For sure some aspects of the modern scientific approach are nothing more than scientism supported by a belief in the result of abstruse mathematical equations. An examination of Halton Arp's work on discordant redshifts in connected and related cosmological objects (galaxies, quasars, X-ray sources, etc) shows that not only isn't the universe expanding, it is instead growing out of itself. There is sufficient scientific detail in his work (his book Seeing Red is a great overview) to verify this to an honest appraisal. He was vilified and castigated for his pioneering work and insights, he was told to 'recant'. Also, black holes are nonsense. Oh, they took a picture? Check out Dr Robitaille's work on astrophysics, black holes, CMB, etc, on his Sky Scholar YouTube channel. Of course you will find his critics, but the depth of his knowledge and details of research give rise to consideration of his perspective if not blinded by the reigning paradigm. Many good insights in the electric universe and plasma universe camps. Naturally, much more to this, just a few examples. The reductionist approach can only examine pieces, and the whole of living beings and processes of Nature can never amount to a sum of the parts that scientists pull from them.
True scientists don't take themselves or their theories too seriously. Science is a methodology, but it's also a discipline that forces you to examine your own beliefs, which if done honestly makes you realize just how shaky the ground we're standing on is. That's not to say we don't have some very solid points of reference when dealing with the material world, but when you branch out into the cosmos, all bets are off. Nature has a way of concealing herself that may very well be impenetrable, and science, while it investigates nature, should never be taken as a complete picture. The map is not the territory.
I love this stuff, and it's definitely not confirmation bias. I'd know it if it was.
The "laws" of thermodynamics apply in a closed system. The universe, as we keep finding out via silly expensive telescopes, just keeps getting bigger, ie, open.
"Imagine that your brain is a computer, as modern neurology suggests." Erm, it isn't. You are confusing organism with mechanism. Again. If you need to make shit up to make your argument valid then you are full of something. That's you also, Dawkins. Your selfish gene book got thrown in the bin after I read that you redefined what a gene "is" to fit it in your prejudiced notions.
"Laws" in this case are explanations of perceived phenomena, and our perception is limited. See "umwelt" for why. My other word of the week is superorganism. We cannot, and never will, understand anything. Just get over it and sit in the sun with a beer with some friends if you have any, and stop poking demons.
I wish I hadn't read The Matter with Things, but I did and now think everyone is a cretin except for me and people I like.
Been a fan of Sheldrake for a few years. As responded to ebaer below. I think the isse lies in the perception of what science is. I know its become a bit of cliche in the last 4 years, but I don't think science is wrong. "The Science" however........
I don't know if you should be advising people to take acid... I would read: Drugs as Weapons Against Us by John Potash to understand how the CIA distributed acid to crush protest movements. I'm no teetotaler but I advise my friends to keep it all organic... Cannabis and shrooms grown and harvested with love and good intention... and very lightly and infrequently at that, if anything!
You are certainly right that drugs have been used against people, and drugs arguably don't do much to help social movements succeed... but I would argue that psychedelics have their place in expanding consciousness, depending how you use them. But expanding your mind is about having different kinds of experience, travel, trying to understand different worldviews, reading good books, meditation techniques, etc. A lot of ravers do a lot of psychedelics and don't really seem to get any smarter, so I guess it's not true that psychedelics make you smarter. But they can help make people smarter by helping them think in new ways. Maybe I should clarify that at some point.
I will lead about what you've said, though. I suppose at a certain if people really start taking me seriously I might have to think about the responsibility I have to people who actually listen to me... which I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about, to be honest. I really don't see myself as a role model... But at a certain point maybe I should.
Even weed arguably isn't good for revolutionary movements. A bunch of people sitting in an occupation smoking weed doesn't tend to go anywhere. Not only does it make (some) people lazy, it also makes them much more likely to want to avoid confrontation.
Thank for getting it! I deliberately blur the line between satire and serious political commentary for two main reasons:
1) To trick people into thinking for themselves
2) To cover my tracks (by retroactively pretending something crazy I said was a joke)
It works surprisingly well! I call it "absurdist rhetoric" and I believe I invented it. It's based on the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson and the ideas of Marshall McLuhan but I believe it's novel. And good luck turning my body of work into a dogma! No one in the future will be able to tell when the joke ends or begins. They'll be forced to ask themselves "well, what makes sense to me?" And that's what I want.
"A lot of vital ideas we now revere as sacrosanct and near-tautological were considered reckless or outright absurd when proposed!"
Those words should be carved in stone over the main entrance of every university everywhere in the world. Maybe boil it down a bit, like 'today's truth is tomorrow's conjecture.' Something like that. Here it is in Latin:
Hodie veritas coniectura crastina est
Might make a good t-shirt.
Actually, that works in both directions because you could also say 'today's truth is yesterday's conjecture'
I like that! How do you say this in Latin? "That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."
Thank you, kind bear! I kid you not, when I saw you mention universities, I thought to myself "Well, sure, if only I knew it in Lati--wait, ebear beat me to it!" lol. Amazing work there; I really appreciate it! And I totally agree that it works in both directions... and would make a great merch line. It is sad to see how many institutions of "education" have become factories for "indoctrination," but I take heart whenever I have interactions like this that all is not lost :)
Most of the kids doing acid back when I was in that scene circa 1969 were doing it for kicks, not enlightenment. What is that anyway? "Enlightenment." I've never been able to figure out what people mean by that.
It's realizing that you're a figment of your own imagination. I highly suggest Shinzen Young's The Science of Enlightenment. One of the best books on Buddhism I've ever read.
I looked up Shinzen Young and the first thing I came across was this idea of 'mindfulness' and I thought, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson use it a lot. They also use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to gain people's confidence, something I find dishonest about both of them. A note about NLP. Whenever Wikipedia trashes something as completely as they do NLP, it suggests to me that there's something to it that the minders don't want us know.
Take this for example, from Shinzen Young's website:
"Shinzen likes to say of himself:
I’m a Jewish-American Buddhist-informed mindfulness teacher who got turned on to comparative mysticism by an Irish-Catholic priest and who has developed a Burmese-Japanese fusion practice inspired by the spirit of quantified science."
First off, why the need to let us know you're Jewish? Does that somehow add to your credibility, or is it a trigger word for putting us in a particular state of mind? Doesn't work too well today unfortunately. I'd change that if I were him. The rest is just a bunch of abstractions with no concrete reference points, like "the spirit of quantified science" as if that actually means anything.
"Comparative mysticism" is another meaningless phrase. Compared to what exactly? When you compare things you want some baseline or reference point for the comparison. If I say John is friendlier than Sally that tells me nothing about how friendly Sally is. She could be a total bitch and everyone around her could be friendlier, or she could be second friendliest person in the universe, after John.
This notion of 'comparative' reminds me of a time I took a wrong turn going from Toronto to Manitoulin Island. I knew from the sun's position (reference point) that I was heading the wrong way, but I didn't want to backtrack, so I stopped at a local Mennonite farm where these four guys were having their lunch break. I brought my map, and asked them to show me where I was and they couldn't do it! They didn't know where they were! I probably had a better idea than them because I had the map folded to the right section but they opened it up and started looking around Lake Superior! That reminded me of joke from an old movie where this guy is lost and asks a farmer for directions to which the farmer replies, "you can't get there from here!"
That's pretty much sums up my attitude towards 'enlightenment.' You can't get there from here because you've no idea where you are to begin with. All you can say for sure is that the people who claim to know how to get there are trying to sell you something. Their book, their seminar, tickets to their next lecture. Follow them and the only thing likely to be 'enlightened' is your wallet. More to the point, 'enlightenment' clearly implies unenlightenment as a starting point, which could be the beginning of a very disturbing experience for the so-called unenlightened. Heaven's Gate springs to mind here, but there's plenty of other examples.
As for mindfulness, what's the big deal? You pay attention to the immediate when the immediate demands it. I always practice mindfulness when I'm driving my truck otherwise I'd end up in ditch, or worse, kill someone. Same goes for the bad part of town, which today is ANY part of town. Another word for it is street smarts, or in the military TSA (total situation awareness).
Back to NLP. When you watch Jordan Peterson what do you see? What do you hear? Do those thoughtful silences, the furrowed brow and careful choice of words suggest a deep thinker? Wrong. It's a technique designed to convey that impression. JP knows exactly what he's going to say. That's just a theatrical device to let you know how smart he is so you'll genuflect instead of calling him on his BS. Same goes for Harris. If you don't recognize an intellectual fraud when you see one, just read what they have to say on a controversial subject.
OK, now let's deconstruct "Buddhist-informed" starting with the question, why is it always Buddhism these enlightenment sales people use as their reference point? As someone who's spent time in both Thailand and Japan, the people there don't seem all that enlightened about anything including personal responsibility, in fact they're pretty good at evading that. Speaking of Japan, how enlightened was their occupation of Manchuria, the rape of Nanjing or the human experimentation conducted by Unit 731? As for Burma, you might want to ask the Rohingya people what they think of Buddhist enlightenment.
Or take the Buddha himself. A rich guy who abandons luxury to lead a life of asceticism only to finally realize there's a middle road? What's so enlightened about that? Seems kind of obvious to me, not to mention Sikhs and Muslims have the same outlook. I get the resistance to Islam, but where are the western bearers of enlightenment knowledge based on Sikhism? Sikhism has a far more practical doctrine than Buddhism and fewer mystical trappings. Hmm. I think I just answered my own question. People love mysteries and symbols and shit. Sikhism's probably too practical for the average 'seeker of truth' even though that's what a Sikh is. A seeker of truth.
Note: none of what I've said is a condemnation of meditation. I think it's probably a good thing - lower your heart rate, calm yourself down. A lot of people could benefit from that, myself included. I don't think you have to pay someone to learn it though. Just look around on the net. Anyone who's benefited from it and feels like sharing has probably got it up for free somewhere. I don't think it's a path to enlightenment though, because I don't believe there's any such thing.
True... So how might one conduct "real science" without succumbing to Confirmation Bias? I honestly think that a lot of inner work is necessary before one can approach objectivity. One has to be willing to accept the results of one's experiments, even if they contradict one's deeply-held beliefs. Most scientists do not view meditative techniques as necessary to the scientific method, but isn't the mind the ultimate scientific instrument? Shouldn't it be properly calibrated?
Wow! You're the first person to seriously challenge me on this... I'm currently working long hours but I will definitely give this the attention it deserves on my days off.
I've got arguments against science for days but no one wants to argue with me, possibly because no on enjoys arguing as much as I do. But here's something for starters: I believe it's misguided to attempt to disprove one's own assumptions through experimentation, which is at the heart of the scientific method. That assumes that human beings are more motivated by the love of truth that desire for prestige and will report their findings accurately. We know for a fact that's not true - I could cite many examples of scientists whose judgement was blurred by their ego. Chomsky refuses to admit that Universal Grammar has been falsified, for instance.
Are you familiar with von Neumann's Catastrophe of Infinite Regress, by the way? I've written about it before, mostly just rehashing the ideas of Robert Anton Wilson, but I think it's important, as it purports to mathematically prove that science has eaten its own tail. You seem knowledgeable about math, maybe you could tell me whether you accept it or not.
Someone had to write that program. Someone had to create the device on which it runs and the network that it connects to, and for that to happen someone had to develop semiconductor technology based on experiments with different materials which first had to be identified and their properties characterized. A knowledge of electricity and light (radio waves) had to be developed prior to all that, which overall took about 300 years, which is about the length of time it took to develop an accurate common language to communicate the knowledge obtained through experimentation and observation.
There's a certain irony in using the technology that created the medium we're now using to trash the very foundation that medium was built on. Show me any other method that could have developed the internet, the cell phone, or any other technology we use without ever thinking about how amazing it is that we can even do that.
There's a difference between being provocative and being obtuse. Provocative is the Socratic Method, where we pose questions that lead the listener to examine their own beliefs. Obtuse is simply sticking to a belief and insisting on its correctness despite a lack of evidence to support it, or even evidence that contradicts it.
We know humans are corruptible. We can argue whether they're corrupt by nature or as a matter of circumstance, but there's no doubt that some people are corrupt. The evidence is all around us. So do we stop speaking English because the British Empire was corrupt? Do we stop speaking German because of the Nazis? Maybe the Chinese should stop speaking Mandarin because that's what Mao's Little Red Book was written in?
I really hope this is getting across because I'm just about done defending science vs. mysticism. It's an uphill battle at the best of times, and the last few years have been anything but the best of times. I'll just close with one last thought. Ask yourselves, Cui Bono? Who benefits from spreading mistrust in science? Who might be interested in promoting a belief that science itself can't be trusted?
Now this is interesting. I was just thinking how much I agreed with this post, now, having read your response, i'm thinking how much I agree with what you have written. Problem is, I still think that the Nevermore post is correct. I think the problem lies in the perception of what science actually is.
"I think the problem lies in the perception of what science actually is."
Exactly. The problem arises when people perceive science as an ideology, when it's actually a methodology. This attitude is reinforced by clowns like "I am the science" Fauci and his cabal, while genuine scientists that speak out against the abuse of science in the service of a political agenda are sidelined. It doesn't help that a large number of scientists are captives of the funding, much of which comes from the government or corporate sponsors. These are people who may be trained in the methodology, but who are unaware, or chose to ignore, the fact that science is also a system of ethics. By definition, anything you claim as a fact is open to scrutiny by your peers, and if your methodology is unsound or you're caught lying, you'll be called out. At least that's how it's supposed to work. As a system of ethics, it also has the aspect that NOT speaking up when you know something is wrong is a violation of the creed. For example, there's a million genuine scientists from all over the world that stood up right here: https://gbdeclaration.org/ We just didn't hear much about them because the media chose (or were instructed) to ignore them.
I agree with Crow that the institutions of science have been corrupted. I think that's fairly obvious at this point. But conflating human weakness with the methodology itself is a Fallacy of Composition - something to be avoided for the same reason we don't characterize entire races or religions on the basis of some of their members.
If semiconductors had not been invented, I would have had to actually learn Russian, my brain would not be the shrivelled raisin it is now, and I would have a greater awareness of experience due to using words for expressions that cannot be translated into English.
For sure some aspects of the modern scientific approach are nothing more than scientism supported by a belief in the result of abstruse mathematical equations. An examination of Halton Arp's work on discordant redshifts in connected and related cosmological objects (galaxies, quasars, X-ray sources, etc) shows that not only isn't the universe expanding, it is instead growing out of itself. There is sufficient scientific detail in his work (his book Seeing Red is a great overview) to verify this to an honest appraisal. He was vilified and castigated for his pioneering work and insights, he was told to 'recant'. Also, black holes are nonsense. Oh, they took a picture? Check out Dr Robitaille's work on astrophysics, black holes, CMB, etc, on his Sky Scholar YouTube channel. Of course you will find his critics, but the depth of his knowledge and details of research give rise to consideration of his perspective if not blinded by the reigning paradigm. Many good insights in the electric universe and plasma universe camps. Naturally, much more to this, just a few examples. The reductionist approach can only examine pieces, and the whole of living beings and processes of Nature can never amount to a sum of the parts that scientists pull from them.
True scientists don't take themselves or their theories too seriously. Science is a methodology, but it's also a discipline that forces you to examine your own beliefs, which if done honestly makes you realize just how shaky the ground we're standing on is. That's not to say we don't have some very solid points of reference when dealing with the material world, but when you branch out into the cosmos, all bets are off. Nature has a way of concealing herself that may very well be impenetrable, and science, while it investigates nature, should never be taken as a complete picture. The map is not the territory.
I love this stuff, and it's definitely not confirmation bias. I'd know it if it was.
The "laws" of thermodynamics apply in a closed system. The universe, as we keep finding out via silly expensive telescopes, just keeps getting bigger, ie, open.
"Imagine that your brain is a computer, as modern neurology suggests." Erm, it isn't. You are confusing organism with mechanism. Again. If you need to make shit up to make your argument valid then you are full of something. That's you also, Dawkins. Your selfish gene book got thrown in the bin after I read that you redefined what a gene "is" to fit it in your prejudiced notions.
"Laws" in this case are explanations of perceived phenomena, and our perception is limited. See "umwelt" for why. My other word of the week is superorganism. We cannot, and never will, understand anything. Just get over it and sit in the sun with a beer with some friends if you have any, and stop poking demons.
I wish I hadn't read The Matter with Things, but I did and now think everyone is a cretin except for me and people I like.
Been a fan of Sheldrake for a few years. As responded to ebaer below. I think the isse lies in the perception of what science is. I know its become a bit of cliche in the last 4 years, but I don't think science is wrong. "The Science" however........
I don't know if you should be advising people to take acid... I would read: Drugs as Weapons Against Us by John Potash to understand how the CIA distributed acid to crush protest movements. I'm no teetotaler but I advise my friends to keep it all organic... Cannabis and shrooms grown and harvested with love and good intention... and very lightly and infrequently at that, if anything!
You are certainly right that drugs have been used against people, and drugs arguably don't do much to help social movements succeed... but I would argue that psychedelics have their place in expanding consciousness, depending how you use them. But expanding your mind is about having different kinds of experience, travel, trying to understand different worldviews, reading good books, meditation techniques, etc. A lot of ravers do a lot of psychedelics and don't really seem to get any smarter, so I guess it's not true that psychedelics make you smarter. But they can help make people smarter by helping them think in new ways. Maybe I should clarify that at some point.
I will lead about what you've said, though. I suppose at a certain if people really start taking me seriously I might have to think about the responsibility I have to people who actually listen to me... which I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about, to be honest. I really don't see myself as a role model... But at a certain point maybe I should.
Even weed arguably isn't good for revolutionary movements. A bunch of people sitting in an occupation smoking weed doesn't tend to go anywhere. Not only does it make (some) people lazy, it also makes them much more likely to want to avoid confrontation.
It's a double-edged sword. I think Etienne makes a fine point concerning deep state weaponization of narcotics--one that certainly has no shortage of nuanced nooks and crannies--so no issues there, but on the macro level I love your work precisely because you are actually one of the few people boldly (some would say recklessly, I'm sure, but they can write their own damn articles then! haha) kicking the door in on a lot of topics that people are either scared of, or consider "The Settled Science©." You could make some mistakes along the way, sure, but we all do! God only know how much of what we believe to be undeniably, obviously true RIGHT NOW is completely wrong, but I'd venture it's far more than we care to consider. At least you're taking a swing at interesting topics with honesty and curiosity. You do whatever you want, of course, that's my whole point, but for my two cents I say fuck it and write whatever you want, crazy, wild, or otherwise, and let people sort it out for themselves. A lot of vital ideas we now revere as sacrosanct and near-tautological were considered reckless or outright absurd when proposed! I find Nevermore Media to be a really valuable and unique voice in a world where most people are cowed into churning out homogenized "outrage" while handwringing over who deserves to be "platformed." Barkley had it right back in the day when he proclaimed: "I'm not a role model." Anyway, just wanted to provide some praise and support for the iconoclasm since I know the Mind Gadflies always come out buzzing and stinging the second someone strays from The Orthodoxy, and it may help to know not everyone is some hectoring, high-horsed, pearl clutcher (again, not describing Etienne here) entreating you to "Think of the children!" and "Stay thy tongue, knave, lest you offend the Virtual Gods of Hallowed Modernity!" More like hollowed modernity, but I digress.
Thank for getting it! I deliberately blur the line between satire and serious political commentary for two main reasons:
1) To trick people into thinking for themselves
2) To cover my tracks (by retroactively pretending something crazy I said was a joke)
It works surprisingly well! I call it "absurdist rhetoric" and I believe I invented it. It's based on the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson and the ideas of Marshall McLuhan but I believe it's novel. And good luck turning my body of work into a dogma! No one in the future will be able to tell when the joke ends or begins. They'll be forced to ask themselves "well, what makes sense to me?" And that's what I want.
"A lot of vital ideas we now revere as sacrosanct and near-tautological were considered reckless or outright absurd when proposed!"
Those words should be carved in stone over the main entrance of every university everywhere in the world. Maybe boil it down a bit, like 'today's truth is tomorrow's conjecture.' Something like that. Here it is in Latin:
Hodie veritas coniectura crastina est
Might make a good t-shirt.
Actually, that works in both directions because you could also say 'today's truth is yesterday's conjecture'
I like that! How do you say this in Latin? "That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."
Quod absurdissimum videtur in generatione una, saepe fit summa sapientiae in altera.
Thank you, kind bear! I kid you not, when I saw you mention universities, I thought to myself "Well, sure, if only I knew it in Lati--wait, ebear beat me to it!" lol. Amazing work there; I really appreciate it! And I totally agree that it works in both directions... and would make a great merch line. It is sad to see how many institutions of "education" have become factories for "indoctrination," but I take heart whenever I have interactions like this that all is not lost :)
Most of the kids doing acid back when I was in that scene circa 1969 were doing it for kicks, not enlightenment. What is that anyway? "Enlightenment." I've never been able to figure out what people mean by that.
It's realizing that you're a figment of your own imagination. I highly suggest Shinzen Young's The Science of Enlightenment. One of the best books on Buddhism I've ever read.
I looked up Shinzen Young and the first thing I came across was this idea of 'mindfulness' and I thought, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson use it a lot. They also use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to gain people's confidence, something I find dishonest about both of them. A note about NLP. Whenever Wikipedia trashes something as completely as they do NLP, it suggests to me that there's something to it that the minders don't want us know.
Take this for example, from Shinzen Young's website:
"Shinzen likes to say of himself:
I’m a Jewish-American Buddhist-informed mindfulness teacher who got turned on to comparative mysticism by an Irish-Catholic priest and who has developed a Burmese-Japanese fusion practice inspired by the spirit of quantified science."
First off, why the need to let us know you're Jewish? Does that somehow add to your credibility, or is it a trigger word for putting us in a particular state of mind? Doesn't work too well today unfortunately. I'd change that if I were him. The rest is just a bunch of abstractions with no concrete reference points, like "the spirit of quantified science" as if that actually means anything.
"Comparative mysticism" is another meaningless phrase. Compared to what exactly? When you compare things you want some baseline or reference point for the comparison. If I say John is friendlier than Sally that tells me nothing about how friendly Sally is. She could be a total bitch and everyone around her could be friendlier, or she could be second friendliest person in the universe, after John.
This notion of 'comparative' reminds me of a time I took a wrong turn going from Toronto to Manitoulin Island. I knew from the sun's position (reference point) that I was heading the wrong way, but I didn't want to backtrack, so I stopped at a local Mennonite farm where these four guys were having their lunch break. I brought my map, and asked them to show me where I was and they couldn't do it! They didn't know where they were! I probably had a better idea than them because I had the map folded to the right section but they opened it up and started looking around Lake Superior! That reminded me of joke from an old movie where this guy is lost and asks a farmer for directions to which the farmer replies, "you can't get there from here!"
That's pretty much sums up my attitude towards 'enlightenment.' You can't get there from here because you've no idea where you are to begin with. All you can say for sure is that the people who claim to know how to get there are trying to sell you something. Their book, their seminar, tickets to their next lecture. Follow them and the only thing likely to be 'enlightened' is your wallet. More to the point, 'enlightenment' clearly implies unenlightenment as a starting point, which could be the beginning of a very disturbing experience for the so-called unenlightened. Heaven's Gate springs to mind here, but there's plenty of other examples.
As for mindfulness, what's the big deal? You pay attention to the immediate when the immediate demands it. I always practice mindfulness when I'm driving my truck otherwise I'd end up in ditch, or worse, kill someone. Same goes for the bad part of town, which today is ANY part of town. Another word for it is street smarts, or in the military TSA (total situation awareness).
Back to NLP. When you watch Jordan Peterson what do you see? What do you hear? Do those thoughtful silences, the furrowed brow and careful choice of words suggest a deep thinker? Wrong. It's a technique designed to convey that impression. JP knows exactly what he's going to say. That's just a theatrical device to let you know how smart he is so you'll genuflect instead of calling him on his BS. Same goes for Harris. If you don't recognize an intellectual fraud when you see one, just read what they have to say on a controversial subject.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict.html
OK, now let's deconstruct "Buddhist-informed" starting with the question, why is it always Buddhism these enlightenment sales people use as their reference point? As someone who's spent time in both Thailand and Japan, the people there don't seem all that enlightened about anything including personal responsibility, in fact they're pretty good at evading that. Speaking of Japan, how enlightened was their occupation of Manchuria, the rape of Nanjing or the human experimentation conducted by Unit 731? As for Burma, you might want to ask the Rohingya people what they think of Buddhist enlightenment.
Or take the Buddha himself. A rich guy who abandons luxury to lead a life of asceticism only to finally realize there's a middle road? What's so enlightened about that? Seems kind of obvious to me, not to mention Sikhs and Muslims have the same outlook. I get the resistance to Islam, but where are the western bearers of enlightenment knowledge based on Sikhism? Sikhism has a far more practical doctrine than Buddhism and fewer mystical trappings. Hmm. I think I just answered my own question. People love mysteries and symbols and shit. Sikhism's probably too practical for the average 'seeker of truth' even though that's what a Sikh is. A seeker of truth.
Note: none of what I've said is a condemnation of meditation. I think it's probably a good thing - lower your heart rate, calm yourself down. A lot of people could benefit from that, myself included. I don't think you have to pay someone to learn it though. Just look around on the net. Anyone who's benefited from it and feels like sharing has probably got it up for free somewhere. I don't think it's a path to enlightenment though, because I don't believe there's any such thing.
Hey, I changed the title of that article to "Why Science is Wrong"
Check it out here: https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/why-science-is-bullshit-and-why-teenagers (the URL doesn't automatically change)
Science - real science - is just the avoidance of delusion.
True... So how might one conduct "real science" without succumbing to Confirmation Bias? I honestly think that a lot of inner work is necessary before one can approach objectivity. One has to be willing to accept the results of one's experiments, even if they contradict one's deeply-held beliefs. Most scientists do not view meditative techniques as necessary to the scientific method, but isn't the mind the ultimate scientific instrument? Shouldn't it be properly calibrated?
Did you read the essays on the Two Colour Protocol?
um… no. What’s that?
This embeds to the other two
https://open.substack.com/pub/beyondcertainty/p/the-two-colour-protocol
This embeds to the other two
https://open.substack.com/pub/beyondcertainty/p/the-two-colour-protocol
"No one has yet to poke a single hole in my arguments against science, but I still get commenters telling me that"
You didn't make an argument against the scientific method, but scientific orthodoxy.
What’s the difference?
Etymology of the word science: Latin word, "Scientia", meaning knowledge. Root is "Scire", to know and discern.
In principle, if angels are real, then the study of angels would be part of science. Because the pursuit of knowledge is science.
Note, I don't believe in God or angels.
"The Science", or scientific orthodoxy is the belief that institutional consensus determines truth and that certain theories are beyond question.
This is firmly anti-science, where questioning and confirming hypotheses is routine.
The reason it seems satanic is that a group of satanists control all the institutions. That is all.
Wow! You're the first person to seriously challenge me on this... I'm currently working long hours but I will definitely give this the attention it deserves on my days off.
I've got arguments against science for days but no one wants to argue with me, possibly because no on enjoys arguing as much as I do. But here's something for starters: I believe it's misguided to attempt to disprove one's own assumptions through experimentation, which is at the heart of the scientific method. That assumes that human beings are more motivated by the love of truth that desire for prestige and will report their findings accurately. We know for a fact that's not true - I could cite many examples of scientists whose judgement was blurred by their ego. Chomsky refuses to admit that Universal Grammar has been falsified, for instance.
Are you familiar with von Neumann's Catastrophe of Infinite Regress, by the way? I've written about it before, mostly just rehashing the ideas of Robert Anton Wilson, but I think it's important, as it purports to mathematically prove that science has eaten its own tail. You seem knowledgeable about math, maybe you could tell me whether you accept it or not.
See: https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/why-science-is-bullshit-and-why-teenagers
Can the two be separated?
Мы понимаем друг друга только тогда, когда говорим на общем языке.
Or use google translate.
Thank you for making my point.
Someone had to write that program. Someone had to create the device on which it runs and the network that it connects to, and for that to happen someone had to develop semiconductor technology based on experiments with different materials which first had to be identified and their properties characterized. A knowledge of electricity and light (radio waves) had to be developed prior to all that, which overall took about 300 years, which is about the length of time it took to develop an accurate common language to communicate the knowledge obtained through experimentation and observation.
There's a certain irony in using the technology that created the medium we're now using to trash the very foundation that medium was built on. Show me any other method that could have developed the internet, the cell phone, or any other technology we use without ever thinking about how amazing it is that we can even do that.
There's a difference between being provocative and being obtuse. Provocative is the Socratic Method, where we pose questions that lead the listener to examine their own beliefs. Obtuse is simply sticking to a belief and insisting on its correctness despite a lack of evidence to support it, or even evidence that contradicts it.
We know humans are corruptible. We can argue whether they're corrupt by nature or as a matter of circumstance, but there's no doubt that some people are corrupt. The evidence is all around us. So do we stop speaking English because the British Empire was corrupt? Do we stop speaking German because of the Nazis? Maybe the Chinese should stop speaking Mandarin because that's what Mao's Little Red Book was written in?
I really hope this is getting across because I'm just about done defending science vs. mysticism. It's an uphill battle at the best of times, and the last few years have been anything but the best of times. I'll just close with one last thought. Ask yourselves, Cui Bono? Who benefits from spreading mistrust in science? Who might be interested in promoting a belief that science itself can't be trusted?
Now this is interesting. I was just thinking how much I agreed with this post, now, having read your response, i'm thinking how much I agree with what you have written. Problem is, I still think that the Nevermore post is correct. I think the problem lies in the perception of what science actually is.
"I think the problem lies in the perception of what science actually is."
Exactly. The problem arises when people perceive science as an ideology, when it's actually a methodology. This attitude is reinforced by clowns like "I am the science" Fauci and his cabal, while genuine scientists that speak out against the abuse of science in the service of a political agenda are sidelined. It doesn't help that a large number of scientists are captives of the funding, much of which comes from the government or corporate sponsors. These are people who may be trained in the methodology, but who are unaware, or chose to ignore, the fact that science is also a system of ethics. By definition, anything you claim as a fact is open to scrutiny by your peers, and if your methodology is unsound or you're caught lying, you'll be called out. At least that's how it's supposed to work. As a system of ethics, it also has the aspect that NOT speaking up when you know something is wrong is a violation of the creed. For example, there's a million genuine scientists from all over the world that stood up right here: https://gbdeclaration.org/ We just didn't hear much about them because the media chose (or were instructed) to ignore them.
I agree with Crow that the institutions of science have been corrupted. I think that's fairly obvious at this point. But conflating human weakness with the methodology itself is a Fallacy of Composition - something to be avoided for the same reason we don't characterize entire races or religions on the basis of some of their members.
https://practicalpie.com/fallacy-of-composition/
Hey, I miss your comments, ebear! Did you catch my recent exploration of General Semantics? I'd love it if you'd critique and/or expand upon it.
https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/if-you-dont-know-meaning-of-the-word
If semiconductors had not been invented, I would have had to actually learn Russian, my brain would not be the shrivelled raisin it is now, and I would have a greater awareness of experience due to using words for expressions that cannot be translated into English.
Touche.