If paranormal perception in near death experiences were proven what would this mean?

TikiB

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'If paranormal perception in near death experiences were 'proven' what would this mean?

If paranormal perception during near death experiences were proven what would this mean, what model of the universe would this support?
 
A few different possible models.

Immaterialist ones are described in Beyond Physicalism. I believe the 2 Volume work on ESP and the Psychics Handbook for the 21st century offer options that don't necessarily acknowledge consciousness as fundamental.
 
Some of the perceptions appear to be really convincing, they don't really provide evidence for life after death, but maybe they provide evidence that our reality isn't real.
 
Some of the perceptions appear to be really convincing, they don't really provide evidence for life after death, but maybe they provide evidence that our reality isn't real.

Or could it be that the mainstream definition of death is wrong? That we have made a boogeyman out of something that is not as scary as it seems. If paranormal perception is real it says just that, death is just a transition to a new reality. I don't like using the phrase paranormal perception by the way. I think veridical perception is more appropriate. Only for the fact that the word paranormal gives skeptics reasons to discount the evidence at face value, supernatural and paranormal to skeptics is just apparent "woo".

EDIT: Or maybe I should say supernatural and paranormal is apparent "woo" to pseudoskeptics. I just don't like the word supernatural myself, if OBE's are proven than they are part of the "natural" laws in this universe.
 
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'If paranormal perception in near death experiences were 'proven' what would this mean?

If paranormal perception during near death experiences were proven what would this mean, what model of the universe would this support?

depends on the detail of how such understanding came about and the proposed mechanisms. It's unlikely to change any facts or things we observe in nature, but rather provide new insight into how we understand them, and any shift is likely to be subtle, but the implications probably massive. Most likely we will at least have to accept that our perceptions of nature are how we experience reality (how we've come to understand it), and not how reality is.

Currently I'm enjoying toying with the idea that our learning/manipulating/sharing experience plays some part in managing - what we understand as - the collision and integration of absolutely enormous systems. Say... the Milky Way and another Galaxy like the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy... Lol..
 
'If paranormal perception in near death experiences were 'proven' what would this mean?

If paranormal perception during near death experiences were proven what would this mean, what model of the universe would this support?
To my way of thinking, any evidence of the paranormal (and there are lots of more secure examples than veridical NDE's)) indicates that reality is not as it appears to be, and in particular, consciousness is not just a computation going on in the brain.

That means that all bets are off, and the best way can do is to listen to what people say happens in NDE's!

David
 
To my way of thinking, any evidence of the paranormal (and there are lots of more secure examples than veridical NDE's)) indicates that reality is not as it appears to be, and in particular, consciousness is not just a computation going on in the brain.

That means that all bets are off, and the best way can do is to listen to what people say happens in NDE's!

David

Well there's absolutely no reason to think consciousness is computation, even from a reasonable materialist perspective.

As one materialist philosopher, R.Scott Bakker, put it - "Why would consciousness be more Frogger than Frog?"
 
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Well there's absolutely no reason to think consciousness is computation, even from a reasonable materialist perspective.

As one materialist philosopher, R.Scott Bakker, put it - "Why would consciousness be more Frogger than Frog?"
Well the reason I say that, is that from a materialist perspective there must be some level of computer simulation of the brain that should reproduce consciousness. Conversely, no simulation of a TV set's circuitry can reproduce a program that isn't represented in its input.

I treat materialistic consciousness and computer consciousness as being essentially equivalent. I know Roger Penrose proposed some sort of non-computable physics to explain consciousness, but that didn't seem to go very far.

David
 
I treat materialistic consciousness and computer consciousness as being essentially equivalent. I know Roger Penrose proposed some sort of non-computable physics to explain consciousness, but that didn't seem to go very far.

Orch-OR is still alive, they published a paper on microtubules two years ago. Hammeroff has plenty of exposition in the non-duality crowd. That is not to say that his conclusions are supported by all non-dualists, since as you likely know, that is a very heterogeneous group. But, still...
 
Orch-OR is still alive, they published a paper on microtubules two years ago. Hammeroff has plenty of exposition in the non-duality crowd. That is not to say that his conclusions are supported by all non-dualists, since as you likely know, that is a very heterogeneous group. But, still...
Yes, I haven't really followed that debate, but it seems to me that even if you come up with some sort of non-computable physics (which blocks the simulation argument) that still doesn't obviously provide any explanation of the Hard Problem.

David
 
'If paranormal perception in near death experiences were 'proven' what would this mean?

If paranormal perception during near death experiences were proven what would this mean, what model of the universe would this support?
This question arises occasionally and my view hasn't changed. It wouldn't make any difference to ordinary people, most of whom are on board with ideas of extended consciousness. Material science would briefly go into upheaval, before settling on a quasi-physicalist interpretation of what consciousness means that allowed it to pretend nothing had changed. I doubt there'd be any moral breast-beating or religious fervour, and proof would stay in the pending tray for decades, perhaps even centuries, even with reliable evidence.
 
This question arises occasionally and my view hasn't changed. It wouldn't make any difference to ordinary people, most of whom are on board with ideas of extended consciousness. Material science would briefly go into upheaval, before settling on a quasi-physicalist interpretation of what consciousness means that allowed it to pretend nothing had changed. I doubt there'd be any moral breast-beating or religious fervour, and proof would stay in the pending tray for decades, perhaps even centuries, even with reliable evidence.

Yeah it's amusing how Psi would "change everything we know about science" and other cries of alarm.

Outside the West, and even in the West outside the halls of academia, people see science as exploitation of certain regularities rather than advocacy of a particular metaphysics.

I suspect a vast majority of the globe would shrug if academia confirmed the existence of Psi and get on with their lives. Academics confirming the afterlife might have more upheaval, but not even sure about that.

(The particular nature of the afterlife probably would generate more consternation though.)
 
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