If precognition happens, then once we manage to figure out the mechanism, it will be physical.
~~ Paul
Proving the Immaterial World
- Thread starter steve001
- Start date
~~ Paul
I doubt it, but if you are right then the spirit realm is physical.
If you really can't stomach that assumption, then you can invent some "not physical" realm. However, you have to discover and codify the laws that allow the "not physical" to interact with the physical. Good luck separating those laws into "not physical" and physical.
~~ Paul
C
chuck.drake
Well if consciousness arises from matter, then does precognition arise from matter?
gabriel
New
Thoughts aren't physical, yet nobody assumes they're spooky. We have no idea how they are generated, yet they continually interact with the physical. Psi has more in common with that process than the mechanistic.
I also used the words "well described" implying strongly a very thorough understanding of any psi aspect. So, if I understand you, you are saying the immaterial remains so even when a nearly completed comprehension of the rules and laws by which it works is known?
This is a question for another time.
Craig Weiler
Associate
I think it's more likely that there is a relationship between material and immaterial that we do not fully understand. The term "somewhere else" does not apply to the immaterial, which has no physical location.
The fact that information is fundamental to reality and is immaterial seems to indicate that consciousness itself plays a role in reality.
gabriel
New
Psi is already "well described", and there are sub-categories of phenomena with long histories, some of which have been subject to laboratory testing with positive outcomes, others with multiple testimonies. What I sense you and other materialists mean by well described is a proven mechanism. We're not even close, and may never be, so the description 'immaterial' is suitable pending a viable model.
My opinion is that the difference is one of mistaken categorisation, and everything is psi, or immaterial if you prefer, because all manifestations are functions of mind.
S
Sciborg_S_Patel
I think this is a strong possibility, especially given the experimental results posted in this thread (here, here+here). According to Ron Garret, either Many Worlds in all its absurdity is true or "we are our thoughts".
I'd say thoughts are physical, but it's probably not worth too much wringing of hands. As far as I can tell, lots of people do assume they are spooky.
~~ Paul
gabriel
New
The limitless scope of thoughts inevitably place them within the eldritch, because their relationship with the hardware is beyond extreme. Until promise notes on the grey matter are paid in full, spooky is a much better description.
Then the word physical doesn't really mean much, does it?
C
chuck.drake
That's what I was thinking. So physical means that it is a phenomena that you accept within your subjective world view?
S
Sciborg_S_Patel
It might be better stated that phenomena are mechanistic or not. I suspect there are phenomenon that are neither deterministic nor random. If the Lucas-Penrose argument regarding the mind being a noncomputational process then human consciousness would be the prime example.
ghost
New
Non-physical and physical or non-material and material feel like the right idea of what's going on. But if we had to talk about definitions and really defining things, then I would go with: Certain and Uncertain. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle seems to characterize a natural boundary for both physical things (rocks, people. jars of nails) and non-material things like virtual particles, fields and ghosts.
We all agree that there are large objects that don't really behave quantum mechanically or with any uncertainty until we start looking at tiny objects (atoms, molecules, photons) and tiny details of objects including the biochemical transport system of the cells of living creatures and the neurons of the brain. It is here that materialists and non-materialists beg to differ with one another. It is at this point that the scientific community with it's hard procedural methods of proof will overlook the rare, subtle and purposeful phenomena of ghosts, spirits, grey aliens, shadow entities, angels, demons, and acts of God. Such things may very well exists are are grateful to the faithful that they don't have to work slavishly to get their message through. But if a spirit can make it's point without having to levitate skeptics throught the air, banging them into walls and dropping them on the floor, then all the better. Ghosts already know that they exist and therefore don't have to perform parlor tricks on a contractual daily basis until the hard science community is satisfied. I understand that the skeptics and many of the faithful believers are not happy with this arrangement. But maybe it's all for the best over the long term. It is better that lots of people sigh and wish their was proof of the supernatural than for proof of the supernatural to become a proven fact. Were that so, there would be droves of very talented human beings trying to gain power over the spirit world. Yes, it is about power. Once proof of this phenomena is attained, the next step is to try to control it, to bind spirits as willing or unwilling servants, to search for more supernatural power until the spirit hierarchy is binded into servitude to one or two sorcerous masters who rips the veil between life and death apart. Powerful humans with glowing red eyes would roam the streets in search of victims to bind to his will, and the rest would be destroyed, incinerated by fire.
S
Sciborg_S_Patel
Ghost,
I've wondered about this as well - if the Trickster aspect of the paranormal is intentional. My more rational side thinks it is more that we haven't pinned down the invariants though the commonality of the Trickster and/or Carnival appearing to people utilizing psychedelics along with some alien-encounter anecdotes makes my more "irrational" side wonder how all this stuff is connected.
I've wondered about this as well - if the Trickster aspect of the paranormal is intentional. My more rational side thinks it is more that we haven't pinned down the invariants though the commonality of the Trickster and/or Carnival appearing to people utilizing psychedelics along with some alien-encounter anecdotes makes my more "irrational" side wonder how all this stuff is connected.
ghost
New
I have an answer, but you or others might not like it. It goes like this. There is only one observer, and that observer is God. You and I are individuals by the mere fact that God has created individual souls for you and I and everyone else. Individual souls are created out of spirit. Even in the spirit world we are still separate beings (even if it doesn't feel like that). We have free will to create/destroy, experience/sleep, and to be good or evil. We should want to be good creatures because what we do comes back to us.
Max_B
Member
No I don't for the purposes of this thought experiment because they are constrained by matter.
As to your second point, that's what I'm asking... how would you do that - and be able to access the information on demand a week later - without using another matter substrate?
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Yup, that's pretty much it. I suppose we could discover things over time that make it more appropriate to call everything "mental," but that won't be due to much more than folk definitions of the terms. Our world is composed of the things we can observe.
~~ Paul