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From: jpg3196@tahoma.UUCP (James P. Galasyn)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,sci.misc,talk.religion.newage,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: *** CALL FOR DISCUSSION *** Creation of newsgroup sci.skeptic
Summary: Casual observer
Keywords: new age new science parapsychology skepticism
Message-ID: <440@tahoma.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jun 89 23:47:52 GMT
References: <2357@yunexus.UUCP> <1582@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> <1961@se-sd.NCR.COM>
Organization: The Boeing Co., BCA FSL, Seattle, WA
Lines: 53


Sci.sceptic, eh?  I am reminded of Aleister Crowley's comment about 
scepticism being a virgin in the morning.  I'm a casual occasional observer
of this group.  Most of my life I've been a hard-core materialist, logical
positivist MIT type.  Recently I have had reason to hypothesize that
there really is something weird going on here in the universe.  I am now
trying to apply scientific method thinking to the realm of experience (i.e.
human subjectivity).  I sometimes feel pretty wonky living in the zone
of the in betweens, as Peter Gabriel puts it.  

I'm doing turbulence modelling here at Boeing Commercial.  I've become
rather obsessed with chaotic dynamics.  Now, we know that logical
positivism is helpless in the face of one-shot, nonrepeatable phenomena
(comments about this assertion welcome).  We've just discovered that there
is no such thing as noise, only extremely complex ordered structures.
It follows that every event is unique, nonrepeatable, and therefore not
amenable to traditional scientific method style inquiry. And it seems
to me that chaos theory demonstrates that everything is connected to
everything else, to make a grossly loose and unmathematical generalization.
Is there a larger generalization than that?  Maybe "God is God.  God is
not everything."  Anyway, if this interpretation of chaos theory is correct
(and I could well be mistaken) it implies all sorts of disturbing and
exciting things.  Sci.physics is not the place to discuss the
possibilities, and this is not really a New Age idea, so maybe sci.sceptic
would be appropriate.

There's a lot of name-calling and knee-jerk labelling happening all over
the net.  This is not surprising to me;  I read Rupert Sheldrake's
excellent book _A New Science of Life_ and observed how the orthodox
scientific community flamed him mercilessly in _Science_ and other mags.
Scientism is alive and well ("scientific heresy," they called it in
_Planet of the Apes_).  My fear is that sci.sceptic might degenerate
into the network High Inquisitor of Science.  

I've been rambling too long.  I'll vote for it if the time comes.   


Go easy.




                  .                  	All of these endeavors are based on the
    DEATH       .  ..                	belief that existence should have a
              .     . .              	completely harmonious structure.  Today
      .     .        .  .            	we have less reason than ever before
    .  .. .           .   .   .      	for allowing ourselves to be forced away
  .     . .            .    .  ..    	from this wonderful belief.
.        .  .           .     . . .  	                 -Einstein