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Article: The Gospel According to Dixon #5: Science? Fiction!
By Dixon Wragg
WaccoBB.net
For over three years now, one Daniel Osmer has been providing a valuable service to the local community by organizing and hosting a weekly event called “The Science Buzz Café”. We gather in a café or restaurant to enjoy illustrated lectures on various aspects of science, from geology to physics to biology to math and beyond, presented by an actual scientist or, sometimes, a well-informed amateur. Usually these have been scientific enough to please a rationalist like me, though sometimes they have slid into the woo-woo realm a bit—not unusual in this part of California.
On March 10th, 2011, the Science Buzz Café presented Dr. Sondra Barrett on “Molecules and Meaning”. Ordinarily in a lecture-discussion format like the Science Buzz Café, I’d just raise my hand and dispute any seeming baloney when called upon. But, as I gradually realized, this presentation was so thoroughly riddled with fallacy that I would have had to speak at some length to address it, and since it was her show, not mine, that would have been an inappropriate spotlight-grab. So instead I’m using this column to show how critical thinking can be applied to assessing claims in a real-world situation.
Here’s an example of Barrett’s reasoning:
She showed a photo of an ancient petroglyph (rock art) with a sort of intertwined pattern, and told us that it reminded her of DNA, so the person who carved it may have known about the structure of DNA through some kind of inner vision! Then she showed a circular petroglyph decorated with various features and said that the artist may have known about microscopic cellular structure, because it was a picture of a cell!
Of course, anyone can match images to one another like that. The simple mandalas (circular designs) drawn by primitive people, little children or anyone can be seen as the sun, the earth, atomic nuclei, symbols of wholeness, or cells, among many other things. Intertwined designs could remind us of woven textiles or straw or hair, of the braiding of water in rocky streams—or of DNA. We can match any simple design—squares, crosses, triangles, you name it—to hundreds of images. I pointed that out to Barrett, suggesting that instead of matching recent scientific findings like the structure of DNA to petroglyphs retrospectively, the real test of her idea would be to proactively find in some ancient art the next big scientific breakthrough before the scientists find it. That didn’t even slow her down.
She also stated that the number three is special, so that keeping the principle of threeness in mind may help us understand the world. She started listing examples— birth, life and death; three letters in the genetic code; holy trinities in various religions—and encouraged audience members to shout out other examples. But she conveniently ignored the fact that she could just as well have deemed two, four or five special and made similar lists for those numbers. Generally, the smaller the number, the more examples you can find. She had latched onto the idea of threeness being special, then cherry-picked the data that fit, ignoring all the disconfirming data.
Barrett also showed a photomicrograph of the vitamin niacin. It was striated and a sort of tan or yellowish brown, resembling a stand of wheat seen from the side. She found this very exciting, because after all, wheat has lots of niacin! She even stated as a general principle that the appearance of things on our macrolevel, the human scale, mirrors their structure on the microlevel, and thus may give us information about the microworld.
But does that mean that everything rich in niacin looks like wheat or, more broadly, that we can tell which foods are high in some nutrient by looking at photomicrographs of that nutrient? Of course not! Most niacin-rich foods, such as various organ meats and seafoods, bear no resemblance to her wheat-like picture of niacin. To support her conclusion that there was some significance to the coincidental visual similarity of wheat and niacin, Barrett had to ignore all of those niacin-rich foods that looked nothing like the picture. So again, she got some exciting idea in her head, then cherry-picked the data to support it. This is science? It’s not even minimally reasonable.
Those examples are typical of Barrett’s talk (even the part I didn’t stay for, as was verified by a friend of mine who did stay), and they provide us with good real-life examples of a very common fallacy, one we’ve all indulged in: the “confirmation bias”—our natural tendency to see things in ways that confirm what we want to believe (or sometimes what we’re afraid is true); noticing, remembering and exaggerating confirming evidence; ignoring, forgetting, minimizing and making excuses for disconfirming evidence, and interpreting things as confirmation which really aren’t at all.
Barrett also slipped into at least one other fallacy: the fallacious appeal to authority. When I politely pointed out that her “logic” wasn’t scientific, she rattled off a list of her scientific accomplishments, as if to suggest that if it comes from a scientist, it must be science. Of course, that makes as much sense as saying that since Mozart was a composer, his farts were symphonies.
Gradually, it became clear what Barrett was selling: intelligent design! That’s right, folks—if you’re seeking intelligent design, you needn’t travel to Skunk Holler and get it from some spittle-flecked Bible-pounder; you can get the new improved version right here in California, from a real scientist!
When Osmer (the host) asked if she was saying that God was behind the connections she was seeing, Barrett endorsed that notion. And all those similarities that you or I would call coincidental—well, they’re really messages from the Divine. She made no compelling arguments for her claims. Instead, she showed us a quote from some guy named Benson, which was nothing more than a re-statement of the infamously flawed “argument from design” for the existence of a god, and another quote from Teilhard de Chardin which employed even worse logic to support the idea that love rules the universe, or something like that.
The other indicator that there might be something less than scientifically rigorous going on was that she was giving people an illusion of scientific validity for dubious feel-good beliefs, and she has a book to sell. Ka-ching! No one ever went broke overestimating the public’s appetite for books that tell them what they want to hear.
Both Barrett and Osmer, when called to task for falsely advertising her talk as science, responded that the talk was conjectural and, since conjecture is fundamentally important in science, was therefore scientific. But that’s like saying that, since kissing involves the mouth, anything we do with our mouths is kissing! Flat earth theories, the spoutings of Glenn Beck, and our hopeful sex fantasies are all conjecture; are they science?
Even if everything Barrett said had been carefully qualified as tentative conjecture (which is not how I recall her presentation), it would still have been a travesty, because she was clearly implying that elementary logical fallacies such as the confirmation bias constitute some degree of support for her claims (even if not compelling evidence), and they simply do not. This sets a terrible example.
The difference between scientific and other conjecture is that in science, we don’t rely on logical fallacies as confirmation for conjectures we find attractive. We look for flaws in the reasoning and, when we find that the conjecture is supported by nothing but flawed arguments, we reject it as probably fruitless and move on to the next one.
Science has become a valuable “brand”. It can help sell books and other products, get government funding for projects, enormously boost the credibility of a claim, and give us some degree of appropriate certainty about what’s true and what isn’t. Just as any valuable brand name will engender counterfeits, so too with science. Thousands of products, “healing” techniques, divination systems, philosophies, even religions (Christian “Science”, The Church of Religious “Science”), fraudulently appropriate the valuable mantle of science.
But science has earned its credibility precisely by not allowing itself the kind of crappy, self-deluding “logic” that marred Barrett’s presentation and underlies the numerous beliefs that defraud us by masquerading as science. The next time someone tells you that their idea, their product, their healing or divination technique or whatever is scientific, ask them a few questions, such as, “Have you conducted well-designed tests of falsifiable hypotheses that will show if you are mistaken?”, “Have you solicited critique from those who disagree with you?” and “How have you ruled out the possibility that your conclusion is based on fallacies like the confirmation bias, the effort justification effect, confusing the placebo effect with an objective effect, or…?”
Science has earned its glory as perhaps humanity’s most beautiful and useful creation through centuries of hard, rigorous, brutally honest and self-questioning work. To steal its credibility by claiming unearned scientific validity for unfounded beliefs is a profanation.
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Dixon,
Thank you for taking the time to offer your opinions of my recent Science Buzz Cafe. Perhaps you missed the part where I said this was speculative while asking what if people had the ability (proven in other contexts) to see within and express what they are seeing in their art. That doesn't mean they knew they were seeing DNA or cells, only that they saw something in their imagination, dreams, visions. I interpreted what I saw in cave paintings as resembling what I knew in biology.
Read the writings of Leonard Shlain (Art and Physics), Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) and Nobel prize winner Christian de Duve (Vital Dust) to explore the possibilities that humans are capable of vision. The later interpretations serve to provide those AHA moments.
About 3 - of course I could have developed interesting stories for any number, again this was an inquiry asking why do most religious traditions base their cosmology or theology on three - the Christian trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Hindu pantheon of Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu etc. Why 3? That idea was developed by looking at the essential threes in biology - the DNA code (pretty important, its not 2 or 4), the 3 embryonic layers in the development of human life, the triune (3) construct of the brain,etc - beginning, middle and end are social constructs of what's needed for completion.
I interpret the cell in mystical and mythical terms along with understanding their biological functions. Our cells and molecules are designed with intelligence. Their molecular structures evolved along with their biology. "Intelligent Design" as you offer in your article negates evolution and posits that life is 6000 years old or something like that. That was nothing I said or believe. Is it God that designed the world, or a greater force - we each have our ideas about creation. What we may agree upon is life is a miracle, however it began.
The purpose of my Science Buzz presentation was to instill awe about who we are at the microscopic level and to provide intellectual stimulation to wonder and talk about - what if, how do we know, where does our knowledge come from. Perhaps to some, awe is only in numbers and 'facts' - discovery and the process of exploration is what science is about.
So obviously I met one of my goals - stimulating discussion. If you want to write more articles, go to it - your mind was definitely stimulated, even if simply to find fault and flaws. BTW, I was offering a book for sale that had nothing to do with the talk, it was on wine. Here's a place to learn more about wine, life & our cells. https://sondrabarrett.com
It's interesting that one of your pictures showed flawed medical science (cigarettes) and that you used one of my images (cave painting) without permission.
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by SandBar:
...Perhaps you missed the part where I said this was speculative while asking what if people had the ability (proven in other contexts) to see within and express what they are seeing in their art. That doesn't mean they knew they were seeing DNA or cells, only that they saw something in their imagination, dreams, visions.
Perhaps you missed the part where I said "Even if everything Barrett said had been carefully qualified as tentative conjecture (which is not how I recall her presentation), it would still have been a travesty, because she was clearly implying that elementary logical fallacies such as the confirmation bias constitute some degree of support for her claims (even if not compelling evidence), and they simply do not. This sets a terrible example."
You keep defending your presentation by back-pedaling, calling it "speculative" or "conjectural", but let's be honest here. When you write a whole book called Cells and the Sacred, do related workshops and a video, and spend a whole Science Buzz Cafe trying to make a case for these ideas, it's not just loose speculation. You're not sitting on the porch with friends, drinking wine and speculating "What if pigs could fly?" and "Do you think there's life on Mars?". You're trying to make a case for beliefs that you've pretty much accepted yourself. Be honest about this.
The issue I'm addressing is not so much whether your belief is true; it could be, for all I know. The main issue is that the support you gave for the possibility that these claims are true was based on an elementary logical fallacy, the confirmation bias, that this is not scientific (thus inappropriate at an event advertised as a scientific presentation), and is a terrible example to set.
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I interpreted what I saw in cave paintings as resembling what I knew in biology.
Yes, and an astronomer, a Rosicrucian, and a plumber would have made different comparisons based on their differing associations with those shapes. It's a very subjective process known as "pareidolia"--we see a cumulus cloud that looks like a poodle, or the face of Jesus on a tortilla--it's fun, but if we attribute some underlying significance to it, there's a burden of proof we must satisfy or we look like crackpots.
Our natural tendency to see patterns is one of our greatest survival skills, but as with almost anything, we can err on the side of too much or too little. In this connection, you may have heard of "sheep" and "goats"; "sheep" see patterns too readily, even seeing them when they're not there, while "goats" see them insufficiently, tending to miss patterns that are really there. I see your attribution of special significance to the petroglyphs, the number three, and the photomicrograph of niacin, etc., as examples of a sheep-type fallacy (inferring a pattern or significance which probably isn't there except in your fervid imagination).
I have no objection to people saying "Hey, that petroglyph looks to me like DNA!" But if someone says or implies that that may signify some kind of special perception on the part of the artist, and offers nothing but the confirmation bias as an argument to back it up, especially in the context of what's supposed to be a scientific presentation--then we have a problem--don't we?
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Read the writings of Leonard Shlain (Art and Physics), Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) and Nobel prize winner Christian de Duve (Vital Dust) to explore the possibilities that humans are capable of vision.
While I'm not familiar with Duve, I am, coincidentally, about halfway through Shlain's excellent The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, and have seen Narby speak very interestingly in a documentary (on ayahuasca, I believe--and you may be interested to know that my worldview has been strongly influenced by psychedelic experience. But of course, psychedelic experience can yield delusion as well as truth; that's why we have critical thinking to separate the niacin-rich wheat from the chaff). Unfortunately, I'm always behind in my reading and will probably not get to your suggested books in the foreseeable future. But if you think these writers have offered good arguments for the claims you made in your Science Buzz presentation, why in the world didn't you offer those arguments instead of the fallacious ones I recount in my column?
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About 3 - of course I could have developed interesting stories for any number, again this was an inquiry asking why do most religious traditions base their cosmology or theology on three - the Christian trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Hindu pantheon of Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu etc. Why 3?
So "[M]ost religious traditions base their cosmology or theology on three", eh? Did you look at most of the 2500 or so known religions, or are you generalizing from a flawed sample--the major extant religions, which have influenced each other for centuries and some of which are outgrowths of others? Wouldn't you need to survey a large random sample of religions that developed in isolation from one another to rule out cross-contamination of ideas? Did you do that? How many such religions did you look at, and how did you randomize the sample, and how did you make sure you were noticing all the significant numbers instead of just picking up on 3s wherever you saw them?
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That idea was developed by looking at the essential threes in biology - the DNA code (pretty important, its not 2 or 4), the 3 embryonic layers in the development of human life, the triune (3) construct of the brain,etc - beginning, middle and end are social constructs of what's needed for completion.
Yeah, yeah, but we could come up with even more examples of twoness in biology (or any other realm), and almost as many examples of fourness. Your attribution of specialness to threeness is dependent on minimizing or ignoring the numerous examples of twoness, fourness, etc.--it's the confirmation bias again.:nono:
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I interpret the cell in mystical and mythical terms along with understanding their biological functions.
That's for sure!:rofl:
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Our cells and molecules are designed with intelligence.
To assess this claim would require, just for starters, that you define what you mean by "intelligence" (which is probably a bit different from what most of us mean by the term) and whether you're saying that cells and molecules are designed by some intelligence. That's a whole discussion in itself--probably an interesting one.
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Their molecular structures evolved along with their biology. "Intelligent Design" as you offer in your article negates evolution and posits that life is 6000 years old or something like that. That was nothing I said or believe. Is it God that designed the world, or a greater force - we each have our ideas about creation.
I did not say your claims were identical to those of the fundies; I referred to yours as "the new improved version" of intelligent design. Surely you wouldn't deny that you are promoting a sort of "intelligent design"? Your use of terms like "design" and "creation" above certainly seem to presuppose a creator, and you explicitly endorsed something you call God in your presentation. That comes with a huge burden of proof, which you didn't even try to satisfy in your purportedly "scientific" presentation--unless you consider the fallacious quotes from Benson and Chardin support for your apparently theistic claim.
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The purpose of my Science Buzz presentation was to
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instill awe about who we are at the microscopic level and to provide intellectual stimulation to wonder and talk about - what if, how do we know, where does our knowledge come from. Perhaps to some, awe is only in numbers and 'facts' ...
"...only in numbers and 'facts'" as opposed to what--illusions and fallacies? Well, it's not that I'm not awestruck by your illusions and fallacies--it's just not a good kind of awestruck! :hilarious:
One gripe that skeptics like me have with you paranormalists is that, if you think you have to accept dubious woowoo claims on the basis of crappy evidence and fallacious logic in order to experience awe, you're awe-deficient, somehow missing seeing all the wonder around you that exists in the real world. I'm constantly awestruck at the wonder of the universe, and I don't have to tell myself that there's some kind of Creator behind it (which I think actually cheapens it), or imagine significance where none exists, in order to experience that awe and Oneness. I really liked your photos and the cool info you gave us about cells, but the experience was ruined for me by the fallacious logic and woowoo beliefs you slathered it with like cheap rancid frosting on a lovely cake.
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...discovery and the process of exploration is what science is about.
Exactly! And it's essential that we don't confuse discovery with deciding what we'd like to believe and then using whatever fallacious logic is necessary to support it. Note also that the process of exploration, done properly, will sometimes confirm the beliefs we find inspiring and sometimes disconfirm them.
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So obviously I met one of my goals - stimulating discussion.
Yeah--congratulations!:blahblah:
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...your mind was definitely stimulated, even if simply to find fault and flaws.
Hard not to find them when you're handing them to me on a silver platter! Anyway, it should be said that, contrary to what a lot of New Age bliss-ninnies would like to believe, the process of finding truth is largely a process of finding fault and flaws. You can't separate the wheat from the chaff without identifying both wheat and chaff, and focusing on the chaff is part of finding the wheat. I trust that, as a scientist, you understand that, Dr. Barrett.
Having said that, I'll take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation for your lovely photography. :photog:
Even though I have little interest in hard drugs such as alcohol, your wine photos on your website are awesome. Also, while I can't support some of your interpretations about the implications of cellular structure and function, I think you have some really cool info to impart about cells, and I resonate strongly with your feelings of inspiration about the wonders of our universe. I hope you understand that, as my column is about critical thinking, my focus was on critiquing your fallacies, so appreciating your lovely pictures etc. was outside the purview of the essay. Really, I'm a nice guy--you'll have to take my word for it.Big Smile
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BTW, I was offering a book for sale that had nothing to do with the talk, it was on wine.
I was referring to your upcoming book, Cells and the Sacred, which you mentioned. Perhaps I should also have mentioned your workshops on the same subject.
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It's interesting that one of your pictures showed flawed medical science (cigarettes)
Well of course--I was giving examples of people wrongly appropriating the mantle of science for claims that aren't really supported by good science. What's surprising about that example?
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...and that you used one of my images (cave painting) without permission.
Oooops! I sincerely apologize if I've stepped on your rights.:sorry: I'm brand new at this business of attaching photos to my writing, having just started it at the behest of my editor when I began this column a few months ago, and am a bit confused about how to proceed vis-a-vis photo use. Someone with more experience than I suggested that it's pretty safe to appropriate photos as needed as long as they're not labeled as being forbidden for free use, but I suppose that's an oversimplification. Anyway, since it' s not a photomicrograph, I thought you may have gotten that picture from elsewhere yourself, and I wanted the reader to see one of the photos referenced. Of course I'm happy to remove the photo from my essay or give you credit for it or whatever--just let me know what you'd like me to do. Again, I apologize for my ignorance on such matters. [Sondra has now granted explicit permission to use her image - Barry]
Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful response to my essay, and I hope you can see some value in my critique.
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Looks like you picked an easy target , however I have to agree with "Science has earned its glory as perhaps humanity’s most beautiful and useful creation through centuries of hard, rigorous, brutally honest and self-questioning work. To steal its credibility by claiming unearned scientific validity for unfounded beliefs is a profanation." But the thing that made reading this rave worthwhile for me was- "Of course, that makes as much sense as saying that since Mozart was a composer, his farts were symphonies." I'm still laughing and it's true! Thanks :Yinyangv:
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Gene:
Looks like you picked an easy target , however I have to agree with "Science has earned its glory as perhaps humanity’s most beautiful and useful creation through centuries of hard, rigorous, brutally honest and self-questioning work. To steal its credibility by claiming unearned scientific validity for unfounded beliefs is a profanation." But the thing that made reading this rave worthwhile for me was- "Of course, that makes as much sense as saying that since Mozart was a composer, his farts were symphonies." I'm still laughing and it's true! Thanks :Yinyangv:
My sentiments exactly! Took me hours to stop laughing! :rofl2:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
What a rousing discussion, farts included, so is this all gas?
To address the most relevant parts of your gospel. When wondering about why some religions, at least major ones and some indigenous and ancient traditions - maybe 10 - I was intrigued by the fact that they based their theologies on a sacred threesome. And since three is a basic elemental design in our biology and architecture, I leapt to "what if." As a scientist trained to look for connections, as obscure as they may have seemed to you, I still wonder why those religions used the three - where did the idea come from? Neither you nor I, to your satisfaction, seem to have answered that. If you know Narby's work you know that the ayahuasceros accessed information that Narby 'proved' to look like DNA in their paintings. Some would say those were just snakes. Shlain's first book Art and Physics develops the story that artists painted what would later become 'scientific revelations made by physicists.' I believe that what I was developing was/is a similar story - people saw something in their visions, however they got there - their art later was discovered to represent cellular revelations. Who knows, could this be right or wrong - only more research will determine that.
Do I believe that God played a part in our development - you betcha! How or what God is I don't know. What I do know is that mere genetic accidents over eons cannot account for the intricate machinations and majesty of our cellular universe. Had I not studied human cells in the laboratory for decades I don't think I would have come to this conclusion.
Christian de Duve, a biochemist, who won the Nobel prize in medicine, in the 1970s, who helped ascertain much of our cellular architecture puts it this way - "Life and mind emerge not as a result of freakish accidents but as natural manifestations of matter, written into the fabric of the universe. I view the universe not as a "cosmic joke," but as a meaningful entity - made in such a way as to generate life and mind, discern truth, appreciate beauty, feel love, experience mystery."
Thanks for the compliments on my photography and my cell information. Funny, I thought most of my Science Buzz was on the cells and that the 'conjecture' part was only a small portion. I did mention that I had never talked about that (conjecture) in any other venue, it was a challenging first time. My book and workshops are mostly about our cells and what they have to teach us. You should come.
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
My sentiments exactly! Took me hours to stop laughing! :rofl2:
...and days to stop farting. :burngrnbounce:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by SandBar:
... Christian de Duve, a biochemist, who won the Nobel prize in medicine, in the 1970s, who helped ascertain much of our cellular architecture puts it this way - "Life and mind emerge not as a result of freakish accidents but as natural manifestations of matter, written into the fabric of the universe. I view the universe not as a "cosmic joke," but as a meaningful entity - made in such a way as to generate life and mind, discern truth, appreciate beauty, feel love, experience mystery."...
Thanks for the quote SandBar, beautiful. Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are. Three, the first prime number that is more than one, three, the repetition in chants, the triangles of the star of David, three.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by Gene:
... Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are.
Yeah, that's an experience we've all had. There's a term for it; it's called "delusion".:nod:
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Three, the first prime number that is more than one, three, the repetition in chants, the triangles of the star of David, three.
Wha...? You're joking, right? There are eight triangles in the Star of David--two big ones and six little ones! Even I know that, and I'm as goyish as mayonnaise! Oi! :wtf:
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Perhaps you missed the part where I said "Even if everything Barrett said had been carefully qualified as tentative conjecture (which is not how I recall her presentation), it would still have been a travesty, because she was clearly implying that elementary logical fallacies such as the confirmation bias constitute some degree of support for her claims (even if not compelling evidence), and they simply do not. This sets a terrible example."......
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by Gene:
Thanks for the quote SandBar, beautiful. Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove they're true but you know they are. Three, the first prime number that is more than one, three, the repetition in chants, the triangles of the star of David, three.
Hi Gene, I know exactly what you mean by the threes in the triangles of the Star of David.
That's how I see it, too, being an oh-so-visually oriented person.
I am not counting the triangles, I'm seeing the points and sides of the triangles.
To me the Star of David is in threes.
and obviously, 2 sets of them, duh.
The blinking yellow WTF and the delusion insult really make you want to chime in again don't they?
I believe that my biggest problem with Deities general and specific, is the ensuing tyranny.
And Gene, I really enjoyed the tone of your writing. :owl:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by claire ossenbeck:
Hi Gene, I know exactly what you mean by the threes in the triangles of the Star of David. That's how I see it, too, being an oh-so-visually oriented person. I am not counting the triangles, I'm seeing the points and sides of the triangles.To me the Star of David is in threes. and obviously, 2 sets of them, duh.
Ohhh, so that's how you get "threeness" out of the Star of David! It may even be what Gene had in mind, or it may not; he hasn't chosen to clarify himself on that issue. But understand how arbitrary is your attribution of threeness as a quality of the Star of David. We could, at least as easily, call it twoness (two large triangles superimposed), or sixness (six small triangles surrounding a hexagon [a six-sided polygon], or the six long lines making up the image), or eightness (a total of eight triangles), or twelveness (the entire figure is a dodecahedron [a twelve-sided polygon]), or eighteenness (the eighteen small line segments making up the figure), or oneness (it's one symbol which serves to unify a people). My point is that focusing on the threeness is an arbitrary choice which doesn't really imply any more objective specialness for three than there is for two, six, eight, twelve or eighteen, etc. If three is special to you, fine--I've always been kinda partial to the number three myself!--but that doesn't mean three is any more special than any other number objectively speaking. To pick out the threenesses we see around us and ignore or minimize the other numbers as a way to validate the supposed objective specialness of threeness is cherry-picking the evidence; i.e., it's the fallacy known as the confirmation bias, which was my initial point that started the whole talk about the issue.
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The blinking yellow WTF and the delusion insult really make you want to chime in again don't they?
The WTF sign was simply a way of saying that the unexplained threeness connection to the Star of David was incomprehensible to me (and, I think, to most people), with an implied invitation to clarify it, as you've attempted to do from your perspective. In any case, if the WTF sign seems like some kind of insult or attack, well, no insult or attack was intended nor, I think, implied. From my perspective, you're needlessly negativizing it.
I'm glad you mention the so-called "delusion insult" because it brings up an important issue: one way people defend their cherished beliefs is to feel insulted when someone suggests they may be mistaken. Let's be very clear on this, Claire: to suggest that someone is wrong about something (in this case, calling their belief a delusion) is not an insult. It does not carry the implication that the person is stupid, crazy, bad or inferior, just that they're human; we're all deluded some of the time. If you call it an insult to suggest you're wrong, the implication is that you'd like to be regarded as infallible, never wrong!
Yes, my wording was a bit provocative; I chose it because I thought it was kinda punchy and pithy that way. Maybe that was a mistake. But I knew that it implied no insult, and I figured that if it pushed someone's buttons, that would give us an opportunity to discuss these issues, which it has. Please note that I softened my message to Gene by saying we've all had that experience (being deluded), so if you interpret that as insulting Gene, was I also insulting everybody else, including myself? Of course not--all humans are deluded about some things. More than once, my cherished beliefs have been badly wrong, and I assume that some of my current beliefs are wrong, and that this will always be the case, for me and everybody. So I hope you can see that saying somebody's mistaken is NOT an insult.
What separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls is whether we're willing to hear someone tell us we're wrong about something and actually process that in such a way as to see if it's true--thus having our delusions corrected! Or conversely, we may get defensive, tell ourselves we've been insulted, and mount an ad hominem attack on the one who's suggested we may be wrong, by calling them--oh, let's say for example a "tyrant", LOL!
Here's why I suggested that Gene's belief was likely to be mistaken: If people say they know something's true but can't prove it, I see two possibilities: 1. There's good evidence for their belief but they're just too inarticulate to articulate it (which I don't think is the case with Gene; he seems at least averagely articulate), or 2. They can't articulate good evidence for the belief because they haven't seen such evidence themselves--which means that the belief probably isn't true.
Of course, I didn't just say "mistaken"--I used the more charged term "delusion" which, in some definitions, carries the connotation that the belief is held so closed-mindedly that it's not correctable by reasoned argument. Whether that's accurate for Gene's (or your) belief remains to be seen. Is he open to the possibility that this belief, about which he says he "...can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are", is mistaken? Perhaps we'll see.
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I believe that my biggest problem with Deities general and specific, is the ensuing tyranny.
Maybe it was a mistake to adopt the humorous screen-nickname "Deity". It was meant as a joke. I hope people don't think I'm that grandiose! I do share your opinion about deities in general, Claire, but your dig at me, accusing me of tyranny, is in fact the one and only actual insult I've seen in this exchange among you, me and Gene. I hope you can see from my long-winded explanation that I'm not tyrannizing anybody. I don't want you or Gene to think badly of me. And it certainly was never my intention to hurt Gene's, Sondra's or anyone's feelings. But I'm not responsible for the distress people may cause themselves when they misunderstand an attack on their belief as a personal attack on them.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I couldn't get through all of Dixon's words - delusion is derogatory and the tirade he's put here with the statement pointing out I, or anyone else is wrong - NOPE..... This is a discussion where Dixon clearly disagrees with some of the content here and at the Science Buzz. That does NOT mean that he is right, only that he is stating his 'need to be right' opinion. There are always people who can't listen to something someone says because they disagree with it, and hence they find words, 'evidence' whatever you want to call it to prove themselves right. Look at the Birthers as an example.
I'm not sure who first put up the Star of David, it is constructed from two triangles - two -3-sided geometric shapes. So whether you break it down to 8 or 18 triangles, it is still constructed of 3-sided forms. As is the Sri Yantra and Bucky Fuller's geodesic dome. A reality - 3-sided structures are the first stable form ----- and ---- -----, not stable, can't build anything stable, need a threesome. Not an arbitrary fact. :thumbsup:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Dixon, it's all good, no offense taken. Did anyone read the couple of lines I wrote about no proof just a feeling. That's like saying prove that God exists, prove God doesn't exist. That solid object in front of you is really almost entirely empty space. If the nucleus was a grapefruit the first electron would be a baseball nine miles away. Just energy waves and space and tiny tiny bits of matter almost lost in space that,s what all the "Solid" objects around you are. We just can't see it because it's moving so fast. Our perception through are senses is really quite limited and their are many things that through our science and our minds we have come to believe exist that we don't have a clue about (dark matter, dark energy, bending of space and time, subatomic or quantum physics), It's mostly theory at this point. So knowing without proving is perfectly acceptable for me. It's not science it's just life the way I perceive it and none of us really perceive it exactly the same. Yea I might be delusional or I might be right. Just because were the only ones who see it, it doesn't mean it's not there. Peace Gene.:Yinyangv:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by Gene:
...Three, the first prime number that is more than one,... .
No, actually 2 is.Big Smile
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Ohhh, so that's how you get "threeness" out of the Star of David!
The WTF sign was simply a way of saying that the unexplained threeness connection to the Star of David was incomprehensible to me (and, I think, to most people), with an implied invitation to clarify it, as you've attempted to do from your perspective. In any case, if the WTF sign seems like some kind of insult or attack, well, no insult or attack was intended nor, I think, implied. From my perspective, you're needlessly negativizing it.
I'm glad you mention the so-called "delusion insult" because it brings up an important issue: one way people defend their cherished beliefs is to feel insulted when someone suggests they may be mistaken. Let's be very clear on this, Claire: to suggest that someone is wrong about something (in this case, calling their belief a delusion) is not an insult. It does not carry the implication that the person is stupid, crazy, bad or inferior, just that they're human; we're all deluded some of the time. If you call it an insult to suggest you're wrong, the implication is that you'd like to be regarded as infallible, never wrong!
Yes, my wording was a bit provocative; I chose it because I thought it was kinda punchy and pithy that way. Maybe that was a mistake. But I knew that it implied no insult, and I figured that if it pushed someone's buttons, that would give us an opportunity to discuss these issues, which it has. Please note that I softened my message to Gene by saying we've all had that experience (being deluded), so if you interpret that as insulting Gene, was I also insulting everybody else, including myself? Of course not--all humans are deluded about some things. More than once, my cherished beliefs have been badly wrong, and I assume that some of my current beliefs are wrong, and that this will always be the case, for me and everybody. So I hope you can see that saying somebody's mistaken is NOT an insult.
wow
I couldn't even get through your post.
I think you lost me on the tenth use of the word insult.
I used the word insult once to describe your intention with Gene's big "delusion". ( I could have used another term, like word.)
I thought your intention was to be insulting. Boy did I get that wrong. I'm sorry, Dixon. ..
you know, this is really not for me. I think you may be more linear a person, than actually interests me.
Yes, I do see the world in shapes and line and movement, expressed energy, in all sorts of visual treats.
These days. I am working on two large art commissions that involve designing convoluted, complex, balanced Celtic knots --all original. And drawing them out by hand so I really feel what I'm coming up with...
So I can tell you exactly what a super simple Star of David looks like to me.
I think I really do find your style um, something. I don't have all night to find the perfect, safe word for that..... lol
I think, not for me works, works well.
As far as the tyranny goes, when people get overrun with the force of another's viewpoint, it can seem like it .
yup, that's what I meant, with irony. Can we still do irony? [ ok, that was a poke/ joke. lol. please forgive me.]
You choose a name like Deity... you are going to be ribbed about it at some time. this was it for me.
I wish you all the best, Dixon. I hope you've found what you are looking for.
I know you won't be finding it for me.
hey, or from me.
and so, I'm unsubscribing here. I may look, but ...
These posts, to paraphrase Emperor Josef II, "too many words", which does not mean you are the Mozart of articles, ja?
happy trails
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Yes, my wording was a bit provocative; I chose it because I thought it was kinda punchy and pithy that way. Maybe that was a mistake.
I hope you can find a way to be "punchy and pithy" without being quite so abrasive and huffy. :heart:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Some of my thoughts about the “three’s” pertaining to this discussion here:
1- As far as what is “magical” is concerned; I suppose that's up to each individual’s interpretation of what qualifies as “magical”. :waccosun:
2- Physically as far as I can tell; we live in a three-dimensional “world”. That thought is purely conjecture on my part, but I'm sticking to that frame of reference for now because it's the best I know of at this point in time; it works for me.:wink:
3- Three -dimensional objects (such as a theoretical "perfect" sphere, for example) have an inside, an outside, and the “space” surrounding (the outside of) it. I'm referring to three-dimensional, so-called “solid” objects in the simplest of forms, not at the atomic or sub-atomic levels, which has been mentioned in other posts.
Of course if the three-dimensional theoretical “perfect” sphere happens to be hollow like a ball, then there is also the “space” inside of it. But that does not make it four dimensions even though there is the inside, and outside, space surrounding it, and also the space the whole sphere is “surrounding”; it's still as far as I can tell physically in three dimensions, not four, two, or, any other number/dimensions more than three....
... Does that mean three is “magical”?
...My thoughts to that question is that; scientifically speaking, it may not be “provable” one way or the other because when all is said and done I suspect that we will discover “magic” and “science” in the purest sense are not actually mutually “compatible” in the first place; In which case any so-called "proof" would be in essence; conjecture.
In other words, anybody can "believe" extremely complex "science" which they may not completely be able to comprehend or, (anybody can) "believe" in something "magical" that is scientifically "unprovable"; yet both (scientifically unattainable "facts", and magic) may indeed actually exist simultaneously within our three-dimensional "confines".:wow::wow:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction! Gossip?
Sorry to take so long to respond to this post, Sondra. I'm behind on lots of things.
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Posted in reply to the post by SandBar:
What a rousing discussion, farts included, so is this all gas?
Not all of it, but some of it is. Which parts are gas will depend on who you ask!:poof:
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To address the most relevant parts of your gospel. When wondering about why some religions, at least major ones and some indigenous and ancient traditions - maybe 10 - I was intrigued by the fact that they based their theologies on a sacred threesome. And since three is a basic elemental design in our biology and architecture, I leapt to "what if." As a scientist trained to look for connections, as obscure as they may have seemed to you, I still wonder why those religions used the three - where did the idea come from? Neither you nor I, to your satisfaction, seem to have answered that.
Nobody's saying that three isn't important in a zillion different areas, religious and secular. I'm just saying that, while it may be subjectively significant to you, it's no more objectively significant than other low numbers such as one, two or four. You say that the religions you looked at "based their theologies on a sacred threesome" but, while pretty much all religions and every other realm of thought mentions threeness (and oneness and twoness and fourness...), and the New Testament mentions the Father, Son and Holy Ghost singly as well as in combinations of two or three, the Trinity as we know it was not formalized until the end of the 4th century C.E.! So Christianity is not based on a sacred threesome. It's a monotheistic religion (one god), with a dualistic world-view (two basic principles: good/evil, Heaven/Hell, God/Satan, in conflict), which happens to have developed a trinity at some point, and takes its basic teachings from four Gospels, etc. etc... The same type of analysis would apply to any other religion (or any realm of study you care to cite). Some would, coincidentally, consider threeness primary, others prefer nineness (Enneagram), twelveness (astrology), twoness (the Yin/Yang principle--my favorite), etc. Nothing you've said yet changes the fact that you seem to be looking at the world through "3-colored" glasses--cherry-picking examples of threeness you see and emphasizing them, while ignoring or minimizing twoness, fourness, etc. Again, it's a classic example of the confirmation bias. Can you see that?
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If you know Narby's work you know that the ayahuasceros accessed information that Narby 'proved' to look like DNA in their paintings. Some would say those were just snakes. Shlain's first book Art and Physics develops the story that artists painted what would later become 'scientific revelations made by physicists.' I believe that what I was developing was/is a similar story - people saw something in their visions, however they got there - their art later was discovered to represent cellular revelations.
Not being sufficiently familiar with either Narby's work or Shlain's Art and Physics, I cannot comment intelligently or fairly on them.
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Who knows, could this be right or wrong - only more research will determine that.
In principle, any claim could be right or wrong, including yours about the special significance of the number three. But since all I've seen so far is fallacious evidence from you (the confirmation bias), my best guess is that your claim is wrong, since most claims are. I'm always open to better evidence. But the question arises: are you open to the possibility that your claim about threeness is wrong?
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Do I believe that God played a part in our development - you betcha! How or what God is I don't know.
So, you invoked a supernatural cause, without making a good case for it, at an event that was supposed to be about science, and you didn't expect to catch some flak about that? Surely you see the truth-in-advertising issue there.
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What I do know is that mere genetic accidents over eons cannot account for the intricate machinations and majesty of our cellular universe. Had I not studied human cells in the laboratory for decades I don't think I would have come to this conclusion.
You do understand that most scientists, including most of those who have studied human cells for decades, and especially the best of them, such as Nobel laureates, disagree with you on this, right?
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Christian de Duve, a biochemist, who won the Nobel prize in medicine, in the 1970s, who helped ascertain much of our cellular architecture puts it this way - "Life and mind emerge not as a result of freakish accidents but as natural manifestations of matter, written into the fabric of the universe. I view the universe not as a "cosmic joke," but as a meaningful entity - made in such a way as to generate life and mind, discern truth, appreciate beauty, feel love, experience mystery."
Of course life and mind were, in some sense, implicit in the basic building blocks of the universe (including laws of physics, etc.) or they'd never have evolved. But, if he's implying an a priori goal or meaning to the universe, much less a "god", there's a huge burden of proof that goes with that, and it won't be satisfied by the pathetic "Argument from Design". And, since you seem to want to invoke authority by quoting a Nobel laureate here, let's be clear on the fact that the vast majority of Nobel laureates disagree with Duve about this.
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Thanks for the compliments on my photography and my cell information.
Just giving you your "props".:apls:
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I did mention that I had never talked about that (conjecture) in any other venue, it was a challenging first time.
Good--you were asking for it!:nod:
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My book and workshops are mostly about our cells and what they have to teach us. You should come.
Thanks for the invitation, but my terrible finances won't allow the expenditure. Besides, I think your workshops would slide into the woowoo realm pretty quickly, and I'd make myself unpopular by challenging ideas that most of your participants just love, and it's too painful being in the position wherein people see me as some sort of curmudgeon.
On a slightly different note. Knowing your interest in wine, I thought of you when I stumbled on this lengthy quote from the late Richard Feynman yesterday, so thought I'd share it in case you haven't seen it:
- A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!
- Volume I, 3-10, The relation of Physics to other sciences
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by SandBar:
I couldn't get through all of Dixon's words
Then presumably anything you say about what I said will be very tentative, since you didn't read enough to fully understand my points or my support for them.
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- delusion is derogatory
I won't respond by adding more words to your burden of too many words, since I've addressed this at length in post #12 of this thread.
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...and the tirade he's put here...
I just looked up "tirade" to make sure I understand it correctly, and it seems to be an exaggeration at best. In any case, the term "tirade" certainly fits your post (this one I'm responding to) at least as much as it fits mine. It sounds like you're pissed at me. I guess the honeymoon is over.
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...with the statement pointing out I, or anyone else is wrong - NOPE.....
Of course you don't believe you're wrong. If you thought you were, you'd change your belief. Same for me. The question is: Are you open to the possibility that you're wrong? I'm open to the possibility that I am, and continue to invite you to give me some good reason to agree with you (some reasonable argument for your position). Do you see that you haven't done that yet?
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This is a discussion where Dixon clearly disagrees with some of the content here and at the Science Buzz.
To phrase it in a little less self-centered way, let's say that WE are in disagreement. After all, it takes two (at least) to disagree.
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That does NOT mean that he is right...
Of course not, I could always be wrong, and I look forward to being corrected, perhaps even by you. Lay it on me.
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...only that he is stating his 'need to be right' opinion.
Now you're just getting plain nasty, Sondra. You're attributing a very bad motivation to me--this ego-tripping, dominating "need to be right" thing. But have you really ruled out a much better motivation: that I engage with people I disagree with to get better and better approximations of the truth, regardless whether it means verifying I was right or finding out I was wrong? That is, in fact, where I'm coming from. I could be wrong about anything at any time, and I really want you to correct me if I am. Is there some good reason to doubt this and accuse me of bad motivations?
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There are always people who can't listen to something someone says because they disagree with it, and hence they find words, 'evidence' whatever you want to call it to prove themselves right. Look at the Birthers as an example.
The verbal abuse just keeps on coming! So you'd like to believe that I "can't listen to something someone says because [I] disagree with it"? It seems to me that I've shown that I've listened very carefully to your statements, and everyone else's on this thread, largely by critiquing them. Please give evidence that I'm not listening or retract that statement. Or do you confuse listening with agreeing? And I'm looking for "evidence" to prove myself right? Well, that's part of the process, but I'm also looking for evidence to prove you right and me wrong! I keep asking you for such evidence, and all you've given so far is two kinds of fallacies: the confirmation bias and the fallacious appeal to authority. Actually, you've now used three fallacies, as your verbal attack in this post constitutes an ad hominem attack. And comparing me with the Birthers? Hit me again--harder! Harder!:knocked:
In my experience, the ad hominem attack often means that someone can't make a good case for their position by addressing the issues, but also cannot admit they may be mistaken, so they attempt to fallaciously discredit the other person by an inaccurate or irrelevant personal attack. I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're more reasonable, so I ask again: Are you open to the possibility that you're mistaken about these things we disagree on?
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I'm not sure who first put up the Star of David, it is constructed from two triangles - two -3-sided geometric shapes. So whether you break it down to 8 or 18 triangles, it is still constructed of 3-sided forms.
See the first paragraph in my post #12 in this thread for my explication of why 3 is no more significant than any of several different numbers in the Star of David.
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As is the Sri Yantra and Bucky Fuller's geodesic dome. A reality - 3-sided structures are the first stable form ----- and ---- -----, not stable, can't build anything stable, need a threesome. Not an arbitrary fact. :thumbsup:
Any friend of Bucky Fuller is a friend of mine--at least if they don't slap me around too much. Bucky is one of my greatest heroes; I even saw him speak once. He was, IIRC, 84 years old and spoke for 5 1/2 hours! And yes, on the 2-dimensional level, triangles are the most stable, and that's why they're the basis for Bucky's geodesic dome, etc. But note that Bucky himself pointed out that the simplest 3-dimensional structure is the tetrahedron, a four-sided polyhedron with triangular sides! In fact, there ain't no such animal as a three-sided polyhedron--they're all four or more. This is not to deny the importance of threeness in Bucky's thinking (or indeed in the "design" principles of the universe); only to show yet again that you're emphasizing the threeness while conveniently ignoring other numbers of fundamental importance, in this case, fourness. Not only that, but every structure is made from materials, energies and principles that can best be described in terms of twoness--up/down, inside/outside, hard/soft, matter/energy, wave/particle, etc. ad infinitum. So again, I'd like to make you feel good by agreeing with you, but so far you're just not making your case for the objective special significance of threeness. Fair enough?
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Gene:
Dixon, it's all good, no offense taken.
Ah, Gene, your kind and gentle response is like a breath of fresh air, especially in contrast to some of what I've been subjected to lately! :shitstorm: I'm glad I didn't hurt your feelings, as I certainly didn't intend to.
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Did anyone read the couple of lines I wrote about no proof just a feeling. That's like saying prove that God exists, prove God doesn't exist.
Of course I read those lines. That's why I assume your belief is likely mistaken. My position is that "just a feeling", no matter how strong or inspiring the feeling may be, constitutes no evidence for any claim about the objective universe, including claims about the "magic" nature of number three or the existence of a god. Usually, having such strong feelings that something is true is evidence that we really want to believe it, but of course that doesn't make it true. So, in the absence of good evidence apart from "just a feeling", the claim in question is very unlikely to be true. A good general principle to keep in mind! But, since the kind of beliefs that people hold on the basis of "just a feeling" are often very important to their emotional security (such as beliefs in gods), pointing out this logical principle is likely to piss people off!:duck:
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That solid object in front of you is really almost entirely empty space. If the nucleus was a grapefruit the first electron would be a baseball nine miles away. Just energy waves and space and tiny tiny bits of matter almost lost in space that,s what all the "Solid" objects around you are. We just can't see it because it's moving so fast.
Yeah, that's all fun stuff to know and think about, isn't it!
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Our perception through are senses is really quite limited and their are many things that through our science and our minds we have come to believe exist that we don't have a clue about (dark matter, dark energy, bending of space and time, subatomic or quantum physics), It's mostly theory at this point.
Ah, but note that all of these things you mention are based on careful observations and measurements, and that all of these ideas have taken shape through a process that finds ways to test things, involving a lot of dispute about what's true or not, and changes or rejects ideas as wrong if they fail the tests. This is totally different from believing something on the basis of "just a feeling".
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So knowing without proving is perfectly acceptable for me.
That sure doesn't follow from what you just said! The path of "knowing without proving" is a great way to get to beliefs which meet your needs; they're just not very likely to be true!
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Yea I might be delusional or I might be right.
Strictly speaking, delusion means not just being mistaken, but being uncorrectable about it. So, regarding any belief, you can avoid delusion by either making a good logical case for the belief, or, in the absence of such a case, conceding that the belief's probably not true. With all due respect, Gene, cleaving to a belief in the absence of good evidence fits the definition of delusionality, but you should see some of the flak I caught for suggesting that we've all been delusional at times! :hitfan:
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Just because were the only ones who see it, it doesn't mean it's not there.
Uh, actually it usually does mean that--take it from a guy who used to work in mental health with people who were delusional and/or hallucinating! And, just because we "see" it, it doesn't mean it's there!
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Peace Gene.:Yinyangv:
And peace to you, Bro'! I hope you'll continue to take my posts in the spirit intended.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
So, regarding any belief, you can avoid delusion by either making a good logical case for the belief, or, in the absence of such a case, conceding that the belief's probably not true. With all due respect, Gene, cleaving to a belief in the absence of good evidence fits the definition of delusionality, but you should see some of the flak I caught for suggesting that we've all been delusional at times! :hitfan:
The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines delusion as ": a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary;"
So it seems to be that it's quite possible to believe is something where there is not "indisputable evidence to the contrary" and to hold that as a "belief", while not being delusional. Some people take it further and speak of it as "my truth", which is the same thing as a belief in my book.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
On this THIRD planet from the sun, it is a treat to be able to engage in such a multi-dimensional discussion.
Dixon, I could explore many other numbers in terms of their 'magical' significance. I chose three for a multitude of reasons that it plays a part in our biology and sacred symbols. And Hotspring, thanks for the 3-dimensions.
Perhaps here would be a useful discussion about scientific knowing vs the intuitive, the shamanic. Yes, Dixon, for science we need measurements and analysis, so-called proofs. Your use of the cigarette image speaks to just how tenuous scientific proofs can be. Truth today is not so right tomorrow. Many scientists would tell you that many of their paths or discoveries came first from intuition, hunches, the great mystery. Many questions will never be able to be answered by science, including what is love or empathy, God. Not finding answers is not proof they don't exist, just proof we don't have the knowledge or ability to measure.
I remember not too long ago, acupuncture was considered to be a 'woo woo foreign' practice of no value. After all, no one (in the US) could measure qi. Yet because people were having their pain relieved by acupuncture (placebo?) western science began studying how could that be. Pain-killing molecules called endorphins are released by the little needles but what about people practicing tai chi or qi gong, do they, too, release magical molecules?
I may never have evidence to answer your objections. There is another way of knowing the world and I have chosen to add uncertainty and speculation, and the 'what if' possibilities. It's so much more fun that way.:wink:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
I hope you can find a way to be "punchy and pithy" without being quite so abrasive and huffy...
...The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines
delusion as "
: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary;"
Barry, you aren't playing fair here.:nono: You picked the one definition on the dictionary page that didn't fit my use of the word "delusion", ignoring the broader definition ("something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated") right above the one you chose which easily fits my looser use of the term, and also ignoring the examples a little lower on the same page which also fit my use of the term, such as:
- He has delusions about how much money he can make at that job.
- He is living under the delusion that he is incapable of making mistakes.
- She is under the delusion that we will finish on time.
Three of the four examples on your own dictionary page (shown above) were of my looser use of the word "delusion"; only one was of the psychiatric definition which you presented as if it were the only relevant definition! So you had to ignore nearly all of what was on the page in order to cherry-pick the one irrelevant definition that would make my usage of the word look wrong. What's up with that???:wtf: (That's not a rhetorical question; I'd like an answer.)
On top of that, you accuse me of being abrasive and huffy--apparently for properly using a word you don't like. Note that terms like "abrasive" and "huffy" are both more negative than my use of the word "delusion", so your resorting to them in this context seems ironically hypocritical. I think I could reasonably apply several stronger adjectives to you on the basis of your nasty little trick I've just described. Really, an explanation is in order.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by SandBar:
Truth today is not so right tomorrow....
I remember not too long ago, acupuncture was considered to be a 'woo woo foreign' practice of no value. After all, no one (in the US) could measure qi. Yet because people were having their pain relieved by acupuncture (placebo?) western science began studying how could that be. Pain-killing molecules called endorphins are released by the little needles ...
this is a good example, actually, though a counter-example to your main point. Accupuncture has been one of the better-studied 'alternative' treatments, and mechanisms other than the placebo effect were indeed proposed. But it hasn't panned out that way; as studies accumulated, the balance of them don't support any such claims. It's placebo and that's about it.
And as far as 'truth' being dependent on its chronological location, that's some esoteric physics... it's actually dependent on its velocity as well. In the colloquial sense, though, if it turns out in the future that something wasn't true, it's never been true. "It" was only thought to be true....
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
this is a good example, actually, though a counter-example to your main point. Accupuncture has been one of the better-studied 'alternative' treatments, and mechanisms other than the placebo effect were indeed proposed. But it hasn't panned out that way; as studies accumulated, the balance of them don't support any such claims. It's placebo and that's about it.
And as far as 'truth' being dependent on its chronological location, that's some esoteric physics... it's actually dependent on its velocity as well. In the colloquial sense, though, if it turns out in the future that something wasn't true, it's never been true. "It" was only thought to be true....
Thanks for the addition or correction to this discussion. So though it may not be that endorphins are released, something is. The placebo effect is an amazingly fascinating response of the human body-mind. Here, too, just because we can't measure the chemical change, something has occurred in the body due to belief, expectation. A huge tome co-authored by White looks at all the possibilities of placebo. Another medical mystery.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Here's how this unfolded:
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Gene:
... Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Yeah, that's an experience we've all had. There's a term for it; it's called "delusion".:nod:
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Claire:
The blinking yellow WTF and the delusion insult really make you want to chime in again don't they?
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
I'm glad you mention the so-called "delusion insult" because it brings up an important issue: one way people defend their cherished beliefs is to feel insulted when someone suggests they may be mistaken. Let's be very clear on this, Claire: to suggest that someone is wrong about something (in this case, calling their belief a delusion) is not an insult. It does not carry the implication that the person is stupid, crazy, bad or inferior, just that they're human; we're all deluded some of the time. If you call it an insult to suggest you're wrong, the implication is that you'd like to be regarded as infallible, never wrong!
Dixon, you first used the term delusion in response to Gene's comment: "Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are."
While that's not factually true, it's also not factually untrue or "false". So your claim to the partially circular definition of delusion that I didn't quote: "something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated" doesn't apply. And given that the second meaning is commonly used, the use of the word "delusion" is easily, perhaps commonly, construed to mean the person is not in their right mind and is taken as an insult.
Note also that the examples you cite below (from the M-W dictionary) referred to a person rather than to the proposition that the person is holding. This is an example of how your writing easily veers off the objective and becomes personal (ie "abrasive and huffy"). This is only case and there have been other recently. It's gotten to the point that I have received two private complaints from members, which is pretty unusual.
I know that this topic, what's science and what's not, is of great personal interest to you and it's a very worthy point and an important line to keep distinct. And at the same time, science only understands so much. I'd venture to say way less than half of the fundamental nature of reality and what's really pulling all the strings behind the curtain is understood by science.
So it's fine to say "thus and so" are not supported by science, or even "is not science". it's not fine to say that if you believe something outside of science that the person is having delusions.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Barry, you aren't playing fair here.:nono: You picked the one definition on the dictionary page that didn't fit my use of the word "delusion", ignoring the broader definition ("something that is falsely
or delusively believed or propagated")
right above the one you chose which easily fits my looser use of the term, and also ignoring the examples a little lower on the same page which also fit my use of the term, such as:
- He has delusions about how much money he can make at that job.
- He is living under the delusion that he is incapable of making mistakes.
- She is under the delusion that we will finish on time.
Three of the four examples on
your own dictionary page (shown above) were of my looser use of the word "delusion"; only one was of the psychiatric definition which you presented as if it were the only relevant definition! So you had to ignore nearly all of what was on the page in order to cherry-pick the one irrelevant definition that would make my usage of the word look wrong. What's up with that???:wtf: (That's not a rhetorical question; I'd like an answer.)
On top of that, you accuse me of being abrasive and huffy--apparently for properly using a word you don't like. Note that terms like "abrasive" and "huffy" are both more negative than my use of the word "delusion", so your resorting to them in this context seems ironically hypocritical. I think I could reasonably apply several stronger adjectives to you on the basis of your nasty little trick I've just described. Really, an explanation is in order.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Here's how this unfolded:
Dixon, you first used the term delusion in response to Gene's comment: "Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are."
While that's not factually true, it's also not factually untrue or "false". So your claim to the partially circular definition of delusion that I didn't quote: "something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated" doesn't apply. And given that the second meaning is commonly used, the use of the word "delusion" is easily, perhaps commonly, construed to mean the person is not in their right mind and is taken as an insult.
Note also that the examples you cite below (from the M-W dictionary) referred to a person rather than to the proposition that the person is holding. This is an example of how your writing easily veers off the objective and becomes personal (ie "abrasive and huffy"). This is only case and there have been other recently. It's gotten to the point that I have received two private complaints from members, which is pretty unusual.
I know that this topic, what's science and what's not, is of great personal interest to you and it's a very worthy point and an important line to keep distinct. And at the same time, science only understands so much. I'd venture to say way less than half of the fundamental nature of reality and what's really pulling all the strings behind the curtain is understood by science.
So it's fine to say "thus and so" are not supported by science, or even "is not science". it's not fine to say that if you believe something outside of science that the person is having delusions.
Thank you Barry,
Very well said.
Two quotes for Dixon and anyone else who is interested:
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
Albert Einstein
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
Mark Twain
Marty
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
your post is a good example of "science" being used to dismiss medical treatments, such as accupuncture. in general it is very difficult to do scientific studies on human health. your description of the scientific research on accupuncture is inaccurate and biased, as a simple google search will demonstrate. science is a dynamic method for exploring the world and the understanding which develops is constantly being refined, as time and money allows. your claim that accupuncture effectiveness is explained by the placebo effect is not supported by scientific research.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
this is a good example, actually, though a counter-example to your main point. Accupuncture has been one of the better-studied 'alternative' treatments, and mechanisms other than the placebo effect were indeed proposed. But it hasn't panned out that way; as studies accumulated, the balance of them don't support any such claims. It's placebo and that's about it.
And as far as 'truth' being dependent on its chronological location, that's some esoteric physics... it's actually dependent on its velocity as well. In the colloquial sense, though, if it turns out in the future that something wasn't true, it's never been true. "It" was only thought to be true....
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
... your claim that acupuncture effectiveness is explained by the placebo effect is not supported by scientific research.
As I remember, the scientific bottom line was that "acupuncture" had a statistical benefit, however it didn't matter whether the needles were placed according to standard acupuncture meridians as opposed to being placed randomly. I suppose you could call that a placebo effect.
More and more I think that the placebo effect is the strongest and most natural medicine! That makes techniques that support and encourage the placebo effect valid! :hifive:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
your post is a good example of "science" being used to dismiss medical treatments, such as accupuncture. in general it is very difficult to do scientific studies on human health. your description of the scientific research on accupuncture is inaccurate and biased, as a simple google search will demonstrate. science is a dynamic method for exploring the world and the understanding which develops is constantly being refined, as time and money allows. your claim that accupuncture effectiveness is explained by the placebo effect is not supported by scientific research.
so many things.... "science" actually doesn't need quotes. I must cop to using unnecessary quotes a lot myself, so I suppose I'm on shaky ground here. But yeah, science is good at eventually dismissing useless medical treatments. To be more accurate, it's good at identifying which ones work and the mechanisms behind them. So technically you certainly can say accupuncture "works" (i told you I like unnecessary quotes). But it works solely by the placebo effect. It's been well studied, I bet Google has lots o great stuff about it. Medical journals do too, and blogs by researchers - and some of them are easily found using Google. Maybe you did find some research reports that were convincing in support of accupuncture. My simple Google search didn't find any that fit that. Sure there are some authors with MD or PhD after their names who claim there's scientific evidence. I didn't find the content of their arguments (I like italics too) matched the implied expertise of their credentials. For example, one started his argument by pointing out that western medicine doesn't understand chi, so it can't measure what accupuncture's doing. Sadly, that just leads to the need to explain why chi exists and has effects but can't be measured by science - accupuncture becomes a lesser component of a broader (undefended!) claim about a powerful but unmeasurable life force.
Typical skeptical disclaimer: I don't say that I know for sure chi doesn't exist, or that accupuncture doesn't work. I do know that neither has been proven, that other explanations for the effects some attribute to chi/accupuncture do exist and are sufficient. So if real evidence ever does show up, well then, my current skepticism is still justified, but I'll accept the evidence as it is. I don't have a horse in this race, chi's a cool idea, but it seems an arbitrary construct to me. I don't see the difference between it and the Force emitted by the midichlorians (or however George Lucas spells them). Dismissing one because it was invented more recently than the other seems unfair.
Your observation that "scientific studies on human health" are difficult (quotes correct here!) is absolutely true, it's why there's been years of research regarding some of the alternative medicine world's claims - especially regarding accupuncture, which has good anecdotal evidence in its support - even though there's been little success finding an effect that can't be otherwise explained. It's important to be careful and critical about accepting poorly supported results. To belabor a point: the scientific method can be used to test the efficacy of treatments such as accupuncture. There does not exist a body of successful experiments that demonstrate a clear effect, or show a mechanism by which it works. There are several studies that fail to disprove any effect. I suppose that's something. As you say, it's difficult to isolate one factor when we're talking about health studies, but there don't seem to be any that are strongly indicative in accupuncture's favor, and there doesn't seem to be a large number that are slightly indicative either. So it can be regarded at best as an unproven treatment. For a treatment that has been around for so long, to have the best evidence in its support being anecdotal or even weirder being that it's been around a long time, so there must be something to it, should lead one to be skeptical at best.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
it was interesting to read the study i think you are refering too, and the responses to it. having done that, i find your summation misleadingly charming.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
As I remember, the scientific bottom line was that "acupuncture" had a statistical benefit, however it didn't matter whether the needles were placed according to standard acupuncture meridians as opposed to being placed randomly. I suppose you could call that a placebo effect.
More and more I think that the placebo effect is the strongest and most natural medicine! That makes techniques that support and encourage the placebo effect valid! :hifive:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
it was interesting to read the study i think you are refering too, and the responses to it. having done that, i find your summation misleadingly charming.
Please elaborate!
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Podfish, I don't always agree with you, but you write so well, I really give it a try. Even after two glasses of wine (yeah, yeah, Kunde sustainably farmed) I will work to find your logic and appreciate the reasoning.
Hey, let's start a new thread! The Placebo Effect. Chock full of anecdotes and personal wisdom, oh, and studies too, why not? Everyone's invited.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
the quotes were to differentiate the way you use science from my understanding. medical science has made some progress in figuring out what works, less in understanding why. we humans and our health turn out to be complicated. there is some proven effectiveness for acupuncture, and lots of skepticism because the theory is not useful for scientific exploration.
and the business of medicine is a powerful complicating factor. the majority of medical research is motivated by profit. just look at the $ going into research based on the germ theory of disease vs hygiene theory. both are proven scientific theory. both are useful in understanding how to be healthy. yet germ theory gets all the play. so we get bad advice from well meaning scientific medical practitioners.
how many years did the ama sue chiropractors before they lost, had to pay their legal costs, and stop calling them quacks?
homeopathy works too according to scientific study, just don't know why.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
so many things.... "science" actually doesn't need quotes. I must cop to using unnecessary quotes a lot myself, so I suppose I'm on shaky ground here. But yeah, science is good at eventually dismissing useless medical treatments. To be more accurate, it's good at identifying which ones work and the mechanisms behind them. So technically you certainly can say accupuncture "works" (i told you I like unnecessary quotes). But it works solely by the placebo effect. It's been well studied, I bet Google has lots o great stuff about it. Medical journals do too, and blogs by researchers - and some of them are easily found using Google. Maybe you did find some research reports that were convincing in support of accupuncture. My simple Google search didn't find any that fit that. Sure there are some authors with MD or PhD after their names who claim there's scientific evidence. I didn't find the content of their arguments (I like italics too) matched the implied expertise of their credentials. For example, one started his argument by pointing out that western medicine doesn't understand chi, so it can't measure what accupuncture's doing. Sadly, that just leads to the need to explain why chi exists and has effects but can't be measured by science - accupuncture becomes a lesser component of a broader (undefended!) claim about a powerful but unmeasurable life force.
Typical skeptical disclaimer: I don't say that I know for sure chi doesn't exist, or that accupuncture doesn't work. I do know that neither has been proven, that other explanations for the effects some attribute to chi/accupuncture do exist and are sufficient. So if real evidence ever does show up, well then, my current skepticism is still justified, but I'll accept the evidence as it is. I don't have a horse in this race, chi's a cool idea, but it seems an arbitrary construct to me. I don't see the difference between it and the Force emitted by the midichlorians (or however George Lucas spells them). Dismissing one because it was invented more recently than the other seems unfair.
Your observation that "scientific studies on human health" are difficult (quotes correct here!) is absolutely true, it's why there's been years of research regarding some of the alternative medicine world's claims - especially regarding accupuncture, which has good anecdotal evidence in its support - even though there's been little success finding an effect that can't be otherwise explained. It's important to be careful and critical about accepting poorly supported results. To belabor a point: the scientific method can be used to test the efficacy of treatments such as accupuncture. There does not exist a body of successful experiments that demonstrate a clear effect, or show a mechanism by which it works. There are several studies that fail to disprove any effect. I suppose that's something. As you say, it's difficult to isolate one factor when we're talking about health studies, but there don't seem to be any that are strongly indicative in accupuncture's favor, and there doesn't seem to be a large number that are slightly indicative either. So it can be regarded at best as an unproven treatment. For a treatment that has been around for so long, to have the best evidence in its support being anecdotal or even weirder being that it's been around a long time, so there must be something to it, should lead one to be skeptical at best.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
So it's fine to say "thus and so" are not supported by science, or even "is not science". it's not fine to say that if you believe something outside of science that the person is having delusions.
Well said, Barry! Even scientists have difficulty agreeing with each other, tamper and skew "evidence" and data to support their theories (and maintain their funding), suffer from epistemological anarchism, and denegrate other bona fide scientists for theories outside the mainstream. I could cite dozens of cases but one notorious example is what Thomas Edison did to Nikola Tesla. One of my favorite contemporary scientist is Rupert Sheldrake who is constantly maligned by some scientists (and skeptics...who I'm often quite skeptical about), yet supported by others.
Science does not have the only or last word on reality. It may be fine and good to say "there is data that suggests" to support ones arguments but, dollars to donuts, if you look hard enough, there will be data that suggests just the opposite.
It is entirely possible (and much more enjoyable and engaging) to discuss our differences of opinion without being puerile about it. Too often, in this thread particularly, the use of disparaging language, passive-aggressive reactions, and inflammatory emoticons, have reduced what might have been an intelligent discussion into a schoolyard brawl. Such behavior sucks credibility right out of the mix.
Anathstryx
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I used an example of acupuncture here to show that science takes a long time to study what is not objectively explained. [look how long it took to begin to study the role of stress, attitudes, etc on health and disease) I believe someone corrected me and said acupuncture was shown not to work. I then added more confusion perhaps by saying that perhaps it was the placebo effect, that initiated the immeasurable healing. Seeing all of the resulting discussion, I had to look up what NCCAM (national center for complementary and alternative medicine) said = a great resource if you don't know about it. https://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/
This is the federal govt's research arm into the alternatives to mainstream medicine. There are biases on both sides of a discussion around science - the believers that science is the only answer to truth, and the other that science is the boogey man covering up truths and preventing progress. It is neither - it is a way of asking questions, observing and making conclusions.
and what works for one person, be it acupuncture, homeopathy, or pain meds, doesn't necessarily work for another. Don't think science will be able to answer that, not in my lifetime.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Hey Barry, thanks for responding so expeditiously with an attempt to clarify. When I'm feeling misunderstood, abused, etc., I'm always in a hurry to get things resolved to stop my, and everybody's, pain.
Unfortunately, your response here isn't satisfactory (I explain why below), but at least it starts the ball rolling for a (hopefully) satisfactory result for everyone.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Dixon, you first used the term delusion in response to Gene's comment: "Three's are magical, can't offer any proof but some things just prove themselves over and over in one's life. You can't prove their true but you know they are."
While that's not factually true, it's also not factually untrue or "false". So your claim to the partially circular definition of delusion that I didn't quote: "something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated" doesn't apply.
On the contrary, it does, and here's why: To assert that a claim is false, one needn't disprove it beyond all doubt--that's impossible! If total certainty about the truth or falsity of a claim were required to justify calling it a "delusion", it would be impossible ever to use the word in that sense, yet the dictionary has it in there. Believing that something is false (delusional) is sufficient reason to call it such--with the caveat that one should always hold any belief tentatively, willing to be shown that a belief thought delusional is really true. And that is, in fact, one reason I engage with people who disagree with me--to give them a chance to show me that their belief was true and mine a delusion!
For the record, there is good reason to presume that some objective "magic" quality of the number three is most probably false. Firstly, I've never seen any evidence that it's true, and any claim unsupported by evidence is waaaay likely to be false, if only because most possible claims are false. Could some evidence for the claim exist? Sure! But I've been begging Sondra for evidence for it since before this thread started, and all she has is the same fallacy--the confirmation bias--over and over again. If you know of some good evidence for it, point it out, Barry. I'd be happy to publicly announce that I was the deluded one on that or any issue.
Furthermore, if a claim invokes some dubious construct like "magic" when the facts can be explained more prosaically, it's less likely to be true--that's the logical rule known as Occam's Razor (I'll cover that one in more detail in an upcoming column).
Finally, a belief that's arrived at simply because someone has a feeling that it's true but cannot articulate any reasonable arguments for it (which is what we're dealing with here) is most likely to be false. That process of accepting a "feeling" as evidence of objective truth will dependably give us beliefs that meet our emotional needs for security, excitement, etc., but are they true? Sometimes, but usually not. The burden of proof is always on the claimant. So it's entirely reasonable for me to label Gene's belief a delusion (in the sense of a false belief, which is clearly how I meant it, not a psychotic one) until someone gives me reason to see it differently.
Even if you were right about my application of "delusion" in the softer, non-psychotic sense being inappropriate to the situation, it wouldn't follow that I meant it in the psychotic sense--only that I'd misused the word through misunderstanding the definition. Or is it your intention to accuse me of lying when I say I didn't mean it in the psychotic sense?
Quote:
And given that the second meaning is commonly used, the use of the word "delusion" is easily, perhaps commonly, construed to mean the person is not in their right mind and is taken as an insult.
Yes, and that's why I understood that my wording could be "provocative". From the beginning, I took steps to stop people from interpreting my use of the term "delusion" in the psychotic, insulting sense. You yourself quoted what I said, Barry: "Yeah, that's an experience we've all had. There's a term for it; it's called "delusion"." Note that I was taking care not to single out Gene, by describing the experience as a universal one that we've all had, including myself. Whatever I was saying about Gene, I was saying about all of us, including myself--right, Barry? Do you think I was saying that everyone, myself included, has been delusional in the psychotic sense? Really? REALLY? I shouldn't even have to point this out--it's in black and white in the quote from me that you yourself quoted, and I explicated the same point in my post #12! The question is: Why did you ignore it in order to make the insulting, obviously false assumption that I was calling Gene psychotic--and continue to make that claim even after I tell you it's not true? :wtf:
Quote:
Note also that the examples you cite below (from the M-W dictionary) referred to a person rather than to the proposition that the person is holding. This is an example of how your writing easily veers off the objective and becomes personal (i.e. "abrasive and huffy"). This is only case and there have been other recently.
I can't really respond to this, Barry, because it's incomprehensible. I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say. The 3 examples I cited, along with the example of my remark to Gene, all refer to both a person and a proposition they hold. So I can't respond intelligently or fairly to your concern unless you clarify it--and also clarify what it has to do with some purported abrasiveness and huffiness on my part.
Anyway, regarding your (and others') tenacious desire to misinterpret my word-choice in the worst possible light, in spite of my efforts to be clear from the beginning and in spite of my subsequent clarification in my post #12 in this thread, it seems that you're either calling me a liar (saying I meant the term one way when you insist I meant it the other) or that I'm so confused about what I myself mean to say that I must be virtually psychotic, demented, or...? It's not okay for you, Barry, or any of you to treat me this way. It seems clear that there are deeper issues than my use of any particular word involved here, and I have some ideas about what those issues are. Read on...
Quote:
It's gotten to the point that I have received two private complaints from members, which is pretty unusual.
Yes, you've sent me one of them. Thanks for doing that; we all want to know what people are saying about us behind our backs! If the other one was about me, please forward it to me too, even if you feel you must redact it a bit to keep the sender's identity secret.
Complaints are always a sign that something's wrong. The question is: Is something wrong with the person being complained about, with the complainant, or both?
This person complains that I "dominate" WaccoBB "in a negative way". She characterizes my tone as "aggressive", "provocative", "put-down", "off-putting" and angry.
Well, of course, upon hearing such stuff I feel hurt and misunderstood and fearful that people aren't going to love me. I also feel extremely frustrated and, yes, angry, because I feel that people are, on some level, projecting shit onto me that I don't deserve and looking for excuses, however bogus, to invalidate me, as a defense mechanism.
The first thing I do when criticized is to try my best to see truth in the criticism, as a way of countering my natural human defensiveness. So for these recent criticisms, let me say this:
Do I sometimes respond in ways that are more sarcastic or sharp-tongued than need be? Yes, that is a fault of mine, an issue I'm working on (though I don't think this current "delusion" flap is an example of it). In my defense (see my defensiveness here?), let me say that I don't usually give anybody a little jab unless I think they're asking for it. Maybe they've zapped me in some way--often in the sort of passive-aggressive ways preferred by New Agers who'd like to believe they're all about peace and love while making implicitly snotty remarks about anyone who'd dare to "make them wrong" (i.e., disagree with them).
Sometimes I can't help poking fun at some belief which seems totally bizarre and unfounded--including beliefs held by many of you reading these words now. Let me explain this, so hopefully you won't judge me too harshly. If someone called me a lazy slob, I'd have no complaint about that, because it's true. I'd rather be called neat and tidy, but I haven't earned that, because I don't do the work to be neat and tidy, such as cleaning my house. So I can't gripe if I'm called a slob, and I ought to be able to take a little ribbing about it.
By the same token, while we all have the right to believe anything we want, even if it's totally unsupported by evidence or reason, we don't have a right to expect that people will regard our beliefs as reasonable, or us as reasonable people, unless we do the hard work of being reasonable! That means using valid standards of reason to decide on what to believe. It means we can give good reasons for our beliefs, reasons that withstand critical scrutiny. It means we can be reasoned into or out of a belief by a compelling argument. If we allow ourselves the luxury of believing whatever feels good without submitting ourselves to the constraints of reason, we'll get the comforting or fun beliefs we want, but we forfeit the right to have our beliefs or ourselves regarded as reasonable because we're not being reasonable (in the sense I just described)! When I'm trying to reason with someone who's grabbing onto one defense-mechanism after another to avoid doing some basic reasoning, so it seems like they're not reasoning "in good faith", I get really frustrated and this can manifest as sarcasm, wisecracks or a subtext of scorn. I regret this and will try to do better. Most rationalists I know would tear some of you to pieces, or just roll their eyes and laugh their asses off at you, or simply not try to engage with you at all, writing you off as hopeless cases.
Some of what comes across as "abrasive" or "huffy" may be my defensiveness. I'm acutely aware that, as a rationalist/atheist/skeptic, I'm in a tiny minority both in Wacco and the larger society--for many, a despised minority. It's a scary and often uncomfortable, alienating position to be in. So when someone here implies that I'm closed-minded or unreasonable or oppressive or not as spiritually sensitive as them because I disagree with them, I feel hurt and scared again. I feel that if I can just make people understand me, they'll love me, so I desperately jump onto the argument and try to pin down every detail, to show that I'm NOT being unreasonable and am in fact therefore lovable. But of course, most people aren't enlightened enough to appreciate being out-argued!
I think a lot of what this ultimately comes down to is a difference between two approaches to the issue of belief itself--two different cultures, really. They seem so different, so incompatible, that they might as well be two different planets. I'm talking about Rationalism versus the more popular culture of--what can I call it? Anti-rationalism? Faith? For the current discussion, let's call it New Age culture, since most of you readers seem to fit that general rubric.
Nowadays, I'm a Rationalist. I'm more comfortable with other Rationalists than I am with you New Agers; I feel a lot safer with them. They're more likely to understand me, while you New Agers are more likely to hurt me (again and again and again) with your various ways of trying to invalidate me as a defense against my ideas that scare you. Many behaviors and traits that other Rationalists love about me are the same things that get me labeled "abrasive", "huffy", "dominating", "aggressive", etc. here on Wacco. For instance, ideally (and with many exceptions):
1. Rationalists freely express disagreement. We show respect for one another by honestly saying "I think that's bullshit!" -- while being willing to discuss the issue enough to give the other guy a chance to show you his/her position isn't bullshit after all! Such confrontive expression of disagreement carries a nice message: "I assume you're adult enough to handle some disagreement logically and open-mindedly", and also an invitation: "Let's dialogue about this thing we disagree on to help each other get to the truth."
2. Rationalists are humble enough to realize how fallible we all are, and therefore submit ourselves to the discipline of time-tested strategies designed to correct for our human fallacies--strategies collectively known by such terms as "science" and "critical thinking".
3. Rationalists want to know the truth, regardless of whether it's pleasant or depressing. They cannot respect the path of choosing beliefs that meet our needs and accepting them on "faith" or "feeling" or bad evidence; they see that as a road to probable delusion.
4. Rationalists see honest disagreement as far better than phony agreement. Telling someone you think they're deluded about something is far more authentic, honest and respectful than nodding, smiling and pretending to respect some belief which seems totally unfounded, and it opens the possibility for a dialog that will increase understanding.
5. Rationalists believe that, in the long run, more good and less bad comes from being reasonable rather than superstitious or illogical. We believe that bigotry, war, environmental degradation, oppression and other evils are largely the result of people's reasoning improperly. Thus we insist on logical reasoning out of love for our brothers and sisters (and those in between), and often feel a moral obligation to challenge fallacious thinking.
In contrast, let me go out on a limb and make some generalizations about New Age culture (understanding that, as with what I said about Rationalists, there'll be lots of exceptions):
1. New Agers believe it's rude, domineering, aggressive to suggest that somebody's cherished belief is mistaken, especially if you mount a good argument against it. Simply asserting that someone is wrong about something is often described as "making them wrong", as if an act of aggression has been committed. An attack on an idea, even when phrased gently, is seen as an attack on the person holding that idea.
2. New Agers tend to see science and logic as an arbitrary worldview, no better or worse than any other. They readily accept claims that meet their emotional or social needs, requiring no more proof than "feeling", tradition, or transparently fallacious arguments.
3. Since such beliefs aren't well-founded in evidence or reason, defending them requires various ego-defense mechanisms and/or just avoiding critique entirely. New Agers are commonly hostile to critique and to those who would engage them in it.
4. New Agers tend to prefer vague, fuzzy thinking to precision and clarity. Often, when asked the probing questions necessary to determine just what they're really saying and what if any evidence supports it, they feel attacked, under siege, and become defensive.
5. A common New Age strategy for evading critique is to tell themselves that "Everyone has their own truth" or "All is illusion", even though they themselves actually behave every day as if that's not true. (See my WaccoBB column "Reality Is Real--Really").
6. Intuition is often over-valued by New Agers--seen as not just a good source of ideas to be tested, but a valid stand-alone source of knowledge requiring no further verification. In practice, this means that any idea someone likes can be dignified as an "intuition", thus justifying believing whatever they like regardless of evidence.
7. New Agers often mount fallacious attacks on science and reason, implying, for instance, that since science is fallible, it's therefore no better than their favorite belief system.
8. New Agers often seem to feel that they're infallible, having no need for the kinds of correction afforded by science and logic, as if they're just not subject to the universal human fallacies. Suggestions that they are fallible are often taken as an insult. They commonly exhort those they disagree with to be open-minded while showing no sign of open-mindedness themselves.
The differences between Rationalists and New Agers are not as cut-and-dried as these lists make them sound, and are mostly matters of degree, with plenty of fallacy among Rationalists and plenty of honest attempts at reasoning among New Agers. And on some issues, the New Agers will turn out right and the Rationalists wrong. But these cultural differences are real and in some ways profound, so that, considering the huge differences in assumptions and values, when you put a Rationalist in with a bunch of New Agers (or vice versa), there's gonna be lots of discomfort and misunderstanding. The common defense mechanisms of New Agers being what they are, anyone who makes a habit of critiquing their beliefs would be seen as "aggressive", "dominating", etc. etc. no matter how gently phrased. A lot of what I'm doing--telling people their beliefs are mistaken, demolishing their arguments, refusing to pretend to respect beliefs that simply aren't respectable because they lack good evidence--is me being a good rationalist! I'm following the Golden Rule, doing unto you what I want you to do to me. Challenge my beliefs, as long as you do it reasonably. Call me on my bullshit, as long as you'll engage me in dialogue so I have a chance to show you it's not bullshit--or to find out you're right.
This brings us back to the letter of complaint you got about me, Barry. It cited one of my posts--post #12, my response to Claire Ossenbeck in this thread-- as an example of my "aggressive", "negative", "put-down" behavior. I find that astounding! Re-reading it (and I urge all of you to do so), I couldn't find anything in it that seemed harsh. The closest to it was when I light-heartedly ribbed Claire about having attributed "tyranny" (!) to me in her previous post, suggesting that was a defense mechanism on her part, and mentioning that it was an insult. I think that's waaaay gentler than her calling me a tyrant, don't you? Perhaps I should complain to you about her aggressive behavior?
Hopefully, whoever complained to you about me will specify what I said in that post that bothered her so it can be addressed constructively. Lacking that info, my tentative conclusion is that my behavior that bothers the complainant so much is simply my reasoning with Claire. As I often do, I (quite politely) refuted some of her positions. My arguments are typically precise, thorough, detailed and powerful (thus long-winded!:blahblah: ), leaving no room for those who don't want to hear what I have to say to squirm away, and to the extent that people are closed-minded, not wanting to be corrected, that feels "aggressive", "domineering", like a "put-down", etc. This isn't the first time I've been excoriated for the crime of being right and politely pointing out flaws in other people's positions, and it won't be the last. If someone is open to being corrected when they're mistaken, they'll have no problem with me. They'll take my critique as intended--as a gift! If their agenda is to be unchanged by our discussion, maintaining their beliefs regardless of whether they're true, I could be very scary indeed. In most if not all cases, people's discomfort with me is a measure of their closed-mindedness--they're scared to death of being shown they're mistaken about something by a guy who can do it. That's a problem they have--not a problem with my behavior.
Here's an obvious question: Why in the world would someone choose to participate in a thread called "The Gospel According to Dixon" and then complain that Dixon is dominating it? :xtrmlaugh:
Now back to the question of why you and others would insist on interpreting my use of the term "delusion" as a reference to psychosis when, from the very beginning, I made it pretty clear I wasn't using the term in that sense. For you, Barry, there's one factor that doesn't apply to others. Wacco's your livelihood; if people get pissed enough at me to drop their Wacco memberships, you lose money. So, consciously or not, you may be a bit biased to see it their way.
But beyond that, you're a New Ager, too, and as the editor of my column, you've seen some good arguments from me that, as far as I can see, substantially demolish some things you'd probably like to believe. As a Rationalist among New Agers, there is no way I could challenge people's beliefs, no matter how politely phrased, which wouldn't engender complaints, because critique itself is considered to be a personal attack. So, apart from my occasional sharp-tongued wisecrack, which I acknowledge as a problem, most of the time people's seeing me as "aggressive", "dominating" etc. is because I'm committing the crime of challenging people's beliefs so well that they lash out at me as a defense mechanism. I suspect this is the case for you among others. I can't think of any other explanation for your treating me so shabbily around this "delusion" (non-)issue.
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I know that this topic, what's science and what's not, is of great personal interest to you and it's a very worthy point and an important line to keep distinct. And at the same time, science only understands so much. I'd venture to say way less than half of the fundamental nature of reality and what's really pulling all the strings behind the curtain is understood by science.
Probably less than that, but if you think there's any other "way of knowing" that comes anywhere near science (actually, more broadly, rationality) as a way of getting to the truth about objective reality--well, make your case. (And I hope you're not sliding into the fallacy that I listed above under #7 of the New Age habits of thought.)
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So it's fine to say "thus and so" are not supported by science, or even "is not science". it's not fine to say that if you believe something outside of science that the person is having delusions.
Barry, I want you to acknowledge that I didn't say nor even imply that anyone was having psychotic delusions.
For reasons explicated above, I stand by my assertion that whenever someone makes a claim about objective reality (such as claiming that some number is "magic") based on nothing more than their "feeling", without adducing any other evidence for it, the greatest likelihood by far is that their claim is false (i.e., a delusion in the non-psychotic sense I clearly meant). If you or anyone has a problem with that, I'm happy to hear you make your case, but it is not okay to bend over backwards trying to interpret my words in negative ways that I clearly did not mean, nor to imply that I'm lying or crazy when I tell you what I meant. That's abusive.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Here's an obvious question: Why in the world would someone choose to participate in a thread called "The Gospel According to Dixon" and then complain that Dixon is dominating it? :xtrmlaugh:
+1
some other good comments in your post too, but that observation was funny and spot on... nicely put, sir.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
. medical science has made some progress in figuring out what works, less in understanding why. we humans and our health turn out to be complicated. there is some proven effectiveness for acupuncture, and lots of skepticism because the theory is not useful for scientific exploration.
well, lots of skepticism because of a couple of key problems: a treatment's efficacy is easier to test and accept if there's a proposed mechanism by which the treatment works, based on other well-established knowledge. Another is that there are a wide variety of similar treatments - using needles, suction cups, electrically-charged probes, and non-penetrating probes (accupressure, I suppose) - that all seem to have interchangeable results. That doesn't seem to indicate a clear effect.
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and the business of medicine is a powerful complicating factor. the majority of medical research is motivated by profit. just look at the $ going into research based on the germ theory of disease vs hygiene theory. both are proven scientific theory. both are useful in understanding how to be healthy. yet germ theory gets all the play. so we get bad advice from well meaning scientific medical practitioners.
that's of course true. Also, it's easy to assume that "scientific medical practitioners" is a synonym for well-trained doctors, but actually few doctor are particularly concerned with the scientific justifications behind their practices. They're taught from knowledge based on scientific analysis but they're given fact-based training - meaning they're given a lot of data and a lot of techniques for applying it. That's not the same skill set as designing, applying and interpreting scientific studies.
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how many years did the ama sue chiropractors before they lost, had to pay their legal costs, and stop calling them quacks? homeopathy works too according to scientific study, just don't know why.
that was a lawsuit regarding monopolistic business practices and isn't particularly relevant as an endorsement of chiropractice. And I have no clue what you mean by the claim that homeopathy "works", at least in the context of this discussion. I don't think any scientific studies have shown that.
Of course to a large degree this is irrelevant to most people seeking a treatment. Hell, if someone offered to accupunct my shoulder I'd probably try it - certainly before I'd let an orthopedist cut into it. There's better evidence that surgery would help, but it's not overwhelming, and I'm scared of knives. I'm not all that excited about needles either, but they won't damage much.
In that sense, science is useful mostly in the search for meaningful knowledge about reality. (Bringing this thread back on topic!). If you're looking for a way to deal with a painful shoulder, there are a lot of interventions you can use. Some are well-based in scientific principles. Others have no provable scientific justification. Of those, some may work and the reasons why they work may eventually be understood. Others actually don't "work" in the sense that the treatment itself has only an indirect association with any benefit you receive. Mommy's kiss on the ouchie falls somewhere on the spectrum between those last two.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
..
For reasons explicated above, I stand by my assertion that whenever someone makes a claim about objective reality (such as claiming that some number is "magic") based on nothing more than their "feeling", without adducing any other evidence for it, the greatest likelihood by far is that their claim is false (i.e., a delusion in the non-psychotic sense I clearly meant). If you or anyone has a problem with that, I'm happy to hear you make your case, but it is not okay to bend over backwards trying to interpret my words in negative ways that I clearly did not mean, nor to imply that I'm lying or crazy when I tell you what I meant. That's abusive.
Sorry, I don't have time to respond in full, or even read your missive in full. A few quick points: I really didn't mean that you were accusing anybody of being psychotic. Rather the term delusion is very commonly taken as a personal insult, and thus inflammatory, as opposed to saying "there's no evidence of for that", or even "that doesn't stand to reason", or "I can't accept that" etc. There's plenty of, dare I say scientific data on this thread (such as the number of people who react negatively and emotionally) to support the claim that it is an inflammatory way of "speaking".
Also, again, just because something isn't or can't be proved does not make it "false". It's "false" when it can be objectively proven to be not true, not when there is simple no evidence to support it. (I presume you'll take issue with this definition) There is a place for faith and intuition in this world. And we may live long enough to see few bits of intuition proven to be true. Faith and intuition are not "false". And thus by your definition are not a "delusion".
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
back to the thread's theme --
A lot of the discussions about the nature of reality seem to suggest there are categories of phenomena where science can't be applied. That's not a silly argument, but it's harder to make than some might think.
It's common to find people conflating a scientific approach with a mechanistic, reductionist approach. For example, the world can be seen as a giant machine which can be studied by recursively breaking off each part - the ocean is a machine you can understand by studying its currents, which are themselves machines, composed of water of varying densities and salinity, driven by energy from the sun. And so on....
There're useful insights to be had when you follow that approach. Grade school science pretty much limits itself to that. But there are huge areas of research that require more holistic perspective. That's a term more often associated with "new age" (to follow Dixon's usage) - a scientist is more likely to say that a systems-oriented approach is needed.
One easy example of this is the study of "mind". It's a phenomenon that is apparent to everyone but is extremely difficult to study. It's a very active field of scientific research. To be scientifically tractable, there needs to be a set of clear definitions made, and predictions made from observations. Once that's done, you have a scientific understanding of the concept of mind. Now that computers ("thinking machines") are available, there are more avenues for study. These are based on the idea that "thinking" is a related concept to "mind" and study of one can give insight into the other.
Other areas subject to scientific research include the existence of other universes, the nature of time, and broadest of all the nature of physical reality - what is an "object" really? The thing that distinguishes science from fairy tale is the relentless challenge to any explanation.
When people observe a phenomenon, they inherently try to come up with an explanation, and a collection of explanations becomes a belief system. Science is good at poking holes in explanations since it consists of a large body of knowledge, but it has no monopoly on that. A person's belief system can change when some of the explanations they rely on are challenged by new observations.
The mistake some people make is to trust their belief systems too much. Obviously, your standards for personal use of your belief system are different than those for proselytizing it - or should be!! If you're functioning just fine as is, why worry? But belief systems that aren't really representative of reality aren't adequate for dealing with new circumstances. There aren't a lot of candidates out there for ways to improve the performance of your belief system.... science has the best record and the best justifications for its continued application. Science can be used to explain and defend why certain changes to your beliefs are appropriate. Most other candidates can do no more than say "well, it worked for that guy, it'll work for you!".
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
For example, one started his argument by pointing out that western medicine doesn't understand chi, so it can't measure what accupuncture's doing. Sadly, that just leads to the need to explain why chi exists and has effects but can't be measured by science - accupuncture becomes a lesser component of a broader (undefended!) claim about a powerful but unmeasurable life force.
Typical skeptical disclaimer: I don't say that I know for sure chi doesn't exist, or that accupuncture doesn't work. I do know that neither has been proven, that other explanations for the effects some attribute to chi/accupuncture do exist and are sufficient. So if real evidence ever does show up, well then, my current skepticism is still justified, but I'll accept the evidence as it is. I don't have a horse in this race, chi's a cool idea, but it seems an arbitrary construct to me. I don't see the difference between it and the Force emitted by the midichlorians (or however George Lucas spells them). Dismissing one because it was invented more recently than the other seems unfair.
Since this discussion has somewhat veered onto the topic of acupuncture, I thought some of you might be interested in this series of articles from Chris Kresser (The Healthy Skeptic) on Chinese Medicine and acupuncture: https://thehealthyskeptic.org/acupuncture
He asserts that much of the confusion surrounding acupuncture is a result of poor translations from the original Chinese texts. For example, he says that qi is not some mysterious invisible energy that flows through the body, but that most of the evidence points to qi being a word for air or oxygen, something that physically flows through our bodies! He also says that the Chinese texts did not discuss the concept of meridians at all, and that meridians are an idea originally presented by a French bank clerk! I don't personally know anything about acupuncture and I've never tried it, but the ideas he brings up are very thought-provoking, and I do know that Kresser is very knowledgeable when it comes to nutrition.
Laurel Blair, NTP
www.dynamicbalancenutrition.com
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I enjoyed reading these quotes from genius Richard Feynman just yesterday, so I thought I'd share:
An introduction to one of his lectures:
What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school...It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it. That is because I don't understand it.
We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes "the world" is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. (i.e. fundamental physics)
When someone says, "Science teaches such and such," he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn't teach anything; experience teaches it.
If they say to you, "Science has shown such and such", you might ask, "How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?"
Now there's an ever-inquiring mind!
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Also, again, just because something isn't or can't be proved does not make it "false". It's "false" when it can be objectively proven to be not true, not when there is simple no evidence to support it. (I presume you'll take issue with this definition) There is a place for faith and intuition in this world. And we may live long enough to see few bits of intuition proven to be true. Faith and intuition are not "false". And thus by your definition are not a "delusion".
Thank you Barry,
examples:
My grandfather, a geologist born in the 1800's was a proponent of plate tectonics. Before he died he said "you watch, this will be proven in your lifetime".
I wish I knew history better, but many of our important scientific ideas were not proven until many years after they were published, when we had developed the technology and instruments. (Copernicus, Einstein.)
Marty
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
And then there's this told to many physicians that the healing power of aspirin (willow bark) for lowering a fever was never tested in a double-blind placebo trial.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Marty MacMillan:
Thank you Barry,
examples:
My grandfather, a geologist born in the 1800's was a proponent of plate tectonics. Before he died he said "you watch, this will be proven in your lifetime".
I wish I knew history better, but many of our important scientific ideas were not proven until many years after they were published, when we had developed the technology and instruments. (Copernicus, Einstein.)
Marty
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by claire ossenbeck:
I enjoyed reading these quotes from genius Richard Feynman just yesterday, so I thought I'd share:
An introduction to one of his lectures:
What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school...It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it. That is because I don't understand it.
We can imagine that this complicated array of moving things which constitutes "the world" is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. (i.e. fundamental physics)
When someone says, "Science teaches such and such," he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn't teach anything; experience teaches it.
If they say to you, "Science has shown such and such", you might ask, "How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?"
Now there's an ever-inquiring mind!
Hello Everyone,
I have really enjoyed Richard Feynman's books and lectures and youtube clips. I have the highest respect for him.
There is a great DVD you can check out from the library called something like "The Smartest Man Since Einstein"
And here is the classic youtub clip:
https://youtu.be/PsgBtOVzHKI
called Feynman: Take The World From Another Point Of View (1/4)
I almost posted these earlier in one of the recent threads, but wasn't sure if they were relevant.
Marty
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I like the way Iris Dement says it: "Guess I'll just let the mystery be" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlaoR5m4L80
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Marty MacMillan:
Hello Everyone,
I have really enjoyed Richard Feynman's books and lectures and youtube clips. I have the highest respect for him.
There is a great DVD you can check out from the library called something like "The Smartest Man Since Einstein"
And here is the classic youtub clip:
https://youtu.be/PsgBtOVzHKI
called Feynman: Take The World From Another Point Of View (1/4)
I almost posted these earlier in one of the recent threads, but wasn't sure if they were relevant.
Marty
oops forgot to say that this is Part 4 of a series.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
That's the trade-off: Believe whatever wacky beliefs you like regardless of logic or evidence, and then don't bitch and moan when someone calls you a wacko. (Having said that, let me point out that I never call anybody here a wacko, though plenty of you qualify.)
So, essentially then, you are calling "plenty of us" wackos by implication. Is "plenty" a scientific term?
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Some of what comes across as "abrasive" or "huffy" may be my defensiveness. I'm acutely aware that, as a rationalist/atheist/skeptic, I'm in a tiny minority both in Wacco and the larger society--for many, a despised minority. It's a scary and often uncomfortable, alienating position to be in. So when someone here implies that I'm closed-minded or unreasonable or oppressive or not as spiritually sensitive as them because I disagree with them, I feel hurt and scared again. I feel that if I can just make people understand me, they'll love me, so I desperately jump onto the argument and try to pin down every detail, to show that I'm NOT being unreasonable and am in fact therefore lovable. But of course, most people aren't enlightened enough to appreciate being out-argued!.)
This is a classic example of a passive-aggressive trait. Dixon is hurt, scared, and misunderstood, and is a victim of persecution because of his belief system. So here's the fundamental rub. I find that the hubristic hypocrisy of your arguments completely undermines any of your posits of rationalism and makes productive philosophical discourse or debate with you virtually impossible. You do not present your theories without some manner of ridicule and usually resort to an emotional obfuscation of the discourse by nit-picking, chest-thumping, and essentially throwing rationalism right out the window. How can you possibly expect reasonable people to accept or learn from your philosopy when you yourself don't abide by it? And yes, there are reasonable people in the New Age community but I think that trying to convince you of that is like my trying to stand on my head while I type.
You accuse New Agers of "having it all figured out" and
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8. New Agers often seem to feel that they're infallible, having no need for the kinds of correction afforded by science and logic, as if they're just not subject to the universal human fallacies. Suggestions that they are fallible are often taken as an insult. They commonly exhort those they disagree with to be open-minded while showing no sign of open-mindedness themselves.
and yet you persistantly demand that you are right and we New Agers are wrong.
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This isn't the first time I've been excoriated for the crime of being right and politely...
Is a yellow, flashing WTF? considered polite? There are no positive, polite definitions of "delusion".
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...pointing out flaws in other people's positions, and it won't be the last. If someone is open to being corrected when they're mistaken, they'll have no problem with me. They'll take my critique as intended--as a gift! If their agenda is to be unchanged by our discussion, maintaining their beliefs regardless of whether they're true, I could be very scary indeed. In most if not all cases, people's discomfort with me is a measure of their closed-mindedness--they're scared to death of being shown they're mistaken about something by a guy who can do it. That's a problem they have--not a problem with my behavior.
There's that hubris again. It could be just as easily said that your discomfort with we New Agers is a measure of your closed-mindedness.
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As a Rationalist among New Agers, there is no way I could challenge people's beliefs, no matter how politely phrased, which wouldn't engender complaints, because critique itself is considered to be a personal attack.
As you clearly feel attacked by our "critique". A nice gentle word that, "critque". I am reminded of the say,"Keep your words soft and sweet. You never know which ones you'll have to eat."
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Challenge my beliefs, as long as you do it reasonably. Call me on my bullshit, as long as you'll engage me in dialogue so I have a chance to show you it's not bullshit--or to find out you're right.
I call bullshit! Not because you're a rationalist but because you don't walk the talk. Not because you're an atheist. I rather like atheists and their worldview as a whole. Personally, I don't think it matters a wit either way whether there is a god or not to get along spectacularly in this life. But I have little hope of ever having a dialogue with you because you do not engage in dialogue (except with people who agree with you) but, rather, diatribe. If you could be reasonable and rational, Dixon, it would be worth the effort.
Anathstryx
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
O.K. people I think we need a timeout here. This thread has become way to personal and is in a nose dive toward the negative. I propose that for the good of the community as well as the individuals involved we stop posting to this tread for 24 hours. It's beginning to remind me of a relationship I stayed in for way to long. Turn off your computer. The Sun is shinning and the birds are singing. Love & Peace, Gene. :Yinyangv:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
i think science is mostly useful for predicting the result of actions observed or taken. scientific theory is a means to this end, and the best accurately predict the result of new actions (experiments).
in the field of human health proven scientific theories are really just beginning to be useful. so treatments like homeopathy, chiropractic care and acupuncture, which through scientific study have been shown to more effective than the placebo effect, are often more effective than treatments suggested by current scientific theories of human health. the ama lost because chiropractic care is effective and back surgery is a statistical nightmare. they lost 20 years ago and this is still true.
there is a solid case that scientific understanding is advanced by engineers rather than scientists. the acupuncturists i know sense chi through pulse with their fingertips. maybe we just haven't invented devices capable of doing this so acupuncture theory is currently scientifically senseless?
there is a lot of conflicting health advice in this info full world and much of this conflicting advice comes from science based perspectives. skeptically driven dismissal of proven health strategies that are not scientifically understood is a prescription for possible pain and suffering.
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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
well, lots of skepticism because of a couple of key problems: a treatment's efficacy is easier to test and accept if there's a proposed mechanism by which the treatment works, based on other well-established knowledge. Another is that there are a wide variety of similar treatments - using needles, suction cups, electrically-charged probes, and non-penetrating probes (accupressure, I suppose) - that all seem to have interchangeable results. That doesn't seem to indicate a clear effect.
that's of course true. Also, it's easy to assume that "scientific medical practitioners" is a synonym for well-trained doctors, but actually few doctor are particularly concerned with the scientific justifications behind their practices. They're taught from knowledge based on scientific analysis but they're given fact-based training - meaning they're given a lot of data and a lot of techniques for applying it. That's not the same skill set as designing, applying and interpreting scientific studies.
that was a lawsuit regarding monopolistic business practices and isn't particularly relevant as an endorsement of chiropractice. And I have no clue what you mean by the claim that homeopathy "works", at least in the context of this discussion. I don't think any scientific studies have shown that.
Of course to a large degree this is irrelevant to most people seeking a treatment. Hell, if someone offered to accupunct my shoulder I'd probably try it - certainly before I'd let an orthopedist cut into it. There's better evidence that surgery would help, but it's not overwhelming, and I'm scared of knives. I'm not all that excited about needles either, but they won't damage much.
In that sense, science is useful mostly in the search for meaningful knowledge about reality. (Bringing this thread back on topic!). If you're looking for a way to deal with a painful shoulder, there are a lot of interventions you can use. Some are well-based in scientific principles. Others have no provable scientific justification. Of those, some may work and the reasons why they work may eventually be understood. Others actually don't "work" in the sense that the treatment itself has only an indirect association with any benefit you receive. Mommy's kiss on the ouchie falls somewhere on the spectrum between those last two.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
googling "acupuncture research" the first thing i found that resembled your description of research assessment was the wikipedia entry for acupuncture. i read the report cited for this part of the entry and some peer responses to it. the conclusion of the report is mischaracterized by both you and wikipedia, and the report itself (a review of twelve original research studies of acupuncture effectiveness which had placebo groups), didn't seem well received. the report conclusion was more research needed, not same as placebo.
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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Please elaborate!
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by anathstryx:
So, essentially then, you are calling "plenty of us" wackos by implication.
Yep. There are plenty of wackos in this wacky world. Wouldn't you agree? Perhaps you think I'm one? Perhaps if I knew you, I'd think you're one? Perhaps we'd both be right? Or neither?
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Is "plenty" a scientific term?
Obviously not. Is there some reason you think I should have used a scientific term in that context? Or are you just being sarcastic?
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This is a classic example of a passive-aggressive trait.
I'm not sure what trait you're referring to here. Please clarify. I'm open to any criticism, including the possibility that I may be passive-aggressive somehow, but you need to give me an example or two of my supposed passive-aggressive behavior. Without examples, calling me that is just slapping me around (passive-aggressively?).
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Dixon is hurt, scared, and misunderstood, and is a victim of persecution because of his belief system.
Yes, all of that is part of the picture. I thought sharing my feelings would help folks understand where I'm coming from a little better, and maybe help me do some introspection. It seems your mention of it is sarcastic. Are you trying to be helpful in some way, or just slapping me around a bit?
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So here's the fundamental rub. I find that the hubristic hypocrisy of your arguments...
Again, I can't assess whether there's any truth to this until you give me at least one or two examples of my hubris and my hypocrisy. I'm open to criticism, but you need to give me something more to work with than generalizations.
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...completely undermines any of your posits of rationalism...
Clarify, please. By "posits of rationalism" do you mean my positing that I'm a rationalist, or posits I've made about the characteristics of rationalism, or...?
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...and makes productive philosophical discourse or debate with you virtually impossible.
This is manifestly untrue. Look back over this and my previous articles-with-comments and you'll see quite a bit of productive philosophical discourse, most of which seemed pretty satisfying for all participants. I must say, your exaggerated criticism is starting to sound more like emotional spew than constructive criticism, but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you wish to reason with me rather than just slap me around...
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You do not present your theories without some manner of ridicule...
So here you assert not just that I engage in ridicule sometimes, but that every time I present my theories, I do it with ridicule. Surely you're intelligent enough to know that an absolutistic statement like that, allowing for no exceptions, is almost certain to be bullshit. Anyway, if it's even anywhere near true, it will surely take you at most a minute or two to find at least six or eight examples. I look forward to seeing them.
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...and usually resort to an emotional obfuscation of the discourse by nit-picking, chest-thumping, and essentially throwing rationalism right out the window.
Hmmm...now a list of three criticisms. Honestly, I'm not aware of these behaviors. I'm not even sure what "chest-thumping" means apart from gorilla behavior. One or two examples of each ("nit-picking", "chest-thumping", and "essentially throwing rationalism right out the window") are necessary here.
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How can you possibly expect reasonable people to accept or learn from your philosopy when you yourself don't abide by it?
I've always affirmed that I'm far from perfect. If you mean something stronger than that...well, I'm open to that, too. How am I not abiding by my philosophy? Make your case.
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And yes, there are reasonable people in the New Age community but I think that trying to convince you of that is like my trying to stand on my head while I type.
Note that you assumed I'm unconvincible of that prior to even trying! In fact, this statement from you showed me that my presentation of the Rationalistic versus New Age communities overemphasized the differences a bit, so I went back and added some clarification: "The differences between Rationalists and New Agers are not as cut-and-dried as these lists make them sound, and are mostly matters of degree, with plenty of fallacy among Rationalists and plenty of honest attempts at reasoning among New Agers. And on some issues, the New Agers will turn out right and the Rationalists wrong." That has been my position all along. Thank you for prodding me into clarifying it. Is that satisfactory, to your mind?
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You accuse New Agers of "having it all figured out" and...yet you persistantly demand that you are right and we New Agers are wrong.
Anathstryx, how many beliefs do you hold about which you don't think you are right (and, by extension, that those who disagree with you are wrong)? To believe something is to assert that you're right about it (and this includes the implication that those who disagree are wrong). If you think I'm wrong about that, please provide an example or two of exceptions. The issue is whether we're open to the possibility that we're wrong and the other guy is right instead. While nobody's open-mindedness is perfect (partly for reasons I explicate in my upcoming column, "Truth Seeking and Faith Keeping"--get it at your local Wacco), I regard myself as more open-minded than most. I've said more than once here on Wacco that I've been profoundly wrong, sometimes about my basic beliefs, before, and assume I'm wrong about some of my beliefs now, and that will always be the case. Rather than comfortably surrounding myself with my fellow rationalists, I often engage with those I disagree with, such as you, partly because I want to be corrected in those areas where I'm wrong. How about you?
My point about New Agers implicitly claiming infallibility (well, OK--near-infallibility) is this: Science and, more broadly, critical thinking are largely just systems designed to correct for our universal human fallacies--the confirmation bias, placebo effect, effort justification effect, self-centered thinking, wishful thinking, and a thousand other fallacies most of which, apparently, every human is subject to. By rejecting the canons of science and reason, which, as you know, many (I think most) New Agers do, they're rejecting mechanisms that could correct for their fallacies and replacing them with--nothing. Doesn't this imply that they feel no need for fallacy-correction because they think they're not subject to those fallacies? How many times have we heard people reject the findings of a zillion scientific studies, saying, for instance, "Science is wrong. I know astrology is true because I've experienced it!" Note the arrogant implication that their unsystematic judgment is superior to the work of thousands of trained scientists, and the apparent total ignorance or denial that they have any natural fallacies in their thinking that may require some careful measures to compensate for. Does this not imply a grandiose feeling of (near) infallibility? That's what I'm talking about. Fair enough?
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Is a yellow, flashing WTF? considered polite?
Why wouldn't it be? All it means is "What the fuck?" In other words, "This is totally incomprehensible to me; please explain." Do you have a problem with that for some reason? If you're inferring a more negative implication that really isn't there, you're just causing yourself needless distress.
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There are no positive, polite definitions of "delusion".
I'm getting really tired of being harassed on the basis of people's willful negativization of my use of the term "delusion". I've dealt with this before and you should have read it, but you apparently didn't get the message, so here it is once again. I said: "Yeah, that's an experience we've all had. There's a term for it; it's called "delusion"." Note that the statement, while made to Gene, was not specific to Gene or anybody. It was a statement about universal human experience--that we all, including me, have been deluded (i.e., have had false beliefs). Do you see that it wasn't about Gene any more than it was about me (and everybody else)? If you want to interpret it as my somehow attacking Gene, then I must have been attacking the whole human race, including myself, because that's who I was explicitly talking about--me, you, everybody; we're all subject to delusion. It's part of the human experience. Now do you get that simple concept, or would you prefer to remain obtuse so you can have a bogus excuse to torment me a little more, Anathstryx?
You mention that "delusion" is not a positive thing. So what? Neither are lots of things we've been talking about. Is it bad to point out some negative things? If so, how can you justify your screed directed at me? If you should harass me on the basis of your gross distortion of my obvious meaning about human delusiveness, how much more should you be harassed for the numerous bad attributions you direct at me in your ill-considered screed? "Hey folks, we've gotten tired of beating up on Dixon for our distorted interpretation of something he said. Let's beat up on Anathstryx for awhile; she said so many more nasty things than Dixon did." But of course, that won't happen; I'm the designated target in this dysfunctional family system.
(Anathstryx then quotes this passage from me: "...pointing out flaws in other people's positions, and it won't be the last. If someone is open to being corrected when they're mistaken, they'll have no problem with me. They'll take my critique as intended--as a gift! If their agenda is to be unchanged by our discussion, maintaining their beliefs regardless of whether they're true, I could be very scary indeed. In most if not all cases, people's discomfort with me is a measure of their closed-mindedness--they're scared to death of being shown they're mistaken about something by a guy who can do it. That's a problem they have--not a problem with my behavior.")
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There's that hubris again.
It's not clear to me that there's any sign of hubris in that passage. Please elucidate. You sound like you're assuming that some or all of what I'm saying there is unreasonable in some way. Make your case. And note that I'm not saying nor implying that I'm always right, or anything of that sort.
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It could be just as easily said that your discomfort with we New Agers is a measure of your closed-mindedness.
Once again, it's unclear to me that this is true. Please make your case or retract your accusation.
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As you clearly feel attacked by our "critique". A nice gentle word that, "critque". I am reminded of the say,"Keep your words soft and sweet. You never know which ones you'll have to eat."
A clever saying, and I think very wise. I'll try to keep it in mind. But it seems ironic that you're quoting it in the context of your screed against me, Anathstryx. Look back over your words. Can you honestly say they're "soft and sweet"? Would it be fair to say that your preaching "soft and sweet" to me is both ironic and hypocritical?
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I call bullshit! Not because you're a rationalist but because you don't walk the talk...I have little hope of ever having a dialogue with you because you do not engage in dialogue (except with people who agree with you) but, rather, diatribe. If you could be reasonable and rational, Dixon, it would be worth the effort.
I always affirm that I, being human, am imperfectly rational. But your attack (it's fair to call it that, right?) asserts something much stronger. Even if we assume that I fall short of "walking the talk" occasionally, you seem to be dismissing my entire oeuvre in those terms. Have you read all of my interactions with those who disagree with me on the threads associated with my several essays, and elsewhere, in order to appropriately make this blanket dismissal of me? And if not, aren't you yourself giving an example of not walking the walk?
You accuse me of engaging in diatribe ("A forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something", according to my dictionary), not just sometimes, but every time in my interactions with those I disagree with. This is manifestly untrue, as an honest perusal of my posts will show you. It's another absolutistic zinger, an accusation allowing for no exceptions. In fact, few if any of my posts can be accurately termed diatribes, but I know of one that can--your screed against me. Think I'm wrong? Read it again, Anathstryx, with the definition of "diatribe" in mind.
Anathstryx, your screed has been a blast of criticism delivered in general terms, often exaggerated, sometimes to the point of absolutism, with few if any examples to back up your negative characterizations of me. I hope you can appreciate that, rather than dismissing you as abrasive and huffy, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, responding from the assumption that your intention is constructive criticism rather than just self-righteous verbal abuse. Accordingly I've asked for examples in every case where your accusations aren't self-evidently true to me, so I can show you the respect of exploring them honestly and open-mindedly, to the purpose of becoming a better person. I await the examples I need from you in order to continue this exploration. Thank you for your time and effort. The ball is in your court.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
My point about New Agers implicitly claiming infallibility (well, OK--near-infallibility) is this: Science and, more broadly, critical thinking are largely just systems designed to correct for our universal human fallacies--the confirmation bias, placebo effect, effort justification effect, self-centered thinking, wishful thinking, and a thousand other fallacies most of which, apparently, every human is subject to. By rejecting the canons of science and reason, which, as you know, many (I think most) New Agers do, they're rejecting mechanisms that could correct for their fallacies .
bingo!
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I have expressed, both publicly here and privately to Dixon, that if I had a criticism of his contributions here it would be that he had a tendency towards over-strong and impatient language, that could sometimes be described as scornful. I have just read his response above to anathstryx's "critique" (which I had been considering "critiquing" myself for fear that he would get himself into more trouble with a heated response) and it seems to me, under the circumstances, to be a model of restraint and politeness. I await with great interest anathstryx's (I hope) equally thoughful and considered explanation of the many contentions she made that, as Dixon has pointed out, seem to be unsupported in her post, and for which I for one can find little support for in my reading of this thread.
One of her points was that Dixon indulges himself in diatribe rather than dialog. To me one of the hallmarks of dialog is a willingness to respond to those who have contrary viewpoints with detailed and on-point backup for one's position. Diatribe is simply asserting one's point of view without presenting evidence or argument for it. I invite readers to read anathstryx's post and Dixon's response in this light, and judge for themselves which one falls under the heading of diatribe, and which one demonstrates dialog.
Patrick Brinton
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
googling "acupuncture research" the first thing i found that resembled your description of research assessment was the wikipedia entry for acupuncture. i read the report cited for this part of the entry and some peer responses to it. the conclusion of the report is mischaracterized by both you and wikipedia, and the report itself (a review of twelve original research studies of acupuncture effectiveness which had placebo groups), didn't seem well received. the report conclusion was more research needed, not same as placebo.
Barry, I would like to suggest that this side discussion of acupuncture, which really has very little to do with the topic of this thread, but which I find really interesting and educational (particularly the articles referred to by Dynamic Balance, which explained acupuncture in a whole new way (at least for me)) could benefit from being broken out into its own thread where it might be seen by people who are interested in acupuncture but are not following this thread.
Patrick Brinton
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
googling "acupuncture research" the first thing i found that resembled your description of research assessment was the wikipedia entry for acupuncture. i read the report cited for this part of the entry and some peer responses to it. the conclusion of the report is mischaracterized by both you and wikipedia, and the report itself (a review of twelve original research studies of acupuncture effectiveness which had placebo groups), didn't seem well received. the report conclusion was more research needed, not same as placebo.
Yes, more research is needed. This is a better resource for actual research than wikipedia - https://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupunc...e-for-pain.htm
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by SandBar:
Thanks for the reference, but that is pretty much the aceepted "western" view of acupuncture, with meridian lines and so forth, which many people of a scientific bent find difficult to swallow, since the theory of how it works seems to fly in the face of much of what we have found to be true and repeatable. It posits the existence of a system of lines that have no parallel in western medicine, and a mysterious force that runs along them that can be cleared by sticking in needles. While all of this may indeed be true (and I am talking about the way it works rather than whether or not it works) the fact that we have not found any evidence for these meridian lines despite a huge amount of medical research, considerably lessens the probability.
Laurel's link, which is worth repeating (https://thehealthyskeptic.org/acupuncture) is to a series of articles by someone who seems very well qualified to talk about the subject. He says that the whole meridian line idea came about through a misunderstanding on the part of the original translator of the main Chinese work on the subject, who was not a medical expert but a bank clerk. It seems that the actual Chinese theory of acupuncture is completely consonant with what we know from studying the body. Chi does not refer to some mysterious life force, but to the oxygen carried by the blood, and there is no reference at all to meridian lines, which were a complete fabrication. But please do not use my inadequate explanation to decide whether this is helpful to you, but go read the articles themselves, which are well worth the time spent.
Patrick Brinton
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I'm not going to expound here (you're welcome, you're welcome) but something I learned early on in my forum days was,
If you are going to dish it out, you'd better be able to take it.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Hi Folks,
I'm off to Harmony today and Sunday. You're welcome to carry on the acupuncture conversation here for the time being. I intend to create a new category next week along the lines of "Wholistic Health" and I'll split the acupuncture conversation into it.
If you have any thoughts about the new category regarding its title, focus, or anything else your welcome to post about it in General Community or send me an email.
I hope to see many of you at the Jubilee!
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by claire ossenbeck:
I'm not going to expound here (you're welcome, you're welcome) but something I learned early on in my forum days was,
If you are going to dish it out, you'd better be able to take it.
I agree with the sentiment, Claire, but I am curious who your comment is aimed at.
Patrick Brinton
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
....Rather the term delusion is very commonly taken as a personal insult,...
Yes it is at times....
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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
...as opposed to saying "there's no evidence of for that", or even "that doesn't stand to reason", or "I can't accept that" etc. There's plenty of, dare I say scientific data on this thread (such as the number of people who react negatively and emotionally) to support the claim that it is an inflammatory way of "speaking"...
...But who are the ones which are ultimately responsible for that result?; the one saying using the word "delusion" (Dixon’s semantics in this case) or the one misinterpreting the intent and literal meaning that was actually stated and meant?...
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
...and thus inflammatory,...
IMHO, inflammatory; only if and/or when the misinterpretations and misunderstanding of intent are excepted as “factual”.... ...Otherwise, (I think) not so in Dixon’s case here....
...I think the burden of proof of the alleged “inflammatory way of "speaking"” should rest on the one/s that had the misinterpretation/s as to if they are intended to be as such by the speaker.
Dixon has stated his positions quite clearly on that.:2cents:
Dixon, AFAICT has been explicit enough to be understood (by "reasonable" folks) as not being intentionally “inflammatory”; therefore, at this point in time it seems to me that the :shitstorm: at Dixon is simply retaliatory towards Dixon’s semantics, therefore the responses towards Dixon have been the ones that are actually much more-so ('supposedly') “inflammatory” than Dixon's apparent, unintended, semantic, inadvertence.:2cents:
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... “There's plenty of, dare I say scientific data on this thread”...
Data yes ...scientifically analyzable data...Yes... ..."scientific data"...:no:Probably, not so “scientific” by itself, or as it is in its raw form.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
[QUOTE=Dixon;135686]
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by anathstryx:
Yep. There are plenty of wackos in this wacky world. Wouldn't you agree? Perhaps you think I'm one? Perhaps if I knew you, I'd think you're one? Perhaps we'd both be right? Or neither?
Thanks for your obviously well thought out responses, Dixon. I will do my best to reply although, I confess, I would much rather hit the reset button and move on, preferrably to my garden where the plants are rejoicing to the appearance of the sun after such a rainy start to June.
No, I do not think you are a wacko at all. I think you're a very intelligent person with a passion for what you believe in. I find that to be an admirable trait. I would even go so far to say that I might even enjoy you as a friend but this is just based on seeing your video. I find a lot of contradictions between what I read in your posts and the impression I got from you in the video. But I digress.
Yes, you might find me to be a wacko. Based on what you have written about New Agers, it's highly probable.
Yes, I agree that there are plenty of wackos in the world. However, my point was that you said you have never called anyone on Wacco a wacko yet, by implication in the same sentence, you did. My intent was to show you the contradiction. Apparently, I did not suceed.
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Obviously not. Is there some reason you think I should have used a scientific term in that context? Or are you just being sarcastic?
Yes, I was being mildy sarcastic. I do not use emoticons very often. They annoy the hell out of me although I do understand that they can be somewhat useful in the faceless world of electronic communication.
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I'm not sure what trait you're referring to here. Please clarify. I'm open to any criticism, including the possibility that I may be passive-aggressive somehow, but you need to give me an example or two of my supposed passive-aggressive behavior. Without examples, calling me that is just slapping me around (passive-aggressively?).
Yes, all of that is part of the picture. I thought sharing my feelings would help folks understand where I'm coming from a little better, and maybe help me do some introspection. It seems your mention of it is sarcastic. Are you trying to be helpful in some way, or just slapping me around a bit?
I was doing both. I found this to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. What I would hope from you, or anyone (myself included) is that when we find ourselves critisizing others for their behavior, we acknowledge that we also engage in that behavior and give others the same slack we ourselves would like to be given.
From my perspective, it seems that rationalists strive to curtail emotion so that it does not cloud logic. To use a popular icon, rather like Spock. I felt that, in the discussion, you were diverting the argument from the rational to the emotional...somewhat a slight of hand of misdirection. This muddies the waters of intellectual discourse. It causes one to get bogged down in subjective entanglements rather than stick to the logical argument. The passive-aggressive trait is to claim victimization rather than confront the fact that one is engaging in victimizing others.
I was not, however, being sarcastic here. My intent was to emphasize two primary points: 1) Welcome to the club. We all feel sad, scared, and defensive when our belief systems are attacked. You are painfully aware of it and thus should be more sensitive to others when critisizing their belief systems, and 2) by introducing your feelings into the discussion, it diverts it from the topic being debated as I mentioned above.
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Again, I can't assess whether there's any truth to this until you give me at least one or two examples of my hubris and my hypocrisy. I'm open to criticism, but you need to give me something more to work with than generalizations.
Clarify, please. By "posits of rationalism" do you mean my positing that I'm a rationalist, or posits I've made about the characteristics of rationalism, or...?
I think your quote that I posted speaks for itself and throughout the body of your post entire there are several examples of hubris. You are as capable of returning to the original post and re-examining it as anyone.
I'll be happy to clarify "posits of rationalism". You maintain that you are a rationalist and you clearly approach topics from that p.o.v., regardless of the context. To sum up my point, I am asking you to be a rationalist when you engage in discussion. Frankly, I would much rather dialog with a rationalist than with someone who lacks the intellectual tools to explore the grand philosophical questions. I would like to see you hone your skills as a rationalist and rise to the occiasions of challenge or inquiry with dignity. Perhaps it's a new path to you and, at times, you have stepped out into unfamiliar territory and what appears to me as failing around is you trying to get your bearings.
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This is manifestly untrue. Look back over this and my previous articles-with-comments and you'll see quite a bit of productive philosophical discourse, most of which seemed pretty satisfying for all participants. I must say, your exaggerated criticism is starting to sound more like emotional spew than constructive criticism, but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you wish to reason with me rather than just slap me around...
I acknowledge there was quite a bit of emotion in my post but you should have seen what I edited out! I don't think my critism was exaggerated but I also acknowledge that I probably could have been more thoughtful in my approach. But I did not feel gentle, kind, or sweet at the time. Thank you for the benefit of the doubt. I would prefer to reason with you. I do feel emotional about certain things and I'm content that I do. I am as impassioned about my philosophy as you are about yours. I have no qualms about that nor do I make apologies for it.
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So here you assert not just that I engage in ridicule sometimes, but that every time I present my theories, I do it with ridicule. Surely you're intelligent enough to know that an absolutistic statement like that, allowing for no exceptions, is almost certain to be bullshit. Anyway, if it's even anywhere near true, it will surely take you at most a minute or two to find at least six or eight examples. I look forward to seeing them.
Yes, absolustic statements are bullshit. You busted me. I have not been present or witnessed every time you have presented your theories and can in no way prove that you always engage in ridicule. I did not mean to imply that you always do this. You'd done it enough times in my mind to bring it up.
This is an example of "nit-picking" (see below), however. I am reminded of the classic debate between William F. Buckley and John Kenneth Galbraith where, when hitting an impasse, they engaged in critisizing each others grammar. Of course, neither one of us compare to these intellectual giants, so I imagine such forms of muddling around in linguistic entanglements will be more common for us.
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Hmmm...now a list of three criticisms. Honestly, I'm not aware of these behaviors. I'm not even sure what "chest-thumping" means apart from gorilla behavior. One or two examples of each ("nit-picking", "chest-thumping", and "essentially throwing rationalism right out the window") are necessary here.
I don't know where you come up with three examples of this and six or eight examples of the other, Dixon. Is this in some sort of Rules of Engagement? Where do I get a copy of that? They seem arbitrary to me without defining your idea of said rules. Why should I be inclined to abide by them? Why wouldn't one example be sufficient or five rather than six or eight? This may seem facetious on my part but, truely, I'm curious.
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I've always affirmed that I'm far from perfect. If you mean something stronger than that...well, I'm open to that, too. How am I not abiding by my philosophy? Make your case.
See my hope for you to hone your skills above. I don't want to be pendantic.
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Note that you assumed I'm unconvincible of that prior to even trying! In fact, this statement from you showed me that my presentation of the Rationalistic versus New Age communities overemphasized the differences a bit, so I went back and added some clarification: "The differences between Rationalists and New Agers are not as cut-and-dried as these lists make them sound, and are mostly matters of degree, with plenty of fallacy among Rationalists and plenty of honest attempts at reasoning among New Agers. And on some issues, the New Agers will turn out right and the Rationalists wrong." That has been my position all along. Thank you for prodding me into clarifying it. Is that satisfactory, to your mind?
Completely! It allows us all to strive for some common ground and understanding.
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Anathstryx, how many beliefs do you hold about which you don't think you are right (and, by extension, that those who disagree with you are wrong)? To believe something is to assert that you're right about it (and this includes the implication that those who disagree are wrong). If you think I'm wrong about that, please provide an example or two of exceptions. The issue is whether we're open to the possibility that we're wrong and the other guy is right instead. While nobody's open-mindedness is perfect (partly for reasons I explicate in my upcoming column, "Truth Seeking and Faith Keeping"--get it at your local Wacco), I regard myself as more open-minded than most. I've said more than once here on Wacco that I've been profoundly wrong, sometimes about my basic beliefs, before, and assume I'm wrong about some of my beliefs now, and that will always be the case. Rather than comfortably surrounding myself with my fellow rationalists, I often engage with those I disagree with, such as you, partly because I want to be corrected in those areas where I'm wrong. How about you?
Oh, I try to be diligent about examining my beliefs and discarding those which I think are erroneous because it is through our beliefs that we filter reality and relate and respond to experience. I want to have an authentic life. In fact, I think that is the most important goal of a human being. For me to not discard erroneous beliefs would be a profound disservice to myself! As for others disaggreeing with my beliefs, I do not necessarly think they are wrong and I am right. I don't usually see things so distinctly black and white/right and wrong. When it comes to philosophy, there are no absolutes as you are surely aware. Nor do I hold to one philosophy being more right than another. I prefer to think that each contains useful information that may be applicable toward helping me achieve my own goal of living an authentic life and I'll gratefully apply useful information and discard what is not.
I like to use the analogy of going to a buffet. At that buffet I have several options of food to choose. If I just eat the chicken because I've become dogmatic about chicken, I'll miss out on the deliciousness and nutritious benefits of all the other options. I've stupidly put self-imposed limits on myself, denying myself a broadening of experience and the potential of enhancing experience. If I stay open to trying everything in the buffet I will, no doubt, encounter foods I will love, foods I will hate, foods that I can take or leave, and so on. Eventually, I'll have a plate of food that satisfies my hunger, and nourishes me. I know it's a simplistic analogy but it speaks on a very visceral level so many can relate.
In my own community, I have been disparaged by many of my fellows because I have this approach to belief. The term applied to a person that does this is "eclectic". It is frequently a condemnation. But I contend that following strictly a particular tradition in a dogmatic manner is like living in a cage...or being confined to just eating chicken.
I cannot ever say that my philosophy, which is constructed from parts of many philosophies, is right or wrong for anyone one else no more than I can say that these shoes I'm wearing will fit anyone else. There are far too many variables to take into consideration and, I'm afraid, it would take way too much time for me to elucidate further here.
When I engage in dialog with others who have a disagreement with my philosophy, my hope is to find some common ground and we can each have a better understanding of where we're coming from. I think it would be a pretty boring, stilted, and deformed world if we all believed the same thing. And I think it would be impossible for us all to believe the same thing anyway, which is a great relief to me.
However, I do not purposefully seek out the company of people who have radically opposing views to mine because I'm not a masochist. Nor do I wish to only be in the company of those who seem to have the same worldview as I do because that is insular and therefore limiting. I like to be in the company of people who are good-natured, intellectually stimulating, creative, and like cake. I love cake. Do you?
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My point about New Agers implicitly claiming infallibility (well, OK--near-infallibility) is this: Science and, more broadly, critical thinking are largely just systems designed to correct for our universal human fallacies--the confirmation bias, placebo effect, effort justification effect, self-centered thinking, wishful thinking, and a thousand other fallacies most of which, apparently, every human is subject to. By rejecting the canons of science and reason, which, as you know, many (I think most) New Agers do, they're rejecting mechanisms that could correct for their fallacies and replacing them with--nothing. Doesn't this imply that they feel no need for fallacy-correction because they think they're not subject to those fallacies? How many times have we heard people reject the findings of a zillion scientific studies, saying, for instance, "Science is wrong. I know astrology is true because I've experienced it!" Note the arrogant implication that their unsystematic judgment is superior to the work of thousands of trained scientists, and the apparent total ignorance or denial that they have any natural fallacies in their thinking that may require some careful measures to compensate for. Does this not imply a grandiose feeling of (near) infallibility? That's what I'm talking about. Fair enough?
You're painting with a broad brush here but you have acknowldged that there are some New Agers who are exceptions to this rule and, I think, I would fall into that category. I am completely comfortable with the scientific tests of critical thinking to correct universal human fallacies. Without belaboring it (or attempting to), I completely agree that science and critical thinking techniques are excellent tools for hacking away fallacies and I, like you, wish more of my fellow New Agers would use them as well as everyone else, and some of everyone else more than others. But, once again, to rely purely on science is limiting. Science is a dynamic mechanism ever evolving. Those things which it cannot yet measure will be measurable in the future. To say that because we cannot quantify something now means it doesn't exist is fallacious. At one time, it was commonly believed that the human sperm was a homunculus and the female womb was a sort of hothouse for this little human to incubate in. This was the accepted scientific position. Clearly, science was wrong. Oh, happy day when Leeuwenhoek was born! So, I say, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". One needs to stay open to possibilities. Even science needs to be critically assessed at every turn.
I do not believe that astrology is an exact science and that it has degraded significantly as a type of tool since ancient times into a popular past time somewhat like watching soap operas. I do believe that physical bodies in motion have an effect on other physical bodies to a greater or lesser degree depending on distance and other factors and so I do not discount the possibility that Mars, which moves in a pretty predictable manner, might have some weak effect on me but that's no excuse for me to be careful about how I discuss washing the dishes with my lazy Ares daughter. I don't blame a Mercury retrograde because my car won't start. A Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion. I need a new battery. But if I'm going to cast a spell...and yes, I do from time to time cast spells...I will wait for a moon phase that is appropriate to the spell to enhance it because the moon does indeed have a strong effect on all things fluid and I need all the help I can get. So, I choose to use science as practically as possible in addition to those things which I intuit or seems reasonable to me but have no proofs other than the result.
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Why wouldn't it be? All it means is "What the fuck?" In other words, "This is totally incomprehensible to me; please explain." Do you have a problem with that for some reason? If you're inferring a more negative implication that really isn't there, you're just causing yourself needless distress.
WTF is not at all polite, Dixon. Saying "this is totally incomprehensible to me; please explain." is. Perhaps this is a generational thing, but I would never say WTF and consider it polite even if I was hanging out with skateboarders.
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I'm getting really tired of being harassed on the basis of people's willful negativization of my use of the term "delusion". I've dealt with this before and you should have read it, but you apparently didn't get the message, so here it is once again. I said: "Yeah, that's an experience we've all had. There's a term for it; it's called "delusion"." Note that the statement, while made to Gene, was not specific to Gene or anybody. It was a statement about universal human experience--that we all, including me, have been deluded (i.e., have had false beliefs). Do you see that it wasn't about Gene any more than it was about me (and everybody else)? If you want to interpret it as my somehow attacking Gene, then I must have been attacking the whole human race, including myself, because that's who I was explicitly talking about--me, you, everybody; we're all subject to delusion. It's part of the human experience. Now do you get that simple concept, or would you prefer to remain obtuse so you can have a bogus excuse to torment me a little more, Anathstryx?
I'm tired of it, too. Moving along.
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You mention that "delusion" is not a positive thing. So what? Neither are lots of things we've been talking about. Is it bad to point out some negative things? If so, how can you justify your screed directed at me? If you should harass me on the basis of your gross distortion of my obvious meaning about human delusiveness, how much more should you be harassed for the numerous bad attributions you direct at me in your ill-considered screed? "Hey folks, we've gotten tired of beating up on Dixon for our distorted interpretation of something he said. Let's beat up on Anathstryx for awhile; she said so many more nasty things than Dixon did." But of course, that won't happen; I'm the designated target in this dysfunctional family system.
This horse needs a decent burial.
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(Anathstryx then quotes this passage from me: "...pointing out flaws in other people's positions, and it won't be the last. If someone is open to being corrected when they're mistaken, they'll have no problem with me. They'll take my critique as intended--as a gift! If their agenda is to be unchanged by our discussion, maintaining their beliefs regardless of whether they're true, I could be very scary indeed. In most if not all cases, people's discomfort with me is a measure of their closed-mindedness--they're scared to death of being shown they're mistaken about something by a guy who can do it. That's a problem they have--not a problem with my behavior)
It's not clear to me that there's any sign of hubris in that passage. Please elucidate. You sound like you're assuming that some or all of what I'm saying there is unreasonable in some way. Make your case. And note that I'm not saying nor implying that I'm always right, or anything of that sort.."
I don't think your method of pointing out flaws is so flawless in itself that you can claim pointing out someone elses flaws is a gift. Therefore, hubris...excessive self-confidence.
And then I said: It could be just as easily said that your discomfort with we New Agers is a measure of your closed-mindedness.
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Once again, it's unclear to me that this is true. Please make your case or retract your accusation.
Just using your own argument. You are beating people with a an intellectual stick and then, when it's wrestled away from you and you're whacked with the same stick, you cry foul. Just pointing that out.
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A clever saying, and I think very wise. I'll try to keep it in mind. But it seems ironic that you're quoting it in the context of your screed against me, Anathstryx. Look back over your words. Can you honestly say they're "soft and sweet"? Would it be fair to say that your preaching "soft and sweet" to me is both ironic and hypocritical?
As I confessed way above, I was not feeling soft and sweet. Yes, it is a clever saying. We both seem to agree on that. Let's both work on it, okay?
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I always affirm that I, being human, am imperfectly rational. But your attack (it's fair to call it that, right?) asserts something much stronger. Even if we assume that I fall short of "walking the talk" occasionally, you seem to be dismissing my entire oeuvre in those terms. Have you read all of my interactions with those who disagree with me on the threads associated with my several essays, and elsewhere, in order to appropriately make this blanket dismissal of me? And if not, aren't you yourself giving an example of not walking the walk?
I don't claim to be a rationalist. We've already covered the fact that I have not perused your entire oeuvre.
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You accuse me of engaging in diatribe ("A forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something", according to my dictionary), not just sometimes, but every time in my interactions with those I disagree with. This is manifestly untrue, as an honest perusal of my posts will show you. It's another absolutistic zinger, an accusation allowing for no exceptions. In fact, few if any of my posts can be accurately termed diatribes, but I know of one that can--your screed against me. Think I'm wrong? Read it again, Anathstryx, with the definition of "diatribe" in mind.
I don't think I was ranting. I thought I was pretty concise.
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Anathstryx, your screed has been a blast of criticism delivered in general terms, often exaggerated, sometimes to the point of absolutism, with few if any examples to back up your negative characterizations of me. I hope you can appreciate that, rather than dismissing you as abrasive and huffy, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, responding from the assumption that your intention is constructive criticism rather than just self-righteous verbal abuse. Accordingly I've asked for examples in every case where your accusations aren't self-evidently true to me, so I can show you the respect of exploring them honestly and open-mindedly, to the purpose of becoming a better person. I await the examples I need from you in order to continue this exploration. Thank you for your time and effort. The ball is in your court.
I feel like I'm reading a red-penned note on my essay from my philosophy teacher in freshman philosophy class here, Dixon. I'm not looking for a grade. Yes, I vented on you yesterday. My words were harsh (but much, much softened by editing). I was angry.
You may characterize me as being abbrasive and huffy if you like because I was being abbrasive and huffy. I had a pretty full on huff going. I allowed emotion to get in the way of reasonable discourse. Mea culpa. I apologize for harshness and huffiness. In future, I will be far more circumspect when you push one of my buttons and I feel compelled to let you know about it. I would hope that in trade, you would also be more circumspect when your "woowoo" button gets pushed.
My intent was to point out to you that you can dish it out, but you can't take it, Dixon. I was hoping that, as a rational person you would see that and I, as a rational person, could help you see it. Hubris on my part then.
Perhaps we can both take way from this experience that there are better ways to phrase criticisms that make them constructive rather than destructive. People hold their beliefs passionately and there are no winners when beliefs are attacked. It's not a contest. We can all be guilty of using the same stick to beat each other up. What can we discern from each other's beliefs that are uniting rather than fractious? Is it possible for people with distinctly different belief systems to co-exist harmoniously by seeking common ground rather than berating each other for perceived flaws? I hope so. How can we all push away from the table feeling satisfied and nourished instead of getting into a food fight?
So, the challenge, I guess, is can you be a damn good rationalist and can I be a damn good New Ager (I'm a Pagan, actually), both of us continuing to hone our respective philosophical tools, and can we meet up and build something worthwhile together? Or should we just say, "WTF' and go have some cake?
Anathstryx
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
One issue in this thread is a kind of category error. It doesn't make sense to compare "science" with "New Agers". The first is a body of knowledge and methods, which are loosely codified by the community of scientists. The second is "people" who practice or believe in things that are not well codified or bounded. Comparing science and new agers is like comparing classical music and punk rockers (instead of classical music and punk music or fans of classical music and fans of punk music, etc).
It's probably the case that we don't, in this thread, have a good referent for "new agers"--to show what's included in that category and what isn't. Astrology, channeling, shamanism....? What about yoga and meditation? Is acupuncture new age or not? And of course there's a similar issue with the term science: do we mean only the hard sciences, like physics. All of science? What about theories which have zero to very little evidence, like string theory? Is that science? Should we compare experimentally unsupported scientific beliefs with New Agers.... Seems like a category error to me
So the thread might be better served if we were to either 1. agree on the beliefs we mean when we say "new age", and then contrast that set of beliefs with "science" or 2 compare new ager people and science-r people. Then we'll know what we're actually discussing
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
One issue in this thread is a kind of category error. It doesn't make sense to compare "science" with "New Agers". The first is a body of knowledge and methods, which are loosely codified by the community of scientists. The second is "people" who practice or believe in things that are not well codified or bounded. Comparing science and new agers is like comparing classical music and punk rockers (instead of classical music and punk music or fans of classical music and fans of punk music, etc).
It's probably the case that we don't, in this thread, have a good referent for "new agers"--to show what's included in that category and what isn't. Astrology, channeling, shamanism....? What about yoga and meditation? Is acupuncture new age or not? And of course there's a similar issue with the term science: do we mean only the hard sciences, like physics. All of science? What about theories which have zero to very little evidence, like string theory? Is that science? Should we compare experimentally unsupported scientific beliefs with New Agers.... Seems like a category error to me
So the thread might be better served if we were to either 1. agree on the beliefs we mean when we say "new age", and then contrast that set of beliefs with "science" or 2 compare new ager people and science-r people. Then we'll know what we're actually discussing
Excellent points, Sean.
I would also add that I don't consider myself New Age because I have never fit a particular category, although many of my interests are nonlinear, but not all. I love science and it was my favorite subject all through school along with language arts. People are often multi-dimensional. I'm intuitive and I'm rational and I have had so many nonlinear experiences that they no longer surprise me in the least, however, I still look at them from a skeptical angle, just to keep it interesting and to verify things for myself.
Now I'm out of here for the day to sit with someone I dearly love in the hospital. If you have your health and mind today consider it a great boon. It's a pity to take such a gift for granted.
PS And I sure didn't mean to imply that New Agers are not rational. :) I just find labels limiting.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
One issue in this thread is a kind of category error. It doesn't make sense to compare "science" with "New Agers". The first is a body of knowledge and methods, which are loosely codified by the community of scientists. The second is "people" who practice or believe in things that are not well codified or bounded. Comparing science and new agers is like comparing classical music and punk rockers (instead of classical music and punk music or fans of classical music and fans of punk music, etc).
It's probably the case that we don't, in this thread, have a good referent for "new agers"--to show what's included in that category and what isn't. Astrology, channeling, shamanism....? What about yoga and meditation? Is acupuncture new age or not? And of course there's a similar issue with the term science: do we mean only the hard sciences, like physics. All of science? What about theories which have zero to very little evidence, like string theory? Is that science? Should we compare experimentally unsupported scientific beliefs with New Agers.... Seems like a category error to me
So the thread might be better served if we were to either 1. agree on the beliefs we mean when we say "new age", and then contrast that set of beliefs with "science" or 2 compare new ager people and science-r people. Then we'll know what we're actually discussing
I think it's more of a case of the comparison of methods used or not used to sort out so-called fallacies from truths or facts. It could be Mormons, Vendantists or the Hopi Nation, etc., instead of New Agers vs critical thinking (science). The issue is that "people of faith" have belief systems that accept scientifically unsupported phenomena as being factual, i.e, gods, spirits, angels, elves, ghosts, healing energies, and so forth. Since it's been determined that a large community of New Agers both populate the west county and Wacco, they seem to be the group selected for these comparisons.
Anathstryx
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by anathstryx:
I think it's more of a case of the comparison of methods used or not used to sort out so-called fallacies from truths or facts. It could be Mormons, Vendantists or the Hopi Nation, etc., instead of New Agers vs critical thinking (science). The issue is that "people of faith" have belief systems that accept scientifically unsupported phenomena as being factual, i.e, gods, spirits, angels, elves, ghosts, healing energies, and so forth. Since it's been determined that a large community of New Agers both populate the west county and Wacco, they seem to be the group selected for these comparisons.
Many of the belief systems that would probably be categorized as "new age" have formal methods to distinguish truth from fallacy. And, some scientific disciplines appear to not use such methods. As an example of the first, there are systems of meditation that describe in great detail the methods to use and the results that one should expect to achieve. One can check one's results by comparing one's experience against what the books describe. And one can check with other practitioners or teachers to verify, confirm, disallow, etc. As an example of the second, we might consider string theory (which has very little to no experimental basis) or various flavors of scientific materialism.
When you dig in to either science or "new age", we find that the qualities of the practitioners are very important. Some kinds of "science" are largely taxonomic until someone comes along who can think clearly enough to advance theory. Some kinds of meditative instruction and practice suffer from insufficient grounding in experiment and discovery. But just as it's a mistake to disavow the scientific method because of mistakes made by specific scientists, it's an error to dismiss "new age" methods on the basis of what specific people do. (whatever "new age" might mean)
So, again, we should talk about the people or talk about specific theories. But comparing the practice of science, as an abstraction, with wacco-ites as a specific set of individuals is a non-starter. Too vague
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Research study reports ALWAYS conclude that more research is needed! That's how researchers stay in business!
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Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
... the report conclusion was more research needed, not same as placebo.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
It seems to me after reading the last few posts that the term "New Agers" should be/ would be/ is (?) considered a generalization and therefore not all that specific and somewhat distracted and has veered this particular group away from the gist...
...even though Dixon has explained in some detail what he was referring to about what he meant when he used the term: "New Agers"; after all is (will be) said (and already thus-far has been said) , the term "New Agers" is still, at the end of the day going to be a generalization that ends-up being somewhat skewed one way or another.
Dixon, I do empathize with your frustrations and feelings ... (I have had strikingly similar experiences on many occasions) ...and some of the things that you have laid out in regards to your descriptions of the things that (I interpret as bothering (?) you) from the so-called "New Agers".
That being said, I think there are psychological walls of resistance that exist which will take time, lots of skill, finesse, and patients and (?... ...:heart:) to get-through (to most reasonable people anyway) to get beyond the various subjective pejoratives; (perceived, assumed, or implicit;) .:waccosun:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Hotspring 44:
...even though Dixon has explained in some detail what he was referring to about what he meant when he used the term: "New Agers"; after all is (will be) said (and already thus-far has been said) , the term "New Agers" is still, at the end of the day going to be a generalization that ends-up being somewhat false
He described the behavior of New Age people: they don't use rational or scientific methods, they believe that we each have our own truth and so on. We could take out the phrase "new age and' substitute anything else: bad scientist, dogmatic rationalist, unnice people, whatever. It still wouldn't help us contrast scientific method with new age method--because we don't know yet what new age method means. Nor does it help us compare new age people with science-r people, because we don't have any good way which would yield something meaningful.
Instead we would all have to say something like what you've just said, "I've had unpleasant experiences with a New Age person who refused to listen to reason and was therefore irrational" And some New Ager will say, "I've had an unpleasant experience with a Science-r who refused to listen to how I felt and was therefore insensitive".
And everybody would be right because--dare I say it?--we can see the rational position is that each would have her own truth in the matter.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Hi, Sean! Thanks for weighing in.
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
One issue in this thread is a kind of category error. It doesn't make sense to compare "science" with "New Agers". The first is a body of knowledge and methods, which are loosely codified by the community of scientists. The second is "people" who practice or believe in things that are not well codified or bounded. Comparing science and new agers is like comparing classical music and punk rockers (instead of classical music and punk music or fans of classical music and fans of punk music, etc).
Sean, I haven't noticed myself or anyone here committing the category error you describe, although I could easily be doing it myself without noticing, so this is a situation in which an example or two from you would help. Also, even if what you describe is happening, I'm not sure it would be anything so serious as an actual category error, as opposed to a mere word usage error, which could easily be fixed by (for instance) changing the term "New Agers" to something like "New Age thinking" wherever you see a problem with the usage of the term. I dunno--maybe that is a sort of category error, but it's easily fixed, even in the reader's mind, by just substituting one term for the other as needed.
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It's probably the case that we don't, in this thread, have a good referent for "new agers"--to show what's included in that category and what isn't. Astrology, channeling, shamanism....? What about yoga and meditation? Is acupuncture new age or not? And of course there's a similar issue with the term science: do we mean only the hard sciences, like physics. All of science? What about theories which have zero to very little evidence, like string theory? Is that science?
As you know, Sean, all concepts are fuzzy around the edges, to varying degrees. This is very true of social movements that include millions of people, all of them individuals, like "science" and, even more so, "New Age culture". If you read my posts carefully, you'll see that I (usually? always?) qualify my generalizations carefully, acknowledging that there will be many exceptions, etc. You're welcome to make a case that any of my generalizations is wrong, but of course, unless a generalization is phrased absolutistically, implying that there are no exceptions (Hi, Anathstryx!), citing some exceptions doesn't invalidate the generalization. Are some "New Agers" more reasonable than some self-described "Rationalists"? Yup. Does that disprove my assertion that Rationalists in general are more reasonable than New Agers in general? Nope.
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Should we compare experimentally unsupported scientific beliefs with New Agers.... Seems like a category error to me
I'd agree that that's some sort of error; maybe it is a category error. I await an example from you to see if someone (me?) is actually making that error. A more apt comparison might be comparing experimentally unsupported scientific beliefs (such as Einstein's relativity before it was validated by various experiments) with certain New Age beliefs that are not arrived at by correctly reasoning from empirical observations. Or, we could compare "Rationalists" with "New Agers" in terms of their typical assumptions, belief-making strategies and traits relevant to critical thinking--which is what I did in my post #38 in this thread (I think!).
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So the thread might be better served if we were to either 1. agree on the beliefs we mean when we say "new age", and then contrast that set of beliefs with "science" or 2 compare new ager people and science-r people. Then we'll know what we're actually discussing.
I think I'm pretty much doing both. If you look at my comparison between "Rationalists" and "New Agers" (post #38), I'm comparing lists of their assumptions and reasoning strategies and traits relevant to critical thinking/truth seeking/belief making. Whether or not you agree with the accuracy of my statements, and in spite of the fact that in one place I say "New Age culture" while elsewhere phrasing it as "New Agers tend to...", I think my meanings are all clear--aren't they? Is there really a problem which impacts either the accuracy or clarity of the discourse, or could you be doing what amounts to nit-picking here?
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
...And everybody would be right because--dare I say it?--we can see the rational position is that each would have her own truth in the matter.
That is so "New Age" it's almost a joke! :satire::biglaugh::bs::2cents:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Glia:
Research study reports ALWAYS conclude that more research is needed! That's how researchers stay in business!
what a cynical perspective...
of course it's largely true...
but anyway, other conclusions to draw when they say "more research needed" include that they've found flaws in the study's methods, or that their conclusions are leading in a direction that wasn't anticipated and the supporting evidence is too weak to support them, though it indicates new directions for research to go.
it's not the same as saying, "hell, we don't know..."
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
Instead we would all have to say something like what you've just said, "I've had unpleasant experiences with a New Age person who refused to listen to reason and was therefore irrational" And some New Ager will say, "I've had an unpleasant experience with a Science-r who refused to listen to how I felt and was therefore insensitive".
Wait a minute, on one side is reason and the other is feelings? Did you really mean that?
There are many reasons I may believe in something out of the norm, but it usually comes from some evidence I think is of worthiness (to me).
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by claire ossenbeck:
Wait a minute, on one side is reason and the other is feelings? Did you really mean that?
There are many reasons I may believe in something out of the norm, but it usually comes from some evidence I think is of worthiness (to me).
I was being facetious.
This division into people who use reason and people who don't comes from Dixon--the latter, those who don't use reason, are New Agers in his formulation.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
If you look at my comparison between "Rationalists" and "New Agers" (post #38), I'm comparing lists of their assumptions and reasoning strategies and traits relevant to critical thinking/truth seeking/belief making. Whether or not you agree with the accuracy of my statements, and in spite of the fact that in one place I say "New Age culture" while elsewhere phrasing it as "New Agers tend to...", I think my meanings are all clear--aren't they? Is there really a problem which impacts either the accuracy or clarity of the discourse, or could you be doing what amounts to nit-picking here?
The reason I ask what you mean by "new age"--people or culture--is because your list of assumptions and reasoning strategies held by New Agers is mostly a negation of the methods used by Rationalists. So you could just as easily say, "those who use reason do this, those who don't do this other thing." Do you tell us anything more about "New Agers" other than they don't use reason? Not a great deal. So the use of "new age" as a category seems more provocative than useful.
the more interesting questions, which I believe are implicit in this thread and your other articles, are like this: what are the limits of reason as a mode of ascertaining truth? Is reason the only valid method? If reason/logic has limits, what are they? Are there other modes of ascertaining truth? What limits do they have? How does one know which to use and when? Are these various modes of truth-assessment complementary or opposed?
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
" Do you tell us anything more about "New Agers" other than they don't use reason? Not a great deal. So the use of "new age" as a category seems more provocative than useful.
:doctor:
.
Amongst a community that is populated with a substantial amount of people that consider themselves to be within the category of being "New Age", of course Dixon's descriptions are provocative. Hopefully more provoking thought towards "truth" and good communication with a healthy dose of critical thinking
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
the more interesting questions, which I believe are implicit in this thread and your other articles, are like this: what are the limits of reason as a mode of ascertaining truth? Is reason the only valid method? If reason/logic has limits, what are they? Are there other modes of ascertaining truth?...
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...Are there other modes of ascertaining truth?...
Mathematics without the psychological bull-shit is one I can think of just off the top of my head.
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
...What limits do they have?...
I think as knowledge increases, the limits change therefore, the answer to that question hinges on the knowledge that is "reasonable" with the people in a particular group.
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
How does one know which to use and when?
As with all things with exploration, sometimes someone just has to go-for-it.:wink:
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
Are these various modes of truth-assessment complementary or opposed?
I think, yes, no and sometimes to both; that all depends on the people involved and the topic/s.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
All of these observations have merit.
But seriously, have you ever read a study that concluded with something along the lines of "we now know exactly what is going on here and have solved the problem. Next we are going to try using this conclusion to do implement useful work." ??
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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
what a cynical perspective...
of course it's largely true...
but anyway, other conclusions to draw when they say "more research needed" include that they've found flaws in the study's methods, or that their conclusions are leading in a direction that wasn't anticipated and the supporting evidence is too weak to support them, though it indicates new directions for research to go.
it's not the same as saying, "hell, we don't know..."
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Glia:
But seriously, have you ever read a study that concluded with something along the lines of "we now know exactly what is going on here and have solved the problem. Next we are going to try using this conclusion to do implement useful work." ??
That’s a somewhat subjective question.
How many people here actually read many actual studies in their entirety in the first place?
Anyway, my personal answer to whether or not, I have read a substantial amount of studies (or even a single one that I could enumerate specifically for that matter) is: no, I have not read any actual “study” to conclude one way or the other based purely on the “study” itself.... ... have you Glia? Could you name one “study” specifically?
I'm not in my question, referring to an article in a newspaper or on the internet about a particular "study"; (or) the conclusions or the preface of a particular study, but I am referring to the actual whole, complete study in it's entirety, in a knowledgeable sense as one whom is educated in that specific field of that study; not like somebody reading a book just for the sake of reading the book and remembering the end note, which may say, in essence; “needs more study” to answer new questions that came-up in that study.
It seems to me it would be reasonable to answer that double question along the lines of the generalized knowledge we (in my case the knowledge that I) do have to answer yes to the second half of the two-part question.
It seems logical to me that Otherwise, Homo sapiens (or whatever would have been otherwise) would still likely be “cave” people at best!
There would not be automobiles, transoceanic shipping, airplanes, trains, satellite communications, computers etc. unless of course some other species evolved to that instead of us but I am getting too far off topic.
That being said, the use of automobiles, transoceanic shipping, airplanes, trains, satellite communications, computers etc have their own issues that are causing present and future problems which will inevitably end up needing studies to solve. But that's another story and does not really change the (yes) answer to the second half of the double question above regarding using conclusions based on studies (a “study”) which have (did) actually get used for the implementation of actual “useful work”; (automobiles, transoceanic shipping, airplanes, trains, satellite communications, computers etc).
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
MY RESPONSE TO ANATHSTRYX'S LATEST SCREED--Part 1 of 2:
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Posted in reply to the post by anathstryx:
Yes, I agree that there are plenty of wackos in the world.
Thanks for your honesty. I think we all consider someone to be a wacko, though not all would use that term. I'm honest enough to say that sort of thing, which sometimes makes me a target for outrage--often abusively expressed--rather than the sort of constructive discussion I'm always trying to spark. I wish everyone who thinks I'm a wacko would be as honest and straightforward as me and say it to me, so we could hopefully have a dialogue through which I could either have my wacko-ness corrected or show them that I'm not wacko after all.:whackasmilie: That's the kind of result I seek when I say provocative things.
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However, my point was that you said you have never called anyone on Wacco a wacko yet...
And do you see that it was true when I said it?
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...by implication in the same sentence, you did. My intent was to show you the contradiction.
I can see how my wording made it seem contradictory, and I'm sorry for any confusion that caused. I meant to convey that I'd never 'til then used the term, and then mentioned that there were many who qualify as wackos, without specifying anyone. I was hoping to get some credit for the considerable self-restraint I've employed, when people have expressed the wackiest beliefs without the slightest logical support, by not calling them wackos or similar terms. I think it's more "provocative" to directly call some individual a wacko than to assert in a general sense that there are plenty of them around (an assertion with which you agree). I hope you get that distinction now and, again, I apologize for the initial unclarity.
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Yes, I was being mildy sarcastic.
Thanks for acknowledging that.
(Anathstryx then responds to this quote from my previous post: "Are you trying to be helpful in some way, or just slapping me around a bit?")
Thanks for acknowledging that.:knocked:
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I found this to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
It's not clear what specific behavior you're referring to here. Clarification would help.
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What I would hope from you, or anyone (myself included) is that when we find ourselves critisizing others for their behavior, we acknowledge that we also engage in that behavior and give others the same slack we ourselves would like to be given.
I totally agree, Anathstryx, but it's not clear to me that I haven't been following that dictum pretty consistently. If you can point out an example or two of my criticizing others for some behavior I also do without acknowledging that, I'll be happy to look at it and respond in some constructive way. Until then, I hope you can see that it's just another instance of your making a criticism without giving any reason to believe it's true.
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From my perspective, it seems that rationalists strive to curtail emotion so that it does not cloud logic. To use a popular icon, rather like Spock.
I'm glad you mention this rather insulting, and mostly inaccurate, stereotype of rationalists. Spock is an example of someone whose inability to relate to others' emotions constitutes an impairment in his social functioning. The nearest non-fictional analog would be a person with the mild form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome. While folks with Asperger's would probably feel more comfortable with rationalists than with New Agers, and may therefore be somewhat over-represented in the ranks of rationalists, the vast majority of rationalists aren't like that.
Rationalists do their best to set aside their emotions and consider the facts as dispassionately and objectively as possible when assessing truth-claims about objective reality, so the emotions don't impair the reasoning process. It's a way of avoiding self-centered reasoning, among other fallacies. This does not imply that rationalists are impaired in the emotional realm. Their emotional lives are just as rich, broad and deep as anyone else's; they just know the importance of not letting their feelings screw up their reasoning. Similar insulting stereotypes of rationalists are that they lack imagination, creativity, intuition, etc. All of that is insulting and untrue. If you think otherwise, maybe I should send you some of my poetry.
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I felt that, in the discussion, you were diverting the argument from the rational to the emotional...somewhat a slight of hand of misdirection.
I gave you the good reasons I wrote about my feelings, and now you ignore those good reasons to make an unfounded and insulting claim about my motivation.:duck: I hope the people who have been haranguing me about my supposed nastiness are noticing all these things you're doing, Anathstryx. But somehow, they don't criticize you when you pull this kind of shit.
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This muddies the waters of intellectual discourse. It causes one to get bogged down in subjective entanglements rather than stick to the logical argument.
You're confusing talking about feelings with actually getting caught up in those feelings, Anathstryx. Those are two very different things. In fact, sometimes, in order to reason properly, we must look at and talk about our feelings, if only to see whether they're distorting our reasoning in some way. If you had attended a bit more to your feelings when writing your previous rant, perhaps it wouldn't have been filled with sarcastic, emotional spew, of which you were too unaware at the time to edit it out. Note also that if I express no feelings, people will write me off as a Spock-like emotion-impaired rationalist, but if I mention my relevant feelings, I get fallaciously lambasted by you for it. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.
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The passive-aggressive trait is to claim victimization rather than confront the fact that one is engaging in victimizing others.
The two aren't mutually exclusive; both could be happening in any case. Anyway, I've acknowledged repeatedly that I may be a little more sharp-tongued than necessary sometimes and that I'm trying to improve in that area, while not one single person among those who've been attacking me has acknowledged any problems with their behavior at all. No one has said "Gee, maybe I bear some responsibility for Dixon's frustration because of my utter, rigid closed-mindedness about the beliefs he's critiquing", or "Hey, maybe some of the things I've said about Dixon are inaccurate, insulting attacks", or "I guess I did grossly misinterpret what Dixon said, assuming negative intentions on his part so I could join the fun of attacking him. Maybe I should think about why I feel so threatened by him that I want to beat him up." The only (partial) exception is you, Anathstryx. You have, when confronted by me, admitted to being sarcastic and to "slapping me around", though without any expression of remorse nor any indication that you'll try to do better. None of my other critics, including those who expressed their delight in seeing you slap me around by giving you Gratitudes for it, have criticized you for being much rougher on me than I've ever been on anyone.
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...Welcome to the club. We all feel sad, scared, and defensive when our belief systems are attacked. You are painfully aware of it and thus should be more sensitive to others when critisizing their belief systems.
Here you miss one of my main points. I'm not sad, scared and defensive about my belief systems being attacked; I'm feeling that way because I'm being attacked with inaccurate or exaggerated accusations; needlessly negative, unfounded assumptions about my motivations; etc. That's a huge difference between most of what I'm calling Rationalists and most of what I'm calling New Agers: taking an attack on one's beliefs as an attack on the person who holds those beliefs. Most New Agers take that position, and it's a position of closed-mindedness. I take the open-minded, rationalistic position: Please attack my beliefs, not in a snotty way, but with rational arguments that will show me if I'm wrong! Pin me down, don't let me wriggle away, bust through my evasions, demolish my fallacious arguments, and show me the truth, even if it's an unpleasant truth! That's where I'm coming from, and that's the genesis of most of the ire on this thread--not that I'm abusing anybody, but that I'm telling them they're probably wrong about some belief they're addicted to, and they call that a personal attack so they can invalidate me as a mean guy, thus evading opening up to the possibility that they may be mistaken.:peepwall:
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...by introducing your feelings into the discussion, it diverts it from the topic being debated as I mentioned above.
I haven't discussed feelings in any way that diverts from the topic, only in relevant ways. See again my previous explanation for why I brought up my feelings in the first place.
(Anathstryx then responds to my insistence that she make a case for my accusation that I'm afflicted with hubris)
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I think your quote that I posted speaks for itself and throughout the body of your post entire there are several examples of hubris. You are as capable of returning to the original post and re-examining it as anyone.
As I've already said, I see no hubris in that quote. It's clear that I do feel that I have something to offer in terms of helping people see what's likely to be true and what false. I have more education, talent and experience than most in terms of distinguishing good from bad evidence, rooting out fallacies, etc. This is not the same as saying that I'm perfect, infallible, the best critical thinker in town, or a better person than anyone else. It's simply a (true) claim about my skills and talents, just as someone might claim to be a good cook, musician or dancer (BTW, I'm a pretty good dancer too). That ain't hubris, Anathstryx. So, if you think there's some hubris there that I'm not seeing, you are responsible to explicate that clearly or, failing that, to retract your accusation of hubris.:footstomp:
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I'll be happy to clarify "posits of rationalism". You maintain that you are a rationalist and you clearly approach topics from that p.o.v., regardless of the context. To sum up my point, I am asking you to be a rationalist when you engage in discussion. Frankly, I would much rather dialog with a rationalist than with someone who lacks the intellectual tools to explore the grand philosophical questions. I would like to see you hone your skills as a rationalist and rise to the occiasions of challenge or inquiry with dignity. Perhaps it's a new path to you and, at times, you have stepped out into unfamiliar territory and what appears to me as failing around is you trying to get your bearings.
Here I'm gonna resist the temptation to specifically list your errors in logic and challenge you to list mine by way of comparison; playing "more rational than thou" is not constructive. I've acknowledged repeatedly many times, including in this thread, that I'm far from perfect and always will be--something we have yet to see you acknowledge about yourself. I'm always trying to hone my reasoning skills and I hope you can see that my interaction with you constitutes an example of that. But you're saying that I pretty much fail to be a rationalist at all. The only evidence you've given so far is a litany of accusations without evidence. I'm still open to looking at your evidence--maybe there'll be some coming from you shortly?--but, until we see some, who is it that's falling short of being rational? In this connection, please note that I can always provide examples to back up any criticisms I make, or will publicly retract the criticism. You have yet to meet that standard.
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I acknowledge there was quite a bit of emotion in my post but you should have seen what I edited out!
I'm often tempted to say that very thing when criticized for something I've said, but I usually don't, because ultimately we're responsible for what we say and how we say it. But since you bring it up, I too practice considerable self-restraint in my public pronouncements; for every thing I say that pisses someone off, I've edited out ten or twenty stronger statements! But we get no credit for that, do we?
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I don't think my critism was exaggerated but I also acknowledge that I probably could have been more thoughtful in my approach. But I did not feel gentle, kind, or sweet at the time. Thank you for the benefit of the doubt. I would prefer to reason with you. I do feel emotional about certain things and I'm content that I do. I am as impassioned about my philosophy as you are about yours. I have no qualms about that nor do I make apologies for it.
So, you acknowledge being sarcastic and "slapping me around", among other things, but you see no need for any apologies nor even qualms. Now what exactly is it you're asking me to do, and why? To apologize or express remorse for things I've said to others that were less nasty than how you've been treating me? And, to those of you who've been delighted to watch Anathstryx and others slap me around, and who have done so yourselves, please explain how you're not hypocrites.
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Yes, absolustic statements are bullshit. You busted me.
Thanks for your honesty.
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I have not been present or witnessed every time you have presented your theories and can in no way prove that you always engage in ridicule.
You're not stating it strongly enough. Even if you only look at my posts on this one thread, you will find it not even remotely true that I always engage in ridicule.
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I did not mean to imply that you always do this.
You didn't just imply it; you flat-out said it.
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You'd done it enough times in my mind to bring it up.
So it should be easy to present at least one example. Where is it? If you're one-tenth the rational reasoner you seem to think you are, I shouldn't have to ask you repeatedly for examples, should I?
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This is an example of "nit-picking" (see below), however. I am reminded of the classic debate between William F. Buckley and John Kenneth Galbraith where, when hitting an impasse, they engaged in critisizing each others grammar. Of course, neither one of us compare to these intellectual giants...
I would argue that if they're so immature as to slide into (irrelevant?) criticism of one another's grammar, they probably don't qualify as "intellectual giants". But you're saying that my challenging your absolutism is "nit-picking", on par with a triviality like criticizing your grammar? Really? You see no substantial difference between accusing someone of occasionally doing some bad thing and accusing them of always doing so? If you think that's nit-picking, maybe I should point out your misspellings, just to give an example of what nit-picking really is so you can see the difference. Sorry, Anathstryx--your attempt to minimize the offensive seriousness of your exaggerated, absolutistic accusations by characterizing my challenge of them as "nit-picking" will not do as an example of nit-picking. You need to come up with an example of real nit-picking or retract that accusation.
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I don't know where you come up with three examples of this and six or eight examples of the other, Dixon. (etc. etc.)
The point is that any accusation, to be reasonable, requires that you can provide at least one example (and it has to be a real example, not a bogus one like your "example" of nit-picking above). My usual wording was "an example or two". The only time I asked for more was in response to your claiming that I always did such-and-such. There, I was being easy on you by demanding 6 or 8 examples; strictly speaking, I should have demanded that you demonstrate that there were no exceptions. Fair enough?
(Anathstryx then reproduces this quote from me:) "I've always affirmed that I'm far from perfect. If you mean something stronger than that...well, I'm open to that, too. How am I not abiding by my philosophy? Make your case."
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See my hope for you to hone your skills above.
Let's see if I can interpret this vague answer. Are you saying that because, like all humans, my reasoning is imperfect, that means I'm not abiding by my philosophy? Please clarify or retract the accusation.
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I don't want to be pendantic.
Again, it's unclear what you're trying to say vis-a-vis the current discussion. Are you saying that you could make a case that I'm not abiding by my philosophy, but you won't because that would be "pendantic" [sic]? Clarify, please.
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...For me to not discard erroneous beliefs would be a profound disservice to myself! As for others disaggreeing with my beliefs, I do not necessarly think they are wrong and I am right. I don't usually see things so distinctly black and white/right and wrong.
If your belief is right, and they say it's not, at least one of you must be wrong. Flat earthers and Nazis, just to give a couple of obvious examples, are almost certainly wrong. Surely you don't think it's mistaken or somehow "aggressive" or domineering to assert that some beliefs are wrong, as long as you're open to being proven wrong yourself?
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...Nor do I hold to one philosophy being more right than another.
This is manifestly untrue. You have a philosophy, maybe several, and to accept any philosophy or belief implies that those beliefs that are mutually exclusive with it (like flat earth versus roundish earth) must be wrong. This is not contradicted by the fact that a philosophy composed of many claims may have a few true claims amongst the false ones. So, like everyone, whether or not they even think consciously about philosophies, you do in fact "...hold to one philosophy being more right than another." The popular New Age dictum that "Everyone has their own truth" is a dishonest cop-out; see my Wacco article "Reality Is Real--Really!" for my explication of these ideas, then please correct me on that thread if I'm mistaken.
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I prefer to think that each contains useful information that may be applicable toward helping me achieve my own goal of living an authentic life and I'll gratefully apply useful information and discard what is not.
Again, the fact that some mistaken philosophy may have a few truths mixed in with the bullshit does not mean the philosophy as a whole is right, nor that all philosophies are equal.
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I like to use the analogy of going to a buffet. At that buffet I have several options of food to choose. If I just eat the chicken because I've become dogmatic about chicken, I'll miss out on the deliciousness and nutritious benefits of all the other options. I've stupidly put self-imposed limits on myself, denying myself a broadening of experience and the potential of enhancing experience. If I stay open to trying everything in the buffet I will, no doubt, encounter foods I will love, foods I will hate, foods that I can take or leave, and so on. Eventually, I'll have a plate of food that satisfies my hunger, and nourishes me. I know it's a simplistic analogy but it speaks on a very visceral level so many can relate.
It's a perfectly good analogy which implies, I think, that instead of dismissing or accepting a whole philosophy with one stroke, we must assess each individual claim (of which a philosophy may contain hundreds) on its own merits. I totally agree. But again, note that this doesn't mean that all philosophies are anywhere near equal. Note also that to say a belief "satisfies your hunger" or "nourishes" you may mean that it meets your needs in spite of being untrue. The question then becomes "Is your agenda to discover the truth whether or not it meets your needs, or to construct and defend a belief system which 'satisfies your hunger' even if it's superstition?"
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In my own community, I have been disparaged by many of my fellows because I have this approach to belief. The term applied to a person that does this is "eclectic". It is frequently a condemnation. But I contend that following strictly a particular tradition in a dogmatic manner is like living in a cage...or being confined to just eating chicken.
I agree with you about the virtues of eclecticism versus doctrinaire dogmatism! My influences have ranged from the critical thinking and skeptical movements to Bucky Fuller, the Tao Te Ching, Alan Watts, Carl Rogers, political revolutionaries and psychedelic consciousness. The important thing when picking and choosing beliefs from all those presented in the "marketplace" is to have reasonable criteria for sorting the wheat from the chaff.
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I cannot ever say that my philosophy, which is constructed from parts of many philosophies, is right or wrong for anyone one else no more than I can say that these shoes I'm wearing will fit anyone else. There are far too many variables to take into consideration and, I'm afraid, it would take way too much time for me to elucidate further here.
The comparison of philosophies to shoes that fit is not an apt analogy. If you're talking about truth claims about the objective universe, as opposed to subjective preferences, some will be demonstrably right, others wrong, while for others it may be more complicated than that, or there may be insufficient data, etc. Surely your hotly emotional arguing with me shows that you do believe it's possible to be objectively right or wrong about things, so let's not slide into that "Everyone has their own truth" cop-out.
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When I engage in dialog with others who have a disagreement with my philosophy, my hope is to find some common ground and we can each have a better understanding of where we're coming from.
That's part of what I want too, but I also want more: I want an argument to be a collaborative effort to get better approximations of the truth. I don't care about the ego trip of whether I was wrong, or the other person was, or we both were, or in some sense were both right. It's not about who's right; it's about what's true (and therefore, it's equally about what isn't true). That process increases the chance that we can actually end up honestly agreeing with each other, instead of just accepting our differences with no ultimate chance of agreement.
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I think it would be a pretty boring, stilted, and deformed world if we all believed the same thing. And I think it would be impossible for us all to believe the same thing anyway, which is a great relief to me.
I don't think we're in any danger of all believing the same thing any time soon, LOL! But wouldn't we have a better world with less fallacy, fraud and superstition and more truth?:rainbow:
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However, I do not purposefully seek out the company of people who have radically opposing views to mine because I'm not a masochist. Nor do I wish to only be in the company of those who seem to have the same worldview as I do because that is insular and therefore limiting. I like to be in the company of people who are good-natured, intellectually stimulating, creative, and like cake. I love cake. Do you?
Some kinds, but I'm trying to lose some weight. Are you trying to be a bad influence on me?:wink:
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...But, once again, to rely purely on science is limiting.
A sweeping statement that would require explication if I (or anybody) were to assess whether it's true or just another excuse to ignore science so people can believe whatever superstition they like.
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Those things which it cannot yet measure will be measurable in the future.
Some of them will, and some of them will turn out to be non-existent, just superstition. Agreed? Furthermore, until reasonable evidence is adduced for these various "things", the greatest likelihood is that they don't really exist. The burden of proof is on the claimant. It's not incumbent on skeptics to disprove something or accept it; it's incumbent on the claimant to prove it or stop claiming it. Fair enough?
END OF PART ONE (THIS WAS TOO LONG TO WORK AS ONE POST). THE CONCLUSION FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY--
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
MY RESPONSE TO ANATHSTRYX'S LATEST SCREED--Conclusion
Anathstryx said:
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To say that because we cannot quantify something now means it doesn't exist is fallacious.
Ironically, this statement of yours is itself fallacious. Not that it isn't true, but your saying it in this context implies that science or rationalists or somebody is taking that position--but nobody is! So your statement is an example of the "straw man" (I prefer the gender-neutral term "straw figure") fallacy; you're distorting the position of science into something less reasonable, then attacking that. No scientist worth his/her salt would say "because we cannot quantify something now means it doesn't exist". A scientific statement would be more like "A claim which is insufficiently supported by evidence is probably false." Note that this statement leaves room for the occasional exception, while still leaving the burden of proof where it belongs--on the claimant.
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At one time, it was commonly believed that the human sperm was a homunculus and the female womb was a sort of hothouse for this little human to incubate in. This was the accepted scientific position. Clearly, science was wrong.
Now you indulge in a typical New Agey fallacious attack on science. You cite its fallibility as if to imply that that somehow invalidates it or that it means that some unspecified other option is somehow therefore valid. Do you see that that's fallacious? In doing so, you ignore the obvious good implication about science--that every time it admits to being wrong about something, it is self-correcting, which is the "secret" of its success. Such self-correction is almost entirely absent in most (all?) "spiritual", paranormal, "New Age" beliefs.
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So, I say, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy".
Instead of directing that quote toward science and rationalists, who already understand that, you'd do well to look into your bathroom mirror and say it, then repeat it to your closed-minded astrologer, "shaman", and alternative "healer" friends.:magician:
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One needs to stay open to possibilities.
Well, duh!!! It's really kind of insulting that you'd even say that, as if you imagine I'm not. You know, Anathstryx, I've changed from being a Mormon to a Christian fundamentalist to something of a New Ager (yes!) to whatever I am now. Does that flexibility sound like someone who's not open to possibilities? Contrast me with your friends who are utterly closed to the possibility that they may be mistaken in their beliefs about astrology, god, channeling, the "magic" nature of the number three, or whatever. Why don't you give that openness advice to those who really need it?
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Even science needs to be critically assessed at every turn.
Fer chrissakes, Anathstryx, what do you think they're doing??? Everything from their basic assumptions to the findings of every experiment is constantly critically assessed--that's science! In contrast, do you imagine that the proponents of your various New Age beliefs are critically assessing anything? This is one maddening thing I keep on hearing from New Agers--an exhortation to be open-minded (as if I'm not) from people who haven't shown the slightest iota of open-mindedness themselves!
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I do not believe that astrology is an exact science and that it has degraded significantly as a type of tool since ancient times into a popular past time somewhat like watching soap operas. I do believe that physical bodies in motion have an effect on other physical bodies to a greater or lesser degree depending on distance and other factors and so I do not discount the possibility that Mars, which moves in a pretty predictable manner, might have some weak effect on me but that's no excuse for me to be careful about how I discuss washing the dishes with my lazy Ares daughter. I don't blame a Mercury retrograde because my car won't start. A Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion. I need a new battery.
Astrology is one of the most thoroughly and repeatedly disproven beliefs ever. Are you open to the possibility that the astrological hypothesis is just plain wrong?
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But if I'm going to cast a spell...and yes, I do from time to time cast spells...I will wait for a moon phase that is appropriate to the spell to enhance it because the moon does indeed have a strong effect on all things fluid and I need all the help I can get.
That's an example of a common superstition, a variation of which I've believed too! When I used to work in a mental hospital, I believed in the "lunar effect"; I thought that the psychotics on the ward were crazier when the moon was full. I attributed it to a greater gravitational pull on the water in the brain when the moon was full. Imagine how embarrassed I was when I realized that the moon's phases have nothing to do with its degree of gravitational pull on us! It's true that the moon's pull on us is very slightly greater when it's closer in its orbit, and less when it's further away, but that has nothing to do with moon phase, which is a whole different thing. Furthermore, since gravitation decreases exponentially with distance, the moon's effect on us is infinitesimally tiny. An average-sized book held at arm's length exerts about a billion times stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon does! (The moon does exert a substantial enough pull on the ocean, and even really huge lakes, to create tides, but that's because those bodies of water present a much larger square area to be affected by the moon's pull--that's different from us.) So you see, any lunar gravitational effect on things as small as humans would be drowned out by the hugely bigger gravitational effects of the people, furniture and objects around you! Certain animals have natural rhythms that coincide with moon phases, probably because of the difference in illumination. But does human behavior correlate with moon phases? Apparently not. Studies have looked for correlations between any moon phase and everything from deaths, injuries and crime to accidents (vehicular, maritime and industrial) with negative results, last I knew.
So why did it look to me like there was more craziness on the ward when the moon was full? Simple--the confirmation bias! That same ol' universal fallacy that causes people to "prove", for instance, that the number three is special by noticing instances of threeness and ignoring or minimizing other numbers. In my case, I'd notice and remember when the moon was full and the ward was extra-crazy (and exaggerate my perception of the degree of craziness when I knew the moon was full), and also notice when the ward was calm and the moon not full. But I would not notice, or just forget about, when the moon was full and the ward was calm, or when the moon wasn't full and the ward was wild. That's the confirmation bias--accentuate the "positive" (evidence for the desired belief) and eliminate the "negative" (disconfirming evidence). And Anathstryx, I'd be willing to bet that the confirmation bias would explain your perception that your spells work, too--though I'd be happy to have you prove me wrong.
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So, I choose to use science as practically as possible in addition to those things which I intuit or seems reasonable to me but have no proofs other than the result.
Regarding any particular belief, are you open to the possibility that it's mistaken, based on misinterpretation of your experience? Open to the possibility that what seems like "results" of your spells, for instance, may be imagined, exaggerated, or caused by something other than the spell?
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WTF is not at all polite, Dixon. Saying "this is totally incomprehensible to me; please explain." is. Perhaps this is a generational thing, but I would never say WTF and consider it polite even if I was hanging out with skateboarders.
This is a statement about your interpretation of the term "WTF", not about my intended meaning. Since I've already clarified my intended meaning, I don't understand why you consider it relevant to mention it again.
(Re: the big flap around people's misinterpretation of my use of the word "delusion", Anathstryx says:)
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This horse needs a decent burial.
Well hey--that's what I've been saying since before you harangued me about it!
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I don't think your method of pointing out flaws is so flawless in itself that you can claim pointing out someone elses flaws is a gift. Therefore, hubris...excessive self-confidence.
Again, a general criticism without an example. And again, it requires an example of some flawed way I've pointed out flaws, or a retraction. I shouldn't have to keep mentioning this, should I?
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And then I said: It could be just as easily said that your discomfort with we New Agers is a measure of your closed-mindedness.
Just using your own argument. You are beating people with a an intellectual stick and then, when it's wrestled away from you and you're whacked with the same stick, you cry foul. Just pointing that out.
So I ask for an example of my supposed closed-mindedness, and not only do you fail to give one, but you respond with another general accusation (that I'm "beating people with a an intellectual stick", whatever that means:spanking: ), which itself requires an example, which of course you don't provide. So now we need at least one example of my "closed-mindedness" and one of my "beating people with an intellectual stick". Fair enough?
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I don't claim to be a rationalist. We've already covered the fact that I have not perused your entire oeuvre.
I see. You'll harangue me about every (mis)perceived fallacy you think I've committed, snipe about how I supposedly fall short of being reasonable while obviously feeling you're doing better, then when I mention some criticism you can't deny, your escape hatch is "I don't claim to be a rationalist."
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I don't think I was ranting.
Well, you've admitted to sarcasm and to "slapping me around", and your previous post is clearly far more of a "diatribe" than probably anything I've ever written, but it's not ranting, eh? Clearly the level of introspection and self-criticism you're asking from me (and getting!) is more than you yourself are willing to give.
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I feel like I'm reading a red-penned note on my essay from my philosophy teacher in freshman philosophy class here, Dixon. I'm not looking for a grade.
What kind of response do you expect to a sarcastic, harsh, "slapping around" diatribe such as yours that I was responding to? You deserved a shitstorm of a response, and instead got a gentle, open-minded one--much nicer than you were asking for, in which I ask for you to support your accusations. Now you criticize me for that? Anathstryx, this is beyond the fucking pale! You should be ashamed of yourself. This is one of those cases where a WTF? would be thoroughly appropriate. You need to make a case that there was something wrong with my response, or apologize.
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Yes, I vented on you yesterday. My words were harsh (but much, much softened by editing). I was angry.
You may characterize me as being abbrasive and huffy if you like because I was being abbrasive and huffy. I had a pretty full on huff going. I allowed emotion to get in the way of reasonable discourse. Mea culpa. I apologize for harshness and huffiness. In future, I will be far more circumspect when you push one of my buttons and I feel compelled to let you know about it.
Thank you for your openness to being corrected on this. I can empathize with your situation.
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I would hope that in trade, you would also be more circumspect when your "woowoo" button gets pushed.
Once again, we have an obvious need for an example of my doing it badly.
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My intent was to point out to you that you can dish it out, but you can't take it, Dixon.
Again, I'm open to your criticism, but I need at least one example of my "dishing it out" (whatever that means) and one of my not being able to take it. Fair enough?
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I was hoping that, as a rational person you would see that and I, as a rational person, could help you see it.
How can I see things when you refuse to give any examples for me to look at, even when I'm practically begging you for them????
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Hubris on my part then.
I appreciate your attempt at some self-criticism.
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...People hold their beliefs passionately and there are no winners when beliefs are attacked.
Not true. Again, an attack on a belief is not an attack on the person. If the people involved are open-minded, attacks (challenges, critiques) on beliefs can be a win-win situation, with everyone involved getting a better view of the truth regardless of who's wrong or right. It's only when people are closed-minded, rigidly defended, armored, that an attack on a belief is perceived as a personal attack and hurtful defensive processes are set in motion. Much of what you've said has constituted attacks on my beliefs, Anathstryx. Should I be angry? Should I call you aggressive, domineering, a tyrant? Should I write a rant in which I accuse you of numerous sins without giving any examples to support my accusations? Should I write a letter of complaint to Barry?
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It's not a contest.
Exactly! That's one of my main points! It's not about engaging in argument to "beat" someone. It's about engaging with those who see things differently so we can help each other figure out what's likely to be true and what isn't. That involves shooting down others' beliefs if they're not well supported, accepting when ours our reasonably shot down, and being as willing to change from the process as we want the other person to be. But mostly I'm not encountering that kind of reasonableness--and it's not because of some evil power mean ol' Dixon has to change open-minded people to closed-minded ones. It's because they're determined not to lose these lovely woowoo beliefs they're addicted to.:spaceship:
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We can all be guilty of using the same stick to beat each other up.
I eagerly await at least one example of my "beating someone with a stick".
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What can we discern from each other's beliefs that are uniting rather than fractious?
As I've suggested, a process of mutual belief-critique in which we help each other correct our fallacies often results in people who had disagreed being able to agree. Contrast this with the New Age dictum "Everyone has their own truth" which results in a shallow, polite, inhibited socializing which will never allow us to honestly engage around our differences, and never allow us to be corrected by those who disagree with us.:lalalala:
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Is it possible for people with distinctly different belief systems to co-exist harmoniously by seeking common ground rather than berating each other for perceived flaws?
If you think I've been berating anyone for their perceived flaws rather than criticizing flaws in their thinking--again, it's example time! If anyone could be described as berating someone for their perceived flaws--well, just look back on your previous diatribe, Anathstryx.
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How can we all push away from the table feeling satisfied and nourished instead of getting into a food fight?
Ha ha! I love that analogy! If feeling satisfied and nourished means being able to keep our pleasant illusions, superstitions, and yes, delusions, I hope the answer is No--let's get beyond that bullshit into an era of truth-seeking. If feeling satisfied and nourished is because we've engaged in a challenging, reasonable search for truth regardless of what silly beliefs have had to fall by the wayside, then Yes, let's go for it!
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So, the challenge, I guess, is can you be a damn good rationalist
I'm doing my imperfect best and hopefully improving with experience. I'll tell you one thing: trying to bring rational critique to a New Age hotbed like WaccoBB is a baptism of fire!:burningman:
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...and can I be a damn good New Ager (I'm a Pagan, actually)
If that means closed-mindedly defending some superstitious belief(s), and in my experience, it usually does, I urge you to drop that agenda and go for enlightenment instead.
IN SUMMARY: Your first attack on me, Anathstryx, included ten accusations, expressed in general terms without examples. These were:
1. Passive-aggression
2. Hubris
3. Hypocrisy
4. Ridiculing people (every time I present my theories!)
5. Nit-picking
6. Chest-thumping
7. "essentially throwing rationalism right out the window"
8. Not abiding by my philosophy
9. Closed-mindedness
10. Engaging in diatribe (every time!)
As you know, a basic tenet of both reason and civility is that if you accuse someone of something, especially publicly, you either give evidence or retract the accusation. Let's see how you did on these ten accusations: To your credit, you retracted your absolutistic statements about my always ridiculing people and engaging in diatribe, but didn't retract the accusation that I do those things sometimes. As far as examples go, you gave two bogus examples, one of supposed nit-picking and one of supposed passive-aggression, both of which I refuted. So your score is: ten accusations, zero valid examples (for eight of the ten accusations you didn't even try to give an example).
On top of that, your latest screed, although, to your credit, including a more conciliatory tone and a couple of appropriate mea culpas, added at least five more unsupported accusations:
11. That I'm the "pot calling the kettle black"
12. That I don't really behave as a rationalist
13. That there's something wrong with my "method of pointing out flaws"
14.That I've been "beating people with an intellectual stick"
15. That I can dish it out but can't take it
Anathstryx, I've bent over backwards to be pleasant to you in the face of your considerable nastiness, to the point where it feels I've bent over frontwards to be reamed by you. I've searched my soul for ways in which I could honestly agree with you and other critics about my shortcomings, and I've devoted many many hours--basically blown the equivalent of a whole weekend when I should be doing other things--just responding to your screeds as gently, fairly and rationally as I can. And what do I get from you in return? Abuse. That may seem like a strong word, but when someone publicly rakes another over the coals and then, when asked for examples, instead adds a few more unsupported, insulting accusations--well, it's just plain abuse.
Here is my demand--and yes, it's a demand, not a request: for each of your fifteen accusations, you need to present at least one good, unambiguous example (not like the two bogus examples you gave in your last screed). For any accusation you can't back up with a good example, a public retraction is (obviously) required. If you fail to meet these minimal standards of reason and civility, you forfeit any right to criticize me or anyone for their supposed sins--and I will file a formal complaint with Wacco moderator Barry about your abusive behavior.
And to those of you who apparently derived some sick pleasure from watching Anathstryx beat on me in a rant she herself concedes was abrasive, huffy, sarcastic, harsh, and "slapping me around"--her Gratituders claire ossenbeck, DynamicBalance and someguy, as well as you others; you know who you are--I warmly invite you to come out from behind the bushes and stop playing "Let's you and him fight." Anathstryx will need all the help she can get in finding examples (if any) to support her nasty accusations. I await with bated breath some examples of my sins from all of you. If you can't or won't find any, I encourage you to do some honest introspection and ask yourself "What really is my problem with Dixon?" and "What does my hostility toward him possibly say about my own rigid defensiveness around my beliefs, or my intolerance toward those I disagree with, or my primitive desire to see someone beaten down while I tell myself that I'm above that sort of thing?"
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by seanpfister:
This division into people who use reason and people who don't comes from Dixon--the latter, those who don't use reason, are New Agers in his formulation.
Sean, this gross oversimplification of my stated position, while it has a kernel of truth, does a disservice both to me and to the truth. For the record, I said in my post "The differences between Rationalists and New Agers are not as cut-and-dried as these lists make them sound, and are mostly matters of degree, with plenty of fallacy among Rationalists and plenty of honest attempts at reasoning among New Agers. And on some issues, the New Agers will turn out right and the Rationalists wrong." Let's not lose the nuanced view I gave; there may be some people around who would love an excuse to start beating on me again! :shitstorm:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Glia:
All of these observations have merit.
But seriously, have you ever read a study that concluded with something along the lines of "we now know exactly what is going on here and have solved the problem. Next we are going to try using this conclusion to do implement useful work." ??
From NIH/National Cancer Institute
New treatment improves long-term outlook for breast cancer survivors
A Canadian-led international clinical trial has found that post-menopausal survivors of early-stage breast cancer who took the drug letrozole after completing an initial five years of tamoxifen therapy had a significantly reduced risk of cancer recurrence compared to women taking a placebo. The results of the study appear in today's advance on-line edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.The clinical trial has been halted early because of the positive results and researchers are notifying the 5,187 women worldwide who have participated in the study. Women on letrozole will continue taking the drug and those on the placebo can begin taking letrozole, if they wish.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
MY RESPONSE TO ANATHSTRYX'S LATEST SCREED--Conclusion
I realize that my response to your post will be taken as a cop-out but, for the sake of restoring peace to the forum, I am more than willing to be perceived in whatever manner, even most negatively, for doing it this way.
I do not want nor need to make an occupation out of continuing to engage in this argument. I appreciate, Dixon, that you feel so strongly about my screed and diatribe that you gave up the beautiful weekend to defend yourself. I don’t think it should be necessary for us to make further sacrifices of the kind to continue this because, in the long run, we obviously have very fundamental differences of opinion and to attempt to resolve them will only take up time and effort that are best spent elsewhere.
More than forty years ago, when I was a young college student, my friends and I would spend countless hours over pitchers of beer at the pub, engaged in the sorts of philosophical arguments that are brought up on this forum. It was fun and exhilarating, challenging, often heated, bitter, and frustrating. Even a few friendships were forever destroyed. Such arguments are inevitably tail-chasers. To quote Whitehead, "There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that play the devil".
To my fellow Wacco-ites, I most humbly and sincerely apologize for disturbing the peace in this forum. As I have clearly stated in my last posting in this thread to Dixon, I responded to him emotionally. I was hubristic. I was hypocritical. I have been criticized for those things, as well as being irrational, condemning, superstitious, huffy, abrasive, and being a bad speller. I accept those criticisms and will take them all to heart.
I have turned myself in to Barry for being huffy and abrasive to Dixon and will contritely acquiesce to his decision about the situation.
I don’t care about winning or losing my argument with you, Dixon. Such things seem to matter to you very much, though, and so in view of that, I readily concede. I humbly apologize. I retract all of my negative and accusatory statements I made toward and about you.
Anathstryx
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by anathstryx:
.. I most humbly and sincerely apologize for disturbing the peace in this forum.
?? I don't think this forum benefits from excessive pacifism. Disturbances seem inevitable unless we want to have yet another way to encourage preaching to the choir. There seems to be plenty of other forums for that.
(yeah, I know, it's "fora"..)
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Sean, this gross oversimplification of my stated position, while it has a kernel of truth, does a disservice both to me and to the truth. For the record, I said in my post "The differences between Rationalists and New Agers are not as cut-and-dried as these lists make them sound, and are mostly matters of degree, with plenty of fallacy among Rationalists and plenty of honest attempts at reasoning among New Agers. And on some issues, the New Agers will turn out right and the Rationalists wrong." Let's not lose the nuanced view I gave; there may be some people around who would love an excuse to start beating on me again! :shitstorm:
The distinction made by you between Rationalists and New Agers does not hinge on who is right more often. Instead, it's based on the methods of assessing truth. You define New Age culture as "not using reason". In fact, you iterate this notion in your lengthy reply to anathstryx when you say that science is based on critical self-assessment in contrast to New Agers who have not the "slightest iota of open-mindedness".
So when you say New Age or Rationalists do thus-and-so, I'm parsing it as "Rationalist philosophy holds this view" in contrast to "new age philosophy holds this other view"--which I believe is something you suggested.
So I summarize your position as something like: science has formal methods of assessing truth, which involve logic, reason and peer review/critical self-assessment. New age-ism does not use these methods, but determines truth by intuition, feeling--or simply avoids the question altogether.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
...So your statement is an example of the "straw man" (I prefer the gender-neutral term "straw figure") fallacy; you're distorting the position of science into something less reasonable, then attacking that. ...
Here's a whole set of Straw People:
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
My point about New Agers implicitly claiming infallibility (well, OK--near-infallibility) is this: Science and, more broadly, critical thinking are largely just systems designed to correct for our universal human fallacies--the confirmation bias, placebo effect, effort justification effect, self-centered thinking, wishful thinking, and a thousand other fallacies most of which, apparently, every human is subject to. By rejecting the canons of science and reason, which, as you know, many (I think most) New Agers do, they're rejecting mechanisms that could correct for their fallacies and replacing them with--nothing. Doesn't this imply that they feel no need for fallacy-correction because they think they're not subject to those fallacies? How many times have we heard people reject the findings of a zillion scientific studies, saying, for instance, "Science is wrong. I know astrology is true because I've experienced it!" Note the arrogant implication that their unsystematic judgment is superior to the work of thousands of trained scientists, and the apparent total ignorance or denial that they have any natural fallacies in their thinking that may require some careful measures to compensate for. Does this not imply a grandiose feeling of (near) infallibility? That's what I'm talking about. Fair enough?
While I commend the care and thoughtfulness (and time! sheesh!) that has gone into this "discussion", it has gotten down to personal attacks (and/or feeling attacked) and I'd like that to stop. :heart:
I also want to acknowledge anathstryx for her brave and worthy participation.
To refocus the discussion, I think Dixon had a good point to draw a distinction between science and not-science. However, theories, beliefs, intuition and conjecture are not worthless just because they are not-science. They are neither true nor false.
There is much about reality and life that science doesn't have a clue about yet. And until some seismic (ie Einstein-level) shift happens, its not going to. Embracing various ancient traditions, and creating new ones, that seem to be of value in helping to peak beyond the veil of science, and helping us to align with energies that seem to be present is a worthy endeavor, but should never be confused with science.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Science, religion and philosophies are all human inventions created by people seeking truth, which is not a human invention. Most of these truth-seeking endeavors have in common their belief that their particular method is the best, if not the only, one.
In this age of everything-coming-apart maybe it's time to acknowledge our limitations, cultivate some modicum of humility, tolerance, and empathy as well as critical thinking, and keep an open mind.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Big thanks to you, Anathstryx, for your constructive response. I know that apologies and retractions can be difficult, but ultimately, they leave the person who apologizes/retracts smelling like a rose. I am a little disappointed that some of the issues raised will apparently not be explored at this time, but I understand and, in fact, share your weariness around discussion. I'm still licking my wounds. Perhaps you are too.
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Posted in reply to the post by anathstryx:
I don’t care about winning or losing my argument with you, Dixon. Such things seem to matter to you very much, though...
It was never about me "winning" by being right on everything. As I tried to make clear in my last post, I neither believe in nor respect the paradigm of trying to "defeat" the "opponent" in an argument. I believe in what I call the "collaboration" paradigm of discourse, not the "conflict" paradigm. Our "opponents", if they argue reasonably, serve to keep us honest by correcting our fallacies, and we do the same for them. Pooling our perspectives improves the perspective for both (which is not the same as pretending that everyone is right). It's only when people short-circuit that truth-seeking process by seeking to defend their belief above all else, to "win" the argument, that it all turns sour. I constantly sought from you examples of your accusations so I could be corrected; I practically begged you to give me something real to work with, but you had nothing to offer. For you to characterize me as being wrapped up in "winning or losing" an argument--well, let's just say it's consistent with your habit of dropping little insult bombs without logical support. You couldn't resist that little parting slap.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
... For you to characterize me as being wrapped up in "winning or losing" an argument--well, let's just say it's consistent with your habit of dropping little insult bombs without logical support. You couldn't resist that little parting slap.
:nono:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
I just spent nine minutes reading over this thread. That's three times three. My two cats are in the room, plus my partner...another three! Dude, now the number three is really blowing my mind. But what confuses me is that I'm only using one computer, and accessing it with ten fingers.... oh, wait! That's 1 + 10 = 11, a prime number! Exactly like three, except different. I think I need a moment of silent awe now.
More directly, I think it's good for everyone when people debate shaky science... I mean that in a quantum way, of course....
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
AMAZING!! An actual conclusion and action resulting from a research study. It's also amazing that you had this handy. :hmmm:
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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
From NIH/National Cancer Institute
New treatment improves long-term outlook for breast cancer survivors
A Canadian-led international clinical trial has found that post-menopausal survivors of early-stage breast cancer who took the drug letrozole after completing an initial five years of tamoxifen therapy had a significantly reduced risk of cancer recurrence compared to women taking a placebo. The results of the study appear in today's advance on-line edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.The clinical trial has been halted early because of the positive results and researchers are notifying the 5,187 women worldwide who have participated in the study. Women on letrozole will continue taking the drug and those on the placebo can begin taking letrozole, if they wish.
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
For reasons explicated above, I stand by my assertion that whenever someone makes a claim about objective reality (such as claiming that some number is "magic") based on nothing more than their "feeling", without adducing any other evidence for it, the greatest likelihood by far is that their claim is false (i.e., a delusion in the non-psychotic sense I clearly meant). If you or anyone has a problem with that, I'm happy to hear you make your case, but it is not okay to bend over backwards trying to interpret my words in negative ways that I clearly did not mean, nor to imply that I'm lying or crazy when I tell you what I meant. That's abusive.
Hi.
There are some things we know subjectively, but have a lot of difficulty proving or understanding. One is the theory of other minds.
By the standards of modern epistemology, consciousness is one of those things that everybody (hopefully) experiences, but is still difficult to pin down...especially if you admit the possibility of p-zeds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zed
So with that in mind -- how do we differentiate between you and a p-zed, Sir?
In other words: Are you, indeed, conscious? If so, how do you go about giving evidence for this?
(By the way, gentle reader -- I'm pretty certain that Deity is conscious. :Clap: I'm just trying to establish that there can be things we know subjectively, and are real, but are very difficult to find scientific evidence for.)
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
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Posted in reply to the post by vallor:
Hi.
Hi, vallor, and welcome to Waccoland! :welcome: I'm honored to be the recipient of your first post here.
You'll have to pardon me for giving a very brief response to your thoughtful comment. As I'm halfway through writing my latest column, which is late (Hi, Barry!), I can't justify taking much time on this.
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There are some things we know subjectively, but have a lot of difficulty proving or understanding. One is the theory of other minds.
If by "knowing something subjectively" you mean having it directly in our mind without getting to it on the basis of reasoning from observation of the objective world, I do not agree that our theory of mind is such a thing. The theory of mind--i.e., our understanding that other people have rich internal subjective universes just as we do, rather than being empty automatons ("p-zombies" AKA "p-zeds")--is based on a type of reasoning called "induction by analogy", which works like this: You know something about Thing A and you see that Thing B is very similar to Thing A, so you conclude that the two are probably similar in other ways even if you haven't seen proof of all those similarities. With regards to our theory of mind, it goes like this: I see that you look and act like me--bipedal humanoid, two eyes, two ears, bleed when cut, behave in ways which, when I behave that way, signify internal states like happiness, sadness and ambition. From those observable similarities in structure and behavior, I infer that you have an internal subjective universe fundamentally like mine. Bingo--the theory of mind! Note that it's based on reasoning from empirical observations; it's not a case of knowing something subjectively in the sense I think you mean. The fact that such reasoning occurs automatically from infancy without our explicitly cognizing it as such may make it seem as if it's directly given in our subjective consciousness, but it ain't--it's reasoning from empirical observation.
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By the standards of modern epistemology, consciousness is one of those things that everybody (hopefully) experiences...
I guess you didn't watch the Republican candidate debates. :lol2:
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...but is still difficult to pin down...especially if you admit the possibility of p-zeds.
Well, in principle, anything is possible--which of course implies that it's possible that some things are impossible...
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So with that in mind -- how do we differentiate between you and a p-zed, Sir?
In other words: Are you, indeed, conscious? If so, how do you go about giving evidence for this?
See my explanation of induction by analogy, just above. Add to that the understanding that of the two hypotheses (that I'm a human like you or that I'm just a p-zed), the most parsimonious one is that I'm human like you, since you know that at least one human exists (yourself) and there's no evidence whatsoever that any p-zeds exist. Invoking the p-zed construct to explain my existence therefore violates Occam's Razor, so is very unlikely to be true. That leaves us with only one likely hypothesis--that I'm conscious, like you.
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I'm just trying to establish that there can be things we know subjectively, and are real, but are very difficult to find scientific evidence for.
That argument didn't do the trick. What else ya got? Or are you prepared to agree that purely subjective knowledge about the objective universe is a dubious concept? :thinking:
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Re: The Gospel According to Dixon: Science? Fiction!
Thank you for the kind response.
I'm currently in a waiting room typing on my phone -- so a more in-depth reply will have to wait until I'm back on a kbd, but I thought I'd point something out:
I agree that your theory of mind reasoning is based on empirical observations...but only if we accept that our own subjective experience is an empirical observation. That is the very can of worms under discussion, and with which our current modern epistemology can have difficulties.
To put a finer point on this, please consider your reply as you wrote it out: you start with the subjective experience, and reason from there. But there are other subjective experiences -- say, kensho -- from which those who have experienced it might make inferences. But if you haven't experienced it yourself, you might question the initial subjective observation, even to the point of denying it happens.
Do you see what i'm getting at?
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Re: Article: The Gospel According to Dixon #5: Science? Fiction!
Maybe I should start another thread about "empirical subjective experience and conscious states".
Here is a TED video of a brain scientist who relates her experiences from having a stroke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU
-Scott
