The Case for the Afterlife: Evidence of Life After Death.

Abstract

With The Case for the Afterlife, Chris Carter brings a lucid, succinct, and eminently readable contribution for the newcomer, both in presenting evidence in support of the book's title and in dealing with a number of the logical fallacies often engaged in by sceptics.While a majority of the sources have been cited many times in related works, Carter, as ever, brings his own perspective and engages with sceptical arguments at every turn.With this said, those more familiar with the subjects covered won't learn much new, and its triteness can be, at times, to its detriment.Fundamentally, Carter's idea is to suggest that survival, in the context of alternative explanations, can be proven beyond reasonable doubt and to address attempts to disingenuously raise doubt.Does it constitute, however, a case for the afterlife?That, in my estimation, is slightly less clear, and readers' mileage may vary. Part I: the toolkItAmidst some historical and relevant snapshots of the philosophy of science, Carter begins by arming the reader with knowledge regarding the kinds of basic and repetitive logical fallacies so commonly committed by sceptics, or more accurately, in many cases, militant debunkers in the area of and adjacent to survival, beginning with dualism.It has often been surprising to me, for example, how rarely monists have tackled the fact that their evidence for that position is not exclusive evidence, and that a number of anomalous phenomena are at least, if not better, accommodated by models dealing with a non-local consciousness."No evidence is exclusive", will come the more crafty retort, and yet, the initial position was often that no other interpretation of the data was possible.With some interesting citations, Carter exposes many of the talking points and philosophical biases regarding opposition to dualism as unconvincing, such as the so-called interaction problem or the idea that dualism conflicts with energy conservation in physics.Furthermore, the typical poisoning of the well fallacies that often occur regarding accusations that dualists are trying to