You're beating the drum over nothing, Wolfgang. I have no trouble entertaining doubts about many things, and I agree with your approach to scientific investigation wholeheartedly. But I am not a research scientist by profession. THAT is why I do not spend large amounts of my time investigating things by an empirical laboratory method that you might find totally satisfying! I have too many other things to do already.

Don't accuse me of disagreeing with you on things I agree with you on. :-)

Maybe I should quote you:

I am sure your way of thinking is comforting for you.

Everyone's way of thinking is comforting for them, within their own understanding.

I have always had the impression that you have difficulties dealing with doubts.

You are mistaken. I have doubts about numerous things from time to time, including my own perceptions.

You seem only to have replaced the authorities/securities of your youth by others.

Now you're really getting snide, aren't you? :-)

Empirical testing is a way of gathering knowledge and a way of testing whether what you consider correct may turn out to be wrong. This is not the way for the lazy thinkers and for those threatened by finding out they have been wrong.

I could hardly agree more with anything than with that statement!

It is not your way...

Codswallop. You are mistaken.

and so it is no wonder you have forgotten this as a reason for a change of opinion in your 20 Aug 04 - 11:57 AM post.

Wolfgang, I have had girfriends petty enough to drag up every single word I said in the last five or ten years and browbeat me with it, but I think it is unbecoming of you to do so. The Pope is not infallible, and neither am I. I have many times in my life changed an opinion, and I'm sure I will again.

Completely contrary to what you seem to believe, science is open for a change of opinion or theory given a good reason to do so.

That is in no way contrary to what I believe.

Carol's experiment done in a convincing way and found repeatable could of course change all thinking in science. Not necessarily in an individual scientist, for these people are as conservative or stubborn individually as all others, but there are always enough of them grasping at the new findings and trying to get famous with new theories. The individual scientist may be immune against change, science in a broad sense isn't.

Agreed, but the professional world of science, I think, is not interested at present in what Carol chooses to do with her time. She has no pull in that peer group. I hardly think anything she comes up with will make a particle of difference, except to Carol.

Look at what has happened after an experiment seemed to show that eihter ether is moving with the earth or the speed of light is independent of the frame of reference. Unthinkable that was to ageing scientists for it warranted such a big change in thinking they were not ready for it. But young scientists did think the unthinkable and came up with new theories for that. Einstein for instance. The old camarilla was strong enough to prevent him getting the Nobel prize for the theory of relativity and so he got it as a compromise for a minor contribution, the explanation of the photoelectriy effect and 'for his other contributions'. But his theory has won.

Absolutely! That is how science advances. You do not need to convince me about that.

As immune each individual scinetist may be against new facts and theories, the endeavour 'science' is extremely open to changes. That is by the weayy much different from faiths or belief systems which are unchanged since centuries.

If you are speaking of organized religion, you are right. I don't place any reliance upon organized religion whatsoever. I just find it a handy reference to the history of human culture.

This vitasl difference you are unable or unwilling to grasp, for if science is 'just another faith' you feel less threatened in your world view.

I do not feel even slightly threatened in my world view, I am simply enthusiastic about it and enjoy talking about it.

It would take two decades or so, but a repeatable experiment demonstrating spiritual action upon matter would change the thinking of science. But a mere assertion of individual experiences will not change anything.

Except this...it will signal a change in the individual who is changed BY the experience! It is myself I try to change, Wolfgang, not others. I repeat, I talk about what I am interested in and enthusiastic about BECAUSE I am interested in it and enthusiastic about it, NOT because I wish or intend to change others.

The other side of the medal, of course, is that a well controlled experiment may repeatedly confirm the null hypothesis of no effect of thought upon matter.

That has already been disproven so many times that it's hardly worth arguing about. (But not to you... :-))

Doing convincing empirical reasearch has a big prize that may be won: a result necessitating completely new theories may be found. But this is only the way for those strong enough to face that their pet theories may be found wrong and not for those not willing to give up cherished beliefs.

I agree entirely. Hear! Hear! Let it be written in gold!

For thousands of years, the spiritual way of thinking has never changed.

In one sense that is quite untrue. New spiritual ideas are always coming to individuals, quite apart from organized religion and its ancient traditions. In another sense it is quite true what you said...because...if spiritual thinking is based upon something real, then why WOULD it change? Does the truth change? Only the way people perceive the truth changes.

The same concepts have been expressed in different words. Nothing has been added to our knowledge.

Because you have not actually listened to anything spiritual with anything but skepticism and what really amounts to uninterest in the subject. Your disagreement is with organized religion.   I do not belong to organized religion or subscribe to it.

Compare to that how radically our thinking about the world and our knowledge (and accompanying that, our technology) has changed and you'll see that science is not just another of many faiths but simply a method to empirically test ideas about the world. The endeavour 'science' doesn't make scientists materialists (there are scientists who believe in a supreme being or/and in a soul/spirit) though scientists according to surveys are more likely to be atheists (and the more so the more successful they are). It is a method of knowledge gathering and a very successful one.

Agreed. I approve of that method of gathering knowledge very much.

50,000 years of belief in spiritual communication haven't been able to provide a reliable mean of communication between people far apart, but science has.

You are mistaken. There are reliable means of such communication without the advances of science, but they are limited to very, very few individuals because most people are something you alluded to early in your post, Wolfgang...

They're lazy thinkers. And they are used to thinking on only one level...one bandwidth, so to speak. But I'm not going to waste more of this bandwidth trying to tell you about something that you have utterly no inclination to give even a hypothetical existence to. It would be like trying to explain nuclear fission or the internal combustion engine to a monk from a 13th century monastery. And it is something you could NEVER find evidence for unless you personally accomplished it yourself...and then your fellow scientists would not believe you.

Wolfgang, it is not my sacred mission to change you nor is it my desire to change you. The only reason I talk about this stuff on Mudcat is because I am interested in it. I respect your scientific method.

Now let's hope I left all those danged italics in the right places!