Finding a place for the paranormal?

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Finding a place for the paranormal?
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In the conceptual fruit bowl

• Placing fruit in a bowl
• Where do we place the strange fruit
• Of the paranormal?

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Why is the paranormal a problem at all?

• The paranormal is a problem
• Primarily because of science
• Which tells us that only molecules
• Are real and nothing else
• This dominates our thinking
• It has hijacked our imagination

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introduction

• How many of you believe in science?
• How many believe the world is entirely physical?
• Is there anything beyond the molecular?
• How many believe in religion?

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Issues

• The molecular view raises several issues
• Is mind solely a product of molecules?
• Are mind and brain the same thing?
• Are things real?

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Paranormal

• Paranormal includes
• Telepathy
• Ghosts
• Mediums/Clairvoyance
• Telekinesis
• Intuition, dreams? Attractions?

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Science

• Science first kicked off
• by Galileo 1564-1642 around 1600
• Who first questioned
• The truth of the Church
• And conducted experiments

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Thomas Hobbes

• Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679
• Established a materialistic philosophy
• Sceptical of religion

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Sir Francis Bacon

• Francis Bacon 1561-1626
• established the method of induction
• so central to science
• Based in observation
• And experiments

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Rene Descartes

• René Descartes 1596-1650
• contributed to this new system
• In mathematics
• And psychology

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Sir Isaac Newton

• Newton 1642-1727
• regarded world as a machine
• Gave birth to the mechanical philosophy
• An exquisite mechanism created by
• The divine watchmaker

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Locke

• John Locke 1632-1704
• He developed Hobbess views
• Into a wholly materialistic view

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Science and Religion

• Yet they were all religious men!!
• A fact conveniently forgotten
• by scientists today

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Enlightenment 1

• In the 1700s
• science made great strides forward
• This was called the enlightenment
• Materialistic culture

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Enlightenment 2

• Opposed to religion and spirituality
• This view dominates modern life since 1800
• The paranormal challenges this belief system

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This talk today

• We need to try and place
• The paranormal into a new context
• And try to reconcile science
• With non-molecular views

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Paranormal Phenomena

• We need to create a theoretical framework
• For the paranormal to be possible
• And find a belief system
• that reconciles it with science
• This is no easy task!

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choices

• We seem to have a straight choice
• either to believe that paranormal phenomena are
  genuine
• or to dismiss them all as bogus

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problems

• However, if we accept even provisionally
• that paranormal is true and real,
• then this poses a problem
• both for science
• and for our understanding.

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mutuality

• However, maybe we can find
• a philosophy that embraces
• both science and the paranormal,
• Giving them both some validity?
• Is such a view possible?

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plurality

• The answer is yes if we
• Cast around and
• can accept views like
• Berkeley, Husserl, Simmel, Buddha

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George Berkeley

• George Berkeley 1685-1753
• Matter is merely thought
• In the mind of God
• An entirely spiritual view all is mind!

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Husserl

• Edmund Husserl 1858-1938
• his phenomenology
• We should strive to
• Seize the whole
• In all its fullness,
• Which can never be grasped
• Through parts

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Simmel

• Georg Simmel 1858-1918
• Who stressed empathy
• Which allows us
• To engage with
• Each other and
• Reality

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Implications

• The upshot of Simmels work applies
• Especially in the arts, literature, music,
  healthcare and religions
• Where empathic connection of some form
• Is of paramount importance

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Buddha

• Buddha 624 BC - 544 BC
• A Buddhist view
• World is a flux
• Self is an illusion transient
• things are an illusion transient
• Lose ego

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Buddhist view

• The upshot of Buddhism stresses
• Two factors of relevance to our search
• First, demolition of the self is a pre-requisite
  for empathic engagement
• The world is constantly created and destroyed
• moment by moment

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construction

• From these elements
• we can construct a broader view
• of ourselves
• and the world
• as being more intimately commingled
• into a vast and subtle matrix.

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A view

• Such a view would allow
• telepathy and clairvoyance, for example,
• to be quite valid aspects of life
• Just as scientific phenomena are.

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No dislocation

• Such a view would reduce
• the tension that exists
• between science and telepathy
• by seeking common ground
• to underpin them both.
• HOW?

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No ego

• Such a view would comprise
• spiritual empathy
• mental osmosis
• when ego is dropped
• Ego blocks empathy knowledge WHY?

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Holistic

• The resulting view is a Neo-Berkelian form of
  Phenomenology entails
• Holism
• Continuity
• Inter-connectedness
• Empathy
• System.

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Ecology

• Ecological awareness
• also contributes to this worldview
• as an interlocking matrix or complex
• comprising multi-leveled events
• and self-regulating feedback loops.

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combination

• If we combine this
• with the ideas of some mental and emotional
  realities
• beyond mere molecules

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Imagine

• Then it is possible to imagine
• all minds networked together
• But this is rarely our experience
• WHY?
• Because of ego?
• Because of solid belief in things?

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Connections

• However, from an ego orientation
• or from scientific materialism
• they still seem separate
• and disconnected things
• And we each seem separate beings

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Hangs together

• If you then add to this
• the idea of an immortal essence
• then it all hangs together.

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Spiritual machine?

• Neo-Berkelian phenomenology
• would see the world not just as
• A vast physical machine
• Composed only of myriad things
• But also a vast spiritual machine.

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Events, dear boy

• In this machine
• events shadow events
• in a non-rational manner
• that can never be fully explained
• by reduction into solely physical particles and
  forces.

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Delusional view?

• It is because reductionism
• is only part of the picture,
• a delusional view?
• that the complete view
• of our experience
• fails to conform to the world as things
• World is thus more than simply things

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Incomplete

• If it were complete
• then it would explain everything.
• That it cannot do this,
• renders it incomplete.

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Only one view

• Reductionism
• is merely one view
• of how the world might be, one view
• of how it seems to function
• In a fragmented sense

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Missing link?

• What is left out?
• the non-molecular dimension
• of substance
• that binds the whole thing together
• I.e. a matrix

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The glue that binds

• This acts rather like the glue
• that binds the fabric in a model
• or the medium on/in which something floats.
• This is the interface between
• Subjective inner reality
• And the outer world

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Matrix

• is this mysterious substance
• or substrate
• or medium
• that underpins
• every physical thing
• in the universe.

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Subjective

• This extra something is
• The subjective dimension
• Of our experience
• Our inner lives and how
• That connects with what we think is
• The external world

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Inclusivity

• What is excluded from science
• is perhaps just as real to us
• as physical phenomena appear to be.
• Art, dreams, feelings
• Love, creativity

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Irreducible

• But it is a something
• that is unsuitable for reduction
• to molecular phenomena
• or the molecular view.
• It is an aspect of our experience
• Quite irreducible to molecules

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Non-real?

• If something
• cannot be reduced
• It is seen by science
• as proof that it is non-real.

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Subtle forces

• For science to even conceive of telepathy or
  clairvoyance it has to
• invoke invisible subtle forces
• and particles
• to connect things together and so
• to create events.

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Hard science

• Because science
• cannot find
• such subtle particles and forces,
• it dismisses the paranormal
• as nonsense and delusion.

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Vast medium?

• But what if
• the whole universe
• is underpinned and pervaded anyway
• by some subtle and vast
• interconnecting medium?

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Matrix

• A subtle non-molecular matrix,
• would no longer need forces or particles
• to connect events
• in one part of the matrix with another

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Same matrix

• because they are already connected together
  anyway
• as part of the same matrix
• part of the same whole web

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God?

• The matrix is like God and
• pervades everything
• just as mind permeates, underpins
• and interconnects everything
• in our body.

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Analogies

• In fact
• the analogy between
• person and world
• or person and universe
• is a good one.
• God is an optional concept

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Binding parts

• What is missing in the molecular view
• of each is mind or spirit
• that binds and interconnects
• What we see as parts or things
• into a functioning whole.

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Resume

• This account
• Succeeds in showing
• That a holistic view
• Of the world
• Makes possible a framework
• That accepts the paranormal
• As a possibility

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Immanuel Kant 1724-1804

• Kant said the world
• Cannot be known
• Except through sense images
• And our thought processes
• Both of which distort it and cast it into certain
  patterns

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Fragmentalism

• However, we have
• Mostly focused on the process
• Beloved of science
• That breaks the world down
• Into named things
• Fragmentalisation reductionism

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Problems evaporate

• Fragmentation is merely one option
• One way to view the world
• It is not compulsory
• Instead, matrix is a valid optional belief
• Then problems between science and paranormal
• Evaporate automatically

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Complete knowledge?

• the only way to complete knowledge
• is through wholes rather than parts

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Fragmented Newtonian world

• the Newtonian worldview
• relies upon an optional classification system
• that breaks the world into named parts
• and then describes events in causal chains
• of things linked together

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Acceptance

• another option -
• not to fragment experience
• or the world,
• but just accept it as it is

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Inapplicable?

• Although a fragmented view of phenomena
• Works well for a science of material things
• Yet it is singularly inapplicable
• to mental matters
• and the whole realm of human affairs

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Paranormal is possible

• How the paranormal might be theoretically
  possible,
• hinges very largely on an analysis
• of why fragmenting the world
• into named "things"
• is the source of our primary delusion

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Magical worldview

• Magical worldview
•         World is one
•         Life is one interlinked matrix
•         Wholeness things are all connected
•         Oneness with everything else
•         Afterlife and this life are continuous
•         World of things is an illusion
•         Separate self is an illusion
•         Supernatural is real

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Religious worldview

• Religious worldview
•       Belief in God
•       Rituals       Doctrines of belief are
  real
•       God, heaven, hell, soul, redeemer, etc are
  made into rigid concepts of dogma
•       Belief is the central dogma
•       Religion is social control by reward and
  punishment
•       The spiritual element has faded from view

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Scientific worldview

• Scientific worldview
•       Matter is absolute basis of reality
•       World is composed of things
•       Holism is an illusion
•       Proof is always tangible
•       Non-molecular is unreal 

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Finale

• We can see that
• A synthesis of all 3 views
• Is possible
• And is desirable
• Such we have explored here today

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William Blake 1757-1827

• Self-educated William Blake
• Who threw his spectre in the lake,
• Broke off relations in a curse
• With the Newtonian Universe,
• But even as a child would pet
• The tigers Voltaire never met,

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William Blake 1757-1827

• Took walks with them through Lambeth, and
• Spoke to Isaiah in the Strand,
• And heard inside each mortal thing
• Its holy emanation sing,
• W H Auden, New Year Letter, 1940

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Nietzsche 1844-1900

• Finally we might say Blake is preferable
• To the God is Dead view of Nietzsche
• Which is the view that life is nothing but
  molecules
• Such is science