Why mediums have so much trouble with names

Hate to be a party pooper but y'know Occam's razor - maybe they have problems with names because they are just guessing and don't have any real abilities?

Sure, but even mediums with good track records have problems with names.

I'm talking about some of the best cases in history, where fraud is rather unlikely.

Hate to be a party pooper but y'know Occam's razor - maybe they have problems with names because they are just guessing and don't have any real abilities?

You'd better not be referring to top performing mediums like Leonora Piper in the account above. She was repeatedly validated as one of the very best mediums in history, by numerous professional investigators who mostly started out as skeptics. Sure, undoubtedly sometimes, poor performing mediums and outright frauds would have to occasionally resort to claiming in their accounts that the discarnates are saying they can't get the names, but generally with the better mediums other details still come through, with the name problem sort of standing out as an outlier.

Hate to be a party pooper but y'know Occam's razor - maybe they have problems with names because they are just guessing and don't have any real abilities?

Well, we know from mediumship studies that there is mediums with abilities. Occams Razor would more say that they have trouble with names because mediums are really using super PSI, or they're getting information from some weird cloud server of personalities but only getting bits and pieces.

Well, we know from mediumship studies that there is mediums with abilities. Occams Razor would more say that they have trouble with names because mediums are really using super PSI, or they're getting information from some weird cloud server of personalities but only getting bits and pieces.

Occam's razor is the principle of parsimony, that the simplest explanation tends to be the most likely. But this is assuming that the simplest "explanation" really is a plausible explanation. As has been much discussed, super-psi is not plausible as an explanation for much psychical phenomena.

Funny how Occam has become synonymous with skepticism. For me, quite often the most parsimonious explanation of the phenomena we discuss here is that it is exactly what the evidence suggests. The fact that skeptics dismiss that explanation on grounds of plausibility - i.e. it doesn't fit with their worldview - does not justify dismissing the account in its entirety.

As for the question posed in this thread, I suspect that mediums are presented with subjective or symbolic images or impressions which they then have to translate into spoken or written language. How do you, as a spirit, present an impression of the name Brian to a medium? On the other hand, if you are relaying how you died, you might plant an image of a heart-shaped symbol or maybe a gun.

Occam's razor is the principle of parsimony, that the simplest explanation tends to be the most likely. But this is assuming that the simplest "explanation" really is a plausible explanation. As has been much discussed, super-psi is not plausible as an explanation for much psychical phenomena.

Well I would say that for a fair bit of phenomena it's certainly an explanation that's on the table, even for a fair few mediumship and apparition cases. The limits of course being when we have our best cases, when things like crippling complexity come along. Super psi certainly isn't taken seriously for no reason, and if we didn't have this big complex accounts, or these unique correlations across accounts, Occams Razor would definitely be on the side of super psi, rather than having to bring in a whole potential immaterial world. BUT im just playing devils advocate.

As for the question posed in this thread, I suspect that mediums are presented with subjective or symbolic images or impressions which they then have to translate into spoken or written language.

It occurred to me that your suggestion here does often apply to dreams. At least from my own experience, I've sometimes heard words or phrases, but more often, very much the majority, I get images which represent ideas or phrases. I sometimes burst out laughing when I recall a dream with a set of somewhat absurd or unlikely objects or occurrences, and then realise that it translates into a quite familiar English phrase, or a readily-understood idea. The capacity for creative word-play represented by imagery often astounds me. But I digress somewhat, as I'm talking about dreams.

[... ommited ...] Occams Razor would definitely be on the side of super psi, rather than having to bring in a whole potential immaterial world.

But super-psi does invoke a whole potential immaterial world, doesn't it? At least it invokes something for which 'sceptics' would in other circumstances state is impossible. Using the impossible to explain a different impossible is just ludicrous.

But super-psi does invoke a whole potential immaterial world, doesn't it? At least it invokes something for which 'sceptics' would in other circumstances state is impossible. Using the impossible to explain a different impossible is just ludicrous.

I think the idea is:

1. We know there's Psi.
2. To pos[i]t an immaterial world is to add an entity.
3. Everything about post-death cases can be explained via Psi.
4. Thus Living Agent Psi aka Superpsi.

Where this goes wrong, IMO, is supposing that the immaterial world is necessarily extra for our full picture of reality. We might need some area outside of conventional spacetime to make sense of the QM, for example.

And if Idealism is true the idea of "space-time" is something illusory in some sense, as all places are just in Mind.

Even if Idealism isn't the case, the "immaterial world" may be no more extra than the space where dream telepathy takes place. In a videogame, after all, "space" is just a combination of code and the conscious participation of the viewer.

The name thing often seem to be more or an issue with mental mediumship. I can think of plenty of instances of purported direct voice and trance communication where names are given and used. 

I’m with Brian in some ways that often the inability to communicate names is perhaps because the mediumship (if genuine at all) is weak. 

Assuming the medium is genuine, I  wonder whether some of the problem might be to do with the method of mediumship. I’d have thought that clairaudiance would have made a name easier to communicate via a medium, perhaps it is more difficult when the communication is visual or more sensed?

Also, I rarely use my name when communicating with people I know. They already know who I am. I mainly use names when I am talking about someone else and need to identify them. Perhaps that causes a problem in some way?