Philosophical Speculations

n 1987, Blackmore wrote that she had an out-of-body experience shortly after she began running the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research (OUSPR):[8][9]

Within a few weeks I had not only learned a lot about the occult and the paranormal, but I had an experience that was to have a lasting effect on me—an out-of-body experience (OBE). It happened while I was wide awake, sitting talking to friends. It lasted about three hours and included everything from a typical "astral projection," complete with silver cord and duplicate body, to free-floating flying, and finally to a mystical experience. It was clear to me that the doctrine of astral projection, with its astral bodies floating about on astral planes, was intellectually unsatisfactory. But to dismiss the experience as "just imagination" would be impossible without being dishonest about how it had felt at the time. It had felt quite real. Everything looked clear and vivid, and I was able to think and speak quite clearly.

In a New Scientist article in 2000, she again wrote of this:

It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena—only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. I became a sceptic.[10][11]

Hedge90 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 4:30 pm She seems to be a good and honest scientist and a bad philospher (which she isn't, so really not something to hold against her). She is clearly an expert of the phenomena of consciousness, but she fails to address the fundamental questions (WHAT IS QUALIA?).

Hedge90 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 4:58 pm Except I said she (seems like) a bad philosopher And mostly because of the illusionist thing. That's the most absurd and illogical concept of consciousness I can imagine.

Frankish asks why the illusion of phenomenality is so powerful. I would ask the related, but different, question of why this deluded theorising is so tempting and so powerful. The answer, I suggest, is amusingly simple, if counter-intuitive. Ask yourself this question:

‘Am I conscious now?’

Hedge90 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 6:32 pm Well you can't be surprised that on a philosophy forum you will get comments on the philosophical views of a person. Nevertheless I'm interested in what she has to say, I just offered my initial impression.

ParadoxZone wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 7:12 pm Jim,

If you simply search "Susan Blackmore controversy", you will find references that might interest you. I'm not going to link any here.

Her "origin story" as a "skeptic" is at least interesting. She's been controversial for quite a while.

Not claiming that you should be interested, only that you might be.