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 Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 12:03 pm
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I've promised to explain what I mean by "Connecting." As I've been promising this for a number of months and I finally have some time off, I think I'll actually do it!
I propose that there is a patterning force to the universe. By whatever mechanism, the Earth was formed in such a way as to permit life. By whatever mechanism, life itself emerged and continues to this day. Over billions of years, lifeforms have become more complicated with ever more intricate patterns, rising from simple yet miraculous self-replicating amoebae to the interwoven systems of trees and animals in an elaborate ecosystem. From this patterning arises our remarkable human minds which are themselves engines of pattern, generating ordered complexity with such elegant speed that we can now communicate almost instantly across the globe. That communication in turn empowers the patterning force, and thus order grows exponentially.
In every blade of grass, in every phone and book lies a pattern that makes that object something we can recognize. That I can distinguish my feet from the floor upon which they stand means there is some difference in the patterns of floor and foot. Yet from a wider perspective, both objects are part of the same pattern, the same system of my standing in a room. The pattern that makes up my feet is interwoven into that larger system just as the patterns of my cells sew into the pattern of my body.
Our very ability to experience is based on patterns. What the eye perceives makes sense only because there is an order to what is seen. The system of seer-and-seen can itself be viewed as a whole, and that we can name it suggests that it too has an underlying pattern.
Therefore, the patterning force interweaves us with everything we experience. Everything is connected.
Now, it's worth noting that we can feel only collision. When you lift a book, what you feel is the book fighting your act of lifting. When a sip of hot chocolate warms your throat, the sensation comes from the liquid's molecules battering your own. If you push on something that offers literally no resistance, it will feel quite literally like nothing at all. Another way to put this is that sensation occurs only when two patterns collide, such as when your left and right palms smack into each other when clapping.
Yet there is always a wider perspective, always a wider pattern in which the conflict simply plays a role. From your perspective there is no real fight between your hands since they serve the function of clapping.
Connecting, with a capital "C", is the process of recognizing this wider pattern. If you Connect through the woven pattern of the entire universe, there is no conflict. The universe is felt as having meaning - which is another way of saying that there is a universal pattern connecting everything. When you are aware of this interconnectedness - not just as a thought, but as an experience - then you can orchestrate your fate with truly universal support. You are in balance with everything.
The Earth is spinning so that the surface goes at several thousand miles per hour. The whole planet also zips around the sun at a comparable speed. The sun, too, is dynamically moving through our galaxy, which is in turn rotating. All this dynamic motion is really quite overwhelming - and yet we experience none of it. We are not dizzy. In fact, we feel nothing. That sensationless state comes from the fact that all this immense motion is in balance, operating in a dynamic pattern as an orchestrated whole. There is no collision, no conflict, and therefore we do not feel anything.
In the same way, being Connected brings about a feeling of no feeling. It is akin to the sense of pleasure that comes from the sudden cessation of pain. It is similar to the feeling you have when you are healthy, which you only recognize by its absence when you are ill. It is, in fact, a state of extreme health because the pattern of your body encounters no conflict. It functions precisely as it should.
Connecting is done via the mind. The mind has the ability to self-organize, which gives it the flexibility needed to "plug in" to the universal pattern. This is achieved by simplifying and stabilizing the pattern - that is, by focusing. The mind is its most coherent when it focuses on a single thing. This is different from ignoring everything but a single thing, which by its very nature cannot facilitate an awareness of the universal pattern. Instead, you allow your awareness to expand around you, below you, above you, behind you and in every direction to encompass the whole of this infinite universe. The mind, being different from awareness, simply focuses on one thing within that infinite expanse of awareness.
This is, as far as I'm concerned, the purpose of meditation. Meditation is a mental strengthening process to help one's mind become more coherent. Most people's minds are in the habit of randomly flickering hither & thither, focusing on one thing for at most a second or two. Meditation, by my definition, is a process of expanding one's awareness while getting the mind to do just one thing at a time. As this becomes more natural, Connecting comes more easily. Then the real magic begins. cool
I would hypothesize that the ordering force of the universe comes in the form of the zero point field, or ZPF. This is a quantum field in which a vast amount of energy, called vacuum energy, is stored. This is the energy inherent in space itself. This is a theory accepted by physicists as an explanation of many strange phenomena such as the Casimir effect. It's also generally acknowledged that if the vacuum energy in the ZPF could be tapped with perfect efficiency, then there would be enough in a cubic centimeter of "empty space" to boil all the oceans of Earth.
The ZPF operates via waveforms. It is hypothesized that intertial mass and gravity both come from the waves in the ZPF "pushing" on objects in much the same way that the water of an ocean pushes on submerged solids (source). Some people further posit that electron energy shells are stabile precisely because of an ebb & flow of energy between the electron and the surrounding ZPF (see The Field by Lynne McTaggart). It's also worth noting that there is strong evidence to suggest that the human mind operates in waveforms (cf. The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot). That is to say, the mind might not be contained in the brain, but instead the brain is a device for generating and perceiving waves in the ZPF. Those waves form what we refer to as the mind.
The wavelike, transcendental nature of the ZPF means that it could feasibly act as the agent of interconnection throughout the universe. It is the universal pattern. And most significantly, our minds can perceive and affect this pattern. Thus, this may offer a possible mechanism behind such feats as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing and so on. It furthermore offers a suggestion as to why these effects have tended to be elusive and why not everyone seems capable of them: All things affect the ZPF (though entities with more complexity seem to have more influence), and each individual's ability to affect the ZPF depends on the coherence of his or her mind.
Therefore, when I speak of Connecting I intend to refer to the harmonization between self and universe. Through that harmony, through that focusing of the mind, truly magical effects become possible.
In principle there is no bound to what is possible.
Blessed Yuletide! biggrin
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 3:27 pm
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I have always found the use of pseudoscience to support spiritual beliefs to be doubly offensive. Part because they propogate bad science and part because science has no place within spirituality as they ask fundamentally different questions.
Morphenius The Earth is spinning so that the surface goes at several thousand miles per hour. The whole planet also zips around the sun at a comparable speed. The sun, too, is dynamically moving through our galaxy, which is in turn rotating. All this dynamic motion is really quite overwhelming - and yet we experience none of it. We are not dizzy. In fact, we feel nothing. That sensationless state comes from the fact that all this immense motion is in balance, operating in a dynamic pattern as an orchestrated whole. There is no collision, no conflict, and therefore we do not feel anything.
No it's not.
The simple of the fact of the matter is we don't feel this motion because we are in the inertial frame of reference defined by the earth. This is pseudoscience and it's the kind of pseudoscience that first year Physics undergrad will learn. Hell, I learned it in Ireland's equivalent of High School, when studying applied mathematics.
Morphenius This is a theory accepted by physicists as an explanation of many strange phenomena such as the Casimir effect.
ZPF is not a scientific thoery. It's a hypothesis. It does not fulfil the criteria for a scientific thoery.
What physicists accept it as a thoery.
Morphenius It's also generally acknowledged that if the vacuum energy in the ZPF could be tapped with perfect efficiency, then there would be enough in a cubic centimeter of "empty space" to boil all the oceans of Earth.
It's also a well known fact that if you can convert all of the matter in a teaspoon of sugar into energy, which is perfect efficiency, you have enough energy to destroy the earth.
Morphenius Some people further posit that electron energy shells are stabile precisely because of an ebb & flow of energy between the electron and the surrounding ZPF (see The Field by Lynne McTaggart).
The standard model of the atom does not require ZPF. The quantised universe explains it sufficiently.
Morphenius It's also worth noting that there is strong evidence to suggest that the human mind operates in waveforms (cf. The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot). That is to say, the mind might not be contained in the brain, but instead the brain is a device for generating and perceiving waves in the ZPF. Those waves form what we refer to as the mind.
Again, this is pseudoscience.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 11:01 am
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Hmm.
Reagun, I'm really not interested in arguing these things. The whole point here is that thinking this way seems to produce results such as significantly improved physical health and day-to-day luck. Quite frankly I don't believe this is the way the world operates, but that is totally irrelevant when it comes to making things work.
Furthermore, not a single one of your points actually attacks what I said. The use of inertial reference frames is another way of talking about the lack of conflict to which I referred, and the reletivistic conversion of matter into energy - while certainly powerful - has no bearing on the point that a great deal of energy exists in the fabric of space itself. Whether the ZPF is a theory, hypothesis, law of nature of whathaveyou is wholly irrelevant to its function. Et cetera.
In fact, the whole content of what makes your post an attack of mine is the use of the word "pseudoscience." I certainly agree that there are some things that are touted as science which, in my opinion, should not be. For instance, the claim that quantum mechanics proves the existence of telepathy or of life after death (cf. The Self-Aware Universe) is something I find entertaining but silly. Unfortunately, rabid skeptics such as the Amusing James Randi have made the word "pseudoscience" an ad hominem attack rather than a useful criticism of a perspective. It has come to be leveled as a dismissive insult to the use of scientific ideas in supporting principles with which the speaker disagrees.
I can certainly respect a disagreement, and if you question some of my points in a discussive manner I appreciate it. Life is so very much more interesting when I discover that something I've been thinking is wrong. Yet I have no patience with discourteous dismissals of my ideas, and I therefore kindly request that you keep your propositions civil and relevant.
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:54 pm
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Morphenius Reagun, I'm really not interested in arguing these things. The whole point here is that thinking this way seems to produce results such as significantly improved physical health and day-to-day luck. Quite frankly I don't believe this is the way the world operates, but that is totally irrelevant when it comes to making things work.
I'm curious as to why you posted the pseudoscience in the first place then. In fact, I'm curious as to why you littered your post with pseudoscience at all.
Morphenius In fact, the whole content of what makes your post an attack of mine is the use of the word "pseudoscience."
The word fits.
Morphenius Unfortunately, rabid skeptics such as the Amusing James Randi have made the word "pseudoscience" an ad hominem attack rather than a useful criticism of a perspective.
You tout the use of pseudoscience as an ad hominem and then call James Randi an amusing rabid skeptic. I find this a little hard to swallow.
Morphenius It has come to be leveled as a dismissive insult to the use of scientific ideas in supporting principles with which the speaker disagrees.
Not in the case of Randi, it's not. In the case of Randi, he uses it to describe the approach to science that you have adopted. Using innaccurate scientific methods to try and support things, citing hypotheses as theories when there isn't the scientific experiments or field testing to back it up.
Morphenius I can certainly respect a disagreement, and if you question some of my points in a discussive manner I appreciate it. Life is so very much more interesting when I discover that something I've been thinking is wrong. Yet I have no patience with discourteous dismissals of my ideas, and I therefore kindly request that you keep your propositions civil and relevant.
So far, Morphenius, I have been civil. My limit for bullshit is fairly low, read non-existant. The pseudoscience that you used to is bullshit. I call it as it is. I don't pull any punches for anyone else so why would I for you. If this were a fluffy touting the views of Ravenmoocow, I would have been equally as thorough in pointing to the bullshit.
You used scientifically invalid terms in, what I can only see as, an attempt to validate and support your beliefs. In removing the pseudoscientific support for your beliefs, I have attacked the support you use. If you want to try and support your beliefs using science, be very very careful that you're using science. I have university teachings in both thoeretical and experimental physics as well as four years before I went to university.
Your science was exactly equivalent to the fluff pulled by Ravenwolf adherants.
Expect challenges to it if you post it again. |
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Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 9:46 am
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:47 pm
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*sigh*
Cuchullain, we're not talking on the same level at all. You seem determined to challenge my BS. Yet beyond my doubt that your challenges are even accurate, the point is being completely lost. I attempted to offer something people may find useful here. This is akin to using the metaphor of brain-as-computer and mind-as-software which obviously isn't literally true but is profoundly useful in certain analyses of human thought. It is vastly easier to use the metaphor if you believe it is true while you are using it. (Cf. Alternate Realities by Lawrence LeShan.)
I suspect that I have requisite variety over you here. This is especially true if you don't know what that means. Therefore, if you must cross swords with me, I will oblige. However, I do not care about "winning," which unfortunately for you means that I simply cannot lose. Therefore, what happens to you after this point is entirely your own choice if you will take such a choice.
Cuchullain ...science has no place within spirituality as they ask fundamentally different questions.
Agreed. However, science definitely has a place within magic. In my mind, magic is the use of principles not properly understood. This is in homage to Clark's Law. (To paraphrase, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") One should therefore find that the frontiers of science provide possible explanations for some magical effects.
Cuchullain The simple of the fact of the matter is we don't feel this motion because we are in the inertial frame of reference defined by the earth.
First, the Earth's surface is not an inertial reference frame. It is rotating. No point going through a rotational motion is an intertial reference frame.
I will, however, grant that it approximates an intertial reference frame because the radius of the Earth is so large compared to its angular velocity. That granted, as I said before this is simply another way of phrasing what I was talking about. Things in the same inertial reference frame have the opportunity to move together without conflicting. However, stating this properly and formally would have been confusing and besides the point.
Cuchullain ZPF is not a scientific thoery. It's a hypothesis. It does not fulfil the criteria for a scientific thoery. What physicists accept it as a thoery.
Again, this is besides the point. I will grant that you may well be right, however. I'm still trying to find a formal mathematical description of the ZPF and how it relates to experiment.
I find your comment that a hypothesis becomes a theory when physicists accept it very enlightening. This indicates to me that you define science socially rather than empirically. This shows up in how you use the term "pseudoscience" as well. I'll return to that shortly.
Cuchullain It's also a well known fact that if you can convert all of the matter in a teaspoon of sugar into energy, which is perfect efficiency, you have enough energy to destroy the earth.
It's also well-known that if you heat a piece of metal sufficiently, it glows. It's also well-known that there is salt in the oceans. This is totally and completely irrelevant, I'm afraid.
Cuchullain The standard model of the atom does not require ZPF. The quantised universe explains it sufficiently.
Kepler's laws of planetary motion explains the motion of the planets sufficiently, but Newton's law of gravitation still affords a useful explanation for those laws.
Cuchullain Again, this is pseudoscience.
This sort of off-hand dismissal is quite discourteous and uncalled-for. If you can demonstrate that it is pseudoscience, you are welcome to do so. If you cannot, then you have no business making such a claim.
Cuchullain I'm curious as to why you posted the pseudoscience in the first place then. In fact, I'm curious as to why you littered your post with pseudoscience at all.
We are clearly using different definitions of pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is a theory, methodology or practice which claims a scientific foundation but lacks one. I suspect you and I would agree on this or a very similar definition, but the point at which we disagree is the meaning of "scientific foundation."
Science is defined in terms of the empirical method. A phenomenon is observed and given a description, after which point the boundary conditions for the description are determined. For the description to be useful, it has to extend to phenomena other than the original one, and therefore the description can be experimentally tested. If tests determine that the description seems to successfully describe a certain range of phenomena, it becomes a theory unless and until a counterexample is discovered.
An idea is pseudoscience if it fails to use this method as its basis. This occurs when the idea in question is determined a priori. That is, an idea is pseudoscientific if it is unfalsifiable. The claim that God exists is pseudoscientific not because of a lack of evidence, not because "rational people don't believe in God," but because there is no conceivable test one could perform to prove the nonexistence of God. The claim that reality is a dream is similar since, again, no test can actually prove that you are not dreaming. God might very well exist, and reality might very well be a dream. However, because those claims are unfalsifiable, they are not scientific.
The standard example of pseudoscience is astrology. Astrology is pseudoscientific because even seemingly failed predictions can be attributed to unknown influences. Despite what pseudoskeptics (see below) might say, it is not astrology's "obvious falsity" that makes it pseudoscience. It is, again, its unfalsifiability.
I believe the definition of science you are using relates back to your earlier implicit claim that science is socially determined. I would imagine that you consider the peer review system to be vital to the advancement of real science, presumably because objectivity requires that more than one person be able to observe a phenomenon. I agree that experiments should be repeatable, but social interaction does not define science. Science is defined by the scientific method. The virtuous idea behind peer review is insurance that a particular claim really is scientific - that there are no unfalsifiable claims lurking in the background and that experiments really do test the claims given. But that does not define science. Science was carried out for centuries befor the peer review system became established.
Thus, I believe your use of the term "pseudoscience" is actually code for "wrong." I think you're trying to assert that what I suggest does not match currently accepted scientific knowledge. If this is truly the case, I invite you to prove your claim. If I am truly offering the modern equivalent of phlogeston and you have empirical evidence that I am wrong, please do so demonstrate.
As with phlogeston at its time, however, the idea I have set forward is indeed scientific. It can be falsified.
Cuchullain You tout the use of pseudoscience as an ad hominem and then call James Randi an amusing rabid skeptic. I find this a little hard to swallow.
Is hypocrasy really that hard to swallow? It's a remarkably common human trait! wink
Seriously, you are right. That was uncalled-for on my part. James Randi has annoyed me for a long time, but denegrating him as a person is wrong. My apologies.
The word I was actually searching for and couldn't quite find was "pseudoskeptic." Real skepticism is refusing to believe or disbelieve in anything, but instead being willing to say "I don't know" and waiting for further evidence. Even if a true skeptic feels convinced of a particular side of a debate, he or she is still willing to hear arguments and evidence from the opposite side and is willing to change his or her mind.
Pseudoskeptics such as James Randi, however, have already made up their minds and assume a priori that evidence against their position is fraudulant. Many of those about whom you hear have an agenda. Randi is one of my top examples of this because of his One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. He and others use this challenge as "proof" that there is no such thing as the paranormal. The very premise of his Challenge is questionable, but even worse than this are the numerous ways in which Randi has rigged the Challenge so that he always wins. (Cf. Alternative Science and Skeptical Investigations.)
I find truly villainous the effort to crush hope and wonder in the name of dogmatic "rationality." I consider the destruction of the capacity to dream, especially in children, an act of evil comparable to murder.
I apologise if that passion sometimes washes over what should be a rational debate.
Cuchullain My limit for bullshit is fairly low, read non-existant.
That's why I have requisite variety over you.
Cuchullain I don't pull any punches for anyone else so why would I for you.
Because there is no reason to punch. You're the only one fighting.
Cuchullain I have university teachings in both thoeretical and experimental physics as well as four years before I went to university.
*sigh*
I also have university teachings in both theoretical and experimental physics. Furthermore, I have a masters degree in mathematics and am currently working on my Ph.D. Before then I studied physics in a sort of spiral curriculum for about six years.
If you wish to appeal to your authority in science, I have you beat. I therefore suggest you avoid the fallacy of appeal to authority on this matter.
Cuchullain Your science was exactly equivalent to the fluff pulled by Ravenwolf adherants.
And you claim to be civil! 3nodding
Calling it "fluff" doesn't really say anything, except that "fluff" is a bad word on this forum. It's a social attack rather than a logical one. What I've posed is, to the best of my knowledge, perfectly in line with evidence. If you have a counterexample, you are welcome to pose it. If you think there is something unfalsifiable in what I've suggested here, you're welcome to point it out to me. Such things are well-received. I admire challenges to my ideas when they're executed with grace.
Blanket dismissals with appeals to authority are far from graceful. It's especially silly when such attacks are aimed at the wrong target.
Now the question for you: Do you take this entire response as an insult, or shall you be more clever than that? wink
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Starlock The evidence presented isn't the strongest; psychologically human beings construct the realities and truths they perceive or accept and I think that's a little bit better of a support argument than a bizzare New Agey take on modern physics.
What you're proposing is called "constructivism." I'm most familiar with the variant espoused by Jean Piaget and clarified and argued by von Glasersfeld. I have two problems with this approach. One is that it's unfalsifiable, which means that it's not something anyone can test. Second, constructivism has trouble dealing with the matter of intersubjectivity, which is really one of the most important elements of Connecting.
Experientially, Connecting feels like you're suddenly touching everyone and everything quite deeply. When you're in this mode, reality "speaks" to you. This is much more difficult to do if you think that nothing you experience actually exists externally to you as in radical constructivism. As far as I know, the two other variants of constructivism (weak constructivism and social constructivism) wouldn't help to elucidate how to tap into the experience of Connecting.
As I mentioned to Reagun when he was called Reagun, the point is not whether the metaphor of the zero point field is true. It may well be, and if it is then all the better! The point, however, is that by thinking as though it is true, one can produce results as though it is true.
Along the lines of what you suggest, though, I will say that the dreaming approach to reality also allows for Connecting. If you assume that you are dreaming right now, right as you read these words, then it's easier to relax into a sense that you're touching everything. When you do this, you can actually interpret what's going on around you as you would interpret any dream. The better you are at dream interpretation, the more accurate your interpretations of the world around you will be.
Just don't think about it too much. wink
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Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:48 pm
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Morphenius I attempted to offer something people may find useful here. This is akin to using the metaphor of brain-as-computer and mind-as-software which obviously isn't literally true but is profoundly useful in certain analyses of human thought. It is vastly easier to use the metaphor if you believe it is true while you are using it.
Easier != better.
What we have here, morphenius, is a group of people of varying ages.
Nowhere in your original post did you state you were extending metaphor. Moreover the linguistic construction of the article was not even comparitive, but definitive.
You did not state "think of it as such" you stated "it is such" and then used invalid scientific principles, such as the balance of the earth (completely ignoring inertial frames of reference and sidestepping my challenge using them).
Morphenius Therefore, if you must cross swords with me, I will oblige. However, I do not care about "winning," which unfortunately for you means that I simply cannot lose.
Last duel I had where the opponent didn't care about winning didn't turn out too well for him.
Just because you don't care about winning doesn't mean you can't lose and to state as such makes you seem ignorant of the fundamental rules of challenge. If such were the case, people wouldn't care about court cases.
Morphenius Therefore, what happens to you after this point is entirely your own choice if you will take such a choice.
Whatever happens to me after this point is, and always has been, my choice. But it is so magnanimous of you to highlight this point.
Morphenius Agreed. However, science definitely has a place within magic. In my mind, magic is the use of principles not properly understood. This is in homage to Clark's Law. (To paraphrase, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") One should therefore find that the frontiers of science provide possible explanations for some magical effects.
Science does not, and cannot, have a place within magic until there is a sufficient paradigm shift within science such as to render falsifiability un-neccisary.
Whether or not certain magical effects can be explained scientifically is irrelevant.
Morphenius First, the Earth's surface is not an inertial reference frame. It is rotating. No point going through a rotational motion is an intertial reference frame.
The entire universe is moving. There is no stationary point. Educate yourself as you seem to be completely ignorant of what an inertial frame of reference is.
Morphenius I will, however, grant that it approximates an intertial reference frame because the radius of the Earth is so large compared to its angular velocity. That granted, as I said before this is simply another way of phrasing what I was talking about. Things in the same inertial reference frame have the opportunity to move together without conflicting. However, stating this properly and formally would have been confusing and besides the point.
The earth has an inertial frame of refernce.
All things on the earth are within that frame of reference.
This is why if you throw a frisbee east or west with the same force it travels the same distance.
Again, having studied experimental physics for the best part of five years, I am fully familiar with inertial frames of reference.
Morphenius Again, this is besides the point. I will grant that you may well be right, however. I'm still trying to find a formal mathematical description of the ZPF and how it relates to experiment.
And the journal papers, and the peer reviewed experiments and the whole other proccess? Then you can go about calling it a thoery.
Morphenius I find your comment that a hypothesis becomes a theory when physicists accept it very enlightening. This indicates to me that you define science socially rather than empirically. This shows up in how you use the term "pseudoscience" as well. I'll return to that shortly.
Hypothesis becomes thoery when sufficient amount of experimentation is done to attempt to falsify it is done and it has not been.
That scientists accept it is merely a benchmark for when this has been done.
I'm sorry that I assumed you had a fundamental understanding of the scientific method. I will refrain from making assumptions that you are aprroxiamately as schooled as I am in future and treat you as though you are completely ignorant in future if you would prefer.
Morphenius It's also well-known that if you heat a piece of metal sufficiently, it glows. It's also well-known that there is salt in the oceans. This is totally and completely irrelevant, I'm afraid.
No. It's not.
We were talking about whether or not perfect x to y conversion could be done.
It can't.
Enthropy is ever increasing.
Morphenius Kepler's laws of planetary motion explains the motion of the planets sufficiently, but Newton's law of gravitation still affords a useful explanation for those laws.
Really, would you mind explaining how mercury's perhelion is explained via newtonian physics or can we accept that the reletavistic model is neccessary for it.
What aspect of the atom is not explained by conventional physics that is explained by ZPF?
Because I know of none.
Morphenius This sort of off-hand dismissal is quite discourteous and uncalled-for.
This sort of off-hand assignation of black as black is neccessary.
I am treating this post exactly as though someone who had read Silver Ravenwolf but displayed a fundamental lack of understanding of Gardner's work were posting on Wicca.
I am, therefore, showing you as much courtesy as I can manage. I am not a courteous person. I am abrasive and harsh. That does not detract from the value of what I am saying. The fact of the matter is, I am right here. I have no need for courtesy.
Morphenius If you can demonstrate that it is pseudoscience, you are welcome to do so. If you cannot, then you have no business making such a claim.
Actually, I do.
Given the fact that I have studied the scientific method in University, and given the fact that science has an established approach. Until you provide the scientific backing for your posts you are under burden of proof. My declaration is a challenge and until you provide proof that you are following scientific methods, I am not obliged to do pretty much anything.
I have business making such a claim as I am scientifically schooled.
Morphenius I Science was carried out for centuries befor the peer review system became established.
Care to explain how.
Morphenius Thus, I believe your use of the term "pseudoscience" is actually code for "wrong."
Your belief is wrong.
Morphenius I think you're trying to assert that what I suggest does not match currently accepted scientific knowledge. If this is truly the case, I invite you to prove your claim. If I am truly offering the modern equivalent of phlogeston and you have empirical evidence that I am wrong, please do so demonstrate.
You have no evidence that you are right.
I am calling you on that.
I do not need to provide proof that you have no evidence.
This all falls under the burden of proof.
You are making the extraordinary claims, not I.
Morphenius Is hypocrasy really that hard to swallow? It's a remarkably common human trait! wink
The use of hypocrisy while trying to maintain a moral high is hard to swallow.
Morphenius Seriously, you are right. That was uncalled-for on my part. James Randi has annoyed me for a long time, but denegrating him as a person is wrong. My apologies.
I don't give a ******** if he's annoyed you for a long time.
The work he's done on proving people to be fraudulent is as neccessary now as it was during Yeats' time, or Houdini's or for that matter any time.
Morphenius The word I was actually searching for and couldn't quite find was "pseudoskeptic." Real skepticism is refusing to believe or disbelieve in anything, but instead being willing to say "I don't know" and waiting for further evidence. Even if a true skeptic feels convinced of a particular side of a debate, he or she is still willing to hear arguments and evidence from the opposite side and is willing to change his or her mind.
I would like to see evidence that he is unwilling please.
Morphenius Pseudoskeptics such as James Randi, however, have already made up their minds and assume a priori that evidence against their position is fraudulant. Many of those about whom you hear have an agenda. Randi is one of my top examples of this because of his One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. He and others use this challenge as "proof" that there is no such thing as the paranormal.
Provide instances of this please.
Morphenius I find truly villainous the effort to crush hope and wonder in the name of dogmatic "rationality." I consider the destruction of the capacity to dream, especially in children, an act of evil comparable to murder.
And I find truly villanous the attempt to provide a scientific understanding of magic but we all have our axes to grind.
Morphenius Because there is no reason to punch. You're the only one fighting.
There is reason to punch.
You are forwarding this as though it were scientific, and therefore more rational.
It is not.
I object to, vehemently, the blurring of scientific and magical lines.
That science can explain some of the hows of magic is irrelevant.
Morphenius I also have university teachings in both theoretical and experimental physics. Furthermore, I have a masters degree in mathematics and am currently working on my Ph.D. Before then I studied physics in a sort of spiral curriculum for about six years.
If we're adding non-formal education then I have a good deal more than that Morphenius.
Morphenius If you wish to appeal to your authority in science, I have you beat. I therefore suggest you avoid the fallacy of appeal to authority on this matter.
No you don't.
My fiance has a degree in physics.
If you'd like, I can ask him very nicely to actually blog all of his objections to your thread and cite that as an official source.
Morphenius And you claim to be civil! 3nodding
Nto generally, no. But up until that point, as I said, I was being civil. And if you'll look to that post again, that's what I said.
Morphenius Calling it "fluff" doesn't really say anything, except that "fluff" is a bad word on this forum. It's a social attack rather than a logical one. What I've posed is, to the best of my knowledge, perfectly in line with evidence. If you have a counterexample, you are welcome to pose it. If you think there is something unfalsifiable in what I've suggested here, you're welcome to point it out to me. Such things are well-received. I admire challenges to my ideas when they're executed with grace.
I have done.
Repeatedly.
Reference to inertial frames of references.
ZPF not being thoery.
The standard model of the atom does not require a zpf.
The holographic universe is not strong evidence of waverforms and to state that the human mind could be interpreting things that have not been scientifically accepted when the human mind is better and more easily explained by the neuron model is pseudocscientific.
Those challenges went unanswered.
Morphenius Blanket dismissals with appeals to authority are far from graceful.
Luckily I had Bart go through the post with me.
Not an appeal to authority.
His scientific schooling > yours.
Morphenius It's especially silly when such attacks are aimed at the wrong target.
No.
I am undermining the "scientific support" for your pattern hypothesis because it is built on this, in your opening post.
Morphenius Now the question for you: Do you take this entire response as an insult, or shall you be more clever than that?
That line is the only thing I have, thus far, taken to be an intended insult.
The use fo the phrase "cross swords" was one made out of ignorance and so I let that one fall |
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 11:38 am
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 5:16 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 7:33 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:19 pm
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Cuchullain Morphenius Agreed. However, science definitely has a place within magic. In my mind, magic is the use of principles not properly understood. This is in homage to Clark's Law. (To paraphrase, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") One should therefore find that the frontiers of science provide possible explanations for some magical effects. Science does not, and cannot, have a place within magic until there is a sufficient paradigm shift within science such as to render falsifiability un-neccisary. Whether or not certain magical effects can be explained scientifically is irrelevant.
When governments shell out millions if not billions of dollars in grants every year so people can think about things we cannot prove exist- I think realisticly, we can say that there is room within science for some schools of thought wherein falsifiability is un-neccisary. |
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Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:11 pm
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Morphenius I imagine you are probably right about some of the details about the zero point field. I haven't been able to find a formal description, but it sounds like you have. If you'd like to provide that reference I would appreciate it.
Morphenius, my patience for you after this crossing of swords is very low.
You decry me as being discourteous while showing about as much intellectual courtesy as repeatedly kicking me in the face. You actually are a hypocrite, not something I (of all people) can condemn you for, but I will call a spade a spade.
Morphenius Beyond that, however, you don't seem to be at all aware of the level at which I'm speaking. I always find this element of human psychology fascinating. It's very much like the story of the bus driver: Say you're driving a bus that has six people on it. At the first stop three people get off and four get on. At the second stop two people get off and five people get on. At the third stop six people get off and no one gets on. The question is, What color is the bus driver's eyes?
Blue.
Morphenius If you argue that it can't be determined by the people exchange given, you'd be logically right
No you wouldn't. As calling the people into question higlights that you haven't paid attention to the question. |
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