What makes Scientology a pseudoscience and separates the reactive mind from real scie

[fagin]

That's not very convincing when Scientologists feel Scientology has helped them overcome their problems or given them heightened awareness or uncovered vivid memories that feel as real as actual memories. Even if Hubbard said starting a religion was a reall

I believe all sorts of people believe all sorts of things have helped them with all sorts of things.

Still not science.

 

[Crocoshark]

I believe all sorts of people believe all sorts of things have helped them with all sorts of things.

Still not science.

Not saying it is, just saying the argument I quoted is not convincing to believers.

 

[Donn]

Feeling better is easy to exploit. Get a rush of dopamine and then repeat. It does not have to last; merely the memory of that first unusual hit will keep people hooked to the cult for life. Each step on the bridge is another tantalizing promise for more of that magic.

All the "gains" and whatnot, when you scrub them of propaganda and hype, are temporary sensations wilfully elicited by a clever system calculated to hook.

After that, people will herd themselves; keeping their delusions fed in order to value the time and energy already sunk.

 

[Donn]

Not saying it is, just saying the argument I quoted is not convincing to believers.

A believer is not going to be convinced by argument. Short of a deprogramming which might work, there's no formula. Reality is not welcome in the mind of belief.

 

[ferd burfle]

To be clear, body thetans are only used to justify the fact people still have problems when they go "clear"...

Seems to me the concept of "body thetans" is employed to continue fleecing the mark. The levels create the illusion of progress.

To the question of science, I can't consider it without looking at the whole of the program. The whole of the program is ******** so the question of science is moot.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Nay_Sayer]

A believer is not going to be convinced by argument. Short of a deprogramming which might work, there's no formula. Reality is not welcome in the mind of belief.

Nom'd. I may even steal that for my sig.

 

[Jodie]

I didn't say people didn't know the creation story of Scientology. I said you didn't know the definition of the "reactive mind", which is separate and can be critiqued and debunked on its own right.

It's like if you wanted to have a discussion about faith healing and all people would talk about is the ******** of the old testament. Yes they're both ******** but they are also separate.

I'm not arguing that auditing has benefits, I'm trying to discuss WHY it's ********. More specifically, I'm gave Scientologists idea of what makes something scientific and wanted to ask people what was wrong with that particular argument. And JUST that argument.

If the techniques have never been tested for efficacy outside of the church then it's not evidenced based practice. It sounds like "auditing" is just another term for psychotherapy to me, I could be wrong.

 

[Crocoshark]

There are lots of good online resources debunking scientology.

I found a "debunking scientology" playlist on youtube and it only had videos of scandals of the church, which is like debunking the bible by exposing the evils the Christian church has perpetuated. I typed "debunking scientology" into google and while I found some analysis of the e-meter, I didn't find much. Operation Clambake has one page on the TRs, one page on tech alterations over time and one page where you can download a scientific study of Dianetics auditing. Other than that I found very little actually debunking Scientology as opposed to digging up unsavory dirt.

(spoiler: the tech is bunk, all of it).

The ARC and KRC triangles?

Or are you just looking for people to agree its all nonsense? (I guess everyone here thinks this).

Neither, actually.

I have 22 thousand words or more that I wrote picking apart Scientology.

I like what I've written, it's a perspective I've never seen anywhere else and I value it in its own right.

At the same time I feel like I woke up in a paper bag and wrote a map of how I, inch by inch, moved over every crease to find my way out when there was always the obvious fact that it's made of paper and can just be ripped through. I wonder whether what I wrote is very roundabout or complicated in reaching a conclusion that can be reached much more simply.

There's also the fact that, as with anyone raised in a religion, I'm prone to the bias to remember the reasonable aspects and downplay the unreasonable. I see the reactive mind for the more plausible aspects such as the idea of past trauma causing fear and distress in the present.

So I wrote my original post

Are you totally out?

Depends what you mean by that. I was raised in Scientology, took a couple courses and got some auditing on a few occasions, and feel it's not for me. On the other hand, I was still raised in it, it's still part of my life via my family and your roots will always influence how you think, good or bad.

 

[marplots]

Out of curiosity, how might engrams; the theory that wrods and stimuli in moments of pain and unconsciousness cause negative symptoms later on, have evolved with advances in the fields you've listed? I know in concept you're absolutely right, but in practice I'm having trouble coming up with examples.

I'll give it a shot, but I'm not very informed on just how engrams are supposed to work, so you may have to customize any poor analogy I make.

I think if I were investigating this I'd be interested in a few things. First, I might want to do some brain imagine (fMRI) and see what can be captured. Real-time imaging, perhaps concurrent with "the cans" ought to show something happening.

Mostly I'd be trying to tie down the cause and effect part. It is one thing to say a person has problem X and must therefore have, at some time in the past, underlying factor Y. If this is true, it should work the other way around. So, for example, I might survey a hundred people, looking for the imprints before the problem emerged - presumably, there is some delay, going by what you said. We ought to able to predict, statistically, what should happen if we are correct.

An example from science. You suspect that exposure to lead leads to poor outcomes later in life. Find a bunch of kids that have been exposed, wait around and then see if they do develop the predicted problems.

Depending on how serious the problems caused by negative engrams are, you could also cause the stresses (or whatever causes them) in a group in a random fashion and then see if the problems that result match expectations. Of course, we'd want to do this in a double blind manner. You might be able to do it with virtual reality. (Hypothesis: If I show a hundred people a virtual reality situation about a dog dying, 80% or more will develop migraines within a month.)

Epidemiological, we could also compare treatment groups - Scientologists who undergo the process - with non-treated groups (those outside Scientology) and see if we can measure a difference. This is not as convincing, since our samples are self-selected, but if we could find an objective measure, it might work.

Sorry, I have drifted away from the question you asked. Here are some other possibilities besides brain imaging. Other biometrics which parallel "the cans" as both alternatives and double checks. You would expect repeatable, reliable results across methods. Using computer models to tease out patterns in meter results, far beyond what a human operator is able to do. Can "the cans" be automated? If not, why not? Can a standardized script (a la hypnosis) be used? What happens? What about enhancing the process with drugs? Are there medications that affect measurements from "the cans," and what can that tell us about engrams? Is there a specific neurotransmitter that, when blocked (or enhanced), changes the outcomes in predictable ways?

Naturally, the more you pin down just what an engram is supposed to be, the more tests you can come up with to examine them.

 

[Dave Rogers]

To be clear, body thetans are only used to justify the fact people still have problems when they go "clear",

Exactly! They are used to make it impossible to falsify the claim that people who go "clear" no longer have any problems. They've been put in place as the last defense against scientific analysis of Scientology's claims.

Dave

 

[Hlafordlaes]

marplots has already provided excellent guidance. I can only add a tad to that for you.

the reactive mind doesn’t seem to much differ from what’s accepted about the mind other than being an arbitrary border between rational and irrational aspects of the mind.

Unfortunately, the mind is a complex topic, and navigating your way out of certain beliefs using science is trickier, given that there are various modes in which science can attempt to operate when dealing with the mind and brain:

phenomenology: inner experience. Pro: it is what we wish to explain. Con: experience is not amenable to measurement, so theories run the risk of being entirely rationalist fantasies (not empirical). Also: experiential phenomena may very well be the least interesting scientifically, i.e., is the end result of what is interesting (mental heuristics). A real freaking mess, which is why most people interested in 'mind woo' spend their time exclusively talking about themselves (their selves). We get that all the time on ISF.

physiology: biological systems in physical terms. Pro: this is science with a capital S. Con: we still have zero handle on actual encoding, so matching behavior to mind is possible for a gross approach (touch with probe here, mind thinks of 'xyz'), but not possible in terms of mapping from concept to semantic primitive to encoded information. The purview of neuroscience, and vast overkill for your purposes.

functional architecture: deriving functions from behavior (eg if can catch a ball, must be able to (i) identify object (ii) estimate trajectory, etc.), the brain is studied from a cognitive point of view. Pro: this is an approach that allows for granular testing, yay!, we can do lab work. Con: the types of functions studied are common to all, and so shed little light on some forms of personal quirks and abnormal behavior.

process: modelling of the algorithms involved in mental heuristics. Pro: fascinating. Con: math based; not the droids you were looking for, sort of like looking at brick manufacture when you are really interested in architecture. Good stuff tho, essential for AI.

To your question: 'rational' and 'irrational' aspects of mind: these are high level concepts that have baggage; i.e, they already characterize thought and in that sense impose a search for something that is not fruitful. The sciences of the mind attempt rather to use some aspect of one of the modes of study above and work with only the assumptions needed. In short, you need to drop centuries of religious thinking, philosophy and very early science to make headway in modern sciences of the mind.

Rather than go on and on and say why things are difficult, let me encourage you to start doing some reading. One place to start that you might find interesting is here. WARNING: Link is to a large pdf.

Second, more broadly, what makes Scienology a pseudoscience?

Apart from what marplots has explained, I think science is something that one gets the hang of best by being exposed to it. Try the link, and if ambitious, read it all! That will give you a handy start to thinking scientifically about mind and brain.

Threads on ISF can be fun, but do not expect to learn too much about the mind. Speaking for everyone else, and not myself, we are all crazy! (Heh, heh).

 

[Crocoshark]

I'll give it a shot, but I'm not very informed on just how engrams are supposed to work, so you may have to customize any poor analogy I make.

Here's a Dianetics video I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZhjNNEZR5c&index=5&list=PLfflewFZs6v_NUM-Y-Xpru-Uy5o02uUD1

The classic example is an abused woman being told she's no good, and than later when she hears things like the faucet running or other sounds from when she was hit she gets a headache or feels she is no good.

Of course, one problem is that Hubbard says the effects an engram can have on someone can be random or unpredictable; the "reactive mind" can re-interpret words in different, unpredictable ways. One Scientology video claims a mother telling a sick child "I will never leave you" has instilled an engram for the sickness to never leave them, causing them to feel sick when the engram is triggered by similar environmental stimulus.

This can lead to engrams being about as predictive as something causing "bad luck". It's not necessarily predicting a specific result, people will find their own cause-effect relationship in auditing and that will make the engram go away.

I think if I were investigating this I'd be interested in a few things. First, I might want to do some brain imagine (fMRI) and see what can be captured. Real-time imaging, perhaps concurrent with "the cans" ought to show something happening.

But aren't a lot of things in psychology not yet found in brain imaging? For example, post traumatic stress disorder. If you image the brains of soldiers coming back from war do you see anything different in those who later develop PTSD?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The major, most basic, reason that Scientology is not science is that LRon just made it all up. I don't have my copy of Dianetics - the Raving of a Lunatic Conman to hand but there has never been any evidence produced that he researched his theories before, during, or after writing that book. It is all confabulated hand waving.

 

[Crocoshark]

there are various modes in which science can attempt to operate when dealing with the mind and brain

My favorite mode in terms of science is experimental psychology; experiments that demonstrate various biases and stuff like that. Which mode does that fall under?

the types of functions studied are common to all, and so shed little light on some forms of personal quirks and abnormal behavior.

Is there a scientific approach to figuring about personal quirks? I find Scientology's idea of finding out why you are who you are compelling but it's so focused on the negative and how it's all caused by subconscious trauma. I'm more interest in aspects of my personality that aren't always inherently negative, like why I love or hate or feel revulsion toward certain things, and I'm not into foregone conclusions that certain things are caused by subconscious memories that may or may not be this life time that I need to dig up in many auditing sessions. I'm just tentative about . . . well . . . other BS theories that all X is caused by Y.

I am more interested in the testable "how", than the subjective, experiential aspect; a question that Scientology, and I suppose all pseudoscience, skips over to leap to whether or not someone gets a certain experience in the end.

'rational' and 'irrational' aspects of mind: these are high level concepts that have baggage; i.e, they already characterize thought and in that sense impose a search for something that is not fruitful.

You mean like arbitrarily dividing pattern seeking behavior based on whether it correctly spots a tiger in a bush versus incorrectly spotting the virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich? Or that learned fear comes from a certain half of the mind? Or negative reminders of the past are from the reactive mind while positive reminders of the past, like nostalgia, are not addressed?

here. WARNING: Link is to a large pdf.

Apart from what marplots has explained, I think science is something that one gets the hang of best by being exposed to it. Try the link, and if ambitious, read it all! That will give you a handy start to thinking scientifically about mind and brain.

That's an entire college textbook.

On the one hand, thank you! On the other . . . . OOF!

Would you recommend any starting points based on what I've asked about so far? Or should I just start from the intro?

 

[Crocoshark]

A believer is not going to be convinced by argument. Short of a deprogramming which might work, there's no formula. Reality is not welcome in the mind of belief.

I was a believer. Than I learned about science and skepticism and started applying what I learned to my beliefs.

There's different degrees of believer, and if a believer is open enough to doubt I think it should be acknowledged that the strongest evidence they'll perceive in favor of their beliefs is their personal experiences with it, not what they think they know about its inventor.

In the end, what a believer values most about their belief is the subjective experience they or their loved ones get from it. "It helped me.", "It helped my friend/mother/other loved one."

If you want to persuade them, you have to approach the issue from that angle, whether you can convince them that subjective experiences are misleading (placebo effect, false memories, the problems with anecdotal evidence) or that the comfort/discomfort they feel about a subject is false. It won't always work, but it's better than simply digging up dirt on Mohammad or whoever they believe in.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

My favorite mode in terms of science is experimental psychology; experiments that demonstrate various biases and stuff like that. Which mode does that fall under?

Cognitive psychology, backed by neuroscience. For example, say we know what a certain decision looks like on a scanner. We also know what patterns show up when someone verbalizes a decision. We then find a relation to some part of the brain responsible for quick decision making in survival (amygdala), and the result is that we find many decisions are made prior to conscious decision making, which is used to rationalize preference, not derive it: some forms of bias.

Is there a scientific approach to figuring about personal quirks? I find Scientology's idea of finding out why you are who you are compelling but it's so focused on the negative and how it's all caused by subconscious trauma. I'm more interest in aspects of my personality that aren't always inherently negative, like why I love or hate or feel revulsion toward certain things, and I'm not into foregone conclusions that certain things are caused by subconscious memories that may or may not be this life time that I need to dig up in many auditing sessions. I'm just tentative about . . . well . . . other BS theories that all X is caused by Y.

I am not a counselor or medical professional. Part of what you describe might be better discussed with someone having that profile. No stigma should be attached to doing so. Highly recommended.

That said, as for the science: I also highly recommend first getting a command of the general case, and only then attempting to apply the science to yourself. This means that you first get a grasp on what generally happens, probabilities involved, the relative 'normalcy' of some reactions, and so on. Warning: Reading any abnormal psychology on your own can be as iffy as reading a medical textbook: you end up diagnosing yourself with everything you read. If that happens, put the book down and go back to the cognitive stuff to re-center and have a breather.

I am more interested in the testable "how", than the subjective, experiential aspect; a question that Scientology, and I suppose all pseudoscience, skips over to leap to whether or not someone gets a certain experience in the end.

You mean like arbitrarily dividing pattern seeking behavior based on whether it correctly spots a tiger in a bush versus incorrectly spotting the virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich? Or that learned fear comes from a certain half of the mind? Or negative reminders of the past are from the reactive mind while positive reminders of the past, like nostalgia, are not addressed.

Just drop Scientology for now. Guess how Treasury agents can spot a counterfeit bill in a jiffy, without having seen all the possible types of fake? By studying and knowing the legitimate currency so well, any difference stands out. Read science until it is the standard for you, and you will be able to ninja all kinds of fake stuff and be cool.

That's an entire college textbook.

On the one hand, thank you! On the other . . . . OOF!

Would you recommend any starting points based on what I've asked about so far? Or should I just start from the intro?

My man, you have your work cut out for you.

 

[Donn]

If you want to persuade them, you have to approach the issue from that angle, whether you can convince them that subjective experiences are misleading (placebo effect, false memories, the problems with anecdotal evidence) or that the comfort/discomfort they feel about a subject is false. It won't always work, but it's better than simply digging up dirt on Mohammad or whoever they believe in.

Well said.

I often wonder at deeply held faith that is allergic to doubt. One would think that proving, testing, one's beliefs would, by trial, render them all the more certain.

In the cases where charismatic leaders hold sway, the belief is often a trust in them and what they promise. This builds a psychology that is immune to attacks on the leader.

You seem to be an exception to the rule. To have emerged from Scientology on your own is, from all accounts, rare.

 

[marplots]

Here's a Dianetics video I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZhjNNEZR5c&index=5&list=PLfflewFZs6v_NUM-Y-Xpru-Uy5o02uUD1

Thank you, I did watch it.

The classic example is an abused woman being told she's no good, and than later when she hears things like the faucet running or other sounds from when she was hit she gets a headache or feels she is no good.

Well, the scientific response to this suggestion would be "prove it." It's not enough to have a good idea or a concept that allows us to feel like we understand something - it has to be tested somehow.

Of course, one problem is that Hubbard says the effects an engram can have on someone can be random or unpredictable; the "reactive mind" can re-interpret words in different, unpredictable ways. One Scientology video claims a mother telling a sick child "I will never leave you" has instilled an engram for the sickness to never leave them, causing them to feel sick when the engram is triggered by similar environmental stimulus.

This can lead to engrams being about as predictive as something causing "bad luck". It's not necessarily predicting a specific result, people will find their own cause-effect relationship in auditing and that will make the engram go away.

This is unfortunate. The thing we want to discover is only available as "hindsight matching." As with the bible code and numerology, we create the pattern only after we know the right answer.

It doesn't quite square with how memory is thought to work however. First, because (at least in the video) the incidents capture things that are too specific while still being too general. I am supposed to think that specific words are retained, along with the more general background (like the motorcycle and faucet running). All this while other aspects are disregarded (the height of the ceiling, the color of the carpet, the furniture...). Can it really work like that?

One workaround is to try what you might try with someone claiming to be reincarnated or with the recovered memory folks: see if you can get corroboration through other means. Did it really happen like they recall? If most memories are confabulation to some degree, you'd expect a mismatch.

Many decades after the event, I and my next-youngest sister argued about which of us really got the red plastic firetruck for Christmas when we were kids. I believed it was given to me, she to her. One of us had to be wrong, but each argued about having a strong supporting memory. Then, after our folks had died (and our parents couldn't remember either way), we found some old 8mm footage of that Christmas. It shows our younger sister opening the package containing the firetruck. So we were both misremembering.

But let's say the engram doesn't even have to be accurate to have an effect. It messes up the theory because engrams are supposed to have actually happened - otherwise, there's no association formed to react to.

[in reference to my comment about fMRI]
But aren't a lot of things in psychology not yet found in brain imaging? For example, post traumatic stress disorder. If you image the brains of soldiers coming back from war do you see anything different in those who later develop PTSD?

I don't know. That's the point of doing the experiment, to find out.

I know a little about PTSD and although it does sound similar to engrams, this is only a surface similarity. I'll try to list some differences. Please note these are for the "general case." We want this because there will always be exceptions but for both PTSD and engrams we are interested in a phenomenon that affects the general population - I can't use an exception to make a broad description, I have to use broad terms and see if they fit.

1) For PTSD, the event (or series of events) is known and usually documented. Not so for engrams - you are left taking someone's flawed memory as the only verification.
2) PTSD, despite the lore on "triggering," is an enduring, generalized response with general symptoms - like anxiety and depression. Even if there is a trigger, it will be related to the trauma. That is, gunfire reminds me of being shot at, or thunder sounds like distant artillery. It is not the case that some odd thing (the sound of gravel under my feet) pulls the "trigger." Engrams however, do have this feature - normal stimuli invoke the reactive mind.
3) PTSD is treated by addressing current symptoms directly, and although recounting the trauma may be useful, the tale telling is in no way dredged up from hidden memories, it's overt and front of mind. Engrams rely on unconscious memories that need to be discovered and displayed to the "patient."
4) PTSD patients benefit from networking with others who have experienced the same/similar trauma. Engram treatment is private.
5) Traumatic memories generally do not lead to PTSD, but resolve themselves over the course of one to three months. Time heals. Painful memories fade. For engrams, as I understand it, the memory is retained for a lifetime (possibly longer) unless expunged (cleared).

One further question. How are engrams different from memories? Because I already have a word for memories. Focus on the functional differences and test those. Don't allow the cop-out of, "they are just powerful memories."

Remember, an explanation has to add value, not just relabel what we know with new terms.

 

[Darat]

Scientologists introduce Scientology by introducing Scientology counseling (called auditing) to get rid of traumatic memories of pain and unconscious (called engrams, these memories make up what Scientologists call the reactive mind). Scientology auditing comes with a bunch of rules about how to run people through chains of similar painful memories.


...snip...

If there is any coordinance with actual science it is entirely by accident as we know the bases for Scientology was simply made up. It was heavily influenced by the fad of "General Semantics" and largely put together by A E Van Vogt in his fictional tales.

Therefore to claim there is any overlap with actual science it is up to the Scientologist to provide the evidence.

 

[Crocoshark]

You seem to be an exception to the rule. To have emerged from Scientology on your own is, from all accounts, rare.

Possibly because I didn't have many of my own personally moving experiences from Scientology. My support of it was on behalf of how much my parents felt they had been helped by it. I was excited by the idea of Scientology as a phase as a kid and than I moved on in my interests to other subjects, including science documentaries. I think my view of Scientology for much of my life was not so much as I saw it as . . . plausible. My parents told me how much Scientology had changed them and I would be defensive on the behalf of family and upbringing.

In one sense I stopped being a Scientologist the moment I stopped factoring "going up the bridge" in how I imagined my future. And that happened when I was a kid when my kid-like attention span just . . . moved on. I was a non-practicing Scientologist.