(07-30-2024, 12:59 AM)MrJesterium Wrote: ...
After 2025, scientists will begin making discoveries in another unseen world (not astral), which will enable them to prove the existence of life after death. Dannion Brinkley might finally get around to restoring ancient facilities and their functions, allowing survivors to talk with their deceased loved ones face-to-face, without the risks of seance/mediumship.
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I think scientists dealing with spooks are doomed to failure. It's two entirely separate areas of inquiry. Science supposedly deals with the natural, spirits (and religion in general) with the supernatural. comparing the natural and the supernatural is like comparing apples to cinder blocks.
That's why I think the paranormal researchers at Duke are barking up the wrong tree.
It's also why I laugh at science-minded folks scoffing at religion, and religious minded folks scoffing at science - neither understand that the other is simply out of their purview. It's not in their wheel house, and they are just scoffing at things they have no comprehension of nor aptitude for. Science will never prove (nor disprove) religion or spirituality any more than religion or spirituality will ever prove science. For starters, one would have to be open minded enough to explore the other, and neither are that open-minded. But beyond that, the two areas are different enough that what works in one does not work in the other.
The fields don't have enough overlap for one to prod the other on an equal footing.
"The mind" or "consciousness", and the attempts of psychology to fathom them are good examples. My first wife is a PhD. psychologist, and I was there to help her study when she was on that path, before arrival. I could see what psychologists were trying to pass off as "science", and compare that to actual sciences, like physics or biology. That was enough to convince me that there is no real difference between "psychology" and "parapsychology",and that neither are actual science.
There is still, after all this time, no consensus in science as to what "mind" or "consciousness" actually is, or where it comes from. Spiritual based philosophies can and do explain that, but science cannot. That is because science is approaching a non-physical phenomena with physically-oriented tools, whereas spirituality is not. In the same way,spirituality cannot explain the engineering of a car engine using spiritually-based tools.
Continuing with the automobile analogy, science can prescribe medicines to affect the mind... but ae they, really,affecting the mind? Or are they instead merely effecting it's expression via mechanical means, but leaving mind itself untouched? Are they effecting the actual air or gasoline of the human engine, or simply affecting the air-fuel mixture and what it does (expresses) after it gets past the carburetor or fuel injector? Are they actually effecting the mind, or merely tinkering with the valves in order to adjust it's expression?
That's why I have no use for psychology (or parapsychology) - it's not out of animosity left over from my first marriage, it's out of gaining an understanding of it, and how it compares to actual science, that occurred during that marriage.
If I wanted to use dolomite as a means of communicating with the spiritual, then I would seek out a shaman If I wanted to know the specific gravity of that dolomite, then i would seek out a scientist. I wouldn't ask the shaman about the specific gravity, nor would I ask the scientist how it's used to communicate with other realms.
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