Re: Evolution of the supernatural


MagentaStudios wrote:
> > Well, actually, I was referring to learning about the "supernatural"
> > events that some Christians might believe in, I'm eager to hear how
> > people reconcile beliefs in the supernatural with the ever-progressing
> > flow of ideas science is producing.
>
> That is easy to reconcile, by the simple fact that there is an
> ever-progressing flow of ideas. If that flow were to *stop*,
> then it would make sense to believe there is nothing more to come.





>
> I have always wondered how, in light of the ever-progressing
> flow of ideas of science, how anyone could be a skeptic. That position
> pretty much requires believing that right now we know everything that
> there is to know about the universe, which is a rather foolish thought.
>

I'm very confused here, trying to see what you're saying here from an
epistemological standpoint. This "flow" as I called it has not only
introduced us to new ideas, which I think you agree with, it has also
pretty much invalidated others, which I'm not sure what your take on
that would be.
Example: Is it okay to say at this point that Apollo's chariot isn't
what causes the Sun to go across the sky? How about the theory of
humours to explain illness? can we say that science has "gotten rid" of
black bile as a viable explanation? Maybe as a sometimes useful
metaphor (the HBO show "Deadwood" made an excellent use of this phrase
not too long ago), but are you telling me that being a skeptic is wrong
in that he/she never explains anything as being "a better overall
explanation of the available facts?"

Some things, though, like using demons to explain various illnesses, I
see that as very damaging in the long run, and thank God (!) for
science for making us see there's something a lot more treatable going
on than fighting the powers of another world. In short, the "flow" is
"stopped" on the mental illness/demon connection. Defining and
discovering the workings of mental activity, let alone mental illness,
is difficult enough without someone saying, "Hey, you skeptic with your
neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, why have you just ignored the
possibility that we need a priest here?"






>
>
>
> > I've spent many years looking for that something I "don't understand",
> > i.e. PSI-related things, and I've seen what science has done to things
> > like ESP and telekenisis--namely, show how 1.) gullible people are, 2.)
> > confused about things like statistics people can be, and 3.) strongly
> > our subjective feelings about things colors--nay, overrides--any
> > scientific conclusions that have been tested and re-tested hundreds of
> > times.
>
> Ah- there is your bias again.
> You are claiming that "science has done to things like ESP and
> telekinesis",
> as if the concepts themselves have in any way been invalidated.
>

As far as I've been able to tell, they mostly have, again unless you
can show me any evidence they exist, just as the humours example above.
Instead of just taking ideas at face value, find out 1.) where these
ideas come from, 2.) find out what it is that makes people still
believe these ideas, and 3.) test, test, test.
Most PSI phenomena I've encountered are easily explained using existing
psychological/neurological methods, and the ideas themselves were born
in a time when there was no such thing as psychology or neuroscience.
Okay, you might say, just because science explains why this and this
happens doesn't mean there's something else that current science can't
explain, and you would be right. In the PSI arena, I would ask for an
example.









> Have you ever heard of snake oil salesmen? It's growing even greater
> now it
> seems, con men claiming some herb or other tonic will cure any possible
> ailment.
> Does disproving a particular medical scam disprove the entire concept
> of pharmaceutical?

No. I work in the pharmaceutical industry actually, and the big
difference here is that the people selling you the drugs can go into
excruciating detail what their drugs are doing, the con man cannot.
There is no lab for con men.
I should say, the drug companies have the ability to tell you what
their drug is doing, there's always the possibility they will keep
something quiet like the Merck case, what a mess for science, when love
of profit ruins the people's trust in an otherwise solid method (at
least as solid I know of right now, I'm still looking...)



> Of course not- yet you think that because some people have faked PSI,
> that disproves all of PSI.
>
> I cannot think of a single thing of value that exists in the world that
> someone has not tried to fake for profit.
>
> The existance of fakes does not invalidate an entire field of study.
>
> BTW- that is the same flawed logic Creationists use when they
> constantly bring up the Piltdown man.
>

the very existence of the Piltdown thing is that science works in the
long run, no?



>
>
>
> > Deja Vu would be a good example here, I can't tell you how many people
> > have told me that they were sure there was something "paranormal" going
> > on, because they knew they had experienced this or that before...and
> > when I mentioned the possibility that there are multiple inputs to the
> > hippocampus and one input got there a micro-second before the other
> > thus giving the *impression* that--"whoa, wait a minute you
> > close-minded skeptic," they say, "you thing everything can be
> > understood?" I never get to mention the numerous other possiblities,
> > because your average person who deeply believes in PSI phenemenon
> > doesn't have too much working knowledge of neuroanatomy, present
> > company possibly excluded of course, my ire is for the masses I've met
> > and read in my albeit short life...
>
> Ah- there is your bias again.
> Concept X must be false because some yokels out there have confused it
> with an everyday occurrence!
>

No, concept X is false because X is being proposed as having properties
A and B when in actuality only A is defensible, B is assumed and
proved to be wrong.
The point here is that whenever someone makes a claim that goes against
all current scientific knolwedge (as incomplete as it admittedly is)
there has to be a darn good reason to take the claim at face value,
especially when the claim is in regards to a subjective state.
The more we learn of the brain, the more anyone learns about it, the
more it becomes more and more apparant that you can't trust what the
hell the brain tells you a lot of the time, because it's goal is not to
tell you the truth, it's goal is to help you survive. There are so many
incredibly interesting studies done that drive this point home, one
cannot help be a skeptic when it comes to what you think you sometimes
perceive.
So with Deja Vu, if someone makes a claim of it's paranormal status and
I can demonstrate numerous ways that the current knowledge of brain
function disputes that paranormal-ness of it, yeah, I'm going to need a
good reason to convince me otherwise.
It's just too bad that a lot of things like Deja Vu are hard to test,
which is why they stay around so long connected to the old metaphors
instead of the new ones that tell a much more complete story about how
memories are created and re-created in the brain.





>
>
>
>
>
> > which leads me to my question of you earlier, forgive the initial
> > mocking, and forgive my not going into more detail of how much I've
> > been investigating this...but the request still stands, please cite any
> > studies anywhere that have given semi-conclusive evidence that such
> > phenomena exist.
>
> Ah- there is your bias again.
> The point is NOT that there has been semi-conclusive evidence.
> The point is that many valid scientific tests have been INCONCLUSIVE.
>
> No one said the paranormal has been proven to be scientific truth,
> just that it is a valid field of study which should not be shoved
> into a trash heap by assuming that it is all a bunch of fakers and
> yokels.
>
> BTW- when a "Supernatural" phenomena is proven to exist,
> it is then classified as a natural phenomena.

I'm not asking Christians to "prove" anything, I'm asking them what
they think it is and if they have any examples. My point here is that I
have a lot of interest in how the brain represents the world, and that
has led me to learn a lot about "magical" thinking, and I want to know
if anyone who believes in supernatural events are thinking in ways
different from those I'm already familiar with.


>
> "Magic" is stuff that people don't understand.
> As soon as they understand it, it's "science".
> Not every scientific exploration results in dismissing
> something as the currently known-
> sometimes it results in a new scientific discovery.
>
> I will give you an example- Mesmerization.
> This was believed to be nothing but lies and cons,
> but now we know it by another name- Hypnosis,
> and it has become just another tool of the psychiatric profession.
>

A good example, because I've said for years now since studying
consciousness that I am hardly ever automatically skeptical of things
that involve the brains' relation to the body--how can one be, when it
is an area so ill-understood? Now the relation of the brain to the
outside world, there's a little more understanding there, I think, more
"dogma" to overturn and therefore a larger demand of evidence...



>
> > I've never in my life, by the way, mocked anything I didn't understand,
> > I've always been in awe of that I don't understand. I mock those things
> > that other people don't want to understand.
>
> I can see things in your tone that show otherwise.
> You have closed the door on some concepts simply because you have been
> led astray on them.
>
> The point is large numbers of people- not all of them idiots-
> have experienced things beyond simplistic explanations.

If you're talking about internal subjective states, there's nothing
simplistic about them, just read any recent work on the brain and
consciousness and qualia and the binding problem and yada yada yada
it's a lot of stuff to sort through.
I'm not calling anyone an idiot (right now), I'm saying that just
because someone has a subjective experience doesn't mean that
experience means what they think it means.
As a mundane example, look into blindsight, an example where the person
having the experience cannot tell the truth of his/her experience, only
an outsider can tell the "whole" story.



>
> That does NOT mean their claims are automatically true.
> It means their claims should not be automatically dismissed.

That depends...


sltorhop

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