Despite my current confidence that minds are brains, I could be convinced otherwise by evidence that
is best explained by the supposition that minds are nonmaterial substances. By far the most powerful
kind of evidence would be observations showing that minds survive the loss of their bodies.
Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and proponents of most other religions firmly believe that our
mortal lives are only a small part of our existence. What would show that they are right?
Communication from the dead would certainly be compelling evidence that people survive the
destruction of their bodies. My parents are long departed, but if I were able to have conversations
with them that showed they were familiar with my activities since they died, I would have to consider
the hypothesis that their souls had survived their deaths. Of course, I would also need to rule out
alternative hypotheses, such as that the apparent conversations were fraudulently contrived, or that I
had succumbed to a mental illness that made me prone to hallucinations. But if communication with
the dead were a common part of many people's lives without the occurrence of fraud or psychosis, it
would be convincing evidence supporting dualism over the mind-brain identity theory. In the
nineteenth century, it was common for people to attend séances in which communication with the dead
was arranged by mediums, and there are psychics today, such as Sylvia Browne who appears on
television and tells people how their departed loved ones are doing. Many mediums and psychics
have been exposed as frauds, however, so the mind-brain identity theory can explain sporadic reports
of communication with the dead as resulting from a combination of fraud and wishful thinking.