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En-psi-clopedia

Yeah, that's right. En-psi-clopedia. See what I did there?

It's my way of introducing the new online Psi Encyclopedia created by the Society for Psychical Research. Screenshot of the homepage:

 

Screenshot 2016-09-07 13.42.48

 

Click on a topic, such as "Mediums & Psychics," and you get a list of articles:

 

Screenshot 2016-09-07 13.47.18

 

Choose a story, and you get a treatment of surprising depth:

 

Screenshot 2016-09-07 13.49.13

 

The article on Palladino is balanced, reporting her apparently genuine phenomena as well as her willingness to cheat:

 

Screenshot 2016-09-07 13.52.21

 

Though still a work in progress, the online Psi Encyclopedia promises to be an invaluable alternative to the often deliberately slanted coverage of psi in Wikipedia, where self-styled "guerrilla skeptics" have run amok, deleting any pro-psi citations. ("Why?" they ask. "Because evidence is cool." Sure … that's why.)

Thanks to Robbie for sending me a heads-up on the encyclopedia.

Incidentally, the SPR has also revamped its website.

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  1. bill Avatar
    bill

    “Particle physics does not prohibit one afterlife”
    Yes it does Juan. As Sean Carroll explains:
    “Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?
    Even if you don’t believe that human beings are “simply” collections of atoms evolving and interacting according to rules laid down in the Standard Model of particle physics, most people would grudgingly admit that atoms are part of who we are. If it’s really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death.
    Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.
    There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?
    Nobody ever asks these questions out loud, possibly because of how silly they sound. Once you start asking them, the choice you are faced with becomes clear: either overthrow everything we think we have learned about modern physics, or distrust the stew of religious accounts/unreliable testimony/wishful thinking that makes people believe in the possibility of life after death. It’s not a difficult decision, as scientific theory-choice goes.”
    http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/
    Life after death can only be a belief, nothing more. It has nothing to do with science. It is a religious belief that has its origins in human superstition.
    There is no scientific evidence that ” quantum processes are involved in neuron-to-neuron communication or brain function.”
    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/12/22/quantum-theory-wont-save-soul/#.V9WUu-T6tPY
    As for Stuart Hameroff’s fringe ideas, they have not held up within the scientific community but are usually promoted by paranormal believers. Hameroff put forward the idea that microtubules may have quantum effects on neuronal behaviours. There is no scientific evidence to demonstrate this idea. Max Tegmark actually mathematically disproved such ideas.
    Max Tegmark, “The Importance of Quantum Decoherence in Brain Processes,” Phys. Rev. E 61 (2000) 4194-4206.
    In short all the scientific evidence says when we are dead when we are dead. All the medical studies have shown us consciousness cannot exist independently of a brain. After brain death all functions in the brainstem cease to exist, consciousness is permanently lost. There are insects, animals, plants dying in nature every second, every minute, every day. The idea of ‘life’ after death is a human invention based on wishful thinking.
    As explained in previous posts I would love a life after death for myself and the animals I love due to so much pain here but this is just denying everyday reality and I will not be a weak victim to wishful thinking like many here. I accept our cold outcome. We must embrace death it is all around us, and we will all face it one day.

    Reply
  2. bill Avatar
    bill

    Michael Vann science has not explained everything and never will but it is the closest thing we have. I am not saying it has all the answers but we know for a fact from what we know to rule out silly claims of psychokinesis, ESP or ghosts. These things do not exist in everyday reality. We know all about the standard model and the four forces that interact with everyday ordinary matter.
    No additional new ‘spiritual’ forces need to be proposed because there is absolutely no evidence they exist in everyday affairs, if they did we would have detected them by now and such a force would have to be extremely powerful. Sure an unknown force may be detected one day, but such a thing for sure has absolutely no effect on human activity, otherwise we would have detected it by now. So the silly claim that such undetected ‘psychic’ forces can explain claims of psychokinesis, telepathy, or spirits are flat out wrong and scientifically impossible.
    As Carroll explains:
    “That’s it. We are done. The deep lesson is that, although science doesn’t know everything, it’s not “anything goes,” either. There are well-defined regimes of physical phenomena where we do know how things work, full stop. The place to look for new and surprising phenomena is outside those regimes. You don’t need to set up elaborate double-blind protocols to pass judgment on the abilities of purported psychics. Our knowledge of the laws of physics rules them out. Speculations to the contrary are not the provenance of bold visionaries, they are the dreams of crackpots.”
    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/02/18/telekinesis-and-quantum-field-theory/#.V9Wa0ZX6tPY

    Reply
  3. bill Avatar
    bill

    Matt Rouge interesting comment about Asperger’s syndrome. I have been diagnosed with things but not Aspeger’s I am afraid.
    There probably is a link amongst some individuals in the skeptic community with bullying or sadism. For example some get great kicks out of debunking paranormal, pseudoscientific or superstitious beliefs to shatter or put other peoples fantasies down and then feel better about themselves.
    Susan Gerbic, Sharon Hill while not sadistic are actually in the skeptic movement just to try and feel big about themselves and put others down. This does not mean all skeptics are like this. Joseph McCabe for example a skeptic I greatly admirer was a very kind man.
    I don’t have time to study all the psychology behind it all. But if you look at paranormal believers there are also links with lack of science education, fantasy proness, irrational thinking etc.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal#Psychology
    There seems to be lack of data on skeptics.
    I will confess however, that paranormal believers have better quality of life. Believing in things makes people happier. Many skeptics have been depressed like myself. I also think there are more skeptical men that woman. If you look at all the famous skeptics these days many of them are unmarried men.

    Reply
  4. Matt Rouge Avatar
    Matt Rouge

    Roger wrote,
    ||Congratulations to all for using the concise, non-inflammatory, capitalized form of “skeptic” to refer to the capital-S (card-carrying, so to speak) version thereof. Let’s hope this form is adopted more generally.||
    Really quite a good innovation of yours!

    Reply
  5. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    At this point I think Bill is just trolling us. Probably best to ignore him.
    It was interesting at first to see a Skeptic so clearly lay out his thought processes, but as Willow’s evil doppelgänger would say, “Bored now.”

    Reply
  6. Julie Baxter Avatar
    Julie Baxter

    “At this point I think Bill is just trolling us. Probably best to ignore him.”
    I hesitate to say this, Michael, but I tried to tell you that months ago.

    Reply
  7. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    @MP – hear hear.

    Reply
  8. Faisal Avatar
    Faisal

    I have had a look at Milton Rothman’s essay:
    Realism and Religion
    A Physicist Examines the Basis for Belief
    http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-11-03/
    He states
    “All actual events in nature are described by realistic theories.….. By contrast, theories concerning paranormal phenomena almost invariably are associated with the world view of philosophical idealism.”
    He complains that most ‘idealistic’ theories are not falsifiable in contrast to ‘realistic’ theories:
    “All realistic theories are falsifiable (by definition) and thus are legitimate empirical theories, testable by experiment. A theory that cannot be, in principle, falsified cannot be a realistic theory. THE MAJORITY OF IDEALISTIC THEORIES ARE NOT FALSIFIABLE, AND SO ARE NOT EMPIRICAL THEORIES.”
    However, he then states that on principle we cannot accept the claim that there can be any facts that go against the standard model because such facts cannot exist:
    “….. anything that happens in the world must be allowed by the standard model of particle physics and by the properties of the four forces that control all the things that take place in the world. Conversely, ANYTHING NOT ALLOWED BY THE STANDARD MODEL CANNOT HAPPEN.”
    If as Milton Rothman says anything that goes against the standard model cannot happen , then the standard model is not falsifiable because facts that would falsify the standard model cannot exist.
    We can’t have it both ways ;
    either empirical theories are falsifiable ,which means that in principle facts that can falsify such theories can exist ,
    or
    theories for which we deny that such facts can exist cannot be considered falsifiable.
    Which is it?

    Reply
  9. bill Avatar
    bill

    Michael I am not trolling anybody. Someone said how does the laws of physics contradict the afterlife and I explained how, even quoting a top physicist. The fact of the matter is when you guys start hearing things you don’t like you throw out ad-hominems or accuse people of trolling, this is no different than what the militant skeptics do by calling believers cranks. You can read over my posts I never do this.
    On the JREF forum in the past I have actually defended you Michael and described you as an academic. There are many people on that forum that laugh at you and call you a ‘crank’ because you believe blatantly fraudulent mediums like Eusapia Palladino actually levitated a table. But I don’t hold that against you. Elsewhere on here you have written decent blog postings that interest me.
    I am just telling you how the world works, I do not think it’s really a skeptical mindset it is just a scientific one. I know you do not like the cold concrete fact that when we die that is it, but that is reality I am afraid.
    Fair play I won’t comment on this blog again as things seems to have turned non-civil here (sorry if I bore you) I confess I do suffer from manic depression so perhaps my posts come across as very negative but I can assure you I have no interest in trolling anybody, I have never done that and never will. I am serious about these topics.
    But I will debunk this psi Encyclopedia (I was already working on a long essay piece on errors in psi research). I’m just going through each individual article now. Take care.
    Sorry I will not be able to reply to any further users on here, but I will read anything you have to say. Thanks again for letting me post here. All good things come to an end.

    Reply
  10. Juan Avatar
    Juan

    “Yes it does Juan.”
    No. The argument of Sean Carroll assumes that if the soul exists, then it has to be governed by the laws of physics underlying everyday life, but this assumption can be false, but the physics of the afterlife may lie in the laws of physics that we still do not understand, such as quantum gravity.
    “Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments.Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.”
    Who said that if an afterlife exists, then there must be “spirit particles”? That assumption is probably wrong. Occam’s razor is useless when there is evidence pointing to the existence of phenomena.
    “As for Stuart Hameroff’s fringe ideas, they have not held up within the scientific community but are usually promoted by paranormal believers. Hameroff put forward the idea that microtubules may have quantum effects on neuronal behaviours. There is no scientific evidence to demonstrate this idea.”
    But that’s a possibility. How you are a shyster, first say it’s impossible, then there is no evidence, when possible and evidence. There is evidence that photosynthesis is quantic, quantum and biological processes.
    “In short all the scientific evidence says when we are dead when we are dead. All the medical studies have shown us consciousness cannot exist independently of a brain. After brain death all functions in the brainstem cease to exist, consciousness is permanently lost. There are insects, animals, plants dying in nature every second, every minute, every day. The idea of ‘life’ after death is a human invention based on wishful thinking.”
    And you have not touched the phenomena that suggest that there is a personal afterlife, so shut up. And you have not shown a natural law that conflicts with the existence of an afterlife. It is not scientific evidence? It is, though not to the criteria of natural science, but to the criteria of the social sciences.
    “These things do not exist in everyday reality.”
    You can not prove it, no? Well shut up and let others investigate.

    Reply
  11. Matt Rouge Avatar
    Matt Rouge

    Michael wrote,
    ||At this point I think Bill is just trolling us. Probably best to ignore him.||
    It would be nice to have this debate with a non-troll Skeptic with a robust intellect. Sadly, I’ve never had the pleasure. I think anyone with those qualifications instinctively shies away from that community.

    Reply
  12. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    Well, I’m sorry if I offended you, Bill, but I don’t see how anyone could read your comments and not think you were trolling us. To assert that there’s no evidence whatsoever (as opposed to insufficient evidence) of any paranormal claim, on a site like this, is obviously going to be taken as a provocation and an expression of willful ignorance. There is, self-evidently, a great deal of evidence – whole bookshelves’ worth of it.
    As for the physics argument, you can also find physicists who are open to the paranormal, like Hal Puthoff and Brian Josephson (the latter is a Nobel laureate). Of course you can find an “expert” to support your views. But how much does Milton Rothman know about parapsychology? By his own admission, he thinks the evidence isn’t even worth looking at. (And Sean Carroll is not any kind of scientist at all.)
    Is Dr. Rothman an expert in parapsychology? I doubt it. He probably has only the most glancing acquaintance with the subject. His expertise in physics does not qualify him to pass judgment on another field of study, any more than it would quality a mathematician to pass judgment on field anthropology.
    And if his expertise as a physicist is enough to pass judgment, then why are Puthoff and Josephson not equally qualified? I would guess that their reputations surpass those of Dr. Rothman – you know, if we’re going to argue on the basis of authority and credentials.
    But you can hear the Skeptics answering already: “Puthoff and Josephson are disqualified because, by showing their open-mindedness toward the paranormal, they’ve proven that they lack critical thinking skills. Only those who agree with the Skeptical position can be considered true experts.” Thus the closed loop of Skeptical circular reasoning remains unbroken.
    I don’t think you realize, Bill, how ridiculous this kind of rationalistic, a priori argumentation appears to those of us who have actually looked at both sides of this issue with something like an open mind. It’s not that we feel threatened by your arguments, all of which we’ve heard before. It’s that we simply don’t find them very interesting, because we’ve disposed of them long ago. If you want to engage our interest, you need to do better.

    Reply
  13. Bruce Siegel Avatar
    Bruce Siegel

    Michael said:
    “At this point I think Bill is just trolling us.”
    Why do you think so? Seems to me he sees science as the ultimate authority, and is simply saying so repeatedly. But how does that make him a troll? Maybe I missed something.

    Reply
  14. Michael Vann Avatar
    Michael Vann

    Allow me to retort:
    “As Carroll explains:
    ‘That’s it. We are done. The deep lesson is that, although science doesn’t know everything, it’s not “anything goes,” either. There are well-defined regimes of physical phenomena where we do know how things work, full stop. The place to look for new and surprising phenomena is outside those regimes. You don’t need to set up elaborate double-blind protocols to pass judgment on the abilities of purported psychics. Our knowledge of the laws of physics rules them out. Speculations to the contrary are not the provenance of bold visionaries, they are the dreams of crackpots.’”
    “The place to look for new and exiting phenomena is outside those regimes.”
    Do Skeptics even hear themselves? I thought nothing could be outside of those regimes?
    Of course, phenomena that fall outside of those regimes are what parapsychologists have been investigating all along. Clearly, given the inability of science to detect paranormal phenomena within those established regimes of which Carroll speaks, such phenomena must lie outside of them. The fact that the evidence cannot be accounted for in terms of our established understanding of reality simply means our established understanding of reality is incomplete. I’m amused by how Skeptics will willingly admit to the holes in our understanding of reality yet aver, with doctrinal rigidity, that the paranormal cannot possibly be one of those holes. I’m sorry Sean, but however loudly you shout “nothing to see here” like Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun, we are most certainly not done.

    Reply
  15. Matt Rouge Avatar
    Matt Rouge

    Bill wrote,
    ||Sorry I will not be able to reply to any further users on here, but I will read anything you have to say. Thanks again for letting me post here. All good things come to an end.||
    And bad things. 🙂
    I think Bill’s interactions here could be considered trolling in one sense or another, but, in my experience, Skeptics love, hunger for, indeed are absolutely ravenous for such battles with “believers.” The will delightedly wade into any forum of people who hold beliefs not in accordance with their own (i.e., just about everybody) and start frothing and snarling away. To be fair to Bill, he is less of a frother and snarler than an ultra-persistent head-butter; more of a weregoat than a werewolf.
    I enjoy a good debate as well, but I would never go to, say, a fundamentalist Christian forum and start arguing for my New Age belief system. I understand in advance that the people there consider evangelical Christianity their starting point. If someone in that belief system wants to consider other viewpoints, they know that there are places online or elsewhere where they can experience that. It comes down to respect.
    Now, I certainly think Michael’s forum here is open to a wide range of perspectives. But our starting point is that the phenomena have at least some validity in reality. It’s not respectful to come here and keen, “But it’s not twoo, it can’t be TWOOOOO!”

    Reply
  16. Lynn Avatar
    Lynn

    Ok here’s a site I was pulled to after reading a NDE on the internet. The original story was about two soldiers who were injured in the Vietnam War, and who ended up out of their bodies and had a chat before one left and the other came back to earth. It will be on the NDE”S tab there somewhere, quite interesting, I haven’t read much on the site, but this one i found intriguing. He explains what it feels like to see everything in the universe as not so much “seeing”, but that he became all things. All things he says, are “one” thing.
    http://blog.evolvespiritually.com/near-death-experiences/gustave-ps-testimony-detailed-explanations-of-seeing-and-being/
    Lyn x.

    Reply
  17. Lynn Avatar
    Lynn

    And all “consciousness”. Cheers.

    Reply
  18. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    Wikipedia describes an Internet troll this way:
    “In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion, often for their own amusement.”
    The article goes on to say that use of the term is subjective. One person may regard a given commenter as a troll, while another person may think that the same commenter is making a worthwhile contribution.
    I’d regard Bill’s recent comments as trollish because he simply asserts that all paranormal phenomena are illusory, insists there is not a particle of evidence for any of them, and suggests that those who feel otherwise are deluded, poorly educated, and prone to wishful thinking and fantasizing.
    It’s a little like going onto a baseball blog and saying that baseball sucks, everybody knows it, and anyone who disagrees is an inbred moron. And then reiterating this opinion incessantly.

    Reply
  19. Juan Avatar
    Juan

    “Someone said how does the laws of physics contradict the afterlife and I explained how, even quoting a top physicist.”
    I already refuted the Carroll argument. And Carroll does not mention any principle of sciences that is incompatible with the existence of the afterlife. What he does is not science but develop an argument with probably wrong assumptions.

    Reply
  20. Douglas Avatar
    Douglas

    Excellent link you posted there Lynn!
    Did you notice there was a reference to the ‘diamond metaphor’ which Michael has mentioned in the past (the spirit communicator Silver Birch is the first known user of this metaphor as far as I know).
    In the account that lynn linked to, the individual says this:
    ‘I once asked how we could be both separate and one. I was shown a vision of an infinitely multifaceted diamond with Light inside it. All the tiny points of Light broadcast by the facets of the diamond were our individual souls, separate but also *of* the Light itself.’

    Reply
  21. Lawrence B Avatar
    Lawrence B

    Off topic can I suggest a book for review..or for other readers here to check out? “An Atheist in Heaven” by Paul Davids.
    It’s let down by it’s title as it immediately conjures up a religious themed NDE account or the like, when its nothing of the kind.
    It’s the massively detailed account of the events behind two documentary films entitled the Life After Death Project, which I’m not familiar with though no doubt many here are. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the documentaries the events detailed in the book are certainly fascinating, to me at least as I’ve lived and experienced exactly the same kind of sequence of incidents that are so suggestive to the author..as they were to me..of a particular deceased person shaping events. (A proposition which, however, defies all logic when a mechanism is imagined.)
    In essence it details his experiences of multiplying coincidences..and those of Gary Schwartz when he got involved..that seem to cry out that the late Forest J Ackerman (again never heard of him but whom I take to be the horror/scifi/fantasy movie analogue of Stan Lee in the world of comic books)is screaming out from the other side “I’m still here!”

    Reply
  22. Bruce Siegel Avatar
    Bruce Siegel

    Michael said:
    “I’d regard Bill’s recent comments as trollish because he simply asserts that all paranormal phenomena are illusory”
    But you also said:
    “I don’t think you realize, Bill, how ridiculous this kind of rationalistic, a priori argumentation appears “
    And for me, that’s the point: he’s *unaware* of his error. Rather than being mischievous, he’s simply groping in the dark. And I think it would be unkind to ban him for that.

    Reply
  23. SPatel Avatar
    SPatel

    Congrats on the launch!
    Also great rebuttals against Bill’s usual silliness.

    Reply
  24. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    “And I think it would be unkind to ban him for that.” I haven’t banned him. I just suggested it might be a waste of time to keep arguing with him. However, if other people are finding some value in the argument, they’re free to continue it.
    Lawrence B, funny you should mention that book, since I happen to be reading it now. I’m enjoying it a lot, although its subtitle – something about the “ultimate proof” of life after death – is wildly hyperbolic. As soon as I saw what the book was about, I had to buy it, because I grew up reading Forry Ackernan’s magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland. Though I never met Ackernan or visited the famed Ackermansion, I do know at least one person who knew him (and found him a wonderfully avuncular raconteur, albeit something of an oddball). It’s interesting that his purported after-death communications often involved wordplay; the same feature was found in the cross correspondences, many of which were attributed to FWH Myers, who was addicted to anagrams, much like Ackerman was addicted to (very bad) puns.

    Reply
  25. SPatel Avatar
    SPatel

    My guess is Bill has no scientific training and likely his general knowledge of science is mediocre to lacking.
    I’ve found proponents on the whole to be far better versed in nuances/details of science and philosophy, whereas “skeptics” are just snatching talking points from websites and adding some condescending language to claim intellectual high ground.

    Reply
  26. Lawrence B Avatar
    Lawrence B

    @Michael.. I’d not noticed the subtitle, but the ultimate proof referred to might be less in reference to the synchronicities but to the science lab “communications” seemingly achieved by Schwartz and detailed toward the end of the book.
    My only disappointment/frustration with the book as a whole is the inclusion of some very minor trivial incidents which don’t really fit in with the others but which can be seized on as evidence of an excessive desire to see patterns and credit everything to the spirit of Ackerman….which is a shame because the good stuff is fairly mind boggling. However there’s a seance reported near the end which , as you’ll see, pulls in various dead celebrities and talk of Roswell, both of which are typical and worrying of these kind of true life accounts of experiences.. they often go from the wholly believable and recognizable truth into Weekly World News territory, which detracts and undermines credibility, if not in the witnesses then in the actual true identity of the supposed supernatural agent behind events.
    The rest however I believe without question, because as I say I’ve been on the receiving end of precisely these kind of experiences and continue to do so. I submitted a report on one saga of communication (there seem to be 3 separate ones!)to the SPR last year, as it has elements of a variety of Cross Correspondence to it. Sadly the comment box under a different topic is not really conducive to giving a full and illustrated account!

    Reply
  27. Ian Wardell Avatar
    Ian Wardell

    Bill says:
    “Anything ‘paranormal’ or ‘psi’ is not scientifically possible, there is absolutely no empirical evidence it exists. It contradicts everything we know about the way reality works through years of empirical experiment and investigation. It is actually narrow-minded to say paranormal powers exist because all evidence from science has shown us they possibly cannot do”.
    We cannot say some alleged anomalous phenomenon is scientifically impossible unless we are in a position to know that current scientific laws *completely* describe reality (a T.O.E so to speak). Indeed, the history of science reveals that what is scientifically impossible at one time, can become scientifically possible at a later time once old theories are replaced by new ones.
    And it’s also worth pointing out that, in any case, we’re not talking about phenomena that contradicts current physical laws, such as a claim of finding particles or objects travelling faster than the speed of light. We are talking about psi and whether consciousness survives death. Since current physical laws wholly leave out consciousness in their description of reality, then we are scarcely in a position to declare psi, or consciousness surviving death, contravenes such physical laws. If physical laws do not explain the existence of consciousness *whilst we are embodied*, then how on earth could they rule out disembodied consciousness? And since psi appears to be an ability of consciousness, how could current physical laws possibly rule out psi?
    Physical laws are supposed to describe reality, not dictate to reality what can or cannot exist. If we have a phenomenon that has been universally reported, we cannot assert it doesn’t exist because it doesn’t fit in with some pre-defined laws. Rather, a more encompassing theory needs to be advanced. A new theory, which while still explaining existing phenomena, is able to also accommodate this “anomalous” phenomenon.

    Reply
  28. Matt Rouge Avatar
    Matt Rouge

    SPatel wrote,
    ||I’ve found proponents on the whole to be far better versed in nuances/details of science and philosophy, whereas “skeptics” are just snatching talking points from websites and adding some condescending language to claim intellectual high ground.||
    Yeah, but that’s what makes it fun ‘n’ easy. 😉

    Reply
  29. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    “My only disappointment/frustration with the book as a whole is the inclusion of some very minor trivial incidents which don’t really fit in with the others but which can be seized on as evidence of an excessive desire to see patterns and credit everything to the spirit of Ackerman.”
    I agree. The author tells us early on that he wanted to include everything that happened. It might’ve been better if he’d left some of it out. For instance, the little anecdote about how he and Joe Moe both happened to arrive at Ackerman’s crypt at the same time is not likely to persuade anyone.
    I haven’t gotten to the end yet so I haven’t read about the séance with the dead celebrities and Roswell chatter. Since the author seems to have his own fringe-ish theories about Roswell, it’s possible that some kind of living agent psi was involved – or (of course) that the medium was a fake who’d done advance research on the sitters.

    Reply
  30. SPatel Avatar
    SPatel

    @ Ian:
    “Physical laws are supposed to describe reality, not dictate to reality what can or cannot exist.”
    Agreed. It also doesn’t make sense to say the laws are normative as what we call “laws” are regularities observed.
    Additionally there are quite a few materialist/physicalist theories of Psi that don’t necessarily include consciousness as fundamental as well theories that include fundamental mental/information aspects of reality.
    Simple put Bill clearly laid both his cards and his ignorance on the table with that canard of Psi being impossible.

    Reply
  31. Douglas Avatar
    Douglas

    Regarding the Ackerman book, there’s a good interview with the author over on the Skeptico website: http://skeptiko.com/paul-davids-321/

    Reply
  32. Lynn Avatar
    Lynn

    I’ve noticed Bill makes vast statements he asserts as facts. If only science really did know it all, it would be quite a different world. Cheers.

    Reply
  33. Ian Wardell Avatar
    Ian Wardell

    Bill quotes Sean Carroll extensively. So in this post I’ll just be addressing what Sean Carroll says. As a preliminary, readers might be interested in a short blog entry I wrote in response to one of Sean Carroll’s articles: http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/sean-carroll-and-philosophy-of-mind-and.html
    Anyway, Sean Carroll says:
    “Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die”.
    This I address in my previous post. I also address it in my blog entry I just linked to. But essentially the current laws of physics very accurately describe the non-conscious realm, but completely fail to account for consciousness. Indeed, his statement above (and many other statements by him) only make sense should some type of materialism be true.
    Now, I have argued elsewhere that materialism is simply untenable (http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/neither-modern-materialism-nor-science.html). But let’s leave that aside. Let’s assume for the sake of argument materialism is tenable. However, it seems to me that a person who subscribes to an afterlife — or at least an afterlife where a soul dwells in some afterlife realm – would necessarily reject any type of materialism. Hence, Sean Carroll cannot simply assume materialism at the outset for that is to effectively say “let’s assume we’re purely material beings, it then follows we cannot have an immaterial existence”. Well . .duh! Of course. But this is precisely what Sean Carroll does, namely assume materialism is correct at the outset. He doesn’t actually advance any arguments for materialism, and skeptics never do, or at least I’m unable to find any of their arguments. I’m one of the very few people in existence who has read the massive “The Myth of an Afterlife” – a book that has around 700 pages and around 20 different authors. Nowhere in the whole volume are any arguments for materialism advanced! (I’ll get around to reviewing that book eventually, meanwhile I wrote a very much partial review for those who are interested (http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/keith-augustine-in-myth-of-afterlife.html)).
    Sean Carroll says:
    “If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? “
    This is preposterous. Why on earth does he imagine that souls would be made of particles? Compelling arguments can be made which strongly suggest that the soul is simple.
    Sean Carroll says:
    “How does it interact with ordinary matter? “
    Which would be the same as asking how does consciousness interact with matter. And we don’t know. And this belies his claim that ‘the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood’. The laws of physics leave out consciousness in their description of reality, and therefore, unsurprisingly, also leave out how consciousness interacts with matter. But I see no reason why this should be particularly problematic. In other words that we couldn’t in principle dream up some scientific theory which relates how consciousness interacts with its brain. It presumably is only problematic if we assume — as Carroll does — that ‘the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood’. But they’re not as they don’t include consciousness. But now we’re going around in a circle! Again we simply get back to the underlying problem of him assuming the correctness of materialism at the outset.
    Sean Carroll says:
    “Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.
    There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) “
    2 points should be stressed here:
    a) Necessarily, consciousness is causally efficacious as I explain in the following blog entry: http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/can-consciousness-be-causally.html.
    b) Conceding consciousness is causally efficacious, but claiming consciousness doesn’t interact with the physical processes since consciousness is the very same thing as physical processes, is not tenable. I briefly explain why this is so near the end of my blog entry I just linked to. But, because this is such an important point, I wrote another blog entry exclusively devoted to this issue (http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/materialismphysicalism-is-incompatible.html).
    So if my reasoning is correct – and I’m quite unable to see how it could possibly not be correct –then it is simply conceptually incoherent to suppose consciousness doesn’t affect physical processes. In which case Carroll’s statement “we would have detected them in existing experiments” simply cannot be true. The failure to detect any influence cannot overturn that which is conceptually incoherent.
    Moreover, contrary to what Sean Carroll asserts, it is questionable whether there is any such conflict between our empirical investigations and what reason dictates. William Hasker in his review of “The Myth of an Afterlife” addresses this point. He says:
    ”What is in question is whether an immaterial mind may be exerting a causal influence on what happens in the brain at a micro-level. Influence on this scale is far below the limits of our present capacity to detect. Furthermore, we have only the vaguest notion of what it is we would be trying to detect because we know little about how the brain actually works at this level. (From here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/62746-the-myth-of-an-afterlife-the-case-against-life-after-death/)
    What Hasker says here directly contradicts what Sean Carroll claims, and indeed directly what some of the authors of “the myth of an afterlife” claim. But what Carrol et al claim simply cannot be correct. So I’m putting my money on Hasker!

    Reply
  34. Leo MacDonald Avatar
    Leo MacDonald

    Bill,
    Physicist Sean Carroll, the same scientist who believes in an infinite number of parallel universes. However, for him along with many other scientist’s the self is an illusion generated by the brain. So this self would not continue on in all the other branches of the multiverse but instead die. The same thing would happen to the next branch and so on. The problem with this view is though this illusive self as materialist’s call it would experience physical death. However, according to the quantum suicide view this conscious observer cannot experience death. I have mentioned before how the multiverse idea can explain a lot of the data for survival. However, it does run into it’s own roadblocks when it comes to reincarnation evidence. There is also other theories that can account for survival after death. Those would be Julian Barbour’s timeless universe theory. Along with the Virtual Reality theory as well.

    Reply
  35. Troy Avatar
    Troy

    “Can you please create articles for skeptics of the paranormal, i.e. Harry Houdini, Joseph Rinn, Edward Clodd, Joseph McCabe, Stanley LeFevre Krebs, Charles Arthur Mercier, Joseph Jastrow, Joseph Dunninger, Milbourne Christopher, Rose Mackenberg, C. E. M. Hansel, Martin Gardner etc. ”
    I think this is a great idea. I e-mailed Andreas Sommer, a historian of psychology and psychical research at Cambridge University and the author of the encyclopedia’s entry on Edmund Gurney, about doing just that. He is completing a book on the history of early professionalised psychology and psychical research. He has lots of dirt on guys like Jastrow, Hall, Wundt, etc. They basically pioneered the skeptic m.o. – polemic, ridicule, etc. while ignoring the best data. Careful what you wish for, “Bill”.

    Reply
  36. Juan Avatar
    Juan

    Michael, he has not really stated that there is no evidence of psychic phenomena, but there is no scientific evidence of psychic phenomena. This is true if scientific evidence is defined only hard evidence, pertaining to the natural sciences, but it is false if scientific evidence also includes field study, pertaining to the human sciences. The fact is that this evidence exists and is acceptable to consider that there are probably psi and an afterlife.

    Reply
  37. Douglas Avatar
    Douglas

    By the way, has anyone read the ‘crisis apparition’ account by Nigel Buckmaster, the individual who bequested the funding for the psi-encyclopedia project?
    http://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/nigel-buckmaster-0
    There are actually two accounts, his and his older sister’s, both experienced in the aftermath of their mother’s death. They both tally up very well and include elements of OBE experience.
    This part struck me in particular: ‘My heart felt burning hot with love and joy—words cannot describe it. I felt my heart being filled with liquid divine love—an exquisitely heavenly experience’.
    What a wonderful way to express what was felt: his heart ‘being filled with liquid divine love’.

    Reply
  38. Lynn Avatar
    Lynn

    Love your post “Ian “.
    To me, if there is consciousness in this universe and it evolved from it, it has to be inherently part of it.
    And who knows even the basis of reality at a quantum level. Its humans showing their stupidity that we don’t study it. Lyn x.

    Reply
  39. Julie Baxter Avatar
    Julie Baxter

    Ian writes: “Physical laws are supposed to describe reality, not dictate to reality what can or cannot exist. If we have a phenomenon that has been universally reported, we cannot assert it doesn’t exist because it doesn’t fit in with some pre-defined laws. Rather, a more encompassing theory needs to be advanced. A new theory, which while still explaining existing phenomena, is able to also accommodate this “anomalous” phenomenon.”
    And isn’t it astonishing that the above should need to be spelled out to anyone of even average intelligence? But then fundamentalism of any persuasion is a perversity of mind rather than a rationale.

    Reply
  40. chel Avatar
    chel

    Hey, I have AS and I’m perfectly capable of not making identical arguments over and over and over for months with no change in response to replies. (I do have to wonder whether it makes it harder for me to accept paranormal-etc stuff I haven’t seen, because I can’t and I never have seen it, but I do accept other people’s experiences are different.)

    Reply
  41. Juan Avatar
    Juan

    “It’s a little like going onto a baseball blog and saying that baseball sucks, everybody knows it, and anyone who disagrees is an inbred moron.”
    However, this analogy is not valid, because here is not whether you like psi and afterlife, but if psi and afterlife exist and what are their attributes. He has stated some arguments and we have already refuted.

    Reply

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