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

That second video sort of answered my question in the other thread: Rupert says between 4:44 and 5:01 that whereas he thinks the bioelectric fields which shape an organism are inherited by morphic resonance, he doesn't think that Michael Levin knows how they're inherited.

Incidentally, Sci, why did you think these videos were relevant in this particular thread?

Apologies, I see you asked this question months ago...I think I meant to answer but it slipped my mind...

I thought it gave some clarification on Sheldrake's ideas about souls, where he states he isn't a Dualist.

It seems to me, given Sheldrake is also not an Idealist, that he is suggesting a non-constitutive Panpsychism though we might also call it a Neutral Monism. It seems that Souls contain bodies, and perhaps produce them.

The other important point is the comparison between Sheldrake's ideas and Levin's.

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By the light of brahman

Anand Vaidya 

The idea that the only foundational reality is brahman, and that all else is presentational illusion, does not go unchallenged. The philosopher Rāmānuja disagrees with Śaṅkara on almost all the key points. He makes the following argument. First of all, foundational reality cannot consist in the existence of a single hidden and purely phenomenal consciousness, as per Śaṅkara, because the subject-object dichotomy is an inherent attribute of all mental phenomena. (This point anticipates Brentano.) Moreover, our everyday perception of the world cannot be fundamentally illusory (again, as per Śaṅkara) but must be said to accurately represent reality if we want to claim to understand anything about the world at all. Finally, there is no coherent reading of the foundational texts without invoking the idea of a transcendental God, one wholly and fundamentally different from everything else. Therefore, Śaṅkara’s monism is false to the textual tradition.

Contemporary solutions to the hard problem of consciousness often claim that phenomenality is already a part of fundamental reality and so not explicable in other terms. And this move takes us straight back to the debate about consciousness between Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja. For them, the debate concerns the standing of individual subjects of consciousness (‘selves’, ātman) and not the attempt to explain phenomenality as such. For panpsychism posits that phenomenal consciousness is fundamental, and the goal is not to explain fundamental consciousness, but to use it to explain subject-level consciousness, or individual subjects of consciousness, or selves. The real hard problem of consciousness is asking why and how a self is intentionally and phenomenally conscious. In other words, if we take panpsychism as a solution to the hard problem, we must then enquire into the nature of subjects, the self.

The only way that micropsychism and cosmopsychism can solve the hard problem of consciousness is by finding a mechanism that takes us from the fundamental to the non-fundamental. One must find a way to move from what is fundamental – micro-conscious entities or a universal consciousness – to ordinary subjects of consciousness. In doing so, one must provide answers to three pressing challenges – modal coherence, mechanical generation, and metaphysical explanation:

1. Modal coherence: is combination from micro-conscious entities or decombination from a universal consciousness modally coherent? Does it avoid inconsistencies as to what is possible or impossible, and respect necessities and obligations as to the relationship between the entities?
   
   
2. Mechanical generation: what is the mechanism for combination from micro-conscious entities or decombination from a universal consciousness?
   
   
3. Metaphysical explanation: why does combination from micro-conscious entities or decombination from a universal consciousness occur?
   

Personally I would say neither Combination nor Decombination are adequate, but I would also reject "God did it" type explanations that don't give us some clearer mechanism tha[n] attributing the necessary power to a deity.

What I find a bit odd is very few people seem to like the idea that Persons exist because they have always existed, without the benefit of a Creator. Yet no one has a good explanation for how Persons arise, while OTOH there are good reasons to think Persons cannot be destroyed...

Personally I would say neither Combination nor Decombination are adequate, but I would also reject "God did it" type explanations that don't give us some clearer mechanism tha[n] attributing the necessary power to a deity.

What I find a bit odd is very few people seem to like the idea that Persons exist because they have always existed, without the benefit of a Creator. Yet no one has a good explanation for how Persons arise, while OTOH there are good reasons to think Persons cannot be destroyed...

The more I consider this, the more curious and perhaps strange reality becomes ~ why do we exist? When did we start existing? Have we always existed?

One answer to the above I have is that Persons are all aspects of the Creator, as it were ~ Persons have existed for as long as the Creator. As for what a person fundamentally is ~ a pure Soul? But... also can Souls create new Souls from themselves, perhaps? Would still be aspects of the Creator ~ perhaps derived from the Creator's power of creation, inherent by all of its aspects, to say nothing whatsoever of the nature of the Creator itself.

Either way, it makes no sense for reality to be something outside of the Creator... which gels with Sheldrake's idea of bodies being within Souls. Likewise, Souls are within the Creator. All of our experiences happen within us, our field of awareness ~ even if the origin/s of the contents of our experiences are not.

Idealism would be the most parsimonious, if not for the fact that it seems to almost seemingly consider the idea of mind-as-we-know-it as being fundamental, where I consider Soul / Spirit to be fundamental, something that so far removed from the states of mind we are familiar with as to be entirely incomprehensible and alien from this down-here perspective. Perhaps it is the experiences of transcendent entities, so to speak, that has influenced me into this perspective.

Idealism would be the most parsimonious, if not for the fact that it seems to almost seemingly consider the idea of mind-as-we-know-it as being fundamental, where I consider Soul / Spirit to be fundamental, something that so far removed from the states of mind we are familiar with as to be entirely incomprehensible and alien from this down-here perspective. Perhaps it is the experiences of transcendent entities, so to speak, that has influenced me into this perspective.

But what would soul/spirit be if it could not think or remember anything?

David

But what would soul/spirit be if it could not think or remember anything?

David

Memory and thought do not depend on a physical form. NDEs are evidence enough of that, along with mediumship, when it comes to knowledge of the deceased.

I've encountered enough spirits now, also, to be thorough convinced that physical form isn't particularly special ~ it's just a particular kind of phenomena that happens to be rather dense, and has specific habits and patterns. A part of our soul just incarnates into a fetus ~ the soul is not nothing before physical incarnation. It is simply influenced over time through the narrow sensory range a incarnate form provides.

[Laird]

Apologies, I see you asked this question months ago...I think I meant to answer but it slipped my mind...

No worries.

I thought it gave some clarification on Sheldrake's ideas about souls, where he states he isn't a Dualist.

It seems to me, given Sheldrake is also not an Idealist, that he is suggesting a non-constitutive Panpsychism though we might also call it a Neutral Monism. It seems that Souls contain bodies, and perhaps produce them.

The other important point is the comparison between Sheldrake's ideas and Levin's.

OK. It puzzled me because the videos seemed to have nothing to do with how data on survival after death can help us to choose between dualism and idealist monism, the nominal subject of this thread. Then again, the thread long ago broadened from that particular focus.

By the light of brahman

Anand Vaidya 

Interesting and thoughtful.

Personally I would say neither Combination nor Decombination are adequate

Likewise.

What I find a bit odd is very few people seem to like the idea that Persons exist because they have always existed

I don't think this dislike is odd if the idea entails an infinite temporal regress, because that is incoherent. If, instead, by "always existed" is meant some existence "outside of" or "transcendent of" time, then it perhaps makes more sense; I'm just not sure how to conceive of such a thing. I also think that God as Creator is easier to conceive of as being "outside of" or "transcendent of" time, and that perhaps diffuses to an extent your concern about...

"God did it" type explanations that don't give us some clearer mechanism tha[n] attributing the necessary power to a deity.

...given that a timeless God creating temporal souls is a prima facie solution to the "dislikeable" idea of (non-divine) persons having "always existed".

Anyhow, none of that is rigorous argument; they're just some rough thoughts and intuitions, open to critique and revision.

@Valmar - I think the generation of souls without God is actually just as problematic as "God did it" explanations. 

I agree with you that it seems possible the One, as an Absolute that may or may not be a conscious entity, could ground the Many without the One creating the Many.

@Laird - I think there is a great challenge in reconciling Eternity with Time? I know some will claim Time is illusory but of course a changing illusion means there is still change in reality and thus Time.

To be clear I am not against God as part of an explanation. I think a variety of Proofs of God go beyond the mere Design of the universe known by physics, suggesting a Ground of Being that is not merely setting up the constants of Cosmic Fine Tuning or allowing for Psycho-Physical Harmony but instead responsible for all the mental "objects" of Math/Logic, holding all Causal Relations across Reality, etc.

What bothers is me is explanations that merely add in God, or some similar stand-in, and claiming such an entity has the powers to fill the required role - such as the creation of souls - without adequate explanation.

To give an example I think the Scholastic arguments that God solves varied regress problems are often quite good, but the argument that God is "Pure Actuality" and can thus create Ex Nihilo IMO is invalid because potency and actuality are merely descriptors and not clear extant characteristics of different parts of reality.

Memory and thought do not depend on a physical form. NDEs are evidence enough of that, along with mediumship, when it comes to knowledge of the deceased.

I've encountered enough spirits now, also, to be thorough convinced that physical form isn't particularly special ~ it's just a particular kind of phenomena that happens to be rather dense, and has specific habits and patterns. A part of our soul just incarnates into a fetus ~ the soul is not nothing before physical incarnation. It is simply influenced over time through the narrow sensory range a incarnate form provides.

I am puzzled - was your reply meant to confirm my original observation or contradict it?

Davis

[Laird]

I think there is a great challenge in reconciling Eternity with Time?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but here's my shot at it:

While beginningless time is incoherent (because it entails an infinite regress), time with a beginning is difficult to make sense of too, given that it seems to entail a cause from outside of time ("Eternity"), and it's not clear how Eternity - a domain not subject to time - could cause anything in a domain subject to time, let alone time itself.

Something like that?

What bothers is me is explanations that merely add in God, or some similar stand-in, and claiming such an entity has the powers to fill the required role - such as the creation of souls - without adequate explanation.

Fair enough. It might, though, be analogous to free will, in that there is by no causal explanation; the explanation is meta-causal and holistic: all we can say is that free will exists because we exercise it as whole, conscious persons. Similarly, there might be no causal explanation of God's creative agency; the explanation might simply be meta-causal and holistic: God simply exercises those powers as a whole, conscious, divine Being.

(Again, just rough thoughts, subject to critique and revision).

@Valmar - I think the generation of souls without God is actually just as problematic as "God did it" explanations. 

I don't think "God" generates souls... that presumes a religious creator figure creating from nothing, rather than something.

If souls are eternal, then they have always existed, only changing form. But perhaps souls can create new souls from their own essence, which doesn't seem impossible, given that we can create thoughtforms that have some level of autonomy. New souls would therefore be the extreme of that.

I agree with you that it seems possible the One, as an Absolute that may or may not be a conscious entity, could ground the Many without the One creating the Many.

I think part of the issue is the language we use to describe these transcendent concepts ~ like "the One" implies that... Unity, Source, Oneness, is an entity, which seems very improbable, because entities only exist in relation to other entities, so as to differentiate. Nor do I think that it is conscious in a way that we can comprehend ~ it may be the source of mind, consciousness, beingness, so includes those qualities as part of being Oneness, but may not be traditionally conscious as we know it.

I am puzzled - was your reply meant to confirm my original observation or contradict it?

Davis

Actually, it's not entirely clear to me what your original observation was.