(2025-02-09, 04:27 PM)David001 Wrote: I feel the logical scientific position is to reject Super-psi on the grounds of Occam's razor. I know we have been over this territory several times before.
I would say that if psi exists (in a weak, strong, or super-strong form), that means that the human mind can achieve all sorts of effects regardless of the laws of physics, and given this, there is no powerful reason to reject the idea of life after death.
Without Occam's Razor, no science is possible.
David
Well Super/Living Agent Psi was born because mediums would sometimes get information about persons who were actually living.
It's somewhere in this thread, along with some examples of living persons with incredible Psi power.
This isn't to say I believe in Super Psi, just that I don't think it's strictly what we'd call a violation of Occam's Razor.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
(2025-02-10, 02:00 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Well Super/Living Agent Psi was born because mediums would sometimes get information about persons who were actually living.
It's somewhere in this thread, along with some examples of living persons with incredible Psi power.
This isn't to say I believe in Super Psi, just that I don't think it's strictly what we'd call a violation of Occam's Razor.
If you assume psi to be real, that means you accept that the mind can explore things outside the skull, and in that case life after death is far more plausible. Therefore it is a violation of Occam's razor to deny evidence for life after death by proposing a much more complicated alternative - unconsciously accessing evidence from living people in order to fake (presumably unconsciously) communication with a dead person.
It has always seemed to me that psi explanations all overlap to some degree, and it is necessary to choose the simplest psi explanation.
David
(2025-02-10, 12:00 PM)David001 Wrote: It has always seemed to me that psi explanations all overlap to some degree, and it is necessary to choose the simplest psi explanation.
David
What if the simplest explanation is a necessarily complex one, if the nature of the phenomena is complex?
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
~ Carl Jung
(2025-02-10, 12:00 PM)David001 Wrote: If you assume psi to be real, that means you accept that the mind can explore things outside the skull, and in that case life after death is far more plausible. Therefore it is a violation of Occam's razor to deny evidence for life after death by proposing a much more complicated alternative - unconsciously accessing evidence from living people in order to fake (presumably unconsciously) communication with a dead person.
It has always seemed to me that psi explanations all overlap to some degree, and it is necessary to choose the simplest psi explanation.
David
Sure, once a person considers that a psychic field of some kind is likely necessary for Super Psi and asks what about the brain could possibly be responsible for such a field, it is very questionable why a brain is needed for consciousness.
My only point in bringing up the history is the idea did not simply come from academics like Braude or Sudduth who AFAICTell really don't want any Survival evidence to be considered hard facts, though they've extended it far beyond [its] original applicability.
That said, I went through Braude's book in this thread with a lot of other material and IMO showed Survival is what fits the evidence best, with Super Psi being little better than Simulation Hypothesis as a theory that can explain anything and so explains nothing.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
(This post was last modified: 2025-02-10, 03:08 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel. Edited 1 time in total.)
(2025-02-09, 04:27 PM)David001 Wrote: I feel the logical scientific position is to reject Super-psi on the grounds of Occam's razor. I know we have been over this territory several times before.
I would say that if psi exists (in a weak, strong, or super-strong form), that means that the human mind can achieve all sorts of effects regardless of the laws of physics, and given this, there is no powerful reason to reject the idea of life after death.
Without Occam's Razor, no science is possible.
David
I think Occam's Razor actually is a good argument against LAP or super psi (that argument being that actual communication with the dead in the afterlife is the most likely hypothesis since super psi is a much more complicated explanation requiring many more auxiliary hypotheses). However, the Occam's Razor argument isn't decisive, because the principle of parsimony is just a strong likelihood not an absolute law or rule of nature. The principle of parsimony has proved to be useful but not conclusive in the search for truth.
The arguments I outlined in post #136 (at https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-s...5#pid60725 ) seem to me to be more conclusive, and the Occam's Razor argument just supplements them. I think the combination of all these arguments against LAP or super psi is absolutely decisive.
(This post was last modified: 2025-02-10, 04:34 PM by nbtruthman. Edited 2 times in total.)
(2025-02-10, 12:15 PM)Valmar Wrote: What if the simplest explanation is a necessarily complex one, if the nature of the phenomena is complex?
Yeah, it's not exactly clear to me why the "simplest explanation" is the right standard to use here, in part because there seem to be debates about what is more parsimonious in a variety of cases.
For example some would say retrocausation is the simplest explanation for any Psi (or QM experiment) that might involve information transfer from the future to the past...yet this depends on how one sees Causation. If, as Braude notes, one thinks of Causality as a network then two causal arrows going in opposite directions is very, very strange. Similarly it seems that precognition which involves time loops is doomed when it comes to trying to explaining who or what "wove" the loops.
I think Super Psi is a bad theory, but not because of some appeal to the simplest explanation. Super Psi, to its adherents, *is* the simplest way to explain Psi and Survival evidence. Rather the evidence doesn't bear it out in very specific ways, that the "opposite" Super Spirit Hypothesis - that all Psi is due to spirits of some sort - is just as credible, and that Super Psi is too akin to a loose & general Simulation Theory which can be used to explain anything one wants because you can always argue you are in a simulation or that somehow unknown subpersonalities with god-like Psi power are shaping reality.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
(This post was last modified: 2025-02-10, 06:27 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
(2025-02-10, 04:30 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: I think Occam's Razor actually is a good argument against LAP or super psi (that argument being that actual communication with the dead in the afterlife is the most likely hypothesis since super psi is a much more complicated explanation requiring many more auxiliary hypotheses). However, the Occam's Razor argument isn't decisive, because the principle of parsimony is just a strong likelihood not an absolute law or rule of nature. The principle of parsimony has proved to be useful but not conclusive in the search for truth. I suppose I think of Occam's razor as a concept that is at the heart of science. Ignoring it is like allowing researchers to make up some or all of their data, or doing a whole set of experimental runs and then throwing away those results that disagree with your theory or current orthodoxy (all practices that are in fact quite common).
The point is that someone who wants to claim that science is always trying to simplify results - that is why, for example, Newton's explanation for planetary motion is preferred to the old explanation using epicycles.
David
(This post was last modified: 2025-02-10, 10:26 PM by David001. Edited 1 time in total.)
(2024-07-22, 09:41 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: This interview gives some more potential credence to the idea that some supposed "sub-personalities" are in fact spirits themselves:
I found this guy surprisingly convincing. The idea that the human mind contains various sub-personalities does seem a rather convincing explanation for some types of mental illness.
David
(2025-02-10, 10:26 PM)David001 Wrote: I suppose I think of Occam's razor as a concept that is at the heart of science. Ignoring it is like allowing researchers to make up some or all of their data, or doing a whole set of experimental runs and then throwing away those results that disagree with your theory or current orthodoxy (all practices that are in fact quite common).
The point is that someone who wants to claim that science is always trying to simplify results - that is why, for example, Newton's explanation for planetary motion is preferred to the old explanation using epicycles.
David
I agree ~ if we're talking strictly science and what science can feasibly explore.
However... the intangible, non-physical, immeasurable, the spiritual, the paranormal ~ these defy the methodologies of science significantly enough as to be extremely difficult to even garner significant statistic results from. And yet the spiritual and paranormal happen quite often.
How you measure NDEs? OBEs? Terminal lucidity? Reincarnation? Past-life memories? Telepathy? Psychic abilities in general?
Statistics, at best, and that's just extraordinarily weak ~ it says precisely nothing about these phenomena and their nature.
We cannot apply Occam's Razor to something innately immeasurable... if by that we are talking numbers and mathematics.
Remember ~ we are consciousness, mind, trying to understand itself, and mathematical measurement and statistics is but one method of exploring the world.
Useful ~ until you encounter phenomena which simply cannot be measured, because they are non-physical.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
~ Carl Jung
Seems like Braude leans slightly more toward Survival, primarily due to transplant cases (some of which were covered in this thread & also this other thread) ->
Quote:Stephen Braude is a legend when it comes to the convergence of parapsychology and philosophy. He is the 2022 winner of the Parapsychological Association’s prestigious Outstanding Career Award, an award given to individuals who’s efforts have advanced the discipline of parapsychology for over two decades. Stephen’s essay, ‘A Rational Guide to the Best Evidence of Post-Mortem Survival’, was a runner-up in the celebrated Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies 2021 contest. He’s a Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, and in 2014 he was awarded the FWH Myers Memorial Medal from the Society for Psychical Research. Stephen has written numerous books including ‘The Gold Leaf Lady’ and ‘Immortal Remains’.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Hope you enjoy the interview
(00:45) Super Psi (Living Agent Psi - LAP) vs Survival Hypothesis
(16:44) Physical Mediumship
(26:44) Eusapia Palladino & D. D. Home (notable mediums)
(46:05) Ectoplasm
(58:30) Physical mediumship (super psi vs survival)
(01:12:59) Past-life memories (super psi vs survival)
(01:30:30) NDEs (super psi vs survival)
(01:43:20) Transplant cases
(01:57:12) What happens after we die?
Quote: My first interview with Steve: • Legends of Parapsychology: Prof. Step...
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'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
(This post was last modified: 2025-02-11, 03:58 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel. Edited 1 time in total.)
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