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Author | Topic: Are thoughts transcendant? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Like what?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: The thing about reiki and acupuncture is that the traditional practitioners don't talk about synapses or electricity, but of "chi", described as a universal "life force" that they say they can "balance" and that having this chi out of balance is the source of illness. There is no evidence that "chi" exists, and there is virtually no evidence that reiki or accupuncture is effective against any disease. Second, we atually do know, in very, very great detail, how electricity works in the human body, including the CNS. In fact, Hodgkin and Huxley won the 1963 Nobel Prize for their work on the basis of action potentials in nerves. Some great reading on electrophysiology can be had here, and also any of the external links provided at the bottom of the page are excellent.
quote: Actually, I would say that it would not be terribly difficult to design a social psychology study that would measure such a thing, i.e. people who are pessimists tend to perceive things as negative, thus would tend to notice and classify things as negative, and also repel positive people, and vice versa. In fact, I am willing to bet that such studies exist right now. However, this would not in any way suggest that thoughts are trancendent, just that our perceptions inform our overall worldview, which in turn affects every other aspect of our lives; social, political, emotional, even our health.
quote: Well, no, there really isn't, as far as we have been able to tell. The fallacy that you are falling prey to here is a type of selective thinking called confimation bias. It does seem incredible when such coincidences like the ones you mention occur. Most people have not kept track of how many times they thought about a person and that person didn't call. Most people don't keep track of how many dreamed premonitions or "visions" they have had of their friends or loved ones when nothing at all was amiss. We only notice the "hits" and almost always ignore the "misses".
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: The mind is a product of the brain. If you change the function of the brain, what the brain produces (the mind), also changes. Just ask Phineas Gage. No reason to think anything else is going on.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: It is accurate to say that there is still much left for science to learn about the brain. It is quite inaccurate, however, to say that science knows very little about the brain. We actually know a great deal about the brain.
quote: That's just an argument from ignorance, really. Just because science doesn't know everything about our Biophysiology doesn't mean that philosopy or religion have anything valid to contribute to our understanding of it. I mean, there is a great deal of mystery surrounding the extreme deep parts of the oceans, but nobody would take seriously philosophical or religious explanations for what we might find there.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: What leads you to believe we have little or no understanding of "paranormal phenomena"? Quite literally, every single time such phenomena have been tested properly, something perfectly mundane has been going on.
quote: Please, start a new thread. I will be there with bells on.
quote: Randi is a magician, and his motives stem from his outrage at flim-flam artists, frauds, and charlatans who are simply using illusions but pass them off as "real" paranormal abilities. Sometimes these people are self-deluded, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still making money off of the gullible. There are very real negative consequences to accepting paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without some seriously rigorous investigation.
quote: The thing is, he doesn't just handwave away or dismiss anything. He has offered $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal ability under basic, standard scientific protocols and methodology that any scientist would use. The protocol is agreed upon, in writing, by all parties before the testing commences. So far, no takers, though many have tried.
quote: So far, there is no evidence that a baby even exists.
quote: That's not actually true. Quackwatch criticizes quackery and pseudoscience. How is it the website's fault that there aren't nearly the levels of fraud, magical thinking and pseudoscience in science-based medicine compared to so-called "alternative" methods? Indeed, if you actually read the site, you can find quite severe criticisms of the "allopathic" pharmeceutical industry in the section called Pharmawatch.
quote: Nobody denies that there are quacks practicing science-based medicine. The thing is, there are a lot of systems and standards in place to hold such people up to critical review and expose them. There are really no such systems and standards for "alternative" practitioners. No required record keeping or reporting of problems or incidents, no testing their methods for efficacy and safety before being allowed to prescribe them, etc.
quote: Well of course there are things that science can't currently explain. However, I think that some of the things you think it cannot explain actually have been, and you just don't know about it. However, just because we don't understand something doesn't mean that it has a paranormal or supernatural explanation. I mean, people used to believe that the sun was pulled across the sky by Apollo in his firey chariot, but now we know better. Science does have boundries. Science cannot make moral or aesthetic judgements, for example. It cannot tell you if something is right or wrong, it cannot tell you "that flower is pretty". If you were truly an agnostic, you wouldn't simply fill in paranormal, pseudoscientific, or supernatural explanations for phenomena you don't think science fully understands. You would simply notice the lack of evidence and accept that we don't know.
quote: Again, just because we don't know something doesn't mean that the spiritual or paranormal exist. It just means that we don't know something. There's no intellectual need to fill in the gap in our knowledge with anything. For many, there is an emotional need, however.
quote: Bullshit. Look, paranormal stuff has been studied scientifically for a really, really long time, and just like the concepts of ether and phlogiston in physics, Alchemy, Lamarkism, the canals on Mars, free energy machines, and cold fusion, it has been found to be lacking in scientific merit and therefore rejected due to being an unfruitful line of inquiry. The reputations of scientists are bound up in the quality of their science. In fact, any researcher who produced reliable, high-quality evidence of some paranormal phenomena that was able to be replicated by other labs would instantly be catapulted into academic superstardum.
quote: Great! Learn to be a critical thinker. Learn to say "show me" before you believe. Read some psychology to learn about how easily we humans can be fooled and, more importantly, fool ourselves. That is when you will start to be able to get to the how and why. I suggest you read this essay by famous former para-psychologist Dr. Susan Blackmore about her reasons for giving up that line of inquiry. Another by Paul Kurtz, found also on her website, is excellent.
quote: If there is evidence of "other possibilities" then bring them forth. If there isn't evidence, then it's really just unsupported speculation and wishful thinking, isn't it? Also, why do you seem to consider it so mundane and boring that "mere" chemical processes can produce "thought"? Personally, I think that the purely physical functioning of the brain in procing the mind is amazing, incredible, and awe-inspiring. Why does this need exist in so many people to ascribe magical properties to something that is, in observable fact, quite fantastic already? Edited by nator, : No reason given. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: OK, so what's your point? You said that science knows very little about the brain, I countered that while we still have much to learn, we actually do know a great deal about the brain. I don't see how the above addresses my rebuttal.
quote: Well, no, that's exactly what you were doing.
quote: Excellent.
quote: So? How is that evidence of chi? Couldn't it simply be something having to do with your circulation? AbE: I just returned from my run this morning, and I paid special attention to my hands as I finished. They tingled slightly for about a minute or two immediately after I broke into a walk. I have also felt them "pulse" in the past. I always interpreted those feelings as having to do with blood circulation. Isn't that a much more plausible reason for tingling compared to a mystical energy force?
quote: And the evidence for this is...?
quote: Yep. Which is more likely; that an undetectable, yet powerful and manimulatable energy force permeates all living things in the universe, or that people are simply taught that it exists, believe that it does without much or any questioning, and interpret mundane events through the filter of that belief? Let's see, we have lots of evidence that the latter happens, and no evidence at all that the former exists...
quote: If chi is a real force that produces real effects, then we should have been able to detect by scientific means it a long time ago.
Here's a good skeptical look at chi.
quote: Jung had an interesting philosopy but none of his work is empirical in nature. In other words, he pulled it out of his backside. Edited by nator, : No reason given. Edited by nator, : No reason given. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
LindaLou, I hope you don't let Molbiogirl's love for sarcasm and herrather condescending tone put you off too much.
You've been really decent since your arrival and I don't think you deserve that.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: LOL! Yes! I could use half a million dollars.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Again, I provide one of my favorite Feynman quotes:
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars” mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere'. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
An obvious problem with your test is that you are intimately aware of just about everything that has happened to your own child. It isn't a surprise that you would be able to be so specific, since the high points in a 9 year old's life are likely to be connected to his family, and his father is likely to know about them.
Another obvious flaw in your test was that you didn't write down your "reading" before asking him to tell you what he was thinking about. He could have changed his thought to conform to what you said yours was because he wanted his dad to be a real mind reader, or to please you. Have you ever tested your ability on total strangers, where careful protocols are followed, like not speaking with the person at all beforehand and you both writing down your "results" before revealing them?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Or deluded. That's the most likely explanation. Also a chicken-shit, though, for refusing to be tested.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Anything is possible. The thing that science helps us do, and that anecdote fails miserably at, is determining how probable something is. What you are suggesting is that magic really does exist, but nobody can actually detect it. There is no difference between magic we can't detect and no magic at all, so why believe in magic?
quote: You don't think there's any harm in self-delusion?No harm in believing a falsehood? That very same sort of uncritical acceptance of fantastic claims is, truly, what makes people fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers. The problem with your attitude is that it is intellectually lazy. It betrays an lack of curiosity in wanting to find out what is really going on and instead settles for what feels good or what we wish were true. And just how do we determine if someone really does have telepathic powers and isn't self-deluded? What sort of protocols should we follow to prevent cheating or bias?
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, when Creationists use "other ways" of determining natural history, or Biological processes other than "empirical physical evidence which is quantifiable, and studies in prestigious journals", are they just being "open minded"? Are all of us mean, ol' science-minded folks just ignoring all of these other paths to "the truth" about the natural world that Creationists are showing us? You are using the identical argument as the Creationists do, LindaLou.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: What is the practical difference between undetectable magic and no magic at all? How do we tell the difference between coincidence and real paranormal ability?
quote: "Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?" Richard Feynman
quote: No. But it will often make you wrong.
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nator Member (Idle past 2199 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Hey, Petro, any thoughts on my critique and questions found in message #55?
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