Law Of One Material and Dewey B Larson's Physics

[dash]

This is my first post in this forum. I've done a bit of reading here. I see there is a strong affinity for knee-jerk skepticism. That means people read posts with the automatic agenda of debunking whatever claims are made.

I'd like to start out by saying I'm non religious, I can't explain what started the universe going but the best theory I have is that what we see is all there is, atoms, stars, people, plants, etc. are all the outcome of random chance and the physics in our universe. I don't postulate a god that responds to prayer and is mixing in with our day to day affairs.

Up until about a month ago I'd have told you UFOs were a myth, there is no paranormal, all the people claiming such things are frauds.

Then I happened upon the Law Of One material. Supposedly in 1981 timeframe a woman named Carla, a man named Don, and another man named Jim were able to communicate with "Ra", a 6th density being from some other level of existence. Carla would go into a trance-like state and Don would question "Ra" and Ra would speak through her.

They tape recorded the sessions, then transcribed them. The material is all available online, there is a site that indexes it based on subject matter. Use a google search for it.
In fact it's just ( www dot lawofone dot info in case the link gets removed, this being my first post).

Now I started reading this with skepticism, but then I started getting into it. The detail is amazing. In the Ra material there is reference made to the physics of Dewey B Larson. The Ra entity claims DBL's physics is correct subject to its limited realm. DBL provides a complete Theory Of Everything, a conceptualization that explains all the observed phenomenon of this universe, from the tiny to the large.

I studied a bit of the DBL physics. I especially like his essay "The Case Against the Nuclear Atom" which itself debunks all the hacks done in order to make the currently accepted theories (The Standard Model, The Bohr model of the atom, etc) fit. If you're unhappy with the state of physics (like Lee Smolin's book The Trouble With Physics goes into in a great deal of detail) you might think, like me, there is something fundamentally wrong with our understanding of the whole thing.

For example no one has been able to reconcile General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics. String Theory is a mess at best, it predicts nothing, it's just a numerical game. DBL's physics goes back to a far earlier point in our understanding, and takes a completely different avenue. This route makes obsolete the last 100 years or so of conventional wisdom as regards the physics of everything. As such it is not acceptable to the mainstream scientific communities. It can't get accepted into peer reviewed journals because it essentially is debunking all of current theory.

Compare this to hundreds of years ago when it was commonly believed the sun revolved around the earth. It was heresy to claim otherwise. All the religious leaders dutifully taught that the earth is the center of the universe. My point is that if human nature was such that back then there was intense resistence to popular beliefs, is it really so hard to believe right now we're not really any different? DB Larson's claim is that our whole concepulization of the atom is a misunderstanding, and this misunderstanding itself introduces incredible complexity, fudge factors, the necessity to ignore conflicting evidence. As such there is no choice but to abandon the accepted understandings.

If DBL is right, a whole lot of professors and graduate students are out of a job. There goes the gravy train of government grants. If the underlying physics is really much simpler, it won't take years of painstaking study to "get it". It could be taught in high school. So there is a very strong vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

My point isn't so much to argue DBL's theories are what really is. I don't know. I'm continuing to study them as time permits -- I get really sleepy reading the material. There is something there however, it makes a huge number of accurate predictions about atoms, chemicals, spacing between atoms in compounds, and such. The numbers add up.

Rather the point is the question of whether the Ra material itself can be real. I simply don't know.

The depth and detail of the material is striking. There are little hints in the material that lend credence to the whole thing. Ra was involved back in ancient Egypt, he had some connection with the pyramids. They ask Ra questions about other beings such as himself who have contacted humans. There is discussion of UFO's. There is a lot of detail on the Law Of One itself. A lot of famous people are discussed. It is all very interesting reading.

One thing that caught my eye: There is a session where at the end of the session, Ra says, "I am Ra. This working is well. You are attempting to be conscientious. We thank you. May we say we enjoyed your vision of our social memory complex drinking one of your liquids while speaking through this instrument." This was # 33.21 by the way. My reading on this is that Ra was giving Don a clue that he was really reading his mind. Don had the vision of the real "Ra" off in some other plane drinking a glass of water, while at the same time causing Carla to speak his words. Just like a ventriloquist's dummy. Don didn't say this vision out loud, it was a private, personal joke. So Ra was poking fun at him, saying "I read your mind and got the joke -- good one!"

The Ra material is full of little details like that. I think that one is more subtle. But the level of details is very impressive.

So I see it as three possibilities:

1) The Ra material is an elaborate hoax. The hoax is incredibely elaborate, because the sheer mass of detail involved. It was all done with the intent to hoodwink people for whatever purpose.
2) The Ra material came from Carla's unconscious mind. If this is true, Carla's a pretty amazing individual, because the material is very detailed, and touches upon so many different areas.
3) The Ra material is true. There really is a Ra entity and it did channel through Carla and the information conveyed was accurate, subject to our limited understanding.

I would really like some input on this from people who are familiar with the Ra material, or on "Channeling cults" in general. Please don't just dismiss this out of hand. I'm a skeptic myself. What I'm looking for is a plausable explanation for the detail, if it is a hoax.

I have no problem believing the great mass of scientists are deluded. Recall the madness of crouds and all. There is no guarantee that just because our current scientific understanding is accepted by just about everyone that it is true. Ra claims Dewey B Larson's physics is correct, in the realm that it describes. If Ra is real, then perforce DBL's physics is real, which means all of modern science is a house of cards. What might this mean to important technology, such as cheap/abundant fusion power? Might anti-gravity be possible, allowing for easy access up out of the gravity well and into outer space? The importance of determining this can't be underestimated.

I get the feeling the Law of One material isn't very much known about. We're 27 years after it was first written down. Same with Dewey B Larson's physics -- it's certainly not mainstream.

Anyway sorry about the length of this posting.

-Dave

 

[dash]

Anyway sorry about the length of this posting.

Crap I wrote for the wrong audience. Short attention span and all, can't read anything of any length.

Summary:

Anything that debunks Law Of One and Channelling Cults in general?

-Dave

 

[dash]

Incidentally

For some weird reason only some features get added once I've done a certain minimum number of posts, so I'll be a bit talkative + posty for a while.

I've got my own forum area I'd like to recommend:

www dot xdr dot com slash forums

My main interest is Machine Intelligence but lots of other stuff as well. I'm especially hoping people who are
1) Curious about how the universe operates
2) Scientifically minded
3) Clear thinking
4) Skpetical about just about everything
5) Open minded. Hope this doesn't conflict with #4.

-Dave

 

[dash]

Say, I wonder

I wonder if people on these forums realize the parallels between:

Religious fanatic thinks anyone that denies god is a heretic.

and

Skeptic fanatic thinks anyone that supports paranormal is a "woo".

I hope people realize in both cases people are closing their mind down and letting their beliefs control their statements.

I mean, you do see that, don't you? Anyone?

-Dave

 

[sthomson]

What's the point of discussing anything with someone who thinks that I'm a "skeptic fanatic"? What's the point of discussing current scientific theories with someone who believes that modern science is founded on a delusion? Or that people who are skeptically minded are close-minded?

Maybe I'm just a bit depressed today, but I just don't have the energy to explain how and why supposed psychics fake stuff like "channeling Ra".

 

[dash]

What's the point of discussing anything with someone who thinks that I'm a "skeptic fanatic"? What's the point of discussing current scientific theories with someone who believes that modern science is founded on a delusion? Or that people who are skeptically minded are close-minded?

Maybe I'm just a bit depressed today, but I just don't have the energy to explain how and why supposed psychics fake stuff like "channeling Ra".

Why'd you post anything then?

I don't think anything. I'm asking for analysis/opinion. But in reading these forums I do see an awful lot of automatic, me-too knee-jerk skepticism. People look for certain keywords, once the keywords are found...Boom! The posting is as good as debunked.

Science is at a lot of dead ends. It also doesn't fundamentally explain anything about the underlying machinery of the universe. As such there is a very real possibility huge areas of science are castles built on sand. You can't simply argue that it's true because millions of scientists accept the truth, right? They were all taught by people who believed the standard theories, who themselves were taught by other people who believed it... Over time the fundamental assumptions are no longer questioned.

Dewey B Larson's work was a real eye opener to me. He points out all the inherent flaws in the conventional view of an atom comprising a nucleus with protons and neutrons, with a fog of electrons hovering around outside. The strong nuclear force has never actually been measured. It's all hypothetical. We've only directly measured the electrical force, the magnetic force, and gravity. Everything else is theoretical. DBL explains it better than I can. The point is that there is so much fudging of numbers, so many oddball little bandaid fixes on so many of our theories that it's inane to go on accepting them as established fact.

The "Law Of One" Ra material...yes it sounds completely crazy and unbelievable. It's easy to dismiss it without even examining it. But what if? What if it is a reflection of reality that we're for the most part unaware of?

It's not proven untrue simply because the vast majority of people don't believe in it.

My original question stands, I think one of these must be true:
1) It's an elaborate hoax, in incredibly intricate detail
2) It's the product of Carla's unconscious mind
3) It's true

Note Carla + Jim are evidently living in Kentucky, they don't appear to be stinking rich. They seem to be living a regular life. Carla maintains a blog. It's not like they became stinking rich as leaders of a cult or anything. There isn't much evidence they benefitted at all.

I don't want to believe in it. I just want to believe in something and have it based on as little faith as possible. I'm asking for a bit of help in making options #1 and #2 more plausable. Because right now based on what I'm aware of, I'm tending towards #3 being the most believalbe. Occam's razor and all. It's the simplest explanation that fits.

-Dave

 

[sthomson]

This Larson guy is a trip! You claim, "If Ra is real, then perforce DBL's physics is real, which means all of modern science is a house of cards." Does this mean that if DBL's physics is false, then Ra is false? Because let me tell you - I've had 3 semesters of college physics, and I can already spot some holes where the Reciprocal System doesn't agree with observed phenomenon.

From here:

It contains radiation, consisting of individual particles (photons) which travel outward at unit speed (the speed of light) in all directions from various points of emission, followed a wave-like path (in full agreement with the properties of radiation as observed.)

The Reciprocal System claims that light is a particle, travelling on a wave-like path. I can tell from this that Larson is not a scientist, but an engineer. When he hears "Wave-particle duality", he can easily imagine how this physically looks - he's seen standing waves on a string, after all. The funny thing is that "a particle travelling on a wave-like path" is a terrible description for the experimental evidence.

 

[ExMinister]

I'm not sure it's good manners to post on someone's forum while implying they are fanatics.

At any rate, I know next to nothing about physics but I do know something about cults and channeled material, and I would suggest you stay with the beliefs you say you had a month ago before you discovered the Ra material. I looked at it and I can't see anything that sets it apart from any other channeled material. And how can material that is vague and impossible to prove or disprove one way or the other be debunked? Or, for that matter, believed?

If you are leaning toward a belief in the paranormal, there are still two major reasons to suspect that channeled material is fake: First, there is a ton of it out there and, other than some vague generalities (all are one, we are love, yada yada), most of it is contradictory. Second, none of it is specific enough to be truly helpful. For example, everyone claims to have the detailed, specific secrets to the universe and the purpose of life, but no one can come up with a specific cure for AIDS that could be taken to a lab.

As for reasons why people would come up with this type of elaborate hoax - well, they do. Sylvia Browne is a case in point: She came up with this type of stuff for 20+ years. I know for a fact it's all faked. She has a big following and an ego to match.

 

[dash]

As for reasons why people would come up with this type of elaborate hoax - well, they do. Sylvia Browne is a case in point: She came up with this type of stuff for 20+ years. I know for a fact it's all faked. She has a big following and an ego to match.

How can you know for a fact it's all faked? Certainly there will be frauds who fake information for their own reasons (ego, profit, whatever). The presence of frauds does not necessarily mean they're all frauds, right?

-Dave

 

[ExMinister]

I would also add that most of what passes as channeled material is next to impossible to prove or disprove.

There are great numbers of channelers who do not appear to be getting rich or gaining anything from it materially. Still they gain attention. They get to feel special because they are admited for having a "gift" others don't have. Maybe they've convinced themselves that the information really is coming from outside themselves and they are performing a service for their world. Lots of reasons.

 

[slyjoe]

...snip
The Reciprocal System claims that light is a particle, travelling on a wave-like path. I can tell from this that Larson is not a scientist, but an engineer. When he hears "Wave-particle duality", he can easily imagine how this physically looks - he's seen standing waves on a string, after all. The funny thing is that "a particle travelling on a wave-like path" is a terrible description for the experimental evidence.

Now you're insulting engineers.

BTW - I'm an engineer and basically had 4 years of physics of one kind or another.

 

[ExMinister]

How can you know for a fact it's all faked? Certainly there will be frauds who fake information for their own reasons (ego, profit, whatever). The presence of frauds does not necessarily mean they're all frauds, right?

-Dave

I used to think that, too. Here's the thing: Maybe you can't KNOW it's all faked. There are channelers/mediums who have been exposed as frauds. I know of no one who has, for example, passed the James Randi challenge and been PROVEN real. I choose to no longer waste my time believing in things that I can't KNOW are not faked. Personal choice.

 

[dash]

This Larson guy is a trip! You claim, "If Ra is real, then perforce DBL's physics is real, which means all of modern science is a house of cards." Does this mean that if DBL's physics is false, then Ra is false? Because let me tell you - I've had 3 semesters of college physics, and I can already spot some holes where the Reciprocal System doesn't agree with observed phenomenon.

From here:

The Reciprocal System claims that light is a particle, travelling on a wave-like path. I can tell from this that Larson is not a scientist, but an engineer. When he hears "Wave-particle duality", he can easily imagine how this physically looks - he's seen standing waves on a string, after all. The funny thing is that "a particle travelling on a wave-like path" is a terrible description for the experimental evidence.

Thanks for looking into the DBL stuff! I'm trying to decide if the Ra material is believable. The reference to DBL's physics is a testable area. My personal desire is to want to disbelieve existing scientific "understanding" (Big Bang Theory, Dark Matter, Singularities in Black Holes, String Theory, areas of Quantum Mechanics...) simply because it appears to have stagnated. No big advances in understanding in 30 years. So I'm already primed for some completely revolutionary look at how the underlying physics of the universe operates.

I think there is a logic aspect to your question. Given: if A is true then B is true. So if B is false, is A false? I suppose so. That's my point. If DBL is debunked, then the Ra entity is somewhat debunked. But as said elsewhere both the Ra material can be vague enough, and DBL's theory can be incomplete enough...such that we can't know anything for sure.

DBL discusses problems in existing theory, which I soak up like a sponge because I'm already unhappy with existing theory. Then he outlines his theory that is far simpler. There are lots of predictions of atomic spacings in common chemicals which reflect measured values quote closely. Evidently he explains radioactivity and alpha/beta decay better than conventional theory (he claims). I haven't studied it all.

For example I don't know yet how he accounts for the interference patterns of electrons. Where does superconductivity fit in? He does discuss stellar evolution some, and supernova explosions. As I say I haven't studied it all in depth.

But just what if? What if it is closer to reality than conventional wisdom?

Thanks again for digging into it some.

-Dave
PS I can post links but not a signature. My forums area is here:
http://www.xdr.com/forums my focus is on Machine Intelligence but other stuf also...

 

[Garrette]

The presence of frauds does not necessarily mean they're all frauds, right?

Right.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." True.

But the corollary is:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of presence.

So you're still stuck with unproven claims, and by "unproven" I simply mean the inability to perform claimed abilities under conditions not allowing for intentional or unintentional deception.

 

[sthomson]

Why'd you post anything then?

I'm bored, and a bit sad today.

I don't think anything. I'm asking for analysis/opinion. But in reading these forums I do see an awful lot of automatic, me-too knee-jerk skepticism. People look for certain keywords, once the keywords are found...Boom! The posting is as good as debunked.

I think that's because a lot of us see the same thing over and over again. "Look at this theory, it must be true!" "Why must it be true?" "You guys are bullies, I'm going home."

Science is at a lot of dead ends. It also doesn't fundamentally explain anything about the underlying machinery of the universe. As such there is a very real possibility huge areas of science are castles built on sand. You can't simply argue that it's true because millions of scientists accept the truth, right? They were all taught by people who believed the standard theories, who themselves were taught by other people who believed it... Over time the fundamental assumptions are no longer questioned.

That's actually a bit true and a bit misguided. Yes, science is a lot of dead ends, but it's also a lot of live ends. Scientific theories are supported until they no longer match the physical evidence, then the theory is revised or discarded. That's a rather practical definition of science. This sort of revision is going on all the time. For example, Newton's theory of gravity and force is excellent - it describes a lot of observed phenomenon very well. But, there are some things it didn't predict - it wasn't very accurate about the motion of planets, for example. Also, Newton himself disliked the fact that gravity seemed to "act at a distance" while no other forces do. After Einstein aggregated the research of the time and came up with General Relativity, it got rid of a lot of the problems that were seen in Newton's theories. Furthermore, it predicted a bunch of other observations that we didn't have the capabilities of testing at the time, but have since proved to be true. Scientists don't accept Einstein's theory because "everyone else does" or "that's what they were taught in school" - they accept them because the theory correctly describes and predicts observed phenomena.

Dewey B Larson's work was a real eye opener to me. He points out all the inherent flaws in the conventional view of an atom comprising a nucleus with protons and neutrons, with a fog of electrons hovering around outside. The strong nuclear force has never actually been measured. It's all hypothetical. We've only directly measured the electrical force, the magnetic force, and gravity. Everything else is theoretical. DBL explains it better than I can. The point is that there is so much fudging of numbers, so many oddball little bandaid fixes on so many of our theories that it's inane to go on accepting them as established fact.

Can you provide a link to the material you describe, or a book or journal reference? The fact that our current theories have band-aids and fudge factors doesn't mean we should throw them out with the bathwater. But your strong nuclear force example doesn't hold water. I don't know much about quantum mechanics, and maybe we don't have the technology to measure the strong nuclear force, but we do know that pi mesons are responsible for it - although this might not have been the case when Larson first devised his theory.

Note Carla + Jim are evidently living in Kentucky, they don't appear to be stinking rich. They seem to be living a regular life. Carla maintains a blog. It's not like they became stinking rich as leaders of a cult or anything. There isn't much evidence they benefitted at all.

Is monetary benefit the only reason someone will do something? Consider:

a) Someone may gain fame by claiming to channel a powerful and knowledgeable spirit.
b) Someone may confuse his own thoughts with a channeling.
c) Someone may have a mild form of schizophrenia.
d) Someone may want to fit in with her friends, who all claim to be able to channel spirits.

I don't want to believe in it. I just want to believe in something and have it based on as little faith as possible. I'm asking for a bit of help in making options #1 and #2 more plausable. Because right now based on what I'm aware of, I'm tending towards #3 being the most believalbe. Occam's razor and all. It's the simplest explanation that fits.

So you're saying that, all things being equal, it's more likely that:
a) Souls exist.
b) Certain people can channel these souls.
c) Some people who channel souls are just faking it, though, which is why they often contradict each other.

than:
a) People fake channeling souls for money or fame, and
b) Other people delude themselves into believing they've channeled a soul.

 

[dash]

I used to think that, too. Here's the thing: Maybe you can't KNOW it's all faked. There are channelers/mediums who have been exposed as frauds. I know of no one who has, for example, passed the James Randi challenge and been PROVEN real. I choose to no longer waste my time believing in things that I can't KNOW are not faked. Personal choice.

That reminds me of something I wanted to bring up. Around 1990 timeframe a couple of friends of mine were convinced they could make clouds evaporate. At least they said they did, people they knew supposedly could do it. So we're in a car together driving along, and I say, ok, make those clouds up there disappear.

What happened? You guessed it, the clouds didn't disappear. So did we prove anything? I thought I'd disproved the concept that people can make clouds disappear, but I don't think so now. We just demonstrated my friends couldn't do it on demand.

Now it occured to me that perhaps there is a system that explains everything everyone sees/experiences. It's all a matter of belief. I firmly believed my friends couldn't make the clouds disappear. My belief that they couldn't was far stronger than their belief that it could. So I won -- they couldn't.

So you get scientifically minded people who fundamentally don't believe in the paranormal, and they conduct experiments, and they disprove it. People who believe in the paranormal always claim to have experiences, but they don't withstand the tests of the scientific method. The paranormal enthusiasts always have their experiences when their in their own croud. But then again couldn't they just take a few videos of the proceedings...I don't know. It's bugging the crap out of me.

Honestly I'd prefer not to believe in paranormal, afterlife, god, UFO's, etc. But there is just so much material to account for. Has anyone heard of The Disclosure Project? http://www.disclosureproject.org/ The claim is a whole bunch of believable people stand up in front of congress and present their personal accounts, with corroborating evidence, of contact or observations of UFO's. If you watch the youtube video you get a lot of believable people up there. Is it all a fraud?

I mean, at some point doesn't the sheer mass of "evidence" of paranormal start itself becoming something that must be considered?

-Dave

 

[sthomson]

Now you're insulting engineers.

BTW - I'm an engineer and basically had 4 years of physics of one kind or another.

Shhhh... I'm an engineer, too. I got through one trying week of quantum chemistry by imagining balloons... balloons that attract or repel other balloons.

Thanks for looking into the DBL stuff! I'm trying to decide if the Ra material is believable. The reference to DBL's physics is a testable area. My personal desire is to want to disbelieve existing scientific "understanding" (Big Bang Theory, Dark Matter, Singularities in Black Holes, String Theory, areas of Quantum Mechanics...) simply because it appears to have stagnated. No big advances in understanding in 30 years. So I'm already primed for some completely revolutionary look at how the underlying physics of the universe operates.

But... but... it HASN'T stagnated! The reason you only hear of advances that happened thirty years ago is because it takes a long time for theories to be verified, refined, and communicated to the general public. It's not like physicists stopped after Einstein said, "Look - there's no aether! Light travels at a fixed speed, and nothing travels faster!"

The fact that we haven't found a better theory, despite half a decade of serious and well-reasoned attepts, isn't boring, it's terribly exciting! It's proof that maybe we're on to something this time!

DBL discusses problems in existing theory, which I soak up like a sponge because I'm already unhappy with existing theory.

Why are you unhappy with existing theory? Because it's boring?

Furthermore, you know that DBL isn't the only person who has a problem with the gulf between relativity and quantum mechanics, right? There are tons of scientists out there right now trying to prove one or the other wrong.

 

[dash]

Can you provide a link to the material you describe, or a book or journal reference? The fact that our current theories have band-aids and fudge factors doesn't mean we should throw them out with the bathwater. But your strong nuclear force example doesn't hold water. I don't know much about quantum mechanics, and maybe we don't have the technology to measure the strong nuclear force, but we do know that pi mesons are responsible for it - although this might not have been the case when Larson first devised his theory.

...

Is monetary benefit the only reason someone will do something? Consider:
...

So you're saying that, all things being equal, it's more likely that:
a) Souls exist.
b) Certain people can channel these souls.
c) Some people who channel souls are just faking it, though, which is why they often contradict each other.

than:
a) People fake channeling souls for money or fame, and
b) Other people delude themselves into believing they've channeled a soul.

The reasons why they might want to do it are not too important. People can come up with reasons for doing anything. Still, the options are:
1) It's a hoax
2) It's Carla's subconscious mind alone, but all participants believe it
3) It's real

There's no point in dwelling on reasons for #1. Problem with #1 is there is just so much detail. If it's a lie it's a very good one. Problems with #2 -- there isn't convincing evidence Carla alone could have known all the information the "Ra" entity came out with. Too much detail. There was no time for thought, evidently the answers came immediately after the questioner asked. The cadence was evidently slow + methodical. But the answers were supposedly immediate. Think of the intricacy involved? No stuttering, no backups, no corrections. It all just flowed out in complete thoughts. It's superhuman in the detail. People don't talk like that.

Regarding Dewey B Larson's material, I strongly suggest reading this article, "The Case Against The Nuclear Atom"

http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/cana/index.htm

Now if you were to apply this forum's general philosophy (preference towards debunking) to the original premise made by Rutherford and Bohr on the construction of the atom, according to DLB's information you'd have to reject them out of hand.

Regarding your abc vs ab question above:

I'd prefer not to believe in souls and paranormal. I'd prefer its a hoax. But I'm trying hard not to get clouded by my own personal beliefs. The conundrum is that I've recently been asking people of faith to actually consider that their faith (Christian) in god is perhaps not a reflection of reality. So in order to be fair, I must question my own faith that there is no paranormal. I've never experienced anything I had to accept as a paranormal experience. I've never seen UFO's. I've heard a lot of rumours and anecdotes. All it would take is one, or a few, things I simply can't rationalize away to make me believe there is something more than what we en masse believe.

-Dave
Forums: http://www.xdr.com/forums
Homepage: http://www.xdr.com/dash

 

[schlitt]

4) Skpetical about just about everything
5) Open minded. Hope this doesn't conflict with #4.

This is a common misconception.

In reality, it is more likely that true skeptics are the only people with a truly open mind.

Believers in the paramornal often spout "you just don't have an open mind!", yet when you look at the situation objectively, they are the ones who are choosing to ignore evidence, and maintain an unwavering faith in something, purely out of desire for it to be true.

Conversely, skeptics also have a desire for the phenomena to be true, but they do not just blindly accept it because of this, they consider all of the available information before deciding.

It is a sure sign of closed mindedness when someone spouts about having an open mind.

To be truly skeptical requires you are open to any and all evidence.

I know quite a few people who believe in the paranormal, which each of these people, they are completely ignorant of the scientific explanations, they have only considered magical explanations, and accepted them as true, purely because they want them to be true.
When i speak to them and tell them evidence, they have no interest in this evidence, because it contradicts what they want to hear. But, amazingly enough, they have the audacity to call me closed minded.
So here you have people believing something, ignoring evidence, calling themselves open minded, and accusing people who are open to all facts and evidence of being close minded. It is ironic.

 

[cyborg]

Honestly I'd prefer not to believe in paranormal, afterlife, god, UFO's, etc. But there is just so much material to account for.

Quantity is not quality.

 

[Garrette]

That reminds me of something I wanted to bring up. Around 1990 timeframe a couple of friends of mine were convinced they could make clouds evaporate. At least they said they did, people they knew supposedly could do it. So we're in a car together driving along, and I say, ok, make those clouds up there disappear.

What happened? You guessed it, the clouds didn't disappear. So did we prove anything? I thought I'd disproved the concept that people can make clouds disappear, but I don't think so now. We just demonstrated my friends couldn't do it on demand.

The belief in "cloudbusting" is ages old. Most of my family believe they can do it, despite never being able to do it in front of me and being able to do it according to their own reports only a fraction of the time when I'm not there. There's always a rationalization.

Now it occured to me that perhaps there is a system that explains everything everyone sees/experiences. It's all a matter of belief. I firmly believed my friends couldn't make the clouds disappear. My belief that they couldn't was far stronger than their belief that it could. So I won -- they couldn't.

How far are you willing to extend this?

Let's say you're right, but not just about my belief that DBL is wrong. Let's say that I have the strongest beliefs of all, even at a distance, and my belief is that people will believe false things despite evidence to the contrary. So now you're stuck in the matrix I made. It's a hypothesis which, even if true, has no use at all.

Beyond that, it's a cop out. It's an excuse not to learn things, not to make an effort. The knowledge gained through the scientific method was gained with sweat and blood and failure and learning.

Your proposed system of beliefs says "I'll believe what I like, and it's equal to the evidentiary positions of those who have worked at it."

So you get scientifically minded people who fundamentally don't believe in the paranormal, and they conduct experiments, and they disprove it.

Backwards. The positive claim comes first. Those making the claims fail to prove it. Few are claiming that the paranormal is positively disproven.

People who believe in the paranormal always claim to have experiences, but they don't withstand the tests of the scientific method.

It's more than that. Besides not withstanding tests, they are almost universally explainable via known mechanisms--mechanisms that the claimant was either unaware of or chose to ignore.

Note that I said "almost universally explainable." There are, of course, phenomena that are not explained. Science is quite comfortable saying "I don't know," because that is in fact true. Paranormal believers skip that part and jump to "I know." That's not only unfounded, it's arrogant.

Honestly I'd prefer not to believe in paranormal, afterlife, god, UFO's, etc.

Try not believing in claims and instead try trusting in evidence. It takes effort to sift the evidence, but it can be done.

But there is just so much material to account for.

Mostly just rehashes of the same stuff, over and over, occasionally repackaged.

Has anyone heard of The Disclosure Project? http://www.disclosureproject.org/ The claim is a whole bunch of believable people stand up in front of congress and present their personal accounts, with corroborating evidence, of contact or observations of UFO's. If you watch the youtube video you get a lot of believable people up there. Is it all a fraud?

A fraud? In a sense. Evidence is not presented; claims and anecdotes are. Primarily it's a call for investigation, not the presentation of the results of investigation.

I mean, at some point doesn't the sheer mass of "evidence" of paranormal start itself becoming something that must be considered?

-Dave

Considered? Yes. It has been. Accepted? Only if it withstands scrutiny. It never has.

 

[shadron]

I think this thread is going to get well trod. The OP doesn't seem to want to be told he channelling wind.

"Channelling Ra" is a cliche'. Boopsie, and Doonesbury character, channels "Hunk-Ra", for example.

BTW, I just did a Google look up on "channeling RA", and this thread showed up on the first page, which may give insight about how we are regarded in the Google world.

 

[dash]

It is a sure sign of closed mindedness when someone spouts about having an open mind.

Don't jump to conclusions! To me having an open mind is not taking anything on faith. If you go into any paranormal argument with the intent that it must be wrong, that's different from going into it trying to find the truth of the matter.

If you disbelieve paranormal from the word go, no amount of "evidence" will convince you otherwise. Same as if you are a person of faith, no amount of "evidence" will demonstrate there is no god.

My attitude is, "Paranormal? Show me and I'll believe in it."

I'm trying to decide if the Ra material itself counts as sufficient "evidence". I've examined it and I couldn't dismiss it out of hand. I'm hoping experts here will either already be familiar with it and be able to debunk it, or they'll examine it and be able to debunk it. Or they'll join me in my misery -- wondering if it really is true.

I can already discount the crop circles as being all man-made. Man-made also includes making use of man-made machinery. I'm sure there is some clever widgetry involved in some of those crop circles. But I'm convinced they could all be made right here at home.

A lot of these paranormal groups are claiming something big is building up for December 21 2012. There is a claim all the weather problems, trouble in the world, natural disasters are all part of the buildup to a major change. Great, another end of the world scenario. But it does seem like a lot of things are coming together at this point in time...

-Dave
Forums: http://www.xdr.com/forums
Homepage: http://www.xdr.com/dash

 

[shadron]

The reasons why they might want to do it are not too important. People can come up with reasons for doing anything. Still, the options are:
1) It's a hoax
2) It's Carla's subconscious mind alone, but all participants believe it
3) It's real

There's no point in dwelling on reasons for #1. Problem with #1 is there is just so much detail. If it's a lie it's a very good one. Problems with #2 -- there isn't convincing evidence Carla alone could have known all the information the "Ra" entity came out with. Too much detail. There was no time for thought, evidently the answers came immediately after the questioner asked. The cadence was evidently slow + methodical. But the answers were supposedly immediate. Think of the intricacy involved? No stuttering, no backups, no corrections. It all just flowed out in complete thoughts. It's superhuman in the detail. People don't talk like that.

Now tell me, how do you know that? Were you there? My understanding from the OP is that you found all this stuff on the web. You don't even know if Carla or Don are real people, or even Dewey.

In your open/shut case above, what happens when the physics is falsified, as I think is very likely to happen when someone actually finds it? What possibility does that leave? If none, then perhaps you better examine your presumptions.

I'll lend you a statistical probability off the top of my head: it's case 1, by at least .99.

 

[Pup]

My personal desire is to want to disbelieve existing scientific "understanding" (Big Bang Theory, Dark Matter, Singularities in Black Holes, String Theory, areas of Quantum Mechanics...) simply because it appears to have stagnated. No big advances in understanding in 30 years.

It took humans what, maybe 50,000 years to get this far in understanding?

I'm wondering if thirty years is a little too soon to get impatient for new advances, to the point of grasping for straws.

From post #6:

I'm tending towards #3 ["it's true"] being the most believalbe. Occam's razor and all. It's the simplest explanation that fits.

Communication with a 6th density being from some other level of existence is the simplest explanation? It requires assuming the existence of a "6th density," which contains beings, which have telepathic or other abilities to communicate with beings in whatever density we're in, and assuming that one of them decided to communicate with an English speaking being in a culture you're familiar with, in a way similar to, but different from other "channeled" beings who claim to be in other locations communicating different ideas to different people.

Choices #1 and #2 ("It's an elaborate hoax, in incredibly intricate detail" or
"It's the product of Carla's unconscious mind") requiring no assumptions other than the usual ones about humans need for attention and amazing imaginations.

If Occam's razor is the deciding factor, I vote for #1 or #2.

 

[cyborg]

A lot of these paranormal groups are claiming something big is building up for December 21 2012. There is a claim all the weather problems, trouble in the world, natural disasters are all part of the buildup to a major change. Great, another end of the world scenario. But it does seem like a lot of things are coming together at this point in time...

Pick an arbitrary point in time and pick an arbitrary number of signs - things are always changing and happening.

Doesn't mean a damn thing. It's easy to claim anything you want. It's a lot harder to demonstrate why your claim should have any physical substance.

 

[dash]

I think this thread is going to get well trod. The OP doesn't seem to want to be told he channelling wind.

"Channelling Ra" is a cliche'. Boopsie, and Doonesbury character, channels "Hunk-Ra", for example.

BTW, I just did a Google look up on "channeling RA", and this thread showed up on the first page, which may give insight about how we are regarded in the Google world.

I tried doing that google search but nothing from forums.randi.org showed up, are you sure you didn't limit the search to this site?

Don't confuse me with people who want to believe in the paranormal! I've always discounted such claims. But it has just been a form of faith. Now I'm in the midst of deciding for myself whether there is anything there.

I could go into a lot of detail about why this happens to be important at this stage of my life, but it's probably boring and irrelevant to the discussion.

Ra's focus is on the Law Of One. When the questioners start asking about stuff away from Law Of One, Ra answers but indicates the information is not really important. So searching for "Channelling Ra" is probably less effective than searching for Law Of One...

-Dave

 

[schlitt]

Don't jump to conclusions!

This was flippant generalization, however i have yet to come across a person who regurgitates the "open mind" mantra, who truly is open to all evidence.

To me having an open mind is not taking anything on faith. If you go into any paranormal argument with the intent that it must be wrong, that's different from going into it trying to find the truth of the matter.

I agree with this. This approach would not be skeptical.

If you disbelieve paranormal from the word go, no amount of "evidence" will convince you otherwise. Same as if you are a person of faith, no amount of "evidence" will demonstrate there is no god.

Yes, but the default sate should not be belief. Being open to possibility if fine, being credulous is not.

My attitude is, "Paranormal? Show me and I'll believe in it."

Mine too. Probably along with most here.

I'm trying to decide if the Ra material itself counts as sufficient "evidence". I've examined it and I couldn't dismiss it out of hand. I'm hoping experts here will either already be familiar with it and be able to debunk it, or they'll examine it and be able to debunk it. Or they'll join me in my misery -- wondering if it really is true.

What evidence is there to show that Ra was not just a myth?
What evidence is there to show that the people channeling are not just faking?
How much do you know about physics?
Do you think you would be more equipped to spot falsehoods in physics over someone like Stephen Hawking?

What is the most likely explanation here?

I wonder if you are going to be satisfied by the answers that you are given, if they do not fit with your desire.

I can already discount the crop circles as being all man-made. Man-made also includes making use of man-made machinery. I'm sure there is some clever widgetry involved in some of those crop circles. But I'm convinced they could all be made right here at home.

A lot of these paranormal groups are claiming something big is building up for December 21 2012. There is a claim all the weather problems, trouble in the world, natural disasters are all part of the buildup to a major change. Great, another end of the world scenario. But it does seem like a lot of things are coming together at this point in time...

Lets wait till 2012 to see then eh.

 

[fuelair]

I wonder if people on these forums realize the parallels between:

Religious fanatic thinks anyone that denies god is a heretic.

and

Skeptic fanatic thinks anyone that supports paranormal is a "woo".

I hope people realize in both cases people are closing their mind down and letting their beliefs control their statements.

I mean, you do see that, don't you? Anyone?

-Dave

I'll assume you have heard this before, but: I say squirrels exist. I bring in a squirrel body, a live squirrel and a large number of studies of squirrels including DNA showing how they relate to other species. Bigfoot supporter brings in no samples, no live animal, vague reports by non-scientists that are, at best anecdotal. Which of us has proved our case?
I bring in a clear photograph of an aircraft you have never seen before. We observe the visible details of the aircraft and can identify an engine, a place for fuel to be put in and standard flaps in a reasonable place for controling flight. I say that since it does not match any photos or aircraft I have seen it is likely a new or secret aircraft and,as I took photo in US, likely US. UFO
fan brings in a completely devoid of focus and detail photograph of a sort of roundish blob. UFO fan says this is clearly a photo of a Greys ship showing they indeed are watching us - with particular interest in our anuses. Which of us is more likely to be correct? I say truthfully: I have never seen any sign there is a god, I have never knowingly spoken to or been spoken to by a
god. I have seen things and know of things that happen in this world that a god could not rationally allow and I have not seen a god. Religious person: says they talk to god (but few say it talks back), the Bible (Koran, Torah, etc) says there is one, but they do not say "I have seen god at X location on x day at x time and if you got there at x time tomorrow god will be there turning/doing (whatever) magic tricks and healing amputees" or, for the few that do, he seems to forget the appointment. No evidence of any kind to even start to prove existence of god. Now on this one, I do not have sufficient information to prove there is not a god - but then, I do not have to because you cannot prove that kind of negative (that is why the burden of proof is on the claimant the it exists). I cannot prove the negative without proving I have both scanned for a god in all of the universe and all at the same time so it can't hide as I move in a new direction - but you can prove the positive by showing me just one god.
And so on, and so on...........
Nothing to do with a closed mind - most of us just have a very important filter that blocks things that have NO EVIDENCE OF BEING CORRECT/EXISTING from entering. Some of us call it the S-filter. Guess why.

 

[dash]

Now tell me, how do you know that? Were you there? My understanding from the OP is that you found all this stuff on the web. You don't even know if Carla or Don are real people, or even Dewey.

In your open/shut case above, what happens when the physics is falsified, as I think is very likely to happen when someone actually finds it? What possibility does that leave? If none, then perhaps you better examine your presumptions.

I'll lend you a statistical probability off the top of my head: it's case 1, by at least .99.

For that matter how do I even know you exist? All I see of you is text on a screen. I have to hypothesize humans at the other end of these postings.

Anyway I'd just wrap Carla, Jim and Don as being ficticious characters as part of the #1 possibility -- it's a hoax. They'd just be part of the story. But you can find Carla's blog, she wrote in it the day before I checked (within the past week). I sent them some email and someone responded.

Personally I'd prefer a situation where the Ra material just came from Carla's subconscious. Therefore her mind, and ours also, are capable of such amazing feats of concentration. But in the end it was just her own thoughts coming out in some form. So that rules out the hoax theory, meaning people get to be generally honest and not varmints. Plus I get to go on believing what I see with my own eyes is the only reality.

As it relates to Dewey B Larson, whatever Carla believed about it doesn't matter -- Carla couldn't know whether it's right or wrong. Instead I'd like for DBL to be correct, just because I want a resolution on the whole Theory Of Everything question. Let's figure it out, already! What I've studied of DBL is plausable. I especially like his criticisms of the status quo.

The thing I see is that there is no debunking of DBL's physics. There is no examination of it at all, in fact. It's just dismissed out of hand. It's like no single qualified individual can ever take the time to actually poke holes in it.
There aren't really that many oddball alternative theories. Can't science take a bit of time to debunk some of them?

-Dave

 

[Darth Rotor]

In reality, it is more likely that true skeptics are the only people with a truly open mind.

Indeed, and they wear the kilts made of the best tartan.

Believers in the paramornal often spout "you just don't have an open mind!", yet when you look at the situation objectively, they are the ones who are choosing to ignore evidence, and maintain an unwavering faith in something, purely out of desire for it to be true.

The phrase "open mind" tends to get a lot of use, and abuse.

Conversely, skeptics also have a desire for the phenomena to be true, but they do not just blindly accept it because of this, they consider all of the available information before deciding.

Mr Randi has indicated more than once, in what I have read, that he'd be delighted to find someone able to win the MDC. As I understand him, he'd be overjoyed at seeing the opening up of new human potential. Still waiting, the world is, to see this come about. (Esalen Institute comes to mind.)

It is a sure sign of closed mindedness when someone spouts about having an open mind.

Per your opening remark, right? May it please the court --

In reality, it is more likely that true skeptics are the only people with a truly open mind.

Yes, that was a bit of nose tweaking.

To be truly skeptical requires you are open to any and all evidence.

I find this "truly" qualifier redundant. Kilt salesmen at the door again?

Skepticism is a method.

When i speak to them and tell them evidence, they have no interest in this evidence, because it contradicts what they want to hear. But, amazingly enough, they have the audacity to call me closed minded.

Seen similar transactions myself.

So here you have people believing something, ignoring evidence, calling themselves open minded, and accusing people who are open to all facts and evidence of being close minded. It is ironic.

Agreed.

DR

 

[fuelair]

How can you know for a fact it's all faked? Certainly there will be frauds who fake information for their own reasons (ego, profit, whatever). The presence of frauds does not necessarily mean they're all frauds, right?

-Dave

You might be right - but P-R-O-V-E I-T. There also might be an invisible pink unicorn in your garage (I doubt it but I cannot prove there isn't) (but if I thought there was, I would need to prove it - or lose any right to complain about those who do not believe it).

 

[schlitt]

Per your opening remark, right? May it please the court --

You got me there , however the point is, you rarely see skeptics going around saying "Open your mind!", it is usually more the terminology that woo folk use.
However if having an open mind really means being open to evidence, then someone using skepticism is going to qualify for this term better than someone who believes through blind faith.

I find this "truly" qualifier redundant. Kilt salesmen at the door again?

It should be redundant, however it often is not. There are many people who call themselves skeptics, who are nothing of the sort. These are people who are not applying the methodology correctly.

 

[dash]

What evidence is there to show that Ra was not just a myth?
What evidence is there to show that the people channeling are not just faking?
How much do you know about physics?
Do you think you would be more equipped to spot falsehoods in physics over someone like Stephen Hawking?

What is the most likely explanation here?

I wonder if you are going to be satisfied by the answers that you are given, if they do not fit with your desire.



Lets wait till 2012 to see then eh.

My background: Scientific, I majored in physics at UC Berkeley and have been an enthusiast all my life. My profession is computer programmer, currently I'm working on Machine Intelligence. Never graduated UCB I should confess.

There is no evidence Ra wasn't a myth, at least that I'm aware of.

Evidence that channelers are not faking -- I'm not aware of any. Very easy way to prove they're not faking. Have someone go in the other room and do something, and have the channeler ask the entity what they did. There's no way to guess correctly every time. I'm sure this has never been done. Awfully convenient, eh.

How much do I know about physics. I would say I know a great deal about physics. Too much to write about in a few sentences.

Speaking of Stephen Hawking, that's sort of a loaded question. I personally don't support his theories about black holes. See my discussion here: http://www.xdr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18 I'm not a big fan of Hawking, I think his science is equivalent to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. This is heresy, but there it is. The whole question of loss of information into the black hole is...completely ridiculous. Don't get me started.

Regarding the most likely situation, I'm now tending towards disbelieving the Ra material, so I appreciate the input. There is a general theme of channeling material being vague and disprovable, there being lots of material to pick from to make even more material...this is what I was after. Some other viewpoints.

Actually it is plausable that the whole new age, ufo movement is a mass delusion. I believe the same for the religiously faithful, don't I? By the same token I believe most of modern subatomic theory is equivalent. While we're on the subject I believe the general population's faith that the government is telling us the truth and the economy is healthy is a mass delusion. Or that Iran is a villain. It's all propaganda in various forms.

Dewey B Larson's material is separate from the Ra material. Ra claims DBL was correct. Now if I disbelieve Ra is real, DBL material must stand on its own merit. Currently I'm undecided. I wish the matter were resolved though.

2012 -- not long to wait. My prediction: Not a darned thing will happen. You can quote me.

-Dave

 

[dash]

Mr Randi has indicated more than once, in what I have read, that he'd be delighted to find someone able to win the MDC. As I understand him, he'd be overjoyed at seeing the opening up of new human potential. Still waiting, the world is, to see this come about. (Esalen Institute comes to mind.)

Very good point. I think that's my attitude as well.

In the meantime I think it's business as usual, assume this is the only reality there is, and get on with life.

-Dave

 

[schlitt]

My background: Scientific, I majored in physics at UC Berkeley and have been an enthusiast all my life. My profession is computer programmer, currently I'm working on Machine Intelligence. Never graduated UCB I should confess.

There is no evidence Ra wasn't a myth, at least that I'm aware of.

Evidence that channelers are not faking -- I'm not aware of any. Very easy way to prove they're not faking. Have someone go in the other room and do something, and have the channeler ask the entity what they did. There's no way to guess correctly every time. I'm sure this has never been done. Awfully convenient, eh.

How much do I know about physics. I would say I know a great deal about physics. Too much to write about in a few sentences.

Speaking of Stephen Hawking, that's sort of a loaded question. I personally don't support his theories about black holes. See my discussion here: http://www.xdr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18 I'm not a big fan of Hawking, I think his science is equivalent to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. This is heresy, but there it is. The whole question of loss of information into the black hole is...completely ridiculous. Don't get me started.

Regarding the most likely situation, I'm now tending towards disbelieving the Ra material, so I appreciate the input. There is a general theme of channeling material being vague and disprovable, there being lots of material to pick from to make even more material...this is what I was after. Some other viewpoints.

Actually it is plausable that the whole new age, ufo movement is a mass delusion. I believe the same for the religiously faithful, don't I? By the same token I believe most of modern subatomic theory is equivalent. While we're on the subject I believe the general population's faith that the government is telling us the truth and the economy is healthy is a mass delusion. Or that Iran is a villain. It's all propaganda in various forms.

Dewey B Larson's material is separate from the Ra material. Ra claims DBL was correct. Now if I disbelieve Ra is real, DBL material must stand on its own merit. Currently I'm undecided. I wish the matter were resolved though.

2012 -- not long to wait. My prediction: Not a darned thing will happen. You can quote me.

-Dave

Ok, what you just wrote sounds rational to me. (Although i do not have enough knowledge of black holes to comment on your Stephen Hawking opinions)

Good luck with your endeavours.

 

[shadron]

For that matter how do I even know you exist? All I see of you is text on a screen. I have to hypothesize humans at the other end of these postings.

Anyway I'd just wrap Carla, Jim and Don as being ficticious characters as part of the #1 possibility -- it's a hoax. They'd just be part of the story. But you can find Carla's blog, she wrote in it the day before I checked (within the past week). I sent them some email and someone responded.

Personally I'd prefer a situation where the Ra material just came from Carla's subconscious. Therefore her mind, and ours also, are capable of such amazing feats of concentration. But in the end it was just her own thoughts coming out in some form. So that rules out the hoax theory, meaning people get to be generally honest and not varmints. Plus I get to go on believing what I see with my own eyes is the only reality.

As it relates to Dewey B Larson, whatever Carla believed about it doesn't matter -- Carla couldn't know whether it's right or wrong. Instead I'd like for DBL to be correct, just because I want a resolution on the whole Theory Of Everything question. Let's figure it out, already! What I've studied of DBL is plausable. I especially like his criticisms of the status quo.

The thing I see is that there is no debunking of DBL's physics. There is no examination of it at all, in fact. It's just dismissed out of hand. It's like no single qualified individual can ever take the time to actually poke holes in it.
There aren't really that many oddball alternative theories. Can't science take a bit of time to debunk some of them?

-Dave

As it happens, they really do exist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Rueckert
(Jim is her husband Jim McCarty)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Elkins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_B_Larson

The philosopher Samuel Alexander asked the question "How far a science of order could be founded on this bare conception of ordered parts of Space-Time I do not know. ..." but Larson was inspired to make it his life's major work to attempt to find out. Whether Larson's work is metaphysics itself like Alexander's, science or pseudoscience, is debatable. His theory has no mainstream following and is largely ignored by practicing scientists who are aware of it.

Larson also wrote on economic policy and theory.

 

[dash]

It took humans what, maybe 50,000 years to get this far in understanding?

I'm wondering if thirty years is a little too soon to get impatient for new advances, to the point of grasping for straws.

I just want everything to be resolved in my own lifetime. Is that so wrong?

I didn't know about Dewey B Larson until I read the Ra material. I can accept that believing in Ra is grasping at straws, but considering DBL to be viable...that's not. It's real science, it can be examined in the light of day.

I consider many areas of research to be at dead ends. Things are fundamentally wrong, and it's just a question of how far back it's necessary to go to get the right model. DBL goes all the way back to the beginning, I'll give him that.

String Theory -- complete mess. Smolin's book "The Trouble With Physics" is all over this one.

Astrophysics -- having to postulate dark matter, dark energy, cosmological constant, it's a big hodge-podge.

General Relativity -- What about LIGO? It's never found gravity waves, as predicted by GM. LIGO enthusiasts keep pushing for more funding to make LIGO more sensitive. Keep the dream alive! http://dashxdr.blogspot.com/2008/01/ligo-keep-dream-alive.html

Artificial Intelligence -- Complete morass, completely at a dead end.
...

-Dave

 

[sthomson]

dash, if you majoried in physics at Berkeley, can you respond to my issue with Larson's conception of a photon?

 

[ExMinister]

It seems to me the logical thing to do would be to refuse to believe a word Carla says if there is even the slightest possibility that Carla isn't who she claims to be. How do you know she isn't an avid reader with a photographic memory? Who's to say the tapes aren't edited? Even if they aren't, is it really impossible that Carla herself could come up with this stuff? If she tells you she isn't lying and "seems sincere," obviously that's not sufficient evidence either.

Although I'm not familiar with it, I agree the DBL material should stand (or not) on its own. It deserves to. Channeled information does not. It irks me that these channelers gain followers on no other basis than an empty claim to be channeling some higher intelligence - and many of them seem to know exactly what to say to convince people that they couldn't possibly know this information any other way.