Peter Fenwick's Studies of End-of-Life-Phenomena

Yes, but you left out the fact that much of the paranormal evidence is most directly and simply explainable by interactive Dualism. Truly a conundrum.

I don't think that two true distinct base substances could possibly interact without a common medium ~ thusly Neutral Monism seems far simpler. Mind and matter are simply derivative of a true base substance, allowing them to interact through a common medium.

Neutral Monism allows for a true Monism while allowing the appearance of Dualism as scientifically and practically observed.

There is no reason to believe that matter and mind-as-we-know-it could give rise to themselves ~ a higher existence is needed. Call it "God", "Soul", "Spirit", but it must be something of an appropriate scope of creative power.

I don't think that two true distinct base substances could possibly interact without a common medium ~ thusly Neutral Monism seems far simpler. Mind and matter are simply derivative of a true base substance, allowing them to interact through a common medium.

Neutral Monism allows for a true Monism while allowing the appearance of Dualism as scientifically and practically observed.

There is no reason to believe that matter and mind-as-we-know-it could give rise to themselves ~ a higher existence is needed. Call it "God", "Soul", "Spirit", but it must be something of an appropriate scope of creative power.

I do tend to think the neutral monism idea makes the most sense. But the idea that somehow, someway, some higher existence just so happens to exist to create everything else seems nonsensical. "Things are too complex, I know, I'll imagine something of even higher cmplexity just happened to precede all them in order to explain their compexity!" It seems more likely that simple things combined into more complex things through a more neutral mechanism. I theorized something I called the comparative stress model that more or less had this neutral base substance of existence splitting and interacting with itself, cancelling patterns, which could then go from a purely abstract functional "nothing" to a highly specific and restrictively patterened "something" that still retained the infinite flexibility of its chaotic roots, having no true foundation. I haven't thought about that for a long time and don't really have any way of testing it. But I'd sooner go with something like that than some "higher power" that breaks all teh rules it's supposedly solving.

I do tend to think the neutral monism idea makes the most sense. But the idea that somehow, someway, some higher existence just so happens to exist to create everything else seems nonsensical. "Things are too complex, I know, I'll imagine something of even higher cmplexity just happened to precede all them in order to explain their compexity!" It seems more likely that simple things combined into more complex things through a more neutral mechanism. I theorized something I called the comparative stress model that more or less had this neutral base substance of existence splitting and interacting with itself, cancelling patterns, which could then go from a purely abstract functional "nothing" to a highly specific and restrictively patterened "something" that still retained the infinite flexibility of its chaotic roots, having no true foundation. I haven't thought about that for a long time and don't really have any way of testing it. But I'd sooner go with something like that than some "higher power" that breaks all teh rules it's supposedly solving.

The termed higher existence isn't "of even higher complexity" ~ it is something that can logically explain both matter and mind-as-we-know-it when neither matter or mind-as-we-know-it seem capable of producing the other, nor giving rise to themselves.

The neutral substance would logically be capable of creating structures and patterns along with being able to split itself and allow itself to experience a reality composed of certain structures and patterns ~ matter and physics being the structured reality we currently inhabit.

The neutral substance is both simple and yet infinitely complex, as it must contain all of the possibilities within existence, yet be flexible enough to be able to manifest in multiple forms. That's not to say that matter itself is conscious... just that consciousness can create, and mold potential into something.

The termed higher power doesn't "break" any rules ~ it is the source of them. It is what I would perceive to be akin to Brahman, to Ain Soph, to the Tao, even Paul Tillich's Ground of Being.

Yes there are all sorts of 'interesting alternative philosophies, but do you realise how those other philosophies go contrary to Occam's Razor? They are also too vague to reason with - at least at this time. Idealism - the idea that all reality is created by various sorts of consciousness - is untestable as I see it because it excludes nothing.

David

Idealism makes the most sense for an ultimate reality ~ but Dualism makes the most sense for this practical reality of distinct matter and mind that we inhabit. An Idealism of a higher consciousness akin to what we might call God or the soul could certainly be the source of matter and mind as we know, having created a reality in which duality is primary.

Occam's Razor suggests that Dualism is primary for this reality we inhabit... but it also suggests that the higher reality which NDEs, OBEs, reincarnation and such strongly imply the existence of must be one of souls, one in which matter doesn't logically exist, one in which mind-as-we-know-it doesn't exist either. A reality in which there is probably a single base substance that composes reality itself, one that can be anything, because it is undefined, thus infinite and unlimited potential in every sense of the word.

It matters not whether we call it "God", "Tao", "Brahman", "Ain Soph" or any other number of pointers to a transcendent concept that mystics have been trying to describe since the first mystical experience had by humans.

“It’s such an interesting question. What is individual consciousness? The evidence is very good that there is continuity of consciousness after death – that you retain your sense of individuality, your sense of self, all the way through the process of dying and then you will hop into a new coat, as it were. Individual consciousness as your marker on it. It’s you."

Even during the deepest depths of transcendent ego death during an Ayahuasca journey, where I had no notion of having ever been human, having a human body, having no sense of any physical surroundings, I was still fundamentally me. After the fact, when I was able to compare to what I retained of the experience, I noticed that my transcendent self still felt like me. There was a certain... feeling, energy, spark, something, that identified as being my core individuality, of which my human existence was but a splinter. It is that same core that I feel as... the perceiver, the point-of-view, that I am.

Even during the deepest depths of transcendent ego death during an Ayahuasca journey, where I had no notion of having ever been human, having a human body, having no sense of any physical surroundings, I was still fundamentally me. After the fact, when I was able to compare to what I retained of the experience, I noticed that my transcendent self still felt like me. There was a certain... feeling, energy, spark, something, that identified as being my core individuality, of which my human existence was but a splinter. It is that same core that I feel as... the perceiver, the point-of-view, that I am.

To be honest, I am never sure what "ego death" is! An explanation that didn't invoke other terms relating to the writings of Freud or Jung would be quite useful!

David

Idealism makes the most sense for an ultimate reality ~ but Dualism makes the most sense for this practical reality of distinct matter and mind that we inhabit. An Idealism of a higher consciousness akin to what we might call God or the soul could certainly be the source of matter and mind as we know, having created a reality in which duality is primary.

Occam's Razor suggests that Dualism is primary for this reality we inhabit... but it also suggests that the higher reality which NDEs, OBEs, reincarnation and such strongly imply the existence of must be one of souls, one in which matter doesn't logically exist, one in which mind-as-we-know-it doesn't exist either. A reality in which there is probably a single base substance that composes reality itself, one that can be anything, because it is undefined, thus infinite and unlimited potential in every sense of the word.

It matters not whether we call it "God", "Tao", "Brahman", "Ain Soph" or any other number of pointers to a transcendent concept that mystics have been trying to describe since the first mystical experience had by humans.

Well I agree with you that Idealism seems attractive as the ultimate explanation. The real problem is that Idealism seems to degenerate into an explanation that would fit all possible situations.

Propose something that if it existed would disprove Idealism.

Thus from a scientific perspective, it is useless.

I think it is worth realising that even correct physical theories may hold up science if they are too far ahead of their time. For example, if Newton had somehow intuited GR, and had used it, astronomy would have been held back and people would have returned to the old epicycles instead. I think Idealism is exactly like that but on the mental plane.

David

I also have a lot of visions as I tend to dream every night. Occasionally, I even see people who have passed away in these dreams. Are they real? No—it's all something my subconscious mind creates while I'm asleep. Overall, I don't believe visions hold any real evidence of anything except those documented by medical professionals with interviews conducted shortly after the medical event, being it a cardiac arrest or a paradoxical lucidity. I certainly don't think any commercialized account is worth considering (Eben Alexander and others comes to mind).

An interesting perspective, though at odds with an earlier post where you appeared to be advocating scepticism.

It's important that no single perspective is able to lay exclusive claim over scepticism. For example if I have visions in my dreams of people who have passed away, there is no immediate conclusion to be drawn. Instead it is ground for questioning, exploration, leaving possibilities open. As soon as one says for example that "it's all something my subconscious mind creates" then one has departed from scepticism and crystallised into a very specific viewpoint.

There are a number of potential disadvantages of allowing crystallisation or solidification of views. Among them, a possible losing sight of other options or even trekking along a pathway which leads further away from rather than closer to what is really going on.

Personally, I've had dreams involving the deceased but they don't seem to be all the same, there are many different categories and I'd certainly not conclude that any single explanation was adequate for all.

Stephen, I admire your persistence in advocating for this alternative, highly abstract concept of realism. Is it the same as the one explained by a member of the Discovery Institute in this post?
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/07/how-infor...terialism/

I’m a bit puzzled about the idea of 3 environments (realities), however Eccles also theorized about a threefold realism. But I haven’t digged into his thoughts yet.

John Eccles and Karl Popper advocated 3 Worlds.  I have greatly benefited from trying to grasp their model.  "Environment" is more useful in my humble model. Current times emphasizes the term "environment"  and speaks to people in the context of ecology.   I prescribe that human psychology is operating in an information niche in a larger processing environment.

As for a triune worldview - it is the works of Charles Sanders Pierce that abstracts 3 categories of processes with a deep dive.  Please note how Popper (and Eccles) view of World 3 and the earlier C. S. Peirce account are similar.

Peirce's theory of semiotics is based on three universal categories: firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Thirdness is a mediating category that represents events, things acting upon us, and things that happen in the past or future. It's also a characteristic of all culture, language, and expression....

Here are some examples of thirdness in Peirce's work:
A fork in the road
A fork in the road is third because it implies three ways, while a straight road is second because it's just a connection between two places.
Imagining someone else's pain
When you imagine the pain of someone who has just hit a lamppost, you're putting yourself in their place, which is an example of thirdness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eccle...siologist)

 "And what is World 3? As shown in Fig. 6-1 it is the whole world of culture. It is the world that was created by man and that reciprocally made man. This is my message in which I follow Popper unreservedly. The whole of language is here. All our means of communication, all our intellectual efforts coded in books, coded in the artistic and technological treasures in the museums, coded in every artefact left by man from primitive times—this is World 3 right up to the present time. It is the world of civilisation and culture. Education is the means whereby each human being is brought into relation with World 3. In this manner he becomes immersed in it throughout life, participating in the heritage of mankind and so becoming fully human. World 3 is the world that uniquely relates to man.

Peirce's examples both fit basic learning models leading to a gain in knowledge.  Empirically, the gain in knowledge is measurable with communication theories.  My concern is that there are meanings in them that are more spiritual, as clearly exhibited by "Imagining someone else's pain".

Again with Popper and Eccles, I would compress the World 2 subjective knowledge with activities of information processing seen in their World 3.  For me - History is an Information Science Category, the information that can be decoded from the past is real and open to exploration for discovery, constrained by rule of science methods.  History can be meanings based on previously observed facts, but meanings can hide for a thousand years.

That leaves Peirce with empathy carrying a moral/spiritual aspect apart from mechanistic physicality and cold information processing.  For Eccles and Popper it is the Humanistic inspired morality that shines.  These aspects of their third environments reside in mine.

My journey to IR is from Kenneth Sayer (Notre Dame) and Luciano Floridi (Oxford).  Sayer was kind enough to send me a copy of "Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind" about 20 years ago.  Floridi published very influential papers on Informational Realism in the mid-to late 2000's.  There is a Quantum version: 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.6007

 Then, using Floridi's ontology as a starting point, the present essay adds quantum features to dedomena, yielding an ontological theory for our own universe, Quantum Informational Structural Realism, which provides a metaphysical interpretation of key quantum phenomena, and diminishes the "weirdness" or "spookiness" of quantum mechanics.

Key Words: digital ontology, dedomena, structural realism, quantum information, primordial qubit

I did link the Dembski paper before on Psiquest, mainly to poke NBTruthman into a less idealized view of the Discovery Institute folks.

To be honest, I am never sure what "ego death" is! An explanation that didn't invoke other terms relating to the writings of Freud or Jung would be quite useful!

David

You can think of your ego as your everyday sense of self, your mundane, incarnate personality, with all of its habits, desires, whims and such that you may be conscious, subconscious or unconscious of, yet indirectly aware of nonetheless.

"Ego death", in popular psychedelic literature, is a temporary transcendence of this usual sense of self, to a varying degree of becoming one with the godhead, yet can also include simply being able to look outside the ego-personality, to see beyond, to not be bound by your ego's structures and habits. Simply, being able to sense, perceive and act outside of the ego's boundaries.

Someone on the Jung Reddit forum came up with a clearer definition that I think I like a lot more, though it doesn't quite roll off the tongue:

"Temporary ego disidentification with a profound meta perspective gained for metamorphic reidentification"