March 4, 2018 — Joshua Cutchin with J. Randall Murphy

[DrinkinWithSkeletons]

Wait wait wait. "Tons* of folks say Materialism and psi phenomena are incompatible:
Here's a quick Google...
Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real. Which Means Science Is Broken.
Materialism alone cannot explain the riddle of consciousness | Aeon Essays
Consciousness: Why Materialism Fails - Campaign for Open Science

And some quotes...
Mario Bunge, respected science philosopher:
"Telepathy and precognition are incompatible with the epistemological principle according to which the gaining of factual knowledge requires sense perception at some point... Parapsychology makes no use of any knowledge gained in other fields, such as physics and physiological psychology. Moreover, its hypotheses are inconsistent with some basic assumptions of factual science. In particular, the very idea of a disembodied mental entity is incompatible with physiological psychology; and the claim that signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics."

Philosopher H.H. Price:
"... the implications of telepathy are... incompatible with the materalistic conception of human personality... telepathy is something that ought not to happen at all, if the Materialist theory were true."

John Kekes, professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Albany:
"Telepathy.... presents a challenge both to dualism and materialism."

The Materialist paradigm holds consciousness is at best an epiphenomenon of the brain, emergent from material. And when Materialism fails (as it has, time and again, and will continue to), then yes—it does make more sense to examine an alternative framework that can explain these persistent outliers.

So calling the claims "baseless" is a bit of a stretch. Even if ESP and Materialism are somehow compatible in a way, perceiving them as incompatible is not an idea existing in a vacuum. There's a philosophical precedent for that stance.

Oh, and that "he" was me. But thanks for saying I'm intelligent!

ETA: Just heard this in an interview with Dr. Jeff Kripal, Rice Professor of Theology & Religious Thought over on this week's Rune Soup podcast. Relevant to whether or not we should "invent a whole new non-material universe to account for things that can be accounted by materialism":

"We have to engage in speculative metaphysics. We have to offer other models of explanation for why, for example, it's possible that someone can dream of a plane crash that isn't going to happen till tomorrow, or why someone knows instantly that her husband or his wife has just passed away 500 miles away in a car. There are other metaphysical options here that can embrace Materialism as part of the answer but not as all of it... We can't be agnostic, because... all the dials will just reset back to Materialism... Materialism is the base metaphysics of the entire Western academy, and of most of Western culture, and if you do not speculate—ontologically, metaphysically—all the dials just reset and we're right back where we started from."

 

[Gene Steinberg]

We’ll broadcast radio yes. But we will still. We’d it for a bit.

 

[Randall]

... Materialism is the base metaphysics of the entire Western academy, and of most of Western culture, and if you do not speculate—ontologically, metaphysically—all the dials just reset and we're right back where we started from."

Thanks for the links. We have a multi-chapter thread going here on the forum all about consciousness and the paranormal. Plus we have another called Philosophy, Science, and the Unexplained. I'll continue this discussion there.

 

[marduk]

Wait wait wait. "Tons* of folks say Materialism and psi phenomena are incompatible:
Here's a quick Google...
Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real. Which Means Science Is Broken.
Materialism alone cannot explain the riddle of consciousness | Aeon Essays
Consciousness: Why Materialism Fails - Campaign for Open Science

And some quotes...
Mario Bunge, respected science philosopher:
"Telepathy and precognition are incompatible with the epistemological principle according to which the gaining of factual knowledge requires sense perception at some point... Parapsychology makes no use of any knowledge gained in other fields, such as physics and physiological psychology. Moreover, its hypotheses are inconsistent with some basic assumptions of factual science. In particular, the very idea of a disembodied mental entity is incompatible with physiological psychology; and the claim that signals can be transmitted across space without fading with distance is inconsistent with physics."

Philosopher H.H. Price:
"... the implications of telepathy are... incompatible with the materalistic conception of human personality... telepathy is something that ought not to happen at all, if the Materialist theory were true."

John Kekes, professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Albany:
"Telepathy.... presents a challenge both to dualism and materialism."

The Materialist paradigm holds consciousness is at best an epiphenomenon of the brain, emergent from material. And when Materialism fails (as it has, time and again, and will continue to), then yes—it does make more sense to examine an alternative framework that can explain these persistent outliers.

So calling the claims "baseless" is a bit of a stretch. Even if ESP and Materialism are somehow compatible in a way, perceiving them as incompatible is not an idea existing in a vacuum. There's a philosophical precedent for that stance.

Oh, and that "he" was me. But thanks for saying I'm intelligent!

ETA: Just heard this in an interview with Dr. Jeff Kripal, Rice Professor of Theology & Religious Thought over on this week's Rune Soup podcast. Relevant to whether or not we should "invent a whole new non-material universe to account for things that can be accounted by materialism":

"We have to engage in speculative metaphysics. We have to offer other models of explanation for why, for example, it's possible that someone can dream of a plane crash that isn't going to happen till tomorrow, or why someone knows instantly that her husband or his wife has just passed away 500 miles away in a car. There are other metaphysical options here that can embrace Materialism as part of the answer but not as all of it... We can't be agnostic, because... all the dials will just reset back to Materialism... Materialism is the base metaphysics of the entire Western academy, and of most of Western culture, and if you do not speculate—ontologically, metaphysically—all the dials just reset and we're right back where we started from."

If they say ESP is incompatible with materialism, they're all wrong.

ESP has been somewhat statistically demonstrated. It's mechanism for information transfer has not been identified. This does not mean that a dualistic approach to the entire universe is warranted.

This is illogical, and akin to me saying in 1840 that the mechanism for disease was unknown, therefore materialism is incomplete (God/bad spirits/animism, etc). The mechanism for disease was unknown, until Pasteur extended Fracastoro's germ theory from 300 years earlier and extended it. And it was quite simply materialism in action.

ESP might not be at all what we think it is, or even exist the way we think it does. At any rate, if it does exist, one should search for a mechanism for the method for information transfer, and once found it will be within materialism. Because if it alters matter, it is within materialism. That's what materialism is.

Materialism: the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.​

We literally do not know what ESP is or if it is what we think it is. Or how it works. To jump to 'there must be a whole other universe that somehow interacts with ours' is irrational and non-parsimonious to the extreme.

And even if that whole other universe did exist, if it interacts with matter at all, it's still materialism. Quite literally, if non-materialism is a thing, we'd never know it.

This is why Dualism is a failure.

 

[marduk]

Thanks for the links. We have a multi-chapter thread going here on the forum all about consciousness and the paranormal. Plus we have another called Philosophy, Science, and the Unexplained. I'll continue this discussion there.

Except that consciousness thread is headache-causing in it's posting of reams and reams of philosophical takes on nothing. With lots of shouting about things and demands that one reads hundreds of pages 'to understand.'

Feel free to bounce my previous post over to one of the other threads if you like.

 

[withoutlimits09]

The Paracast should just be renamed to, "podcast featuring those guys who wrote the Reframing the Debate book." They monopolize the show and the forums. Its growing old already. Get someone fun on the show.

-
edit- I sort of take this back, I see you booked Richard Doty. Now that is a fun show!

 

[Gene Steinberg]

The Paracast should just be renamed to, "podcast featuring those guys who wrote the Reframing the Debate book." They monopolize the show and the forums. Its growing old already. Get someone fun on the show.

-
edit- I sort of take this back, I see you booked Richard Doty. Now that is a fun show!

Fun? It just so happens some really bright people wrote chapters for "Reframing the Debate." If you have any concerns about the contents — and opinions vary — specifics are welcome. For the most part, I'm quite impressed with the authors, with one notable exception that I don't wish to dwell on.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Fun? It just so happens some really bright people wrote chapters for "Reframing the Debate." If you have any concerns about the contents — and opinions vary — specifics are welcome. For the most part, I'm quite impressed with the authors, with one notable exception that I don't wish to dwell on.

I didn't call anyone stupid, nor suggest the authors are not impressive (although I would argue more than one of them might be, but I don't want to dwell). I just think they get too much attention on this site and dominate the conversation. This site has become a defacto forum for that little clique of researchers.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Not hardly. Sure, we've had a few of those writers here, more likely because they were on before the book was ever conceived.

 

[wierd chick]

I would have preferred this episode to be more interviewing Joshua in a journalistic fashion rather than having a guest debate the topic (even though Randall seems nice, intelligent, and has interesting ideas).
Not all of the episodes get down to whether this can be scientifically proven, utilizing various methodologies, but exploring similarities with other disciplines.
In fact the phenomena seems to defy attempts by science to explain it, making the need for asking questions of people with with different 'wheelhouses' than our own a much more fascinating discussion.
I guess I just miss Chris and Gene when they are on together!

 

[Randall]

I would have preferred this episode to be more interviewing Joshua in a journalistic fashion rather than having a guest debate the topic (even though Randall seems nice, intelligent, and has interesting ideas).
Not all of the episodes get down to whether this can be scientifically proven, utilizing various methodologies, but exploring similarities with other disciplines.
In fact the phenomena seems to defy attempts by science to explain it, making the need for asking questions of people with with different 'wheelhouses' than our own a much more fascinating discussion.
I guess I just miss Chris and Gene when they are on together!

Yes. I'm hoping @Christopher O'Brien gets things sorted out so that he can return to his regular post as well. He's a fabulous cohost and researcher. Perhaps if you're interested in filling in sometime yourself, you might consider joining one of our guest panels, and if that goes well, your perspective would probably be a welcome addition to the show. In the meantime, discussing the pros and cons and separating the signal from the noise is as much a part of journalism as simply letting a guest tell a story. It's also what our audience expects. However if there is a way I might better be able to make it more enjoyable for you too, I'm certainly open to some specific suggestions on how to do that.

 

[Wade]

I also am hoping that @Christopher O'Brien can get back to hosting. Having said that Randall makes a welcome addition and a very much welcome aspect to the show Quite frankly though, as some members can perceive, I myself am now pretty much burnt out on the subject and am now more or less weighing in more on the mythological aspects , on specific cases and the mythological side of the phenomenon in general.

 

[Randall]

I also am hoping that @Christopher O'Brien can get back to hosting. Having said that Randall makes a welcome addition and a very much welcome aspect to the show Quite frankly though, as some members can perceive, I myself am now pretty much burnt out on the subject and am now more or less weighing in more on the mythological aspects , on specific cases and the mythological side of the phenomenon in general.

Burn out does happen. I keep my interest in it going by using the USI site to practice website markup and scripting. Plus I just like writing. But there's nothing much new going on with the field, so it's largely come down to presentation and analysis. If you're not doing either of those things yourself, then maybe it's time to put it on the backburner for a while. Interest in it by the general public peaks and wanes. I let it go for years until the 90s when the X-Files brought it back. Then people started just randomly asking me what I think about it, and that sparked my own renewed interest.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Listening to former Police Detective Mr David Paulides on another radio show last night and the ongoing disappearance of folks in urban and national forest locations. The voice recording he suggested online of one individual case was disturbing and spooky growl and snarls . Wonder how many of the locations cases around the World have history of Bigfoot? Big Cats, Shadow People sightings and UFO sighting prior to the disappearance, strong earthquake tremors, floods and odd weather conditions prior to the events? Also history patterns of murders in these locations? It's been awhile since he's been on the Paracast Show.