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

I don't see much excitement around Dualism - we see Scientific American and other publications willing to at least debate Idealism or Panpsychism, maybe also some kind of Information Realism or Simulation Hypothesis...

It seems to me Dualism is see as a long closed dead end by Science Academia?

I think the science establishment has gradually encouraged a fake idea of how science works. I mean Panpsychism doesn't seem particularly plausible, particularly when you think that an electron with one set of ideas/experiences/emotions would no longer be identical to another electron with a different set of ideas/experiences/emotions. The fact that they never even mention that issue seems to be incredibly telling.

To be honest, I think they want to bury Dulaism because it is the most obvious practical extension to the physical world.

Panpsychism is a very remote idea, whereas Dualism is embodied in the simple transition from life to death.

Unfortunately, I think science has become politicised, like so much of life.

David

I think the science establishment has gradually encouraged a fake idea of how science works. I mean Panpsychism doesn't seem particularly plausible, particularly when you think that an electron with one set of ideas/experiences/emotions would no longer be identical to another electron with a different set of ideas/experiences/emotions. The fact that they never even mention that issue seems to be incredibly telling.

To be honest, I think they want to bury Dulaism because it is the most obvious practical extension to the physical world.

Panpsychism is a very remote idea, whereas Dualism is embodied in the simple transition from life to death.

Unfortunately, I think science has become politicised, like so much of life.

David

I would agree that Panpsychism, at least when we talk about conscious particles building up our consciousness, seems deeply flawed and a kind of last gasp pseudo-Materialism.

I'd also agree that Dualism, because it strongly suggests a soul, is going to have a lot of bias against it.

However it's not clear how to change this strong bias or get around the question of the Interaction Problem. It's also unclear how one explains PK or psychometry under Dualism without some appeal to special exceptions made by mysterious Designer(s), let alone something like a honey jar disappearing into a container of flour.

Additionally if we're talking about Cartesian Dualism there is the issue of the soul/mind being extensionless which contradicts a large amount of Survival evidence.

All that said there does seem to be "normal" stuff following regularities that mysteriously arise from the indeterministic quantum level. That would be the mundane "physical" world.

And there is "abnormal" stuff that seems to follow regularities that are different from the "normal" regularities - Psi, Survival, UFOs, Deep Weirdness.

So if we go by rules/regularities demarcating "substance" you could make an argument for at least two substances, even if there is an underlying fundamental common substance that has the "normal"/"abnormal" rules applied to it.

This is why I like the Dualism of Visible and Invisible, because I think it focuses less on ontology and more on a kind of practicality that is utilized by indigenous cultures.

I would agree that Panpsychism, at least when we talk about conscious particles building up our consciousness, seems deeply flawed and a kind of last gasp pseudo-Materialism.

I like the expression "pseudo-Materialism"! It seems to express the fact that nobody ever elaborates what it means, or invents experiments to explore it further.

I'd also agree that Dualism, because it strongly suggests a soul, is going to have a lot of bias against it.

However it's not clear how to change this strong bias or get around the question of the Interaction Problem. It's also unclear how one explains PK or psychometry under Dualism without some appeal to special exceptions made by mysterious Designer(s), let alone something like a honey jar disappearing into a container of flour.

Additionally if we're talking about Cartesian Dualism there is the issue of the soul/mind being extensionless which contradicts a large amount of Survival evidence.

All that said there does seem to be "normal" stuff following regularities that mysteriously arise from the indeterministic quantum level. That would be the mundane "physical" world.

And there is "abnormal" stuff that seems to follow regularities that are different from the "normal" regularities - Psi, Survival, UFOs, Deep Weirdness.

So if we go by rules/regularities demarcating "substance" you could make an argument for at least two substances, even if there is an underlying fundamental common substance that has the "normal"/"abnormal" rules applied to it.

This is why I like the Dualism of Visible and Invisible, because I think it focuses less on ontology and more on a kind of practicality that is utilized by indigenous cultures.

I think what you are really expressing is the fact that science has been hugely distorted by Christianity in its most muscular period, when it solved philosophical problems by burning people at the stake.

I mean, an undistorted science would have expressed the simple fact that reality seems divided into the physical and the mental in a pretty clean separation, and as evidence grew that at least some people survive death, that would be understood as a natural consequence of Dualism.

Remember that back then, people didn't require that scientific concepts were absolutely clean - nobody worried about falling feathers for example, and I don't know whether they even tested whether the acceleration varies depending on where on the earth you measure it, and anyway those variations were probably too small for them to detect.

Physical theories and experimental methods have matured immeasurably over the centuries, but experiments and ideas in non-physical reality have developed at a slower pace, but potential principles like Dualism get argued over using the standards of today.

Science has to mature with a simple mental concept - such as Dualism - before it is possible to hang additional ideas, such as might be needed to account for 'deep weird' phenomena, onto it.

If science accepted Dualism, and maybe another concept, such as something to absorb the fact that time seems to behave differently in the other realm, it could begin to mature non-physically after 400-odd years of dithering induced by burnings at the stake and subsequent loathing for religion and all it represents.

I don't think there is a shortcut here, any more than a genius back in the time of Newton could have argued the case for GR and QM.

David

I would agree that Panpsychism, at least when we talk about conscious particles building up our consciousness, seems deeply flawed and a kind of last gasp pseudo-Materialism.

I guess if one uses certain types of definitions that may be so. However for myself, something like panpsychism is almost indistinguishable from the variety of idealism that seems to be favoured. I don't really take these things all that seriously, I certainly don't enjoy the game of "my *ism is better than your *ism" which I find unsatisfying.

Though I would say that materialism is pretty much a dead end as it defines as out-of-scope most of the important aspects of existence and is thus not even an attempt.

I guess if one uses certain types of definitions that may be so. However for myself, something like panpsychism is almost indistinguishable from the variety of idealism that seems to be favoured. I don't really take these things all that seriously, I certainly don't enjoy the game of "my *ism is better than your *ism" which I find unsatisfying.

Though I would say that materialism is pretty much a dead end as it defines as out-of-scope most of the important aspects of existence and is thus not even an attempt.

Oh I agree that certain "top-down" Panpsychism and certain "Neutral Monisms" that are apparently types of Panpsychism seem to have the same implications as a variety of Idealisms.

Ultimately it likely doesn't matter too much which of these we pick though it does seem certain "isms" are selected more for what they can exclude than what their genuine explanatory power could be. Materialism/Physicalism is the most obvious one but I suspect any metaphysics that can reject Survival is also favored.

I like the expression "pseudo-Materialism"! It seems to express the fact that nobody ever elaborates what it means, or invents experiments to explore it further.

I think what you are really expressing is the fact that science has been hugely distorted by Christianity in its most muscular period, when it solved philosophical problems by burning people at the stake.

I don't know if this is completely accurate - it seems Christianity help[ed] buttress a variety of ideas such as Laws of Nature that made scientists like Newton feel the cosmos was in fact readable and not inscrutable. Also perhaps worth noting that gravity was criticized as an "occult" force when proposed?

Physical theories and experimental methods have matured immeasurably over the centuries, but experiments and ideas in non-physical reality have developed at a slower pace, but potential principles like Dualism get argued over using the standards of today.

I think this really depends on what we mean by Dualism. Is it Des Cartes' Res Cogitans vs Res Extensa, because then we have to ask what it means for mind/soul to lack extension because this contradicts a good deal - if not all - Survival evidence.

Science has to mature with a simple mental concept - such as Dualism - before it is possible to hang additional ideas, such as might be needed to account for 'deep weird' phenomena, onto it.

My worry is the simple mental concept is too simple to accommodate the evidence?

If science accepted Dualism, and maybe another concept, such as something to absorb the fact that time seems to behave differently in the other realm, it could begin to mature non-physically after 400-odd years of dithering induced by burnings at the stake and subsequent loathing for religion and all it represents.

I think this might be the crux of our current disagreement - It is not clear to me there is an "other realm", so much as we are in an island of "mundane" physical reality that is in fact part of the "Other" all the time.

I don't think there is a shortcut here, any more than a genius back in the time of Newton could have argued the case for GR and QM.

I do sympathize with a certain kind of Dualism, given that we have rules for Normal "Visible" existence and there seem to be rules - of a less strict, less universal sort - for the "Invisible" Other (Survival, Psi, UFOs, Deep Weird).

Accepting this dichotomy could be useful I think, because it doesn't demand one pick a metaphysical position. One simply accepts the division for practical purposes. Of course we have to keep in mind the "Visible" has a foundation on the very bizarrely chaotic quantum realm, and the "Invisible" arguably includes the Eternal Truths of Mathematics/Logic...

I think what you are really expressing is the fact that science has been hugely distorted by Christianity in its most muscular period, when it solved philosophical problems by burning people at the stake.

I think the bold is correct, but I'd disagree with the rest of your statement.

I think science has been distorted by organized religion (predominately Christianity but certainly Judaism, Islam, etc as well).  The distortion I see is different however.  Scientists were persecuted by these religious organizations for challenging dogma and authority.  That fight continues to this day even with science being in a much more powerful societal position.

The distortion today is science's fear of giving any type of credence to any aspect of religious tradition.  The discussion on ID really illustrates this in my view.  Theorizing some role for intelligence in evolution seems imminently reasonable from a scientific perspective, yet the mainstream biologists generally dismiss this out of hand.  This distortion is due to their fear that the religious community will coopt such a theory as a proof for their tradition; their God.  I get that fear; its reasonable certainly based on history.

But.... its a distortion and it seems to be becoming more and more obvious.

But.... its a distortion and it seems to be becoming more and more obvious.

It is interesting there can be discussions of our reality being Simulated, and this is seen as acceptable to some degree...but "God forbid" one suggests the designer(s) aren't mortal programmers but minds that are in some way utilizing abilities that are not typing programs in a computer...

"Holiday was experiencing a problem that is familiar to students of the paranormal. They begin as more or less open-minded sceptics, prepared to give serious consideration to any evidence that presents itself, but determined not to indulge in any self-deceptions. Finally, the sheer weight of evidence convinces them that something odd is going on, and they try to create what Aldous Huxley called a ‘minimum working hypothesis’, an explanation that covers the basic facts. This may be, for example, telepathy. Lethbridge saw a ‘ghost’—a man dressed in riding gear—in the rooms of a university friend, and theorised that someone else may have been thinking about the man, and that his own mind somehow ‘picked up’ the image—like ‘a television picture without the sound.’ But he was forced to drop this explanation as he encountered other examples of the paranormal. And this tends to be the experience of most serious investigators. Whenever they have formulated a watertight ‘general theory’, they stumble upon some new fact that simply refuses to fit in. And they have to extend the theory. Then they find still more awkward facts and extend it still further. And in no time at all, their original neat, symmetrical theory looks like an old sack stuffed with rubbish. 

This was Ted Holiday’s experience, and it explains why The Goblin Universe begins with a sentence that sounds like a confession of failure: ‘We inhabit a strange cosmos where nothing is absolute, final or conclusive. Truth is an actor who dons one mask after another and then vanishes through a secret door in the stage scenery . . . ‘ In fact, he is merely expressing a conviction that strikes every paranormal investigator sooner or later: that the universe probably contains other intelligences besides our own. When the Society for Psychical Research was formed in 1882, a group of distinguished philosophers and scientists hoped to study ‘the paranormal’ with the same scientific methods they used for studying meteorites or bacteria. They were, in fact, successful to a remarkable degree, establishing the reality of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis beyond all possible doubt. But their investigations into the problem of life after death were far less successful because their results were so contradictory with false information. G.K. Chesterton, who devoted some time to experiments with the ouija board, agreed that the seances produced unexplainable results, but added: ‘The only thing I will say with complete confidence about that mystic and invisible power is that it tells lies.’ "

- Colin Wilson's Intro to Holiday's The Goblin Universe

Charles Fort:

"But it is our expression that there are no positive differences: that all things are like a mouse and a bug in the heart of a cheese. Mouse and a bug: no two things could seem more unlike. They’re there a week, or they stay there a month: both are then only transmutations of cheese. I think we’re all bugs and mice, and are only different expressions of an all-inclusive cheese."

=-=-=

"I’d suggest, to start with, that we’d put ourselves in the place of deep-sea fishes: How would they account for the fall of animal-matter from above? They wouldn’t try— Or it’s easy enough to think of most of us as deep-sea fishes of a kind."

=-=-=

"I now have a theory that our existence, as a whole, is an organism that is very old—a globular thing within a starry shell, afloat in a super-existence in which there may be countless other organisms—and that we, as cells in its composition, partake of, and are ruled by, its permeating senility. The theologians have recognized that the ideal is the imitation of God. If we be a part of such an organic thing, this thing is God to us, as I am God to the cells that compose me. When I see myself, and cats, and dogs losing irregularities of conduct, and approaching the irreproachable, with advancing age, I see that what is ennobling us is senility. I conclude that the virtues, the austerities, the proprieties are ideal in our existence, because they are imitations of the state of a whole existence, which is very old, good, and beyond reproach. The ideal state is meekness, or humility, or the semi-invalid state of the old. Year after year I am becoming nobler and nobler. If I can live to be decrepit enough, I shall be a saint."