(...cont'd)

Back to musing...

I really do still feel strongly that contemporary mainstream science and Goethean/Spinozean (sp?) science (arguably closer to early human understanding of the world?) have much to lend each other in pursuit of a greater, harmonic, understanding of 'reality' (that’s inner and outer 'reality') and *being* - you know - health and vitality, sympathy, empathic response and all that stuff.

Additionally, it is uncomfortable to observe any paradigm shift, filtered as it is through our insecurity and attendant arrogance
“My father believed in the God of Spinoza and Einstein, God not behind nature but as nature, equivalent to it. “
Dorion Sagan, son of Carl Sagan
I do, I must own, have (after reading the other thread) much empathy for Cropredy - which sounds hypocritical from me having roundly blasted The Cr*ley in the past for not 'having proof' I even consider(ed) Cropredy to be similar, bearing trademark features. That horrible jury of mine is out! Please accept my apologies.

Even though self-appointed ("I'm Am The Chosen!") New Age preachers get my back up something terrible, I must remain cautious not to ascribe such tendencies towards every individual who brings some seemingly wonky scientific ideas to back up their intuitive personal revelations. Although one can deny anothers personal revelations - it is a sticky area!

Problem is, the revelant (?new word alert?) can often be equally rude and presumptuous.

Between perceived fallacies (I believe) also lie different truths - there has to?

Argh... feel like saying that 'everything is truth'. Yet always some people are just self-absorbed (choose expletive). No philosophy, however charitable, can brook that fact.

Still, we will brand the ‘nutter’, and always did. Scientists were branded nutters by the church, preachers are branded nutters by the scientists, poets are branded nutters by fiscally successful publishers etc etc ;-)

‘Madness’

How do we measure madness? By its effects upon the physical world or society? Or by the way it makes us feel? Maybe by the effect on the ‘madman’ himself - his efficacy or lack thereof to exist in step with ‘our’ reality? All three? When we proclaim someone to be a nutter, we more often than not dispense with such niceties as ‘degrees’ of nuttiness and make absolute our proclamation.

I too, then, am mad - for example I 'feel' the helical, outward and inward-reaching spirit of nature, of life, growth, the 'essence', but I can only 'measure' it by its effect upon Me, not always by its effect upon You. Does that mean 'it' doesn't exist? Or it doesn’t exist in the * way * that I feel it? There lies a problem of interpersonal communication. It of course becomes onerous/tiresome to listen to other’s fundamental ‘ism’ experiences, unless of course, they coincide with ours, then of a sudden we are ‘all ears’ and much more receptive, even welcoming. Could this fragility in some way explain the tendency of religious ‘mass-belief’, of mono-theism, scientism, ism-ism. The great insecurity?

(cont'd...)

Morfe, as the leading example of the 'prove it ya bastud' tendency here's my defence:

I am certain of nothing. Mike and Cropredy ARE certain of a lot of things. This is an impossible basis for interpersonal communication and is not my fault!

Cropredy says he's right and everyone else is wrong. That must include scientific Steve -who he accuses of juvenile rantings - and Lizardy Mike - for whom he nevertheless expresses admiration. I see that as pro-irrational bias. A most unsatisfactory basis for interpersonal communication IMO.

Cropredy's abilities to find the power lines, he says, are amazingly extensive and accurate so he MUST have it in his power to demonstrate them, don't you think? Is not his avoidance of doing so, combined with his tone of "this is fact" which amounts to what Queen Victoria said about Gladstone "speaking as though addressing a public meeting" bloody impolite? I think so.

"Prove it ya bastud" is about the mildest response I can think of, and an entirely constructive attempt to improve the quality of interpersonal communication on here. In fact, it's my Yuletide message to the world....

;)

Very well put Morfe, an intersting read. I haven't read the full pdf yet but did notice what looked like the authors seemingly inherent bias in the intro 'some maintain they dont exist', from my own understanding the burden is on the people who advocate these things exist rather than the yet-to-be-convinced to prove they dont. Kind of like asking people to prove 1,000,000 angels cannot dance on the head of a pin.

One thing that strikes me in this discussion is a hostility to 'science', I think science was born when one person turned to another and asked 'did you see/feel/hear that??' Science is just a process of affirming a certain thing is not imagined by the observer but exists outside the mind as an entity of itself. Cropredy on the other hand seems to work in the opposite direction ie. it exists in <i>my</i> concious therefore it exists and that is the proof in itself. The problem here is that the concious is only aware of what the subconcious tells it, can we really believe our eyes/ears/touch? We have to take a leap of faith that the information the concious is recieving is an accurate translation of what our senses percieve and as we all know, many chemicals we ingest and the brain creates itself can give wildly inaccurate results so we halluciante, dont feel cold/heat, have the sensation of moving when we are not etc etc. Science is simply working on the assumption that we cant implicitly trust what our senses tell us which is <i>not</i> an unreasonable presumption to make. When we discard this as unhelpful we are moving from reality towards mental imbalance.