godnotgod
Thou art That
Neither term reflects current scientific knowledge, nor ancient mystical knowledge. These are old outdated terms and should be discarded.
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Demystifying Quantum Physics
- Thread starter Mr Spinkles
- Start date
Neither term reflects current scientific knowledge, nor ancient mystical knowledge. These are old outdated terms and should be discarded.
Mr Spinkles
Mr
So are all the physicists who disagree with him. So is Richard Feynman, but when you found out he doubted ESP you smeared him with childish insults. Indeed, I'm a bona fide physicist myself, although I don't claim you should accept whatever I say on that basis.godnotgod said:
godnotgod
Thou art That
You're not getting it: I am not saying you should accept whatever Goswami says on the basis of his credentials, but neither should you be sceptical. You should just go see what the evidence is. But because he does have good credentials, it is reasonable to assume that he is not some nutjob working on stolen cadavers in his basement. Having said that, there is no reason to doubt that such experiments exist as legitimate ones, whether you or I agree with the outcome or not. That is, as I said earlier, not the issue. But you are implying that Goswami is just 'some guy' who says they exist and why should you believe him, as if he has no valid standing equal to any other scientist. IOW, because you already have preconceive notions about reality, you see him as 'off', and mentally categorize him with others who are not mainstream and in agreement with your paradigm. If he were truly some charlatan selling snake oil, don't you think he would try to hide the fact that there are corroborating experiments? A charlatan would try to deceive you. Goswami volunteered the references. That indicates to me that what he says is valid about them because he wants others to know about them.
If you had performed your own experiments and had come up with information that was new, based on the fact that you do have credentials, I would not doubt you, but I would be interested in examining the details of the experiment. However, in Goswami's case, he provided a synopsis of the experiment, which is good enough for me. I have no reason to doubt that his procedures were impeccably carried out. But again, I have no access to peer reviewed documents, as you do. And I would expect you to be more inclined to want to see them, as you are a sceptic. I already am in agreement with Goswami in general, because what he is saying synchs with what I see as true.
I am sure that if you really wanted to see such documents, you could readily access them. I would'nt know where to start, nor do I see that doing so is necessary in terms of the current discussion.
I was not poking fun at Feynman because of ESP; I was doing so because he has an aggressive, heavy-handed approach, like a drill sargent.
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Do you know of any physicist that have found the problems with Goswami's experiments? And the fact that they have been reproduced independently by multiple labs? And if so, was Goswami given a chance to respond to any and all objections?
I know with us non-scientists on RF I have seen cases where twenty years of a parapsychologist's work can be dismissed with a negative entry on the subject in the Skeptic's Dictionary.
As I re-state; in these fields you can obfuscate forever if you emotionally really don't want to let go of something you hold sacred. I think the real issue is emotional attachments and not scientific rigor.
From about 1850-1950 narrow science slapped down a lot of narrow religiosity. I see the tide now turning to broad science/religion being on the ascent. Just as the creationists slowly lost the war to evolutionists, narrow physicalism will slowly lose out (just my opinion after years of interest in parapsychology).
I see. What were the issues you found with Goswami's experiments?
Mr Spinkles
Mr
Before I respond to you guys about Goswami's experiments, let me explain something to you about the practice of science in the modern age, in very general terms. I expect you will
Physics is a gigantic discipline. Each year in the U.S., over 1,000 PhDs are awarded just in physics. We have around 3,000 4-year universities. There are at least around ~100,000 published peer-reviewed physics articles out there, and this number doubles every 20 years. One of the top physics journals publishes 4,000 articles per year.
What's the take-home message? When things get big, quality-control becomes an issue. Think of how vast the internet is. You don't just believe anything you find on any internet website, right? You don't read every single website about the topic you are interested in, do you? Of course not. In fact you can't come to conclusions this way, no matter how open-minded you try to be, because many websites directly contradict each other and it comes down to one person's word vs. another's. So you have to use some kind of reasonable filter. You have to make critical judgments about which sources are likely to give you the most reliable information. This does not negate the scientific spirit as long as (1) your filters are based on the evidence, (2) you are willing to test them, (3) you are willing to change them when new evidence calls for it. In other words, I can treat a judgment like "I don't think Fox News is as trustworthy as the Financial Times" as a hypothesis, which I base on the record of evidence; but in the back of my mind I am always open to the possibility that new evidence may come along that would call for a modification of the hypothesis.
Physics is not fundamentally different. In the modern age, it is a gigantic field. Supposing that only 0.1 percent of it is garbage, that's still a significant amount of garbage. In other words, if you have a bad idea, you can probably find someone out there with a physics PhD who supports it.
Let me tell you about my own experience. My own field of research is not nearly as plagued by contradictions and non-reproducibility as parapsychology. But still, I am buried in a mountain of publications. I have to use critical thinking and discrimination in selecting which papers I am going to read extra carefully. I find that some groups are a little more honest about their own shortcomings, a little more clear and simple in the way they present their data, a little more to-the-point and straightforward. Those are the groups I pay extra special attention to. Other groups are a little too obsessed with proving their own little pet theory, a little too eager to jump to conclusions, a little less clear about their methods, etc. Those are the groups whose papers I tend to skim. Sometimes, someone has been proven wrong but he just keeps soldiering on, immune to criticism and unwilling to try a different approach that others will find more persuasive. Those people, especially, I tend to dismiss entirely without reading. If I can't read everyone, it may as well be them. (But just in case, I occasionally read such people anyway.)
Is this unfair of me? Is this closed-minded of me? First: it's not just me, it's pretty much everyone I know. Second: no on both counts. This is how science works. It's competitive. It's critical. Just as you need two feet to walk, science needs both openness/creativity AND criticism/rejection in order to move forward.
I tried the so-open-minded-your-brain-falls-out thing my first year or two of grad school and it simply didn't work in the lab. I would grab just any paper published by any authors in any journal, and use what they wrote in their Methods section to make my own experiments work. Hey, this is a published article, I thought, authored by a bona fide PHYSICIST! It must be correct, right?
Guess what happened? Sometimes my experiments didn't work, for no apparent reason. How frustrating. Now I know better. If I want to do an experiment I base my methods on the BEST paper I can find first--ideally something published in Nature or Science, by authors with a great reputation, and a lot of citations. That's the FIRST place I look. Only if that doesn't work will I invest time in different experimental methods published in more obscure journals. And guess what? My experiments work more often now.
By the way, I don't know if either of you admire Noam Chomsky, but I am essentially repeating his view of the scientific way of discerning the worthiness of a source. They key, of course, is to always be open to the possibility that new evidence will show you are wrong, maybe a source you tended to dismiss was better than originally thought.
And that is exactly what I am doing here, I am being open to this possibility by asking you to please show me Goswami's studies, so I can scrutinize them myself.
Physics is a gigantic discipline. Each year in the U.S., over 1,000 PhDs are awarded just in physics. We have around 3,000 4-year universities. There are at least around ~100,000 published peer-reviewed physics articles out there, and this number doubles every 20 years. One of the top physics journals publishes 4,000 articles per year.
What's the take-home message? When things get big, quality-control becomes an issue. Think of how vast the internet is. You don't just believe anything you find on any internet website, right? You don't read every single website about the topic you are interested in, do you? Of course not. In fact you can't come to conclusions this way, no matter how open-minded you try to be, because many websites directly contradict each other and it comes down to one person's word vs. another's. So you have to use some kind of reasonable filter. You have to make critical judgments about which sources are likely to give you the most reliable information. This does not negate the scientific spirit as long as (1) your filters are based on the evidence, (2) you are willing to test them, (3) you are willing to change them when new evidence calls for it. In other words, I can treat a judgment like "I don't think Fox News is as trustworthy as the Financial Times" as a hypothesis, which I base on the record of evidence; but in the back of my mind I am always open to the possibility that new evidence may come along that would call for a modification of the hypothesis.
Physics is not fundamentally different. In the modern age, it is a gigantic field. Supposing that only 0.1 percent of it is garbage, that's still a significant amount of garbage. In other words, if you have a bad idea, you can probably find someone out there with a physics PhD who supports it.
Let me tell you about my own experience. My own field of research is not nearly as plagued by contradictions and non-reproducibility as parapsychology. But still, I am buried in a mountain of publications. I have to use critical thinking and discrimination in selecting which papers I am going to read extra carefully. I find that some groups are a little more honest about their own shortcomings, a little more clear and simple in the way they present their data, a little more to-the-point and straightforward. Those are the groups I pay extra special attention to. Other groups are a little too obsessed with proving their own little pet theory, a little too eager to jump to conclusions, a little less clear about their methods, etc. Those are the groups whose papers I tend to skim. Sometimes, someone has been proven wrong but he just keeps soldiering on, immune to criticism and unwilling to try a different approach that others will find more persuasive. Those people, especially, I tend to dismiss entirely without reading. If I can't read everyone, it may as well be them. (But just in case, I occasionally read such people anyway.)
Is this unfair of me? Is this closed-minded of me? First: it's not just me, it's pretty much everyone I know. Second: no on both counts. This is how science works. It's competitive. It's critical. Just as you need two feet to walk, science needs both openness/creativity AND criticism/rejection in order to move forward.
I tried the so-open-minded-your-brain-falls-out thing my first year or two of grad school and it simply didn't work in the lab. I would grab just any paper published by any authors in any journal, and use what they wrote in their Methods section to make my own experiments work. Hey, this is a published article, I thought, authored by a bona fide PHYSICIST! It must be correct, right?
Guess what happened? Sometimes my experiments didn't work, for no apparent reason. How frustrating. Now I know better. If I want to do an experiment I base my methods on the BEST paper I can find first--ideally something published in Nature or Science, by authors with a great reputation, and a lot of citations. That's the FIRST place I look. Only if that doesn't work will I invest time in different experimental methods published in more obscure journals. And guess what? My experiments work more often now.
By the way, I don't know if either of you admire Noam Chomsky, but I am essentially repeating his view of the scientific way of discerning the worthiness of a source. They key, of course, is to always be open to the possibility that new evidence will show you are wrong, maybe a source you tended to dismiss was better than originally thought.
And that is exactly what I am doing here, I am being open to this possibility by asking you to please show me Goswami's studies, so I can scrutinize them myself.
godnotgod
Thou art That
While I do not disagree with you about the possibility of error, the Goswami experiment, as he tells us in the video, has been verified independently by 3 others.
I gave you the names, places and years. I would'nt know where to go from here. You have a better handle on that. So I leave it with you. I am satisfied with what Goswami tells us, allowing that there could be some small possibility of flaw in the procedure, which most likely would have been detected by now, especially in light of it having been replicated successfully several times. But the experiment itself seems pretty straightforward and simple, with little chance for error. In fact, it does'nt even seem to involve extrapolation, as much of astro-physics does. It is almost a no-brainer, no pun intended.
My question to you is: from Goswami's description of the experiment, and without having access to the actual documentation at the moment, do you see any flaw in how it was set up and run? Assuming no other complications, and taking into account its successful replication, what would you reasonably assume, pending further information?
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Mr Spinkles
Mr
Yes but the field of parapsychology has a unique record: experiments that are verified by some researchers turn out to be un-verified by others, and the believers tend to just forget about all the confirmatory experiments of the null hypothesis. I would be shocked if that sort of thing happened in my field. Naturally, on the basis of that record, I am skeptical and want to investigate a little more.godnotgod said:
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
It's adorable that you want me to think that wasting my time giving any rational or reasoned argument would have any impact on your blind acceptance of magical thinking. So cute.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Then by all means, you should.
Given the overview of the experiment, I would not call it 'parapsychology'. What is unscientific about it, in your estimation?
Again, you cleverly insinuate that it is in the realm of 'wierd' and illegitimate.
BTW, it should be noted that the original experiment, as far as I can tell, was not run by Goswami himself, but by an independent researcher in Mexico.
Mr Spinkles
Mr
I "cleverly insinuate" two facts: (1) the record of this field is plagued with problems; (2) the body of evidence in physics, taken together, suggests psychic phenomena cannot exist from known principles (as explained in the video I posted of Richard Feynman, the bona fide PHYSICIST you ridiculed).
These two facts warrant my skepticism but do not, I fully acknowledge, prove Goswami's studies are wrong. I'll let you know more once I have time to look at them.
These two facts warrant my skepticism but do not, I fully acknowledge, prove Goswami's studies are wrong. I'll let you know more once I have time to look at them.
godnotgod
Thou art That
"This field" is not parapsychology: the experiment was run by psychotherapists.
As for point number two, you might like to read the following assessment of the Grinberg-Zylberbaum experiment:
http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Consciousness/the_quantum_brain.article
Oh, I didn't realize you had all these rational and reasoned arguments stored up but nobody worthy of hearing them. Please accept my apologies.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Apology freely and openly accepted!
As a non-physicist, I can't help but suspect the party (physicalism supporters) currently in power prefer their own when bestowing credibility.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Yes, it's highly suspect that scientists prefer good, verifiable science done by other reputable scientists who follow valid, established scientific protocols and methods. Highly suspect indeed.
Thank you for your discussion of 'science in the modern age'.
What is ultimately most important to me is 'what is George-ananda's verdict in the court of his common sense'.
After decades of lay-person armchair thinking about, studying, hearing about all things colloquially referred to as 'paranormal', I have come to the belief that things do occur that should never occur if the physicalist view is correct (and I know a 'Mr. Sprinkles' type may see the evidence differently in his own court). Consequently, to me, physicalism must be dramatically incomplete.
Physics can not yet account for paranormal events. In this case the observations come first and the theories later.
Physics must and should proceed slowly and cautiously. My point is Physics is not the begin-all or end-all of human knowledge. World-view changing information can come from fields other than 21st century physics.
Aren't we still waiting to hear your critique on how Goswami did not 'follow valid, established scientific protocols and methods' (using your words above).
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I'm waiting for any of your responses to be consistent or relevant. I suppose both of us will have to exercise extreme patience.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Guess I'll need to help you along:
"This research was pioneered by Dr. Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was originally reported in the journal Physics Essays (Volume 7, pages 422-428, 1994).
Here is a link to the website 'Physics Essays', but it appears one must be a paid member to access any information here, so I cannot provide the original research. If you are a member, you won't have a problem:
Physics Essays - An International Journal Dedicated To Fundamental Questions In Physics
The results are summarized by Grinberg in his article "Brain to Brain Interactions and the Interpretation of Reality":
Symposia
"What does it all mean? If the results are accurate, they point to the existence of some form of nonlocal, instantaneous connection between human brains. The phenomena of nonlocality and quantum entanglement -- what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" -- are often cited as possible factors in the underlying mechanism of transmission."
taken from:
Strange/True: Psi Captured on EEG? The Research of Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum