Michael Larkin
Member
Right - I'm glad we cleared that up!
Yes, but why assume that what psychics say they do is actually something else? I mean typically this is the way materialists argue if (say) they want to argue that psychics use cold reading (maybe even fooling themselves). You could argue they have more justification for doing that - that step outside materialism is a very big one. So what is the huge step that you don't want to cross when it comes to psychics communicating with the dead?
I have come to really dislike the tendency to take reported facts and bend them any which way. We need to focus more on the best attested evidence
I'd say there is more evidence for souls communicating than there is for the AR.
David
I'm not really thinking in terms of " the huge step I don't want to take", though there are steps I can't begin to convince myself of, if what you say is true (briefly dealt with later).
I'm not saying that psychics don't actually experience something -- I'm sure they do, discounting the snake oil peddlers out to dupe people (which there are in all areas of life). All I question is whether they place the right interpretation on what they perceive. If we take what different kinds of psychics say literally, then that leads to all sorts of different psychic phenomena -- mediumship, clairvoyance, psychic readings, channelling and so on -- with no consistent hypothesis to underlie and tie them together.
Like BK, I place parsimony high on the list for a hypothesis that is likely to be nearer the truth. This is why I currently favour ideas like the Akashic Record and its link with Morphic Resonance. You may say, why not accept what different pyschic types say at face value? And my answer is that if I do, then I will have to accept that one communicates with the spirits of deceased people, another channels information from ET's, another from an ancient spiritual master, another is right that really the Abrahamic God is in reality a maleficent being, and other such things. IMHO, an AR enables one to bring a lot of things together more coherently.
It's also worth bearing in mind that although psychics may genuinely believe what they say, based on something they genuinely experience, that doesn't make it absolutely true. Who is to say that information is received in a complete and wholly accurate manner? The GIGO principle may apply here -- what you get out can be no better than what goes in, and some psychics may get better information than others. But regardless of that, a lot of them do personify the source of their information.
Speculatively, if one carries this to its logical conclusion, it kind of implies that ego, which in my view is inextricably bound up with personality, doesn't die at bodily death. So why have bodily death at all? Might as well live indefinitely, at least until one manages to achieve ego death while still alive ("die before you die" is an aphorism of the Sufis).
The most likely alternatives at death seem to me to be either complete annihilation of both ego and essence, or alternatively, annihilation of only ego, leaving open the possibility of reincarnation, where you get an opportunity once again to die before you die. Which, if Karma is a real thing, may not be any easier. But here we're off into even more metaphysical realms, so I'll leave it there.