johnny fishface wrote:
A thread on it? Heck, I don’t even know if I can spell it.
But seriously, folks, no – there has never, to my knowledge, been a Great Debates thread related to enthogenics. Whatever the heck it is.
Badtz, The Matrix wasn’t the first fiction work to show a false “reality” or “world simulation” to us (re-reading this it sounds a bit pretensious and I’m sure you now this already but I can’t write any better).
The earliest and the best one I’ve ever read is Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye. It’s from 1968 and I never found anything else by this guy. It’s really good and you should buy it if it’s in print in the US.
I know, but I was trying to use an example that everybody would get, not just the SF fans.
I haven’t read Simulacron-3, but if I see it at a used book store I’ll remember to pick it up. One book (much more recent) that I believe handled the concept well was John Varley’s ‘Steel Beach’, especially the way it distinguishes between the two types of virtual realities the main character experiences during the course of the story.
tracer wrote:
[QUOTE}A thread on it? Heck, I don’t even know if I can spell it.
But seriously, folks, no – there has never, to my knowledge, been a Great Debates thread related to enthogenics. Whatever the heck it is.[/QUOTE]
me not dum. 
I will post a thread on entheogenics as soon as time permits.
(tommorroww??)
I was gonna say thanks for not cuttin’ a “newbie” some slack, and then I looked at my last post… [/depression}
I believe, based on logic, that you are in error. Randi showed the mechanism by which Geller was able to dupe his audiences. He did not provide an alternative to accomplishing the same trick, he actually exposed the mechanism of the trick itself.
I think there’s an inportant difference between the two cases, not to mention the evidence! Once Randi showed how Geller accomplished his various tricks, he made Geller’s “powers” epistemically unnecessary. On top of that, Occam’s razor shreds Geller to bits in the light of the evidence provided by Randi.
If you look at the evidence closely you will find that Randi is not disseminating falsehoods, whereas anyone who claims the Moon landing was a hoax is contributing to a set of falsehoods that have been propagated by various media and exponents. The “evidence” the Moon hoax people claim is nothing more than severely uneducated interpretations of the events of the Moon landing. These people are not showing us anything at all–they are merely airing untenable opinions and disguising them as evidence.
If your explanation were in accordance with the laws of science, it would be considered by scientists and experiments would be set up to test the hypothesis, in spite of the fact that microbiology has an overwhelming body of evidence behind it. Magic, on the other hand, has zero evidence behind it to date.
Randi observed Geller perform “magic”, spotted what was happening (Randi is a far better and more experienced magician than Geller), and provided an explanation for Geller’s magic. This hypothesis was then tested successfully as Randi replicated Geller’s results. On the other hand, Geller was unable to perform his tricks when under scrutiny.
Randi isn’t a scientist by profession, but he is one of the most useful tools science could ever ask for. To begin with, he is armed with a good knowledge of science, trickery, and theory of knowledge. Secondly, he is able to follow the scientific method when required–something that the people he exposes seem unable to do, even when they happen to be scientists.
Abe
To get back to the OP:[ul][]acupuncture[]chi/kisomething along the lines of Julian Jaynes’s theory of consciousness[/ul]
Healing energies will not be harnessed until we develop a healing energy detector. Hmm, which comes first the detector or the energy? Barbara Brennan doesn’t care about detectors here books and classes show that the energies are there http://www.barbarabrennan.com/products/index.html interacting with our Aura
Kirlian photography exist it just does not do what certain proponents claim. It is not an open door to the “bioenergy” of the astral body (whatever that id) no matter how many times you photograph Mr. spoon bender himself Uri Geller.
Science has a tendency to move forward and lead to more understanding. Imagine our knowledge and ability to fly was just as good as the Wright Brothers, our knowledge of atomic forces and its utility just what it was in the 1940’s, our knowledge of disese and bacteria progressed no further than Jeffrey Amherst’s germ warfare.
The lying on of hands (healing energies) reached its zenith during the time of Christ and has gone downhill from there. If we don’t have a better understanding of or any idea how a discovery fits into our current understanding of things then don’t expect much anytime soon.
Cervaise said it best in the comment about Fringe theorists
“… what they’re doing can’t even loosely be termed science”
DaddyMack wrote:
What is Barbara Brennan’s evidence that her stuff works any better than a placebo?
Tracer, I’m not defending her just pointing out how there is no evidence that these energies even exist.
Tominator2, acupuncture, chi/ki has existed for over four thousand years, has not contributed anything to man’s store of knowledge nor his understanding of the human body or universe. But who knows if the practitioners who perform such magic tricks like breaking a chopstick with the edge of a piece of paper or reviving a dead fly add to their act we could have a four ring circus in the near future. But maybe you know something I don’t.
Julian Jaynes theory http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/conscious/conscious3.html said the modern mind is not really modern. According to most paleontologist and anthropologist our brain has been this way for at least 100,000 years http://www.brainchannels.com
I don’t know if it is a “fringe science” but I think that perhaps the Super string theory will be proven or validated.
? Some study remains to be done on this stuff, sure. But there’s a big difference between needing more study and irrelevance. Chi seems to be a good candidate for study because it seems more-or-less repeatable. Scientists like repeatable.
This would not surprise me. I’ve seen ki demonstrated, and done a little (very little) ki work myself.
As far as Jaynes goes, his theory has more to do with the orgainzation of the brain (the “software”) than its physical charcateristics (the “hardware”). Not the sort of thing that would show up directly in a skull casting.
Details, please.
*Originally posted by Tominator2 ***
If you know of someone who can reliably demonstrate ki (or chi, is this the same thing?), or if you can do so yourself, you can get yourself a million bucks (not to mention world wide fame) from the James Randi Educational Fund. See
for details. Seriously, if you can demonstrate that this is real (though based on many past efforts from various experts, I’m inclined to doubt it very seriously), it is an important process that should be investigated. But only IF you can demonstrate it.
Not to harp too much on the skeptical bandwagon, here, but in 17 years of active practice in a number of different arts, I never saw a single demonstration of chi which I could not reproduce by purely physical/mental means. That doesn’t mean the other guy wasn’t doing it with chi, of course, but I tend toward a reductionist explanation where one presents itself.
Thank you for saying that. Coming out of your mouth no one has come back at you. Had I said it which I was DYING to do but refrained, I believe I would have gotten a different reaction…
As a black belt in Goju Ryu karate, I can tell you that ‘chi’ does not exist, other than as a collection of tricks and wishful thinking. The use of the hips to transfer energy to the arm is a purely mechanical technique, but it can result in some very powerful ‘chi-like’ manipulation. My karate instructor (then a 6th degree black belt, now 8th degree) demonstrated this to a large, healthy young man. He placed his hand on the guy’s chest, then without breaking contact managed to transfer so much power to him so quickly that he broke a couple of his ribs by accident.
Add this to the grab-bag of tricks like breaking bricks, walking on glass, having concrete blocks on your stomach shattered with a sledge, and you have ‘chi’.
The super string theory has caught my fancy. I need to look more into it. Is anyone familiar with this?
Superstring theory is the latest contender for a Theory of Quantum Gravity.
At extremely high energies and densities, such as those present in the first few nanoseconds after the Big Bang, general relativity and quantum mechanics contradict one another. A workable theory of “quantum gravity” is needed to unify the two. The best contender for such a theory 2 decades ago was something called N=8 Supergravity, but Superstrings have taken the lead since then.
Part of the problem is that superstring theory isn’t even a “theory” yet. It’s just a conjecture. It’s an outline for the general form that the “real” theory would have to have, but with a lot of crucial blank spaces not filled in. It has not yet been reduced to definitieve equations. There may be some terms that need to be “renormalized” – that is, terms that evaluate to infinity divided by infinity, which have to be replaced by some arbitrary finite number like the mass of an electron. The worry is that if there are any renormalizations, there may very well be an infinite number of them!
AnotherHeretic, perhaps you need to read my message on this topic, you will find it above. I certainly have commented on the post you mention, because I don’t think that statement has any relevance. Randi’s work consists of investigating claims of the paranormal and exposing frauds. To date, he has performed those tasks extremely well. Is he a scientist? That can be argued, since he devises experiments in accordance with the scientific method.
I don’t think people on this board look too closely at the poster before blasting nonsense–what you describe is a variation of an ad hominem attack. What matters is the substance of a post. In some instances, some users do make quite the spectacle of themselves, what with outrageous unsubstantiated claims and flawed reasoning, but as a rule people don’t form their responses based on the position of the poster. Just look at the patience with which creationists are treated repeatedly, for example.
Abe