Pseudo-intellectualism: the dark side of the paranormal community. A personal reflection

One of my areas of interest, parapsychology and afterlife studies, have a lot of positive features. But it has also a dark side: a tendency towards pseudo-intellectualism, superficiality, wishful thinking, sectarianism, dogmatism and soft-minded minset. This dark side could be one of the reasons of the margination of these studies in academic circles.

Althought there are exceptions in the contemporary scene (e.g: serious and brilliant scholars and writers like Dear Radin, Stephen Braude, Chris Carter, Charles Tart, Bruce Greyson, the late Ian Stevenson, Michael Prescott and some others) you also find some people (I don't want to mention them) who are examples of the pseudo-intellectualism that I've mentioned. Let's call the latter (for the purposes of this post) "paranormalists".

Just for the record: This post is also an attempt in rigurous self-criticism (because I consider myself to be part of the "paranormal community" and a defender of this field, and  on reflection I think some of these criticisms have applied to me in the past and, perhaps, could still apply).

These are some of the disappointed features that I've found in some of the paranormal literature which I find are telling examples of pseudo-intellectualism:

1-Misunderstandings and abuses of quantum mechanics: When you read standard technical works in quantum mechanics, you realize that this field is extremely complex and that nobody knows what are the actual ontological implications of the theory. One reason for this is that any physical theory has two parts: a mathematical core and an interpretation of the theory itself. Currently, there are around of 10 different interpretations of QM which are compatible with the mathematical core, and some of these interpretations are incompatible with each other (e.g. some are deterministic and other indeterministic). Nobody knows which interpretation is correct, even thought the Copenhagen interpretation tend to be dominant.

However, in popular works of "paranormalists", sometimes you get a superficial explanation of these important points of QM, and they tend to represent the theory in terms of just one interpretation. And from this, they speculate about the nature of reality, psychic phenomena, afterlife, God, etc. (For example, some of them claim that QM has refuted empirically metaphysical realism or that free will has been proved by QM, which is the case only IF some interpretations of QM are true and even in this case with certain qualifications).

This approach by "paranormalists" testifies their ignorance, not only of QM, but of philosophy too. They pretend to settle complex philosophical questions appealing "only" to ONE interpretation of QM, as whether QM is co-extensive with metaphysics. Metaphysics has to be scientifically informed, but science alone almost never settle metaphysical disputes (even though it only be because science itself is plagued with implicit metaphysical assumptions). 

The paranormalist criticizes the reductionistic "scientism" which is rampant today in academy, but they themselves assume a "scientistic" view pretending that science alone (=QM plus parapsychology) is everyhting we need to settle long philosophical disputes. Such position is not only naive, but hypocrital.

This is one reason why serious scholars (even the ones sympathetic to dualism and theism) tend, as a rule, to take with a grain of salt the works of "paranormalists" and to be skeptical of their views (of course, there are other reasons for this, too).

2-Fetishism about "consciousness" and ignorance about current and sophisticated scholarly debate about it: Some paranormalists talk about "consciousness" in a naive, misinformed and dogmatic way as the key to answer almost everything which is mysterious about the universe. Even "UFOs" don't escape from the idea of being "mental projections", "projections of consciousness", "fields of energy created by our minds" and so forth.

I don't deny this possibility about UFOs. But jumping to such conclusions ignoring the best and most serious literature about ufology (which suggest that the phenomena is independent of our minds or not reducible to them, at least in many cases) is clearly pseudo-intellectual, superficial and irresponsible. Having sympathies for Jung's ideas don't suffice to settle the complex questions about UFOs.

Also, some of them ignore current scholarly debate about consciousness. They ignore that wholly different concepts of it have been developed by scholars, and that "consciousness" is seen differently in its nature and meaning according to different worldviews and metaphysical positions. For example, in naturalism "consciousness" is at most a property, not a thing. In theism, consciousness is a (basic) substance, not a property. (Failing to understand this simple, but deeply important point, precludes the paranormalist to understand what consciousness can and cannot do, because the categories of substance and property have argueably wholly different general properties, regardless of their specific ones).

For example, if consciousness is a property (e.g. of the brain), the destruction of the brain would imply the destruction of consciousness. This is why naturalists don't accept survival of consciousness. But if consciousness is a substance (as defended by theism), then the the destruction of the brain doesn't imply the destruction of consciousness. Therefore, survival of consciousness is evidence for consciousness being a substance, not a property, and therefore is evidence for one of the basic claims of theism. (Note how an understanding of consciousness, as a property or as a substance, have implications to reflections about competing worldviews).

Also, some paranormalists have wholly arbitrary and personal definitions of "consciousness". It seems they ignore the criticisms against their personal definitions of it (precisely because they ignore the ongoing current debate about it). They have a naive and simplistic understanding of the problem.

Some of them talk about "universal consciousness" in a way reminiscent of mysticism, pantheism or quasi-pantheistic views, but they rarely define or articulate what they mean by it.

3-Failing to include the facts and phenomena that they believe in into a comprehensive worldview.

This point is objectionable only among "intellectuals" and writers. People who are not intellectuals, but are "fans" of the paranormal things, cannot be objected on this basis (because it is not their function to give a comprehensive or systematic organization of their beliefs).

But among some paranormalist "intellectuals", you get only a vague articulation of their beliefs into a system. At most, they define themselves as "spiritualists" or "anti-materialists", but clearly it only shows the adoption of a particular metaphysical view, not a whole worldview (some "spiritualists" will claim that that Spiritualism is a worldview, but reading the spiritualistic literature you find that there are many important differences between them, including something as basic and empirical as the existence of reincarnation, and that perhaps we could talk more properly of "worldviews", not one worldview... some of them accepting God, some of them reject it or being agnostic about it altogether).

They fail to examine if "universal consciousness" (which in many cases is meant to imply the future dissolution of the "self" or ego into some "colective consciousness"), for example, fit better in naturalism, theism, pantheism, etc. They fail to discuss whether personalistic features like consciousness, human reason, moral sense, free will and so forth fit better in a theistic worldview, or on the contrary fit better with impersonalistic worldviews like pantheism, naturalism and so forth.

For example, some defenders of "universal consciousness" believe that the "personal ego" and the "personal self" is pure illusion (note the implication of this view for morality, which only makes sense among actual, non-illusory, rational and free persons). The ultimate fate of each of us would be a kind of "dissolution" into a "collective sea of consciousness" or something similar. Note that the implication of this view is very similar to what naturalism holds! (both views implies the extinction of PERSONAL consciousness and identity, only that the naturalists hold it as happening inmediately after biological death, while the "we all are one" paranormalist poses it as a state reached after sucesive spiritual evolutions, including perhaps several reincarnations).

When pressed to justify their positions, they argue that their views are based on mystical experiences (or a combination of them plus quantum mechanics (?) and parapsychology). But parapsychology and quantum mechanics are not worldviews, but empirical sciences. At most, they tells us that some phenomena, posited by certain worldviews, do exist and can even point out to certain worldviews about others (for example, QM, in its standard interpretation, suggest that theism makes sense in QM and gives us absolutely not reason at all to accept atheism based on QM alone). And parapsychology and afterlife research by themselves tells us nothing about theism or atheism, except that what theism has traditionally posited (e.g. the existence of the soul and a spiritual dimension) is probably true.

They for example argue that parapsychological experiments shows that our personal, indivual consciousness is connected with other individual consciousness, and "hence" it is evidence that actually "we are all one great consciousness". Obviously this is a silly non-sequitur: The fact each of us is (paranormally or spiritually) connected with another ego-center of consciousness don't imply that "we are all one great consciousness". Connection doesn't imply identity (otherwise, the connection between mental states and brain states would imply that the mind is identical with the brain, a conclusion that the paranormalist who accepts the afterlife would reject). Perhaps we're all connected to each other, but it doesn't imply that our personal ego, self or identity is or will be destroyed or dissolved into a "sea of consciousness" (whatever it means!).

And mystical experiences are just a part of broad spiritual and religious experiences, some of which conflict with each other, and could (if you take seriously the spiritual world and ufology) be caused by external agents (e.g. aliens, spirits, etc.) to fool you. Mystical experiences by  themselves don't settle the matter about the nature of reality, even they'are important to this metaphysical discussion.

4-Egregious and flawed concepts about God: Many paranormalists consider themselves "believers in God". But exactly what means "God" to them?

Some will say that God is a kind of "energy" which permeates the entire universe (or something like that). But what exactly do they mean by "energy"? A physical energy? A spiritual energy? Presumibly, it is the latter. But what is a "spiritual energy"? The energy of a spirit (= unembodied person)? These reflections tend to be absent in the works of these paranormalists.

They don't specify if they believe in a personal God (a spiritual person with superlatives attributes which is the ground and source of all physical and non-physical reality), and when asked explicitly they deny this personal concept of God (which they, erroneously and again by ignorance, attributes to the Christian concept of God... which certainly is personal, but not all the personalistic concepts of God are Christian. In fact, in classical Christian theism, the anthropomorphic concept of God is largely rejected on behalf of a personal concept of God defined analogously).

The "theistic" paranormalist tends to conflate "personal" with "anthropomorphic", precisely because they have no idea of the literature about the problems related to the concept of God. They reject a straw man, created largely by the secularist propaganda of atheists.

Therefore (and here appears their pseudo-intellectualism and illogical thinking in full expression), often they ascribe personalistic properties to that "energy" (e.g. the property of being "intelligent", conscious, good, having purposes, plans and intentions in order to organize the universe, etc.). For example, they say, based for example on NDEs, that such energy is "pure love" (note that love, in the highest spiritual level beyond pure animal instinct, is a property of persons). 

Obviously, all of these specific properties of such peculiar "energy" are properties TYPICAL of persons, not of non-personal entities, forces or energies like the law of gravity, entropy, quantum vaccum, atoms, electrons, DNA, etc. So, the paranormalist tend to verbally to reject the personal concept of God, but implicitly such concept is fully implied in the properties that they ascribe to the "energy".

An egregious example of this is Deepak Chopra. Confusing "personal" with anthropomorphic (and with Christian fundamentalism) you read see this pearl in his criticism of Dawkins: "This assumption is false on several grounds. The most basic one is that God isn't a person... Therefore, reducing God to a Sunday school picture and claiming that the Book of Genesis--or creationism in general--competes with science isn't accurate. Fundamentalism hasn't played a role in scientific debate for generations. Einstein pointed out that he didn't believe in a personal God but was fascinated by how an orderly universe and its physical laws came about."

Chopra conflates the notion of God as being a person with "fundamentalism". This is an example of the conceptual naiveté and philosophical unsophistication that I've discussed in this post. Certainly, fundamentalists believe that God is a person, but the reverse is false: not all who believe that God is a person are fundamentalists.

Former atheist champion, the late scientistic philosopher Antony Flew became a deist who concluded about God this: "I accept the God of Aristotle who shares all the attributes you cite [self-existent, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent and omniscient being]. Like Lewis I believe that God is a person  but not the sort of person with whom you can have a talk.  It is the ultimate being, the Creator of the Universe."

 Note that Flew's God is personal, because as a trained philosopher he knows that attributes like "omniscient" implies personality. Does it make Flew a six day creationist? Obviously not. But Chopra doesn't undertand this because he has absolutely not idea of the concept of God in classical and contemporary theology and philosophy. No hint of sophisticated reflection on the concept of God is being advanced in Chopra's works.

Chopra prefers to knock down the simplistic view of God taught by pseudo-intellectualistic Christian preachers at the Sunday school, instead of carefully addresing the sophisticated views of first-rate classical and contemporary thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, Richard Swinburne, etc.

Regarding Einstein, the fascination for the laws of nature and the universe is not an objection against the view of God as personal. At most, it shows that Einstein was a pantheist. But Einstein was a physicist, not a theologian nor a trained philosopher, so hardly Einstein's personal opinion is going to settle the theological-philosophical problem of the nature of God.

Chopra's superficiality is telling in the following passage. After saying that God is not a person, he has not problem in using the property "intelligence" as applied to his non-personal concept of God: "So at bottom, the real question is this: Do we need an all-pervading intelligence to explain the universe? Forget the image of God sitting on a throne, forget Genesis, forget the straw man of a Creator who isn't as smart as a smart human being. The real debate is between two world views:

1. The universe is random. It operates entirely through physical laws. There is no evidence of innate intelligence.

2. The universe contains design. Physical laws generate new forms that display intention. Intelligence is all-pervasive"

Note that Chopra's second alternative is not incompatible with the first one. Materialists accept that the universe operates entirely through blind, mechanical and unguided physical laws AND that these laws generate new forms that display intention (e.g. the law of unguided biological evolution generates human beings who are intentional agents). They reject innate or intrinsic intelligence but accept supervenient intelligence displayed by some biologically complex organisms. This is the standard position of materialist and Darwinist scholars. Therefore, Chopra's understanding of the "debate" is superficial, false and misleading.

That intelligence is "all-pervasive" is fully compatible with God being a person. Perhaps what Chopra means is that intelligence is INTRINSIC in the structure of the universe, i.e. the physical energy and laws of this universe are, themselves, "intelligent".

Now, the intelligence of physical laws (if it were the case) doesn't exclude the existence of a intelligent designer who have designed them. After all, my cell phone is an intelligent one (a smartphone), but it doesn't suffice to conclude that a trascendent (=beyond my cell phone) creator of my cell phone doesn't exist. On the contrary, the evidence for such smartphone is evidence for the existence of a intelligent designer of it.

Regarding the universe, it is spectially the case given the evidence that the universe (with its intelligent laws) began to exist. And this implies a cause. Therefore, the "intelligence" of the physical laws cannot be the explanation of the origin of the universe, because such laws began to exist too. Therefore, it points out to a intelligent cause that created such universe with such "intelligent laws". Hence, Chopra has not given any compelling reason to think that God, if exists, is not personal. On the contrary.

Regarding God sitting on a throne, I don't know ANY sophisticated Christian thinker who thinks such a ridiculous thing. Indeed, for Christians, God is immaterial (therefore, it is impossible to him to be sitting on something, let alone in a throne). The biblical passages which suggest divine corporeity are interpreted metaphorically, not literally (because the Bible has several literary genres and proper interpretation and exegesis is dependent on them), as any person familiar with theological and biblical literature would know. 

Regarding a God  who is not so smart as human being, no informed Christian could properly believe such a thing, since God is supposed to be perfect and omniscient, therefore (by definition) he's INFINITELY more smart and wise than any other being, including humans. A Christian believing otherwise wouldn't be a Christian, because he would believe in a God incompatible with Christian theology.

Again Chopra is beating a straw man and misinforming the public about Christian theology. 

It is fine if you don't believe in God or in any particular religion or worldview. But serious intellectuals have to make an effort to represent the views of their opponents in the most charitable, strongest formulation. Otherwise, they're pseudo-intellectuals and sophists.

I think Chopra is a good man and good writer (at least stylistically speaking), but he's a unreliable source of information about sophisticated philosophical and theological matters, in which he exemplifies the pseudo-intellectualism, misinformation and (unintentional, I suppose) misdirection that I've discussed in this post.

I'll discuss more exemples of pseudo-intellectualism in the paranormal world in future posts.