[Suzerain of Sheol]

Obnoxious preface

Before saying anything else, I will out myself right off as a reductionist materialist. I accept the existence of the reality my senses perceive, and organize my thoughts according to the logic derived from my observation of the world around me, establishing a system of understanding of my environment that aims for self-consistency. In short, the idea of "paranormal" or "supernatural" phenomena are inconceivable to me; there only *is* the normal and the natural, and all phenomena therein may be observed and accounted for as part of the holistic system that makes up our ontological locus. If something is inexplicable, the fault lies in our understanding of it, not in it's implicit nature as an object in defiance of physical and logical laws.

That said, I have a couple questions for the more open-minded in here, since I'd like to better understand how the other side sees these issues.

1.) How do you account for the egocentric bias that seems inherent to these ideas? By that I mean, we as humans are pattern-seeking creatures, our brains identify external phenomena and then rationalize, post hoc, what we've perceived, which inevitably leads us to parse our experiences through our first-person consciousness. Everything ends up being about us.

To clarify what I mean with this question, the concept of divining or foretelling the future, as in a Tarot reading, makes for a good example. You have objects -- cards -- molecules bound together in a specific way, painted or otherwise decorated with, yes, patterns that evoke a certain response in the culturally-conditioned brain, but from where does the epistemic link between that internal system and the external (and yes, in my opinion, deterministic) reality arise? Why does the universe acknowledge that the specific synthetic patterns on these cards has a fundamental relationship of some sort to the chain of temporal causality? Even if there was some such relationship, surely it would require a more precise science than the constantly-fluctuating artistic culture that surrounds the Tarot medium and its production.

So, that is my first question. Onto the next.

2.) On the nature of "spirits". My first contention arises from the apparent necessity in this view of assuming the existence of... let's call it "incorporeal personality". So, I would first like to ask which aspects of the human experience demand an explanation beyond "the electro-chemical mechanics of the brain producing the simulation of sensation and selfhood" in order to be consistent with our observed reality. Or in other words, where in the framework of "Emotions are a snapshot of hormone levels in an instance, decisions are made with only the retrospective illusion of free will, and identity is a real-time reassembly of memories under constant self-modification" is a soul required? Which parts of human life fail to be accounted for under that system?

To tie this into "ghosts", now, I suppose it comes back to the idea of our egocentric cognitive biases. The question that wracks me in this regard is, why in the inconceivable vastness of the cosmos should there exist a "plane" or "dimension" that caters specifically to the presumed essence of "living creatures", when the population of life within the universe is so vanishingly rare? It seems to me to presume an importance on our part (as a species, and as a subset of all living organisms) that is corroborated nowhere else in our experience of existence.

Now, is it impossible? Certainly not. Intricate and fascinating as the brain is, it is a profoundly limited mechanism. We have five primary senses; surely, there exists a near infinity of perceptions to which we have no access (and should be glad of our blindness to, I might add). However, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that any of those wavelengths, paradigms, what have you, would be in any way related to the human experience. I would expect them all to hold the same callous indifference to the existence of life that the rest of the observable universe displays.

To summarize, I do not discount that some of these sorts of phenomena occur (though, whether they're the product of the internal workings of the brain or have a basis in external reality is highly debatable), but I find the idea that any such occurrence should be A.) unable to be rationally analyzed and must summarily be dismissed as "outside the domain of science" or "supernatural" and B.) that there is any way the implication of intent, agency, awareness, or intelligence to these phenomena to be both symptomatic of the egomania of the subconscious at work, and as a rule, intellectually disappointing.

I would very much like to hear how these concerns come across to those who've had direct experiences of this nature, and who have presumably given more than to the matter than I have in my skepticism.

...I would say I didn't mean to write an essay, but that wouldn't be particularly honest. :P