Somebody who had spent her whole life in a tropical climate with no contact with the rest of the world would regard the notion that water could turn solid as being contrary to everything she had ever discovered about water. Water simply doesn't, and couldn't, do that sort of thing.
Our science is only applicable to a given domain. With the very fast, or the very small, different laws are required. And I suggest our contemporary physics only applies to non-conscious reality. We need new laws to understand consciousness and how it relates to (fits in with) the rest of reality. Once we have those new laws, once we know how consciousness fits in with the rest of physical reality, then we can say whether psi is to be expected, or a "life after death" etc. But, until that moment, we're simply not in a position to declare psi or an afterlife are extraordinary claims.
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Taking your analogy, let's say the island dweller is a very smart person. He creates fire, puts water above it and says "why does it change into this mist?" and then theorizes that when water is made very cold, something else will happen. The reasoning would be "when water is very hot, I can barely touch it, when it is cold I can touch it easily, maybe if it's very cold, I can grab it." I think humanity is in this state, even if we don't have definite proof, we do have logical theories based on observations. Even if we don't do everything, we can think about everything we want.
ReplyDeleteTo grab it, the water would need to turn solid. There's no reason why he would think such a thing would happen.
DeleteOf course we can have theories based on observations. But those theories will be constrained by what the scientist believes could be possible. One's metaphysical presuppositions eg the belief in materialism, will curtail the theories proposed.