Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

[SusanB-M1]

This post is to say how interesting and what a pleasure it is to read threads like this. I own that I haven't listened to every single word, but thinking of the posts here, helps a lot when responding to a couple of people on GH, where, I assure you, some of the posts make Limbo sound absolutely clear. I suggest sometimes that they should come over to JREF, but no takers I'm afraid!

 

[Resume]

This post is to say how interesting and what a pleasure it is to read threads like this. I own that I haven't listened to every single word, but thinking of the posts here, helps a lot when responding to a couple of people on GH, where, I assure you, some of the posts make Limbo sound absolutely clear. I suggest sometimes that they should come over to JREF, but no takers I'm afraid!

GH?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

De-defining is a rhetorical strategy. It has nothing to do with values. Even when people don't realize they're doing it.

And I'm not saying that people realized their faith was in danger and tried to rig the system. What happens is that as cultures develop, the old gods become untenable, and the definition morphs toward de-definition.

OK, but let's see if we can isolate what sort of definition suffices for a god, then.

We have four or five obvious picks from antiquity to the middle ages: Brahman, Plato's god, Aristotle/Aquinas' god, Augustine's god and Anselm's god.


Let's choose two. Is Brahman a god and is Anselm's definition sufficient for a god?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

There is a direct link between intention and the behavior of the world, and so materialism is false. Intention is part of the universal mystic journey, and so the esoteric current in world myth is not compatible with materialism.

The sheep-goat effect is a manifestation of intent and belief. The experimenter psi effect is too. These are why science is having such a hard time with psi. Skeptics who try to replicate a parapsychology experiment refuse to entertain the notion that their intent to debunk and their disbelief are psi-inhibitve. So they get negative results in accord with their debuker intentions, thanks to their own unconscious psi which is guided by their intent and by their belief system.

"Gertrude made one of the most important discoveries ever in parapsychology, one with strong spiritual implications and one which I think none of the spiritual traditions knows about, for while it's something that can happen in everyday life, it's pretty much unobservable except under laboratory conditions. She gave many classes of students ESP tests, guessing at concealed cards, but, before giving or scoring the tests, she had students fill out questionnaires that asked, among other things, whether they believed in ESP.

When she analyzed the results separately for the believers - the "sheep" - and the non-believers - the "goats" - she found a small, but significant difference. The sheep got more right than you would expect by chance guessing, they were occasionally using ESP. The goats, on the other hand, got significantly fewer right than you would expect by chance.

Think of it this way. If you were asked to guess red or black with ordinary playing cards, no feedback until you'd done the whole deck, you would average about 50% correct by chance. If you got 100% correct, you don't need statistics to know that would be astounding. But if you got 0%? Just as astounding!

The sheep thought they could do it, they got "good" scores, they were happy. The goats knew there was no ESP, nothing to get, they got poor scores, they were happy, that "proved" their belief. These were not people who were sophisticated enough about statistics to know that scoring below chance could be significant…

Many other experimenters replicated this effect over the years.

The only way I've ever been able to understand it is to think that the goats occasionally used ESP, but on an unconscious level, to know what the next card was and then their unconscious, acting in the service of their conscious belief system, influenced them to call anything but the correct one." (bold mine)

-Pioneering Parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler Has Died | Charles T. Tart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42LRhhlO6Ts

The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World

Skeptical test subjects can't intend to use their psi in a lab.

Skeptical investigators can't intend to replicate and validate parapsychological findings.

Psi-conducive intent is not part of skeptical psychology. But it is a vital part of the 'inner alchemy' of mysticism because the nature of reality is consciousness.

That's all it takes to prevent science from handling psi, despite the fact that psi is real.

"There are three possible positions one may take concerning the evidence for ESP. First, the position of orthodox scientists, who believe that ESP does not exist. Second, the position of true believers, who believe that ESP is real and can be proved to exist by scientific methods. Third, my own position, that ESP is real, as the anecdotal evidence suggests, but cannot be tested with the clumsy tools of science. These positions also imply different views concerning the proper scope of science. If one believes, as many of my scientific colleagues believe, that the scope of science is unlimited, then science can ultimately explain everything in the universe, and ESP must either be nonexistent or scientifically explainable. If one believes, as I do, that ESP is real but is scientifically untestable, one must believe that the scope of science is limited. I put forward, as a working hypothesis, that ESP is real but belongs to a mental universe that is too fluid and evanescent to fit within the rigid protocols of controlled scientific testing. I do not claim that this hypothesis is true. I claim only that it is consistent with the evidence and worthy of consideration." -Freeman Dyson

Sorry, but that's an unfalsifiable claim and so is simply not science. Science works quite well within idealism; in fact, it is indistinguishable from working within materialism.

Once again, you are not describing idealism or neutral monism; you seem to have dualism build into your system.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Overlooking, for the moment, the ‘pantload’ nature of metaphysics…if ‘intention’ can be demonstrated, do we have any capacity to determine the implications of this conclusion….or might the implications occur as ‘intention’ is demonstrated?

So how would you define ‘intention’ in relation to idealism (the 'intention' that you argue cannot be demonstrated)?

Idealists define it, generally. Mind is the substance of the world and everything we see are thoughts of this mind. Mind has intention in order to think in the first place; its thoughts are intentional, not simply willy-nilly. But it necessarily looks the same to us as any monism because we are 'inside' and all we can do is describe what we see.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Sorry to point this out, but that's just baloney.

If a description of the thing really is impossible -- any sort of description -- then no one could perceive it or imagine it.

If you find yourself believing in the possibility of a thing you have no idea of, then I submit you've managed to trick yourself into believing that nothing might just be something after all.

And historically, monotheism arrived long before the no-thing god. At least YHWH had a kvd, and he did things and had qualities, even though he (like all gods) was not comprehensible in his totality.

And that's fine. But a thing that's not comprehensible at all... that's not a thing.e god.

[/QUOTE]



But that's not what I really said. I did not say that describing god is impossible, but that getting a full description has always been portrayed as impossible. You seem to want a full description; I'm not sure what is wrong with the options offered. I left a few options for discussion up above.

As to monotheism arriving before the no-thing god (as you call it), I'm not at all sure that I believe that. Yahweh was not a monotheistic god until very late in its history having spent time wallowing in henotheism for centuries and possibly millenia. Monotheism seems tied to this type of god definition in most all traditions. Brahman looks like a single god with lots of demi-gods following; Plato and Aristotle's god was single. Same with Philo and the medieval theologians.

 

[annnnoid]

Idealists define it, generally. Mind is the substance of the world and everything we see are thoughts of this mind. Mind has intention in order to think in the first place; its thoughts are intentional, not simply willy-nilly. But it necessarily looks the same to us as any monism because we are 'inside' and all we can do is describe what we see.

Ok. We’re still floating around in the vagaries of metaphysics (methinks there is nought but the vile stuff) but what might be your best understanding of the quality known as intention. It is a function of what and it is evidenced how etc?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Ok. We’re still floating around in the vagaries of metaphysics (methinks there is nought but the vile stuff) but what might be your best understanding of the quality known as intention. It is a function of what and it is evidenced how etc?

It isn't evidenced; it is assumed. It is a function of the mind of idealism and carries the same definition as we use it when it comes to our actions -- attention directed toward a desired outcome.

Don't you think this needs its own thread if we are to pursue it?

 

[SusanB-M1]

GH?

It's the Graham Hancock Message Boards. When I first had a computer, I mooched around the internet a bit and thought it all a bit boring, then a friend said, 'Sooner or later, you'll find a site that's right up your street.' So I thought, 'I wonder if Graham Hancock has a site ..... and that was the start of my finding GH, then JREF,the BBC and a couple of other small ones. I hasten to add that I had always had a fairly sceptical attitude to GH's books, and was always looking for books which would give opposing views. This was before internet though,and I was still busy teaching at the time. I quickly realised that I was much more sceptical than I thought I was!

 

[Beelzebuddy]

What are your favorite sauces?

I know some people would like to eschew sauces completely and go with a good dry rub, but I just don't think it's possible to have a real preference before the fact. How do you *know* which sauce (or lack thereof) is best until you've got the cut in your hand?

 

[Limbo]

Sorry, but that's an unfalsifiable claim and so is simply not science. Science works quite well within idealism; in fact, it is indistinguishable from working within materialism.

Not true. A reasonable observer can distinguish them by the pattern of experimenter psi effects and by the scoring patterns of parapsychology subjects. These are detectable patterns which correlate with belief and intent. A reasonable observer would not expect to find the hidden fingerprints of intent and belief in large bodies of evidence if materialism is true. But the fingerprints of intent are there for all to see, so materialism is less likely.

"The data convinced me. Repeatedly, average ESP scores of subjects who rejected any possibility of ESP success (whom I called goats) were lower than average ESP scores of all other subjects (whom I called sheep). This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology." -Gertrude Schmeidler

Follow the data. If materialism is true, belief and intent should not correlate with detectable scoring patterns and detectable experimenter patterns in large bodies of evidence which have accumulated over the course of decades from all over the world. But they do. A reasonable observer wouldn't ignore the patterns of these effects, and would fully explore their philosophical implications without feeling threatened.

Evidence is whatever makes something more likely to be true. The fingerprints of the sheep-goat effect and of the parapsychological experimenter effect are evidence in favor of idealism but not in favor of materialism. Therefore idealism is more likely.

Btw, have you read The Intention Experiment or The End of Materialism? Did you watch that little video I posted?

 

[tsig]

Not true. It can be distinguished by the pattern of experimenter psi effects and by the scoring patterns of parapsychology subjects. Patterns which conform to belief and intent. We should not expect to find such patterns in a materialism reality.
Truth or science... which is more valuable?

Why not? If things didn't have pattern and regularity there wouldn't be any humans here.

 

[The Norseman]

I only did it because I had seen the Divine Vision and touched the hand of god then later I realized I was looking in a mirror and touching myself.

So you're a Divinyls devoteé too, eh?

Satori.

Gesundheit.

 

[The Norseman]

Not true. It can be distinguished by the pattern of experimenter effects and by the scoring patterns of parapsychology subjects. These are detectable patterns which conform to belief and intent. We should not expect to find the hidden fingerprints of intent in large bodies of evidence if materialism is true. But we do.

"The data convinced me. Repeatedly, average ESP scores of subjects who rejected any possibility of ESP success (whom I called goats) were lower than average ESP scores of all other subjects (whom I called sheep). This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology." -Gertrude Schmeidler

If materialism is true, belief and intent should not correlate with detectable scoring patterns and detectable experimenter patterns in large bodies of evidence accumulated over the course of decades. But they do seem to.

Evidence is whatever makes something more likely to be true. The patterns of the sheep-goat effect and of the parapsychological experimenter effect are evidence in favor of idealism but not in favor of materialism. Therefore idealism is more likely.

Yeah, yeah.

"It's measurable but only if you're a true believer, but it's not if you aren't. There is evidence but only if you think that there is, but when asked to present it, you can't because only true believers can truly see the true evidence of truth."

 

[Resume]

Not true. A reasonable observer can distinguish them by the pattern of experimenter psi effects and by the scoring patterns of parapsychology subjects. These are detectable patterns which conform to belief and intent. A reasonable observer would not expect to find the hidden fingerprints of intent in large bodies of evidence if materialism is true. But the fingerprints are there.

"The data convinced me. Repeatedly, average ESP scores of subjects who rejected any possibility of ESP success (whom I called goats) were lower than average ESP scores of all other subjects (whom I called sheep). This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology." -Gertrude Schmeidler

If materialism is true, belief and intent should not correlate with detectable scoring patterns and detectable experimenter patterns in large bodies of evidence which have accumulated over the course of decades from all over the world. But they do seem to. A reasonable observer wouldn't ignore the patterns or their implications.

Evidence is whatever makes something more likely to be true. The patterns of the sheep-goat effect and of the parapsychological experimenter effect are evidence in favor of idealism but not in favor of materialism. Therefore idealism is more likely.

Also, have you read The Intention Experiment or The End of Materialism? Did you watch that little video I posted?

I guess I have to thank Limbo for posts like these. When I would hear Deepak Chopra spew this kind of special pleading and unevidenced noise, I would always have to check myself because I find him so unlikable, I imagined it may be clouding my judgement. But seeing it laid out in multiple posts, strewn out over the landscape like a bad accident, I see my original skeptical instinct was spot on.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Not true. A reasonable observer can distinguish them by the pattern of experimenter psi effects and by the scoring patterns of parapsychology subjects. These are detectable patterns which correlate with belief and intent. A reasonable observer would not expect to find the hidden fingerprints of intent in large bodies of evidence if materialism is true. But the fingerprints are there for all to see, so materialism is less likely.

"The data convinced me. Repeatedly, average ESP scores of subjects who rejected any possibility of ESP success (whom I called goats) were lower than average ESP scores of all other subjects (whom I called sheep). This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology." -Gertrude Schmeidler

If materialism is true, belief and intent should not correlate with detectable scoring patterns and detectable experimenter patterns in large bodies of evidence which have accumulated over the course of decades from all over the world. But they do. A reasonable observer wouldn't ignore the patterns of these effects, and would consider their philosophical implications.

Evidence is whatever makes something more likely to be true. The fingerprints of the sheep-goat effect and of the parapsychological experimenter effect are evidence in favor of idealism but not in favor of materialism. Therefore idealism is more likely.

Also, have you read The Intention Experiment or The End of Materialism? Did you watch that little video I posted?

No, I've not read either book.

As to belief and intent not correlating with detectable scoring patterns, we have evidence from many arenas demonstrating confirmation bias. Belief in one area predisposes one to confirmation bias in that area. There is also a huge literature now on priming effects in the psychological literature; simple differences in the way an investigator speaks to subjects, what the examiner wears on one day vs another, etc. can have measurable effects on the outcome of various experiments.

ETA:

Evidence is whatever one uses to support or deny a proposition. Evidence must always be interpreted within a context. It can be strong or weak. The only evidence I have ever seen for psi is very weak. I haven't looked in quite a while, but I haven't had much reason to do so either.

Besides I'm really not understanding what you are trying to get at with your recent posts about psi as it relates to idealism. Are you trying to tell me that the universal mind whose thoughts create red and black cards is trying to get something else it creates, namely a subject who believes, to identify that red card it also created? What's the point of that? Does it sit around trying to think up sick games to play on itself or something?

If you think there is something important going on with psi, trust me, you are not an idealist or neutral monist. You are a dualist.

 

[Limbo]

No, I've not read either book.

As to belief and intent not correlating with detectable scoring patterns, we have evidence from many arenas demonstrating confirmation bias. Belief in one area predisposes one to confirmation bias in that area. There is also a huge literature now on priming effects in the psychological literature; simple differences in the way an investigator speaks to subjects, what the examiner wears on one day vs another, etc. can have measurable effects on the outcome of various experiments.

Sure, but parapsychologists are aware of all that.

ETA:

Evidence is whatever one uses to support or deny a proposition. Evidence must always be interpreted within a context. It can be strong or weak. The only evidence I have ever seen for psi is very weak. I haven't looked in quite a while, but I haven't had much reason to do so either.

Parapsychology is exactly the sort of liminal field that sheds light on things one way or another. If it's all just junk science, then we can learn how junk science works by studying it. If it's not all junk, then we can learn something of how reality works by studying it. It's win-win.

Besides I'm really not understanding what you are trying to get at with your recent posts about psi as it relates to idealism. Are you trying to tell me that the universal mind whose thoughts create red and black cards is trying to get something else it creates, namely a subject who believes, to identify that red card it also created? What's the point of that? Does it sit around trying to think up sick games to play on itself or something?

I'm trying to tell you that the objective psyche and the subjective psyche work at cross-purposes in parapsychology, and this interplay can be detected in the body of parapsychological literature. That shouldn't be the case if materialism is true. The reason they are working at cross-purposes is because there is a faulty belief system and selfish intentions interacting with our collective psi, namely materialism and pseudo-skepticism.

Take that and add it to the fact that you can test your own psi yourself as a sort of homegrown philosophical experiment and the individual truth-seeker can arrive at a non-materialist position that is justifiable to a reasonable observer.

If you think there is something important going on with psi, trust me, you are not an idealist or neutral monist. You are a dualist.

"Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two." -The Buddha

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Parapsychology is exactly the sort of liminal field that sheds light on things one way or another. If it's all just junk science, then we can learn how junk science works by studying it. If it's not all junk, then we can learn something of how reality works by studying it. It's win-win.

OK, fair enough. If parapsychology proves true then it means that we have some work to do with science to understand it. So far I've not seen anything yet to work on.

I'm trying to tell you that the objective psyche and the subjective psyche work at cross-purposes in parapsychology, and this interplay can be detected in the body of parapsychological literature. That shouldn't be the case if materialism is true.

If it can't work if materialism is true, then it can't work if idealism or neutral monism is true either. It doesn't even make sense if idealism is true. I have no idea what an objective psyche might be as opposed to a subjective psyche. If you refer to the mind that creates the world as objective psyche and individual minds of humans as subjective psyche, then in idealism the subjective psyche originates in the objective psyche. They can't work at cross purposes in idealism. That is completely impossible. The subjective psyche exists only through thought of the objective psyche; it is the objective psyche functioning.

If you maintain what you have said above, then you are definitely speaking of substance dualism.

Take that and add it to the fact that you can test your own psi yourself as a sort of philosophical experiment and the individual truth-seeker can arrive at a non-materialist position that is justifiable to a reasonable observer.

I'm afraid I know too much about ascertainment bias to trust any experiment I did on myself. I could never blind myself to myself; it wouldn't tell me anything useful except a possible direction to study through objective means in the future.

 

[punshhh]

"Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two." -The Buddha

Nice quote, this thought is demonstrated in my concept of a single particle as a singularity.

In the act of becoming a manifest singularity the particle in fact exhibits a duality. The particle and the forcefield or membrane from which it emanated.

Regarding personal observations of psi, I am aware of one or two events every day for which I can see no materialist/scientific explanation. Or occasions of ridiculous or comical coincidence.

 

[Limbo]

OK, fair enough. If parapsychology proves true then it means that we have some work to do with science to understand it. So far I've not seen anything yet to work on.

This quote highlights a big part of the problem as I see it. People figure that parapsychology must 'prove true' before it can provide something to work on, and that's a problem because even if psi was real, parapsychology wouldn't 'prove true'. It's unreasonable to expect it to. You are stacking the deck from the get-go.

And so, you avoid the knowledge that would enable you to fully consider the philosophical implications of parapsychological evidence and of patterns in the data.

"The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are harmonised by the Breath of Vacancy." Chapter 42 of the Dao De Jing