Sure, that is possible. If Jonah is not too attached to his belief system then presumably he won’t be particularly distressed if I treat that belief system disrespectfully. I cannot do anything other than treat it disrespectfully, because I am actively trying to consign it to history.
Finally, why is this so central to the 2R?
I answered why in that long opening post: The Hard Problem of Consciousness and 2R - General - Second Renaissance Forum, but I will summarise again now.
The conclusion of that post is that materialism and physicalism are incoherent – that they do not make sense internally unless you deny the existence of consciousness, which is absurd (although some materialists do actually do so because they feel compelled by logic – the logic says either materialism or consciousness has to go, and they choose consciousness).
Now, if it was merely incoherent then that wouldn’t matter much, but in fact an enormous amount rests on it. Materialism necessarily implies naturalism – there are no supernaturalist (or praeternaturalist) materialists, because materialism lacks the conceptual space to account for anything other than a material world that follows laws that are either fully deterministic or deterministic with objective randomness (though in Jonah’s case it is completely deterministic because he subscribes to the MWI).
Not only does this rule out the praeternatural, it also rules out all higher forms of spirituality and all meaning. It condemns people to a sort of nihilism – although some materialists deny this. In this very thread Jonah has said (for example) that science can show us how I know I know about the praeternatural – by which he means science can show us how I’ve deluded myself into thinking I know such things. In his world, he’s arrived at this conclusion via empirical evidence and rational thinking. In fact he’s arrived there by basing his entire worldview on an incoherent metaphysical belief. The moment you arrive at an understanding of why materialism cannot possibly be true then the impossibility of the existence of the praetenatural is (or at least should be, or can be) replaced with an open-ness or agnosticism towards such things. This change in belief is in turn absolutely critical for the spiritual development of individual humans – it allows Reality to start working on them – it offers them opportunities to grow which weren’t previously possible. (This is exactly how Jung described synchronicity).
Our belief systems regulate the praeternatural. We are sovereign over our own reality tunnels. That is why skeptics don’t experience praeternatural phenomena, and why the praeternatural phenomena people do experience are “tailored” to their own belief systems.
What has this got to do with 2R? It opens the door to two parallel revolutions – a scientific one and a spiritual one. I believe this is the key to one half of the ideological shift necessary for 2R. The other half is the acceptance that structural realism is true. Praeternatural phenomena are real, but they are part of this world. They are what gives it meaning, starting with free will. One of the strangest places on the internet is this subreddit: All discussions about the topic of free will. As a society we are deeply confused about this. From a subjective perspective it is completely obvious that we have free will, and we treat other people as if they do have free will (nobody gets away with “the laws of physics did it, it’s not my fault”). And yet it is beyond most people’s imagination to figure out how free will can be possible, so they assume it must be some sort of illusion. Even Nagel admits to being deeply conflicted about it – he has written that he changes his mind every time he thinks about it.
Understanding what is wrong with materialism – not just that it is false but exactly how it is false – is key to clearing up all of this confusion. Or at least some of it.