Neurodiversity, Part 1: Two Souls in One Body with Annika and Tristan

The problem is, virtually everything in print and on the media is ultimately anecdotal ("not necessarily true or reliable, because of being based on personal accounts rather than facts or research"), because ultimately all research results and research descriptions and scientific conclusions written in papers and books and textbooks are in fact mere claims written by potentially fallable human beings as personal accounts of encountering certain experiences or having certain thoughts and understandings. All of this or part of this could possibly be lies. As witness the current apparent flood of retractions of scientific papers for false statements, invented or changed data, and plagiarism.

This is true and is also addressed in the recent book Threshold by Alexander Batthyány. The aspects of consciousness that are a major point of interest on the forum cannot be studied using 'measurements' from any measurement apparatus. Ultimately, the accounts that capture our interest are verbal and subjectively evaluated by others. Alexander ranks the levels of evidence as follows: individual anecdotal accounts < retrospective studies < prospective studies. However, even the highest level of evidence, the prospective study, can mistakenly reject the null hypothesis. That's why replication studies are incredibly important.

This is true and is also addressed in the recent book Threshold by Alexander Batthyány. The aspects of consciousness that are a major point of interest on the forum cannot be studied using 'measurements' from any measurement apparatus. Ultimately, the accounts that capture our interest are verbal and subjectively evaluated by others. Alexander ranks the levels of evidence as follows: individual anecdotal accounts < retrospective studies < prospective studies. However, even the highest level of evidence, the prospective study, can mistakenly reject the null hypothesis. That's why replication studies are incredibly important.

I think this is fine if we're talking about any singular anecdote, though even then I think since there are no good a priori reasons for doubting the basic ideas of Survival/Psi it would depend on how believable the individual seemed. This case isn't necessarily a good case, but it seems to be good enough for further study.

Regarding replication studies as the standard...Witness testimony is a huge part of legal frameworks, the birth of religions, journalism, etc. Some of these claims by witnesses are undoubtedly false, and some are errors, but again it seems to me we can take the amount of anecdotes along with metaphysical priors about the Materialist faith being a lie to give us a good reason to take Survival/Psi seriously.

I could see the argument that replication is necessary before we factor Survival and Psi into our policy making, but I don't think this is a required standard for the individual to admit Survival/Psi accounts are of enough interest to merit further research at minimum.

Wow I will listen to this video this evening and judge for myself. However, @Brian Brian, you sound really mean as you write about anything that could potentially be fraud. Should we talk about the ways in which Jesus' miracles might be fraud - or is that a blow below the belt?

David

OK - I have listened to part 1!

First I'd like to make a couple of points.

1) If you read Irreducible Mind, you will find cases where people had multiple personality disorder (now known I think as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) I think) and various physical aspects of the body would shift according to the soul that was in control in control. For example, different souls would require different eye prescriptions!

2) Medical science is quite happy to give names for phenomena that it can't explain - for example "Savant Syndrome".

Irreducible Mind was written by medical researchers, and it illustrates the continuum that exists between phenomena that are easy to explain conventionally through to ones that are much harder to explain conventionally. @sbu have you read Irreducible Mind?

I guess he/she/they might just about be able to fake this, but what really would be the point?

As I went through puberty, everything was normal except that my voice never broke, so I could probably attempt to simulate that part of what they do, but even so, I don't think this is a likely explanation.

I was very interested in their comments about meeting others who confided that they had the same problems.

So after video #1 I am inclined to believe this is real.

David

This is true and is also addressed in the recent book Threshold by Alexander Batthyány. The aspects of consciousness that are a major point of interest on the forum cannot be studied using 'measurements' from any measurement apparatus. Ultimately, the accounts that capture our interest are verbal and subjectively evaluated by others. Alexander ranks the levels of evidence as follows: individual anecdotal accounts < retrospective studies < prospective studies. However, even the highest level of evidence, the prospective study, can mistakenly reject the null hypothesis. That's why replication studies are incredibly important.

I would say that replication (whatever that might mean) is far less important than trying to find mental 'tricks' that these two can perform that simply do not have a conventional explanation. I notice that they are exploring phenomena such as remote viewing. RV has always had the potential to break the paradigm that you live in (and I used to live in), and indeed if all the evidence were combined in some way, I strongly expect that paradigm is already broken. Remember that people use RV for practical reasons - to solve crimes, seek out minerals, etc.

David

Even if it is a fake, it's faked to perfection, and the fake story and fake characters are so compelling.

I think if I knew it were a fake, my interest in it would drop about 10000 fold!

David

I think if I knew it were a fake, my interest in it would drop about 10000 fold!

David

There are some possible ways to at least see if they are inline with prior research on DID, such as brain scans.

Of course there are issues with assuming DID *must* follow specific patterns in the brain, but if it has yet to be done IMO Mishlove should ask for something like this to just give us a baseline.

[Laird]

Episode three went up a few days ago. It's another very interesting interview, this time with Tristan alone:

Neurodiversity, Part 3: Tristan's Life Story

Thanks for that Laird. He certainly seems like the real deal, but it sounds as if part 4 may be the most interesting for us.

David