Let us take two very very different fundamental departure points and extrapolate extreme cases from them, just as a sort of Socratic argument. The first is that systems at all levels are constrained by material law including those material laws not yet identified, but that that is the full scope of existence; in oter words, thought, aesthetics, spirituality, justice, ideals, openikons, beauty, sadness, and everything else that we categorizze as important to human nature are merely extensions of the same elements that make up any chemical or biochemical or electrochemical complex. All data, memory, intention and imagination are simply interqactions between layers of a ocmplex physical system. Seeing is only optical, plus a blackbox for those loevels of complexity (neural nets or something) that the brain seems to stiull guard from our full insight so far.

From this perspective, spiritual or psychic phenomena are laughable errors in analysis even if the phenomena might somehow occur -- precognition is just highly subtle deduction, remote viewing is merely intelligent extrapolation,l and telepathy is a coincidental parallel computation, not an exchnage of knowing. The rest can be explained as attributable to com-plexities we haven't penetrated yet, but not different in quality.

As an interesting exercise, construxt a set of explanations for the same set of "facts" based on the postulate that all existence is a variation oin Know, as a core abilkity; that know includes the ability to not-know, to know while ignoring, and that the common structyures of the universe are simply this same ability submitted to a fairly simple set of rules of agreementand rules of engagement, for the sake of, say, making a playing field. In this model, the boundaries that seem physical are simply instancesof compliance with the core postulatesneeded to maintain the apparency of a phsyical universe; for example, the belief that space iscontinguous and seamless, or the construct that requires particles to appear to "persist" in order to bring about the seeming unidirectional flow of time.

Either one of these core sets of postulates can readily explain all observed phenomena. We have a mainstream tendency or bias toward the former set, because ... well never mind why. But from an objective perspective the arguments for both cases become indeterminate when carried far enough. The all-is-matter school disappears in a postulated complexity that we just haven't figured out yet. The all-is-Knowing school tends yto get lost identifying ultimate provenance, and accounting for certain logical loops that occur within the material school of thought. Neither one can actually, point by point, answer all arguments or questions or arguments. In the final analysis, therefor, it kind of has to be lkeft to the individual viewer/thinker to appreciate the nature of the universe according to his preferred set. For either set, evidence that supports only the other is usually deemed iraational (meaning outside the premises and scope of argument). This gets pretty silly after a few times around the inside of the blender! :>)

Regards,

Amos