Serious question about ESP (I don't mean psychic or anything silly)

[naphand]

By all means read both sides of the argument and draw your own conclusions. I keep an open mind on the matter, but have to admit that I find the arguments proposed by the reductionists to be limited in the extreme, their attitude is generally very dismissive and they REFUSE to accept alternative explanations (as they KNOW they are right). For this reason alone it is worth listening to alternatives.

However, just because some whackos in the "new-age movement" have jumped on the "quantum reality" bandwagon does not invalidate the sound arguments and evidence that has been put forward by many physicists and mathematicians.

These are not "my" ideas - they are ideas that have been developed by leading physicists. The books I recommend are not "whacko" or "pseudoscience" as anyone who reads them will discover. Yes they do deal in a very limited capacity with "mysticism" and the "god question" - they look at the arguments, as many people will want to know if these kinds of questions can, indeed, be answered by science. These books, however, are not about mysticism, nor "how to find your true self", they talk about science, and the evidence of science, although I know you will find that hard to take on board.

Perhaps an example of the limitations of science:

Science has certainly disproved the "bible" version of creation. The Earth was not created in 7 days etc. etc. However, a "creative event" certainly did happen - it's called the Big Bang. While science has learned more and more about this event they are no closer to answering questions like "Why did the Big Bang happen?", "What existed before the Big Bang?" and "How does consciousness arise?". You can say these are the domain of the philosophers, and not the concern of science. I don't disagree, but I disagree strongly with scientists of the the "rationalist" type who claim to be the only arbiters of truth - they are not. They cannot address things such as "meaning", they pretty much refuse to consider "consciousness" as any kind of significant property, and they point blank refuse to accept any study that validates any kind of "paranormal" or "mystical" experience. They are just studying the mechanics of the universe, very succesfully, but have so far failed to address the issue of the origin of life (as we know it, that is, as a conscious experience). They are not in a position to dismiss such studies as (i) they have a closed mind to this kind of study, and a vested interest in maintaining the existing hypotheses (ii) they are not acquainted with the research that has been carried out, and(iii) their methods/work do not allow the inclusion of theories/results of this type. The work of science is far, far from complete, yet they are happy to tell us what cannot exist a priori .

And just because "most" physicists dismiss the ideas, does not make the ideas invalid. "Most" physicists (and most scientists for that matter) work in very restricted areas of their subject. They have no time nor inclination to look at things outside that domain, not only that but "most" physicists are of very average ability and limited in their intellectual reasoning. Before you accuse me of assuming "greater intellectual capacity" than most physicists, or that on the most able physicists can see the "light", my statement does not infer this, it just states that "most" physicists have never really been in a position to consider or study the implications of such theories.

The last thing the rationalists want, is respected scientists supporting some of the ideas put forward by the "new physics". Well, that is happening, and increasingly so, just because this is a minority (which is no surprise considering the lengths that the "majority" will go to to exclude them from "respectable" scientific circles) does not invalidate the arguments. All new ideas start out with minority support!! Your comment is typical of the weak logic used by rationalists.

The particular article that bdk3clash proposes "Quantum Quackery" does not deal with physicists such as Paul Davies, but is quite a superficial dismissal of "new age" thinking of writers such as Deepak Chopra et al. A superficial dismissal is all that is required is these cases, anyway; I don't dispute that. There is a lot quack thinking about. The fact that such articles exist, is evidence of the increasing popularity of "alternative" or non-reductionist physics theories. FACT: physics in it's current state is incapable of studying living organisms due to their inherent complexity, and the fact that living organisms also appear to operate differently from the "sum of their parts"; on this basis alone the "reductionist" theories are extremely limited in their descriptions of living systems, and presently fail to do so with any reliability.

I also note that the Amazon reviews of Carl Sagan's book do not really talk of the issues brought up in this thread. A typical review reads:

"Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a "baloney detection kit" for thinking through political, social, religious, and other issues. "

Perhaps bdk3clash can say exactly where in this thread I have supported the notions of "alien abduction", "UFO's", "faith healing" and "channelling". You know, I don't believe I have, nor do I recall that these subjects being dealt with in the books I recommend (although it is possible they may be mentioned somewhere - I do not have a photographic memory).

By all means read Sagan, he is a grade 1 scientist. His arguments will, no doubt, be good ones. But, regardless of what Sagan says, other scientists of no less ability, are considering the implications of Quantum Physics on our understanding of life and consciousness, and perhaps coming to different conclusions. And what exactly does the phrase "refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality" mean. You are using Sagan as a means to refute spirituality? Yet he denies this implicitly. What is your definition of "spirituality"?

It's very easy to to adopt the view of the "majority". It's much harder to think differently, you have to justify yourself constantly, and always face remarks like "that is not the opinion of the majority" (so f*****g what??! the majority of the US population supported Gore, and look who is in power!) or "there is no evidence" (total BS, this is the fall-back denial response). Alternatives are initially dismissed, they are then ridiculed and the supporters vilified, and finally they are just ignored and left to their own devices, standard practice really.

If you think these ideas are wrong bdk3clash - let's hear your reasoning. So far all you have done is try to dismiss them and refer people to the fixed-agenda organisation Scicop. You must have thoughts and ideas on this, and I am sure we would all like to hear them, but you better have some good arguments.