I have read some of the claims and it's just ridiculous to believe that something that has been diluted to something like 1 part per million can actually help you at all, 1 part per million is squat all, there isn't any thing there that can help you at all. That's like claiming diluting alcohol to 1 part per million will get you more drunk.

the great pressure on a patient to attempt suicide with chemotherapy and irradiation, because "it's the best available cure and the only chance.

I learned to distinguish quackery from a real work.

Only skeptics that don't know this area of life can say, that all psychics are conmen.

It's actually very beneficial if some of us study scientific theories and then explain them to the community.

I'm a son of a professional astrologer

I don't seek this weak stuff, like Deepak Chopra, it may be good for beginners

Geeez. What argument from popularity? That's argument from existence. It exists, therefore it exists, but it's still unknown and not examined if there is or isn't any credibility.

My own woo skills are mostly associated with control of so-called "energy". In other very blunt words, imagine Reich's orgone as it concentrates around, precipitates into semi-solid form, moves according to the psychic's will and then, for example, is used for healing, warming up, alteration of consciousness, and many other purposes.

I doubt there is any willingness to cooperate with local woo communities.

Scientists don't hesitate to send their people to tribal witch doctors and learn their herbal cures from them, but they would not do the same with psychics of the modern european countries.

This is not a way to solution, this will only create martyrs and more social popularity for underground movement.

Dude, that "attempted suicide" as you call it is why my mother and grandmother survived breast cancer, and my friend Aden is still alive, so you really know nothing of what you are talking about. If people took your advice (cancer treatments are attempted suicide!) they would DIE and their blood would be on your hands.

If you buy into ANY of the woo that has no real evidence behind it, then no, you haven't learned anything. By saying that, you realize our irony meters are at the max, don't you?

Or people firmly grounded in reality. Psychics? Really? Next you'll be saying that you know wizards who could turn me into a newt or people who can use the Jedi mind trick. Please grow up and enter reality with the rest of us. It's really not that bad. You can still read about magic and stuff, just realize that it's FICTION.

 

Luminon wrote:

It's actually very beneficial if some of us study scientific theories and then explain them to the community.

Not if you want people to still believe in the woo. When people get more educated in the methods of science, their belief in MAGIC goes away equally. And that's all your woo is... MAGIC. So are you telling us you haven't grown up enough to realize that there is no magic in the world. No Santa, no Tooth Fairy, and no deiti(es). Sorry, but magic isn't real, and by stating you actually believe in magic shows how intellectually stunted you are.

So THAT'S where you get the massive brain infection of the crazy woo. That's sad that you never even had a chance to live in reality with the rest of us. You do know that you can break free from your parents craziness, right?

Deepak Chopra is not good for ANYONE, let alone "beginners". He's nucking futs. He has already stated any kind of knowledge that questions him, i.e. ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE, is his enemy. And to have any opinion of the kook other then revulsion shows how far from reality you are.

Wow, "It exists, therefore it exists" is the kind of "argument" you use when you don't have an argument. Actually, it IS an argument from popularity, and it is still destroyed. It would only be an argument from "existence" as you call it, if the BS was actually real. But it's not, so sorry. If the woo BS WAS real, then it should be able to stand up to the rigorous testing that every other REAL scientific concept has been able to stand up to. None of them can, therefore they are woo and have no basis in reality.

Dude, you need meds. You think your mind alone can "touch" the "aether" around you. You need to seek mental medical attention. It sounds like you are an undiagnosed schizophrenic, as you have the illusion that you have magic mind powers. I'm sorry to burst your unmediated bubble, but you do not.

Yeah, scientists also don't talk to the believers of fairies or warlocks or a flat earth. Why, you ask? Because the people who believe in those things are crazy and don't deserve to get any of the legitimacy that would come from any scientists even taking them remotely seriously. Same with people who promote MAGIC WATER (homeopathy) or Magic Star Powers (astrology). They are crazy and don't deserve any appearance of legitimacy.

  Just because something has social support doesn't make it true. People in mass have believed so much BS throughout our history it's amazing we still exist as a species at all.

  Luminon, you have no credible evidence to support your claims, therefore we will continue to ridicule your blind faith in the woo woo BS. Until you provide credible evidence for any of the crazy stuff you are supporting (homeopathy, astrology, THE FUCKING AETHER FOR CRIPES SAKE!), we will continue to be skeptical of your bogus claims. I personally feel sorry for you that you were brainwashed into the woo from your parents (at least your father). But that doesn't excuse you for actually buying into it still.

Now read very closely, everyone. Did you ever consider that you don't have to judge me, examine me, or ridicule me?  Did you ever think that's not the only way it has to be? There are other, perhaps much more effective ways to deal with people like me! Read or listen this piece of Skeptoid. (*)   Did you ever have a friend? Sure you had and have, so recall your memories. Did you ever agree with your friend on everything? If not, did you put your friend on interrogations and ridiculed him publically if he didn't have evidence for his stance? If yes, then your friend is probably gone and you have achieved nothing.

You misunderstood me.  I take the occasional break because I'm fed up with the same debates and the same old crazy.  I didn't take a break because of you   You don't piss me off.  You make me feel sorry for you.  That is all.  And I've never taken anything you've said personally

I have lots of friends - but like most people my friends share many of my beliefs.  Luminon, I have followed this thread, and I just don't see where we share enough beliefs for us to be comfortable together.  I used to believe in woo - clairvoyance and astrology and psychic emanations.  But I just couldn't continue belief when no evidence showed up.

It is very difficult to review the evidence calmly when in a discussion - people have a tendency to stick to their position even harder when challenged before other people.  Go away for awhile.  Come back later, when you aren't trying to justify your position.  And think about it.  'k?

You make the mistake of valuing your intuition (easily fooled) much more then peer reviewed double blind research (much harder to fool). Intuition is what led people to think the moon was a light. It is what led people to think the world was flat or that cutting and draining the "sick blood" out of people would make them better. It also still leads people to make critical errors in their reasoning. Thinking your own intuition is better then well controlled tests is absurd, since not one person in this world is free from their senses playing tricks on them. That's what those evil, bad, meanie poo poo face double blind tests do; separate the follies of our senses from the equation as much as possible.

Luminon wrote:

Anyway, for this kind of evidence there is only the personal kind available

If all the "evidence" you have to support something is "the personal kind", then you have no evidence at all. What your "evidence" supports could be complete fact or complete BS, but until you get some of that other kind of evidence, you know, the REAL kind, that you can show me, I stay unconvinced.

NO, if there are higher dimensions to this reality we inhabit, then it is in science's domain. Science is the study of reality, and it it exists, then it is in reality. You just use the term magic because you can't explain it, at least to people who don't already believe in it.

And no, technology is not magic. Technology that is sufficiently advanced enough may seem like magic to primitive people, but it's still technology firmly grounded in reality since it's working, nothing magic to it. Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law FTW!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

That's a problem since your perception can be easily fooled. That's one of the reasons for science. It's hard to fool the senses of many people all at the same time with the proper controls in place, so we use scientific testing to understand the universe in a way that we can prevent our perceptual biases interfering with the results.

No, by real I mean real. Just because we can't see it, doesn't mean it takes magic to explain it. Look at the light spectrum. We can only see a part of it, but it is all real and needs no magic to explain it. Actually, putting magic up there as an "explanation" just slows us down by preventing us from knowing what it really is sooner rather then later.

Actually, you're screwed because scientists CAN detect it, thereby giving real evidence as to it's existence in the real world, and not as some selling point to some new age clap trap.

Dude, you are not doing anything good for the case that you don't need meds. You sound like an undiagnosed schizophrenic (I have known a few and even have a friend with schizophrenia so I have seen it before) and with every insane thing you say, you dig yourself in deeper and deeper.

Luminon wrote:

Secondly, I repeatedly observed that this is not just my hallucination. Independently, people have reacted on the aether that I've been working with, and vice versa. So there's a possibility that it's real, and very worthy of study.

Another appeal to popularity... sigh...

Luminon, even people together can be fooled, unless you set up controls on your tests to prevent that sort of thing. That's what scientists do. That's why their peer reviewed tests are more reliable then your "I thought about it and looked at it and asked this random person what they thought and I think it's this way" little mind games.  That's why you and and your woo pals are not producing reliable evidence when you play wizards and magic.

Luminon wrote:

You don't know much about diplomacy

Diplomacy has no bearing on the truth. The truth is there whether you believe it or not. Diplomacy has nothing to do with it.

Actually, I'm a huge history buff, so I don't know about that comment.

As to some centuries old scientists, yes, they had some bat shit crazy ideas. Just because you are smart doesn't mean you know everything or that you are not influenced by the times you are raised in. It's okay to take the good works of people and throw out the swill. Look at Charles Darwin. He help open the human mind to our whole family heritage, the family of life on earth, but he didn't know a lot about the process. He had no understanding of genetics. So we revise our knowledge of evolution by replacing the stuff that isn't true with current information, not just casting the whole concept aside.

I think those scientists you named deserve credit for their great work they did in advancing science, but not in their own personal woo woo delusions. Just because you are smart doesn't mean you can't be fooled, it just makes it harder. And just because you are a respected scientist, doesn't make everything you say correct.

If something isn't true, then it isn't real. Just playing word games won't do anything to change the difference between reality and fantasy. The woo may seem real to a person experiencing it, but things also seem real to people hallucinating under the influence of drugs like LSD or Psilocybin and I can assure you from personal experience that it is not real.

Just because someone deserves all the same human rights as everyone else doesn't give them the right to not be ridiculed for their stupid ideas. If someone came up to you and told you that your parents were space aliens who were planing on taking you to their mothership to probe your nether regions, you wouldn't take them seriously even though they are just as much a human being as you or I. No you wouldn't, and you shouldn't, because they would be providing evidence only of their insanity to you.

As to the "evil" of claiming one truth is true, would you say that there is another "truth" that the earth is flat. Other people still claim this and they are just as human as us. But they are still wrong. Or that the universe is only 6000 years old. Are they not human? They are still wrong. You would (hopefully) not take their word as equally true as reality, or you would be wrong too. We live in a solar system with one star and anyone claiming otherwise would not be holding "another truth", they would be wrong. Me saying those people are wrong isn't evil by any means, it just honest.

  All my friends are like me in the sense that they demand evidence for claims, so yeah, when any of us present an idea, the others want some evidence. That's why we are all good friends. We all have heated debates about things, and require evidence for all claims made. That's just how we live. And I think it strengthens our friendship, since what we hear from each other has already gone through the burden of providing proof and passed and has more weight behind it because we know what kind of evidence was required to convince each other of it. I trust my friends, not because they blindly think what they are told, but because they question me just as much as anything else. The only people I have lost contact with over woo are the ones who couldn't take debates about their belief's, which are people who I don't really care to associate myself with anyways. I don't enjoy spending my time with Sheeple, so all my friends reflect that.

  Friendship and good will have nothing to do with facts about reality. How a person phrases a statement has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of that statement. The statement is either true or false, the method of transmission of that statement has no effect of it's truthfulness. So no, I don't see "that".

  Granted, I am still quite new here, but I haven't seen this "blind" aspect to the arguments of the skeptics here that you speak of. For the most part, I have seen very well reasoned and well thought out arguments, and some funny, intentionally offensive stuff, which is always good too.

Harmony is a sham anyways, since never in this reality will every human, let alone all the other species around us, ever agree on one thing. And if peace means having to except it as anyone who wants to goes around filling other people's heads (especially the heads of children) with garbage, then I don't want peace. I would rather live in a world where the BS that comes out of people's mouths is challenged, you know, a world with freedom of speech.

Luminon wrote:

Yeah, I like scientific and skeptical podcasts, and I listen to them. This is also one of reasons why I have this Superfan badge.

You being here, and especially since you have a superfan badge, is the reason we question your statements. The reason I am here is to talk about subjects I am passionate about, to argue with people I have disagreements with and to expose myself to people with different views then my own. I EXPECT people to challenge my statements if they ever veer away from reality, or even if they are counter to their personal opinions. That's okay. Other people will present their challenges to my statements, then if the evidence they presented doesn't convince me, I will defend my position. If the evidence they present shows me to be wrong, well then I just learned something new and that's always a good thing. I want people to challenge my positions, since that's the only way I can learn anything new. If you have evidence for your statements, you should have no fear of of judgment or examination. Only if you know that the idea doesn't hold water would you try to protect it from the light of scrutiny, and that's precisely the kinds of ideas which must be examined the closest.

Luminon, you seem like a nice person, but if it looks like you wear a Tin Foil Hat, I won't keep my mouth shut about it. And it totally looks like you wear a triple layer Tin Foil Hat.

As long as you come to web sites like this one, expect people to demand evidence for your statements. That's not a bad thing. Just realize your claims will be treated like any other claim, and good solid evidence will be demanded before people will listen. To take a stupid Christian statement and rephrase it for my own benefit:

No evidence, No truth

Know evidence, Know truth

So Luminon, people demanding evidence of you claims means that they are actually giving them a chance. That chance hinges on evidence, and up till now you and every other woo head have not been able to present any in your own favor. So present some solid evidence or expect the arguments.

So far, intuition never fooled me. It's also true that intuition is a rare thing. But still, it helped ancient philosophers to discover the nature of atoms, light spectrum, sound waves, and energy.

Personal evidence IS a real evidence, it convinces everyone who see it. The only disadvantage is, that it's impact is local and momentary, but it's not less real.

If there is a multiple witnesses to that, and all independently react as they see what they see, then there is no doubt that it's happening.

You really don't know the meaning of the word "magic".

The basis of esoteric teachings, and it's applied form (occultism) is, that human being exists in several of these dimensions simultaneously. Here in this one we have a physical body of animal origin. In another dimension, we have a body that governs emotions. In yet higher dimension, there is a double body, that controls intellect and intuition. All of them are connected to the physical brain, and together they form the person. But the dimensions themselves aren't just storages for our counterparts, they're legitimate dimensions of the one universe. It's just us, who react on objects, energies and even simple or complex life forms there as on thoughts, emotions, et cetera. Human consciousness is like flashlight, it's cone of light can only pay attention to a small part of the multi-dimensional reality. The rest of all our bodies' uncontrolled capacity is called subconsciousness. Those who achieved a greater control over their mental, emotional and physical vehicles, are capable of interacting with physical, emotional and mental world in quite unusual ways. That would explain a great deal of so-called paranormal phenomena, including the ancient notion of how one must master oneself, to gain transcendent powers. This is of course not exclusively true. But hopefully I introduced you to the idea how physics of higher dimensions, human mentality and paranormal phenomena should be connected together.

Shortly said, esotericism agrees with science, but it goes a step further and draws parallels between physics and psychology.

I did not say that technology is magic. I said, that in their most perfect form, technology and magic are one and the same thing. But in their currently imperfect forms, there is hell of a difference between them. When the science will start to research higher dimensions, both science and occultism will improve rapidly and the difference between them will start to fade away. Eventually, it all will be simply a science of higher dimensions.

So yes, it is possible that my senses can be fooled, but not in this one aspect. I have done enough observations with me and other people to be absolutely sure by now.

Unless I missed some news, dark matter is still invisible and intangible. It can be observed in astronomically big environment, but not in human-like size or on atomic level. And not on Earth, because it would be bit harder to detect it without vacuum.

How is that appeal to popularity? I did not ask these people on their opinion! I simply mongered the woo secretly, and people who weren't even in my sight suddenly came and said to me, "hey, weren't you just slapping my ass with your woo powers?" Well, that sort of thing. There is no fooling of senses involved, because there are no expectations.

Well, that is your opinion. If someone is intelligent enough to advance science, then he must be also intelligent enough to see if there is any merit in astrology.

Ok, that's a bit out of context, but let's say that two people independently see woo, without expecting it in advance. It is extremely unlikely, that two people would hallucinate at the same moment, the same place and the same thing. So I must assume, that the observed object is real, or at least has a real, physical cause. But it's still a personal experience.

First we should make clear, why should we act defensively towards people with weird claims, who are probably crazy.

Consider one thing for me. You surely search for truth. But the mechanism of that is based on fear. You have associated truth with safety and wrongness with danger, to yourself, to kids, to society. That is quite correct.

This situation is a conflict. To resolve the conflict all people must realize something. The conflict can not be resolved by victory of one opinion.

That's interesting. OK, I envy you, that your friends are thinkers. My friends never asked me about evidence. Perhaps even nobody IRL. But this is also because they're realists. They realize, that without an institution that has billions of dollars and best technology available to humanity, (the science) the evidence is suddenly diffcult to get and preserve, it only lasts for a while.

What facts? What is a reality for one is merely a hearsay for another

Harmony is not a sham, you did a common mistake, you have mistaken harmony for uniformity.

And tell me, how there can be a freedom of speech, if you propose challenging of what others say?

Most of people realize, that it's impossible to get an evidence for something, squeeze it into some of the computer's crevices and to magically it transport to somewhere else through the internet. On this forum, people seem to be unaware of this aspect of science. Normally I can write with people and they won't ask for evidence, because they know that my computer doesn't support time travel and bending of space, that would allow me to give any evidence.

But although I claim I saw weird things, they saw weird things too, so it's not that weird, the weirdnesses eliminate themselves.

And we're not on an Inquisition tribunal

Even if the other one would be wrong, nobody will go to Hell.

Sometimes I'd just like to have people consider my...ideas from a philosophical, anecdotal or hypothetical point of view, without demanding the evidence in vain. Instead, they should focus on internal consistency, neatness, usefulness and possible ways of proving it.