Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!cbosgd!ihnp4!ltuxa!we53!wucs!wucec2!ph From: ph@wucec2.UUCP Newsgroups: net.singles,net.sci Subject: SCIgh... (was PSIgh...) Message-ID: <1785@wucec2.UUCP> Date: Sat, 5-Jul-86 19:54:47 EDT Article-I.D.: wucec2.1785 Posted: Sat Jul 5 19:54:47 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 7-Jul-86 01:14:45 EDT References: <878@hoptoad.uucp> Reply-To: ph@wucec2.UUCP (Paul Hahn) Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, Engineering School Lines: 113 Keywords: long, sorry Xref: watmath net.singles:14060 net.sci:1198 A month or so ago, I wrote: >>You'd think Sunny and Tantric Astrology PSI people were poisoning wells and >>sacrificing beautiful maidens. Why the high emotion? > > That is, in fact, an interesting question. Now, I believe > with a high degree of surety that Sunny & friends are deluding > themselves; on the other hand, I don't see that they are making > themselves or anyone else unhappy with what they do. Why, then, > should I care? Yet I find that the thought of people believing > that for which they have no good reason to believe saddening. > Perhaps I fear that if someone is capable of so acritically > accepting an innocuous belief, they might be equally capable of > accepting a dangerous one (read: one leading to actions causing > hurt to others). I'm not sure. So in article <878@hoptoad.uucp> sunny@hoptoad.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) writes 200+ lines in response. I think I'm flattered. >I've tried to make this clear, a number of times, yet it keeps getting lost >in the paranoid defenses of the religion of rational science... >I too was raised as a rational scientist, and have an engineering degree >to prove that I too was indoctrinated with a great deal of scientific >"prove it to me" skepticism. I am sad to say that many professional scientists have been taken in by supposed psychics who were later exposed as frauds. Some of them are very embarassed now. Others refuse to admit that they are wrong. > . . . going back to an analogy I often use, if we stepped >backwards in time to predate the invention of the geiger counter, the absence >of an instrument to measure atomic radiation (absence of evidence) would not >negate the existance of atomic radiation (imply absence of existance). Likewise >the absence of evidence (in your laboratory or your experience) and the absence >of an instrument to measure psychic energy, does not imply that psychic energy >does not exist. True (though--a nitpick--photographic plates were darkened by pitchblende long before the geiger counter was invented)--but neither does that fact impel us to believe that psychic energy _does_ exist. If and when you supply the appropriate evidence, I will believe in it, but until then I won't--as I said before. >The bottom line is, that each of us was born with an instrument to measure >psychic energy, but few of us accidentally stumble upon how to use it, or are >trained in the normal course of childhood in how to develop our psychic "muscles". If psychic ability were universally inherent, as you say, since its benefits clearly are enormous (as you also say, later on) psychic phenomena should be prevalent in most world cultures. I doubt that you can give an explanation for why it is not which is convincing and not _ad hoc_. > Maybe I am deluding myself... into >believing that I'm healing myself and becoming healthier and happier, more >self assured, more secure, more integrated, more whole. Why not? I know of many people who are quite happy because of their faith in one God or another (or several); I happen to think they are deluding themselves too. It is exactly this that depresses me: that so many people find it necessary to BELIEVE! in something in order to be happy. I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone happiness--but why must it be at the cost of skepticism and reason? >Throw away your Bible. Ignore everything I've told you. (-: Yes, I plan to. :-) >[Etc. . . . ] >Question authority. And recognize that the people closest to you are the ones most >likely to have a vested interest in your NOT finding your truth. For when you do, >you will be a lot more difficult for them to control in serving their own free will. (-: Who's paranoid again? Oh, I am, of course. Silly me, I forgot for a moment. :-) >Oh, yes... surely this is all a delusion on my part. I think I've found out how to make >my life work, and the secrets of greater wisdom, spirituality, and power. And what >do I do with it? I tell you my answers are likely not right for you, and that you >must follow your own path. . . . > I don't care WHAT you do. Ignore me. I don't care! Of course not--that's why you wrote two hundred lines about it. Please note that I am not asking you to accept any particular beliefs in place of your present ones either; I just wish you were more careful about what you _do_ accept. The parts of Sunny's article I have edited out are mostly descriptions of the details of her psychic activities and abilities, not very informative to those unenlightened such as myself. Most of them I consider non-supernatural results of the workings of the human mind (which really does work in some astonishing ways, if not necessarily those that Sunny would have us believe). In sum, all I can say is: Sunny, if you're that sure, gather up a passel of your friends and go to Randi. Some of the effects you mention can definitely be verified experimentally. You can make a tidy little sum of money, Topher Cooper and his colleagues will be ecstatic at having results that don't have to be extracted statistically from a sea of data, and you can shut me and the other skeptics up forever. I intend to post no more articles on this subject. Mail.psi is up and running now, I believe, and that is where any further discussion should go. Please. --pH /* * "There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is named Iluvatar; and * he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring * of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was * made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of * music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. . . . " */