--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote:
> We just don't know what it is we're trying to measure > or how to go about it. If Chopra and the Maharishis of the world would admit this I would have no problem with them. Their claim is that they DO know. In some cases they are claiming a special state of mind of "knowingness" where all of life's secrets are obvious. (Except the secret for cancer which for some reason they can't come up with or even more reprehensibly have decided NOT to reveal. How about just kid's cancer, huh?) > "There are known knowns. These are things we know that > we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there > are things that we now know we don't know. But there are > also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know > we don't know."--Donald Rumsfeld Interesting choice from whom to quote but I have to admit he did nail something interesting. The context of when he said it is revealing. His statement is irrefutable and in some senses profound. In the context of our involvement in Afghanistan it has quite of bit of validity. But then there was Iraq. And the problem there was not that we were subjected to unknown unknowns, it was ignoring the "knowns." When dealing with statements by Chopra and Maharishi I don't believe that the most important option to keep alive is that they might be right about everything. Their claims are too grandiose and self-serving. Our mind doesn't have to stay so wide open that our brains fall out and we forget that by now, most of us have come up with some sense of what is likely or probable for us. It is an individual vision of how the world works and is hard earned. It will most likely be wrong in many specific ways. So we all aim our world view grid on guys like Chopra and Maharishi and see what fits. For me I see patterns of bullshit techniques in Chopra, the king of the equivocal non-assertion assertion. I find it unlikely that he will be the source of any profound insight into how the world works. I'm putting my chips on other bets. With all the brilliant people whose ideas I follow, Chopra is at the bottom of any of my lists. (except bullshitter, he ranks pretty high there and I have a bunch of those lists) Going into Iraq was a stupid idea from what was known IMO. Even though there was a chance that we might be greeted as liberators and a stable American loving democracy might have been created in the Mid-East after finding huge stockpiles of WMDs. But it wasn't probable given what we did know. It was a massive blunder of group consciousness gone wild and groups that should have been looking out for us (Democrats and the media) drinking the wine coolers like a co-ed on Spring break at Daytona. And on my low probability scale are meditator's mental states affecting anything outside their own skulls. (At least I got the distinction between affecting and effecting re-established from this series!) YMMV > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > <snip> > > > > > BREAKING NEWS: You don't have to share a person's beliefs > > > > > to defend them from unfair attack. > > > > > > > > But using them as an excuse to launch and attack of your own > > > > is OK. > > > > > > Maybe you'd want to review what I said to Curtis and > > > see whether it could actually be classified as an > > > "attack," as opposed to disagreement. If one is > > > defending somebody from what one considers an unfair > > > attack, it's kind of hard to avoid expressing > > > disagreement. > > > > I'm just calling it how I see it. I see Curtis has > > already resonded to that better than I could. > > Neither of you is very good at it, then. > > <snip> > > > Curtis says that if the mind *could* affect the > > > physical world, it would have to be "some new thing," > > > because at this point we don't know of any way it > > > could happen. > > > > > > But we still haven't figured out what consciousness is > > > or how it operates, so I think we should leave a bit of > > > room for "some new thing." > > > > It would really be some "Old Thing" > > It would be "new" from the scientific perspective. > > and we can see where > > the belief comes from and it isn't experience. > > We don't know that. > > We can't > > tell at all whether the mind can affect things so why the > > big hoo-ha in the TMO about the marshy effect? Because you > > can't have a belief in consciousness as the unified field > > without accepting that outcomes like earthquakes and > > political upheaval are somehow connected with people sitting > > around with their eyes closed. > > Is it possible there would have been more and worse > earthquakes without people sitting around with their > eyes closed? > > On that scale, it's unfalsifiable. And as to political > upheaval, one person's disastrous chaos is another > person's liberating revolution, so that's unfalsifiable > as well. > > We just don't know what it is we're trying to measure > or how to go about it. > > <snip> > > > Yes, that's an "argument from ignorance," at least in > > > terms of whether the possibility of such a phenomenon > > > should be ruled out (as opposed to claiming it's true, > > > which I'm not doing). > > > > > > But you and Curtis are countering it with an "argument > > > from personal incredulity" as to whether such a "new > > > thing" is possible, so I figure we're even. > > > > I wouldn't say incredulity, I have given it a lot of > > thought, a chance to work in my life and observed how it > > fails to demonstrably fails to affect world as predicted. > > Yeah, but it's still personal incredulity to believe > that because you haven't seen any evidence that > convinces you (even for very sound reasons), therefore > there *can* be no such evidence. > > > Suppose we didn't know about plate tectonics, then you > > might be able to say things are happening for reasons > > unknown and search about for mystical reasons which is > > how we got here in the first place I'll wager. > > > > The thing is if it's consciousness affecting the earths > > crust then there can't have been any earthquakes before > > man evolved and started meditating. > > Why couldn't earthquakes happen without human > participation? I'm not following you. > > <snip> > > and they may well be valid--but gee, seems to me > > > there'd be quite a few potential real-world benefits if > > > we could nail down that "mental states" *can* affect > > > the physical world, and how this occurs. > > > > Like preventing earthquakes or improving the stock exchange > > and preventing war? I shall remain happy sceptic until that > > happy day. > > You're entitled, but be a *skeptic*, not a skeptopath. > > "There are known knowns. These are things we know that > we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there > are things that we now know we don't know. But there are > also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know > we don't know."--Donald Rumsfeld >
