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Thread: Philosophy, religion, science and turnings - Page 49







Post#1201 at 07-31-2013 03:02 PM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
"Spirituality as a Science: Proof through Firsthand Inner Experience"

from Spirituality as a Science: Proof through Firsthand Inner Experience;
Introduction to the Theme

What do the Masters of Sant Mat mean when they call spirituality a "science"?
This is a significant question because, after all,
this organization is called "Science of Spirituality".
While physical science and mysticism both seek truth, there is a difference between their methods of study. The physical sciences use material instruments for measurement.
But the soul is subtle, and it can only be experienced within the laboratory of the human body when we invert our attention, rise above body consciousness, and soar into the higher regions.


Science of Spirituality is an international, multi-faith organization dedicated
to Love, Unity, and Peace, under the direction of Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj
A blatant attempt to co-opt the respectability that actual science enjoys from the majority of our culture in order to legitimize the fanciful imaginings of uncritical woo-meisters.







Post#1202 at 08-01-2013 06:34 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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The true science and philosophy of alchemy brings together spirit and matter, and inform human transformation as well as ancient methods of healing.

Solve Et Coagula - The Great Work of Alchemy



EDIT: Here's a great article too.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/arr/index.htm
Last edited by Eric the Green; 08-02-2013 at 03:52 PM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#1203 at 08-01-2013 10:46 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
The true science and philosophy of alchemy brings together spirit and matter, and inform human transformation as well as ancient methods of healing.

Solve Et Coagula - The Great Work of Alchemy

What a bunch of useless claptrap. My favorite part was when the narrator specifically warned people to not really drink any of the elixirs they make. Nothing demonstrates how bogus this is more than people dying from it.







Post#1204 at 08-04-2013 12:41 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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People do well not to let the dominant paradigm de-spiritize you and dehumanize you. Whereas once the traditional assumption in society was that God ruled over our lives from heaven, the almost-universal view today is that what can't be proven or demonstrated by objective methods does not exist, or shall not be spoken of. That we are not objects is the great unspoken taboo, but if we are objects, we are dead. It is much better to know that you are alive, and that life is a mystery beyond science, and a miracle beyond explanation.

How often when some PBS program or some pundit or teacher talks about "intelligence," immediately it is assumed that this means "the brain." But that isn't even true within the body itself. There are 7 nerve ganglia, and they correspond to the 7 chakras. So that means there are seven brains. If you are told that your intelligence is your brain, then you are cut off from paying attention to your heart, and what it says. That means you can't follow your heart-- your own inner gyroscope, and a major intelligence center in your body. But our magnetic field and auras extend beyond the body too. This is something anyone can observe in others and ourselves. This means that your mind is not even inside your brain, but throughout your body, and wherever else your attention rests too. Out of body experiences, life after life and reincarnation are real experiences for which there is great evidence, and they mean we are not our brains or our bodies, but individualized expressions of the divine consciousness that is everywhere. Psychic abilities exist, and they are psychic, which means they are not abilities of the brain, but of the psyche, which is not limited to the brain. And yet the pundits speak of the psyche today as though it was.

If you limit "knowledge" and "science" to what can be measured by the senses and its tools, then you are only looking at objects. But life is not objective; it is subjective. It is dehumanizing to reduce ourselves to an object, a thing that can only be considered or studied from outside yourself. This makes you into a thing that can be easily controlled, with no free will of its own. Our corporate scientific and technological world likes that just fine. It can manipulate us for its profit more easily that way. It can hook us on addictions, and we become commercial codependents and wage slaves. But turning ourselves over to the corporate scientists, means that we lose our lives. We can't follow our hearts, because if we accept what scientists tell us, we don't even know that they exist inside us. So we can't do what we really want at all, because we don't even know. We can't do anything freely, because we think everything we do is the caused and determined behavior of objects. We can't experience our own lives, because we are only objects for other observers. We create an alienated, lonely and dispirited world of human machines.

Some kinds of science today, I think, are leading us beyond reductionist views, but to reinterpret them as reductionist in turn, turns off that possibility. The results of this worldview are all around us. Corporations that treat the world as commodities to be used. Individuals who are enslaved to addictions and cut off from their abilities. Media that manipulates us, dysfunctional relationships, governments that don't work and enslave us, wars over materialist ideologies and resources. This is not to excuse those who still believe in the "God rules over us from Heaven" paradigm, which some people still cling to and fight wars over too; but you can understand why they do, if materialism is the only alternative they can see, or are allowed to know about or consider. For some people, the old time religion seems better than the old time science of today. And in some ways that's too bad, because we need science too and what it tells us. Making this into an either/or issue suits both the skeptics and the believers just fine, but I don't have to go there.

We can do better. We are conscious beings. Conscious beings are both connected to all, and are individualized minds and hearts and bodies too. We can strive beyond what science can measure. We can create and discover, in science, and in the arts and philosophy and spirituality too. We can love, share our minds and hearts with others, and organize ourselves. We can be free and make decisions and set intentions and goals. We can celebrate these traits of the human, and wonder at these miracles of life than no materialist science can explain. No science can posit any cause, except provisional ones, because all causes lead back to the first cause, and that first cause is spontaneous freedom here and now, everywhere, within us. The mystical world view is not hidden and unknown; it is easily available and well disseminated today, so there's no reason not to know about it, and inquire into it, especially since it opens us up to our very lives, and to real intelligence.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#1205 at 08-04-2013 04:48 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
People do well not to let the dominant paradigm de-spiritize you and dehumanize you. Whereas once the traditional assumption in society was that God ruled over our lives from heaven, the almost-universal view today is that what can't be proven or demonstrated by objective methods does not exist, or shall not be spoken of. That we are not objects is the great unspoken taboo, but if we are objects, we are dead. It is much better to know that you are alive, and that life is a mystery beyond science, and a miracle beyond explanation.
Redefining the terms alive and dead in order to imply possession of some level of profound, secret knowledge is standard New Age claptrap.

How often when some PBS program or some pundit or teacher talks about "intelligence," immediately it is assumed that this means "the brain."
The term "intelligence" is usually ill defined. If, however, you are talking about vertebrate "intelligence" then discussion of brain functions is experimentally supported.

But that isn't even true within the body itself. There are 7 nerve ganglia, and they correspond to the 7 chakras.
There are dozens and dozens of ganglia in the human body, not seven. Nerve ganglia are typically categorized as tissues, not organs.

So that means there are seven brains.
A nerve ganglion is NOT a brain. Vertebrate brains include ganglia as well as several other tissue types.

If you are told that your intelligence is your brain, then you are cut off from paying attention to your heart, and what it says.
Your peripheral nervous system ensures that your central nervous system is "aware" of what your heart is doing.

That means you can't follow your heart-- your own inner gyroscope, and a major intelligence center in your body.
Do heart transplant recipients suffer from multiple personality?

But our magnetic field and auras extend beyond the body too.
What is the aura made of? Which organs generate it? How much energy does it take to maintain an aura?

This is something anyone can observe in others and ourselves. This means that your mind is not even inside your brain, but throughout your body, and wherever else your attention rests too.
Pure wish expression.

Out of body experiences, life after life and reincarnation are real experiences for which there is great evidence,
None of it is anything beyond someone's say so.

and they mean we are not our brains or our bodies, but individualized expressions of the divine consciousness that is everywhere. Psychic abilities exist,
Once again, all the evidence consists of the supporters saying it's real.

and they are psychic, which means they are not abilities of the brain, but of the psyche, which is not limited to the brain. And yet the pundits speak of the psyche today as though it was.

If you limit "knowledge" and "science" to what can be measured by the senses and its tools, then you are only looking at objects.
The term knowledge is pretty ambiguous. Science is the best tool we have for testing someone's knowledge to determine how accurate or useful it might be. You just wish that the term science could mean something else because you crave the legitimacy our culture awards to knowledge gained through its use. Your "knowledge" repeatedly fails to pass science's "sniff test" so you try to redefine it. No one trained in the use of science, who is dedicated to its inherent objectivity, is interested in your redefined pseudo-science.

But life is not objective; it is subjective. It is dehumanizing to reduce ourselves to an object, a thing that can only be considered or studied from outside yourself.
How is the actual discovery of what a human is and how humans actually came about in this universe in any way dehumanizing?

This makes you into a thing that can be easily controlled, with no free will of its own.
Whether or not you allow yourself to be controlled is up to you. In fact, knowing what a human actually is and how humans actually function gives one a means to recognize when someone is spouting wishes as facts in order to get you to think the way they want you to.

It is my knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics that allows me to see just how full of crap you and your ideas really are.

Our corporate scientific and technological world likes that just fine. It can manipulate us for its profit more easily that way. It can hook us on addictions, and we become commercial codependents and wage slaves. But turning ourselves over to the corporate scientists, means that we lose our lives.


Says the guy who makes a living using the tools developed by corporate scientists. Or do you really think radio transmitters grow on trees?

We can't follow our hearts, because if we accept what scientists tell us, we don't even know that they exist inside us. So we can't do what we really want at all, because we don't even know.
And yet, millions and millions of people go about their daily lives doing what they want despite their supposed demeaning scientific knowledge. You just hate that those other humans have chosen to ignore your pseudo-scientific wish expressions so you accuse them of not being "really free".

We can't do anything freely, because we think everything we do is the caused and determined behavior of objects. We can't experience our own lives, because we are only objects for other observers. We create an alienated, lonely and dispirited world of human machines.
And when most of those humans tell you that they feel no such thing?

Some kinds of science today, I think, are leading us beyond reductionist views, but to reinterpret them as reductionist in turn, turns off that possibility.
What exactly are "kinds" of science? Do you mean branches of science? Got some examples?

The results of this worldview are all around us. Corporations that treat the world as commodities to be used.
Humans have been doing exactly that for thousands and thousands of years. The only differences today are questions of scale.

Individuals who are enslaved to addictions and cut off from their abilities.
Addictions to what exactly? Every culture studied by anthropologists have managed to either develop their own way of manufacturing substances that alter brain functions or engaged in trade with other groups in order to gain access to them.

Media that manipulates us, dysfunctional relationships, governments that don't work and enslave us, wars over materialist ideologies and resources.
That is not a sentence.

This is not to excuse those who still believe in the "God rules over us from Heaven" paradigm, which some people still cling to and fight wars over too; but you can understand why they do, if materialism is the only alternative they can see, or are allowed to know about or consider. For some people, the old time religion seems better than the old time science of today. And in some ways that's too bad, because we need science too and what it tells us. Making this into an either/or issue suits both the skeptics and the believers just fine, but I don't have to go there.
Yep, you are perfectly allowed to believe any sort of nonsense you wish. Just as others are perfectly free to point out how nonsensical it is.

We can do better. We are conscious beings. Conscious beings are both connected to all, and are individualized minds and hearts and bodies too. We can strive beyond what science can measure. We can create and discover, in science, and in the arts and philosophy and spirituality too. We can love, share our minds and hearts with others, and organize ourselves. We can be free and make decisions and set intentions and goals.
New Age pablum.

We can celebrate these traits of the human, and wonder at these miracles of life than no materialist science can explain.
You choose to believe they are miracles because you are either ignorant of the science or are purposely misrepresenting the science.

No science can posit any cause, except provisional ones, because all causes lead back to the first cause, and that first cause is spontaneous freedom here and now, everywhere, within us.
Seriously, do all New Agers take courses in writing nondescript pablum?

The mystical world view is not hidden and unknown; it is easily available and well disseminated today, so there's no reason not to know about it, and inquire into it, especially since it opens us up to our very lives, and to real intelligence.
Yep, the easy path of pseudo-scientific wish fulfillment is very tempting and those who swim in its shallows wish others to become just as deluded as they are.







Post#1206 at 08-05-2013 12:38 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Glenn Gould on J.S. Bach as transcending the logical, scientific rational enlightenment that was beginning in his time, to give us instead glimpses of the mysterious, mystical whole.

Featuring a great rendition of one of my favorite organ pieces, the "God the Father" portion of the E Flat "Trinity" or "St. Anne" Fugue, and the wonderful Cantata 54 chorale, ending with a portion of Art of the Fugue, and Bach as expressing the "essence of being".
Last edited by Eric the Green; 08-12-2013 at 12:30 AM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#1207 at 08-11-2013 11:50 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#1208 at 08-28-2013 12:29 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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In my meditation I encounter the hermetic principle: as above, so below. The particular and the general. Local and non-local/universal. It is the basis of literature and art, and makes its presence felt in science and religion. It is quite different from Brian Rush's principle that whatever is everything, is nothing in particular. The distinction is important to realize, yes. The hermetic principle, the highest principle of metaphysics I know, also says that the particular is also everything, while still remaining particular. It really puts things in the right perspective.

My experience of the senses especially localizes me. I can only sense what is close to me, to where my senses and brain are. I don't sense so easily what is across town or across the universe, nor is my point of view the same as others. My physical abilities only apply locally. My consciousness is shaped by the objects around me. From the point of view of my soul or consciousness, I also have my own unique point of view. That is always there, I think, even when in a dream, or out of the body, or in "heaven" after this life.

At the same time, I perceive the universal within these local experiences. In the first place, there is the Buddhist principle which I can perceive, that all things are of one thatness. Despite any differences in the objects and experiences I perceive, they are all "just that." I sense my interdependence between myself and the objects I perceive, and my connection to all around me. I perceive that my identity is also just the universe that goes on. I am something the universe is doing. My soul is also the universal, divine soul, the whole universe right here and now, the consciousness that is everywhere. My perceptions can stretch out and contact everything, in every time and space, which is how psi works. My thoughts can affect people at a distance too, which is how prayer works. The principle of non-locality is accepted in quantum physics, in which atoms and electrons are connected at a spooky distance.

The universal is the particular, the whole is in every one being. Ken Wilbur calls it the holon. In holography one part of a picture can replicate the whole. In fractals each part replicates larger parts. As individuals we are a microcosm of the larger cosmos around us, the macrocosm. This is why astrology works and is valid.

The point of view of vandal literally steals your soul. It takes this principle away from you. Don't let people like vandal, vandalize your soul. They live in a restrictive, dogmatic universe in which nothing is valid unless proven in an empirical experiment. But the fact is such experiments can only encompass a tiny portion of reality, and cannot account for your consciousness at all, whether individual OR universal. Those who divide science and spirituality into rigid, separate compartments are also stealing your soul from you. Don't let them do it; you have a right to your own being.

And the biggest lie and stupidist statement ever made is to say if we reject their dogma-- that empirical science is the only truth, the only way-- then we reject science and all the benefits of technology, and should go live in a cave somewhere. It's as if you are being told that unless you accept Jesus Christ as your one and only personal lord and savior, you are going to hell. No, you're not. And no, rejecting fundamentalist, dogmatic science does not reject science or technology, and is not a prohibition against using them. It is merely rejecting the dogma.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 08-28-2013 at 12:37 PM.
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Keep the spirit alive,

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Post#1209 at 10-10-2013 01:33 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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I was thinking about the brain, and noticed something obvious; yet not usually considered by neurologists as far as I know, because of their materialist orientation (like vandal), but as both a spiritualist and an organist, it occurs to me. The brain is seen by most scientists as the center of consciousness, memory and thought. But it may be that the brain works more like an organ. Most of an organ doesn't act to create sound, but to stop it. The current is flowing, and a tone sounds when a stop is opened and the air flows through it. When we die and go beyond our brains, our lives flash before us. When people take LSD, they remember their whole lives. Psychedelics operate by loosing inhibitions in the brain. The brain is not something that creates thought, but something that stops it. As humans living on Earth in human bodies, having the whole current flow through us would be too hard to handle. So the brain stops it, and opens the flow when a neuron is connected; like a stop opening on an organ. When we get old and get alzheimers or dementia, the brain closes off even more. But when we die and everything is opened again, we remember again, because memory and thought is in our souls and in the spirit, and in the Akashic Records where everything is stored, and not in the brain; the brain just closes off what we can't use while embodied.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 10-14-2013 at 09:43 PM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

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Post#1210 at 10-14-2013 09:40 PM by endlessvegetables [at Tuesday joined May 2013 #posts 87]
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I suspect Eric and similarly inclined Boomers will enjoy this article on research into psychedelics, but I'm confused because it takes a sharp left turn into mysticism and doesn't come out.
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Post#1211 at 10-15-2013 12:00 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by endlessvegetables View Post
I suspect Eric and similarly inclined Boomers will enjoy this article on research into psychedelics, but I'm confused because it takes a sharp left turn into mysticism and doesn't come out.
Don't be confused. It's standard procedure for New Agers. They do everything they can to co-opt the dressing and appearance of actual science, stripped of the requisite context. Then, they leave you thinking that somehow the science supports their gobbledygook.

Nothing revolutionary at all.







Post#1212 at 10-15-2013 12:11 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by endlessvegetables View Post
I suspect Eric and similarly inclined Boomers will enjoy this article on research into psychedelics, but I'm confused because it takes a sharp left turn into mysticism and doesn't come out.
I think it behooves people of all generations to enjoy that article, and not limit their mindset to their typical archetypal tendencies.

Mysticism, of course, is what the psychedelic experience is, so "turning" there is natural.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 01-04-2014 at 05:11 AM.
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Post#1213 at 10-15-2013 12:21 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
I was thinking about the brain, and noticed something obvious; yet not usually considered by neurologists as far as I know, because of their materialist orientation (like vandal), but as both a spiritualist and an organist, it occurs to me.
Translation: "I imagined that I figured something out about the brain and instead of devising a way to check to see if I'm just fooling myself, I'm going to just assume I'm right and tell everyone else it is a fact."

The brain is seen by most scientists as the center of consciousness, memory and thought. But it may be that the brain works more like an organ. Most of an organ doesn't act to create sound, but to stop it. The current is flowing, and a tone sounds when a stop is opened and the air flows through it.
The organ also has a blower. Part of the pipe organ creates the airflow while other parts direct the flow. Your analogy completely ignores the fact that pipe organs create the potential for sound; therefore, according to you, the brain both creates and directs consciousness.

Argument by analogy is fallacious to begin with but you are so bad at this that you can't even complete the fallacy correctly.

When we die and go beyond our brains, our lives flash before us. When people take LSD, they remember their whole lives. Psychedelics operate by loosing inhibitions in the brain. The brain is not something that creates thought, but something that stops it. As humans living on Earth in human bodies, having the whole current flow through us would be too hard to handle. So the brain stops it, and opens the flow when a neuron is connected; like a stop opening on an organ.
Neurons can be both excitatory and inhibitory in their effects on neighboring neurons.

Your analogy is not revolutionary and insightful. It's inaccurate (organ blowers) and the concept you are trying to elucidate is already well known.

When we get old and get alzheimers or dementia, the brain closes off even more.
Alzheimer's is a disease or condition and dementia is a symptom. You don't get one or the other.

But when we die and everything is opened again, we remember again, because memory and thought is in our souls and in the spirit, and in the Akashic Records where everything is stored, and not in the brain; the brain just closes off what we can't use while embodied.
Yeah, you managed to repeat claims that others before you had created out of their imaginations. Too bad, they, you, and the countless others who were 'taught' these claims have never bothered to actually demonstrate their existence.

We can file the akashic records in with chakras, qi, and karma. They'll go into the same box as the files on dragons, mermaids, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The box is labelled Imaginary, but fun to play with!
Last edited by Vandal-72; 10-15-2013 at 12:24 AM.







Post#1214 at 10-15-2013 02:28 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Empirical Evidence: A Definition
Kim Ann Zimmerman, LiveScience Contributor | July 07, 2012 10:38am ET
http://www.livescience.com/21456-emp...efinition.html

(quote)
Empirical evidence is information that is acquired by observation or experimentation. This data is recorded and analyzed by scientists and is a central process as part of the scientific method.

The scientific method begins with scientists forming questions and then acquiring the knowledge to either support or disprove a specific theory. That is where the collection of empirical data comes into play.

Before any piece of empirical data is collected, scientists carefully design their research methods to ensure the accuracy, quality and integrity of the data. If there are flaws in the way that empirical data is collected, the research will not be considered valid.

Science is a systematic and logical approach to discovering how things in the universe work. It is derived from the Latin word “scientia,” which translates to knowledge. Unlike the arts, science aims for measurable results through testing and analysis. Science is based on fact, not opinion or preferences. The process of science is designed to challenge ideas through research. It is not meant to prove theories, but rule out alternative explanations until a likely conclusion is reached.

The Scientific Method

When conducting research, scientists observe the scientific method to collect measurable, empirical evidence in an experiment related to a hypothesis (often in the form of an if/then statement), the results aiming to support or contradict a theory.
(unquote)

The limits of the scientific empirical method are revealed in this definition.

It depends on specific questions. The only experience involved, is in answer to the question. Only evidence that bears on the question is ascertained.

It aims for measurable results. If something can't be measured, it is not valid and can't be proven.

The goal is to be objective. That means one is interested in what it outside and completely disconnected from the observer. This objectivity ensures that the knowledge obtained is (supposedly or hopefully) not based on opinion or preferences. Emotions, prejudices and conflicts of interest are excluded, if the research is done well.

But there is no such thing as objective, in reality. A human being is not a separate object, and there are no separate objects in Nature. Everything is connected to everything else. Quantum theory has proven this. It is inescapable scientific fact, that every human being is connected to and dependent on his/her environment. Everything within the mind and body of a human is in relationship with other beings, is made of the environment, and returns to it. This "objective" fact disproves the very objective method itself, because there is no separation between the observer and the "facts" observed.

In fact, nothing can be measured. You will try in vain to find the exact position of the number one or the number two on a ruler. Using measurement, rational numbers are only assumed. They are archetypal concepts. The Platonic principle proves that no rational number is observable in the world; it is an archetype which the world approximates or imitates.

Furthermore, nothing in the universe holds still. It is not the same from one moment to the next. This has also been known since the ancient Greek philosophers. Everything always changes, so how can you characterize it as though it were not changing? In modern terms, this is the uncertainty principle. You can't fix both the momentum (change) and position of an object. You can get empirical results, but they are only valid within a range of certainty.

Asking specific questions, limits your knowledge to what you are asking about. That puts a frame around it and excludes other factors.

So no one should hold the empirical method up as the only way to obtain knowledge. It is only useful to a limited extent.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

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Post#1215 at 10-15-2013 02:56 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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The principle I use to discuss the applicability of various kinds of knowledge, is how alive your "object" is. More-or-less dead objects, inorganic objects as science defines them, are the most susceptible to the scientific method as we know it today. They move the least, change the least, and can be held still the most. Their relationship to us is such that they can be manipulated more easily. They can be more-easily defined too. Their behavior is the most predictable. They are the most useful in technology, and generally behave as you expect them to behave.

Other plants and animals are next up the scale, and the further up the evolutionary tree of life they are, the more alive they are, and the more conscious and free they are. Biology can elicit much knowledge about their behavior, but it is still not entirely predictable. Not everything about living things can be described scientifically. And living things are much more related to and interdependent with their environment than non-living things. You can't describe a living thing without understanding ecology.

Next up the scale are human beings. Some things can be predicted about their behavior, but psychology, sociology and economics are "dismal sciences." Only the most primitive stimulus and response mechanisms can be described with relative certainty. To understand human behavior, elaborate theories of personality are conceived, including depth psychology which has become a modern substitute for religion. You can study the brain, but never observe the mind or the person. Experiments depend on the reports of the subject. People have free will, so their behavior can't be predicted-- even by definition.

Finally, there are more advanced or more-spiritual beings. This may include what human beings become in the future, and beings on other planets that have already evolved further. These advanced or more-spiritual beings also include spirits that have passed on to the other side, and are waiting to be reborn. They include demons, angels, archangels, ascended masters, divine beings and the divine itself. These are primarily beings composed of consciousness and invisible light or energy. These seem to be beyond the purview of empirical investigation, although the existence of life after death can be experimentally proven by inference, ghosts can be photographed, etc.

Such a concept depends on the ideas of life force and consciousness. Even materialists like Dawkins admit they have no explanation for consciousness. Some researchers are seeking to measure the life force. But in principle it is invisible and unmeasurable. It is by definition not "physical," although what is "physical" is also debatable and thus merely theoretical. No-one can observe objects out of which everything is made.

Empirical scientists may say such a force cannot be measured, therefore it cannot exist or cannot be valid. But this is circular reasoning. What is invisible, is not visible; therefore it doesn't exist, because only what is visible exists. But such a conclusion depends on the original assumption that only what's visible exists. The senses and brain themselves are empirical objects, yet science depends on them for knowledge about empirical objects. So, the empiricists are saying, only what is empirical, can prove the empirical. Only the empirical is valid, because it alone can be empirically proven. It is a tautology, and therefore invalid.

Empiricism cannot account for creativity. It can only determine the existence of something after it has been created. Creativity is spontaneous and cannot be observed while it is happening. That does not mean that religious "creationism" is valid. It means a worldview that excludes creativity is invalid, because we know it exists.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 01-04-2014 at 05:06 AM.
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Post#1216 at 10-15-2013 02:59 PM by endlessvegetables [at Tuesday joined May 2013 #posts 87]
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The traditional ideals of Science too readily give out gold stars. Negative experimental results are also knowledge, so everyone who plays gets an award. So long as you can think of some kind of experiment that tests your theory, and you do the experiment, and you accept the results, you've played by the rules; you're a good scientist. [...]

Science began as a rebellion against grand philosophical schemas and armchair reasoning. So Science doesn't include a rule as to what kinds of hypotheses you are and aren't allowed to test; that is left up to the individual scientist. Trying to guess that a priori, would require some kind of grand philosophical schema, and reasoning in advance of the evidence. As a social ideal, Science doesn't judge you as a bad person for coming up with heretical hypotheses; honest experiments, and acceptance of the results, is virtue unto a scientist. [...]

In Science you can make a mistake or two, and another experiment will come by and correct you; at worst you waste a couple of decades. [...] But if you would rather not waste ten years trying to prove the wrong theory, you'll need to essay the vastly more difficult problem: listening to evidence that doesn't shout in your ear.
Science Isn't Strict Enough, Eliezer Yudkowky (philosopher and AI research theorist who almost certainly thinks generational theory is bullshit so I won't mark his birthyear), arguing that the problem isn't with people like this not being Science Enough, but with science itself being a deficient practice.

ETA: I'm not even going to give your explanation in the previous post the time of day, just so you know. I agree with you sometimes and I disagree with you sometimes, but I've found that I don't even want to touch the reasoning and philosophy of people like you. At all. It just wastes everyone's time and fosters resentment.

This being said, my explanation for consciousness wends through GEB and Daniel Dennett and my explanation for creativity includes Melancholy Elephants. Saying that materialists don't have explanations for these things is wrong and silly.
Last edited by endlessvegetables; 10-15-2013 at 03:12 PM.
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Post#1217 at 10-16-2013 01:53 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
Empirical Evidence: A Definition
Kim Ann Zimmerman, LiveScience Contributor | July 07, 2012 10:38am ET
http://www.livescience.com/21456-emp...efinition.html

(quote)
Empirical evidence is information that is acquired by observation or experimentation. This data is recorded and analyzed by scientists and is a central process as part of the scientific method.

The scientific method begins with scientists forming questions and then acquiring the knowledge to either support or disprove a specific theory. That is where the collection of empirical data comes into play.

Before any piece of empirical data is collected, scientists carefully design their research methods to ensure the accuracy, quality and integrity of the data. If there are flaws in the way that empirical data is collected, the research will not be considered valid.

Science is a systematic and logical approach to discovering how things in the universe work. It is derived from the Latin word “scientia,” which translates to knowledge. Unlike the arts, science aims for measurable results through testing and analysis. Science is based on fact, not opinion or preferences. The process of science is designed to challenge ideas through research. It is not meant to prove theories, but rule out alternative explanations until a likely conclusion is reached.

The Scientific Method

When conducting research, scientists observe the scientific method to collect measurable, empirical evidence in an experiment related to a hypothesis (often in the form of an if/then statement), the results aiming to support or contradict a theory.
(unquote)

The limits of the scientific empirical method are revealed in this definition.

It depends on specific questions.
Versus arguments about questions that are non-specific and therefore can mean a multitude of very different things. That sounds like a productive way to spend my time! [/sarcasm]

The only experience involved, is in answer to the question.
Yes. Red herrings and irrelevancies make learning harder and less efficient.

Only evidence that bears on the question is ascertained.
You seem to be making up your own definition of the word "evidence".

It aims for measurable results. If something can't be measured, it is not valid and can't be proven.
No. No. No. Your strawmen versions are boring. Quantitative data is preferred, not required. We prefer quantitative data (it isn't evidence until after analysis) because it enables us to use mathematic tools in the analysis that can detect patterns in the data that might escape our attention. The math tools also allow us to detect and eliminate bias in the methodology to ensure that our conclusions are as objective as possible and not simply expressions of our personal wishes.

New Agers hate quantification because the tools always demonstrate that their original "evidence" (experiences) are best explained as simple wish expressions.

The goal is to be objective. That means one is interested in what it outside and completely disconnected from the observer. This objectivity ensures that the knowledge obtained is (supposedly or hopefully) not based on opinion or preferences. Emotions, prejudices and conflicts of interest are excluded, if the research is done well.
Yes. This is the only method that has been demonstrated to be effective in generating new, useful knowledge about the universe around us.

But there is no such thing as objective, in reality. A human being is not a separate object, and there are no separate objects in Nature. Everything is connected to everything else.
How convienent for you. Objectivity shows your beliefs are bunk so you adopt the belief that objectivity can't exist. It's almost as if you are expressing a wish about objectivity.

Quantum theory has proven this.
No. It hasn't. Are you so stupid that you can't even recognize that the source you quoted above directly refutes this claim?

"Science is based on fact, not opinion or preferences. The process of science is designed to challenge ideas through research. It is not meant to prove theories, but rule out alternative explanations until a likely conclusion is reached."


It is inescapable scientific fact, that every human being is connected to and dependent on his/her environment.
No. This is not a scientific fact. Your definition of "connected" is of course the epitome of circular reasoning rendering your claim fallacious.

Everything within the mind and body of a human is in relationship with other beings, is made of the environment, and returns to it.
Instead of using these very vague claims about "relationships" and "made of", how about you provide specific examples of the claim. Let us examine your examples and assess whether you are using a typical definition of those terms or are engaged in more New Age gobbledygook pablum.

This "objective" fact disproves the very objective method itself, because there is no separation between the observer and the "facts" observed.

In fact, nothing can be measured. You will try in vain to find the exact position of the number one or the number two on a ruler.
Holy crap. Are you really that ignorant of what those terms actually mean in science? (Rhetorical question. We all know the answer is a resounding yes.)

Using measurement, rational numbers are only assumed. They are archetypal concepts. The Platonic principle proves that no rational number is observable in the world; it is an archetype which the world approximates or imitates.
New Age gobbledygook.

Furthermore, nothing in the universe holds still.
Someone needs a refresher course in special relativity. There is no such thing as absolute "still" or "motion".

It is not the same from one moment to the next. This has also been known since the ancient Greek philosophers. Everything always changes, so how can you characterize it as though it were not changing?
Does every property of everything change in every way at every instant? If not, then we can measure the properties of various objects at various times and thus accurately describe the changes they undergo.

In modern terms, this is the uncertainty principle. You can't fix both the momentum (change) and position of an object.
It is obvious that you don't know what momentum actually is. Also, we don't "fix" the momentum and position of objects. We measure those values.

You can get empirical results, but they are only valid within a range of certainty.
(delta x)(delta p) >= h/4pi

Do you know what the implication of h/4pi is for your claim about the uncertainty principle and objects?

Asking specific questions, limits your knowledge to what you are asking about.
That has got to be one of the most profoundly stupid things you have ever typed. Reread it and try to parse out what you are trying to claim versus what you just wrote.

That puts a frame around it and excludes other factors.

So no one should hold the empirical method up as the only way to obtain knowledge. It is only useful to a limited extent.
That "limited extent" is just the ability to actually use the knowledge to create new questions and generate new knowledge. Oh, and create modern technological tools that have benefitted the lives of billions of people around the world. New Age crap could never come up with dwarf wheat, birth control pills and broad spectrum antibiotics.

Compare that to the New Age knowledge that is of no use beyond making people feel better about their fallacious thinking, biases and wish expressions by rationalizing their nonsensical thinking. Of course, New Age knowledge is also very useful for bilking money out of people who have refused to confront their irrationality to the point that they simply can not tell the difference between reality and bullshit.







Post#1218 at 10-16-2013 02:34 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
The principle I use to discuss the applicability of various kinds of knowledge, is how alive your "object" is. More-or-less dead objects, inorganic objects as science defines them, are the most susceptible to the scientific method as we know it today. The move the least, change the least, and can be held still the most. Their relationship to us is such that they can be manipulated more easily. They can be more-easily defined too. Their behavior is the most predictable. They are the most useful in technology, and generally behave as you expect them to behave.
Which is more alive, a 5 kg piece of granite or a 5 kg piece of obsidian? How did you decide? How much more alive is the one than the other?

Other plants and animals are next up the scale, and the further up the evolutionary tree of life they are, the more alive they are, and the more conscious and free they are.
There is no such thing as "up the evolutionary tree of life". You are so pig ignorant of the science that you have merged two diametrically opposed metaphors into one. The tree of life of Darwin replaced the unsupported great chain of being.

An Escerichia coli living in your colon today is exactly "as evolved" as you yourself are!

Biology can elicit much knowledge about their behavior, but it is still not entirely predictable.
Since when has "entirely predictable" been accepted as a definition of scientific?

Not everything about living things can be described scientifically.
We don't describe things scientifically. We use science to learn about them, not describe.

And living things are much more related to and interdependent with their environment than non-living things. You can't describe a living thing without understanding ecology.
Of course you can. Anatomists, taxonomists, geneticists, and others routinely describe organisms without referencing ecology. Of course, inclusion of information about the ecology enhances the description and enables the possibility of being able to explain the cause of some of the particulars of the description as well. But, biologists have been describing organisms for decades without ecological data. In fact, the vast majority of named species are known only from preserved specimens stripped of all ecological context because ecological studies are too time and resource intensive for more than a few select species.

Next up the scale are human beings.
Why? How did you determine that? How far up the scale are we from chimpanzees? Neanderthals?

Some things can be predicted about their behavior, but psychology, sociology and economics are "dismal sciences." Only the most primitive stimulus and response mechanisms can be described with relative certainty.
So, your knowledge of psychology, sociology, and anthropology is just as fake as your knowledge of physics and biology. How utterly non-shocking I find that to be.

To understand human behavior, elaborate theories of personality are conceived, including depth psychology which has become a modern substitute for religion. You can study the brain, but never observe the mind or the person. Experiments depend on the reports of the subject. People have free will, so their behavior can't be predicted-- even by definition.
Bullshit. Flat out.

Finally, there are more advanced or more-spiritual beings. This may include what human beings become in the future, and beings on other planets that have already evolved further.
There is no such thing as evolving "further", no matter how many times you repeat the lie.

These advanced or more-spiritual beings also include spirits that have passed on to the other side, and are waiting to be reborn. They include demons, angels, archangels, ascended masters, divine beings and the divine itself. These are primarily beings composed of consciousness and invisible light or energy. These seem to be beyond the purview of empirical investigation, although the existence of life after death can be experimentally proven by inference, ghosts can be photographed, etc.
New Agers can't even be bothered to keep the nonsense organized. It all gets thrown into a woo stew that allows someone to pick out the chunks they like and turn back the parts they don't. Wish expression writ large.

Such a concept depends on the ideas of life force and consciousness. Even materialists like Dawkins admit they have no explanation for consciousness.
Of course, they've also been waiting for New Agers to just define the term, let alone provide an explanation that can be objectively verified. The New Agers seem to be too busy writing and more importantly selling books about consciousness to be bothered with doing any actual useful investigations.

Some researchers are seeking to measure the life force. But in principle it is invisible and unmeasurable.
This "life force" sounds an awful lot like the invisible, incorporeal dragon that lives in my garage. He's unmeasurable but he definitely exists because I keep telling people that he does. What more evidence could anyone every really need to be convinced of his existence?

It is by definition not "physical," although what is "physical" is also debatable and thus merely theoretical. No-one can observe objects out of which everything is made.
Gobbledygook based on your complete lack of understanding of quantum mechanics.

Empirical scientists may say such a force cannot be measured, therefore it cannot exist or cannot be valid.
No. You said it couldn't be measured. Scientists simply point out that the difference between something that can't be measured by definition and something that doesn't exist is exactly nil.

But this is circular reasoning. What is invisible, is not visible; therefore it doesn't exist, because only what is visible exists.
Sound is not visible and yet it can be measured. Gravity is invisible, but it can be measured.

But such a conclusion depends on the original assumption that only what's visible exists. The senses and brain themselves are empirical objects, yet science depends on them for knowledge about empirical objects. So, the empiricists are saying, only what is empirical, can prove the empirical. Only the empirical is valid, because it alone can be empirically proven. It is a tautology, and therefore invalid.
Industrial grade irony meter just pegged off the scale. If you are so adamant that science is completely invalid why do you constantly claim that quantum mechanics proves your nonsense is real?

Empiricism cannot account for creativity. It can only determine the existence of something after it has been created. Creativity is spontaneous and cannot be observed while it is happening. That does not mean that religious "creationism" is valid. It means a worldview that excludes creativity is invalid, because we know it exists.
Pretty sure that your definition of creativity will turn out to be a huge pile of circular reasoning. Prove me wrong by giving examples that can actually be discussed.

New Agers hate being specific and give examples because they likely know that deep down that if they make any sort of testable claim their wishes will be crushed by the harsh mistress of reality.







Post#1219 at 10-16-2013 03:30 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by endlessvegetables View Post
Science Isn't Strict Enough, Eliezer Yudkowky (philosopher and AI research theorist who almost certainly thinks generational theory is bullshit so I won't mark his birthyear), arguing that the problem isn't with people like this not being Science Enough, but with science itself being a deficient practice.

ETA: I'm not even going to give your explanation in the previous post the time of day, just so you know. I agree with you sometimes and I disagree with you sometimes, but I've found that I don't even want to touch the reasoning and philosophy of people like you. At all. It just wastes everyone's time and fosters resentment.
You got it right without the Edit To Add.

It's just a question of how curious you are about life. Myself, I just found I had to look beyond the established doctrines to answer my questions. It's up to you, when and if you ever discover that the time is right.

This being said, my explanation for consciousness wends through GEB and Daniel Dennett and my explanation for creativity includes Melancholy Elephants. Saying that materialists don't have explanations for these things is wrong and silly.
What can they possibly explain? Materialism directly contradicts creativity. It rules it out. That's just self-evident truth, not silliness. Materialism can explain mechanical things. To explain other things, you just need other methods; that's all.

Materialism and mechanistic determinism has been called idolatry by some important writers like Erich Fromm. It takes something we humans have created (technology) and sets it up as the truth or fundamental reality. We have been overawed by it. That's why you see folks like vandal and kinser here say, in response to critiques about the limits of science, such things as "why don't you go back to living in caves then?" "why don't you throw away your computer, then?" Now THAT'S what I call "silliness"!

Speaking of silliness, the only proper response to vandal's nonsense is to laugh. ha ha!
Last edited by Eric the Green; 10-16-2013 at 03:41 AM.
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Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#1220 at 10-16-2013 08:57 PM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
You got it right without the Edit To Add.

It's just a question of how curious you are about life. Myself, I just found I had to look beyond the established doctrines to answer my questions. It's up to you, when and if you ever discover that the time is right.



What can they possibly explain? Materialism directly contradicts creativity. It rules it out. That's just self-evident truth, not silliness. Materialism can explain mechanical things. To explain other things, you just need other methods; that's all.
Biological things are mechanical things. Atoms are atoms regardless of whether they are in an organism or not.

Materialism and mechanistic determinism has been called idolatry by some important writers like Erich Fromm. It takes something we humans have created (technology) and sets it up as the truth or fundamental reality. We have been overawed by it. That's why you see folks like vandal and kinser here say, in response to critiques about the limits of science, such things as "why don't you go back to living in caves then?" "why don't you throw away your computer, then?" Now THAT'S what I call "silliness"!
Even sillier? Putting quotes around statements that I have never, ever made. Wait. That's not silliness. It's flat out dishonesty.

Speaking of silliness, the only proper response to vandal's nonsense is to laugh. ha ha!
You can't refute my points, got it. No surprise.







Post#1221 at 04-07-2014 02:44 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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The Vandal(s) will try to steal your soul. Don't you let them!

Here is an email I received from my friend Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda (boomer or war baby, I'm not sure):

April 4, 2014

Wikipedia -- the New Flat-Earthers?
By Steve Bhaerman

"The problem with the reality police is,

they may be enforcing an unenforceable reality."

-- Swami Beyondananda


One of the more thoughtful, eloquent, and provocative books to emerge in the past several months is Charles Eisenstein's latest, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. This book offers many gems, and especially this one: We are in a time "between worlds" as the old reality of "only the material world is real" and "survival of the fittest" is hanging on for dear life (or more accurately, dear death) and a new understanding that we are all connected by invisible fields is emerging.

So naturally (and unnaturally), these realities are vying for bandwidth on both the internet and outernet. Perhaps you heard the story a few months ago where TED talks was leveraged into removing Rupert Sheldrake's talk for being "pseudo-science". As Bruce Lipton and I point out in Spontaneous Evolution, sometimes the white-coated scientists can be just as fundamentalist about their non-religious beliefs as the black-cloaked priests have been about their religious ones. Indeed, "scientism" fundamentalists even use religious terms like "heresy" to dismiss observable phenomena that their existing knowledge cannot explain.

The latest kerfuffle involves Wikipedia (see discussion below) whose founder Jimmy Wales derides supporters and practitioners of energy medicine as "lunatic charlatans." Now before we wale on poor Jimmy, it's important to recognize that 100 years after Copernicus proved mathematically that the earth revolves around the sun, Galileo was imprisoned for making the same assertion. Now it's nearly 110 years since Einstein asserted that we live in a universe or relationships, not dueling dualities -- and "reality" hasn't caught up yet.

Copernicus and Einstein did the math, and then it was up to what historian Arnold Toynbee called the "creative minorities" to do the aftermath -- to bring this developing knowledge into the mainstream.

So, yeah ... maybe it's time to shuffle the deck and re-balance the conversation a bit. Please check out the letter from and if you like the precepts of ACEP (Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology), let your voice be heard and your vote seen. Sign the petition, and make a statement.


It's important that we recognize prejudice disguised as anti-science (e.g., the extremely well funded anti-climate change movement) as well as prejudice disguised as science. Remember, just because a phenomena cannot be explained by science's current understandings doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Time to gently prod Wikipedia and the rest of what Paul Ray calls the "Modern" worldview to entertain a bigger and rounder world than the one they've limited themselves to.

Let the new games begin -- and may the best paradigm win!

Wikipedia Founder Censors Alternative Health Care Industry, Calls Providers "Lunatic Charlatans"



Dear Steve,

As promised, ACEP is working on your behalf to make energy psychology more widely available. We're trying to change the framework though which people view EP by communicating the facts.

As you know, in December 2013 ACEP sponsored a change.org petition, which has now been signed by over 8,200 people. The petition charges that Wikipedia's information about holistic approaches to healing such as Emotional Freedom Techniques is biased, misleading, out-of-date or wrong, preventing the public from getting accurate information.

Wikipedia's founder responded by calling people like you "lunatic charlatans".


"No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful.

Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals - that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't."

Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia
Posted on March 23, 2014

Wikipedia's founder tried to censor energy psychology, energy medicine, acupuncture and the entire alternative healthcare community in one broad stroke when he responded to our petition on change.org by referring to its supporters as "lunatic charlatans", stating that Wikipedia would cover work in respectable journals. Apparently he is oblivious to the fact that there have been over 50 energy psychology research studies, many of them published and reviewed by respected scientific journals such as the Journal of Clinical Psychology, Review of General Psychology, and Traumatology. (for references see http://www.energypsych.org/research).

ACEP is not asking Wikipedia to take a pro energy psychology position. We simply want them to follow their own guidelines and accurately present both sides of the story. In lieu of that, we want the public to become aware that when it comes to information about complementary and alternative healthcare (such as EFT), Wikipedia should not be considered a trustworthy source for unbiased information.

Read ACEP's full position


We're asking you to take action now.

Sign the petition if you haven't already.
Comment on Jimmy Wales' response, and like Debby's comment on his response. (This helps keep her reply at the top of the list.)
Send this email to your colleagues, asking for their support by signing the petition and commenting on Jimmy's response.

Important: We're taking a strong, but balanced position on this issue. When you add your comments, please use that tone. A professional dialogue will have the best impact.

This is a great opportunity for us. Let's seize it together!

Warm regards,

Debby and Bob

Debby Vajda, LCSW, DCEP
President

Robert Schwarz, PsyD, DCEP
Executive Director

_______________________________________________


Steve Bhaerman is a writer, humorist and political uncommontator who has been writing and performing comedy for the past 25 years as Swami Beyondananda. On the more serious side, he is author with Bruce Lipton of Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future And a Way to Get There From Here, and he is about to launch his new blog and movement, Evolutionary Upwising.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 04-07-2014 at 02:48 AM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

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Eric A. Meece







Post#1222 at 04-07-2014 02:46 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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From the above letter, here's a more-visible link to the excellent talk debunking Vandal's world view, which is also blindly accepted to one degree or another by most people here, and by most "educated" people in our dying culture and society.



More with Rupert:

http://youtu.be/UaFtQwF-Ans
http://youtu.be/OqaATPAnTZQ
Last edited by Eric the Green; 04-07-2014 at 03:19 AM.
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Eric A. Meece







Post#1223 at 04-08-2014 03:43 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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The Ten Delusions of Science, according to Rupert Sheldrake in his talks above:

The Science Delusion in general is the idea that science already understands reality in principle, with only the details to be filled in. The worldview and belief of materialism now restricts free inquiry in science. Breaking out of this belief will regenerate science.

The 10 dogmas of science are:
1. Nature is mechanical or machine like. We are lumbering robots.
2. The whole universe is made of matter, which is unconscious.
3. The laws of nature are fixed, and there are constants.
4. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same, ever since the big bang.
5. There are no purposes in nature, and evolution has no direction.
6. Everything you inherit is in your genes.
7. Memories are stored inside your brain as material traces.
8. Your mind is inside your head, and your consciousness is only the activity of your brain.
9. Psychic abilities and telepathy are impossible, and people who believe in them are deceived.
10. Mechanistic medicine works, and alternative and holistic therapies do not.

None of these dogmas are true, and there is little or no evidence for them. They are merely beliefs and assumptions. If you look at them, they fall apart.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#1224 at 04-09-2014 01:12 AM by Vandal-72 [at Idaho joined Jul 2012 #posts 1,101]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
The Vandal(s) will try to steal your soul. Don't you let them!


Here is an email I received from my friend Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda (boomer or war baby, I'm not sure):


April 4, 2014


Wikipedia -- the New Flat-Earthers?
By Steve Bhaerman


"The problem with the reality police is,


they may be enforcing an unenforceable reality."


-- Swami Beyondananda




One of the more thoughtful, eloquent, and provocative books to emerge in the past several months is Charles Eisenstein's latest, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. This book offers many gems, and especially this one: We are in a time "between worlds" as the old reality of "only the material world is real" and "survival of the fittest" is hanging on for dear life (or more accurately, dear death)

Sounds like the woomeisters are joining cause with creationists in declaring the imminent death of evolutionary theory.


and a new understanding that we are all connected by invisible fields is emerging.

Too bad New Agers can't seem to be bothered with defining their use of the terms "understanding", "connected" and "invisible fields". I know what scientists mean when they use those terms because they provide concrete examples and methods for determining on my own their validity.


So naturally (and unnaturally), these realities are vying for bandwidth on both the internet and outernet. Perhaps you heard the story a few months ago where TED talks was leveraged into removing Rupert Sheldrake's talk for being "pseudo-science". As Bruce Lipton and I point out in Spontaneous Evolution, sometimes the white-coated scientists

Never miss an opportunity to spout a stereotype. The vast majority of scientists never ever where white lab coats. If taken science courses for over two decades, taught courses for over a decade and worked as a field biologist/technician for almost a full decade and have never once worn a white lab coat.


Besides, the color of clothing has no relevance to the integrity of a scientist's argument.


can be just as fundamentalist about their non-religious beliefs as the black-cloaked priests have been about their religious ones. Indeed, "scientism" fundamentalists even use religious terms like "heresy" to dismiss observable phenomena that their existing knowledge cannot explain.

1984: War is peace and rationalists are fundamentalists.


The latest kerfuffle involves Wikipedia (see discussion below) whose founder Jimmy Wales derides supporters and practitioners of energy medicine as "lunatic charlatans." Now before we wale on poor Jimmy, it's important to recognize that 100 years after Copernicus proved mathematically that the earth revolves around the sun,

Copernicus did no such thing, but why let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a proper New Ager snit!


Galileo was imprisoned for making the same assertion. Now it's nearly 110 years since Einstein asserted that we live in a universe or relationships, not dueling dualities -- and "reality" hasn't caught up yet.

Oh good! It just isn't proper New Age swill without the relativity misconceptions. Accept no substitute!


Copernicus and Einstein did the math, and then it was up to what historian Arnold Toynbee called the "creative minorities" to do the aftermath -- to bring this developing knowledge into the mainstream.


So, yeah ... maybe it's time to shuffle the deck and re-balance the conversation a bit. Please check out the letter from and if you like the precepts of ACEP (Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology), let your voice be heard and your vote seen. Sign the petition, and make a statement.

Don't forget to visit our website and buy our books. Like the one I "just happened" to mention and link to in the beginning of this letter. Hint, hint.


It's important that we recognize prejudice disguised as anti-science (e.g., the extremely well funded anti-climate change movement) as well as prejudice disguised as science.

Of course science is prejudiced! It has to be. Without purposefully rejecting nonsense or holding claims accountable to rigorous scrutiny, science would become nothing more than wish making fantasy and we already have New Age for that.


Your dealer/friend is just upset that the prejudice of science has found his ideas meaningless and therefor he's missing out on a primo endorsement deal for his next book/center.


Remember, just because a phenomena cannot be explained by science's current understandings doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Remember, just because someone says that a phenomena exists doesn't mean that it does. If only we had a rigorous method for weeding out the empty claims . . .


Time to gently prod Wikipedia and the rest of what Paul Ray calls the "Modern" worldview to entertain a bigger and rounder world than the one they've limited themselves to.

Because, if we can convince more people to say something is true then it will become more true.


Let the new games begin -- and may the best paradigm win!


Wikipedia Founder Censors Alternative Health Care Industry, Calls Providers "Lunatic Charlatans"






Dear Steve,


As promised, ACEP is working on your behalf to make energy psychology more widely available. We're trying to change the framework though which people view EP by communicating the facts.


As you know, in December 2013 ACEP sponsored a change.org petition, which has now been signed by over 8,200 people. The petition charges that Wikipedia's information about holistic approaches to healing such as Emotional Freedom Techniques is biased, misleading, out-of-date or wrong, preventing the public from getting accurate information.

And he knows it's accurate because he says it is.


Wikipedia's founder responded by calling people like you "lunatic charlatans".




"No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful.


Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals - that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.


What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't."


Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia
Posted on March 23, 2014


Wikipedia's founder tried to censor energy psychology, energy medicine, acupuncture and the entire alternative healthcare community in one broad stroke when he responded to our petition on change.org by referring to its supporters as "lunatic charlatans", stating that Wikipedia would cover work in respectable journals. Apparently he is oblivious to the fact that there have been over 50 energy psychology research studies, many of them published and reviewed by respected scientific journals such as the Journal of Clinical Psychology, Review of General Psychology, and Traumatology. (for references see http://www.energypsych.org/research).


ACEP is not asking Wikipedia to take a pro energy psychology position. We simply want them to follow their own guidelines and accurately present both sides of the story. In lieu of that, we want the public to become aware that when it comes to information about complementary and alternative healthcare (such as EFT), Wikipedia should not be considered a trustworthy source for unbiased information.


Read ACEP's full position




We're asking you to take action now.


Sign the petition if you haven't already.
Comment on Jimmy Wales' response, and like Debby's comment on his response. (This helps keep her reply at the top of the list.)
Send this email to your colleagues, asking for their support by signing the petition and commenting on Jimmy's response.


Important: We're taking a strong, but balanced position on this issue. When you add your comments, please use that tone. A professional dialogue will have the best impact.


This is a great opportunity for us. Let's seize it together!


Warm regards,


Debby and Bob


Debby Vajda, LCSW, DCEP
President


Robert Schwarz, PsyD, DCEP
Executive Director


_______________________________________________




Steve Bhaerman is a writer, humorist and political uncommontator who has been writing and performing comedy for the past 25 years as Swami Beyondananda. On the more serious side, he is author with Bruce Lipton of Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future And a Way to Get There From Here, and he is about to launch his new blog and movement, Evolutionary Upwising.

Well gosh, this guy wrote a book that he provided links to and he is about to launch a new blog. It is just inconceivable that he might not be totally on the up and up when it comes to the truthiness of energy psychology.


Color my chakra shocked!







Post#1225 at 04-09-2014 01:07 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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04-09-2014, 01:07 PM #1225
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