of the identity theory of truth. See Baldwin (1991) for some discussion.) However, it is hard to see much of a way to hold the coherence theory of truth without maintaining some form of idealism. If there is nothing to truth beyond what is to be found in an appropriate system of beliefs, then it would seem one’s beliefs constitute the world in a way that amounts to idealism. (Walker (1989) argues that every coherence theorist must be an idealist, but not vice-versa.)

So coherence theory = necessarily idealism.
Idealism = not necessarily coherence theory.

If this is true, veridicality as understood in a correspondence theory of truth could potentially still ally with an idealist viewpoint - just not the viewpoint that either Mandoki or Kastrup endorse.

(On the topic of Almeder, his is a realist viewpoint, but from what I understand in his book he also argues against correspondence theory also as not properly epistemic. Obviously he also rejects coherence, etc. Like the fine arguments in epistemology, this technical stuff can easily go over my head.)

This doctoral thesis looks at least on the surface to be an incredible flight of academic arrogance. Mandoki apparently is gratuitously assuming that only philosophy can decide the veridicality of NDEs...

I don't know, she seems to be one of the "good guys"? ->

First, I argue that the traditional way of assessing near-death experiences is often oversimplified and carries an unnecessary bias in favour of a materialist interpretation, which eventually sets it up for a failure to demonstrate that an afterlife state can exist. Once this materialist bias is examined, I make an attempt to level the playing field, so to speak, to see where this equal level can take the discussion.

I'll say more after having read at least some of the paper, but my take would be she's saying that once we let go of the insistence that materialism is true the evidence from NDEs can be honestly assessed?

Even a few pages down:

Once this materialist bias is examined, I make an attempt to level the playing field, so to speak,
to see where this equal level can take the discussion. Ultimately, I argue that it is best to fit all
evidence and arguments into a theory that best explains near-death experiences; and, the theory
that best explains these experiences is philosophical idealism.

At the end, I provide examples of this theory and also a synthesized version of the best
imaginable theory to show in what way(s) these idealist theories can explain near-death
experiences and in what way(s) near-death experiences can be demonstrated to be veridical in
nature. Since, according to this theory, consciousness or the mind is the basic building block of
reality, simply put, there is life after death.

To put it succinctly I think she's saying:

1. Without bias toward materialism, we should look at evidence.
2. Evidence says NDEs are showing something about reality.
3. B/C NDEs are showing something genuine about reality, the evidence leads us to conclude that Idealism is likely true.