With all the erudition of a drunken 15 year old......

[LesMTS]

My personal belief is that it is foolish to build your belief system on instincts. If you have an instinctual belief about something, then fair play, you are entitled to it but, personally, I don't think this is useful at all.
Neither do I buy the 'Ancient Wisdom' argument, most of this 'wisdom' is spurious, ill-defined, vague, ad-hoc and contradictory. Take, for example, the many isolated cultures who still have shamans who make strange preparations from plants, imbibe them and thereafter are able to enter the 'spirit world' where they can 'become one with true reality', 'merge with nature', 'communicate with Gaia' or other such nonsense. What is actually happening is that they have taken a psychotropic drug, we know a lot about these kinds of drugs and they work, inter alia, by interfering with the normal operations of a chemical called 5-hydroxytryptamine in the brain. This greatly alters the way your brain collects and assigns importance to sensory information leading to fantastic hallucinations and massive alterations of perception. No spirit world. No becoming one with anything. No 'magic plants'. Just some molecules of an alkaloid chemical which fucks around with your neurochemistry. Fascinating, but not magic.
Yet, and it's a big YET, there are STILL intelligent people who have access to excellent education who still believe that the shamans are 'contacting spirits', 'becoming one with nature' etc etc"!!! Ask these people WHY they believe it, what their REASONING is and the answer is invariably "Oh, I just do" or "It just seems right". You can't justify beliefs because they 'seem' right!
Incidentally, what are the things you've experienced which you mentioned but didn't elaborate on which led you to your beliefs?

[TragicHero]

They're quite personal things otherwise I would have elaborated

You'll need to find your own proof, I'm not going to try and convince you any more then you're going to try and convince me. If you don't trust your instincts I find that very unfortunate.

[LesMTS]

What if my instinctual belief was that the earth was flat, as was the case with Charles K. Johnson? He ended up unfulfilled and dead after 30 years of tirelessly trying to have his ideas accepted by society as a whole.
I don't NOT trust my instincts but I don't have any reason to believe that if I feel instinctive about something that it's going to actually be the case. Instincts are subjective, I believe we should strive towards the objective. If I feel instinctively that a ball hidden in a box is blue then someone takes it out and shows me that it's yellow, then i'm not going to argue. What I get frustrated with is that science is constantly showing people the 'colour' of the proverbial 'ball' and people STILL want to believe nonsense like magic, crystal power, chakras etc etc.
Anyway dude, I sense you're getting a little hostile. I don't want to make you feel that way. I fundamentally disagree with you but I also love living in a world where we can disagree. If everyone had the same ideas it would be a pretty boring place!

[TragicHero]

No, I'm not meaning to come across as hostile, I just feel liek it's come to the point where we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, as I said before

Originally Posted by TragicHero

If you want to believe that that just happened by chance and for no particular reason then thats your lookout.

I'm not going to change my opinion on the fact any time soon and until I have any more evidence to present to you you're not liable to either.

Can I see where you learned that Chakrahs have been scientifically discredited?

[LesMTS]

In brief;
"According to Tantric philosophy and Yoga, a chakra is a points of energy in the astral body. There are seven primary chakras, which are associated with various parts of the body, emotions, desires, thoughts, powers, and health.* New Age gurus think chakras have colors and give rise to auras, which reveal one's spiritual and physical health, as well as one's karma. The alleged energy of the chakras is not scientifically measurable, however, and is at best a metaphysical chimera and at worst an anatomical falsehood." - Carroll, Robert T. 1994. The Skeptics Dictionary. (emphasis mine)

If you claim you are healing with some kind of 'energy' but that this 'energy' is not measurable, then the idea is completeley scientifically invalid as it is impossible to study objectively. To say something is not measurable is to say that we have to rely on subjective interpretations in order to quantify it and test it's efficacy and subjective interpretations are useless to science (for example, the theory that schizophrenia is caused by demonic possession (unmeasurable) vs the dopamine theory of schizophrenia which relates the condition to availabilty of the neurotransmitter dopamine (measurable, and has provided imperfect but unquestionably effective treatments) ).
I'm not saying faith healing etc never work. It's just that when they do APPEAR to work it is certainly not for the reasons given by the faith healers. Why invent or, more to the point, cling to a vague and spurious concept such as chakras when there are far more likely and helpful explanations. Where 'faith/energy healing' becomes dangerous and nasty is when purveyors of these kinds of vague and nebulous therapies talk people into making life-changing decisions based on their unresearchable techniques - often for lots of money, the pinnacle of which is people being talked out of approaching conventional medicine. I think new age therapies may do no harm as a complement to conventional treatment and may even do some good (see the essays below), but please, if you are ever (God forbid) extremely sick do not shun conventional medicine and put your treatment in the hands of people providing "unproven (or unprovable) therapies with questionable methods" (www.skepdic.com/quackery.html).

Here are two nice essays on the subject.

www.skepdic.com/essays/energyhealing.htm

http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...altbelief.html

[LesMTS]

Basically, you are arguing the metaphyical perspective. While, metaphysics is all well and good for a bit of interesting conversation in the pub above and beyond that it is completely useless. Nothing practical can ever come from metaphysics and the fundamental reason for this is impossible to empirically test them, therefore, when you have two contradictory metaphysical positions it is impossible to reconcile them or to fin out which one is more valid (or invalid, more to the point).
For example, try this thought experiment, say you get some new age healer whose technique and beliefs as to why his techniques work is utterly incompatible with the existence of chakras. Yet he has thousands of happy customers who are willing to provide testimonials as to the efficacy of his treatment. However, he also claims that the powers he is using are also unmeasurable. How do you determine which is the valid treatment, given that the nature of his claims means that both cannot be true? Well, you'd want to start with a clinical trial. Where healing techniques employing ideas such as 'chakras' have been put through rigorous clinical trials they have consistently failed to be any more effective than the placebo effect. Presented with this result, the 'healers' kindly inform the researchers that when these things are rigorously tested it implies that we have no faith which in turn creates 'bad vibes' which negatively affect the healer's powers to heal. Well, wait a minute, but what sort of a chance does that give us? Now, if the second guy with the other technique also fails in his clinical trials and comes up with exactly the same ad-hoc justification we are absolutley no further forward. We are left with a bunch of patient testimonials (useful only as a starting point for research, not as it's culmination and certainly not as evidence) from two branches of metaphysical healing which completely contradict one another. You can see how you very quickly end up in a whole big stinking pile of 'whats the point?'.

[LesMTS]

Woooahhhh!! Breaking News!
Hold on a minute! Let me rewind the debate a little to the transient disagreement over that hokum film "What the Bleep do we know?", I've just done a little research and have found out a few things I was unaware of.
Turns out that this film's producers, writers and directors are ALL from the "Ramtha School of Enlightenment", where you can go if you're feeling down, sick, unfulfilled etc and some nice people will 'help' you (if you have enough money), and the film was bankrolled by one J.Z. Knight. "Ramtha School of Enlightenment?" thought I "That sounds like a respectable, accredited academic institution." So I looked a little "further into the rabbit hole" (to paraphrase this movie's already paraphrased tag-line). Who/what is 'Ramtha'? Hold on to your chair.......
"Ramtha is a 35,000 year-old spirit-warrior who appeared in J.Z. Knight’s kitchen in Tacoma, Washington in 1977. Knight claims that she is Ramtha’s channel. She also owns the copyright to Ramtha and conducts sessions in which she pretends to go into a trance and speaks Hollywood’s version of Elizabethan English in a guttural, husky voice. She has thousands of followers and has made millions of dollars performing as Ramtha at seminars ($1,000 a crack) and at her Ramtha School of Enlightenment, and from the sales of tapes, books, and accessories (Clark and Gallo 1993). She must have hypnotic powers. Searching for self-fulfillment, otherwise normal people obey her command to spend hours blindfolded in a cold, muddy, doorless maze."
(from skepdic.com, emphasis mine)

[TragicHero]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

Consciousness/'The Mind' is located in the cerebral cortex, I'll even reference that for you - Thompson, R F. (1985) The Brain. An Introduction to Neuroscience, Page 22

Thats utter (and proveable) nonsense.
He's specularing merely because the cerebral cortex is the most evolved part of the human brain.
In practice though, a person can have the vast majority of their Cerebral Cortex removed and still remain completely self aware, so his theory goes out the window.
Same goes for memory, when people are lobotomised they don't tend to lose specific memories but might not generally remember as well because obviously the functionality of their brain has been damaged.
This also ties in to your question on an Alzheimer's patient:
I believe that we don't think with our brain but through it, it's a computer interpreting this five sense reality.

Originally Posted by LesMTS

I, in your beliefs, could feasibly argue that our consciousness is located inside tiny green balloons on a giant revolving trumpet in space and our thoughts are transmitted from this odd world to our heads by millions of invisible, undetectable teleporting pixies

The difference is though that this isn't a theory that I pulled out my ass, but one that I always suspected many elements of and read to find out that many other people I had no idea existed believed similar things and could offer more in depth explanations that made sense to me.
I like your theory though, that would be fucking ace!

It's also ironic how you are willing to take for granted someones opinion because they are a scientist (Thompson, R F. 1985). Did you repeat his studies?

As an easy example, the pro war never asked for any 'scientific evidence' that Saddam had WMD, because that was the "official line."
When something isn't the "official line" people question it more.

Originally Posted by LesMTS

Where healing techniques employing ideas such as 'chakras' have been put through rigorous clinical trials they have consistently failed to be any more effective than the placebo effect.

You ask for scientific evidence because you think the nature of reality is fixed, whereas I think the nature of reality in malleable.
For example, a sub atomic particle called the anamoalon has been proven to have different properties in every laboritory. This is essentially equal to the colour of a car changing according to who is driving it.
Furthermore, it has been proved time and time again that the opinion of researchers tends to affect the outcome of an experiment they do.
What use is this dogmatic demand for scientific evidence when "faith healers" (as you called them) really do get results?

Take for example Reflexology. Medical science says dismisses it because that suits the Pharmaceutical cartel.
They don't acknowledge the fact that ancient Egyptians, Indians and Chineses ALL practiced it, and drew up the same charts, linking the same parts of the foot to the same parts of the body.
Not coincidence.

This also explains certain "miracles" performed by individuals:
be it walking on coal, lying on glass or that woman who (dazed by a crash) lifted the best part of a road vehicle which she thought was just a bar of metal in order to save her son from the road accident.
We all hear of amazing stories like this, some bullshit, some undoubtedly true and it's good to remain generally skeptical about any particular story, but to believe that these things never happen is ignorant in my view.
The Dutchman Mirin Dajo performed a stage show where he pushed a fencing foil into his body and out the other side. No bleeding no pain. He agreed to do this before a host of doctors and journalists at a Zurich hospital and was X-rayed with the sword inside to prove that it was no trick.

Originally Posted by LesMTS

What if my instinctual belief was that the earth was flat, as was the case with Charles K. Johnson?

Lets take the example futher, shall we?
When the dominant belief was that the world was flat if you said it was round people would go "thats impossible mate, the people on the bottom would fall of!"
Bring in the law of gravity and that all changes...
If you believe that your reality is fixed then yes, a lot of "spiritual" ideas may seem rediculous.
But if you believe that reality is malleable you can understand how some can take control of reality in generally unexpected ways.

As for instinctively believing that the world was flat that would just be a delusion. You'd think the earth was flat, not instinctively feel it but think that you instinctively felt it.

My most recent example of this is last night the phone rang and I expected it was my friend Suzy before I picked up, I guessed correctly.
I had said she could come over about 10 on her way home and given it was around that time it was reasonable to assume, there was a good chance it was her.
A couple of days earlier though, the phone rang and stopped, as I went to press 1471 I instinctively whose number it was going to be
I had no reason to guess or clue as to who it might be and I know it wasn't the same as guessing because I was as sure of it as I was of my own name, and similar incidents have happened to me before, every time I've predicted the future in some small way it has been with absolutely no uncertainty on the matter. Thats an instinct.
You would probably say it's just a coincidence though.

I cannot not say that I instinctively believe everything I have described in this thread with the same level of certainty as my name though, however, to me it appears a consistant and feesable belief system and not as irrational as some may think.

Originally Posted by LesMTS

You want to go for a pint? It'd be an interesting pub conversation. You'd probably win the debate too cos I'd undoubtedly end up getting steaming and getting all my reasoning arse-over-tit and muddling up my facts.

sorry missed this before and would probably be up for it, alcohol consumption severly reduces elloquence I had an awful time trying to be articulate on Sunday night.

[LesMTS]

The fundamental flaw in your line of reasoning is that you are arguing, correct me if i'm wrong, that there is 'no objective reality' and we make our own reality as we move through it ergo ALL is subjective, however, you are backing this up through science which requires an objective reality. The two positions are contradictory. You can't say 'there exists ONLY consciousness' then back it up with neuroanatomy and neuroscience which are dependent on principles (from physics, through chemistry to cellular physiology) that require as their fundamental assumption that there exists, to quote the physicist Alan Sokal, "an external world, that there exist objective truths about that world". All science is based on that assumption and it's an assumption I happen to agree with.

Anyway, give me a few hours, until tomorrow at the most, on your other points because yours was a lengthy post. I've got the framework of my counter-argument sorted but I'd like to do a little research first, back myself up and articulate myself as best I can.

First of all though, the 'official line' politically and the 'official line' scientifically are not comparable. For example, it doesn't matter to a scientist what he/she discovers ONLY that it is discovered, if that makes sense. It is impossible to read every single paper on every single scientific study but there is a rigorous system in place to make sure nonsense and bad research gets into neither journals nor textbooks, if you trust that system (and I do) then you can confidently accept the facts without knowing exactly how the study was done. I'm not going to be so naive as to suggest that research is never repressed or pushed for economic reasons, of course this happens and it's wrong but it doesn't alter the fundamental, objective facts - it only affects their social emphasis.

So, give me some time on the rest.......

[LesMTS]

"Thats utter (and proveable) nonsense.
He's specularing merely because the cerebral cortex is the most evolved part of the human brain.
In practice though, a person can have the vast majority of their Cerebral Cortex removed and still remain completely self aware, so his theory goes out the window."

I'll partially concede to you on this one, but only partially. I agree with you that there is a fair amount of speculation involved BUT it is speculation based on very sound principles. I'd also like to highlight your use of the term "vast majority", a general statement like this cannot precede the conclusion "the theory goes out the window." Can you point me in the direction of any studies where someone has had the "vast majority" of their cerebral cortex removed?
A huge problem we face in discussing these ideas, however, is that there is no firm consensus on what 'consciousness' actually means.
I have read about a study demonstrating that electrical activity in the brain preceding an action begins 500-600 milliseconds before the subject is aware of "thinking about making that action", then there is another 200-300 milliseconds before the action takes place. The exact reference eludes me at the moment but, should you be interested, I am sure I can find it for you. The implications of taking this study at face value appear to be, and this is a mindfuck, that your brain just follows complex protocols in response to complex sensory stimuli - protocols based on memory mediated, conditioned, aversion or reward pathways which "we", the consciousness, have absolutley no power over. Consciousness is, according to this model, just an "afterthought", a quirk that simply exists as a side effect of our capability for language. It may or may not, the argument goes, have some kind of evolutionary benefit in providing some kind of cohesion in our experience as social animals.

"This also ties in to your question on an Alzheimer's patient:
I believe that we don't think with our brain but through it, it's a computer interpreting this five sense reality."

I also think the brain is a 'computer interpreting this five sense reality' but not in the way you do. You're saying, again, correct me if i'm wrong, that consciousness somehow exists nebulously 'outside' of the body and the brain is an organ which can harness and put it to use (or vice versa, ie the consciousness harnesses the brain and puts that to use). First of all, and I know I'm deferring to science here but i've explained my reasons for that in my post yesterday, there is absolutley NOTHING we know about neurones which suggests they have this kind of property and they are understood fairly well. You can't argue against this with the "Ahhh, we don't know it yet" position because this can be used uselessly to make any claim at all, eg "Ahhh, who's to say that we won't in a few years find something that proves that neurotransmitters can interact with invisible, undetectable, teleporting pixies?" The new-age/quantum physics hybrid argument doesn't float here either because what new age hijackers of physics fail to point out is that quantum effects do not apply to brain chemistry. Here is an explanation: "University of Colorado physicist Victor Stenger demonstrates that for a system to be described quantum-mechanically, its typical mass (m), speed (v) and distance (d) must be on the order of Planck's constant (h). "If mvd is much greater than h, then the system probably can be treated classically." Stenger computes that the mass of neural transmitter molecules and their speed across the distance of the synapse are about two orders of magnitude too large for quantum effects to be influential."
Argue the case for nebulous, physically independent consciousness if you want but keep it metaphysical, you can't bring physics or any true science into the picture.

"For example, a sub atomic particle called the anamoalon has been proven to have different properties in every laboritory. This is essentially equal to the colour of a car changing according to who is driving it."

It's called an "anomalon", which is derived from the word "anomalous" (ie deviating from normal rules), your use of the words "proven" and "every laboratory" are fairly liberal here as "Not all physicists can find them experimentally; and far from all believe they exist" (Science Frontiers). The fact that where physicists claim to have found and studied them they have often discovered contradictory properties is simply symptomatic of the fact that they are all starting off with different ideas of what they are looking for.

"What use is this dogmatic demand for scientific evidence when "faith healers" (as you called them) really do get results?"

They don't really get results, they just don't. Testimonials and anecdotal evidence are not results. My dogmatic demand is because THE best way of determining the probability of something being effective or ineffective is the scientific method, there is no other sensible or reasonable way.

"ancient Egyptians, Indians and Chineses ALL practiced it [reflexology], and drew up the same charts, linking the same parts of the foot to the same parts of the body."

Show me a credible source for this statement.

"This also explains certain "miracles" performed by individuals:
be it walking on coal, lying on glass or that woman who (dazed by a crash) lifted the best part of a road vehicle which she thought was just a bar of metal in order to save her son from the road accident."

Walking on coal and lying on glass are not 'miracles' they are entertaining 'tricks' performed upon a sound framework of physics. Take firewalking for example;
"A firewalk of short length is something any physically fit person could do and that it does not need a particular state of mind. Rather, it is the short time of contact and the low thermal capacity and conductivity of the coals that is important, and it is not necessary for the feet to be moist nor callused, although either may be of slight benefit. Longer walks appear to be possible if a layer of insulating ash is allowed to build up on a well packed down bed, where the temperature has been allowed to fall significantly from what it was when the coals were at their hottest. " (David Willey, University of Pittsburgh)
Our body has a high thermal capacity, the coals or charcoal have low thermal capacity. Basic physics says it is difficult for heat to travel from an object of low heat capacity to one of high. Nothing to do with mind over matter (apart from the confidence needed to step out onto the burning coals of course!).
The case of the woman lifting the car, possibly made up. If it's true it's probably an example of stress hormones temporarily making muscles super-efficient which has been exaggerated as the story passed from person to person. I can't find anything about Mirin Dajo on the net in a language I understand and can only find little bits and pieces in literature which basically just repeat what you said. No eye-witness reports just an anecdote. He appears to be a 'fakir', 'fakirs' have time and time again been exposed as elaborate tricksters (go to www.csicop.org/si/2003-01/dont-try-this.html for a short introduction to fakir-exposing).

" not instinctively feel it but think that you instinctively felt it."

What's the difference?

"My most recent example of this is last night the phone rang and I expected it was my friend Suzy before I picked up, I guessed correctly.
I had said she could come over about 10 on her way home and given it was around that time it was reasonable to assume, there was a good chance it was her.
A couple of days earlier though, the phone rang and stopped, as I went to press 1471 I instinctively whose number it was going to be
I had no reason to guess or clue as to who it might be and I know it wasn't the same as guessing because I was as sure of it as I was of my own name, and similar incidents have happened to me before, every time I've predicted the future in some small way it has been with absolutely no uncertainty on the matter. Thats an instinct."

You can't just define an instinct as something that is verified by following events. Instincts can be wrong. I have also experienced similair phenomena, the phone thing happens reasonably frequently and I, as do many other people, seem to have uncanny ability to predict if a shop is going to be unexpectedly closed while I am still some distance from it. I don't find these things paranormal however, even though I can't absolutely explain them. I would suggest that the phone phenomenon is caused by unconscious knowledge of the probabilities of certain people contacting you this, I'm suggesting, is reinforced by a bit of selective memory and confirmation bias, ie the occasions where it does happen seem so uncanny that you prioritise them over the much more frequent occasions where you didn't make these 'predictions' (or illusions of prediction). The shop thing could be similair, perhaps the behaviour of others in the street or consciously disregarded sound cues gives me the feeling that the shop may be closed.


Anyway, I'm enjoying the debate. Now I got to get back to work. We should get that pint sometime!

[LesMTS]

Incidentally, on the subject of reflexology, rather than many cultures independently discovering it is it not just credible that they all discovered, simply, that foot massage is very relaxing and thus makes you feel better and more energetic? There is a very good essay on the subject which includes a fair amount of information about clinical trials of reflexology techniques and claims. It can be read here;
http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...cs/reflex.html
For those with no attention span the conclusion of the essay sums it up quite well (although you will obviously have to read the whole thing if you want to know how they reached this conclusion);
"Reflexology is based on an absurd theory and has not been demonstrated to influence the course of any illness. Done gently, reflexology is a form of foot massage that may help people relax temporarily. Whether that is worth $35 to $100 per session or is more effective than ordinary (noncommercial) foot massage is a matter of individual choice. Claims that reflexology is effective for diagnosing or treating disease should be ignored. Such claims could lead to delay of necessary medical care or to unnecessary medical testing of people who are worried about reflexology findings."

[Krocktopus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4152374.stm

'Mon the Enlightenment

[LesMTS]

I think Gangsta Rapper MC Steven Hawking put the case for the enlightenment forward with this classic rap;

Fuck The Creationists

Trash Talk

Ah yeah, here we go again!
Damn! This is some funky shit that I be laying down on your ass.
This one goes out to all my homey's working in the field of
evolutionary science.

Check it!

Verse 1
Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.
Noah and his ark, Adam and his Eve,
straight up fairy stories even children don't believe.
I'm not saying there's no god, that's not for me to say,
all I'm saying is the Earth was not made in a day.

Chorus
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck the Creationists.

Trash Talk
Break it down.
Ah damn, this is a funky jam!
I'm about ready to kick this bitch back in.
Check it.

Verse 2
Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
because kicking their punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them wack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.

Chorus

Trash Talk
Bass!
Bring that shit in!
Ah yeah, that's right, fuck them all motherfuckers.
Fucking punk ass creationists trying to set scientific thought back 400 years.
Fuck that!
If them superstitious motherfuckers want to have that kind of party,
I'm going to put my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Fucking creationists.
Fuck them.

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