I don’t see why this really even matters. Yes the scientific explanation is superior. No one was arguing any differently.
You do realize that Semiotics is a valid part of the science of linguistics right? If I am remembering correctly The Hamster King is a trained Neurolinguist.
Why do you think you need to defend science? Who is attacking it?
What we are saying is that people will appeal to science as a way to justify their cognitive biases, and as such are less willing to look at their own cognitive biases because they see themselves as champions of science. One of the core aspects of scientism is the need to turn it into a defense of science when no one is dismissing the value of science.
I’m sure it does feel great. People don’t like stuff that’s painful and miserable. That doesn’t mean it requires Chi, Ki, the Force, Magic or Psionics. It means that meat and bone are squishing meat and bone and sometimes that feels awesome.
To think that it requires some mystic energy source is beyond silly. I should add, I didn’t call you stupid, I said you were being stupid to attribute the sensations of shiatsu to the supernatural.
If someone is wrong, are they delusional? I thought Liverpool would win last night. I was surely not delusional (yes, yes, insert your own joke here.)
If someone truly believes they have been contacted by an ‘external’ entity when they haven’t, are they hallucinating? Again, such words are unnecessarily perjorative.
I might think that Lib and mswas are wrong about misattributing some things, and they might think the same of me, but we don’t start casting aspersions on each other’s mental health.
I agree with the bulk of your post, and I think your points are well made and often glossed over; however, I also do think that the scientific discourse has the merit of getting us in some way ‘closer to’ the truth than others (by some thought to be competitive, by some complementary; I don’t wish to make a judgement on that front). First, it’s very true that we cannot reason about things in terms of themselves, but only in the form of ‘strings of symbols’, and that the formal systems constructed in this way can’t have any necessary claim to truth, but can at best reproduce the dynamics of a given natural system.
However, I should perhaps state my own biases upfront – I believe that the notion of the supernatural is an incoherent one, provided it is supposed to interact with the natural world, and that it is inconsequential if it isn’t. (My reasons for believing this would probably provide too much of a diversion from the topic, suffice it to say that I see what I call the interface problem – the question how something supernatural could conceivably interact with something natural, how a ‘contact point’ between the two could look like, broadly – as pretty much insurmountable.) In my view, thus, everything that looks supernatural is simply something natural not yet understood; this explicitly leaves open the possibility that we can never understand it, owing to our limited abilities. I also believe that, if our goal in constructing those formal systems is that they approximate the dynamics in the natural world as well as possible, science is the way to go. I believe this because I see it as having a sort of convergent quality I perceive other methods of discourse as lacking, brought on by the two-pronged attack of hypothetical frugality (i.e. keeping your assumptions minimal, positing no unnecessary plurality of entities, the whole shebang) and falsificationism, which ensures that your model only increases in the accuracy with which it replicates the behaviour of the natural system under study.
Thus, if done right, what science conceivably may give us (at some point) is some formal system that captures the dynamics of the natural world arbitrarily well, and that, I would argue, is as close to the capital-T Truth as anything’s ever gonna get; propositions made within this system still have no strict guarantee of being right, and are ultimately just concerned with the symbols they contain, and not with the things those symbols are supposed to represent, but you will find with an ever-increasing likelihood that predictions made using this model will be born out by observation.
Now, I know very well that all of this may be bullshit, and I’m (painfully) aware that my reasoning may be faulty; god, and UFOs, and spirits and fairies may well exist, and there could be some solution to the interface problem I simply don’t see. The problem is that once you admit the supernatural – i.e. that which is in principle not amenable to (scientific) study --, you loose, in my opinion, the ability of constructing any kind of theory about the world. If you admit any kind of supernatural entity, there are no logical grounds on which to reject others, and thus, the edge of Occam’s razor is dulled so much as to be useless; and for every hypothesis falsified by observation, there exists a supernaturally augmented, unfalsifiable one saying essentially the same thing. Worse, even: you can’t exclude the existence of some trickster demon that either actively deceives you, or even changes the laws of the universe at his whim – every proposition is subject to absolute uncertainty in such a case, falsified theories may turn out to be right, established observations to be in error (of course, that is always a possibility in an all-natural world, as well; however, it is a quantifiable possibility). Your discourse thus becomes divergent, which is nicely exemplified by the plurality of religions and belief systems (conspiracy theories fit that particular criterion exceedingly well – while all agree that there’s a conspiracy, you can find barely two that agree on what, exactly, that conspiracy is).
So, if one wants to construct reasonable hypotheses about the world, just to see how far that’ll work, for instance, it seems to me one must do so from a position of disbelief in the supernatural; else, the whole endeavour would appear, to me at least, to be doomed from the start. It might well be the case that at some point one reaches an impasse, where either one’s mental capacities are insufficient to probe further, or there simply doesn’t exist any natural explanation for something (though how one would distinguish between the two isn’t exactly clear to me), but to assume that this impasse exists from the outset is to not really embark on the journey at all.
If that makes me a naive positivist scientist (scientismic?), then well, I’ll have to live with that.
(Sorry for taking your post as a bit of a jumping-off point for my rant, The Hamster King.)
I wasn’t using logic, I’m aware that the reasoning used is fallacious. I was just saying why I think “delusional” doesn’t quite fit for mass religious belief. I agree with your Jonestown example, for instance, because clearly those people were deluded, which to me almost implies someone doing the deluding (and it could be the person themselves), against all contrary evidence. But with the mass fallacies like most religions, you have to counter that active delusion with the active reinforcement of the fellow believers. But yes, I admit, this gets into sticky territory where I think it’s just semantics. Yes, I believe mainstream theists, as well as ghost hunters, alien abductionists and crystal healers are all wrong. But there’s something that separates the first from the last three, and I’m loathe to put it down to just me being socialized into accepting religion, because that doesn’t gel with my sense. Something tells me the degree of positive reinforcement enters into it somewhere.
This is a response I was writing to your comment in the other thread that I am letting die.
The thing about Qi in terms of shiatsu is this. There is a particularly technique within Shiatsu that is supposed to open the Qi up and get it flowing in the body. You do this by making a circuit between a hand and the opposite foot. Now for some reason, just touching these points at the same time does SOMETHING to relax the person and open them up to the rest of the massage. Maybe it’s neurological or something, I don’t know. So for me Qi is a placeholder. Life energy need not mean something like an energy force literally coursing through their body, it might mean a greater neurological harmony or something. This is actually what I suspect, but as such speculations would be scientism, I’m not going to so that this is certainly what it is. Shiatsu and Qi Gong can restore a body’s equilibrium. Have you ever walked around and just felt like your right side and your left side aren’t cooperating very well and you feel like you’re lumbering around like Frankenstein? Well I’ve found that the Qi exercises can make you feel lighter on your feet and can reconnect your body. Also, the meridians correspond directly to lines of tension in the body. The bladder meridian which from a Chinese Med perspective holds the body upright corresponds pretty much directly to the back’s anatomy train, which is basically a mapping of the tensegrity and the lines of tension that keep the body erect. In Western massage the anatomy trains show us how muscles compensate for one another, if one muscle is hypertonic then another muscle in line with it on the anatomy train has to compensate by being hypotonic. This is very much within the theory of Shiatsu which is that the body is about Qi imbalances where one for every Jitsu (qi excess) point of energy their is a corresponding Kyo (qi defficiency). Far from being antagonistic to scientific explanations of how Shiatsu works I’d be absolutely fascinated to find a better scientific explanation, and would be elated to be able to participate in any studies to that regard.
To me, it’s about art vs science. I am hardly antagonistic to science, I just compartmentalize. Shiatsu as an art is a pretty cool method of massage. It feels great, and a lot of people leave feeling very refreshed after a shiatsu. I have experienced this both on the giving and receiving end. I can definitely explain scientifically why some of the moves work, for instance a great gall bladder stretch opens up any myofascial adhesions in the hip abductor region.
So I don’t believe that there is literally an energy electricity. I view Qi as a metaphor for a bundle of factors that I can’t sufficiently explain.
I knew you were a videogame designer but I thought your training was in neurolinguistics. I think I merged some properties of you and Shagnasty at one point. I believe he is in some kind of cognitive field, and you have talked about various linguistic ideas in the past.
Hi mswas, I assume this is directed towards my “falsifiable vs unfalsifiable woo” post in you other, dying thread.
OK, here is a falsifiable claim. We get a number of masseurs and … er … massees? and study whether a circuit between those particular points, rather than other points (a hand and the foot on the same side, say), cause some statistically significant response in the massees.
You see, that’s actually quite a strong claim. I’m a musician, and certainly wouldn’t make falsifiable claims like “Pieces in the key of E flat relax people more than pieces in the key of E”. If Shiatsu is an art, I would be very mindful of making falsifiable claims like this about my art. In fact, I’d probably avoid making any such claims unless I really could point to a careful study involving a pretty big sample space.
Now, it may be that what you say is correct, and science must seek a natural explanation. But it is actually quite difficult to show that there is actually something to explain. They won’t come from me, but accusations of Woo are bound to appear if you struggle to show this. Just sayin :).
Yes, but you’re misunderstanding me. I am not making a claim, I am just speculating.
I am not making a claim. I am speculating.
Sure. But as I said, I am not making a claim, I am speculating.
If people can’t separate an off the cuff speculation from a claim of scientific fact that says more about their emotional state than it says about anything scientific or rational.
Now the anatomy trains stuff I’d be a lot more confident to back in scientific terms. I’m not sure how well studied that stuff is but it definitely makes a lot of sense and has a better footing than any of my neurological speculations.
The problem I see around here is that if you make any comment that people sniff ‘woo’ on they become slavering attack dogs and suddenly you are held to a higher standard than anyone else because they want to tear you down. So a speculative hypothesis gets attacked and you are put on the spot and expected to satisfy some ego drive for them where they try and fulfill a need to status seek and place themselves higher than you in the pack. It is my opinion that on the SDMB for a great many posters this status seeking behavior is the primary drive behind their so-called ‘rational’ arguments.
I mean why else would they get so worked up about an off the cuff speculative hypothesis no? As I have said, I don’t know the answer and would love to participate in a study where the answer is sought.
SentientMeat I notice a trend actually, and it’s something that even you who is being quite polite did. You were kind of condescending and told me something I already knew and had pointed out upthread, wherein I said that I didn’t have a scientific explanation and wasn’t trying to manufacture one. There is this implicit assumption that I don’t know how basic science works. That’s not the case. I understand it just fine. What I am doing is making something similar to a pascalian wager. ‘Well the art of Shiatsu works, so I am going to run with it even if I can’t sufficiently explain it.’
I do know how massage case studies work as I have read several of them. The big problem with studies in massage therapy is that there are two places in the chain where subjectivity leaks into any objective study. That is the Masseur and the Massee as you call them. Some Masseur’s are better than others, and some Massee’s respond more favorably to massage than others. So if you get a really good Masseur with a Massee who really loves massage you will get decidedly different results than with someone who is just ok working on someone who doesn’t really like to be touched.
As for music, different musical notes DO affect us in different ways.
Sorry for any condescention, but this is a claim, agreed? A speculation would be: “well, if touching certain points but not others did something, I’d guess that …”, agreed?
Yes, it’s a claim. And I am not trying to sound like I am being insecure, it’s just that this is the topic so I am trying to discuss the ins and outs of it.
It is a claim yes. The thing is, Shiatsu can be done correctly and it can be done incorrectly and the reaction to it if done right is dramatically different from it when done incorrectly. There is also a feeling when connecting with the points that doesn’t work if you don’t connect. If it’s delusional, then even the delusion itself is interesting as you can get a dozen students in a class and they will tell you if you are actually hitting the point or not based on the way it makes them feel.
I do believe that these phenomena absolutely can be studied, but that they aren’t going to be hashed out on an internet message board, and they have not yet been adequately studied.
What’s really perplexing to me is that, if Qi doesn’t exist, why are people aware of a point being correct or not?
Mine, what a lovely hijack into the World of Woo. Which BTW, is specifically excluded both in the OP and in a subsequent post as pertinent to the intended discussion.
Apologies to the posters owed a response but this thread strayed so far off course as to become incoherent with the incontinent C&P job from yet another thread. Not surprising when dealing with pseudo-science. Perhaps I’ll open another one if time allows.
You shouldn’t have talked trash about me in a thread you asked me not to participate in. You asked me not to discuss a particular issue, I said, ok and started my own thread, and then you specifically started bashing me for that particular issue.
You hijacked the thread.
Of course the reality is that this was a pitting of me. So it’s rather impossible for me to hijack it.
I bring to your attention the continued misinterpretation along with the deliberate derailment being committed by mswas in this thread.
1-A cursory reading of my posts here will show that at no point was this thread meant as any sort of Pitting of said poster – no matter how hard he tries to make it “all about him,” it simply isn’t.
2-There was absolutely no “trashing” of this poster, but rather a factual rebuttal of his claims on vitalism and a comment on the potential misuses of practitioners/believers in said myth.
In light of the above points I am asking for both a ruling on this matter and barring an ensuing clean-up of his copious and redundant C&P job/spam – for which I think it is too late – that the thread be closed.
I’d like to point out that he posted it in the Pit and specifically referenced me in his original post.
Something he specifically asked me not to discuss in this thread a request which I obliged even though the whole thread was originally pretty hostile to me.
I do not think it is fair to redact a response to his post. If he didn’t want me to discuss my views on a subject he shouldn’t have asked me not to pursue it in this thread and then pursued it himself. It is disingenuous to claim that I hijacked his thread when I clearly started my own thread at his request only to have the very subject I was asked not to discuss brought up as an example to be derided.
So yes, closing this thread is probably the way to go.
If someone actually didn’t want to bait me, they wouldn’t consistently use me as their negative example.
Look, I know things have gotten a little…uncomfortable. But I am enjoying this thread and gaining some insight and understanding, so could it please be left open?
Perhaps we could all agree to weed out claims about other posters’ motivations and speculations as to what other posters “really think”. After all, such claims and speculations are antithetical to rationality, are they not?
Some Masseur’s are better than others, and some Massee’s respond more favorably to massage than others. So if you get a really good Masseur with a Massee who really loves massage you will get decidedly different results than with someone who is just ok working on someone who doesn’t really like to be touched.