Path: utzoo!hoptoad!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!markh From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) Newsgroups: alt.flame Subject: Re: Christmas Celebration Summary: Pseudo-science Keywords: Pseudo-science, Convergence Message-ID: <4079@uwmcsd1.UUCP> Date: 6 Jan 88 01:03:42 GMT References: <3445@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <7706@eddie.MIT.EDU> <5409@sol.ARPA> <7709@eddie.MIT.EDU> <22254@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <7712@eddie.MIT.EDU> <22258@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <22264@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <17787@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <5010@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <4041@uwmcs <512@gethen Sender: daemon@uwmcsd1.UUCP Reply-To: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) Followup-To: Science & Religion Distribution: alt.flame Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Lines: 95 In article <512@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes: >d1.UUCP> >Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) >Distribution: alt.flame >Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland >Lines: 21 >Posted: Mon Jan 4 01:24:41 1988 > >In article <4041@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes: >>You're both arguing on the basis of a false dichotomy between science and >>religion. >> >> To give you an example where the two overlap and coincide, I refer you >>both to the research that has been done in Near Death Experiences and in >>Pre Birth Experiences. > >And here I thought that Mark might be going to give us an example of >where science and religion coincide, rather than an example of where >pseudo-science and religion happen to touch on the same subjects. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Perhaps you ought to read the journals before hastily coming to such conclusions about the nature of these investigations. I also believed it was pseudo-science until curiousity compelled me to look (which so few ever bother to do). That the experiences exist is not in question. What is in question is where they originate from. Many psychologists say they arise as a side effect of a dying mind (The "hallucination" hypothesis), though EEG readings (or the lack thereof) fly in the face of these theories. But people do experience these experiences. About Pre-Birth experiences, this is something YOU CAN VERIFY OR REFUTE. You only need to be regressed to the time of your birth and before. There is enough testimony here from enough people that it is possible to reconstruct the proto-typical Pre Birth experience. These testimonies have consequences for such issues as Abortion (though I will not say whose side the testimonies support). It is time that we realise that when dealing with the sciences of the mind or with sciences concerning people, testimony becomes a valid form of evidence until something better comes along. To ensure consistency, it is then only required that people agree on their experiences in such a way that a composite can be reconstructed. The only question then is where these experiences arise from. You can also easily verify or refute the reality of Near Death experiences, but I would not sugest you try to, as it is basically a one-shot deal. Brain death is reversible, but only rarely so. Remember, all religious issues are IN THE END empirical. I might also add that religions may have all received their impetus from people who underwent Near Death experiences (or who remembered their existence at and before birth). Read the research journals about these topics, then tell me what you think. Or am I the only person alive who can randomly browse for material on any subject regardless of its acceptance? I sure hope not. You did not say anything about my examples concerning Quantum Theory or Cantor's theory of transfinite Cardinals and Ordinals. I recommend a book by Rudy Rucker called "Infinity and the Mind." You do not mean to say that any of these are pseudo-sciences do you? There's also the issue concerning Church's Thesis. Logicians have long ago discovered a hierarchy known alternately as The Degrees of Unsolveability or The Degrees of Undecideability. It concerns a hierarchy of what have come to be appropriately named Oracles. An Oracle is capable of solving a class of problems (or answering a class of questions) that a Turing Machine (the standard model of computability) cannot, among them the "Halting Problem". The question here, which may have theological consequences, is whether Oracles exist Physically or not; whether the Brain embodies an Oracle. This is closely tied into the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Physics, which predicts that there are certain things that cannot be calculated by a Turing Machine. >I guess this was too much to hope. Personally, I do believe that >science and religion are beginning to converge, but it ain't Christianity >that's the religion... It is very rare (or possibly never) that people who undergo NDE's ever have bad experiences, most or all experience what we would call heaven, or what mystics would call transcedence. The one thing they agree on is that their experiences take place outside the flow of time, hence giving them a quality of ineffibility. This goes against the Christan belief in Heaven & Hell (and Judgement). I would say that the closest parallel to these experiences existant in today's religions is the Nirvana that the Budda spoke of as occuring after death (as opposed to the "lesser" Nirvana achievable here and now.) No doubt that HIS conversion was spurred on by a Near Death Experience. > > >-- >Michael J. Farren | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just >{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}! | dogmatize it! Reflect on it and re-evaluate > unisoft!gethen!farren | it. You may want to change your mind someday." >gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame I suggest you take to heart what you have just quoted here, as you've shown a dogmatic position concerning the nature of research into NDE's (called the "received view" by Kuhn).