At what point should we look for a non-materialistic explanation?

Greetings Modulous, (btw, I dig bands from Manchester and enjoy that show ShamelessWell you cant run without legs, But you can in dreams.I believe it is both. Like almost everything in nature a combination of properties. Positive & Negative, Male & Female, Matter & anti-matter, Deterministic & non Deterministic, Physical & non-physical.As far as the Universe being deterministic goes I believe it is. To a point. http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/wjf/BD.Stochastic.chaos.name.pdf
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/chao-dyn/pdf/9306/9306005v1.pdf
http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/...vejoy/neweprint/stochall.pdf
I believe we should not abandon the notion of non-physical until we have a deeper understanding.

Greetings Lyx2NO! The why of it is that Dr. Randi stated he would pay a million dollars to the author if he could provide evidence of this though a double blind independant study. They declined, and then came up with there own study. A better question I think is why would something subjective as asthetics or beauty of the crystals be used as a basis for determinining positive thoughts verses negative. This is in itself bias and anthropomophizing to happy & good thoughts= pretty crystals compared to; mean & mad thought = ugly crystals.

Hi Straggler, I have never had anyone tell me that before.
I am not sure how to respond.
I guess I should re-examine my life and figure out where I went wrong.

Magic is unexplained phenomenon that confounds until the trick is learned. Magic is entertainment.Intuition, Dreams, conciousness,language, ideas are examples of how the non physical can influence and direct our decisions.I mentioned that the forces of nature are non physical and was told that they are considered physical. Even though they are not composed of matter or have mass. I am not sure what is being asked. Is your point that there is nothing in the universe that can be called non physical? Therefore the notion should be dispensed with ouright?I believe there is more to the universe than the sum of its parts.
Just as I believe there is more to a human being than the sum of its parts. I know, I know, click copy quote and destroy. Why would anyone think such things. Call me a romantic. Edited by 1.61803, : added language.

Greetings Modulus,
I am not involved in neuro research. I do happen to work in the research field for pharmaceutical companies as well as respiratory medicine. I have seen over the course of several years the research and FDA approval and marketing of monoclonal medications for respiratory disease. If someone told me fifteen years ago such a thing was possible I would have scoffed. We are now treating asthma on a level far up the immunological inflammatory cascade before the damages of cytokines take place.I say this because all research fields ar always in flux.You may yourself be doing research. Some say what a difference a day makes is an understatement. Serendipity and luck sometimes really means the difference in breakthroughs. Some say the immune system may be the first consciousness of an organism. Now that sounds far out and ridiculous. It may be rubbish. Or maybe ten years from now someone may link the immune system with consciousness. Today the academics are even talking about how the fluctuations of adrenergics in autonomic nervous system could be responsible for a whole host of disease previously thought to be isolated as individual disorders.I do agree with you though in that I do not see how science could ever glean knowledge from the unknowable. Edited by 1.61803, : spelling,grammer

Goodmorning Lyx2NO, If we equivocate "non-materialistic" as super natural then I would say I agree with you. However, in my opinion there is NOTHING that exist in nature that is supernatural. The fact that it exist means it is natural in my opinion. And if this is so then it seems reasonable to conclude that if something exist that is non-material then it is natural too.Humans have yet to discover the origin of the fundamental forces, from whence energy came into being, or how recreate life from non life. Why there is stuff,(Higgs).There may be nonmaterlistic explanations yet to be discovered. Hogwash you say? Fine you may be right, I may be crazy, Oh but it just may be a lunatic your looking for!!!! Why not go the whole enchilada?

Sorry to poof out on you, but I agree with this. It only took about a week. But I finally see your point. Well played sir.