Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui) Newsgroups: net.crypt,net.misc Subject: Re: article in net.general Message-ID: <1806@nsc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 2-Nov-84 02:35:59 EST Article-I.D.: nsc.1806 Posted: Fri Nov 2 02:35:59 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 03:04:41 EST References: <63@unc.UUCP> <> <1784@nsc.UUCP> <> Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui) Followup-To: net.misc Organization: The Warlocks Cave, Western Annex Lines: 65 Summary: In article <15421@lanl.ARPA> jlg@lanl.ARPA writes: >> In article <188@mouton.UUCP> karn@mouton.UUCP writes: >> >It's obviously got to be a joke. I can't believe that anybody intelligent >> >enough to use a computer believes in ESP. >> >> I find I'm terribly insulted by this. Don't make blind assumption on your >> own narrow views. I agree, there is no scientifically hard evidence for ESP >> these days, but the lack of evidence doesn't prove the lack of the ability. >> Look at the number of people who believe in God without similar hard >> proofs. The only thing I can say is: 'Don't knock it until you've tried it' >> > >Anyone familiar with philosophy knows that there is a distinction between >meta-physical and empirical subjects. Belief in God (god, gods, none) is >a metaphysical question for which there is, BY DEFINITION, no empirical >evidence. ESP on the other hand is proposed as an empirical reallity - >even though no evidence is available to support this classification. >Supporters of ESP (UFOs, Van Daniken, Creationism, etc.) try to use the >language and arguments of science to promote something which has none of >the characteristics of a science. If the supporters of ESP and other >pseudo-sciences were to classify their belief as metaphysical, and stop >trying to make the rest of us accept their strange 'religon', that would >be fine. > >Some have argued that these pseudo-sciences should be accepted as possible >and studied out of a sense of intellectual fairness. This has two problems >with it. First, it means that we have to study all new theories, even the >real 'off the wall' speculations of people with no scientific background. >Without any evidence of the plausibility of a theory 'a priori', it >would be silly to run around checking out all these bizarre theories. > >Second, every time that such topic HAVE been addressed scientifically, the >results are ambiguous or negative. However, the proponents of the pseudo- >science then proceed to either redefine the phenomenon (making the scientific >study irrelevant), or to denounce the scientific team for allegedly 'covering >up' the 'truth'. Real sciences don't have this slippery effect. My main complaint was the blanket statement that happened to include me in a belief I don't happen to hold. I'm not asking anyone to believe or not believe in ESP (I do, for very subjective and unrepeatable reasons)-- I'm simply asking them to not brand people who don't agree with them as crazy types. The term is tolerance. My personal belief is that there is a scientific basis for many of the basic ideas behind ESP but that the knowledge of brain functions and other areas of science are not yet to the stage to allow us to understand why these things seem to exist and how to get at them in reproducible ways. Before the structure of the atom was known, an atom bomb would have been labeled as impossible-- a change of the state of the art in knowledge changed our beliefs in the possible. Abscence of proof too often is considered to be proof of absence-- any first year logic class teaches you otherwise, but we seem to forget that. Just because we haven't found it yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist-- it means it might not exist, or that we simply don't have the tools to find it. Tolerance-- believe what you wish, but give others that same right. Note that this followup is crosslinked to net.misc as this ISN'T an appropriate topic for net.crypt. Future followups to this message will show up in net.misc only (we hope). chuq -- From the Department of Bistromatics: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA I'd know those eyes from a million years away....