"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[joelr]

You really don't follow any of what I am saying. Wilber is talking about the domain of spiritual experience. This has been researched and discussed in academic circles with great minds and names like Maslow, James, Jung, etc. Start here: Transpersonal psychology - Wikipedia

You're imaging some supernatural magic land realm or something or other. He can put that in there, because it is a human experience, not fairyland like you want to make it be for some reason. Wilber is not an idiot. I am not an idiot. You're not having a discussion with me.

Anyway, I'm bored with this at this point. I can't get through to those who create strawman arguments to every intelligent thing that is presented with the best intentions, and research to back it all up with. Thor, green goblin, fairytale stuff. That's not a discussion with me, or anyone else in this thread.

These all just go to prove the point of the OP. This isn't actually rational, it's religious. It's just fundamentalism with another object of belief for the same religious impulse. It isn't actually about knowledge.

Yes, boring. My criticism is obviously valid because the link you provided has a gigantic section about "Criticism and skepticism towards the field of transpersonal psychology"
I do not find any compelling evidence for anything spiritual, trans-whatever that is beyond the brain/mind/physical body.

Every time I state that we are talking about phenomenon that is purely inside the brain you will not clarify and then come out with some nonsense like a silent awareness means we may have a soul. I say it doesn't and now "you don't understand me". Yeah, I get it. The things you want to be real are fiction like Thor. That pisses you off because you don't want to believe that this just involves the brain.

"Wilber's understanding of the levels of consciousness, or reality, ranging from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit,"

Hate to tell you but that IS supernatural magic land realm. I'm not saying Wilber is an idiot but he believes stuff that there is no evidence for. This new age sidestepping of supernatural concepts is a game I'm not going to play. You clearly want me to play it. I know Maslow and peak experiences, I think it's valid.
This field clearly believes there is a spiritual realm and that Eastern religions have some ways to access the spiritual realm but defined as a place our soul can go. Not interested in souls because there is no evidence. I already looked deep into it. Meditation is good for relaxation and mental/physical recovery and so on.
You are trying to present a way for the soul/spirit to be real but not be a fairytale. I do not believe this is possible. A form of Fundamentalism is also believing in supernatural things without evidence.

 

[joelr]

(except maybe the atheist fundamentalists who dismiss anything that doesn't fit their new belief system of Science with a capital S ).

Said while using a computer. Interesting, Christian/Muslim fundamentalists say this exact thing about science also.

It isn't sciences fault that no aspect of a soul or spirit anything can be demonstrated. Or anything that could demonstrate even a slight relationship to spiritualism can be shown to be real.
No one can ever leave their body and read a card in another room or read someones mind or influence a random generator or do any of the the Eastern Guru magic (they do claim to be able to do miracles) demonstrations in a lab setting. No remote viewing, nothing.
Meanwhile science has demonstrated it's the best method for finding truths about reality. And everyone is willing to see data that will confirm anything related to supernatural realms. So that simply isn't fundamentalism. It's just not being gullible.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, boring. My criticism is obviously valid because the link you provided has a gigantic section about "Criticism and skepticism towards the field of transpersonal psychology"
I do not find any compelling evidence for anything spiritual, trans-whatever that is beyond the brain/mind/physical body.

Every time I state that we are talking about phenomenon that is purely inside the brain you will not clarify and then come out with some nonsense like a silent awareness means we may have a soul. I say it doesn't and now "you don't understand me". Yeah, I get it. The things you want to be real are fiction like Thor. That pisses you off because you don't want to believe that this just involves the brain.

"Wilber's understanding of the levels of consciousness, or reality, ranging from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit,"

Hate to tell you but that IS supernatural magic land realm. I'm not saying Wilber is an idiot but he believes stuff that there is no evidence for. This new age sidestepping of supernatural concepts is a game I'm not going to play. You clearly want me to play it. I know Maslow and peak experiences, I think it's valid.
This field clearly believes there is a spiritual realm and that Eastern religions have some ways to access the spiritual realm but defined as a place our soul can go. Not interested in souls because there is no evidence. I already looked deep into it. Meditation is good for relaxation and mental/physical recovery and so on.
You are trying to present a way for the soul/spirit to be real but not be a fairytale. I do not believe this is possible. A form of Fundamentalism is also believing in supernatural things without evidence.

The mind is not physical as physical. If the mind was not only connected to the physical, but only physical then we would have international scientific measurement standards for the mind just like say time. We haven't. Or indeed have an international scientific measurement standard for word "real", but we don't. The word "real" belongs to the mind as it has no physical referent or standard.

You are in effect doing non-physical claims which are nonsense as physical, because we can't do them as physical. You just don't notice when you do it, but notice it in some cases, when other humans do it.
In effect you are doing over-reductive physicalism and yes, I would do it differently than both you and @Windwalker, but I get the limitations and assumptions in all 3 worldviews including my own and not just yours and Windwalker's.
And had I to choose one different from mine, but either yours or Windwalker's, I would not choose yours.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Said while using a computer. Interesting, Christian/Muslim fundamentalists say this exact thing about science also.

It isn't sciences fault that no aspect of a soul or spirit anything can be demonstrated. Or anything that could demonstrate even a slight relationship to spiritualism can be shown to be real.
No one can ever leave their body and read a card in another room or read someones mind or influence a random generator or do any of the the Eastern Guru magic (they do claim to be able to do miracles) demonstrations in a lab setting. No remote viewing, nothing.
Meanwhile science has demonstrated it's the best method for finding truths about reality. And everyone is willing to see data that will confirm anything related to supernatural realms. So that simply isn't fundamentalism. It's just not being gullible.

You can't demonstrate "real" as independent of the mind, because "real" is a cognitive abstract in the mind with no observable referent. Learn to check your own words, before you start doing it with other people's words.

 

[lukethethird]

You can't demonstrate "real" as independent of the mind, because "real" is a cognitive abstract in the mind with no observable referent. Learn to check your own words, before you start doing it with other people's words.

The experiences of religious fundamentalists are real, however invoking the supernatural to explain their experiences is fallacious. The supernatural can make for somewhat interesting story telling, but in reality it is gullible to assume that it actually exists. Slamming science and atheists is all that is left for the fundamentalist to do if they can't accept natural explanations. Atheists can experience what the religious fundamentalist experiences, they can be difficult to explain but invoking the supernatural is question begging.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The experiences of religious fundamentalists are real, however invoking the supernatural to explain their experiences is fallacious. The supernatural can make for somewhat interesting story telling, but in reality it is gullible to assume that it actually exists. Slamming science and atheists is all that is left for the fundamentalist to do if they can't accept natural explanations. Atheists can experience what the religious fundamentalist experiences, they can be difficult to explain but invoking the supernatural is question begging.

Yeah, different cognitive schemata.

 

[joelr]

The mind is not physical as physical. If the mind was not only connected to the physical, but only physical then we would have international scientific measurement standards for the mind just like say time. We haven't. Or indeed have an international scientific measurement standard for word "real", but we don't. The word "real" belongs to the mind as it has no physical referent or standard.

That is nonsense. There are many things that do not have "international scientific measurement standards" that are physical. We do have a reference point for real in science. You are bringing in abstractions that are meaningless. The mind has quantum mechanical processes that we simply cannot understand for several reasons. One we cannot study living brains and another we cannot study the quantum realm as well as needed. This is a fiction created to convince wu-wu people taht the mind is not physical. When one pushes back you start with your "what is real" song and dance. Not interested.

 

[joelr]

You can't demonstrate "real" as independent of the mind, because "real" is a cognitive abstract in the mind with no observable referent. Learn to check your own words, before you start doing it with other people's words.

See, there it is. You are too dazzled by your own nonsense. If multiple people can make measurements that are in confirmation it's real enough. If you have some ridiculous metaphysical philosophical gibberish telling you otherwise I don't care. If you are going to use that fiction to try to boss people around you are just demented among other things. Go away.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is nonsense. There are many things that do not have "international scientific measurement standards" that are physical. We do have a reference point for real in science. You are bringing in abstractions that are meaningless. The mind has quantum mechanical processes that we simply cannot understand for several reasons. One we cannot study living brains and another we cannot study the quantum realm as well as needed. This is a fiction created to convince wu-wu people taht the mind is not physical. When one pushes back you start with your "what is real" song and dance. Not interested.

Meaningless is an abstraction that it is only real in the mind.
You are doing the following neat trick. Only that which I deem objective is subjectively meaningful to me and I ignore that it is only subjectively meaningful.
We are playing a variant of logical positivism.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

See, there it is. You are too dazzled by your own nonsense. If multiple people can make measurements that are in confirmation it's real enough. If you have some ridiculous metaphysical philosophical gibberish telling you otherwise I don't care. If you are going to use that fiction to try to boss people around you are just demented among other things. Go away.

You can't make any measurements of nonsense, yet you treat it as real, because it is real that I do nonsense.
Your meta-reality is what makes sense as reality and what really is nonsense as not really in reality, yet you treat it as in effect real, because you complain about it, thus it is real.

 

[joelr]

You can't make any measurements of nonsense, yet you treat it as real, because it is real that I do nonsense.
Your meta-reality is what makes sense as reality and what really is nonsense as not really in reality, yet you treat it as in effect real, because you complain about it, thus it is real.

Yeah nonsense is hard to measure. Yet here it is. I'm pretty sure there is a large quantity of it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yeah nonsense is hard to measure. Yet here it is. I'm pretty sure there is a large quantity of it.

Yeah, it is nonsense to you based on how you think. But for some forms of nonsense, it stops being nonsense, if you think differently.
Short limited examples:
2+2=4
2+2=11
2+2=5
2+2=∞

Depending on how you and I think, we could get different results in regards to nonsense for these 4 examples. The word "nonsense" has no objective referent just like "God".

 

[RestlessSoul]

Yeah nonsense is hard to measure. Yet here it is. I'm pretty sure there is a large quantity of it.

No, what there is here, is incomprehension. Your inability to understand, quantify, or precisely define an idea or a given phenomenon, does not invalidate it. Nor does your subjective interpretation of a particular aspect of reality, objectively define that reality. We understand the world as we perceive it and as we relate to it; we cannot possibly say that we understand it as it is. Our understanding is dependent on our perspective, and as our paradigm shifts, so do our perceptions. Thus we no longer believe that the sun revolves around the earth.

 

[joelr]

Meaningless is an abstraction that it is only real in the mind.
You are doing the following neat trick. Only that which I deem objective is subjectively meaningful to me and I ignore that it is only subjectively meaningful.
We are playing a variant of logical positivism.

Me, me, me. And me. (Agent Smith)
Except I didn't say just me. In science measurements can be confirmed by multiple people. All evidence I mention can be assessed by other people. Everyone is not just making up arbitrary standards of what is meaningful. There is some form of logical positivism in science, it doesn't matter unless you are in Vienna in 1920.

 

[joelr]

Yeah, it is nonsense to you based on how you think. But for some forms of nonsense, it stops being nonsense, if you think differently.
Short limited examples:
2+2=4
2+2=11
2+2=5
2+2=∞

Depending on how you and I think, we could get different results in regards to nonsense for these 4 examples. The word "nonsense" has no objective referent just like "God".

No, you have to present evidence. In this case you will need a mathematical proof for each. I just said it's not about arbitrary standards.

 

[joelr]

No, what there is here, is incomprehension. Your inability to understand, quantify, or precisely define an idea or a given phenomenon, does not invalidate it. Nor does your subjective interpretation of a particular aspect of reality, objectively define that reality. We understand the world as we perceive it and as we relate to it; we cannot possibly say that we understand it as it is. Our understanding is dependent on our perspective, and as our paradigm shifts, so do our perceptions. Thus we no longer believe that the sun revolves around the earth.

Sorry, it's nonsense. Logical positivism was debated among philosophers for decades, meanwhile science discovered quantum mechanics, and the entire modern world. I'm going to source Feynman.
Richard Feynman, who shared the 1965 Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum field theory, claimed that the “philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”.
Your example about the solar system was discovered because we understand evidence. Any philosophers around at the time didn't help with that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Me, me, me. And me. (Agent Smith)
Except I didn't say just me. In science measurements can be confirmed by multiple people. All evidence I mention can be assessed by other people. Everyone is not just making up arbitrary standards of what is meaningful. There is some form of logical positivism in science, it doesn't matter unless you are in Vienna in 1920.

That is the core joke. You seem to think that for your local "we", you decide for all humans, what matters and is meaningful. You don't and neither do I.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sorry, it's nonsense. Logical positivism was debated among philosophers for decades, meanwhile science discovered quantum mechanics, and the entire modern world. I'm going to source Feynman.
Richard Feynman, who shared the 1965 Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum field theory, claimed that the “philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”.
Your example about the solar system was discovered because we understand evidence. Any philosophers around at the time didn't help with that.

Yeah, I would like the measurement of the bold one as per your previous post: "In science measurements can be confirmed by multiple people."

 

[joelr]

Yeah, I would like the measurement of the bold one as per your previous post: "In science measurements can be confirmed by multiple people."

Sure, ask multiple people what it means. They will likely all agree it means philosophy can be useless. That is a measurement of the meaning of the statement.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sure, ask multiple people what it means. They will likely all agree it means philosophy can be useless. That is a measurement of the meaning of the statement.

Yeah, but the meaning of the statement is not science. It is a first person subjective evolution.