Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 03:08 PM

anamill, those are amazing stories.
So do you ever now become concerned that when you are mad, your thoughts might make something happen?

Remember Ghost Busters when the guy was not supposed to think about anything, so he thought about marshmallows and manifested the Marshmallow Monster stomping down mainstreet?

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: annamill
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 03:07 PM

MT, were you makin funname? Hadn't realized..hmmm...

Amos, sorry I wrecked the conversation. Please continue. It was fascinating. Seriously. I was just pointing out how circumstances could mess up your resolve.

Grab, my ex always says I'm a witch. ;-)

L.A.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 02:50 PM

Ah, but, Bartholomew, with a 6 foot one he can...

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 02:42 PM

Aw, and here we wuz havin a seeryus conversashun.

Wal, ya nivver know whatcha can do til ya try.

Wun time ah decided to git ma truck up to a hunnert an twenny, and evvyone sed No Way, Hosay, cuz its a '68 with shellacked carbs,an'o springs to speek of... but Ah jes _knew_ ah could so Ah took out on the Gulfport road and got up to ninety; and I said, "Ah KNOW Ah kin dooit" and started down the long grade tuh the Misszipi bridge and got up to 104, but Ah wasnt gonna settle fer thet. Annyway, Ah knew Ah could do one-twenny. An' jess as Ah got tuh the bridge the left front retread come off and Ah went over the bluff which is 'bout two hunnert feet up fum the water...by accident, you wuld think... and by the time thet truck hit the river she was for sure doin one-twenny cuz the officer on the case tole me it wuz so. Weeeird, huh??? Scairy tuh think!

A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:52 PM

Watch it, Spaw, she might tell you to "F*ck yerself" and then you'd end up in the Guiness Book.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Grab
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:51 PM

Well, if you can, then it presumes either that you subconsciously know the future, or that you can control the weather and cause other people to do things. An individual controlling weather and people - unlikely. And knowing the future is equally unlikely since we can't rewind time.

So either you're some immensely powerful sorceress, or it's coincidence... :-)

Grab.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:51 PM

Annamill, I'm REALLY SORRY about the limericks I wrote making fun of you yesterday. I apologize sincerely and whole-heartedly and I'll never do it again.

Please don't zorch me!

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: annamill
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:47 PM

Sorry 'spaw. Evidently it would take a great deal of negative emotion and the only emotion I can get up for you is love. So all I can say is 'GET LOVED 'SPAW'.

;-) L,A.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:36 PM

Say anna.......Would it be too much to ask if you could tell me to "Get fucked?"

Just wonderin'.......and kinda' hopeful...........

Spaw

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: annamill
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:34 PM

Oh, and whats this about the bunny rabbit??? What do you mean he doesn't exist???

;-)

L,A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: annamill
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:32 PM

I'm not a religious person, and I tend to be very skeptical in other subjects as well. Even the discussion of crop circles seems silly to me. There are just too many other ways these things could have been done to justify an decision that it was aliens. I haven't decided yet about 'beings from another planet' because I haven't seen all the data.

I read my astrology reading almost every day and sometimes it's right on the money, sometimes it's not. I read it for fun to see how close it comes today. But I'm not about to let it dictate how my life is run.

I'm not religious, so I don't believe in ghosts, etc.

I have, however, had some really strange experiences that lead me to believe that my mind might possible have a strength unknown to me. Let me give you a couple of 'for instances'.

One day, many years ago, before I went to college, I was sitting in my kitchen with my baby girl, watching the boob tube. I stopped for a second, and said outloud to myself, 'I wish something would happen to this stupid TV so I'd have to get up off my A** and dooo something'. I must mention here that the day was beautiful, clear, warm and not a cloud in the sky. My neighbor was out in back with her baby girl hanging clothes.

A few minutes later, maybe a half an hour, there was a loud, shattering sound of lightning and a blast of bright light and everything in the house went off and there was smoke rising out of my TV. A little black cloud had passed over and released a bolt. My neighbor and her daughter were still outside, but now the mother had her daughter in her arms and was running for the house.

I must say that I was more than a little surprised. My TV never worked again and a hall light that had never worked now did.

Did I do that?????

Another time, almost as frightning, caused injury to another lady and scared the hell out of me, so to speak.

She used me by asking me to go out for an evening of just we girls. She told her husband we were going out and while we were out she met a man she had obviously set up a date with and left me without even telling me she was going. Boy, was I angry. I worked with this woman as a waitress and the next day at work she and I had a terrible argument and I told her that I hoped she would break her neck and spend all the money she made on medicine. Wellll, I quit because I couldn't stand being near her. A week later I met someone who also worked there and she told me this woman was walking into the kitchen with a tray on her shoulder and someone pushed open the door, forcing the tray into her neck breaking a collarbone. She was now at home till she recovered.

Did I do that????

Coincidence you say (me too), but was it, or was it me?

Love, annamill

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 01:12 PM

Eb-

I say, "man if that ever happened to me I think I'd faint dead away."

But reports from others are quite different from something happening to oneself, because they are always filtered through that person's belief system -slash- worldview, which never precisely coincides with one's own.

One need not be delusional to be mistaken, or to misinterpret what one experiences. Of course if such things happened to me, and I were to tell you about them, then *I* would be the one interpreting and filtering. So I do not judge others when they tell me their tales; I don't necessarily agree with them or believe their interpretatin of their experience, however. But I don't discount or dismiss it because it doesn't fit with my worldview (if in fact it doesn't in any particular case), either. Thus I usually refer to myself as "agnostic" on these things. I just don't know.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:55 PM

1. No, people do not remember everything correctly, not even as far back as breakfast in some cases. The ability to recall actual versus "dubbed in" or mangled realities is largely a function of the degree to which the individual is in good shape as a "viewer" -- meaning not overburdened with unresolved "stuff" of various kinds which add up to an unwillingness to see.

2. Serious trials in detecting original memory-recordings from under the layers of overlay, imposed ignoral and other strange beasts of the mind have been done, but not in a process that would satisfy strict disciplinarian clinicians. Despite this, the general tendency of the ones I have studied is that under circumstances where the individual is unthreatened and motivated to do so, accurate original memories of the most silly detailed moments from any past point in time are in fact available. This is debatable because as far as I know no-one has figured out how to do a rigorous clinical trial series in which the highly variable needs for communication, encouragement, and a non-challenging environment is provided while meeting the intentionally skeptical premises of what most people consider to be scientific methodology; it gets even trickier if you want to adhere to the tradition of a single-event, single-framework test pattern (like most physics lab tests) being imposed on the volatile and sensitive and often non-repeatable qualities of human thought itself. They really are fundamentally incompatible premises, these two poles. So p'raps we aren't going to solve it with a physics-based experimental approach.

As for the distinction between experience and the interpretation of experience, there's a lot to be said about it; from one perspective there is a baseline of immediate perception of immediate experience which is actually available without the interposition of judgement, extraneous meanings, etc. From another perspective the whole source of experience IS interpretative in the first instance. Ther eis some truth on both sides. Must folks are a blended compromise between the two extremes.

THis is anothe rproblem with "scientific" procedures approaching this turf: experience of physical objects is measureable and can be translated through meters. Experience is only measurable from the body out. But the delta between set "a" of neural inputs (pressure, light, temperature, sound) and sent "A-prime" of the experience of those inputs is highly significant and results in a huge additional variable which approaches the purely subjective. So who ya gonna call?

A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:37 PM

Ebbie, why I think you are onto something here about some people being uncomfortable with the unknown.

Does Cletus exist? Absolutely, I can smell him way over here.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:28 PM

Ah ha! Mouse Thief, (Do you steal mice or cheese??) an experience reported to you by someone you trust is, in my book, something that happened to you. So- what do you do at that point? Do you say to yourself, Man, I had no idea that s/he was so delusional or do you tell yourself, Man, there's a lot I don't know...

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:15 PM

I am afraid I must disagree with Ebbie, at least as to the universality of the statement "these things do happnen." I have never had anything even remotely "rum" (to use the British word) happen to me. My mom had poltergeist experiences, I have friends who have had near-death experiences, friends who claim past-life-type memories, know people who claim to have experienced angels, disembodied voices, etc. etc. but none of these things ever seem to happen to me. It's not for my being all that skeptical. Although I am somewhat empirical (to use a less laden word), I am also a religious person, although I have never experienced anything which you might call "mysterious" or "noumenous" or what-have-you.

I think if an angel, or a saint, or a ghost, or a god, or whatever, were to approach me, I'd probably drop into a dead faint. Perhaps that's why they don't -- they're being polite, not wishing to harm me.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:07 PM

I agree with youk Paddymac, when you say: First, many people(s) seem to be most uncomfortable accepting the existance of something unknown. Such difficulty might flow from any number of sources. Whatever its origin, it creates some degree of angst, and the simplest way to resolve that angst is to create an "explanation" for the unknown, thereby converting it to "known". But do you agree that that that statement applies equally to both sides?

Skeptic, I'm sorry, I was being a bit flippant when I used 'turned on'. What I was implying is that even explanations tend to be trendy. As more information is gathered, explanations change.

But when you say: As a skeptic, I would look at your experience, ask a series of questions, see if there was a way to reproduce the experience, maybe suggest a way to test it. Look at how the various explanations fit with the rest of what is known about the nature of reality.what are you saying? Are you saying that my experiences on the telephone (about 15 years apart) are repeatable/testable/explainable?

I think that one reason that 'skeptics' so often charge gullibility, bad memory, suggestibility, whatever turns you on *BG*, to the people who report these things is because skeptics are uncomfortable with the unknown, that they may never have investigated, never allowed themselves to think about, the odd things that have happened to themselves personally. Because if we're open and aware, these things do happen.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Penny S.
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 11:44 AM

I didn't notice that sign! Too busy looking at the geology and wondering how anyone with eyes could miss the situation!

Those of you in the other parts of the world, the village is called Happisburgh (don't know the pronounciation), and the cliffs are unconsolidated glacial slurp. There were some brilliant shots along the coast of the series of low headlands with great waves pounding at them, and the waves were heavy with the mud, all brown water on the brown cliffs.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: GUEST,CLETUS
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 11:30 AM

I dunno whut ta beleev cuz I dun seen so many thangs that I dunno nuthin bowt. But them crop sirculs got moren wun way of splanin them. Like the time Paw fell asleep owt inna feeld and when he rolt over he ripped a biggun an flattened them beans all roundt him fer bowt 2 hunnert feet. Me na Buford figgert ta make a killin givin tours an all, but the smell wuz so bad fer dayz after thet nobuddy wud take the tour. Well it wuz that an the fact that some feller inna airplane took an overhead shot whut showed Paw layin rite in the center of that sircul uv flattened beans with the seat of his britches blown out so thet kinda put a dampur on the thang rite from the start. Wurze thang wuz thet we hadda pay ol man Timmons whut wuz the feller who oant the beans fur the damages sinz Paw dun killt the beanz.

I do know thet I kin be purty dowtfull uv stuff myself cuz on sum dayz I haint reely shur I exist.

CLETUS

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 10:57 AM

Bill D, "wet cement circles", that's what I'd like to see :o)
Now I'm not being flippant. Honestly. In fact, I've gone beyond sceptism and into a state of absolute apathy about such things. I mean, life's too short! (Or is it...) *BG*
Just one other thing. There was a documentary last night on BBC 1 about houses in peril (e.g. subsiding, falling into the sea). Well, at one house which was, quite tragically, about to topple off a cliff due to massive coastal erosion, the people who lived there were saying they had no idea when they moved there that such a thing would happen so quickly. Yet on the side of their van was painted an advertising sign saying "Clairvoyant"...

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Grab
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 10:11 AM

BillD, that's the problem. Of course, there's _always_ some footprints somewhere in a field, but showing that they were made by the blokes drawing the crop circle and not, say, by a couple of teenagers having it off the night before is difficult. I'm not defending UFOlogists - a lot are either cons or whackos - but I still believe it needs to be approached scientifically.

The further problem is that rejecting all this arbitrarily has several disadvantages. Firstly, we may actually be missing a trick - think of aspirin, derived from the willow-bark recommended as an old wives' tale, as a medical example of this. Do magnets affect health? Does acupuncture work? Scientific trials are the only way to test this out and give some kind of proof, or at least put some numbers to it. Note that explaining how it does it is not required - we still don't know exactly how aspirin does all that it does, but trials show that it does have these effects, so we can rely it to do that.

Secondly, and possibly more seriously, it perpetuates these spaced-out theories. How many "alternative" practicioners use phrases such as "science cannot explain it", "the establishment isn't prepared to listen to this startling new theory" or "hundreds of people have already benefited from this"? In most cases (the most notable being homeopathy which is a complete con), a properly conducted experiment will show that the treatment has no effect, and that the people who've claimed benefits from it may have other, more normal, explanations. In this case, the con artist can safely be told to shut up, go away and stop peddling his snake oil (under penalty of prosecution under the Trades Descriptions Act - UK anyway). If the test does NOT show this, then it's time to start looking more seriously at the theory and doing other tests to see whether (a) the first experiment was flawed, or (b) something's really going on.

Of course, no con merchant in their right mind would submit their "product" for impartial testing, and therein lies the problem. Personally, I'd ban anyone from making claims based on testimonials or lines like "it works for some people". If you really think it works, get it tested. If the tests show you may have something then fine, otherwise you should be shut down for the public good so you don't con anyone else.

Note that I'm not saying all alternative theories are bad. There's some strong circumstantial evidence for therapies such as acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine. Some people have passed lie-detector tests when asked about UFOs, ESP, etc (although remember that a polygraph can be fooled). There's very little rigorous investigation been done and too many von Daeniken types involved, though, so scepticism is the ONLY rational approach.

Prove your case, and you've won. Fail to prove your case, and at least we know now. Don't have the nerve to prove your case, you're a con-artist.

Grab.

duplicate posting deleted
- elf/joeclone -

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 09:52 AM

I have a problem with tieing "what is real (actual)" with "what can be proven". If you deny the existence of something until it can be demonstrated using the scientific method, you would have had to deny the existence of gravity until the law was written.

There is as difference between saying "We just don't know" and "that's not possible". And it is impossible logically to prove - and I mean PROVE - that something does not exist. Which creates a delicious little irony: People who "believe" in God could, by producing him, prove his existence; those who deny his existence can only take his non-existence on faith.

None of this is to say that you have to give creedence to every idea comes along. There are ways to make judgements on probabilities and improbabilities, and in most cases, the rules of our sciences hold true. But it is hubris of the worst sort to deny things that our rules can't (yet) prove. And the gods have a way of dealing with those who display that over-weening pride.

Just a few thought from your pal
Bart

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 09:27 AM

I have a difficult time with this discussion because if you have two people in a discussion; one person who has a particular belief in something and another person who is skeptical of that particular belief, what is there to talk about?
It is like two people in two different realities trying to understand each other but not willing to open up their reality so that they can truly understand each other.
If they both opened up their reality and let go of their limited perspectives, you would probably find the person with the particular belief and the skeptic dismantled of their thoughts and humbled by the truth.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Skeptic
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 08:55 AM

Amos,

I am troubled by the "use of experience" thing. It seems to me that what is being used is not the experience, but the individual's interpretation of that experience. There seems to be an unspoken assumption that people remember their experiences correctly. (that is, as the occurred, in the correct sequence and so on). Another assumption is that people have access to the memory of everything that has ever happen to them. You don't really forget, its all buried down their somewhere. And finally, there is the need to explain the why of things.

Given the above, (and for the first two there is enough experimental evidence to convince most people that neither assumption is correct), is a wonder that even the minimally skeptical would question fringe interpretations.

And I concur that belief is necessary. Its is the starting point for much, including science. I don't think it should be the ending point.

Ebbie,

I have read your postings with interest. I found your comment that "skeptics will often lay it to whatever turns them on" puzzling. The implication seems to be that skeptics create explanations that suit them out of what they want to believe. Which is our point about those who elevate "I know because I know" to the level fact. Maybe what I call skepticism isn't what you call it. Seems that there maybe a confusion/combination of skepticism with cynicism. As a cynic, I might use the various explanations you offered to "explain" your experience. My motives would be essentially ego gratification. As a skeptic, I would look at your experience, ask a series of questions, see if there was a way to reproduce the experience, maybe suggest a way to test it. Look at how the various explanations fit with the rest of what is known about the nature of reality.

Cynicism is as much a belief system as Christianity. Skepticism is a way of trying to understand things. It doesn't preclude the experiences you had but as a system of knowledge, it requires a higher proof. Cynicism disguised as skepticism is one of the 'dark side" things I talked about. If I fall into that trap, I hope to be called on it.

John

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: John P
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 08:16 AM

I read something in a book years ago that has stayed with me:

"Belief is an insult to the mind."

John

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 04:19 PM

Well, that's an excellent start. And if Adams supports it, I know I'm on the right track!

A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: sophocleese
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 04:08 PM

Amos, I thought that the guy who ran the universe in Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy had achieved that state of divine non-paradigmness.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 04:06 PM

Grab....in response to

"But how do you tell them apart from the genuine ones, given that the so-called "experts" can't recognise a human-made one? "

I simply use Occam's Razor...if I know SOME circles are made with ropes and planks by practical jokers, why would I even suspect that the rest are made by alien ships that ALWAYS manage to get away unseen? Those 'experts' may be the same experts who pronounced Piltdown Man to be the missing link...they just don't LOOK hard!(the program I saw stated that there usually WERE some footprints near the crop circles, if one looked carefully, though the basic trick was to enter the field along the compressed rows the farmers use for tractor access, thus making prints rare and hard to see)

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 03:07 PM

Skeptic, when I say that I won't argue with what I know, I mean just that. I love science and follow it religiously *BG* but I suspect that science will be adding a great many components to its format as time goes on. And thank God *BG* for that. Science, being science, needs to continue to discover and ascertain. Human beings need to incorporate that information, and we will. Even skeptics will.

I would imagine that we all agree that there are more things that human beings know than there are human beings. No problem with that. The disagreement comes with particulars.

Among the things I know is that, on occasion, we human beings are able to utilize inanimate things for our own perceptions. For instance, I think we all agree that we can't smell things over the telephone. Right? It is not part of its physical makeup. How then to explain the couple of times that I have? And my daughter at the age of 9 once did the same thing.

In my own experience, the first time happened when I was talking on the phone to a girlfriend in a town 3 miles away. My feet were on a hassock and I was relaxed and lazy. At a certain point, unediting, I said, What do I smell? Boiled eggs? Taken aback, she faltered, Well, I boiled eggs for supper.

The second time I was talking to a girlfriend 5 blocks away. My 100-year-old home has odd odors at times- that's a different story- so I told my friend that I could smell my oven heating, and that, no doubt, soon I would smell cookies (biscuits) baking. If they are chocolate cookies, she said lightly, I'll be over. We continued talking and a couple of times I mentioned that the oven's getting hotter but no cookies yet. Finally she said, Well, I have to go- we're having waffles for supper. I said, Are you heating the waffle iron right now?! She said, Yes... I said, That is what I'm smelling.

As you can see, these events are totally non-consequential but because the information doesn't fit in with things they can explain, skeptics will often lay it to whatever turns them on- whether it's suggestibility, ignorance of 'science', hallucination, stupidity... Fine. Do that. But I do know it happened.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 02:56 PM

You put your finger on the dark side of weak thinking, alright; fascism is only a few steps away from other sorts of obsessive authoritarian dependency. Over-associating and monotone importances and a failure to understand ramifications can lead to all kinds of hypnotic (not to mention psychotic) conduct like the mass participation in murderous oppression, witch-burning, obsessive parochial views, and so on.

There is risk in both extremes.

Any set of "data" that embraces only part of our total continuum has a boundary on the side of the unknown, and proceeding from the unknown to the partially known to the known about to the known is not a rigid or clinical process. It is more of an engineering process than a "scientific" one , using figures of merit, approximations, indirect estimations, and a deep affection for what seems to work.

The problem we are circling around in this thread is that a great deal of experiential data -- intuition, affection, the upper ends of Maslow's scale -- comes from near that boundary.

As long as we insist on using ONLY material-centric data in approaching the effort to understand thought we will not extend the boundary very much. Excluding experience is a pretty poor way to march into a scientific address of the unknown. On the other hand, accepting all experience as fact is equally dunderheaded especially given the high "creativity" factor with which people persuade themselves, the capacity for self-fulfilling prediction and self-realizing delusions, and so on. This is not a nice well-behaved zone of inquiry like the latent heat of frozen water or the acceleration caused by gravity. It is highly plastic.

The challenge is in sorting out which "datums" are more factual, and especially which datums are important, and why, in amongst a huge sea of opinions, fantasies, apparitions, legacy legends, and real events.

A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: RichM
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 02:47 PM

What's the point in discussing esoteric matters with non believers? I would be skeptical too - IF some very strange things had not happened to me!.

I am happy in my personal understanding of these matters-because I have personal knowledge of them. I have no interest in "converting" people to my beliefs. Let them have their own revelations.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Skeptic
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 02:29 PM

I'm the worst of both worlds. A skeptic with a healthy dose of cynicism on the side. I use the three "C"s a lot. And watch out for the fourth "C" - Complexity. Just because its complex, doesn't means its any less BS. Just because its wrapped in the superficial trappings of the scientific method, with lots of numbers to back it up, doesn't necessarily make it so.

I find it funny that people who believe in things for which there is no objective or verifiable proof, (The "I believe because I Know" argument) label skeptics as not being "open minded". Skeptics (or sceptics, The OED is clearly THE source. And I hear its going/is on-line), are fairly open minded. We just apply certain criteria to how we look at things. That criteria demands some proof, a semblance of consistency and congruency with other demonstrated facts. I liked the illustration about the Easter bunny and Easter eggs. I "know" the Easter Bunny brought my eggs, no matter what happened to the rest of the world.. What kind of criteria is that. That seems to be an underlying theme. That opinion can elevate any of the various can rise ologies, isms or pseudoscience to the status of the Theory of Special Relativity.

As I see it, reductio ad absurdum, if you provided proof, in the form of verifiable experiments, comprehensive theory and so on, that the Special Theory is wrong, then I'd accept that. If I provide the same level of proof to demonstrate that astrology (or whatever) doesn't even rise to the level of certainty of systems that pick winning lotto numbers, the likely response is "yes but..... And somehow skeptics are closed minded? Being a skeptic is a way of looking at the world, rather than a way to categorize it.

It is not the belief itself, so much as the underlying assumption that anecdotal evidence, fuzzy logic and the like, make something so. It teaches that scientific methodology is coequal with opinion-disguised-as-fact. Retreating into the "we just don't know enough yet" begs the question. The question should be, "what do we need to do to find the answers? And how?

What follows is NOT tolerant, understanding or nice. (Well for me it is), but it is an expression of a belief and concern It isn't an accusation directed at anyone.

Not to claim that one leads to the other, but IMHO, given that (fuzzy logic) standard for defining what is so, is there really a difference in kind between belief in astrology, alien abduction and other innocuous fringe beliefs, and the dark side of the fringe: eugenics, racial purity, purges and inquisitions? If we teach that anecdotal eviedence and sloppy thinking are acceptable tools for analyzing the world, the risk is real.

John

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 02:23 PM

Amos - how many filters can you afford to do away with before the mind recoils in horror? Just wondering

We humans build our maps of reality and using them eke out a rather meager, but comfortable living. When those maps start to prove false, we get upset for a while. If we're lucky and smart and perceptive and lucky again, we quickly adjust our maps and move on. If not, we borrow other people's maps (therapy and religion) or just sit still for a while (drugs).

Mostly, we look at the connectedness of things and try to find other connections. Sometimes we are willing to invent connections where there aren't any, if we need to or if it looks like fun.

I am nowhere near smart enough or intuitive to know which connections are real and which are not. I like paddymac's "statistical concepts relating to causation". It helps in some cases to be able to apply the rationalist's litmus test to our "map making". Keeps us walking that rope between "open-mindedness" and "gullibility" or between "literalism" and "skepticism". It helps to remember that our perception of what's going on (our current map of reality) is not necessarily what is actually going on (reality itself).

The one thing that seems to throw me completely is the question of faith. Belief without proof, regardless of experience, is a completely different kind of map entirely. We tend to want things to follow a set of rules and have limits. Even when those rules and limits are not obvious to us, the thought that they exist is comforting, in some small way. Faith is the willingness to admit that there is something beyond the reach of any rules and limits that we can formulate. It makes my head hurt.

To respond to Fmaj7's original thought: I don't eliminate any possibility, simply because I have no proof in my experience to support it. But I don't avow anything that is beyond logical proof. Some things you just have to let sit there in the various "possible bins" - possible, but not likely/probable, but not proven/improbable, but wouldn't it be cool if.../possible, but beyond the realm of our experience

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Grab
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 02:03 PM

BillD, I missed that (although it may have been on in the US, in which case I wouldn't have seen it anyway). Maybe it coincided with the Santana interview. But there's been plenty enough progs, articles etc about crop circles anyway.

Maybe they didn't claim them all, but then they're only a couple of guys. Sure there's more out there. I love the idea of bog circles - respect for that! :-) Equally there may well be a few made by genuine spacecraft (devil's advocate!) But how do you tell them apart from the genuine ones, given that the so-called "experts" can't recognise a human-made one?

Amos, that's either called a genius or a nutcase (or both), depending on whether his whacked-out idea actually works. Paradigms are what keep everyone from having to develop everything from first principles - it's quicker to rely on someone else's research and use that as a stepping-stone to your next idea ("shoulders of giants" and all that). On the other hand, sometimes it is a good idea to reinvent the wheel - ask Mr. Dunlop! :-) I'd guess the mark of a genius is that he can look at his results and work back through his preconceptions until he finds whatever would solve the problem, however unlikely it may be. That spark is genius, everything after that is merely engineering and fine-tuning.

Grab.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Skeptic
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 01:59 PM

As to belief, I'm the worst of both worlds. A skeptic with a healthy dose of cynicism on the side. I use the three "C"s a lot. And watch out for the fourth "C" - Complexity. Just because its complex, doesn't means its any less BS. Just because its wrapped in the superficial trappings of the scientific method, with lots of numbers to back it up, doesn't necessarily make it so.

I find it funny that people who believe in things for which there is no objective or verifable proof, (The "I believe because I Know" arguement) label skeptics as not being "open minded". Skeptics (or sceptics, The QED is clearly THE souuce. And I hear its going/is on-line)IMHO, are fairly open minded. We just have a criteria we apply to the world. That criteria demands some proof, a semblance of consistancy and congruency with other demonstated facts. I liked the illustration about the easter bunny and easter eggs. I "know" the Easter Bunny brought my eggs, no matter what happened to the rest of the world. Or that any of the various can rise ologies, isms or the like are as valid as the Theory of Special Relativity.

As I see it, reductio ad absurdum, if you provided proof, in the form of varifiable experiments, comprehensive theory and so on, that the Special Theory is wrong, then I'd accept that. If I Provide the same level of proof to demonstate that astrology doesn't even rise to the level of certaintity of systems that pick winning lotto numbers the likely response is "yes but..... And somehow skeptics are closed minded? The mistake is that being a skeptic is a way of looking at the world, rather than a way to categorize it.

It is not the belief itself, so much as the underlying assumption that annecdotal evidence, fuzzy logic and the like, make it so. It teaches that facts are coequal with opinion-disguised-as-fact. Retreating into the "we just don't know enough yet" begs the question. The question should be, "what do we need to do to find the answers?

I don't think people who are enamoured of astrology, alien abduction, christianity, tarot,and the like, also believe in eugenics, racial purity/superiority or the dark side of pseudoscience. I do maintain that the type of thinking that allows either is similar in kind.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: hesperis
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 12:24 PM

About perception:

One doctor has treated several severely depressed individuals by showing them the logicall fallacies about themselves that they were believing as Truth.

The book about it is Feeling Good, by Dr. David Burns. I really recommend it.

I'll post more about it later, because I do think that it applies here.

Amos - yet again, beautifully done! I wish I'd said that!

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 12:00 PM

confess, Amos...you used more than planks and ropes to write that, didn't you?...(just being awed and smart-alecy, honest!...as someone who 'nearly' finished a masters thesis on Alfred N. Whitehead's metaphysics, I do respect the level of analysis you achieve...now I'll go back and re-read it to see if I get all the implications)

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:59 AM

Sophocleese, I am abashed.

Rick Fielding -- I've been to Roswell. Trust me. There is nothing going on in Roswell. And Elvis does live because I saw a newspaper article about a BRAND-NEW FORD TRUCK FOUND ORBITING THE EARTH!!! And I just know the King is driving that truck. With coon dogs in the back in little jumsuits ...

Bill D -- that has a lovely sound to it. I want to see a meadow circle...

Oops. My egg timer has just twanged. Time to go work on a corporate newsletter. And get a paycheck. Now, THAT, I believe in ...

ww

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:52 AM

One exploration that is interesting along these lines is how we build the filters with which we allow certain structures of knowledge in and keep others out. The much-abused term "paradigm", as it was exposited in the original seminal book, The Nature of Scientific Revolutions provided a better handle than we had previously had on the mechanism. We erect over-arching modeling assumptions about the world. Data that contravenes the model often goes unobserved, or if observed gets readily rationalized as insignificant.

But this opens some interesting paths to consider. For example, what if there were in the individual a capacity for dispensing with the paradigmatic approach to reality? What if an individual could turn of all his paradigms and tolerate a wide open, raw-feed river of perception? What bands of frequencies would open up, and what dnamics would reveal themselves?

To put it another way, how much could we find out if we were not so deeply enmeshed in knowing what we already know?

Food for reflection, as the man said when he threw the hamhock at the mirror.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:48 AM

sounds like Grab saw the same program I did last night. Three blokes with ropes and planks who have for several years perfected the art of 'crop circles', and who allowed a 6 1/2 hour time-lapse photography film of them doing one...amazing how much they could do in one night!.....Did they lay claim to ALL the crop circles in the last 15 years?..nope...lots of room for alien crafts still, I suppose, and there will be those who simply WANT to believe, and would not change their minds if there WERE confessions about all crop circles...they would simply claim the confessions were hoaxes to ridicule this amazing mystery....and who knows, perhaps they are right.

(did you ever wonder why is is almost always 'crops'? Why not 'meadow' circles in grass?...or sand circles in the desert?..or bog circles?....Am I being too cynical to think that footprints are easier to disguise/hide in trampled grain?)

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:04 AM

Hell, I'm damned impressed that you know an "Fmaj7"! In bluegrass circles that's a pretty alternative belief.

LIke many things, I try to make my mind up on a case by case basis. For example:

Elvis lives...Nope, but if he DOES, I hope he's deep sixed the jump suit.

Roswell....I truly believe SOMETHING's going on there.

JFK, MLK,....Bet yer boots there are things we've never been told.

Crop Circles....If the farmers and "circle guides" weren't charging money, I'd be less skeptical.

Spirit worlds, re-incarnation, astrology...why not? They make our world more interesting.

The smartest people become our elected leaders? Now THERE's an alternative belief I can't support.

Rick

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Grab
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:38 AM

It comes down to: physical phenomena _are_. If you do something and it has a given effect, then you've got something to investigate. Next job is to find why and how it happens. For acupuncture/herbal medicine, it may be psychosomatic; alternatively it may be some effect in the human body which we don't yet understand. Maybe we don't yet have the skills or the technology to find how it works - to some extent, medicine still relies on prayer, just hoping that the body sorts it out itself! - but one day we may do. Incidentally, try this for a funny take on that.

Astrology is rather too subjective, though. If it said "This is going to happen at this time on this day", then it's provable. If it just says "Something bad's going to happen to you next year", well of course! The human brain is rather too good at pattern-matching, so after the event it's easy to pick evidence which matches the conclusions you want to draw.

Aliens, ESP, etc - well, if they happen, then prove it. Science is the art of putting formulae to physical phenomena (ooh, alliteration :-) so if you can show it happening and produce some statistics on how well it works (eg. ranges for ESP, through walls, etc), then that's good enough for any scientist. There's no need to say HOW it works - Faraday hadn't a clue about electrons and Newton didn't know relativity, but it didn't stop them producing a good first draft of what was going on. Conversely, if you can't demonstrate it, provide proof of it or give statistics on properly-run experiments, chances are you're peddling snake-oil and should be tarred, feathered and run out of town.

Trouble is, belief _cannot_ by definition be logical. Suppose you believed in Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny - really believed, like religiously. If we told you that it was just your parents, a true believer wouldn't change their mind. After all, they've got proof that they do exist, from the presents and Easter eggs! :-) Crop circles are a prime example of this. "Maybe everyone else's crop circles were fakes, but mine are real!" translates very well to "Maybe everyone else's parents put out Easter eggs, but the Easter Bunny did do mine!" Prove that the crop circle was made by an alien spaceship, not 2 blokes with a plank and a measuring tape (or produce a picture of a rabbit supplying chocolate eggs), and you're credible and should go and publish in "Nature". Find a crop circle which _probably_ couldn't have been made by 2 blokes with a plank, and you've got a good working hypothesis to try and find support for. Say that you "feel the energy, man" when it's been shown without doubt (complete with impartial photographic evidence) that the crop circle was done by 2 blokes with a plank, and you're merely a credulous kook.

Grab.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:26 AM

Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together. -- George Santayana

Once you see that everthing is unreal, you can't see why you should bother to prove it. -- E.M. Cioran

It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine. -- Richard Dawkins

-Am9

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Kim C
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:20 AM

I keep an open mind about most things, because I know I don't know everything.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: sophocleese
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:14 AM

Umm Wyo Woman, From The Concise Oxford Dictionary - skepsis, skeptic see scepsis etc. (quick page turning exercise) sceptic, or skeptic.
I also believe in spelling and recognise that there is a difference between the English and American styles. Some people I know put all of their faith in Webster, or Random House but I'm a dyed in the wool Oxford fan. (Personally I'm highly sceptical about the usefulness of Websters...)

I like to read science fiction and fantasy novels so there are a lot of things that I think it would be great to believe in, but I'm suspicious of shortcuts.

In university I had a friend who was very much into Tarot cards, so I started reading more about it. When I became depressed and started seeing a psychiatrist I mentioned this interest. He immediately asked me if I had had my colours done as well. I looked at him as if he had just sprouted a second head. What the hell did the one thing have to do with the other? Nothing except they appealed to young women at that age.

I see different ideas come and go. I have a book about song writing where the first section is devoted to a practical use of the theory of left and right brain divisions. I'm still sceptical about it. The basic theory of the brain being divided into two halves with specific function residing in one half or the other may be all right. However the way that others have taken this tentative proposal and run wild with it so that now you can apparently compartmentalize your entire existence into right or left brain boxes, that you can judge people, or categorize them along these lines, makes me very wary. I wonder what theory about creativity will introduce, almost to the exclusion of all else, the next wave of song writing, drawing, or sculpting books.

So I'm interested less in belief than in the way that belief is used and promulgated.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: paddymac
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 09:57 AM

Fascinating topic with much food for thought. I see two phenomena at work in this area.

First, many people(s) seem to be most uncomfortable accepting the existance of something unknown. Such difficulty might flow from any number of sources. Whatever its origin, it creates some degree of angst, and the simplest way to resolve that angst is to create an "explanation" for the unknown, thereby converting it to "known". As but one example, consider the way in which many religions anthropomorphose their various conceptions of god(s). It seems that if we put a human face on a thing, it is easier to accept and embrace. A marketing person might call this the "familiarity factor."

Second, most people seem to be unfamiliar with statistical concepts relating to causation. I learned them as the three "Cs": coincidence; correlation; and causation. In the case of co-incidence, the fact that two things occur together simply means that they occurred together and does not imply causation. If those things occur together often enough they are said to be correlated, and when that correlation reaches a high enough level there is a basis for probable causation. When that correlation is absolute, such that A & B always occur together, then we can think of causation. Not necessarily that A "causes" B, but that they are causally linked.

The "three Cs" are a good filter mechanism for the rational skeptic.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: John P
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 08:37 AM

Fmaj7, in your original post you said that you didn't want to imply that your beliefs were more valid than anyone else's, but you didn't actually say what your beliefs are.

The way I have resolved all this for myself is to realize that human beings have the capacity for spiritual experience. I myself have had lots of spiritual experiences. But most attempts to explain them or to define them and (especially) to place them within the context of any human-made system/doctrine/structure causes them to not make much sense.

Things that don't make sense to me (and that seem quite similar) include astrology, palmistry, tarot, Christianity, and the casting of spells. I don't think these sort of things have much in common with alien abductions, crops circles and the lot, except that they also don't make sense. The various non-mainstream healing plans are in yet a third category, and again, some of them make sense and some don't. As you have noticed, nonsensical things are often believed in by credulous people. But the same could be said for many people who play the stock market or who think that Las Vegas can be a profitable place to go. There are lots people who believe in lots of things that don't stand up to critical analysis.

On the other hand, I know people who apparently think astrology makes perfect sense but who think aliens are out of this world, so to speak. So no, I don't think that belief in one unbelievable thing automativally means belief in others. I just think that if an already credulous person decides that one non-mainstream system works, they might easily decide that they all work.

On a slight tangent, I know a guy that does tarot readings and uses the cards as a focusing tool to bring his empathy and people reading skills to the fore. His readings work, which is a very different thing than saying the cards themselves delve into the psyche of the person being read. So -- I don't believe in the tarot because it doesn't make any sense, but I believe in empathy because I have seen and experienced many examples of it. I have had some very good results using the I Ching, but I don't think there is anything psychic involved with achieving those results -- I just think it's a brilliantly written book.

John

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 07:47 AM

Drats you beat me to it Amos! I was just about to post exactly what you said.

**major, major big grin on my face**

Little Neo who likes to trail behind Amos' big footsteps exploring the imprints he leaves.

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Oct 00 - 11:32 PM

Well, it is a truism that the human mind is unboundedly plastic and can come up with any perception it wants to; in other words, BS is plenty cheap, kowabunga, and there can be an infinity of invented explanations for things. Anyone can claim their particular perceptions or convictions are based on some Cosmic Source, or Priveleged Awareness, or data inaccessible to the common man, or insights brought to them by (angels, Virgins, Venusians, Leprechauns, flying cheerios....choose your vehicle). There's an unlimited supply of bushwa out there, and assertion without discernment or discrimination is a common attribute.

At the same time, the notion that there is only the Newtonian set of phenomena, and EVERYthing else is delusory, is itself so assertive, and so extreme, and so exclusive of wide--spread phenomena itself, as to appear equally delusory. Either end of the spectrum leads to madness.

It is probably more rational to allow that there are different domains at work -- the material domain mostly sticks to pretty routyine mechanical laws like thermodynamics and such. Meanwhile the domain of personal imagination, intuition and perception seems pretty well to follow its own set of laws, not unknowable but no-where near as well docuumented as those of the material doomain.

Well, obviously -- the nature of the phsyical universe is that it is nothing if not repeatable, always acting the same way in dull repetition eternally bound. Not so the universe of thought, imagination, and possibly the psirit, where creativity seems to hold much greater sway, and consequently things are MUCH less predictable. That does NOT make them any the less true, no matter what the physics-heads among us say, but it sure as hell means that the are different.

Add to these two highly differed domains the third domain of social agreement, where all of us spend a good deal of time, building collective structures of consent to things like "how to act human" and "how to be polite" and "how to see things the way others do" -- a domain with a whole separate and extensive set of entanglements, confusions and conflicts, where things are sometimes repeatable and sometimes not, where people will present timeless Truths as God-given and invariable in one moment and act out wholly contradictory convictions five minutes later...well, is it any wonder these colliding domains get a bit confused and steamed up? It's enough to make you take up the bottle, the Church, or die-hard materialism, whichever comes first!

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: Alternative Beliefs - a pattern?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 08 Oct 00 - 09:20 PM

SKeptics, people sKeptic. Skeptical.

I believe in spelling.

Other than that, I try not to hold many beliefs. But I do think a lot is interesting. And a lot is also not interesting at all.

I'm a dyed in the wool adherent to the Whatever Works School of Most Things. Acupuncture has worked amazingly well for me on certain stuff. Chiropractic has made those very same things worse. Ergo, I have a couple of acupuncture sessions when that particular stuff flares up. I do not try chiropractic any more at all. Western medicine has made a hash out of several different medical problems I had. Ergo, I only go to the doctor when it is utterly unavoidable. I do my best to stay healthy through other means - diet, exercise, vitamin supplements. Being happy. Forgiving. Practicing a spiritual discipline.

Crop circles are beautiful. I just love to look at them. I don't speculate much beyond that, except to admire whoever created them and to wonder, as I wonder with other cool stuff, how they DID that ...

Astrology is nothing I believe in -- except that I'm a textbook Libran. ;-}

But I have a friend who's an astrologer and I believe in her. She may use Tarot cards and astrology charts to access the wisdom she does, but whatever her method, I believe she is a wise woman and I take heavily into account what she offers in the way of insight and advice. My sister is an ordained Christian minister and I listen to her and seek her counsel as well because experience has taught me that she also is a wise woman and her insights are to be treasured.

There is much more we don't know about this remarkable universe than we do know, so I have a fairly large region in my brain and heart and psyche under the banner "Awaiting Further Light." I try to keep my attention focused fairly close to home, to the quality of my relationships and the work I do and let the other stuff sort itself out as it will. And to play as much as I possibly can, as often as I can.

But my animal medicine card says I'm Otter, which is playful female energy, so, well, I would ...

ww