Let’s say that a small community of psychics reveals itself to the world. (I’m using “community” in the sense of “group of persons sharing an important trait and in regular contact with one another,” not “group of people living near one another.”) After lengthy, exhaustive, and rigorous scientific testing by multiple skeptical entities – the James Randi Educational Foundation, Johns Hopkins, several major unnd reputable universities and labs – the psychics’ powers are verified to exist, though not explained. Telepaths, telekinetics, pyrokinetics, astral projectors, and precogs, have submitted to testing; none are at Phoenix levels, but all of them smack around the laws of physics like redheaded stepchildren. Many, maybe most of the psychics have two powersets; some three; a few four, and one all five. The origins of their powers are not understood. Non-intrusive brain and body scans don’t reveal anything illuminating on a physical levels, and the psychics make it clear that, while they’re happy to help in scientific research, they will fuck up anybody who tries to dissect or imprison them.
There is one area of osychic powers that has not been studied: spiritualism, the supposed ability to communicate with the dead. Very few of the psychics claim to have this ability, and they all say that it is very distressing to use; they say it sometimes happens against their will, and they always feel violated. Thus the alleged mediums tend to avoid situations in which communication with ghosts and such is likely to occur, and they’re not willing to use those powers in a lab. One alleged spiritualist, having no other powers, was taken captive by, oh, let’s say North Korea, which tried to experiment on her. Luckily for her, she was friends with the aforementioned five-tool player, who laid down the smack on Pyongyang, then left with his friend and disappeared.
But superpower adventurs are not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is this question: Would the scientifically-verified existence of psychic powers as described above make you more likely to believe in the existence of life after death? Why or why not?
No. Because I’m not seeing a connection between psychic powers and LAD.
I’ll take it a step further and say LAD doesn’t necessarily prove the existence of God. (To me)
I didn’t ask if you’d be convinced, though. The question is whether the verified existence of telepathy, telekinesis, and so forth would make the UNverified claim of life after dath more plausible,e even if not certain.
Also, I seem to have edited out of the OP a line that you have met and interacted with several of the psychics yourself and been convinced that they’re the real deal. I mention that now because it seems to me that, if you’ve Charlie McGee (the little girl from FIRESTARTER) and seen her barbecue a chicken with her mind, then you won’t dismiss out of hand a claim that some high school girl, after getting doused with pig’s blood at prom, telekinetically kicked the asses of the man girls who threw the blood. I’m wondering if that holds for life after death.
Depends. If psi’s telepathically connect with the dying, do they sense the person is going somewhere, or continue to be connected for a time after bodily death? Or do the psi’s report that the person simply winks out like a blown-out candle flame?
If the former, we have evidence. If the latter, we’re back to square one.
Not really. I already believe that stuff could exist, and that science simply cannot currently detect or explain it. This new revelation doesn’t change my thoughts on the issue. It seems like even the spiritual psychics don’t fully understand the nature of their experiences, and there’s a lot of possible explanations.
Is it fighting the hypothetical to hope that at least some of these psychics choose to donate their bodies to scientific research after their death?
Well, telepathy and astral projection, certainly not: both don’t necessarily defy the laws of physics, they just imply that we’ve got additional (perhaps electromagnetic) sender/receiver equipment beyond mouths and ears. Precognition, depends on the laws of physics: if there is some form of retrocausal interaction, it might likewise be reconcilable.
Pyrokinesis, though, seems in blatant disregard of thermodynamics, and telekinesis turns Newton’s Laws into Newton’s Polite but Non-Binding Suggestions. So we clearly know that the world can’t be explained solely in terms of physics. Hence, all arguments for the impossibility of the spectral world fall by the wayside, moving the afterlife etc into the possible (or perhaps in the ‘who the fuck knows’, since we’re clearly dealing with a world whose working principles we have no idea of).
That doesn’t mean such things exist, though, but the OP mentions testimonial evidence by several sources. So, without a reason to reject this off-hand, this at least implies some credence in the idea. So yes, such a scenario would male me at least marginally more likely to believe in the possibility of life after death.
The existence of other psychic abilities would make me consider life after death to be worth investigating, but I’d still want more proof and an explanation for the psychic abilities that do seem to exist.
Assuming these questions aren’t rhetorical, I’ll put on my OP hat and answer.
Not all the psis have telepathic powers; not all the telepaths claim to be able to communicate with the dead; and not all those who claim to be able to communicate with the dead demonstrate Xavier-type powers.
The alleged mediums all say that communicating with the dead is extremely distressing, often even painful. It sometimes happens against their will, so most of them avoid situations and places where it is reputed to occur. Asked to visit an allegedly haunted house, they are likely to respond, “Sure, but only after you stick your hand in the mouth of that alligator.”
The telepaths who don’t claim spiritualist abilities avoid contract with the dying on account of it being depressing. Those who have made such contact report that the dying person is generally extremely confused and the experience of contact itself was so disorienting that they didn’t know what the fuck was happening to the person’s mind or brain.
For mind-reading (telepathy), we would at least be able to rule out/identify the liars and charlatans among those claiming to have had a near-death experience – this might make the possibility of life after death slightly more plausible if it turns out that most of these claims are honestly related. None of the others would affect the possibility of life after death as I can see it, though telekinesis might actually slightly reduce the likelihood of things like haunted houses being explained by paranormal/supernatural activity, since now telekinesis would be an additional possible explanation for “things going bump in the night”.
I don’t think so. The psychics obviousy don’t object to being studied. They just don’t want to be vivisected or imprisoned or enslaved,.
Did you answer without reading the OP?
Two of the powers demonstrated – psychokinesis and pyrokinesis – aren’t communication abilties at all (except in the sennse that one can communicate by tapping or sending smoke signals). And non-invasive brain scans reveal nothing illuminating about the brains of the psychics, which to me means that, for instance when a telepath is having a mind-to-mind conversation, the brain seems no more active than during a mundane conversation, and when a teke is shuffling cards with invisible hands,a brain scan is no different than what would appear if she were using her fingers. It’s not unreasonable to suspect from that that what is happening is non-physical. An invasive procedure might be more illuminating but having seen a movie the psis all say “Come at me with a scapel and you’ll find it in your throat or on fire, either by my actions or one of my buddies.”
I like this idea, though it only rules out those lying about their experiences. A psychic could still be fooled by those who honestly believe that what they experienced was evidence of an afterlife, even if the experience had an alternate explanation. I suppose such screenings might possibly push things in the direction of “no afterlife” if everyone screened was shown to be lying.
On a side note, are the psychics at least willing to report those spiritual experiences that they do have? If enough data was collected, it could still help shine a light on the issue, even if they’re unwilling to test it with scientific rigor.
Right – I should have mentioned that I said only “slightly” because all of these could still be explained by hallucinations, vivid dreams, drug usage, or something like that.
Some yes, some no. As I envision the situation, some of the alleged mediums report having had extremely trauamatic experiences. Some of them won’t be willing to relive them or to share them with others. Since tlarge ohe psychics are so few to begin with, and the alleged mediums are a tiny fraction of that, it may not be possible to get a large enough samplle.
Speaking as poster rather than OP:
You could certainly ASK them. Since some of the people with the Shining are also firestarters, using them will be problematic.
But why bother? JREF can do it with more rigor, I expect.
From a faith-based perspective, I don’t need any convincing that life after death exists. If anything, discovering that psychic powers are real might shake that faith and make me less certain, not more.
From a scientific perspective: if all we have is some statistical correlation that they access information reliably, no I don’t see why that would relate to an afterlife. It would just tell us that they are picking up information in an unknown way. Should the existence of radio waves make me believe in an afterlife? I don’t see how the existence of “psychic waves” should be any different.
If you want to use the idea that “unknown and unrelated phenomena support belief in the afterlife” then the fact that 20% of the universe is dark matter and 75% is dark energy should do it. With 95% of the universe unknown and possibly unknowable, that seems like plenty of wiggle room to justify anything you like.
