---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote :
Comments below... > One reason I don't rule paranormal stuff out is that I'm not convinced > science knows how to test for some of it. I could not possibly disagree more > strongly with the notion that only what is measurable is "real." Actually, > measuring (in the broadest sense) is the only tool science has. "Only"? Find me something that can't be measured. Oh, you know, beauty, love, stuff like that, just for starters. But love isn't a thing separate from our experience. If two people in love are sitting on a bench in the sun and the people disappear, so does the love. The sun however, doesn't disappear. But it is measurable. Love is part of our inner world only and is therefore dependent on our brains and this is where it can be measured. Maybe crudely at the moment but I bet there's a distinct chemical signature involving dopamine etc that you could look at in someone's head and know what they are experiencing. Takes the fun out of romance sure, but it's them chemicals what turn us upside down I bet. Beauty could be measurable too, you'd just have to decide on a common framework for whatever it is you want to judge. It's all part of out inner life. Why we feel such richness for things like art or landscapes is another question but one of psychology and chemistry not physics, that won't be able to help us tell love from hate. Just as the success of metal detectors in finding metal does not entail that there are no other, non-metallic aspects of reality, so too does the success of science in capturing those aspects of nature susceptible of prediction and control give us no reason to think that there are not other aspects that are not susceptible of prediction and control -- aspects we should not expect to find by the methods of science.... Sounds like special pleading to me. Sounds like he's got something he wants people not to be able to find. Probably why he thinks science has no place answering metaphysical questions (if that was him). It was Feser, but gee whiz, he's far from the only person to make the same point, including some scientists and (gasp) atheists. (What would Feser not want people to find??) The point applies in many different contexts, not just theism. Including me, but I'm not the one with a theistic concept I'm trying to convince the world of that I think is superior to the current scientific paradigm. And besides, his blog is where you got the idea about metaphysical concepts not being open to scientific inquiry wasn't it? If it was he was wrong. NASA won't abandon it's plans to probe the cosmic microwave background because the overall concept of universal origins is metaphysical. What he (or anyone) has to do to convince me is explain what this god thing is and, most importantly, how it can be apart from the four known forces of nature. If it's real in any sense we'll find it somehow. Even if it's a real thing like love. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/03/rosenhouse-keeps-digging.html#more http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/03/rosenhouse-keeps-digging.html#more > Are there methods of investigation other than measurement/prediction/control > that might convincingly detect paranormal events? How would you know if you had or not? > Some paranormal researchers (Lawrence Le Shan in particular) have suggested > potentially fruitful systematic, social-science-like approaches. See Le > Shan's book "A New Science of the Paranormal: the Promise of Psychical > Research" for details. OK, if it's orderable from my local library I'll read it. If you can get it, let me know what you think. It's been awhile since I read it. (He has a new one out, Landscapes of the Mind: The Faces of Reality, which purports to be a "taxonomy of consciousness," whatever that means.) It's not but I read the first page on Amazon and might give it a try anyway.
