Are there any paranormal phenomena AT ALL??

Sheldrake's experiments with the dogs that seem to know when their owners return home is the kind of thing that gives me pause, that *maybe* there's something to some of this stuff after all. It would need many more replications of course. But there you have a macroscopic effect that is awful difficult to comprehend in terms of unconscious formalism or human bias.
 
I'm sorry, I'm just so depressed right now. I don't know wether any of this stuff is even real or not :(

Well then, my advice is to do some serious research, or start enjoining a worldview whose meaning doesn't depend on any of it. This is what I have done. Secular humanism, for example, is a great philosophy, where the focus of life is people, here and now—with tenets that hold regardless of whether mind is local, non-local, or a meat machine.

In my opinion, it's all about the point of view, and this is where I profoundly disagree with people like Alex, who argue that life would be vacuous without the paranormal. We don't need NDEs, mediums, or parapsychology to prove psi or the afterlife, in order to be happy; all we need is what we have already: ourselves, other people, and the world—whatever the ultimate reality is. This tiny speck of dust, suspended in the cosmos (as Carl Sagan would say), is chock full of people who are convinced that the particular shade of rose that tints their glasses is the one that gives life the most excitement, vivacity, purpose, and beauty; but unbeknownst to them countless worldviews with categorically divergent methods of being provide lives as fruitful and joyful as their own.
 
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Well then, my advice is to do some serious research, or start enjoining a worldview whose meaning doesn't depend on any of it. This is what I have done. Secular humanism, for example, is a great philosophy, where the focus of life is people, here and now—with tenets that hold regardless of whether mind is local, non-local, or a meat machine.

In my opinion, it's all about the point of view, and this is where I profoundly disagree with people like Alex, who argue that life would be vacuous without the paranormal. We don't need NDEs, mediums, or parapsychology to prove psi or the afterlife; all we need is what we have already: ourselves, other people, and the world—whatever the ultimate reality is. This tiny speck of dust, suspended in the cosmos (as Carl Sagan would say), is chock full of people who are convinced that the particular shade of rose that tints their glasses is the one that gives life the most excitement, vivacity, purpose, and beauty; but unbeknownst to them countless worldviews with categorically divergent methods of being provide lives as fruitful and joyful as their own.

I agree. Life on Earth is incredibly short. Find something that you enjoy doing and then do it. When you tire of that, find something else. Study something in depth, like chocolate or beer or flowers. Volunteer and help others if you are so inclined.
 
I find it interesting that you guys say that. See, that doesn't work for me. I suppose it's a temperament thing, but I am too aware of mortality. Some people say that makes every moment more valuable to them, and I envy them that. For me though, if there is no consciousness post mortem, it's really precisely equivalent to having never existed. An infinity eternity of darkness behind. WHOOF! (some light for a nanosecond) and an infinite eternity of darkness in front. What does that amount to?

For me there is an emotional value in the hope that hard core materialism, at least, may be mistaken.
On the other hand though, I am no fool for selling myself the soft option either.
 
For me though, if there is no consciousness post mortem, it's really precisely equivalent to having never existed. An infinity eternity of darkness behind. WHOOF! (some light for a nanosecond) and an infinite eternity of darkness in front. What does that amount to?

If you take into account the bolded portion you wouldn't recall that nanosecond of light, your perception would only be infinite darkness. This is why I can see people like Copeland feeling consciousness is an illusion, it really doesn't make sense in materialism. As you pointed out, from a first-person perspective you would never know you existed, if all your memories are lost and there is no form of consciousness to process them. I still feel the fact we are self-aware and recalling our living moments kind of really at odds with materialism, given under that model I feel I should not be aware of myself typing this out right now, or have memories of it.
 
Not sure what your point is with that, sorry. My point is that our own unconscious formalism will not be cognizable, for the most part.

But the data is in. The whole process has been automated and randomised to eliminate any unconscious influence at any stage of the experiment. All that's left is a disagreement over the interpretation of results and that's not what we're discussing surely.
 
I find it interesting that you guys say that. See, that doesn't work for me. I suppose it's a temperament thing, but I am too aware of mortality. Some people say that makes every moment more valuable to them, and I envy them that. For me though, if there is no consciousness post mortem, it's really precisely equivalent to having never existed. An infinity eternity of darkness behind. WHOOF! (some light for a nanosecond) and an infinite eternity of darkness in front. What does that amount to?

For me there is an emotional value in the hope that hard core materialism, at least, may be mistaken.
On the other hand though, I am no fool for selling myself the soft option either.

I may not agree with you regarding evidence for PSI and so on. But I have to agree in this case. This matches my own opinion.
In the moment of dead it would be like we had never lived. The life of my relatives goes on, of course, but there would be no difference for me. It's like a multiplication with zero.

There is a nice quote of Carl Jung:
“The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance."

Maybe survival after death is not the important factor. For me it is the connection to something eternal, even if I cease to exist. This is the only way FOR ME to imagine that my own actions really make an "objective" difference. Life is beautiful anyway, yes. But there is always this "soft voice", saying me that things just doesn't matter otherwise and that I just want to persuade myself that would be the case.
 
I find it interesting that you guys say that. See, that doesn't work for me. I suppose it's a temperament thing, but I am too aware of mortality. Some people say that makes every moment more valuable to them, and I envy them that. For me though, if there is no consciousness post mortem, it's really precisely equivalent to having never existed. An infinity eternity of darkness behind. WHOOF! (some light for a nanosecond) and an infinite eternity of darkness in front. What does that amount to?
Hey Kai, this is the first thing you’ve said on this thread that I am in complete agreement with. If materialism is true and consciousness is nothing but an illusion produced by our brains then it amounts to absolutely nothing. Sure you can walk around talking about how great secular humanism is. But the “Happy Human” symbol would mean one thing to me—as much self-gratification as I could possibly get. I would not give a crap about “ethics” or my “responsibility” to “advance humankind” for any reason except than violating certain rules would likely result in less self-gratification for me, end of story. Not because they were “right” or “wrong.” And if I were 100 percent convinced that materialism were true I sure as hell wouldn’t waste a single second of my time on a forum arguing with other piles of brain cells about the non-existence of things outside of the material universe. I’d be out gratifying myself in other ways. But that’s just me.

Cheers,
Bill
 
I find it interesting that you guys say that. See, that doesn't work for me. I suppose it's a temperament thing, but I am too aware of mortality. Some people say that makes every moment more valuable to them, and I envy them that. For me though, if there is no consciousness post mortem, it's really precisely equivalent to having never existed. An infinity eternity of darkness behind. WHOOF! (some light for a nanosecond) and an infinite eternity of darkness in front. What does that amount to?

For me there is an emotional value in the hope that hard core materialism, at least, may be mistaken.
On the other hand though, I am no fool for selling myself the soft option either.

I envy them that, too. If there’s no post mortem existence and materialism is true, then the only intellectually honest stance to take, IMO, is the rather bleak one spelled out by Alex Rosenberg in his The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: there is no meaning to anything.


For me, the bleakness is not so much that I would cease to exist (though I would rather keep on existing and experiencing new states of consciousness), but that millions of others throughout history would have suffered and died, alone and sad, for nothing. What brings me to tears is all the little children, never knowing love, dying forgotten, and for what? I would like to think that when they left this world they were enveloped in love and light and not utter nothingness.


You can talk about living for the moment and appreciating life, doing what you can for others, and that is what I do. I am not as drear as I might seem from this post. But if there is no transcendent point to the universe, then for me all philosophies like secular humanism are are diversions from the cold, blunt truth: there is no meaning to anything.
 
Hey Kai, this is the first thing you’ve said on this thread that I am in complete agreement with. If materialism is true and consciousness is nothing but an illusion produced by our brains then it amounts to absolutely nothing. Sure you can walk around talking about how great secular humanism is. But the “Happy Human” symbol would mean one thing to me—as much self-gratification as I could possibly get. I would not give a crap about “ethics” or my “responsibility” to “advance humankind” for any reason except than violating certain rules would likely result in less self-gratification for me, end of story. Not because they were “right” or “wrong.” And if I were 100 percent convinced that materialism were true I sure as hell wouldn’t waste a single second of my time on a forum arguing with other piles of brain cells about the non-existence of things outside of the material universe. I’d be out gratifying myself in other ways. But that’s just me.

Cheers,
Bill

I would not fall headlong into hedonism if materialism were true, but at the same time it wouldn't matter if I did. That's the point; nothing would, objectively, matter. For people interested in Alex Rosenberg's take on this, here's a précis of the larger argument of his book: http://onthehuman.org/2009/11/the-disenchanted-naturalists-guide-to-reality/

If materialism, or what he calls 'scientism,'is indeed true, then I think his conclusions are the correct ones. Anything else to me seems like so much intellectual gymnastics to avoid the starkness of what such scientism entails. Thankfully, I don't think he's correct. Philosopher Edward Feser gives some good explanations why: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.fr/2012/05/rosenberg-roundup.html
 
Hey Kai, this is the first thing you’ve said on this thread that I am in complete agreement with. If materialism is true and consciousness is nothing but an illusion produced by our brains then it amounts to absolutely nothing. Sure you can walk around talking about how great secular humanism is. But the “Happy Human” symbol would mean one thing to me—as much self-gratification as I could possibly get. I would not give a crap about “ethics” or my “responsibility” to “advance humankind” for any reason except than violating certain rules would likely result in less self-gratification for me, end of story. Not because they were “right” or “wrong.” And if I were 100 percent convinced that materialism were true I sure as hell wouldn’t waste a single second of my time on a forum arguing with other piles of brain cells about the non-existence of things outside of the material universe. I’d be out gratifying myself in other ways. But that’s just me.

Cheers,
Bill


Then I think you should avoid reading any threads in CD or exposing yourself to any information that might lead you to possibly changing your mind on this topic. We can't control when our minds will be changed in reaction to new information and you might read something that changes your mind, leading you to go on some rampage or something.
 
Then I think you should avoid reading any threads in CD or exposing yourself to any information that might lead you to possibly changing your mind on this topic. We can't control when our minds will be changed in reaction to new information and you might read something that changes your mind, leading you to go on some rampage or something.
Well thank you for watching out for my interests Arouet, and for your humanistic concern. But I have absolutely no fear of the truth, and if materialistic arguments can sway me, so be it. I highly doubt that will occur, but like you I am always open to changing my “mind.” I was only indicating that such a change would also be accompanied by a change my perspective on “meaning” or the lack thereof.

ETA: By the way, anyone in particular I should watch out for? I've never seen you provide convincing evidence of materialism and I stopped reading Linda's posts because I don't understand them. As it stands now, I guess it would have to be Paul who changes my mind, but that hasn't happened yet.

Cheers,
Bill
 
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I would not fall headlong into hedonism if materialism were true, but at the same time it wouldn't matter if I did.
I'd be leary of falling headlong into anything, but you're right, it would not matter at all.

If materialism, or what he calls 'scientism,'is indeed true, then I think his conclusions are the correct ones.
Yes, I've read them and if materialism were true, I would agree with them,

Cheers,
Bill
 
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Sheldrake's experiments with the dogs that seem to know when their owners return home is the kind of thing that gives me pause, that *maybe* there's something to some of this stuff after all. It would need many more replications of course. But there you have a macroscopic effect that is awful difficult to comprehend in terms of unconscious formalism or human bias.
If dogs know when their owners are coming home, I then often wonder why don't my dogs know they are not going out everytime I open the front door. Every dog I have had always thinks they are going out when I open the door. Sheldrake is barking up the wrong tree with his morphogenic ideas.
 
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Hey Kai, this is the first thing you’ve said on this thread that I am in complete agreement with. If materialism is true and consciousness is nothing but an illusion produced by our brains then it amounts to absolutely nothing. Sure you can walk around talking about how great secular humanism is. But the “Happy Human” symbol would mean one thing to me—as much self-gratification as I could possibly get. I would not give a crap about “ethics” or my “responsibility” to “advance humankind” for any reason except than violating certain rules would likely result in less self-gratification for me, end of story. Not because they were “right” or “wrong.” And if I were 100 percent convinced that materialism were true I sure as hell wouldn’t waste a single second of my time on a forum arguing with other piles of brain cells about the non-existence of things outside of the material universe. I’d be out gratifying myself in other ways. But that’s just me.

Cheers,
Bill

Here again, I see perspective at work. You say that you would shy away from violating ethical codes for no other reason but that of self-gratification, and not because they were "right" or "wrong". Wonderful! Too much cruelty and misery has been inflicted on fellow human beings because of what was "right" or "wrong". I welcome the idea that we should be concerned with the gratification and happiness of people rather than with whether they conform to the narrative we've built of the best human life. Compassion and empathy, after all, are immanent within our species. We have social and biological predispositions to altruism (just as we do for fighting, lying, etc) such that our greatest happiness often comes from making others happy, like our family, friends, and communities. I certainly feel that way. My drive to make some sort of contribution to human knowledge or human well-being would not go away if I were to suddenly be convinced that the major psi experiments were unsound, or that the best explanation for NDEs was hypoxia. Contrarily, to turn away from this purpose would be to extirpate my greatest happiness, so if parapsychology was found to be rubbish it would have the effect only of driving me to focus more strongly on one of my other interests, probably physics.

Let me be clear on one point, by the way: what I have said above does not mean that I see all ontological discoveries as unimportant to our self-perception. I believe the GCP, for example, gives us good news, generally—that we are all inextricably tied together and that our thoughts impact the physical world, for example. These are fascinating ideas, ethically, scientifically, and socially. But were they mistaken I think humanity would find other ways to realize its connections.
 
Let me turn around some statements made above, to see whether they may be viewed in a new way. What follows are not my actual opinions, necessarily, but merely provocatively phrased counterpoints:

Troy says:

Millions of others throughout history would have suffered and died, alone and sad, for nothing. What brings me to tears is all the little children, never knowing love, dying forgotten, and for what?

If there were a greater, ultimate purpose to life, then what you said would have to remain unchanged but for one respect: millions throughout history would still have suffered and died, alone and sad; countless children would still have perished of hunger; and as many would have met their ends in horrible diseases, as young as they did; except that now we would have to say that there was such a purpose as could condone that misery and agony somewhere in this universe, and that, no, it wasn't just an accident. Perhaps, in fact, it was designed or premeditated. Perhaps someone earnestly desired that this should occur. Or was pleasured by it.

Intellectual honesty demands that we ask these sorts of questions, just as it demands that we ask yours. Would you not begin to do so if you saw another human being stand by and watch, innocuously, as others tortured and beat a small child on the street? Doing nothing. Just gazing. And then walking away.

Now, Billw says

If I were 100 percent convinced that materialism were true I sure as hell wouldn’t waste a single second of my time on a forum arguing with other piles of brain cells about the non-existence of things outside of the material universe. I’d be out gratifying myself in other ways.

I ask: what in non-materialism provokes your desire to be here, in this corner of the internet, arguing with people about the existence of things outside the material universe?
 
If dogs know when their owners are coming home, then why don't my dogs know they are not going out everytime I open the front door. Every dog I have had always thinks they are going out when I open the door. Sheldrake is barking up the wrong tree with his morphogenic ideas.
Maybe your dogs don't think that they are going out, but instead are trying to signal to you that they want to go out.
 
Here again, I see perspective at work. You say that you would shy away from violating ethical codes for no other reason but that of self-gratification, and not because they were "right" or "wrong". Wonderful! Too much cruelty and misery has been inflicted on fellow human beings because of what was "right" or "wrong". I welcome the idea that we should be concerned with the gratification and happiness of people rather than with whether they conform to the narrative we've built of the best human life. Compassion and empathy, after all, are immanent within our species. We have social and biological predispositions to altruism (just as we do for fighting, lying, etc) such that our greatest happiness often comes from making others happy, like our family, friends, and communities. I certainly feel that way. My drive to make some sort of contribution to human knowledge or human well-being would not go away if I were to suddenly be convinced that the major psi experiments were unsound, or that the best explanation for NDEs was hypoxia. Contrarily, to turn away from this purpose would be to extirpate my greatest happiness, so if parapsychology was found to be rubbish it would have the effect only of driving me to focus more strongly on one of my other interests, probably physics.
Right, I agree with you. But it’s not just perspective—it’s also the larger context that is important. Science studies topics from quantum physics to cosmology, and seeks to put our understanding in the broadest and most universal context possible. If materialism is a true, then that puts our individual lives in one context. If part of our consciousness exists outside of that small context, potentially intersecting with physical reality uncountable times through processes such as reincarnation, mediumistic communications, etc., then that creates a whole different and larger context to consider our actions in. And in my opinion, that is by no means a small consideration.

Cheers,
Bill
 
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I ask: what in non-materialism provokes your desire to be here, in this corner of the internet, arguing with people about the existence of things outside the material universe?
To learn what I can about the "big picture," as noted above. Whatever that may be. Even if it means discovering how brains can remote view.

Cheers,
Bill
 
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