These really irritate me! I should point out that I used to indulge in this sort of nonsense myself when I was much younger and knew so much less. I take the 'politician's defence' by way of explanation (the 'politician's defence' is that it is surely easier to make an informed decision on drugs legisltation if you had a spliff or two at college than if you didn't).
Recipe for a Paranormal Theory
* take a perfectly respectable piece of tested science; quantum mechanics, conservation of energy are popular
* mix in one or more unjustified assumptions; 'ghosts are spirits' is a popular choice
Heat the ingredients, stiring in some suspect logic, a few fallacies and some obscure references to alleged observations which cannot be traced to any known source. Finally, bake the whole until it predicts all possible data, so that it is crisply untestable and goldenly unfalsifiable.
The dish should be presented on a website decorated with photographs of graveyards, orbs and people pictured in infra-red.
Bon apetit!
Fractal wrongness The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.
Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.
That would make a pretty decoration on top ...Originally Posted by vbloke
I think it should be more like:
* take the name of a perfectly respectable piece of tested science; quantum mechanics, conservation of energy are popular
People love to cite quantum and energy and the rest, but what they say usually has nothing to do with actual science at all other than the name. To stick with the politicians, it's bascially science by name recognition.
I love that concept of fractal wrongness. Next time I come across it, I'll know what it's called. Thanks vbloke!
Here's something for your reading list Mulder:The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe by Lynne McTaggart
Lynne McTaggart also lectures atThe College of Psychic Studies I so want to go there. I really do. It would be the best fun ever. A full retreat from reality into a dream world might well be my next career move. They have pale purple painted walls too and my aura is somewhat violet so its a sign...Synopsis
A book which gives scientific proof of the paranormal. Psychic activity, remote viewing, the power of prayer and homoeopathy are all discussed. The energy found in the vacuum - or the zero point field - seems to be the key to all sorts of unexplained phenomena: ESP or remote viewing, homeopathy, energy medicine, spiritual healing, and even the homing instincts of animals. Lynne McTaggart follows the life and work of disparate physicists, pioneers in the area where the paranormal meets quantum physics.
The book has been reviewed by our spirit guide:
Amazon Review: Compulsory Read All Parapsychologists! , 3 Jul 2007
By TheMysticMinge "MMx" (Way Out There--->)
It is immediately obvious to any but the most amateur parapsychologist that the issues dealt with by this volume are exceedingly complex, consisting of a large array both of syntactical components and of philosophical aspects. Each of these components and aspects are given due consideration in the course of this book resulting in a synergistic union of a variety of dichotomous concepts. The complexity of the topic at hand and the intricacy of the explanations are such that the casual student of the anomalous arts is able to parse the discussions more easily than would be the case if a greater degree of epistemological clarity and scientific accuracy were actually involved. In a mere manner of hours the level of understanding imparted to the untutored reader reaches a benchmark level which a career scientist would take decades to overcome. As the term "Psi" (Or as the author would phrase it "The Field") is traditionally used to demarcate processes or causation associated with cognitive or physiological activity that fall outside of conventional scientific boundaries, criticisms of this book based on current understandings of scientific reliability or validity are tenuous at best and downright wicked at worst! I would thoroughly recommend this book.
Furthermore, I found it very useful for swatting flies.
Last edited by dalriada; 4th February 2008 at 02:09 PM.
Dalriada ... I didn't call it 'pet hate no 3' for nothing
One of the most irritating things about paranormal theories is their lack of insight.
When a good new scientific theory comes along it usually looks at old evidence in a new way. You soon realise that the new insight offers all sorts of new possibilities, new predictions and often a simple, beautiful model.
By contrast, you read a paranormal theory and it's the same old, same old. Here come the tired old spirits, aliens, free energy, etc. Where are the insights, the new ways of looking at things, the new models? You feel mugged! Ten minutes of your life has been stolen!
There's a lot of truth in this. I have a deep and abiding fascination with woo-ness, pretty much in the same way some people collect beetles or spiders. If there is something strange unusual or downright wacky going on, I am thrilled to be there (and I have the Reiki qualifications to prove it) but much as I'm entertained with it all it does leave a slightly fuzzy feeling in the head, like drinking too much bad champagne. Things are slightly out of joint, not quite right...
On the other hand, a quick cold blast of real science or even reading some of the arguments on this board really clears my mind. One of the biomed Profs at my University gave a talk about personalised medicine the other week and listening to him speak about pharmacogenomics, DNA methylation and some of the experiments they've been doing about cancer treatments seemed to open up whole new worlds of possibility. It was magical- but it was real and they have evidence to back it up. It got me thinking about the about of time spent in meditation and 'development of awareness' and 'unfoldment' and crystals and kundalini and everything that goes into acquiring all those amazing abilities that woos aspire to have. I started to wonder if what they're attempting to do may be seen as a form of theft? They take upon themselves competence and status and power which they don't deserve and have no right to possess and in doing so they deny the real magic in the world. Is that why we can be left with the feeling of being mugged?
Last edited by dalriada; 5th February 2008 at 10:50 AM.
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