Out-of-Body Epistemology

Abstract

One of the most boring questions to be asked in the context of out-of-body-experiences (OBE) and lucid dreams (LD) is: "Are these experiences real?"This question is boring, because it is undecidable and therefore meaningless from a scientific point of view. The properties this question asks for, i.e. `reality' or, one level deeper: `objectivity', are not accessible to intersubjective verification: There is no experiment and no testing method by which we could find out if something is `real'. `Real' is a metaphysical predicate. It does not appear in scientific sentences.