Reddit reviews Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century

I recommend the book Irreducible Mind. It contains a wealth of well documented cases of a variety of paranormal phenomena, responds to common objections, and avoids sensationalizing. It also attempts to outline a theory that explains all paranormal phenomena in a scientific, methodological way.

EDIT: You can browse the book on Google Books.

Irreducible Mind. It's truly fantastic, and basically providing evidence in support of FHW Myers' "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death".

>This makes me think that he is writing for an audience who already shares his views.

Indeed! Grossman explicitly states that the purpose of the article is not to analyze the evidence which refutes materialism, but to explain why it's a priori ignored:

It is not my purpose here, except for a few examples below, to review the wealth of data that falsifies materialism.

There's a sourcing after that line, which states that

This wealth of data is reviewed in Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century by E F Kelly, E Williams Kelly, A Crabtree, A Gould, M Grosso, and B Greyson (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

While that book is great, I think that this book, Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death by Chris Carter, is even better. However, it wasn't released yet neither at the time when Grossman originally wrote that article, which was in the Journal of Near-Death Studies (JNDS) back in 2002, nor in whenever it was when "AntiMatters" publicized it.

So I can understand your frustration. Maybe it's impossible for you to read through that article without being familiar with the quality of the evidence. So I highly recommend Carter's book or Irreducible Mind in that case. And kudos to you for being so open-minded!

The problem with this argument is that consciousness is not generated by the brain. Consciousness can rebuild brain chemistry and structures, not the other way around.

Here is an example of this in action. Conscious choice can change how your brain is built.

If anyone is interested, this book has loads of scientific evidence for the claim that the brain cannot possibly generate consciousness.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Near-Death-Experiences-Thirty-Investigation/dp/0313358648

And

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

>It's a conclusion based on a complete lack of counterexamples, a lack of any supported theories that would allow for such behavior, and the existence of well-verified theories that fundamentally disallow such behavior. As such, the conclusion that people can't meditate their way across space and time constitutes well-established knowledge.

There are plenty of examples, and plenty of theory that would allow "Mind" to travel through space and time; but of course, it's not even accepted to "talk" about these things, by the majority of the scientific establishment so you're not going to see the kind of controlled examples that you are looking for. It is taboo. Some would say, it is professional suicide. Outside of a physicalist materialist perspective of the universe, these things are very possible. Inside it? Of course not.

If you want a proper scientific look at this stuff, I suggest you read Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century.

Modern science cannot even begin to explain how relatively low-level (not "enlightened") meditators can do things like burn themselves while alive without twitching a muscle, slow their pulse-rate or breathing down to virtually nothing for extended periods of time, generate intense body heat in sub-zero climates, etc. And these are just physiological phenomena, much more easily observed and analyzed than anything from the psychological domain.

>The difference is that we have strong evidence and theory on the one side, and none on the other. There is not an equal probability that either are true.

Read the book. You'll maybe find that there's plenty of evidence which suggests that the scientific community's base assumptions that physicalist materialism is true is a false one.

Decide for yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

here's a book that considers these questions from a solidly academic yet nontraditional POV: https://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

i'm not going to try to convince you that consciousness cannot be neatly located in the human brain (which scientists sloppily refer to sometimes as "mind" -- as if that word has ANY scientific usefulness -- and this just speaks to the hugely imprecise way scientists speak and think about these things). if you're interested in the topic, i recommend the book above.

but let me ask you. what is consciousness exactly?

> I appreciate your interest but I have had these conversations with my community numerous times. It wasn't a quick change or simple decision.

I didn't assume it was a quick change or a simple decision.

I am genuinely interested in your answer to those questions, not to try and convince you to become a Baha'i.


> I have a BSc Archaeology with Chemistry

The reason I ask about your science background is I also have a science background. In my opinion Ulrich Mohrhoff has convincingly demonstrated that the foundations of physics implies God. See:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.6708v1.pdf

and

http://ujm.thisquantumworld.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TS-Paris-Tale.pdf

for starters.

It is by far the best explanation for quantum mechanics I have ever read, and the first one that makes complete sense to me.

There are plenty of other aspects of reality that point towards "God" in my view: this book is well worth reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068