Materialism is Debunked

[u/Lugh_Intueri]

Lawrence Anthony, a conservationist, had a close freindship with a herd of elephant at his game reserve in Africa. He had rescued and rehabilitated them and over time, they developed a trust.

Lawrence Anthony died in 2012. Two days after the elephant herd led by the matriarch traveled 12 miles to his home. They stayed there for two days, mourning as they do their dead.

The elephants had no material way of knowing about Lawrence's passing. There were no phone call, no messages, and no visible signs for them.

After this, the elephants returned again exactly one year later.

https://www.cbc.ca/strombo/news/saying-goodbye-elephants-hold-apparent-vigil-to-mourn-their-human-friend.ht

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/mind-blowing-power-of-love-20100925-15rl7.html

[u/I_Am_Not_A_Number_2]

Okay. Tell me how you ruled out these options -

1. Coincidence. They just wandered over and it happened to be close to the day of his death.

2. The people recounting the story misremembered or told a lie. We often muddle up events close to a death and ascribe meaningful things to the death when there was no meaning.

3. The elephants smelled his death. They can detect water 12 miles away.

4. Elephants are very intelligent and observant, thy may have noticed changes in his behaviour due to his health declining.

5. Elephants are sensitive to their environment and may have picked up on human behaviour at the reserve - mourning ritual or altered routines.

6. Crying or changes in vocal tones, changes in gatherings picked up by vibrations in the ground could be linked to 5.

7. Elephants transmit information socially between groups; other elephants could have passed on the message that he had died.

8. If there was a routine that Anthony had with the elephants that nobody else knew about, they might have been keeping the routine.

9. If the elephants feeding schedule was chanhged, again, perhaps others didn't know about this, but the elephants would pick up on a change in feeding schedule.

10. (Just to round it up to 10) people perceive there to be a connection because we think we're the centre of the universe. But we're not.

Have you researched and found the most likely out of these possibilities? Are there any other possibilities that could be explained locally, by being there and observing? Why is a non-materialistic explanation more likely?

[u/Lugh_Intueri → u/I_Am_Not_A_Number_2]

1. Coincidence. They just wandered over and it happened to be close to the day of his death.

Not this. They return annually

1. The people recounting the story misremembered or tolda lie. We often muddle up events close to a death and ascribe meaningful things to the death when there was no meaning.

The event is photographed

1. The elephants smelled his death. They can detect water 12 miles away.

Doesn't explain returning annually

1. Elephants are very intelligent and observant, thy may have noticed changes in his behaviour due to his health declining.

Doesn't explain returning annually

1. Elephants are sensitive to their environment and may have picked up on human behaviour at the reserve - mourning ritual or altered routines.

Doesn't explain returning annually

1. Crying or changes in vocal tones, changes in gatherings picked up by vibrations in the ground could be linked to 5.

Doesn't explain returning annually

1. Elephants transmit information socially between groups; other elephants could have passed on the message that he had died.

Doesn't explain returning annually

1. If there was a routine that Anthony had with the elephants that nobody else knew about, they might have been keeping the routine.

Doesn't explain returning annually

I9. If the elephants feeding schedule was chanhged, again, perhaps others didn't know about this, but the elephants would pick up on a change in feeding schedule.

Doesn't explain returning annually

1. (Just to round it up to 10) people perceive there to be a connection because we think we're the centre of the universe. But we're not.

A quote by Lawrence Krauss

But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun - the plane of the earth around the sun - the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe. The new results are either telling us that all of science is wrong and we're the center of the universe, or maybe the data is (s)imply incorrect, or maybe it's telling us there's something weird about the microwave background results and that maybe, maybe there's something wrong with our theories on the larger scales.

[u/roseofjuly → u/Lugh_Intueri]

There's nothing in the article that says they return annually, but even if they did, that wouldn't mean this is spiritual. My dog wakes up and starts doing a dance every morning around 7:30 am, but that's because that's usually when she gets her walk and she has an internal clock.