Who cares if it is contact with a being on the other side or the result of subconcious psychic abilities? Either way, there is alot going on that is a resource we have not tapped into to use fully yet. Which is a more stupendous hypothesis: that there is conciousness on the other side or that we have great psychic potential because on the subconcious level we are interconnected?  Neither model fits in with contemporary scientific models we use in everyday life. Both rock the boat, so to speak.

Neither is easily testable, so it doesn't matter anyway.

Lucy wrote on Jul 12^th, 2014 at 5:53am:


I can see what you mean, but I just don't see super psi as a rational alternative to survival.  Some of the cases of mediumship take super psi to a level where its practically omnipotent and omniscient, all to discredit the possibility that there is a single discarnate source of information in the form of a dead person. Proponents rightly argue that the survival theory presupposes a certain degree of psi, but it is nothing compared to the degree needed in order to rule out the dead contact completely. The biggest problems with the entire super psi hypothesis, in my opinion, are that it is unfalsifiable, it becomes extremely complicated in order to explain phenomena that is more easily explained by the survival hypothesis, and its built upon the fact that we currently don't know the limits of psi, but based on the data collected in the lab, its fairly weak and certainly not powerful enough to do what super psi asks of it. Also, super psi has little to no way of explaining OBEs and NDEs other than supposing that they are incredibly elaborate hallucinations.

heisenberg69 wrote on Jul 12^th, 2014 at 1:03pm:


I agree, and that is the problem with the super psi hypothesis: it can't be falsified. If there are no parameters through which a hypothesis can be tested, how useful is it? If practically all of the empirical data supporting it also supports a more parsimonious hypothesis that can also explain more phenomena (NDEs and OBEs) in the process, I can't see why one would continue to hold on to a hypothesis that becomes more and more bloated as more data is presented.

Yvvak wrote on Jul 11^th, 2014 at 4:48pm:


Absolutely hilarious!  Not so many years ago scientists said that Mental Telepathy was impossible.  They adamantly stated that any claim that Mental Telepathy (mind to mind communication) existed was made either by someone involved in fraud or was the product of mental delusion!

Then sufficient controlled experimentation scientifically proved the existence of telepathic communication.  So, now scientists attempt to explain away communication with the deceased by claiming it is merely mental telepathy with the living.

Some scientists are just more willing to rely on their BELIEFS than they are willing to do the experiments. 

A theory is:

an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events

an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true

I would suggest to those "scientists" design experiments to test their theory, run the experiments, and attempt to prove their theory.

Until they can do that their theory is every bit as viable as the one some folks still hold that claims the earth is flat.

Thanks for brightening my day with a good laugh.

Bruce

I think its fair to say that the prestigious 'blue chip' peer-reviewed journals such as Nature and Scientific American don't support psi and so consequently many (most?) scientists don't think there is any decent evidence for psi in a kind of 'chicken and egg' way. This is not because there is no decent evidence but rather because the work that has been done is filtered out or deemed (erroneously) as not robust enough.It is left to less celebrated titles such as the Journal of Scientific Exploration to try to address the inbalance.

This issue goes back for eons in some ways, and was best put forward by Descartes centuries ago.  If everything is illusory and there is a super psi phenomenon, then what is real, and do I, as an individual point of consciousness even exist at all?  The answer to Descartes was clear.  Even if there were a deception at play, he could not get around the fact that he was there, at his most basic core/being thinking.  I think, therefore, I am. 

Now we have to ask ourselves, is thought the product of physical reality, or does it transcend the physical world.  If thought is primary (consciousness), then why would my individual thought and will be obliterated at my physical death?  If thought and consciousness is independent of physicality, then why would communication with a discarnate consciousness have to be illusory?  It would only be so if that consciousness/loved one had moved on and was unavailable or unconcerned with making contact. 

To say that consciousness is just a huge database of information, removes the possibility of directed thought, intention and spirit from the equation.  What is the purpose of the illusion?  Purpose is a sign of intelligence, higher thought; consciousness is not just a huge database. 

What if we are all part of this universal consciousness?  What if we simply wall our awareness off into a cocoon of individuality in this world?  Then when we shed our body, we come into a greater awareness and perception of things.  We want to see our deceased loved ones.  And by thinking about them, we bring them to us.  But in the mental plane of thought, and in that interconnectedness, it is wrong to say they are merely illusory projections of our dead loved ones.  Because the individuated consciousness that they are did pass over, and join the whole. 

Are these contacts genuine or illusory?  How do we know?  To speak with those who have experienced the encounter, they "just know".  They feel the love, the connection, and sometimes, get information that only their loved one could have known.  Is it just accessing a database?  I don't believe a database could give the encounters described; described as being "more real" than physical reality somehow. 

In the end, Descartes couldn't disprove any hypothesis for trickery, so he was left with his own thought.  Even if deceived, he found that at the most fundamental level, there was Descartes the thinker, producing his own thoughts.  I think, therefore, I am.


M

Don,

The problem with Super Psi, is that it is a catch phrase for universal knowledge about everything, and as such, is non-falsifiable.   What test would definitively distinguish between Super Psi, and real contact with individual people?  For those who believe in the powers of Super Psi, the refrain would be "well Super Psi can do anything."  Well alrighty then.  Game over; not much to say if you start with that definition of Super Psi.

For myself, the difference would lie in thought and intent.  A universal database of knowledge might have the answers  (data) within it, but should not have thought, intent an purpose behind it. 

Conscious thought and intent speaks to an intelligence, which must, by nature, be different than a universal database.  The emotion of love, likewise speaks to a living consciousness which can not simply be downloaded as "1s" and "0s".