Is the Filter Theory committing the ad hoc fallacy and is it unfalsifiable?

Yes, very strange.

Of course strange or rare is different from impossible.

If Materialism were possible I might not even believe in Survival.

This is a specific instance of a more generalised argument that say an uneducated peasant in a simple farming community might have no reason to believe in the existence of say, Australia or Greenland. (Apologies to inhabitants of Australia and Greenland who I'm sure have no doubts about the existence of those places). One could come up with many other examples of having no reason to believe in something.

However, people are different and in most small communities there may be someone with some unusual experiences or gifts such as precognition. These small chinks in the ordinary routine may become established as folk-tales or traditions. I suspect (my hypothesis) that sometimes such a community might have a generation or two without any such unusual people and so the task of carrying on a tradition falls to someone with no knowledge or understanding of what it is they are passing on as tradition and so it may harden into something more formalised but empty. Then someone turns up in a later generation having their own gifts and insights but is damned as a heretic.

I suppose where I'm leading to with this is the need for education. I don't mean educating people to instil in them the idea that there is no such thing as an afterlife. What I mean is to provide a basis and skills in being able to investigate and find out, as well as critical thinking. It is often easy to follow a human instinct to belong to a tribe and accept whatever that group believes. Breaking out of that zone where it is comforting to feel that one is sharing in the same beliefs as many others and instead evaluating things oneself, that is more difficult but necessary.

Yeah on the one hand belief in the afterlife seems to be doing fine, even in places where it dropped I think it seems to be coming back.

I do wonder how one would facilitate education here. I guess one could start with the logically impossibility of Materialism, then compare the research that was done on Survival with other field research and witness testimony?

If there is no a priori reason to reject, say, Reincarnation research then is the work done comparable to work done by those studying what we would consider "mundane" phenomena?

At least this is the path that led me to thinking more positively about the Survival cases, but admittedly I'm a bit of an odd duck because I am trying to separate the logical conclusion from my starting intuition there's an afterlife.

Again, these are names we give to a set of entities doing a set of specific actions. "Reunions" might not be the best example of this class of things. Better examples include a conversation, a war, a party, a ballgame, a cattle stampede, or a concert. Each of these are names we give to an event which involves a set of entities doing something in which we recognize the combined resulting event as something specific that we can name. A set of soldiers is not a war. But if a set of soldiers are shooting in patterns that we recognize as a war, that is a war.

Likewise, the mind is the name some of us give to a set of neurons (plus anything else that might be involved) doing a set of specific actions that together we would call "mind". These actions include recalling from memory, thinking about options, and deciding. 

By this definition, the mind is a set of physical things doing distinct physical activities, just like a party is a set of people doing distinct physical activities.

A war, a party, a ballgame, a cattle stampede, a concert...What is it about any of these that isn't a collection of objects? 

Even if a set of soldiers are shooting in patterns, can't that be described down to the atoms that make up the guns, people, etc?

Is there something about a war, a party, a ballgame, a cattle stampede, or a concert that is over and above the description from mathematical physics?

Conversation...that one is odd. Doesn't that require consciousness, so how can consciousness be like a conversation?

It doesn't seem like consciousness is like any of the things you mention...I suspect because these are all in some sense concepts that require consciousness? Otherwise in each case seems like it's a set of constituents physics can describe?

I agree that there may be aspects of our mental life, such as hyper-weak magnetic fields. There could even be things we haven't discovered yet, something akin to dark energy, which we only recently discovered. We don't know.

Whether we have good evidence for apparitions, premonitions, telepathy etc., I guess that gets to the heart of this forum. Let's just say that I don't find that evidence to be nearly as solid as others find it to be.

In your bio you mention being religious for many years...you never had any experience that might be paranormal?

Yeah on the one hand belief in the afterlife seems to be doing fine, even in places where it dropped I think it seems to be coming back.

I do wonder how one would facilitate education here. I guess one could start with the logically impossibility of Materialism, then compare the research that was done on Survival with other field research and witness testimony?

If there is no a priori reason to reject, say, Reincarnation research then is the work done comparable to work done by those studying what we would consider "mundane" phenomena?

At least this is the path that led me to thinking more positively about the Survival cases, but admittedly I'm a bit of an odd duck because I am trying to separate the logical conclusion from my starting intuition there's an afterlife.

I appreciate how you have been wrestling with this topic. When I look at the pros and cons for survival for myself, what comes up are - my experiences, other peoples experiences and various studies in fields of psi. As I've aged and gone through many medical conditions I've found my level of certainty in my belief in survival fluctuating. It seems materialism is the default meta-physic that I slip towards if I am not doing various practices which allow me to perceive an expanded sense of self which reveals directly an experience which contains information which loosens the grip of the defacto reality of materialism which is the water we swim in our modern techno culture. I usually come back to my practices and studies when the existential dread that accompanies an unconscious lean into materialist ontology makes life unbearable. It appears to require sustained vigilance to keep the defato ego-syntonic effect of materialism from degrading my “lived” experience.

Conversation...that one is odd. Doesn't that require consciousness, so how can consciousness be like a conversation?

It doesn't seem like consciousness is like any of the things you mention...I suspect because these are all in some sense concepts that require consciousness? Otherwise in each case seems like it's a set of constituents physics can describe?

Human conversation does require consciousness, yes.  That's not the point. The point is, when two are more humans are conversing, we call the sum of their actions "conversation". That's how English works. If we want to give a name to several people conversing in ways that we recognize as something distinct, we can give that event a name. In this case, we call their group actions a "conversation". A conversation is not made of atoms. It cannot be weighed on a scale. It is not a physical object. But it doesn't really fit into the category of "non-physical object" either. It is a name we give to a set of actions by a set of entities that together makes an identifiable event --a conversation.

I gave other examples in this class where the entities doing the actions might not be conscious: a cattle stampede, a viral infection and an avalanche. The viruses and snowflakes are not conscious. The cattle might be. But in each case, these entities are together doing an action. We call the overall event by a name, such as a stampede, an infection, or an avalanche.

Likewise, when neurons are all working together to observe sensory inputs, recall memories, determine what the body will do, and issue signals that cause the body to do what the neurons collectively ask, we have a name for that conglomeration--a mind.

Human conversation does require consciousness, yes.  That's not the point. The point is, when two are more humans are conversing, we call the sum of their actions "conversation". That's how English works. If we want to give a name to several people conversing in ways that we recognize as something distinct, we can give that event a name. In this case, we call their group actions a "conversation". A conversation is not made of atoms. It cannot be weighed on a scale. It is not a physical object. But it doesn't really fit into the category of "non-physical object" either. It is a name we give to a set of actions by a set of entities that together makes an identifiable event --a conversation.

I gave other examples in this class where the entities doing the actions might not be conscious: a cattle stampede, a viral infection and an avalanche. The viruses and snowflakes are not conscious. The cattle might be. But in each case, these entities are together doing an action. We call the overall event by a name, such as a stampede, an infection, or an avalanche.

Likewise, when neurons are all working together to observe sensory inputs, recall memories, determine what the body will do, and issue signals that cause the body to do what the neurons collectively ask, we have a name for that conglomeration--a mind.

But we can clearly and scientifically describe the physical processes that produce conversation, we cannot  describe how physical matter can produce consciousness.  Tongues, larynxes and lungs work together in observable and describable ways to produce speech.  Physical matter, therefore can produce speech by manipulating its environment, i.e.the flow of air and the vibration of the vocal cords.  What is the physical matter of the brain manipulating in order to produce consciousness?

Likewise, when neurons are all working together to observe sensory inputs, recall memories, determine what the body will do, and issue signals that cause the body to do what the neurons collectively ask, we have a name for that conglomeration--a mind.

So as you see it, your mind is just a name for an arbitrary collection of neurons. As such you don't think it requires an explanation, any more than a conversation can be considered to be just a group of people talking and doesn't require an explanation - is that what you really believe?

Note that a group of people talking might be all using their cell phones, or they might be deranged. When people talk of a conversation it normally means that the people are listening to each other and responding appropriately.

I mean, does your mind require an explanation or not?

David

I appreciate how you have been wrestling with this topic. When I look at the pros and cons for survival for myself, what comes up are - my experiences, other peoples experiences and various studies in fields of psi. As I've aged and gone through many medical conditions I've found my level of certainty in my belief in survival fluctuating. It seems materialism is the default meta-physic that I slip towards if I am not doing various practices which allow me to perceive an expanded sense of self which reveals directly an experience which contains information which loosens the grip of the defacto reality of materialism which is the water we swim in our modern techno culture. I usually come back to my practices and studies when the existential dread that accompanies an unconscious lean into materialist ontology makes life unbearable. It appears to require sustained vigilance to keep the defato ego-syntonic effect of materialism from degrading my “lived” experience.

I think it is better to attempt to reach a state where the question as to whether you survive or not isn't that important. After all, my parents and some other people I knew have all gone through that transition, and eventually I will too.

You can enjoy this forum and other psychic material much better if you don't constantly ask yourself whether each piece of information adds or subtracts from your chance of surviving death!

I also think it is generally best to avoid the endless medical tests that exist nowadays. Eventually something will get us, does it really matter that much what it will be?

David

Again, your terminology is off: consciousness isn't a model; it is that within and by which models are constructed and comprehended.

Even if your terminology is accepted though, your response that, on your view, consciousness is causally efficacious - and thus that your view is not subject to the otherwise fatal argument (from the inability to know we're conscious) that Titus provided and which I summarised - fails: a model is not a cause in the relevant sense. Your view remains stuck with a causally impotent consciousness which cannot "touch itself" - yet we know that our consciousness can and does touch itself (know of its own existence).

You made me think. Thanks.

Unfortunately, when I think hard, my posts get longer.

First, I notice that I have been using two different definitions of consciousness. This may be confusing you. It confuses me

1. "Likewise a "mind" or a "consciousness" is just the name for that set of actions by our neurons"
   
2. "Consciousness is a construct of the brain. It is basically an overall model of the many models that the brain builds of itself and the world."
   

So first, let me clarify some terminology.

As I have said before, I believe the brain creates a model that summarizes the brains' activity. We might call this our self model. It is important. It tells our brains the overall picture of what is going on, and the specific thing that is going on now. For instance, at this moment, my self model is saying that I am writing a post about consciousness.  As I started this paragraph, this model updated to say I am working on a paragraph on something that I call a self model.

At each point in time there are ideas that dominate our brains' mental activities. I will call that attention to those ideas that reach domination our attention. I can only hold a limited amount of ideas in attention at any one time. Many ideas are vying to reach attention, but there is not room for everything. As the ideas struggle beneath the surface to reach attention, they build a coalition supporting them. It is much like using Slido during a group call, in which everybody gets a vote, and the ideas with the highest number of votes float to the top. In my brain, my self model gets to cast a lot of votes. Since it says I am writing this post, any idea that is related to what I am writing gets an easy pass to the state I call attention. More granular, while building this particular sentence, any word that would likely come next gets an easy pass up to attention. But my self model is not a dictator. Other ideas can win out. For instance, if there is a sudden loud noise behind me when I am typing, the neurons in my brain will quickly get onboard with responding to this noise, vote it quickly to the top, and this paragraph will become second in importance.

That overall stream of ideas through our attention gets summarized and stored in our self model.

Can my self model itself come to the center of attention? Certainly. When it does, my brain's attention is on who I am and what I am thinking and doing. I would call this state where our attention focuses on our self model by the name consciousness. Since the self model is constantly updated with the latest mental events at attention , it now updates to say my attention is on my self model. And so, as I continue this attention to my self model, I am now paying attention to my self model being aware of my attention to my self model. And it can loop multiple times, so I become conscious of being conscious of being conscious of being conscious.

I remember the first time something like this happened to me. As I remember it, I was standing in our living room waiting for my ride to kindergarten. And then I started to think about the fact that I was standing there waiting. And then suddenly I started to think about the fact that I was thinking about standing there waiting. And then I started thinking about thinking about thinking about standing there waiting. Suddenly the mental light came on, and I felt an unexpected realness. It was a surreal experience. I was not simply an automaton doing things. No! I was alive, really alive, really contemplating something stunning going on right in my mind. I will never forget that day. It left a huge impression. It is the first clear memory I have of anything that happened in my life up to that point. I was now conscious of being conscious of being conscious.

So anyway, yes, our awareness can become aware of being self aware, even though consciousness itself is not the thing making the decisions.

================

Regarding my definitions at the top of this post, I should correct them to read.

1. A "mind" is just the name for a set of actions by our neurons
   
2. "Consciousness" is basically the act of being aware of an overall model of our mental activity that our brain builds.