Science is great. And I’m not just saying that.
I used to consider myself very scientific… but really I never understood why science was correct. I just knew that it was suppose to be the best system of discovery, so I should trust it. It came down to trust.
When I discovered that psychic abilities were actually real, I felt like my trust was betrayed. I felt like science had led me down a faulty path, and that path had turned out to be incorrect. Science had failed me. My trust was broken. So I started to look towards other things to trust in.
Nothing really grabbed my eye, though I did try a lot of belief structures over the years. I would always end up rejecting it because it wasn’t scientific enough :-). Eventually I did settle somewhat on the idea of personal development. It was scientific to a point, but there was a lot of intuition and psychic ideas in it as well. Sounds perfect :-).
But lately, I’ve come to discover that the personal development mentality is flawed as well. The flaws are very clever and creative, and very hard to detect. Ideas like meta-beliefs can really screw your mind over… Intention manifestation is a very clever idea as well. Ultimately, I do not believe in intention manifestation, and the things that are incorrect with the intention manifestation model can be detected by being scientific.
Which is why I feel that science is the best method for discovery. At this point, it doesn’t feel like before - I don’t feel like I “trust” science, instead I feel like I’ve derived the scientific method by trial and error. Every other belief system I’ve tried out has failed because there are gaping holes that are easily prevented using logic, reason, experimentation, and evidence.
I can disprove intention manifestation pretty quickly. Let’s make an experiment. Intend to win the lottery for a month straight. And if you win, then intention manifestation has some evidence to support it. And if you fail, then intention manifestation has some evidence to disprove it.
It just so happens I did that exact experiment :-). I believed 100%. I visualized. I intended. I put my heart into it. I got my emotions going. I did this religiously for a month. And I got zero results.
Now before everyone flips a lid, let me make something clear: there is evidence that the process of intention manifestation actually does affect reality. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, with different intentions. However! It is NOT as simple as “placing your order” with the universe. The universe is not a genie. Or at least - that’s not what the evidence suggests.
In the future I may delve further into the raw evidence, and look for alternate explanations. However, the point of this post is to express the simple point of view that: science produces the most accurate observations about reality.
Period.
The best way to learn about reality is to actually play around with reality and see what happens. I know this seems obvious. But that’s not what a lot of us do. A lot of us form our opinion of how reality should function - and then we play around with reality until we notice the results that confirm our opinion.
Or we play around with reality until we form an opinion on something… then we only do things to confirm our premature assumptions. There is actually an amazing idea in psychology that looks into this phenomenon - it’s called confirmation bias. I recommend reading about the experiments they did to observe this phenomenon - it’s very interesting.
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It’s hard for me to express why science is important while in the same breath say that psychic abilities and intention manifestation do produce results. But here I am :-P.
I think it’s important to separate skepticism from science. The scientific method says nothing about skepticism. The scientific method can be executed by a computer program. But in the real world, we are humans, with emotions and opinions - and it’s very very hard to remain objective and judge the outcome of something fairly. Especially once we start investing a lot of emotional energy into one outcome or another. The skeptical person usually displays a heavy emotional tendency towards evading admittance of ignorance, among other obsessions. But hey - no ones perfect :-P.
The scientific method - the idea that we need to objectively play around with reality to understand reality - and that we need to constantly change and evolve our understanding fairly and without bias - is a beautiful goal. It might be impossible to be 100% scientific, but putting our focus on evidence, experimentation, playfulness, and objectivity (even if objectivity is inherently impossible), is the most rewarding belief structure for learning about reality.
October 21st, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Psychic abilites seem to have alot common with scientific research.
Lets take an A-bomb for example. When scientists first started to think that there might just be something to be had with uranium, there wasn’t a single piece of solid proof. Nobody could prove that it actually is possible to cause a chain-reaction leading up to an impressive energy release.
There were calculations of course but equations alone are hardly a proof enough in a project like this.
After years of experimenting and equation solving, the proof finally came. After that it was possible for the common folk to believe.
So in order to actually prove something, we should learn to delay gratification. Some things prove themselves only after a horrendous amount of work. Until then, they are nothing but a obscure formula on a sheet of paper.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:06 pm
In my high school philosophy class we studied a bit of Karl Popper. You should give it a read:
http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/popperphil1.pdf
We only dealt with the very first chapter, but the rest might be good as well. If nothing else, read that first lecture - I think you might find it interesting, as he is discussing the idea of the confirmation bias.
October 21st, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I agree that science (as in the method because I’m not a so called “skeptic” who live under the delusion that its a position), is the best way to go. However, the scientific method doesn’t really help with things like personal development, in my experience at least. Thats why you need philosophy. Philosophy and science are inseparable, actually if you think with the scientific method sound philosophizing follows so in general I agree with everything you said.
I think intention manifestation can be tested scientifically BTW, in fact the experiments done with PK have arguably already proven it in it s most basic sense. Experiments with dice-tossing and random number generators for example. Come to think of it other experiments also provide defensible evidence of ESP. Science rocks!
I don’t think waiting around for evidence is smart though. Thats philosophical opinion. Sometimes you just have to experiment for yourself, especially in the case of psi.
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 am
I have never trusted science very much. I’ve always grown up on religion, though I’m starting to form my own, fitting in different things from different beliefs. I don’t believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, though I do believe in the standard evolution, a change over time, such as something plain like growing taller. I don’t believe in the Big Bang Theory. But, I do trust science on some things, because it has good ways of explaining things. The stuff I stated earlier that I don’t believe in were well explained and made some sense, but even they still haven’t been proven yet. There is a big gap in the theory of evolution, and I read a book that showed how the Big Bang Theory couldn’t be true. But then again, it was just a book, biased on the Christian religion.
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
” There is a big gap in the theory of evolution, and I read a book that showed how the Big Bang Theory couldn’t be true. But then again, it was just a book, biased on the Christian religion. ”
What is the gap and what were the reasons given in the book? I’m asking out of interest, not to attack you.
I’ve always felt that science would explain everything despite whatever the conditions are. Yes, it explains how things to be, and it can be interesting and useful, but sometimes it feels irrelevant in terms of saying, ” NO, this can’t happen because THIS is how it really happens and it can never happen any differently! ”
My theory is that even if we had tentacle arms and spoke using gaseous outbursts, science would still have an explanation for it. Of course, those things haven’t happened, but that’s the best way I can get my point across.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:06 pm
You don’t write too much nowadays.
Eventless life, lower site priority or lack of time?
The problem with science is that it doesn’t like being wrong. Electrone movement was too hard to explain so it’s a probability. Telekinesis can’t be explained so it doesnt exist. I may not have accurate information in this field but does science claim that universe both expands and is infinite? That would deny each other.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
altrie - the lottery has been below 45 mil for the past two months :-P.
I notice a few ideas in these comments that treat science as though it’s a belief system. It is a belief system… but not in the same sense that religious belief is.
I think it’s important to make a distinction between science and modern science. I see science as just an idea - a way of looking at the world. Science (to me) is the idea that we need to be systematic and logical when figuring out the world around us. We need to base our theories on evidence, and be willing to change our beliefs when new evidence reasonably suggests that we should.
Modern science, on the other hand, is what I consider to be what most scientists say about the world, today. It’s whatever the current beliefs are. For example, the Big Bang Theory, evolution, and psychic abilities not being real, fall under modern science.
When I talk about science being great, I am talking about the idea - the process of science. I am NOT trying to defend modern science. Obviously I disagree a lot with modern science, because I see a whole buttload of evidence for psychic abilities, life after death, and forms of intention manifestation. But I agree with the process - I agree 100% that we need to try and be objective, theorize, experiment, and gather evidence fairly.
Just wanted to make that distinction clear :-P.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Looking at evidence is necessary to proving anything, and I agree with your post. I also agree that there are some problems with Modern Science as well.
Of course, things that are known as fact can be flipped upside down pretty easily with this method as well, which solves most of those problems - it just takes time.
However I am interested to see your evidence on life after death.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
In my opinion, the concept that most people live by, that they have free will, should be considered parascientific/supernatural in itself, since science seems to dictate any notion of that.
October 28th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Aha. So you’re saying that Descartes and Bacon were right in their attempts to create a method to find out about reality. The fundamental theorem of it being “I think, therefore I am”. Maybe it’s time to test that statement and to see beyond :D, on whether we are our thoughts or whether our thoughts are us.
But you just can’t prove that. It’s impossible to look at us, our thoughts from an outside unbiased perspective. No one else can perceive your thoughts - unless you use an “unproven” method (telepathy, etc.). And even then, one could still say that the thoughts were contaminated by someone else. Its a dead end circle. Science is right - but wrong at the same time, logically excluding certain areas of reality. It’s just plain unmeasurable with direct effects. Psi is like dark matter - you can only measure it using its indirect effects, and even then, statistics are against you because the effects are so subtle compared to the whole system.
I partially disagree with you. Some things in this reality just can’t be measured using the scientific method. I’m not saying it’s completely false - but it’s not completely right either.
December 9th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I agree with and disagree with you at the same time, kinda like clearvision.
Science has given us the most complete and measurable understanding of our universe and existence that we know of. The scientific method is the best way to understand anything measurable.
However no matter how hard you try every person has a subjective experience, and with psychic phenomena there is nothing but subjective experience. That makes it so confirmation bias is all you’ve got. The true believers see a truly real effect, and the skeptics see nothing.
I personally see psychic phenomena as more art than science. There is no guaranteed step by step measured process for psychokinesis (for example) but everyone has what works for them. There is still experimentation going on but more often it seems to be guided by intuition than cold hard measurable results.