Precognition Causality Quantum Theory and Mysticism

Just because I bought you a coffee doesn't mean you cannot justifiably berate me for not looking stuff up properly. Berate away. I have looked at both papers now. It seems that Rose considers the experiment to give a wholly negative result for Sheldrake's hypothesis whilst Sheldrake himself claims the exact opposite. Sheldrake on the chick experimentRose on the chick experimentHowever despite this LindaLou and no doubt other advocates of Sheldrake's paranormal work seem convinced of the rigor and validity of Sheldrake's interpretation. Sheldrakes paper certainly looks nicer.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I've had deterministic tendencies for as long as I can remember, and QM was the only thing that seemed to dispute the idea, while still not really allowing free will. If what you say is true, I can be deterministic again! Without blowing so far over my head as to threaten the jets flying above me, can you further explain how this is so?

The probabilities in the future are completely determined by the probabilities in the past. So if I know the probabilities now, I can tell what they are in the future.
What cavediver is probably getting at is the fact that the probabilities only mean something in relation to classical measurement. So if there was no classical things around to interact with, quantum particles would just evolve in a completely deterministic way.

Precisely Strange how I used to hate all that quantum stuff, interfering with my wonderfully classical GR. And now it's the classical stuff that's the fly in the ointment...

So, if we were to somehow completely divorce our minds from classical thinking and somehow think quantumly, we could figure out which radioactive particle would decay? If not, then it still seems probabilistic, and while the probabilities are deterministic, the actual specific events are not.

I have been investigating Sheldrake and his "morphic field" theory in more detail. It really is a prime example of the sort of thing this thread was intended to cover.Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that the world is indeed filled with telepathic dogs and parrots as you claim. Let us then consider how Sheldrake explains these phenomenon and in particular the terminology and scientific concepts that he uses to do this. All quotes taken from here Theosophy Article unless stated otherwise. So we have a materially undetectable field. A "field of information". This in itself is quite telling. However elsewhere he also defines fields thus: Hmmm. That is rather all-encompassing. By that definition my desk is full of "fields". The "strawberry smell field". The "fan air flow field". The "Straggler shout across the room field". In fact armed with a phone and an internet connection we have the much wider "Straggler telecoms field". But having pointed that out let us continue with Sheldrake's definition. So now we have the terms "matter" and "energy" as well as "fields". In fact we have the statement "matter is energy bound within fields". But how can our fields have physical energy if our fields are immaterial and physically undetectable? The answer lies in Sheldrake’s definition of "energy". So the energy associated with our materially undetectable "field" of information is a form of energy "but not in any "normal" (physical) sense of the term". In fact it is "a subtler form of energy-substance, too ethereal to be detectable by scientific instruments". Oh dear. This is starting to unravel.So we have a materially undetectable "field" associated with a form of non-physical ethereal "energy" that is not "detectable by scientific instruments". And yet these undetectable (supernatural by any other name) phenomenon are able to interact with, and indeed have a profound effect upon, the material world around us. How could this possibly be? So how does Sheldrake ultimately attempt to bind his supernatural notions of the ethereal and immaterial with empirical science? How does he overcome the age old problem of explaining how the immaterial can interact with the material (the mind-body problem by any other name)? How does he seek to justify his outrageous and conflationary abuse of terminology? By combining the scientific and the non-empirical versions of the terminology he is using into one illegitimate and unhappy whole. By invoking notions of cosmological quantum mysticism. Obviously and inevitably.I particularly love the euphemistic (or should that be euphemystic) use of the word "subtle" to avoid the blatantly self contradictory idea of immaterial matter. Hilarious: "a subtler form of energy-substance" "a medium of subtle matter".This is pseudoscience and quantum quackery of the very highest order. The introduction of the supernatural using terminology that window dresses the concepts in highly scientific yet subtly redefined language. Terms used in contexts to intentionally conflate the mystical and non-empirical with the scientific and empirical. Terms that will give scientific credence to the supernatural in the eyes of the layman. A completely unjustifiable conflation between science and the supernatural that is ultimately rooted in bogus notions of quantum mysticism and allusions to cosmology. The demise of "materialism"? Or misinformation, wishful thinking and pseudoscience?And if anyone is interested in what Bell's theorem actually says including the (mis)conception of "instantaneous communication" I recommend that they review the following message Message 83 and those up and down thread from this. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hi Straggler,You can make of this what you like. Notice that I didn't say in either of my posts here that I supported or believed in morphic fields. I specifically said that I don't have enough information and that he may be right or he may be wrong. IMO he is attempting to explain the data, which appears to be real enough; and few explanations of phenomena such as telepathy exist because most of science doesn't take the subject seriously in the first place. You might try looking at the experiments with Jaytee and Nkisi with a mind open to the possibility that they may not be hogwash; as I explained earlier, various interpretations of the data don't affect the validity of the data itself. I won't be drawn into a debate about morphic fields here and I've explained my reasons why.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Are you sure this would work?If we were on our space ship at the other end of the worm hole in the earth future time of April 25th 2010 where would we get the newspaper from?

The point LindaLou is that even if there is a phenomenon that needs explaining with regard to telepathic dogs, parrots or even humans Sheldrake's answer is in principle no different to "somethingsupernaturaldidit". Even if we accept telepthy as a real phenomenon his answer is truly shameful as a scientific explanation. It is indisputably the very definition of pseudoscience.It is dressed up. It is smarter and more convincing to anyone who does not know what they are talking about. But ultimately his answer to the phenomenon he is trying to explain is no more or less refutable than saying that immaterial goblins are whispering unhearable information into the psychic "ears" of his test subjects.Do you understand that? Can you seperate the phenomenon in question from the proposed supernatural answer to it? It is this seperation of the phenomenon itself (i.e. that which needs to be explained) and the explanation (i.e. the supernatural explanation for the phenomenon in question) that has been the huge stumbling block in communicating with you (and RAZD) in previous threads. It is this seperation that you seem truly incapable of making. Fine. Don't feel you have to reply to every post. Sheldrake turned out to be a prime example of exactly what I was getting at in this thread.I know you essentially think I am an overly confrontational closed minded stick-in-the-mud bigot. And that is fine. But all I ask is that when you do get round to reading his book that you don't get sucked in by the terminology. That you apply your critical thinking skills. That you don't assume that acceptance of the phenomenon in question (telepathy in this case) necessarily supplies any more proof for his ethereal and immaterial proposed explanation than it does for any other possible but irrefutable explanation for for the same phenomenon.

If we designed the experiment so that the future exit of the wormhole wasn't in a position to make an empirical observation that can be confirmed in the past which could not easily have been predicted in the past, then we're in trouble. Are you suggesting that this has to be the case?Why can't both ends of the wormhole be on earth in a lab next door to a newsagents with a contract with said newsagents to always deliver daily newspapers on time.

But you would need one exit to be accelerated to relativistic speeds to get a dilatory effect. If you could catch it there would be no relative difference in your frame of reference.I thought you were meaning a wormhole accelerating through space to generate the dilation but I could have got the wrong end of the stick.

Let's continue to assume that telepathy is real. Let us, for the sake of argument, unquestioningly assume here that there is indeed an evidenced phenomenon that requires explanation.Does Sheldrake's "morphic field" hypothesis provide a scientific explanation for this phenomenon? Or not? The explanation he provides invokes the immaterial, ethereal and empirically undetectable. In short the inherently "unknowable". The supernatural. Given this there can be no further enquiry. We cannot investigate this answer any further. We can achieve no further explanation or understanding regarding this un-investigatable phenomenon. We have met a conceptual dead end. In effect we must just accept that ambiguous and unknowable "morphic fields" exist and that they provide all the explanation we will ever need. We must have "faith".All we can do is keep testing parrots, dogs and whatever else for telepathy and other paranormal behaviour whilst patting ourselves on the back for "explaining" these fascinating phenomenon in terms of undetectable "fields". Essentially explaining these phenomenon in terms of spirituality. Spiritual explanations are highly appealing. To many people finding a phenomenon that seems to require a spiritual, rather than a material explanation, validates a whole set of deeply held and subjectively important beliefs. For that reason alone a spiritual answer is, to many, a reason to cease any further investigation and embrace the unknowable at face value. But does this have any bearing on what is true? Surely human history suggests not? Surely human history suggests the very opposite? Surely human history suggests that where the supernatural is laid to one side and the methods of science allowed to operate unhindered better and more meaningful answers generally follow.In my view people like Sheldrake do a massive disservice both to science and to any notion of genuine spirituality. If there is more to reality than empirical investgation can uncover then falsely conflating the spiritual (or "divine" as LindaLou generally and quaintly calls it) with physical "fields", "forces", "energy" and ill conceived quantum bullshit cheapens any notion of genuine "higher purpose" that might actually exist.On the flip side using the terminology of science to con and deceive those with little or no scientific knowledge into believing that the unknowable, non-empirical and supernatural have been somehow validated as true is intellectually dishonest in the extreme. It is also incredibly dishonest to side-step all of the age old philosophical problems (such as the mind-body problem, something which Sheldrakes collective memory in biological systems assertions obviously falls foul of) simply by yelling "quantum" whenever such problems arise. The fact that these charlatans are making millions of dollars in the process by telling people what they crave to hear in language that implies expertise and knowledge where there is instead misinformation and ignorance only adds salt and indignity to the already gaping woundIf people want to believe in a higher purpose then I wish them well. But if anyone is seeking that higher purpose in quantum mysticism, particularly if they are seeking justification for that higher purpose from quantum quackheads like Sheldrake, then they are fooling themselves and are destined to delusion or disappointment.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

There are a number of ways to do it (in principle) - one could make it a round a trip or one could use the gravity well of a blackhole to assist things along. Wiki's brief description.

Thanks for the link, interesting stuff

Firstly I just wanted you to know that just because I do not always respond to your more technical posts does not mean that I am not taking note of them. Quite the opposite is true. Your explanations are usually thorough enough that there is not always a direct question that I feel I need to ask. Whilst at the same time they are thought provoking enough that I feel the need to go off and look stuff up before trying to get my head round these concepts any further. Message 55 is a case in point. Having done a bit of internet exploration on this subject in the last few days I am increasingly amazed at just how many of the current ideas of new age mysticism at root claim some sort of link to, or basis in, QM.