New Thinking Allowed

When I record video conversations with members of the P.A. for the New Thinking Allowed channel on YouTube, I also post here. Many other interviews, relevant to parapsychology, with non-members can be viewed at www.newthinkingallowed.com

Monday, January 30, 2017   3:25 PM

The Philosophy of Physicalism, an Interview with Paul H. Smith

Paul H. Smith, PhD, serves as president of the International Remote Viewing Association an organization of which he is a founder. A former Army intelligence officer, he served for seven years as part of the military’s top-secret remote viewing program. He is author of Reading the Enemy’s Mind and The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing. He currently serves as president and chief trainer for Remote Viewing Instructional Services.

Here he notes that physicalism is the current term for what was once known as materialism. It has somewhat broader implications, so that it includes phenomena that have originated in the physical world. It is a metaphysical philosophy and can be thought of as the dominant paradigm within the scientific and academic communities. Smith raises the question of whether physicalism will be able to accommodate all of the empirical observations that have been reported in the parapsychological literature over the past 150 years. Until an explanation has been offered for these phenomena, they are likely to remain on the fringes of mainstream thought.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980).

(Recorded June 15, 2016) 

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