Chaos Magic

[Craig4]

Limbo or Aku, can this chaos magic do anything the impacts the real world or not?

 

[dafydd]

Limbo or Aku, can this chaos magic do anything the impacts the real world or not?

No,it is only efficacious in fantasy worlds.

 

[dafydd]

Oh no, I got the sarcasm. However these people really think this stuff works. If they're right this should be easy for them to pull off.

Yes,let's see a trick. Do something Limbo,work your magic on us.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Limbo or Aku, can this chaos magic do anything the impacts the real world or not?

Why are you asking me? I didn't start the thread and I don't know any more about chaos magic than you do.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Your right, people with medical knowledge tend to know more about medical symptoms than those that don't. Trying to make me feel bad by phrasing it as " you know what i experienced better than i doi" is not going to work.

Why not? Have you not been instructing me on what I really experienced based only off of your own preconceptions?

Knowing what someone had for breakfast, that seems more you and Magic Voice's realm.

Sadhatter, lets say we went back in time 180 years and used hidden radio receiver/transmitter devices to remotely communicate veridical information to a scientist and then left without providing any explanation as to who we are or how we accomplished such a feat. The scientist then goes to his colleagues and reports accurately what he witnessed. Upon hearing his account many of his peers accuse him of lying, claim that hes invoking magic, or insist that he must have been hallucinating. Now tell me: would you describe their reactions as rational or exhibiting critical thinking?

 

[dafydd]

Why are you asking me? I didn't start the thread and I don't know any more about chaos magic than you do.

Sorry.

 

[Craig4]

I'll take it the answer is no.

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

Hey Limbo, a few friendly points for you:

(I'm not sure if they're covered, maybe my browser decided to skip a few pages between sessions)

I'm sure you mean well in telling us of the value in mysticism, but as you've seen this is a tough sell here. Let me explain from my perspective.

The first criticism of your suggestion that springs to my mind is one I haven't seen stated clearly in this thread: That your method of telescope building seems to consist of conditioning oneself to be fooled in one of the multitude of common ways the human mind is capable of. Misremembering, seeing patterns that aren't there, observation bias, outright hallucinations, and more.

But here's the thing: These are all factors that can be controlled for. We have proven tools to weed those effects out, so why would we, as skeptics, put ourselves in a position where those tools are useless? If there's truth to your mystical insights, then they should stand regardless of these effects being controlled for.

Sorry if that all sounds harsh, but it's my honest analysis of why you're running into such flak.

And this idea that "you must first believe to see the truth"? It's not new to anyone here. From fundie Christians to fundie Muslims to cryptozoologists, conspiracists and ufologists (etc), we've heard it thousands of times before. It doesn't work that way, and you won't convince anyone by saying that.

You may also want to be careful with going on a public forum to broadly recommend that people start experimenting with dangerous and probably illicit psychotropics.

 

[Hellbound]

Sadhatter, lets say we went back in time 180 years and used hidden radio receiver/transmitter devices to remotely communicate veridical information to a scientist and then left without providing any explanation as to who we are or how we accomplished such a feat. The scientist then goes to his colleagues and reports accurately what he witnessed. Upon hearing his account many of his peers accuse him of lying, claim that hes invoking magic, or insist that he must have been hallucinating. Now tell me: would you describe their reactions as rational or exhibiting critical thinking?

Not answering for sadhatter, but I can give my opinion.

Yes, those scientists would be exhibiting proper scientific skepticism and critical thinking. In fact, if your scientist was following scientific method and being skeptical, he would likely conclude, himself, that he was hallucinating, especially if the event never again occurred. And in 180 years they would be proven to have been incorrect, once the evidence was available to conclude that.

What you are failing to understand is that science, or using scientific method and its integral skepticism, does NOT garauntee one to be correct. However, it HAS proven to be the most successful method of being correct that we've come up with, even if it isn't 100%.

To take your example, if we allow that the unsupported word of a single person is valid evidence of a phenomena, then you've pretty much ruled out the ability to weed any sort of untruth out of science. EVERYTHING becomes acceptible. At that point, one can make no conclusions about reality, and indeed, if it were true that anything a single person believes they experienced was reality, there should be NO consistent external reality out there. Note I'm assuming the situation analogous to yours here, where the "veridical information" the scientist recieved is withheld/not revelaed until after the fact, when it can't be verified. Even if this information was revealed, the correct approach would be to determine if there were any other way this information could have been obtained, rather than accept the story of "spirits". In fact, your scientisit in this case would have been incorrect in assuming any sort of magic or spiritual world to explain his experience.

And that's what we boil down to, really. How do you determine when a single person's subjective experience is true, and when it isn't? Not your own, but someone else's? Someone wil believe just as firmly, be just as sure, about one of their own subjective experiences as you are, and it will conflict with your knowledge. Whose word do you accept?

And once you begin to answer why you would not accept the word of someone else, based on their subjective experience, you can understand why we don't accept your word as evidence. Because the same biases, logical mistakes, and memory errors that occur in others occur in ourselves, as well. And anyone who claims to be unbiased is setting themsevles up for failure...we all have biases.

And that's what science and skepticism are about: finding a way to test and examine things that minimizes the effect of bias in order to find out the things that are true for our reality. That's why science demands things like reproducability and repeatability. That's why we look for more reliable evidence than a single person's certainty of an event that can't be replicated or otherwise verified. And while yes, you can concoct hypothetical situations where this may lead us wrong, these are by far the exception. And science will correct itself over time, as new and better evidence is gathered, and our ability to peer into reality improves.

 

[PixyMisa]

Big question: What is this "veridical information"? Does our scientist-victim bother to communicate it to his colleagues?

 

[AkuManiMani]

Not answering for sadhatter, but I can give my opinion.

Yes, those scientists would be exhibiting proper scientific skepticism and critical thinking. In fact, if your scientist was following scientific method and being skeptical, he would likely conclude, himself, that he was hallucinating, especially if the event never again occurred. And in 180 years they would be proven to have been incorrect, once the evidence was available to conclude that.

What you are failing to understand is that science, or using scientific method the integral skepticism, does NOT garauntee one to be correct. However, it HAS proven to be the most successful method of being correct that we've come up with, even if it isn't 100%.

To take your example, if we allow that the unsupported word of a single person is valid evidence of a phenomena, then you've pretty much ruled out the ability to weed any sort of untruth out of science. EVERYTHING becomes acceptible. At that point, one can make no conclusions about reality, and indeed, if it were true that anything a single person believes they experienced was reality, there should be NO consistent external reality out there.

And that's what we boil down to, really. How do you determine when a single person's subjective experience is true, and when it isn't? Not your own, but someone else's? Someone wil believe just as firmly, be just as sure, about one of their own subjective experiences as you are, and it will conflict with your knowledge. Whose word do you accept?

And once you begin to answer why you would not accept the word of someone else, based on their subjective experience, you can understand why we don't accept your word as evidence. Because the same biases, logical mistakes, and memory errors that occur in others occur in ourselves, as well. And anyone who claims to be unbiased is setting themsevles up for failure...we all have biases.

And that's what science and skepticism are about: finding a way to test and examine things that minimizes the effect of bias in order to find out the things that are true for our reality. That's why science demands things like reproducability and repeatability. That's why we look for more reliable evidence than a single person's certainty of an event that can't be replicated or otherwise verified. And while yes, you can concoct hypothetical situations where this may lead us wrong, these are by far the exception. And science will correct itself over time, as new and better evidence is gathered, and our ability to peer into reality improves.

I understand where you're coming from and your post does bring up some very good points. It would be unwise and uncritical to accept the claims of every individual at face value precisely because one's word alone is not sufficient to establish truth; they could be mistaken, lying, mad, etc. However, I would say that the behavior of the scientist's colleagues was irrational not because of their -doubting- of the claims, but because of their -certainty- of their inaccuracy. As you point out yourself, they have no available way of knowing the truth of the claims. But despite this ignorance, at no point do they entertain the possibly that the the seemingly 'supernatural' report they are relayed is true. What should be a reasonable doubt of the report's accuracy then becomes a certainty of its falsity. And upon what do they base this certainty? The account's seeming contradiction of current scientific understanding. That is not critical thinking; thats reflexively treating tentative theory as dogma. The skeptical reaction would be to doubt and investigate the claims being made, not to fill in one's ignorance concerning those claims with a convenient cover-story (i.e. assuming hypotheses).

As far as the witness scientist is concerned, I'd have to say that if he were to also immediately discount his own experience merely because of it's extraordinary nature or because of consensus opinion he'd be exhibiting an extreme lack of personal integrity and intellectual cowardice. He may interpret such a concession as upholding scientific principles but, in reality, he'd be undermining it's very foundation: empirical observation. The reality of one's observation and experience is never wrong. It's interpretation of experience (i.e. theory) where error may occur. The reasonable doubts and professional opinions of his colleagues do not invalidate the reality of his honest observation. If all anomalous or extraordinary observations and experiences are to be automatically discounted -- especially on such flimsy bases -- then the game is up and scientists may as well just make themselves clergymen in white lab coats.

The truth of the matter is that, relative to the scientific understanding of that time period, the claims of our hapless scientist are 'supernatural' in the sense that they are not fully accountable in the current theoretical frame. However, the reality of his claims does not invalidate the scientific process or even necessarily contradict the concurrent body of scientific knowledge; it is merely beyond it's available scope. As you pointed out, in 180 years time the validity of the lone scientist's claims would be borne out. The reason for this is because science is not a static body of inerrant knowledge and consensus. Science is a dynamic process in which individuals, or groups of individuals, cooperate to grow an ever evolving framework of understanding. Just as our current scientific theories greatly supersede those of 180 years past, future scientific understanding will most certainly present a very different picture of reality than we have today. No matter how far science progresses there will always be more to learn and there will always be things beyond the horizons of our tentative understanding. Being a skeptic requires humility and curiosity in the face of such ignorance, not filling in every uncomfortable gap with presumption or discounting everything that seems to threaten what we think we know.

 

[PixyMisa]

I understand where you're coming from and your post does bring up some very good points. It would be unwise and uncritical to accept the claims of every individual at face value precisely because one's word alone is not sufficient to establish truth; they could be mistaken, lying, mad, etc. However, I would say that the behavior of the scientist's colleagues was irrational not because of their -doubting- of the claims, but because of their -certainty- of their inaccuracy.

So, having established a hypothetical that intrinsically contradicts current scientific understanding, you criticise the scientists for expressing a certainty you never previously mentioned regarding an account you haven't properly described.

Do I have that right?

 

[Hellbound]

I understand where you're coming from and your post does bring up some very good points. It would be unwise and uncritical to accept the claims of every individual at face value precisely because one's word alone is not sufficient to establish truth; they could be mistaken, lying, mad, etc. However, I would say that the behavior of the scientist's colleagues was irrational not because of their -doubting- of the claims, but because of their -certainty- of their inaccuracy. As you point out yourself, they have no available way of knowing the truth of the claims. But despite this ignorance, at no point do they entertain the possibly that the the seemingly 'supernatural' report they are relayed is true. What should be a reasonable doubt of the report's accuracy then becomes a certainty of its falsity. And upon what do they base this certainty? The account's seeming contradiction of current scientific understanding. That is not critical thinking; thats reflexively treating tentative theory as dogma. The skeptical reaction would be to doubt and investigate the claims being made, not to fill in one's ignorance concerning those claims with a convenient cover-story (i.e. assuming hypotheses).

The certainty, as you call it, lies in the two bolded statements, as well as the current scientific understanding. You say the skeptical approach is to investigate it. Yet, as you say, it cannot be investigated. Not only is there no evidence, there's no way to obtain evidence for the event. So on one hand, you have the unsupported and unsupportable word of one person. On the other hand, you have a body of scientific knowledge that has been tested and is known to be accurate to a high degree, if incomplete. What you are saying is that we should through out the combined empirical observations of literally thousands unpon thousands of other scientists, based on the reported empirical observation of a single person. THis is where we disagree.

As far as the witness scientist is concerned, I'd have to say that if he were to also immediately discount his own experience merely because of it's extraordinary nature or because of consensus opinion he'd be exhibiting an extreme lack of personal integrity and intellectual cowardice. He may interpret such a concession as upholding scientific principles but, in reality, he'd be undermining it's very foundation: empirical observation. The reality of one's observation and experience is never wrong.

And here we must disagree as well. We KNOW, we have hard, factual evidence that shows that human perception, human observation and experience, is often wrong, and many times amazingly so. Paredoilia, various optical illusions, hallucinations, delusions, false memory syndrome, the plastic nature of memories, daydreams, neuroses, psychoses..the list is huge. These are thigns that we know occur, that we know exist, and that we know happen. The scientists is not undermining empirical observation...he's doing what a good scientist must do: ruling out all the possible known causes before declaring the discovery of something new. This is the part where most of parapsychology and mysticism fails. He's accepting the empirical evidence provided my numerous others, instead of assumign the supremecy of his own subjective viewpoint and ignoring that of everyone else.

It's interpretation of experience (i.e. theory) where error may occur.

That's another possibility of error, yes, but not the only one.

The reasonable doubts and professional opinions of his colleagues do not invalidate the reality of his honest observation.

And herein lies the crux. How does he determine his observation is honest? It can't be repeated, it only happened the single time, it's contraindicated by other scientific principles, laws, and theories that are known to be accurate, and it can be explained by other factors.

If all anomalous or extraordinary observations and experiences are to be automatically discounted -- especially on such flimsy bases -- then the game is up and scientists may as well just make themselves clergymen in white lab coats.

And here you are creating a strawman. NO ONE has claimed that all anomolies should be discounted. What we are saying is that an anomoly that cannot be verified or tested, for which there is no repeatability, and for which other explanations exist should not be taken a evidence that a large portion of the current, well-tested body of knowledge is wrong.

The truth of the matter is that, relative to the scientific understanding of that time period, the claims of our hapless scientist are 'supernatural' in the sense that they are not fully accountable in the current theoretical frame. However, the reality of his claims does not invalidate the scientific process or even necessarily contradict the concurrent body of scientific knowledge; it is merely beyond it's available scope.

Exactly. As such, it can't be claimed to be true in any scientific sense. And accepting something as true before it can be verified or before evidence can be provided is inheritly unscientific.

As you pointed out, in 180 years time the validity of the lone scientist's claims would be borne out. The reason for this is because science is not a static body of inerrant knowledge and consensus. Science is a dynamic process in which individuals, or groups of individuals, cooperate to grow an ever evolving framework of understanding. Just as our current scientific theories greatly supersede those of 180 years past, future scientific understanding will most certainly present a very different picture of reality than we have today. No matter how far science progresses there will always be more to learn and there will always be things beyond the horizons of our tentative understanding. Being a skeptic requires humility and curiosity in the face of such ignorance, not filling in every uncomfortable gap with presumption or discounting everything that seems to threaten what we think we know.

And that was exactly my point. We must sometimes say "we don't know". Instead, we get mystics who are sure that their individual, singular personal experience overturns the vast majority of scientific observation. We have people who assume that their personal, subjective memories or events that bear a striking resemblence to known, mundane malfunctions of thought are somehow proof enough to overturn entire bodies of knowledge. We have people who assume that their magic exists, and concoct reasons post hoc to explain why it can never be tested under any sort of controlled conditions, or never be repeated, or the proof can't be released, getting ever more convoluted in their excuses and finally leaving science all together and wading into philosophy.

The only people here filling in an uncomfortable gap with presumption are those who think they are the only ones with clear vision, and their odd experience is "special" and overturns the work of others who have investigated and found mundane reasons for similar experiences. The only people here "discounting everything that seems to threaten what we think we know" are those who expect others to accept their evidence without proof, and then criticize them for their lack of faith.

What people have been saying, for the most part, has been that you cannot prove your experience, and there are mundane explanations for it. Very few have declared this certainty you claim to see. THe only certainty I see is yours...your certainty that this experience was not caused by anything other than something mystical/supernatural. And unless you can rule out the possible mundane explanations, unless you can provide some evidence to otehrs, than you are, quite simply, asking us to believe it simply because you say so.

Since you refuse to believe anything different based on the say so of scientific consensus, I fail to see why we should disbelieve that consensus based on your view.

 

[sadhatter]

Why not? Have you not been instructing me on what I really experienced based only off of your own preconceptions?



Sadhatter, lets say we went back in time 180 years and used hidden radio receiver/transmitter devices to remotely communicate veridical information to a scientist and then left without providing any explanation as to who we are or how we accomplished such a feat. The scientist then goes to his colleagues and reports accurately what he witnessed. Upon hearing his account many of his peers accuse him of lying, claim that hes invoking magic, or insist that he must have been hallucinating. Now tell me: would you describe their reactions as rational or exhibiting critical thinking?

And you have officially stopped making sense. Come back when you have something a bit more coherent than.....that. Btw if you understood the magic voice reference you would feel really silly putting that quote.

 

[AkuManiMani]

And you have officially stopped making sense.

To you, maybe. Doesn't seem any of the other responders are having a hard time following the scenario or the argument.

 

[dlorde]

Naawwww...? Really? And here I was beginning to think I literally AM a magnet for weirdness. I'm so glad I've a cool rational intellect like yours to set me strait in my strange superstitions, dlorde

You're welcome.

 

[dlorde]

Translation: "If what you experience contradicts what I believe about reality then your experience is wrong, not my beliefs. Here are some of my own anecdotes and links to some very smart people who agree with me -- and you should too!"

Naw, I'll condense it for you: there is plenty of good evidence to show that experiences of the kind you reported can have mundane explanations. There is no good evidence to the contrary. Your incredulous dismissal of this likelihood is also a common and expected reaction.

Some people are prepared to consider the possibility that they may be mistaken, some are not <shrug>

 

[dlorde]

I see you follow the Hungarian Phrasebook school of translation there.

PixyMisa, your comments really do seem a bit closed minded. You are making judgments and generalizations without knowing all of the details, so you really can't say that nothing happened.

No, I think he was pointing out that Aku's summary ('translation') of my post was somewhat wide of the mark (as in wrong galaxy).

 

[dlorde]

Although I would argue that this still made us "special". Part of the "victemhood" complex inherit in Xianity...here we are, so unworthy, yet we are still the center, and we can go from such a low position to up high, etc.

Of course, that's clearly what I meant (probably)

 

[sadhatter]

To you, maybe. Doesn't seem any of the other responders are having a hard time following the scenario or the argument.

Oh i follow it, don't get me wrong. But the hypothetical is so flawed and biased the trip was like doing laps in a roundabout.

Stripped of all your flowery language and overly verbose posts, your saying you heard a voice, and that voice provided you proof it was not a hallucination, but you refuse to provide that. One would have to have to have a combination of brain damage and drug addiction in order to give this any more credence than " cool story bro.".

You are not a scientist experiencing new technology, you are a random internet poster with no credentials, proof, or anything that would make a rational person say " Well this has merit.". Maybe believing every story flies on iloveghosts.com, but here things like proof and evidence are required. You have provided neither , simply a story. And not a very well written one at that.