Marriage is under fire!!

[Kevin Aylward]

andy wrote:

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:46:01 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

I don't accept it as I see no credible scientific evidence that it
actually works. Like, controlled independent double-blind experiments
using 10000's of people, by several independent qualified research
groups.

How would you do a double-blind trial on a therapy like shiatsu?

No idea.

Double-blind means neither the doctor nor the patient know whether the
treatment being given is the correct one or a placebo. But shiatsu is
a hands-on therapy - like a form of massage but based on the
principles of chinese medicine. And to do it properly needs a long
period of training (at least 3 years) where the doctor learns how to
detect imbalances in chi using methods like feeling muscle tone in
various parts of the body (according to the chinese understanding
there's more to it than that, but I'll stick at that for the purpose
of argument), looking at skin colour, tone of voice etc. The
treatment consists of pressure point massage along the meridians,
stretching limbs in particular ways, and similar things.

There's no way that you could do this properly without knowing
whether or not you were doing it properly, if you see what I mean -
it wouldn't be enough to have an untrained person read a chart and do
the massages because they might not do it in the right way, and the
right treatment to apply would vary session by session anyhow.

This is quite different to a drug trial, where nurses can be given
drugs and apparently identical placebos in unmarked containers, and
then it's just a question of the patient swallowing one or the other.

The best you could do for something like this would be either a
single-blind trial where the practitioner deliberately applies an
irrelevant treatment to some of the patients, or a non-blind trial
where you compare with some other kind of treatment like a normal
massage. But if it was done like this, then people might reject the
results just because it's not double-blind.

Maybe. However, it might be convincing enough if enough tests were done.
Hard to say, just what might be considered reasonable in difficult test
situations.

The point being that it's easy to say 'I won't believe it until I've
seen a double-blind trial', without really thinking about what this
would mean for a treatment like shiatsu. Which is an example of the
point I'm arguing
- judging something like that by the standards of scientific
medicine, and expecting to be able to apply the same sort of tests
that are used there isn't necessarily going to be the best way to
find out whether it really works or not. It's not a case of special
pleading - saying it's not fair to apply those tests because they are
too harsh or something, it's because at least in this example, they
are simply not appropriate to the situation.

Performing decent tests is always a problem. It is, in principle,
impossible to avoid some sort of interaction between what is being
measured, and the measurement instrument.

Although tests should stand by on their own, in practice, it *is* more
convincing if the theory behind it appears to be sound. For example, if
we can investigate the components of a system, and verify how they work,
there is more confidence if what we appear to measure is what we can
predict from the components. For example, we can measure electrical
properties of nerves. We can measure electrical properties of say, eye
light cones. We can then make predictions say, of colour response. If
one starts using words like "chi" and stuff like it, the only reasonable
conclusion is that its all made up. There is just way too much to take
on face value. Both the mechanism and the results of the claims just
come across as dubious. Its just one of those gut feels from experience.
Usually, when something is sound, sound reasons for the soundness pop
up.


Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[John Fields]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 14:04:19 +0100, andy
<news4@earthsong.free-online.co.uk> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:02:15 -0500, John Fields wrote:

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 20:24:22 +0100, andy
news4@earthsong.free-online.co.uk> wrote:


That's fair enough - but it's also part of the point that I'm trying to
make - that people trained in science are too ready to say that things
like chinese medicine cannot work, because they do not use the same
methods of proof and argument/theory as science does.

---
I don't think anyone's saying that Chinese medicine doesn't work, I
think what's being said is that the Chinese explanation for its
efficacy is painted with too broad a stoke for the reasons behind its
functioning to be more perfectly understood.

The way I see it is more to do with different ways of seeing and
understanding the world. In science, the methods of proof and argument are
more externalised and codified - you carry out an experiment using
tools of one sort or another, the results are recorded as numbers, graphs,
pictures or whatever, and then checked against theory using more or less
definable procedures - e.g. you make a calculation using standard
mathematical methods and see if the results add up right. So everything
has been brought more outside the human mind into the external world.

---
http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html
---

Whereas in chinese medicine, the theory exists more as a set of intuitive
associations between concepts like 'chi', 'the heart element', 'meridian'
etc, which are learnt through much more hands on, face to face methods of
diagnosis and treatment.

Which means it's hard to test the ideas of chinese medicine
scientifically, or associate those concepts with scientific ones in a
one-to-one way.

---
I think it's fair to say that in Chinese medicine a body of evidence
has been built up over the centuries which associates cause and effect
without having access to the underlying reasons for either.

That is, eons ago somebody found out, say, that if your face turns
green and you start throwing up, pulling your leg will make you feel
better and the green will go away. Back then nobody knew why, they
just knew that it worked. That's to their credit. Nowadays we know
that, say, your face turning green is caused by enviatic poisoning
and that pulling your leg causes humourous enzyme to be released into
your system, making the green go away, making you feel better. We
also know that it's the homourous enzyme that does it because we can
synthesize it, and when we do it has the same effect as pulling your
leg, so we have a better handle on the "why" of it.
---

So no, it's not science in the way it's usually defined in the west, but
that isn't a good reason in itself to write it off as worthless.

---
I don't think anyone said it's worthless.
---

Kind of like the difference between BASIC and assembler.

That is, write a line of .bas and you'll get something to happen, but
if you want to understand _why_ it happens you'll learn how to make it
happen by writing it in .asm

That doesn't seem quite right to me - it's assuming that every concept in
chinese medicine must be translatable into a set of equivalent concepts in
western medicine for it to be real.

---
Not at all. It's real and it works; the difficulty lies in
describing the "why" of it. Meridians and Chi are different from the
palpable reality of nerve bundles and current flow, and in order for a
one-to-one equivalence to exist between Chinese and western medicine,
those differences must be resolved.

The analogy between BASIC and assembler, is I believe, pretty good in
that if you're writing in BASIC you don't need to know an awful lot
about the architecture of the machine you're manipulating, only that
if you type: PRINT "Hello World" you'll see "Hello World" appear on a
monitor, like pulling your leg makes the green go away. Assembler,
(or better yet, machine code) requires a much more in-depth knowledge
of the machine and its architecture and peripherals before "Hello
World" can be made to appear anywhere.
---

But as I was starting to say in my
second reply to you earlier, there are things which the
chinese medical language actually describes better than western medicine,
like patterns of association between emotions, body posture, tone of
voice, skin colour, and the characteristic illnesses associated with
these. Or the way different patterns of thought, action, and emotion
interact and play against each other.

---
That may well be, but in the end the underlying _reasons_ for the
associations and the dissemination of those reasons is what's
important, not just some procedure which, although efficaceous, has
roots which are nebulous and poorly undestood.
---

I think that to make this argument properly, I would have to know a lot
more about both chinese and western medicine, so I'll leave it at that.

---
OK...

--
John Fields

 

[andy]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:16:26 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:10:00 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:
Kevin Aylward wrote:

You say
there isn't, and seem to claim that that's some kind of proven
"scientific" fact. I say you're misinformed.

I said nothing of the sort. I have claimed that ideas such as pixies,
gods, esp, ufos, palm reading, ghosts, life after death is all
baloney. That is, life is *essentially*, how we see it. Walk down
the street and tell me how often god actually speaks to you. This
should give you a clue as to what's *really* going on. Sure, QM and
the like have a few strange attributes, but there is no magic.

what do you think is happening, when someone thinks that what is
happening is that they are talking to God?

Do you *really* want me to answer this?

yes, or I wouldn't have asked it.

--
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[andy]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:58:56 -0500, John Fields wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 14:04:19 +0100, andy
news4@earthsong.free-online.co.uk> wrote:


Whereas in chinese medicine, the theory exists more as a set of intuitive
associations between concepts like 'chi', 'the heart element', 'meridian'
etc, which are learnt through much more hands on, face to face methods of
diagnosis and treatment.

Which means it's hard to test the ideas of chinese medicine
scientifically, or associate those concepts with scientific ones in a
one-to-one way.

---
I think it's fair to say that in Chinese medicine a body of evidence
has been built up over the centuries which associates cause and effect
without having access to the underlying reasons for either.

That is, eons ago somebody found out, say, that if your face turns
green and you start throwing up, pulling your leg will make you feel
better and the green will go away. Back then nobody knew why, they
just knew that it worked. That's to their credit. Nowadays we know
that, say, your face turning green is caused by enviatic poisoning
and that pulling your leg causes humourous enzyme to be released into
your system, making the green go away, making you feel better. We
also know that it's the homourous enzyme that does it because we can
synthesize it, and when we do it has the same effect as pulling your
leg, so we have a better handle on the "why" of it.
---

please show me the scientific evidence for this so-called humourous
enzyme.



--
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remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with

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[John Fields]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:02:36 +0100, andy
<news4@earthsong.free-online.co.uk> wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:58:56 -0500, John Fields wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 14:04:19 +0100, andy
news4@earthsong.free-online.co.uk> wrote:


Whereas in chinese medicine, the theory exists more as a set of intuitive
associations between concepts like 'chi', 'the heart element', 'meridian'
etc, which are learnt through much more hands on, face to face methods of
diagnosis and treatment.

Which means it's hard to test the ideas of chinese medicine
scientifically, or associate those concepts with scientific ones in a
one-to-one way.

---
I think it's fair to say that in Chinese medicine a body of evidence
has been built up over the centuries which associates cause and effect
without having access to the underlying reasons for either.

That is, eons ago somebody found out, say, that if your face turns
green and you start throwing up, pulling your leg will make you feel
better and the green will go away. Back then nobody knew why, they
just knew that it worked. That's to their credit. Nowadays we know
that, say, your face turning green is caused by enviatic poisoning
and that pulling your leg causes humourous enzyme to be released into
your system, making the green go away, making you feel better. We
also know that it's the homourous enzyme that does it because we can
synthesize it, and when we do it has the same effect as pulling your
leg, so we have a better handle on the "why" of it.
---

please show me the scientific evidence for this so-called humourous
enzyme.

---
OK...

Between A.D. 69 and A.D. 88 there were bands of men who used to
perform in public, nude, and pretend they were more or less
flat-chested females by crossing or compressing their thighs over
their genitals. Generally, their performances were limited to roles
which required very little walking. Singing, static poetic oratory,
shadow puppets... that sort of thing.

Then, on October 31st of A.D. 1911, while performing at the penal
colony at Mons Veneris, Richard Johnson (whose stage name was Carey
Hunt) took a spill while on stage, exposing his manhood when he
involuntarily tried to regain his balance after an especially risque
joke. After the initial shock at his affrontery petered out, the
audience broke into laughter because of the dichotomy of his
presentation, and after that he was identified in the press as the
"gaffing lass"

No one at that time knew what caused the laughter, even though they
enjoyed it, but as time went by it was found that performers sometimes
said "that's a gas" or "that was a gas" when they referred to
situations which were particularly fulfilling. Or humorous. Or
anything...

Then, in a stunning breakthrough, it was found that when two atoms of
nitrogen which have combined with one of oxygen get into our blood
stream, we [humans] like it. We find that, behind it, we can see humor
in the most grim situations (like when a dentist is plying his trade
and we're at his mercy...)


So, andy, that's the evolution of the "humourous enzyme", so far...

--
John Fields

 

[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:
Oh, come on, Kevin. You're so invested in protecting your precious
atheism that you've completely lost the point of what I'm trying
to say. I can see outside the boxes of all the religions too.

Apparently not.

How, exactly, is this apparent? How could you know, since you can't
even see outside your own?

You cant possible, you don't have the technical background to examine
science critically.

And may I ask exactly what is your source for this particular factoid?

I say there's more to life and the way things work than we've so far
been able to describe in the terms we've come up with so far.

Indeed, there is much in physics that is currently unknown.

Thank you very much. I'm glad that you've finally admitted that you don't
know everything there is to know.

You say
there isn't, and seem to claim that that's some kind of proven
"scientific" fact. I say you're misinformed.

I said nothing of the sort. I have claimed that ideas such as pixies,
gods, esp, ufos, palm reading, ghosts, life after death is all baloney.

Yes, you claim that, and you claim that it's "scientific."

That is, life is *essentially*, how we see it.

OK, here we differ. Life, as _you_ see it, is essentially how you see it.

Which which doesn't mean that anybody is constrained to see life exactly
the way you do.

But I'm kinda surprised how your're reacting to my needling - yes, I'm
intentionally continuing to badger, because it's so much fun to watch
you react like a cornered rat.

Walk down the street and
tell me how often god actually speaks to you.

Once, continuously.

This should give you a
clue as to what's *really* going on.

And again, I ask, (1) What's "really" going on? and (2) From where do
you get the information that I have no clue about it?

Sure, QM and the like have a few
strange attributes, but there is no magic.

Of course not. And the only "magic" about there being more to reality
than meets the eye is that that's where most of the magick lives these
days.

You're as religiously
dogmatic about "There is no God,

I agree that on this particular point. I am indeed "dogmatic" in my non
acceptance, in any shape or form of an all knowing, everwhere at once,
can do everthing consciouness that created the universe. Its completly
crap and not debatable. Its about the most stupidest idea ever to have
came about.

Well, I did read in "A Course in Miracles" that "The use of miracles as
spectacles to induce belief is a misunderstanding of the principles
involved."

I'm glad to know that you're omniscient, but I'd recommend keeping quiet
about it - it can tick people off. ;-)

And I'm literally wondering how God is reacting to your proclamation of
His nonexistence. Probably bemused. I know I am. Hey - that's it!
God is bemused through me.

and anybody who says so is a
religious fanatic who doesn't have two active neurons to rub
together!"

Not at all. Most are simple misguided as they haven't *really* though
about the issues involved.

OK, guide me.
Lead me through the issues involved.
Explain to me how you know that there's no infinite consciousness that
you simply aren't aware of?

Religion was simply made up as people went
along. Its that simple.

Yeah, and so was science. So what?

as any fundie proclaiming fire and brimstone.

"Religion is a crutch for the simple minded" - Jesse Ventura, WWF and
governor of Minnesota

And I still can't get you out of your brain lock that I'm advocating
some kind of religion. I'm doing practically the opposite. But apparently
you're incapable of noticing that as well.

Thanks,
Rich

PS: Don't forget my questions above, thanks.

 

[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:10:00 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:
Kevin Aylward wrote:

You say
there isn't, and seem to claim that that's some kind of proven
"scientific" fact. I say you're misinformed.

I said nothing of the sort. I have claimed that ideas such as pixies,
gods, esp, ufos, palm reading, ghosts, life after death is all
baloney. That is, life is *essentially*, how we see it. Walk down
the street and tell me how often god actually speaks to you. This
should give you a clue as to what's *really* going on. Sure, QM and
the like have a few strange attributes, but there is no magic.

what do you think is happening, when someone thinks that what is
happening is that they are talking to God?

Do you *really* want me to answer this?

I figured you haven't got an answer for that, so with a few minutes

to read up, you'll just parrot some of your atheist's pamphlet.

Or maybe "They're obviously hallucinating."

Kevin, you're nothing but a tape.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:20:36 GMT, Rich Grise <null@example.net> wrote:

The person can't, or more
accurately, won't, see anything outside their box, by definition.

And here is the crux, Rich. Science is about an objective reality. You
are on about what, as you admit, is only going on inside you and you
cannot share
through language. Getting past this kind of thing is what science was all
about. And it has spread like wildfire through all societies exposed to
it for its manifest success.

I'm not the least bit interested in what you claim about the rest of the
universe on the basis of what is going on in your head, if you cannot
express it in rigorous language.

When "science" takes an interest in the mind/body/emotion connection,

they might start to learn something new.

Think back to something you remember from a long long time ago. Something
that really stands out in your mind. Now, was there strong emotion
associated with the event?

Yes, of course. The release of emotions releases hormones that actually
affect synapse growth.

I don't know if anybody's done any research on that or not, but note that
it's harder to learn something that you don't care about. What's the
difference, and how does it work?

I claim science refuses to look here because it's too scary. They're
afraid to even contemplate what consciousness might be, let alone
studying it! And of course, there's the danger of somebody's pet
theory getting punctured.

How is it that a pile of quantum billiard ball atoms comes to question
its own origins?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

John Fields wrote:

---
I think it's fair to say that in Chinese medicine a body of evidence
has been built up over the centuries which associates cause and effect
without having access to the underlying reasons for either.

That is, eons ago somebody found out, say, that if your face turns
green and you start throwing up, pulling your leg will make you feel
better and the green will go away. Back then nobody knew why, they
just knew that it worked. That's to their credit. Nowadays we know
that, say, your face turning green is caused by enviatic poisoning
and that pulling your leg causes humourous enzyme to be released into
your system,

ROFLMAO!

making the green go away, making you feel better. We
also know that it's the homourous enzyme that does it because we can
synthesize it, and when we do it has the same effect as pulling your
leg, so we have a better handle on the "why" of it.
---

Cheers!
Rich

(notice the "timing" ;-) )

 

[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Performing decent tests is always a problem. It is, in principle,
impossible to avoid some sort of interaction between what is being
measured, and the measurement instrument.

Ever notice that scientists always insist on "double-blind" studies?
That's because they already know that your mind influences reality.

Although tests should stand by on their own, in practice, it *is* more
convincing if the theory behind it appears to be sound. For example, if
we can investigate the components of a system, and verify how they work,
there is more confidence if what we appear to measure is what we can
predict from the components. For example, we can measure electrical
properties of nerves. We can measure electrical properties of say, eye
light cones. We can then make predictions say, of colour response. If
one starts using words like "chi" and stuff like it, the only reasonable
conclusion is that its all made up.

Yeah, you come to this conclusion, and it's entirely baseless.

You're terrified that there might be something that you can't quantize,
clamp in a vise, and measure. So, to you, it's "all made up." You make
this pronouncement as if you have Received Truth or some similar stupidity.

You're just plain full of shit, and it's as simple as that.

There is just way too much to take
on face value. Both the mechanism and the results of the claims just
come across as dubious.

Its just one of those gut feels from experience.

Hah! You yourself have spent the last week saying that there's no such
thing. So talk out of the other side of your mouth for awhile.

You "know" that it's not "true" because of a "gut feeling".

You're not only a fool, you're the worst kind of hypocrite.


Fuck you.

 

[Rich Grise]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

So, its entirely in your imagination nd you want us all to imagine your
same nonsense?

It can't be, since you don't believe that there's any such thing as
imagination.

So what?

Can your idol, Science, answer this question:

How does a pile of quantum billiard-ball atoms come to contemplate its
own existence?


Science does not answer all questions. It takes *arbitrary* axioms as a
*starting* point, and explains everything from those axioms.

Right. Somebody pulls an axiom out of their ass, they design a few
experiments to verify it, and it becomes some kind of Universal Law,
never to be even _questioned_!

What a bunch of crap.

You're a tape.

 

[Rich Grise]

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

Now you are backing off of what I've read from you, so that you make it
sound we
were talking about something else. That's not what you've been saying.
Deal with your earlier words, Rich, and don't retreat this way by trying
to summarize it all so reasonably.

OK, refresh my memory. There are what seems like about a half-dozen sub-
threads going on here, and I've evidently lost track.

Nice tactic, Rich. But it won't work.

Of course there is no evidence, it can't be proved, and it's unscientific.

I've always wondered why some people are so adamant about holding onto
ideas they cannot even defend at all.

That's because they have some kind of emotional investment in being right,
even if they're not. I heard in AA once, "Most people would rather be
right than happy."

They're terrified that without that one thing that's giving them the
illusion of security, they'll die or worse.

I mean, it's bad enough to only be able to manage some weakly made points.
But to be unable to come up with any at all that can be communicated and
to then still have the unmitigated gall and brazen effrontery to act as
though it's an "of course" and "obvious" kind of thing is as terribly sad
as it is gutsy.

Well, I wasn't saying too much of courses and it's obviouses, was I? Some
things are obvious to me, and not to others at all. I've been ragging on
Kevin about how it's "obvious" to him that Chinese Medicine is a load of
crap, and that sort of thing.

Got me, Rich. I'm not terribly concerned what you believe. Especially
those parts you aren't willing to defend with objective statements.

Maybe we should get a restart here. I claim to know stuff that other
people don't. Or, well, it's not that I know more, it's that I've learned
a different way of looking at things. A new perspective, as it were.
But it's a long way from having language that will describe it, because
the things that can get revealed aren't verbal.

I claim we're living at the fractal boundary between, say, existence
and nonexistence. All the interesting stuff happens at the edges, they
say.

And I could go on, about Divine Spirit and Divine Will, and the nature
of stuff, and bottom line, I've finally figured out how to be at peace
with myself and make it so life isn't a constant struggle.

Apparently, there really are people whose life has little or no real
hardship, or they're not presented with seemingly insurmountable problems,
and there might even be people out there who aren't dying of loneliness.

Well, life dealt me a weird hand, and I've lost a lot, but I think I've
finally got a handle on how to cheat.

The only turf I happen to care some about is when folks try and cloak
their insane beliefs as being tantamount to the scientific method,

Oh heavens sakes! It's not _tantamount_ to the scientific method, it
includes the scientific method. There's nothing wrong with the scientific
method, as far as it goes. In fact, I am doing the experiment, testing my
theories as we sit here. My life is my laboratory.

And the only way to put my ideas to any kind of double-blind test is
to find somebody who : (a) understands this crap, and (b) wants to
take on some kind of "vision quest." Not many takers, so far.

Is that unscientific? Apparently so. Like I say, I've got the cure
for overweight, the cure for cancer, the cure for AIDS, and etc.,
and so on. And nobody wants to even look at how it might work. Just
by saying "it involves the release of repressed past emotions," I'm
shuttled to the lunatic fringe, I'm fantasizing, I don't know the
first thing aboutscience, and on and on and on.

so that
others might then imagine their nutty ideas should be thought of with
similar respect.

It's not so much that I'd want to be "respected" for my nutty ideas -
in fact, now that I think about it, that'd be close to the opposite
of the response I'd _like_ to see. Which would be something like "where
can I find more about this?" or something like that.

Can your idol, Science, answer this question:

How does a pile of quantum billiard-ball atoms come to contemplate its
own existence?

Couch the question in clear, quantitative objective language and maybe
I'll see
if there is some source you can go to. What is a "pile?" What is a
"quantum
billiard-ball atom?" What is "contemplate?" What is "own?" What is
"existence?"

Science is very modest, Rich. Most of the real work is in asking the
right
questions. And by the time you have those pretty well worked out, you are
only
about 1 centimeter from the answer. Science works by moving slowly in
these tiny steps.

The really BIG questions, as I reminded you earlier about, are for the
philosophers and religious pundits. Go ask them your vague, big
questions. I'm sure they will have some wonderful answers for you.

Oh, I already have the Big answer. I'd like to see science catch a little

open-mindedness, to see if we _can_ find a way to investigate these things,
because if it turns out that my theory is true, It's got answers to stuff
like free energy, and levitation, and telepathy and other magic shit, and
possibly even FTL communication. I'm not too sure about FTL travel yet, but
I'm sure not ready to exclude anything - there's entirely too much of that
going on already!

Hope This Helps!
Rich

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Kevin Aylward wrote:
Rich Grise wrote:
Oh, come on, Kevin. You're so invested in protecting your precious
atheism that you've completely lost the point of what I'm trying
to say. I can see outside the boxes of all the religions too.

Apparently not.

How, exactly, is this apparent? How could you know, since you can't
even see outside your own?

You cant possible, you don't have the technical background to examine
science critically.

And may I ask exactly what is your source for this particular factoid?

Your own words. You stated that you don't have a scientific education,
e.g. degree in science based subject for starters.

I say there's more to life and the way things work than we've so far
been able to describe in the terms we've come up with so far.

Indeed, there is much in physics that is currently unknown.

Thank you very much. I'm glad that you've finally admitted that you
don't know everything there is to know.

Oh dear...

You say
there isn't, and seem to claim that that's some kind of proven
"scientific" fact. I say you're misinformed.

I said nothing of the sort. I have claimed that ideas such as pixies,
gods, esp, ufos, palm reading, ghosts, life after death is all
baloney.

Yes, you claim that, and you claim that it's "scientific."

Yep. Until you present some credible evidence to the contary, science
says ignore it as if it don't exist, by and large.

That is, life is *essentially*, how we see it.

OK, here we differ. Life, as _you_ see it, is essentially how you see
it.

Nope as *we* all see it. Like, stroll on down to the bus stop, were you
accosted by any headless horsemen?

Which which doesn't mean that anybody is constrained to see life
exactly the way you do.

But I'm kinda surprised how your're reacting to my needling - yes, I'm
intentionally continuing to badger, because it's so much fun to watch
you react like a cornered rat.

Yeah, right on.

Walk down the street and
tell me how often god actually speaks to you.

Once, continuously.

This should give you a
clue as to what's *really* going on.

And again, I ask, (1) What's "really" going on? and (2) From where do
you get the information that I have no clue about it?

Your posts.

and anybody who says so is a
religious fanatic who doesn't have two active neurons to rub
together!"

Not at all. Most are simple misguided as they haven't *really* though
about the issues involved.

OK, guide me.
Lead me through the issues involved.
Explain to me how you know that there's no infinite consciousness that
you simply aren't aware of?

Explain to me how you know that there is no 13 legged, 2 foot high green
gremlin with eyes shinning lazar beams.

Religion was simply made up as people went
along. Its that simple.

Yeah, and so was science. So what?

as any fundie proclaiming fire and brimstone.

"Religion is a crutch for the simple minded" - Jesse Ventura, WWF and
governor of Minnesota

And I still can't get you out of your brain lock that I'm advocating
some kind of religion. I'm doing practically the opposite. But
apparently you're incapable of noticing that as well.

All you ideas appear to be based on religious principle. That is faith.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

andy wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:16:26 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:10:00 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:
Kevin Aylward wrote:

You say
there isn't, and seem to claim that that's some kind of proven
"scientific" fact. I say you're misinformed.

I said nothing of the sort. I have claimed that ideas such as
pixies, gods, esp, ufos, palm reading, ghosts, life after death is
all baloney. That is, life is *essentially*, how we see it. Walk
down the street and tell me how often god actually speaks to you.
This should give you a clue as to what's *really* going on. Sure,
QM and the like have a few strange attributes, but there is no
magic.

what do you think is happening, when someone thinks that what is
happening is that they are talking to God?

Do you *really* want me to answer this?

yes, or I wouldn't have asked it.

They are mistaken.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:20:36 GMT, Rich Grise <null@example.net
wrote:

The person can't, or more
accurately, won't, see anything outside their box, by definition.

And here is the crux, Rich. Science is about an objective reality.
You are on about what, as you admit, is only going on inside you and
you cannot share
through language. Getting past this kind of thing is what science
was all about. And it has spread like wildfire through all
societies exposed to it for its manifest success.

I'm not the least bit interested in what you claim about the rest of
the universe on the basis of what is going on in your head, if you
cannot express it in rigorous language.

When "science" takes an interest in the mind/body/emotion connection,
they might start to learn something new.

Science does. There are many, many people who systematically study such
matters. Look up "Psychology".

Think back to something you remember from a long long time ago.
Something that really stands out in your mind. Now, was there strong
emotion associated with the event?

Yes, of course. The release of emotions releases hormones that
actually affect synapse growth.

I don't know if anybody's done any research on that or not,

That's just your problem. You are arguing in total ignorance. This sort
of stuff is and has been extensively studied.

but note
that it's harder to learn something that you don't care about. What's
the difference, and how does it work?

Or what is hard to learn, you don't care about.

I claim science refuses to look here because it's too scary.

I claim that your an ignorant twat. You are simply clueless on the whole
scientific discipline of "the behavioural sciences". The universities
are full of departments studying this sort of stuff, in excruciating
detail.

They're

afraid to even contemplate what consciousness might be, let alone
studying it! And of course, there's the danger of somebody's pet
theory getting punctured.

Oh dear, oh dear...

http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs.html
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online.html

Look, dude this list is endless.

How is it that a pile of quantum billiard ball atoms comes to question
its own origins?

http://www.imprint.co.uk/hardprob.html

http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/thehardproblem.html


You are simply too ignorant to understand that this sort of stuff is/has
been extensively studied.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Kevin Aylward wrote:


Performing decent tests is always a problem. It is, in principle,
impossible to avoid some sort of interaction between what is being
measured, and the measurement instrument.

Ever notice that scientists always insist on "double-blind" studies?
That's because they already know that your mind influences reality.

Nope. The "mind" doesn't influence anything. The mind is the result of
electro-chemical processes.

Sure, as a matter of convenience, people use the terms "the subject gave
an answer that he thought the questioner wanted", but this is just loose
talk for brevity. "Wanted" is just an electro-chemical *physically
based* algorithm that reports to the VDU conscious its results.

When scientists say the observed influences reality, it is meant in
essentially the same way as a voltmeter loads the system under test. The
effect takes place irrespective of whether there is a real consciousness
noting the results. There is absolutely *nothing* in QM that requires
consciousness, nor has any experiment ever indicated otherwise. Sure,
when QM was first formulated , a scant few had daft notions like this as
they didn't understand what was going on, but essentially, no physicists
takes this view today.

Although tests should stand by on their own, in practice, it *is*
more convincing if the theory behind it appears to be sound. For
example, if we can investigate the components of a system, and
verify how they work, there is more confidence if what we appear to
measure is what we can predict from the components. For example, we
can measure electrical properties of nerves. We can measure
electrical properties of say, eye light cones. We can then make
predictions say, of colour response. If one starts using words like
"chi" and stuff like it, the only reasonable conclusion is that its
all made up.

Yeah, you come to this conclusion, and it's entirely baseless.

Nonsense. Its based on prior knowledge that waffally explanations are
waffle.

You're terrified that there might be something that you can't
quantize, clamp in a vise, and measure.

Nonsense. As I have noted already, I used to have some daft ideas like
you. I've moved on.

So, to you, it's "all made
up." You make this pronouncement as if you have Received Truth or
some similar stupidity.

You're just plain full of shit, and it's as simple as that.

Your the one that makes the vacuous, unsupported claims.

There is just way too much to take
on face value. Both the mechanism and the results of the claims just
come across as dubious.


Its just one of those gut feels from experience.

Hah! You yourself have spent the last week saying that there's no such
thing. So talk out of the other side of your mouth for awhile.

Not at all. "Gut feel" is the emotion that results when the brains
calculation engine has processed prior knowledge and reports the
summary. If you would like, I could list the inputs that lead to this
calculation. This is in contrast to your "gut feel" which is entirely
baseless. It is baseless because you don't have the slightest background
knowledge on with to make a gut feel on. You don't know what problems
were solved with special relativity, you don't know just why qm was
introduced, you don't know why the Bohr model was wrong, you don't know
why statistical thermodynamics is correct. You simply don't have the
information with which you can produce an accurate "gut feel".

You "know" that it's not "true" because of a "gut feeling".

I have the background to understand why such claims are dubious. You
dont.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Kevin Aylward wrote:
So, its entirely in your imagination nd you want us all to imagine
your same nonsense?

It can't be, since you don't believe that there's any such thing as
imagination.

I said nothing of the sort.

So what?

Can your idol, Science, answer this question:

How does a pile of quantum billiard-ball atoms come to contemplate
its own existence?


Science does not answer all questions. It takes *arbitrary* axioms
as a *starting* point, and explains everything from those axioms.

Right. Somebody pulls an axiom out of their ass, they design a few
experiments to verify it, and it becomes some kind of Universal Law,
never to be even _questioned_!

Simple clueless.

Physics axioms are *back* derived based on extensive observation. They
are not simply invented from nowhere. It took around 60 years for the
axiom of lights invariance to be deduced. Secondly, axioms are tested in
millions of experiments by 10000's of people. As has already been noted,
its a dream of just about any scientist to experimentally prove a
claimed accepted axiom is false. It would bring them instant world wide
fame. Like, hey dude, I'm cleverer than Einstein, I proved him wrong
sort of thing.

Physics is *always* being questioned. However, the idea that some
uneducated country bumpkin will turn physics around is simply ludicrous.
It takes *experts* to know where they may be flaws in existing
knowledge. Like, you think that you would have been able to deduce that
black holes were misunderstood under classical relativity, and that they
actually evaporate when QM is included, i.e. Hawking Radiation?

Science is simply too intertwined and too successful for naive little
boys like you to even glimpse of. You have absolutely zero chance of
contributing anything to a science discussion. Nothing you can say has
not been said before. The reason, again, is that you don't have the
background to know what actually works and why it *might* fail.

What a bunch of crap.

Again, all you do is show your complete and utter ignorance of science.
You are a classic case of
http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html. That is, you simply
don't have the background to understand what you don't know.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Rich Grise wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

Maybe we should get a restart here. I claim to know stuff that other
people don't. Or, well, it's not that I know more, it's that I've
learned a different way of looking at things. A new perspective, as
it were. But it's a long way from having language that will describe
it, because the things that can get revealed aren't verbal.

I claim we're living at the fractal boundary between, say, existence
and nonexistence. All the interesting stuff happens at the edges, they
say.

Meaningless waffle.

And I could go on, about Divine Spirit and Divine Will, and the nature
of stuff,

You have no idea whatsoever about the "nature" of stuff. As already has
been noted, you have no scientific training. Sure, science don't know
all, but the world is full of stuff like radios, computers, cameras,
rockets etc. This list is truly endless, and all works and is understood
by conventional science. What part of "accepted science actually works"
do you have trouble with?

and bottom line, I've finally figured out how to be at peace
with myself and make it so life isn't a constant struggle.

You may be at peace with yourself, but its clearly based on erroneous
beliefs.

Apparently, there really are people whose life has little or no real
hardship, or they're not presented with seemingly insurmountable
problems, and there might even be people out there who aren't dying
of loneliness.

Yep. That's what a few million will do for you.

Well, life dealt me a weird hand, and I've lost a lot, but I think
I've finally got a handle on how to cheat.

The only turf I happen to care some about is when folks try and cloak
their insane beliefs as being tantamount to the scientific method,

Oh heavens sakes! It's not _tantamount_ to the scientific method, it
includes the scientific method. There's nothing wrong with the
scientific method, as far as it goes. In fact, I am doing the
experiment, testing my theories as we sit here. My life is my
laboratory.

And the only way to put my ideas to any kind of double-blind test is
to find somebody who : (a) understands this crap, and (b) wants to
take on some kind of "vision quest." Not many takers, so far.

Is that unscientific? Apparently so. Like I say, I've got the cure
for overweight, the cure for cancer, the cure for AIDS, and etc.,
and so on. And nobody wants to even look at how it might work. Just
by saying "it involves the release of repressed past emotions,"

This is not new. People have been saying this same shit for many years.
Its still just as daft as it was then.

I'm
shuttled to the lunatic fringe, I'm fantasizing, I don't know the
first thing aboutscience, and on and on and on.

You dont. Live with it, or go and learn something.

Science is very modest, Rich. Most of the real work is in asking the
right
questions. And by the time you have those pretty well worked out,
you are only
about 1 centimeter from the answer. Science works by moving slowly
in these tiny steps.

The really BIG questions, as I reminded you earlier about, are for
the philosophers and religious pundits. Go ask them your vague, big
questions. I'm sure they will have some wonderful answers for you.

Oh, I already have the Big answer.

Oh...

I'd like to see science catch a
little open-mindedness, to see if we _can_ find a way to investigate
these things, because if it turns out that my theory is true, It's
got answers to stuff like free energy, and levitation, and telepathy
and other magic shit

There is a well accepted answer to this by science. None of this is
true.

and possibly even FTL communication.
I'm not
too sure about FTL travel yet, but I'm sure not ready to exclude
anything - there's entirely too much of that going on already!

You have no idea just what your dealing with. Just what do you propose
is the background to lights invariant speed in vacuum, far from gravity?

Secondly, General Relativity allows as fast a speed of light as one
likes, in principle. Science is no way closed minded. Science fact is
way stranger than science fiction. We actually dream up fiction, many
results of Science were completely unexpected.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 01:43:37 GMT, Rich Grise <null@example.net> wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

Now you are backing off of what I've read from you, so that you make it
sound we
were talking about something else. That's not what you've been saying.
Deal with your earlier words, Rich, and don't retreat this way by trying
to summarize it all so reasonably.

OK, refresh my memory. There are what seems like about a half-dozen sub-
threads going on here, and I've evidently lost track.

You know yourself better than I, Rich. I'd rather not have to go digging back
through and do the work, here. Suffice it that I was not talking about
acupuncture as you somehow seemed to imagine. If you want, go back through the
thread and try and justify your decision to discuss 'acupuncturists' when I had
told you that you need to "do your work."

Frankly, I have no idea why you did or what in the heck it had to do with what
I'd said to you. That's the place where *you* lost track -- not me. Go work
out your own mental problems on this -- you are beyond my helping you in this
regard.

Nice tactic, Rich. But it won't work.

Of course there is no evidence, it can't be proved, and it's unscientific.

I've always wondered why some people are so adamant about holding onto
ideas they cannot even defend at all.

That's because they have some kind of emotional investment in being right,
even if they're not. I heard in AA once, "Most people would rather be
right than happy."

Okay. But I chalk it up to pure and simple mental laziness. It takes WORK (and
I mean LOTS OF WORK) to become sufficiently and comprehensively informed about a
subject so that one's opinion is an educated one. That, of course, still
doesn't make it right. But at least it can be an educated wrong opinion, at a
minimum. And this means that it can be defended.

I think anyone can pretty easily look into their understanding deeply enough to
see whether or not they can readily cite a specific, supporting case for their
"beliefs," or not. If rummaging around in their memories leaves them short on
fact, it should be clear to them that they have some "more work to do."

It is a matter of honesty and respect for others to try and avoid characterizing
claims as being far more substantial than they can be immediately defended as.
It takes almost no trouble at all for any sane person with a spec of respect for
the minds of others around them to take a small look into themselves before
spouting "absolutes" to see whether or not they can well defend them.

It is the near-equivalent to bald and meanspirited lying to say something with
the intent to make it sound certain, when speaking to others, when you know you
cannot defend it at all. Some might excuse it as just being lazy, but I
consider it more offensive than that.

They're terrified that without that one thing that's giving them the
illusion of security, they'll die or worse.

I cannot understand that reaction. But then, I've lived hand-to-mouth as very
poor as a child after my dad died when I was 7, worked as a picker in the
agriculture fields to make enough money to eat, begged for food from stores, and
lived on little other than dried bread and milk. I suppose that lack of
security in life is one thing I've learned to accommodate. (I have told my
employers on a variety of occasions that, should times get tough and they need
to let someone go, that I volunteer because I can usually handle it better than
most.)

In any case, Rich, reaching for "*anything*, no matter what" isn't rational.
There may seem to be security in a cave, for example, but then there is always
the vicious bear inside, too. Rational thinking is almost always the better
bet.

I mean, it's bad enough to only be able to manage some weakly made points.
But to be unable to come up with any at all that can be communicated and
to then still have the unmitigated gall and brazen effrontery to act as
though it's an "of course" and "obvious" kind of thing is as terribly sad
as it is gutsy.

Well, I wasn't saying too much of courses and it's obviouses, was I? Some
things are obvious to me, and not to others at all. I've been ragging on
Kevin about how it's "obvious" to him that Chinese Medicine is a load of
crap, and that sort of thing.

I've been trying to make it clear to you (and anyone else reading) that it's not
the conclusions we reach, so much as the rigorous methods we apply in reaching
them, that counts over the long term. Science thinking is a refinement of
everyday thinking. That doesn't mean it inevitably leads to ultimate truths --
it doesn't -- but it does lead us towards facts and it is better than anything
else I've seen at destroying bad ideas and wishful fantasies. If you have any
value for your own credulity, you'll find it a faithful and valuable guide.

Got me, Rich. I'm not terribly concerned what you believe. Especially
those parts you aren't willing to defend with objective statements.

Maybe we should get a restart here. I claim to know stuff that other
people don't. Or, well, it's not that I know more, it's that I've learned
a different way of looking at things. A new perspective, as it were.
But it's a long way from having language that will describe it, because
the things that can get revealed aren't verbal.

Okay. So let's start over, then, and I'll ignore all that has been written by
you earlier. So, your experiences are highly subjective. Nothing wrong with
that, taken alone and by itself. It's when you make more of it than this that
problems arise.

In science thinking, we do also take certain of our sensory experiences as a
special kind of psychic experience -- a given, so to speak -- formed mentally
and arbitrarily by our minds (which are, themselves, refined by evolution to
make something meaningful to survival out of those senses) into bodies or
objects we "sense." These complexes of sensation are also combined with other
sense impressions we receive from others around us as further signs of agreement
about these same objects. These primary sensory objects owe their meaning and
justification on the totality of the sense impressions we associate with them.

We then assign some abstract significance to them that is largely independent of
the sense impressions that fed them. It's this abstract significance we mean
when we say "reality" or "existence." This is justified because we are able to
orient ourselves amidst myriad sensory stimulation, using them. It's not
guaranteed that these aren't the result of illusion or hallucination, of course,
and they are justified only so far as they are connected again with the sensory
impressions. But they do have a strong and less alterable meaning in our minds
than any one individual sense impression by itself.

This is the basic nouns we deal in, in a sense. The primary objects in our mind
that are directly associated with complex (and imperfect) organic senses.
Theories in science then describe the indirect relations between these primary
concepts, which are themselves the combined result of our repeated sensory
experiences -- those, at least, that we find 'comprehensible.'

One of the things that demarks refined science thinking from everyday thinking
about these ideas is the use of a minimum of primary concepts (struggling to
reduce an unnecessarily large set of assumptions, in other words) and *also* a
minimum of relationships needed out of which to fabricate an explanation of the
shared world picture we can communicate to each other.

To make this more pointed, science thinking is about Unity! Like that high arch
of connected stone I discussed earlier, versus the low "farm walls" built ad-hoc
and helter-skelter from random stones extracted from the soil and without any
long-reaching connection between different sections of it. It is exactly
through a pursuit of having a paucity of logical elements and relationships that
this unity is achieved.

This is also why there are those things that are "science fact" and those things
which are not. If your concept can be fitted well into the web of highly
interconnected relationships based on scarce primary objects and relationships
and can broaden the reach of the totality, then perhaps it can be called a part
of science. If it just jumps out of nowhere and has no connection to the
existing fabric of science, then it's not science.

All that is necessary really is the statement of a set of rules. And science
has this. I also believe I enumerated the central gist of them, earlier.
Without this set, knowledge in some desired sense is impossible. Like the rules
of a good game, the rules themselves may be arbitrary, but it is their rigidity
alone which makes the game possible, at all.

In the end, science fact derives from a surprisingly small number of central
assumptions and rules. Cobbling up your personal discoveries is nice, Rich, but
for one thing it's not science and for another, unless you are far more
brilliant than anyone I've had chance to read about, you aren't likely to be
able to replace the incredible artifice of interlocking facts that is today's
science. You can either play the game by the rules and add your piece to the
puzzle of science or you can take your marbles somewhere else and try and
fabricate your own system. But you will have a lot of work ahead of you if you
imagine you are going to get any scientists to drop work on the system that has
worked so well and leave the highly functioning machine that has been
constructed over time. Why should they? They have something already that is
fantastically successful.

I claim we're living at the fractal boundary between, say, existence
and nonexistence. All the interesting stuff happens at the edges, they
say.

So? That means nothing to me, as stated.

And I could go on, about Divine Spirit and Divine Will, and the nature
of stuff, and bottom line, I've finally figured out how to be at peace
with myself and make it so life isn't a constant struggle.

That's nice.

Apparently, there really are people whose life has little or no real
hardship, or they're not presented with seemingly insurmountable problems,
and there might even be people out there who aren't dying of loneliness.

Well, Rich, I've had an early life of long, hard experiences -- living in the
fields, working in the fields, struggling day to day for life itself, without
access to health care. I've had the hardship part, in spades. Regarding the
loneliness part, I don't have that problem now.

Well, life dealt me a weird hand, and I've lost a lot, but I think I've
finally got a handle on how to cheat.

Okay. Whatever works for you, Rich.

The only turf I happen to care some about is when folks try and cloak
their insane beliefs as being tantamount to the scientific method,

Oh heavens sakes! It's not _tantamount_ to the scientific method, it
includes the scientific method. There's nothing wrong with the scientific
method, as far as it goes. In fact, I am doing the experiment, testing my
theories as we sit here. My life is my laboratory.

I know. Everyone with a bizarre claim says they "include" the scientific method
and "do it one better." I don't believe it.

And the only way to put my ideas to any kind of double-blind test is
to find somebody who : (a) understands this crap, and (b) wants to
take on some kind of "vision quest." Not many takers, so far.

No, I think you need to have the imagination to come up with it. And it does
NOT require double-blind tests in order to do science. It's a "nice to have,"
but not a requirement. Plenty of good science gets done without it.

Is that unscientific? Apparently so. Like I say, I've got the cure
for overweight, the cure for cancer, the cure for AIDS, and etc.,
and so on. And nobody wants to even look at how it might work. Just
by saying "it involves the release of repressed past emotions," I'm
shuttled to the lunatic fringe, I'm fantasizing, I don't know the
first thing aboutscience, and on and on and on.

Well, I can't fix your problems about your lack of knowledge. Only you can do
anything about that. I'd just suggest to you that there is a long road of work
ahead and that you'd better get started on it. Nothing like this comes in quick
fixes -- it's all the result of sweat equity.

But science works in answering the small questions, one at a time. You are
looking for the big answers. For that, you will probably have to look
elsewhere.

Jon

 

[andy]

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 07:22:48 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:

andy wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:16:26 +0000, Kevin Aylward wrote:


what do you think is happening, when someone thinks that what is
happening is that they are talking to God?

Do you *really* want me to answer this?

yes, or I wouldn't have asked it.

They are mistaken.

That's not the question I was asking, but never mind.

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