If a person said they knew what you were thinking, and correctly reported what you were thinking, would you accept this as proof that mind is not brain?
Well, no, I would accept it as convincing evidence that a person could tell what I was thinking. I have no idea what the implications of that would be. Personally, I am not much interested in the JREF challenge in as much as I am certain there is no phenomena in existence which could challenge the challenge. I think the challenge could be for a trillion dollars and there would be nothing more at risk.
All I am saying is this - if you are saying there is a universal mind into which we are all wired you must have some reason for saying so. There must be some distinguishing feature that indicates to you that this is so. After all, if one can not distinguish between there being a universal mind and there not being one then such a claim is as arbitrary as claiming the existence of invisible pink unicorns and deserves the same consideration. I would like to know what the features are of a reality in which we are all linked into a universal mind. These features must be perceptible in some way otherwise you wouldn't have felt the need to come up with a concept of universal mind in order to account for them.
What are those features and how can they be demonstrated? What would you do to demonstrate the existence of a universal mind? Not prove it, just demonstrate it. After all, Newton didn't just arbitrarily come up with his theory of universal gravitation out of whole cloth. He observed that things fell and were drawn to the earth and felt the need to account for this phenomena. What are the phenomena which require a universal mind to account for them? What is there in our experience which would indicate that my consciousness and your's are not independent and free standing?
I have to add, that I accept that there could be aspects of reality which are not testable and I don't believe that in order for something to be true it has to be scientifically testable, but for those sorts of things I have no option but to go by my experience of the world. I also know well enough to take my experience of the world with a grain of salt. I have had vivid dream state/out of body experiences, but I know these are not real and I know I have never left my body. I know how incredibly maleable and powerful the brain is in terms of producing experience. I do think that people who make extraordinary claims do try to exploit the fact that certain aspects of our experience is not amenable to scientific testing.
If I were to have an extraordinary experience I certainly would not take it at face value. I would evaluate it in the light of those things we do know to be true and can verify. There are all sorts of ways in which something like psychic phenomena do not make any sense in light of what we know about the physical world, so I would not take a psychic experience at face value even if I were to have one.
I do tend to drone on lose track and I really should be working, but I don't like to leave things without feeling like I have expressed myself accurately. I guess I'll leave it like this - it isn't simply that psychic ability, for example, can not be proved or demonstrated in the laboratory that I don't believe it. It's two fold. It's existence would contradict much of what we do actually know about the world and my experience of the world offers no significant indication that such an ability exists. To clarify the last part - by my experience of the world I don't simply mean my personal interactions with the world. I mean the world does not reflect a reality in which any "supernatural" phenomena is playing any role whatsoever. I use the word supernatural for convenience and lack of a better word. It does not even seem to be playing an arbitrary role.
I could except the existence of a "God" of some sort, even if he seemed, ocassionally, to play a completely arbitrary role in reality. He does not. If we define existence as participating in reality (and how else would you define it), it is ridiculous to speak of the existence of God.
I love Feynman.
