Richard Dawkins Facepalms at Deepak Chopra

[godnotgod]

Deepak Chopra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In August 2005, Chopra wrote a series of articles on the creation-evolution controversy and Intelligent design, which were criticized by science writer Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society.[108][109][110] Shermer has said that Chopra is "the very definition of what we mean by pseudoscience".

Robert Todd Carroll has characterized Chopra's promotion of lengthened life as a selling of "hope" that seems to be "a false hope based on an unscientific imagination steeped in mysticism and cheerily dispensed gibberish".[87]



Can anyone argue against these
statements ??????????????????????????????????

or are you all for this quackery ???

Shermer is a bona-fide idiot, an intellectual dwarf in light of Chopra's brilliant mind. Chopra had the grace to invite Shermer to his own home for dinner and conversation. Shermer's shallowness of spirit and intellect shows up clearly in these sessions:

Chopra's institute has helped thousands of people back to sanity and health.

It is an established fact that spiritual practices in the East lead to longevity. No biggee. For example, elderly women in Japan practice a type of meditation called 'walking meditation', or 'kinhin', and attribute their longevity to it. Same for Tai Chi in China. The list goes on. Chopra is an accomplished meditator and ayurvedist as well as a bona fide medical doctor, specifically an endocrinologist, with Western credentials. No quacks here.

 

[godnotgod]

Why does that mean that science cannot define it?


Again, you're continuing to make claims without actually explaining your meaning or how you reached your conclusion. I want to know HOW you know science is "sadly mistaken in this regard". Science isn't entirely descriptive - it is also informative and explanatory. It seeks not only to describe physical phenomenon, but to explain them. I see no reason to assert that science is limited in this regard.



But how we do all of those things is understood to be a result of scientifically verifiable processes. There is nothing involved in the listening to or interpreting of music that science cannot explain or understand on some level.


How do you know this? How do you know true understanding CAN'T be reached by reason, logic and analyis? How do you know we are even capable of "transcending" them, or that "true understanding" is even possible?


How do you know that science isn't potentially infinite in its explanatory power? How do you know science cannot explain these things?


Again, this is something of a non-sequitur. You're saying our knowledge or understanding of things is currently limited, therefore it must always be limited. I do not think this is a reasonable thing to assume.


Can you demonstrate this?


Again, the fact that there are things we can't do or don't understand doesn't mean we will never be able to understand them. Limitations to science currently exist, but there is no reason to assert that these limitations will always exist.

You cannot explain an experience. You can only experience it. Reality is not a static 'thing' that you can dissect and put under a microscope for objective analysis, but a dynamic activity that you are experiencing now. The conceptual mind attempts to 'freeze' reality into something it can contain and control as its means of trying to get a grip with something it cannot possibly understand. All it can do is to grasp at bits and pieces we call 'facts' and then to put a group of facts and data forward as 'reality'. Nothing is further from the truth, any more than the parts of a piano, the notes of the composition, or the tones of the instruments are the music. You have to LISTEN to, and be an attentive part of the music as it unfolds in order to know what the music is about. The moment you stop to intellectualize, to conceptualize, about music and Reality, you are looking at something dead.

Once you have the first-hand direct experience, THEN you can intellectualize about it, because then you will know what you're talking about. Until the experience, you know Jack S**t! Your head just tells you that you THINK you know.

Understand?

 

[godnotgod]

There is no "awakening" to be had. .

Right, just as there is no Sun outside of Plato's Cave!

 

[godnotgod]

I don't much care for what Buddah says. But even if I did your quote is meaningless in terms of science. Nothing in that quote even REMOTELY touches on anything QM has discovered. At best it is a prolific or at least psudo prolific proverb meant to have some sort of relation to the philosophical rather than the physical.

The Buddha's statement was not meant to satisfy any scientific or philosophical standard. His statement was a direct reflection of his experience and insight into the true nature of Reality, and that includes anything that science came up with afterwards, such as Quantum physics, because what he was pointing to is the condition of things BEFORE sub-atomic particles come into existence; BEFORE all forms come into existence. Again, you're just clutching at straws to try to explain something that is beyond your rational understanding.

I do adamantly deny that your "mystical" experiences are anything but delusions until evidence is provided otherwise. I don't care if its narrow. The truth and facts are not a democracy and logic is a narrow narrow thing.

The truth of the matter is that you are being irrational to say that mystical experiences are delusions, simply because you don't know anything about them.

My allusion to Reason and Logic being narrow was meant to say that they are ignorant of any other view that cannot be proven in those terms. That does not in any way render other views as 'delusional'. Your Reason wants to be Judge, Jury, and Hangman.

Conversely, mystics readily accept science and the mystical view together, while scientists cannot accept the mystical view, due to the narrowness of the scientific view, which is a deliberately sculpted and highly controlled method designed to extract data and facts. Beyond that, it is sterile.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

OK, but I want you to show me where the world of Newtonian mechanics leaves off and the world of sub-atomic particles begins. You claim they are two different worlds; I am saying they are one and the same. I really don't think you understand this simple question, but I'll give it one more try. Go for it.

From the human perspective they are two different worlds and they don't "overlap", and your question is further evidence that you don't understand the basic science. We experience the everyday world and we don't experience the quantum world.

Your suggestion that ancient mystics had an insight into the quantum world is utter nonsense.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The Buddha's statement was not meant to satisfy any scientific or philosophical standard. His statement was a direct reflection of his experience and insight into the true nature of Reality, and that includes anything that science came up with afterwards, such as Quantum physics, because what he was pointing to is the condition of things BEFORE sub-atomic particles come into existence; BEFORE all forms come into existence.

More nonsense. The Buddha's insight was into the true nature of human experience. He pragmatically focussed on the problem of human suffering, and he actively discouraged the kind of metaphysical speculation that you indulge in. He would have smiled sadly at the pretentious way you use words like "Reality".

Kaccaayanagotto Sutta: Kaccaayana

 

[Rick O'Shez]

It is a horrible misuse of science.

Indeed it is. Continually twisting and misrepresenting the science in an attempt to give outlandish theories some degree of credibility. I'm amazed that people fall for it. It's really a variation of the "God-of-the-gaps" approach. You choose an area of science that most people don't understand too well, like quantum mechanics, then deliberately misinterpret the science in order to support your existing religious beliefs. In this case it's new-age religious beliefs, but the principle is the same.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

And Deepak Chopra is imaginative and makes it up as he goes creating and teaching a pseudo reality.

He probably has a degree in Pseudo Science.

 

[Looncall]

Also here is what I can not understand. If atheism is not a religion why angry atheists are on a religion? Only to troll maybe? I understand atheists possibly like to no what do people believe but ANGRY atheists are same as fundamentalists. It is not possessible they can learn something.

People's beliefs inform their actions. If they believe absurdities, they are likely to commit atrocities (to paraphrase someone).

 

[tiki]

People's beliefs inform their actions. If they believe absurdities, they are likely to commit atrocities (to paraphrase someone).

And they get to decide what is absurd yes?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Conversely, mystics readily accept science and the mystical view together....

So are you also speaking on behalf of mystics now? I'm not sure they'd appreciate that.

 

[tiki]

People's beliefs inform their actions. If they believe absurdities, they are likely to commit atrocities (to paraphrase someone).

What is absurdity? Atheists on religion forum is absurdity for me. Believe in parallel universes is absurdity to an other person or else possible time travel.

 

[outhouse]

Atheists on religion forum is absurdity for me.

Why because we have the education and knowledge you do not?

 

[outhouse]

He probably has a degree in Pseudo Science.

And then some.


Chopra is not even worth a facepalm from Dawkins he is such a con man.

 

[godnotgod]

From the human perspective they are two different worlds and they don't "overlap", and your question is further evidence that you don't understand the basic science. We experience the everyday world and we don't experience the quantum world.

Your suggestion that ancient mystics had an insight into the quantum world is utter nonsense.

And your coy suggestion that I maintain such a view is utter nonsense. Perhaps it is an outcome of your 'Buddhishtic' teaching.

Ah, at last! 'FROM THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE': IOW, there are not ACTUALLY two different worlds; 'two worlds' exist only in the human mind.

But wait! There's more 'Buddhish' poppycock: not only do these imaginary 'two worlds' exist only in the human world, but (and this is brilliant, folks) THEY DON'T OVERLAP! ( Of course, Spiny went down to make sure that they don't, LOL!, because HE, unlike the ancient mystics, DOES INDEED have such an insight into a separate Quantum world that doesn't overlap.)

Now let us examine the genius behind the last statement, and ask a question, shall we?

Spiny, pay attention:

If the two worlds you imagine don't overlap, what is there between them to separate them?

(Bear in mind, Spiny m'dear, that the HUMAN WORLD you experience is entirely made up of the SUB-ATOMIC WORLD you claim is a completely SEPARATE WORLD.

Ball in your court. Think before posting.

 

[godnotgod]

More nonsense. The Buddha's insight was into the true nature of human experience. He pragmatically focussed on the problem of human suffering, and he actively discouraged the kind of metaphysical speculation that you indulge in. He would have smiled sadly at the pretentious way you use words like "Reality".

Kaccaayanagotto Sutta: Kaccaayana

Excuse me, Buddhish expert, but the Buddha said:

'form is emptiness;
emptiness is form'

That is a direct insight into the true nature of REALITY, WHICH INCLUDES HUMAN EXPERIENCE. IOW, Sunyata includes ALL phenomena, as the Mahayanists tell us it does.

The Buddha discouraged speculation into the origins of the universe, but he encouraged inquiry and examination into all other questions.

 

[outhouse]

That is a direct insight into the true nature of REALITY,

Then provide credible sources.

 

[godnotgod]

More nonsense. The Buddha's insight was into the true nature of human experience. He pragmatically focussed on the problem of human suffering, and he actively discouraged the kind of metaphysical speculation that you indulge in. He would have smiled sadly at the pretentious way you use words like "Reality".

Kaccaayanagotto Sutta: Kaccaayana

In your source above, the goal is to achieve 'right view', which consists of avoiding either extreme of 'existence/non-existence', and 'arising/subsiding'. The result is the Middle Way, which is a view of Reality as it actually is. That is why human suffering ceases as a result.

 

[godnotgod]

Then provide credible sources.

I have. The quote is from the Diamond Sutra:

City of 10,000 Buddhas - Sutra in 42 Sections with Commentary

 

[godnotgod]

So are you also speaking on behalf of mystics now? I'm not sure they'd appreciate that.

It is pretty common knowledge that mystics in general accept science as a valid discipline. The Dalai Lama, for one, encourages scientific study. In fact, he and his entourage of monks meet every so many years with Anton Zellinger, Quantum physicist and HIS scientific entourage to discuss Quantum physics from the Buddhist POV.