Zoomposium with Walter von Lucadou: “At the borders between physics and psychology — hauntings, ghosts and other physically phenomena”
In this very exciting interview from the Zoomposium series “Physics and its Limits” with Walter von Lucadou, this time we go to the extreme limits of physics but also of psychology, as our guest can also be seen as a border crosser between the two fields. First of all, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia.
Information about the person and his scientific research work
“Von Lucadou studied physics and psychology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and at the Freie Universität Berlin. After completing his diploma in physics, he was awarded a Dr. rer. nat. at the University of Freiburg and a Dr. phil. at the Free University of Berlin. From 1977 to 1978, von Lucadou worked as a physicist at the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics in Freiburg. From 1985 to 1987 he was a guest lecturer at the Parapsychological Laboratory of the University of Utrecht.
Influenced by Hans Driesch’s book “Parapsychology — The Science of Occult Apparitions” and his teacher Hans Bender [3], he initiated a research project that was carried out from September 1979 to April 1985 at the Chair of Psychology and Frontier Areas of Psychology at the Institute of Psychology at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. In 1986, he completed his doctorate in psychology at the FU Berlin. In 1989, Lucadou founded the parapsychological advice center of the Scientific Society for the Advancement of Parapsychology in Freiburg, which he has headed ever since[4].
Fields of research
Walter von Lucadou conducts research in the field of parapsychology. He is one of the editors of various specialist journals and also acted as scientific advisor for the six-part ARD documentary “Dimension PSI”, which was broadcast in 2003. His main areas of research are systems theory and border areas of psychology.” (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_von_Lucadou, formatting and links added)
Admittedly, I was a little skeptical about the whole subject at first, as “hauntings, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena” had previously been more in the realm of esotericism for me. During the preparation for this interview and the associated research, however, it turned out that von Lucadou is anything but a “spiritual ghost hunter”, but on the contrary has both feet firmly in the scientific camp and tends to use empirical methods to rationally try to fathom the physically explainable phenomena.
I was therefore very excited about the interview with him and afterwards also very “enthusiastic” (bon mot ;-), as the conversation with him also brought to light a lot of new findings on topics such as “consciousness, embodiment, but also quantum physics”, which I had not expected at all. But before I keep you in suspense, here are the interview questions from Axel Stöcker (die-grossen-fragen.com) and myself to give you a rough idea.
Interview questions for Dr. Dr. Walter von Lucadou: “At the boundaries between physics and psychology”
1) Have you ever been called an “esoteric”, “spiritualist” or something of this kind and, if so, what is your response?
2) How would you define the term “parapsychology”?
3) What progress have you seen in parapsychology in recent decades and how do you think the acceptance of parapsychology has developed in society on the one hand and in the scientific world on the other?
To explain paranormal phenomena, you often fall back on the concept of “entanglement”, a term that is also used in quantum theory. As far as we understand, the term as you use it goes back to C. G. Jung’s “synchronicity” and describes a non-causal relationship between events.
4) Could you explain this complex term in more detail?
5) In your opinion, is the quantum-physical phenomenon of entanglement related to psychological processes in the macroscopic realm and, if so, how?
6) Hartmann Römer assumes a “generalized quantum theory” in this context. Do you already have empirical findings for this theory for the entanglement relationships in cases of “macroscopic undecidability”?
You have been running the Parapsychological Counseling Center in Freiburg for 30 years. One of the best-known phenomena that you deal with there are those that are commonly referred to as “hauntings”. However, instead of hauntings, you prefer to talk about an “embodiment disorder” of the person concerned.
7) Could you explain this term, perhaps using the example of a particularly spectacular “haunting” case?
You also report cases of “hauntings” where things spontaneously start to burn or where stones fly through the air.
8) In your opinion, where does the energy required for such phenomena come from (keyword: “conservation of energy”)?
Another well-known paranormal phenomenon is the so-called “near-death experience (NDE)”, the existence of which is now well documented (e.g. by Pim van Lommel, 2007).
9) How do you assess the state of research on this phenomenon?
10) In your opinion, is there an explanation for NDEs within the framework of evolutionary theory, which would imply that NDEs are associated with a selection advantage?
11) Do you see any alternative explanations?
One problem with phenomena such as “spooks” or NDEs is that they cannot normally be reproduced under laboratory conditions (“displacement effect”).
12) Doesn’t that make such phenomena “unscientific” by definition? Or would you say that the world view of the empirical natural sciences is incomplete in the sense that they cannot fully grasp such phenomena with their instruments?
More at: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2024/03/12/grenzen_physik_psychologie/
