--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <fintlewoodle...@...> 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
