Palmer, John. “PSI in the Context of Ultimate Reality: A Critical Appreciation of Papers by Griffin and Murphy.” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 87, no.4 (October 1993): 309-27.

Abstract

This response, while generally applauding Griffin’s paper, criticizes certain points with a constructive intent. The author agrees that action at a distance distinguishes psi from the “modem worldview,” provided it is clearly restricted to mental action at a distance. He also agrees that psi does not contradict conventional scientific laws, but he finds the attempt to rescue Broad’s Basic Limiting Principles by restricting them to strong and regular effects to be ill-advised. No ontology, including panexperientialism, should claim to provide explanations of nature in the sense demanded by theories; their value, instead, is heuristic. The author argues that panexperientialism is really a form of idealistic monism. He notes similarities between the former and Sperry’s emergent causation model, which he suggests leaves an opening for psi by allowing novel organizations of physical processes. He finds Whitehead’s definition of consciousness too restrictive. The author questions whether Whitehead would really predict that PK functions by “persuading” physical objects to move. May’s Intuitive Data Sorting model suggests that true precognition is an empirical fact, contrary to Whitehead. Postulating survival of the psyche places Griffin in the position of accepting either literal ghosts or Cartesian minds.