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Do Psychic Phenomena Exist? Steve Taylor Ph.D


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Do Psychic Phenomena Exist?

Some excerpts stating what one might be surprised to see in Psychology Today:

Other psychologists and academics are often surprised when I tell them that I'm willing to accept the possibility of psychic phenomena such as
telepathy
and
pre-cognition
. For many intellectuals, these things are seen as
nonsense, remnants of an irrational view of the world which has been superseded by modern materialistic science. Here I will explain my reasons for believing that some
"paranormal" phenomena
are genuine—in particular, telepathy and pre-cognition, since these are the ones I feel there is most evidence for,
and the ones I have experienced myself
.
[me, too]

...

I believe it is extremely likely that there are forces, energies, and phenomena

...

This theory sees consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe, which is potentially
everywhere and in everything
. The brain's function is to "pick up" consciousness around us and to "canalise" it into our own individual being. This is my preferred way of explaining consciousness

Are our brains transducers (radios) picking up a "a consciousness which exists outside us" rather than an instrument which among other things, produces consciousness?

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I think we do pick up an external sort of intelligent, informed energy or consciousness that constantly informs us, and that this is simply another aspect of being human, not anything paranormal. It's perhaps a demonstration of the mind-body connection. If this phenomena exists then it must involve our physical bodies.

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I think we do pick up an external sort of intelligent, informed energy or consciousness that constantly informs us, and that this is simply another aspect of being human, not anything paranormal.

What you describe is by definition -para-normal, that is a phenomenon 'beyond the range of what is normally accepted by the modern scientific paradigm'. Because at this point, the materialist consensus in the scientific community is completely incompatible with this kind of idea, since counsciousness is apparantly but an illusion generated by our brains, computers of flesh and blood.

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Based on my experiences, which include high end martial arts, meditation, deep meditation, trance, samadhi/satori, lucid dreaming, oob... I have the distinct sense that the brain tunes into the mind/consciousness, it does not generate it.

It's a complex organic device that allows for interaction of consciousness with several of the lower levels of vibratory 'reality' as we tend to call it.

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I think the widely imagined scientific materialism is not so. Most scientists avoid the issues involved, and are rather unsettled about it. Materialism of course (there is nothing but matter and the void) went out the window at the beginning of the twentieth century when physics taught us that matter is nothing but a kind of compressed energy. It tended then to be replaced by "physical ism," but that is much harder to define -- there is nothing but energy and the void just doesn't make it, since we also now know that there is no void, at least in our cosmos.

We use to have a sense of what "matter" is. This has been destroyed and there is no good way to define "energy." It has properties and can usually be measured, but it can also be "potential." It is more a case of balancing the books than have a real "thing."

A problem for the physicalist is what to do about consciousness and sentience and all that. Of course it is brain activity, and brains are physical, but that is about all we can say, and we suspect there are things going on in our heads of which the neurologist will never know. Things we feel and experience seem inescapably outside science.

Still, that is not a license to go off into the wilderness believing that we have mental feeds from our toaster. All we have the right to say without evidence is that we don't know.

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I think the widely imagined scientific materialism is not so. Most scientists avoid the issues involved, and are rather unsettled about it. Materialism of course (there is nothing but matter and the void) went out the window at the beginning of the twentieth century when physics taught us that matter is nothing but a kind of compressed energy. It tended then to be replaced by "physical ism," but that is much harder to define -- there is nothing but energy and the void just doesn't make it, since we also now know that there is no void, at least in our cosmos.

The terms materialism and physcalism are basically one and the same. They just have a different history, one is fairly recent (physicalism) and indeed drawn from physics as a field of research, the other (materialism) is much older. In the end, they are pretty much equivalent.

''However, while physicalism is certainly unusual among metaphysical doctrines in being associated with a commitment both to the sciences and to a particular branch of science, namely physics, it is not clear that this is a good reason for calling it ‘physicalism’ rather than ‘materialism.’ [...] Moreover, while ‘physicalism’ is no doubt related to ‘physics’ it is also related to ‘physical object’ and this in turn is very closely connected with ‘material object’, and via that, with ‘matter.’''

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanfor...es/physicalism/

As for materialism/physcialism in science, I am not under the impression that this take on the world is avoided, but rather assumed by a lot of researchers. This is quite obvious in neuroscience for exemple.

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Well, yes, materialism has been around since the Greek miracle, and physicalism is a 20th century coinage.

However the latter has tended to replace the first because strict materialism is not tenable. Space-time exists (whereas before it was just assumed). Matter is a form of energy, and trying to define energy is, well, hard (saying energy does work is circular since work consumes energy).

This is the working assumption, that is so, but I think nowadays informed people understand that it cannot be more, that there are such deep problems with it that maintaining it as dogma (common in the twentieth century) doesn't work. Not even hard core Communists do this any more.

Now if you want to define physicalism as saying there is no spirit realm, no gods and angels and heaven and hell and so on, then it becomes solid, but if you want to rule out anything that might be scientifically unexplainable, one is on less sure ground.

I think the insistence derives from the fear that not doing so opens the door to religiosity and superstition, and maybe it does, a little bit, but such people jump on anything they can find, and will believe stuff anyway, so rejecting the assertion that materialism-become-physicalism has serious problems isn't necessary. We can just say we don't know.

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Why can't we define "matter" as anything that would gain mass because of approaching the speed of light. Then defining "energy" as anything that is not matter but matter can be reduced to. Then a third catagory of those things which are neither energy or matter and which science can measure, e.g. time. Then finally "spirit" as any thing that might remain.

Perhaps overly simplistic, but definitive.

As to a colloquialism for "void" would be that which the stuff of the universe has not expanded into. Such would include the empty places among and between the matter and energy, be it macro or micro--quantum level, as well as, the huge spans the universe has not yet taken over as real estate.

Perhaps I am thinking too "physics-like" when the definition should be more "psychological-like".

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I think we do pick up an external sort of intelligent, informed energy or consciousness that constantly informs us, and that this is simply another aspect of being human, not anything paranormal. It's perhaps a demonstration of the mind-body connection. If this phenomena exists then it must involve our physical bodies.

Is it fair to say that if psychic energy doesnt exist then there should be no way to experience it?

Everyone and everything naturally has to establish a connection outside of its own 'being' to survive. Even if you can imagine the most isolated place in the universe it is still influenced by that which lies beyond its own existence, there is nothing that is truly independant at all.

So perhaps the universal energy is psychic. Perhaps the beginning is connected to the end?

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