Otis Spann's blues

To conduct experiments about this you wouldn't have to abandon belief in materialism - you'd just have to be open to the possibility that you could be mistaken.

This would require an abandonment of materialism as per the definition. There is nothing else but the ingredients leaves no room for buts as hot for Cards stated.


I think evidence of dualism would involve things like evidence of real OBE's while there was a complete absence of deep internal brain activity. Then after the NDE, the subject could be interviewed about their OBE. Apparently in some operating theatres, signs are put in high places to try and verify OBE's. This wouldn't prove that OBE's exist, but it would be good evidence. OBE's could just involve psychic abilities that are materialistic. But if all brain activity had stopped (not just outer brain activity) then the experiences and new memories aren't involving the brain, but something else. (the "soul")
Another experiment would involve finding a friendly poltergeist which is a spirit which can interact with the physical world. This doesn't seem that amazing in dualism since dualists believe that souls can interact with neurons (receive input and output). It isn't that much of a stretch that souls could interact with physical objects in powerful ways - so the interaction is just amplified. So anyway, they could run lots of tests on the friendly poltergeist - e.g. detect its mass, volume (if possible), put it under an electron microscope, test how strong it is (how many kilograms it can support and move around), etc.

Again as previously stated how do you get beyond the relational quandary. There is required and necessary interaction that is MIA along with of course evidence. An OBE in the absence of any firing neurons that is remembered and verified as an actual experience would in all circles not only prove dualism but would rectify the monumental lack of a single piece of confirmation of the existence of the supernatural. At that point materialism would cease to exist as an informed option

Ender

Why should anyone? Because settling on 2 basic elements betray laziness.
How could anyone? Investigate the more famous monists, starting with Parmenides (he thought of the universe as a single closed system of interlocking parts w/o any semblance of plurality nor margin for any alternative possibilities). In the 18th century Christian Wolff (yes, that name again) coined “monism” in order to categorize opposing metaphysical worldviews at the time (materialism and idealism). Spinoza best enunciates the modern spin on monism- or to be precise, substantival monism. A substantival monist offers theories about how many substances there are, while the attributive monist argues about what kinds of substances actually exist. Leibniz’s monads, as a single metaphysic of souls, is currently interpreted as a form of attributive monism. Bradley, Schelling and Hegel also put forth systematic philosophy with a fundamental ‘monist flair.’

You could question monism on the grounds that a striving for unity in a “world description” does facilitates easier comprehensibility and a greater economy of explanation results from an all-too-human appeal of simplicity.

Which is why I pointed out the basic human impulse on creating dichotomies, that the dichotomies are actually a projection of humanity, not the things in themselves.

Check out Gilles Deleuze’s book, “Difference and Repetition.” That book is best seen as Deleuze’s Magnus opus, and defines Difference as “being” which is constantly “expressed” in Repetition that is never ever the same. Deleuze proposes a philosophy of immanence that discusses what transverses through everything, us, objects, thoughts. It’s an anti-wittgenstienian attempt at breaching the unsayable and unthinkable.

I don’t follow you. How do you make that transition from “understanding the sameness” as a dualism to “no difference” and “no sense” but a big hole? By the way, eastern thinking is antithetical to western thinking by virtue of the lack of center. Westerners find voids or holes intolerable because their worldviews always revolve around some scheme of privileging “presence” above “absence” or icon above non existence, wholes above holes.

~Speaker 4 the Death of God~

((edited for grammar))

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Ender the Theothanatologist ]</p>