The mind entity hypothesis

Sorry Tim, as a lurker but rarely-active forum member, I found I had to break my silence temporarily to comment on this.

No, don't apologise, it's great to see you again, Dave ! I suppose I was meaning the three options that the fashionable thinkers are currently considering. I'm not trained in philosophy, albeit I have a reasonable understanding (at least I think I do, might be wrong lol) of the different concepts. 

So yes, no worries at all.

Perhaps we also need to distinguish the terminology a little bit more.

That is, sceptics are perhaps not looking for a theory which actually works. Rather they are looking for a theory which works within the materialist philosophical framework. In that respect a theory may not actually be the problem. The problem is an ability (or inability) to consider alternative philosophical systems.

That's novel, I suppose. It may be a way to proceed but I don't think most scientists and philosophers would agree with you. There's three main options, if I'm not mistaken. Materialist reductionism, panpsychism and dualism (and substance dualism included in the latter, which I prefer) 

Scientists and philosophers are now receiving big grants to try to crack the problem (the hard problem). Materialism hasn't done it and can't do it, although those that want it to be true will never give up trying (promissory materialism). Panpsychism is popular, I believe, because most of them simply can't stand the latter, dualism. 

The evidence for the theory they can't stomach (dualism) is enormous and I don't need to point it out, but the problem is that there are so many dishonest 'sceptics' or even honest sceptics who won't even look at the evidence because they already "know" they don't need to. Without the dishonest debunkers we would have been further along by now, as more money would surely have been made available.

Yes, but the problem is that their theory is sufficiently non-materialist (free floating consciousness under certain conditions) that it can't count as a materialistic theory. Yet although the way they describe it is a bit vague, one has to assume that the theory doesn't countenance free floating consciousness that lasts for any length of time!

that it can't count as a materialistic theory.

Leaving that aside, it would have to account for so many 'impossible things before breakfast'. Being in/seeing two places thousands of miles apart at the same time; "seeing" into the molecular structure of objects, travelling back into the past maybe even the future, to the end of the universe, all reported by the disembodied. Clearly this substance or entity (I prefer) is not something that's going to be amenable to examination.

Once it has been more or less accepted by all that disembodied consciousness is a reality, we could then drop it as an argument, amend the books accordingly and leave it. Or of course, they can start pointing scanners at dying people and see if they pick up anything leaving.  Come to think of it, our own eyes are probably better for that task.

Leaving that aside, it would have to account for so many 'impossible things before breakfast'. Being in/seeing two places thousands of miles apart at the same time; "seeing" into the molecular structure of objects, travelling back into the past maybe even the future, to the end of the universe, all reported by the disembodied. Clearly this substance or entity (I prefer) is not something that's going to be amenable to examination.

Once it has been more or less accepted by all that disembodied consciousness is a reality, we could then drop it as an argument, amend the books accordingly and leave it. Or of course, they can start pointing scanners at dying people and see if they pick up anything leaving.  Come to think of it, our own eyes are probably better for that task.

"Or of course, they can start pointing scanners at dying people and see if they pick up anything leaving.  Come to think of it, our own eyes are probably better for that task."

I wonder though whether 'eyes' are the way these things are observed. When actual examples of people close to the dying are considered, it may be something other than photons which are observed. There are the perhaps quite frequent cases where a dying person sees someone or something, perhaps even holds a conversation, but carers or relatives nearby see nothing but an empty space. Or the other example, the shared-death experience, perhaps usually where one person present is able to observe the same reality as that seen by the dying and may even be caught up in part of the journey or be a bystander seeing a life-review taking place. Occasionally there are multiple independent witnesses of something taking place around the dying.

So while I agree that a human observer may be more useful than some mechanical scanner, it may be because the human is conscious and able to exist both within ordinary reality and to sometimes see beyond it - something mechanical devices haven't any particular ability or track-record in achieving.

There are the perhaps quite frequent cases where a dying person sees someone or something, perhaps even holds a conversation, but carers or relatives nearby see nothing but an empty space.

Just the very minute that my aunty died (many years ago) she very slowly raised her right arm from the bed where she was lying, to point at something she could obviously see (well it was obvious to me). There was no mistaking it, she was pointing at something. Her son, however grabbed her hand thinking that maybe she was looking for comfort or something. She was not, they'd come for her and she could see them at the end of her bed (what else could it be she didn't have a dog or a cat) and then she died. She hadn't raised anything for days, just laying flat, semi-comatose.

Now why can they see these "beings" and we can't (well mostly we can't). Is it that they begin to switch over to their "soul channel", so to speak, so they aren't really seeing with their eyes, but something else.

Edited three times because I can never get the first effort right

"Or of course, they can start pointing scanners at dying people and see if they pick up anything leaving.  Come to think of it, our own eyes are probably better for that task."

Since I don't think there is anything unique about humans, I tried to observe this phenomenon when our much loved cat was put to sleep early this year. I didn't see anything, but it is hard to concentrate at a time like that.

"Or of course, they can start pointing scanners at dying people and see if they pick up anything leaving.  Come to think of it, our own eyes are probably better for that task."

I wonder though whether 'eyes' are the way these things are observed. When actual examples of people close to the dying are considered, it may be something other than photons which are observed. There are the perhaps quite frequent cases where a dying person sees someone or something, perhaps even holds a conversation, but carers or relatives nearby see nothing but an empty space. Or the other example, the shared-death experience, perhaps usually where one person present is able to observe the same reality as that seen by the dying and may even be caught up in part of the journey or be a bystander seeing a life-review taking place. Occasionally there are multiple independent witnesses of something taking place around the dying.

So while I agree that a human observer may be more useful than some mechanical scanner, it may be because the human is conscious and able to exist both within ordinary reality and to sometimes see beyond it - something mechanical devices haven't any particular ability or track-record in achieving.

Not to belabour the point I made previously about idealism being largely ignored, I do think it might have some explanatory power here too. I'll try to explain.

We are used to thinking in materialist terms therefore we look for a materialist explanation for things that are not material to start with. Let's say, for agrument's sake, that the spirits of the dead exist on another plane which cannot be perceived by our physical senses (including, of course, our eyesight). Yet people claim to have seen spirits. People in my own family have seen depated loved ones - my step-mother saw her brother who was killed in WW2 before the telegram informing the family of his death in action.

Now, I've read accounts of psychics and mediums who say that they don't actually hear the words of the dead but the idea appears in their minds which they (almost instantly and without conscious intent) translate into words - much like the way we all have thoughts and those thoughts come out as words. I am assuming tha same must be true for images. The spiritual personality appears in the mind of the (perhaps sensitive) observer and that observer is not aware that she is observing what's in her mind and not some semi-physical entity standing in front of her. I mean, how would she know the difference?

Eveything we "see" is a mental image. I can attest to the fact that on several occasions in my youth I had LSD experiences and "saw" things that I was convinced were real. Maybe they were real and maybe the brain, by design, filters out the things that psychadelics reveal? Maybe people who see the dead have just relaxed their brain filters temporarily? Materialists would scoff, no doubt, but then I am an idealist.

Since I don't think there is anything unique about humans, I tried to observe this phenomenon when our much loved cat was put to sleep early this year. I didn't see anything, but it is hard to concentrate at a time like that.

Almost 30 years ago I was present at the death of a family member. It must have been five minutes or more after the initial moments when we were too busy checking for signs of breathing or heartbeat - and being very shocked, only after that time did I think to look up towards the ceiling and around the upper corners of the room. I didn't see anything. Whether there was anything to see I don't know.

However, I experienced a number of separate things afterwards, during the days, weeks and years afterwards that seemed to show the presence of this relative in a very immediate and direct way. These things are personal and I'm not inclined to share them online.

My main thoughts here, it's not easy to make any of these things happen, even if we are ready and looking for them. But things do happen in their own time, perhaps unexpectedly.

Almost 30 years ago I was present at the death of a family member. It must have been five minutes or more after the initial moments when we were too busy checking for signs of breathing or heartbeat - and being very shocked, only after that time did I think to look up towards the ceiling and around the upper corners of the room. I didn't see anything. Whether there was anything to see I don't know.

However, I experienced a number of separate things afterwards, during the days, weeks and years afterwards that seemed to show the presence of this relative in a very immediate and direct way. These things are personal and I'm not inclined to share them online.

My main thoughts here, it's not easy to make any of these things happen, even if we are ready and looking for them. But things do happen in their own time, perhaps unexpectedly.

I very vaguely recall the story of the little boy who was taken by his parents into the private hospital room of a dying relative (perhaps his grandmother), upon leaving the room, the little boy asked his parents who were all the other people in the room? The parents were puzzled by this, as there had only been the three of them in the room.

After reading John Fuller’s book ‘The ghost of flight 401’, it did make more sense to me, that the dying could spread out within - what we call - spacetime, no longer bound by their sensory inputs to a spatiotemporal nexus. Unbound, and able to touch the non-classical experience of those who share their classical patterns, no matter how far away in spacetime they are.