New Thinking Allowed: Two Videos for the New Year

Jeffrey Mishlove is back at it, turning out Episodes of his groundbreaking show. Two episodes are presented for your consideration.

Stephen E. Braude, PhD, served as chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He has also served as president of the Parapsychological Association. He is author of Crimes of Reason, The Gold Leaf Lady, Immortal Remains, The Limits of Influence, First Person Plural, and ESP and Psychokinesis. He is the recent recipient of the prestigious Myers Memorial Medal awarded by the Society for Psychical Research for outstanding contributions.

Here he describes the academic challenges of conducting serious inquiry into paranormal phenomena, a major problem being the emotional resistance from colleagues. He points out that critics of parapsychology often commit the logical error of arguing from the weakest, rather than the strongest, cases. He notes that similar irrational resistance also occurred with regard to the academic acceptance of hypnosis and dissociative identity disorder (or multiple personalities). Braude also voiced certain criticisms aimed at some colleagues within the field of parapsychology. In particular, he felt that the arguments in favor of the survival of the human personality after death were weak insofar as they did not take into account the extent and range of both normal and paranormal human abilities.

Stafford Betty, PhD, is a philosopher and professor of religious studies at California State University, Bakersfield. He is author of Vadiraja’s Refutation of Shankara’s Non-Dualism, The Imprisoned Splendor, The Afterlife Unveiled, and Heaven and Hell Unveiled.

Here he suggests that most people, without necessarily realizing it, are philosophical dualists. They accept intuitively that the mind or soul is of a completely different nature than the physical body. Unlike monistic materialism, dualism seems compatible with the empirical data of parapsychology. The problem with dualism, however, is that it offers no good explanation for how the mind and body are able to interact with each other. Another philosophical position, dating back to the ancient stoic philosophers and consistent with the Vedantic philosophy of India, is a perspective known as transcendental materialism. This viewpoint postulates gradiations of matter to more and more subtle levels beyond those known to physics today.

The Philosophy of Panpsychism

Christian de Quincey, PhD, is dean of consciousness studies at the University of Philosophical Research. He is a faculty member at John F. Kennedy University and Sophia University. He is founder and director of the Wisdom Academy. He is author of Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter, Radical Knowing: Understanding Consciousness Through Relationship, Consciousness From Zombies to Angels: The Shadow and the Light of Knowing Who You Are, Deep Spirit: Cracking the Noetic Code, and Blindspots: 21 Good Reasons to Think Before You Talk.

Panpsychism is the view that every whole entity in the universe, from the largest to the very smallest, possesses a measure of consciousness. Here he contrasts panpsychism with materialism, dualism, and idealism. Each of these philosophical positions is an ontology or description of reality. De Quincey points out that panpsychism seems to resolve logical problems associated with the other three major viewpoints. Furthermore, he postulates that panpsychism is consistent with the data of parapsychology and psychical research. He also distinguishes between panpsychism and other similar perspectives including animism and pantheism. When asked whether a rock could be conscious, he makes a fascinating differentiation between “heaps” and “wholes.”