Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: Alexander1304 on 12/07/2011 15:39:50
-
Hello all,
I've recently read(partially) the book written by G.D.Wasserman "Shadow Matter and Psi-phenomena and possible Survival of Human Personality".
Here is description from Amazon: "A scientist casts new light on psychic phenomena, such as clairvoyance, telepathy, and 'out of body experiences'. He presents an exciting new theory which explains such phenomena, linking the recently discovered 'Shadow Matter' world of physics with parapsychology. It replaces notions of the occult with important new ideas that are figuring in physics (even in recent television programmes). The book contains case histories, showing how this new theory could account for telepathy, clairvoyance, 'out of the body experiences', and apparitions of the living and the dead in terms of Shadow Matter. It also explains how Shadow Matter theory could account for the survival of the human personality after death of the body. The author builds on theories until now discussed only in academic journals. This theory was first published in brief outline in the journal Inquiry in 1988. It develops the concept of the Shadow Matter world introduced in the journal Nature in 1985. Suitable for general readers interested in new developments in science; general readers interested in parapsychology and the occult; specialists and scholars, especially in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, philosophy and medicine."
My consfusion here is,that all parapsychological/survival material usually comes from spiritualists/religionists,but here it comes from the materialist.
Anyway,as far as I know the existence of the 1."shadow matter" is not yet confirmed 2.No "shadow matter" theory(maybe,except Wassermann's) postulates that "shadow matter" obeys the same laws as the ordinary matter.
What do you guys think about it?So far it doesn't seem that this theory got much acceptance in the scientific circles and even in parapsychology I found only a couple of references
The most detailed(and only) review I found made by Douglas Stokes:
Shadow Matter and Psychic Phenomena. - Free Online Library
From the review: ""Wassermann contends that every person has a shadow matter brain and body that are exact duplicates of his ordinary brain and body and that are normally in such exact alignment with the ordinary matter body that each particle of the shadow matter body is in sufficiently close proximity to the corresponding particle of the ordinary matter body that it is gravitationally gravitationally bound to it. The shadow matter brain or body is capable of separation from the ordinary body and of serving in the role of an "astral body" during an out-of-body experience.At death, the shadow matter body (SMB) could become permanently projected; thus, the SMB would serve as a "material soul" allowing an indefinite survival of the human personality after the death of the physical body (Wassermann proposes that shadow matter is exempt from the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy increase, and thus would not be subject to decay and deterioration). "
What do you guys think? This theory is unique in its attempt to reconcile survival with materialism but so far it doesn't seem that this theory got much acceptance neither in the scientific circles nor in parapsychology.Any thoughts will be appreciated
-
Alexander
We do not like mass posting; ie where one post is copied and pasted across many fora. This is a discussion forum where science questions can be asked and hopefully answered; and not a place for books to get publicity.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1558462/pg1
http://scienceforums.com/topic/23848-shadow-matterpsi-phenomena-and-survival/
http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/58425-shadow-matterpsi-phenomena-and-survival/
Please feel free to ask science based questions on this matter in a new thread.