I'm sure some of you wonder why I am so skeptical even though I claim to believe in the supernatural/paranormal. I do believe that many things that we consider to be paranormal or supernatural are absolutely real. However, I believe that a large majority of supernatural or paranormal experiences have more natural explanations. We often attribute supernatural explanations to natural events because of our expectations. If we expect to see something supernatural, that will be our first thought rather than thinking of a more natural explanation.

The fact of the matter is that is easy to fool "believers" simply because they expect to see something supernatural all the time. Someone with that mindset is extremely vulnerable to being misled.

If you have the time and are interested, here are some video examples of just such things occurring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s-kZfmxBIo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP7Ys9ocTk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5pG4ysYF6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G18NfN76bAs

I use Derren Brown as an example because he's one of the best around. His skills are simply amazing and almost defy description. The point that you can take away from those videos is that things are not always as they seem. We have to challenge our assumptions and guard against being taken in by frauds as well as well-meaning people who simply play along with our expectations.

Do I believe in energy medicine? Yes. Do I believe in mediums and spiritual communication? Yes. But those beliefs are based on rational examination of the evidence. And I still try to challenge my own beliefs regularly. I think much of our perception of energy work is literally all in our heads, but since both the giver and receiver have expectations, we "feel" something.

Okay, I need to get back to work. I just wanted to take a quick moment to try to explain a small portion of my skepticism. I really don't mean to stir up trouble or animosity. I just want to encourage people to be on guard and to continue to exercise their rationality as much as they exercise their intuition.

Hi Neiby,
I appreciate having a skeptical perspective as part of the discussion, and I hope no one takes your intention to be negative or a "downer".

A couple of the ways I think its important to understand and appreciate a skeptical perspective:

1. Make no conclusive pronouncements based on my beliefs. Better to say/write "this experience or outcome can be explained by normal events and processes, and that being the case, I tend to believe that's what's going on.

2. Skepticism has more to do with doubt than conviction. If I'm feeling certain something is EITHER bogus or true, then I'm not really taking a skeptical viewpoint at all. For a true skeptic, its enough to maintain doubt in the face of inconclusive data while suspending judgment. That's why so many people who call themselves skeptics (and I don't mean you, Neiby) are phonies.

3. Realize that skepticism as a philosophy is not a temporary state. For a skeptic to say that he believes in life force is nearly a leap into the grand canyon, because there is still no HARD PROOF of its existance. There is a mountain of indirect, empirical, subjective, and circumstantial evidence to suggest it exists, but that is not proof. So don't take a skeptic's doubt personally: it is literally a way of life!

4. Skepticism isn't necessarily a useful model for evolving one's skills regarding life force healing. It may someday help us find proof of its existance, but it will not likely ever be in a position to significantly advance what we are doing with QT. By necessity, it has to remain waaaay behind the leading edge of possibility. This isn't a put-down, but just the honest trade-off with regard to this field.

Blessings,
Alfred

Hello John
While I haven't seen the video clips yet I understand your point. That's basically how most people go about. 'Rational' is the key word here, otherwise extremist skeptics would denounce anything, even the most rational explanations. On the other extrme are the gullible ones. I think both extremes are dangerous; I'm a firm beleiver of the middle way.....that's after touching both extremes

Alfred, that was an awesome post!

And Nicky, I have also been at both ends of the spectrum. I spent 15 years of my life pursuing something that I realized ultimately had no basis in reality. I then spent a couple of years after that at the other extreme thinking that there was nothing supernatural.

I'm now in the middle, but I still approach all new things from a skeptical standpoint. I'm not an extreme skeptic, though. I'm open to the idea that some things might defy evidence simply because we haven't achieved the technology to prove it. In those situations you have to observe from a logical perspective and try to repeat things experimentally. If there is an effect greater than that expected from placebo then you can at least say that experiments suggest that there is something to it. In some cases, that's as good as it's going to get at our current level of evolution.

It's all good Neiby. I'm quite skeptical myself. Especially since joining the JREF forums. While they are not very nice, they ARE geniuses and the most hardcore skeptics of all. They've opened my eyes to understand what critical thinking really is.

quote:

Originally posted by Antranik:
It's all good Neiby. I'm quite skeptical myself. Especially since joining the JREF forums. While they are not very nice, they ARE geniuses and the most hardcore skeptics of all. They've opened my eyes to understand what critical thinking really is.

Yes, they are hardcore skeptics! Unfortunately, many of them (like James Randi) would refuse to believe in anything paranormal no matter how much evidence was presented.

Regardless, critical thinking skills are invaluable. It's unfortunate that so many people grew up without being trained to think critically. American schools certainly don't teach it.

It's wonderful to see so many people interested in energy medicine and developing their psychic awareness, among other things. But without critical thinking to act as a filter or buffer, people end up going off the deep end into parlor tricks like astrology, numerology and tarot. [My apologies to those of you who believe in that stuff. I understand that I am in the extreme minority on this board! *grin*]

Anto,

I've just been reading through the JREF Million Dollar Challenge forums. It's amazing stuff! I think the JREF people are bit harsher than they need to be, but they seem to be fair. I know of cases where they weren't fair, but more often than not I agree with them.

Quite simply, there are a lot of deluded people in the world and there are lots of other people willing to participate in those delusions. It can make the search for truth a bit difficult. There's a lot of junk to wade through. :-)

I personally don't like the term 'skeptic', as I also don't like the term 'atheist'. Both terms identify me as critical of or against something. And I am so much more!

I have often wondered why some believe in gods/life forces/souls/ghosts/etc, and I do not. One difference I have noticed, on these forums and in other places, is the use of personal feelings and experiences in determining truth. I often see "what resonants with me" or "what works well for me" as criteria for truth.

In my case, however, I am interested in the truth that exists without my existence. The truth that both a rock and an alien would agree on. Thus, I normally refuse to let "what resonants with me" be a criterion in my daily life. While I do explore my subjective truth as well, I never extrapolate it to be true outside of my imagination.

So, here already, I am asking different questions and with different goals than those who believe in gods/life forces/souls/ghosts/etc. No wonder there is such a wide difference in conclusions between materialists and theists/mystics!

Another difference I've noticed is the belief of a reliable brain. I think that many believers of gods/life force/souls/ghosts/etc believe that their brain is rational and reliable, and thus they trust their well intended conclusions.

In my case, however, I think the brain is very fallible and prone to logical fallacies. The brain is an evolved causation machine optimized for the savanna, not an evolved logic machine optimized for science. Thus, I refuse to believe just about anything that could fit into a logical fallacy. For example, I will not believe in 'quantum healing' until such fallacies as the post hoc fallacy and the regression fallacy are carefully excluded from the explanation (usually by means of several randomized, controlled, double/triple blind studies).

I truly don't find my position to be extreme. I still participate in mystical rituals (including Quantum Touch and I go to church sometimes), but I don't think the feelings/visualizations/sensations that result are anything outside of my creative and powerful imagination. I am open to change this conclusion, but at least the post hoc fallacy would need to be addressed.

quote:

post hoc fallacy

Superb post, Darwin. The post hoc fallacy and regression fallacy (along with experimenter bias) are things I see all the time. Most people don't recognize them because they were never trained to think critically. I see them all the time on these forums as well as with other people I communicate with. Unfortunately, many of them don't truly care. They "know what they know" and that's good enough for them. That doesn't really work for me.

Whenever you discuss energy medicine, astrology, numerology, the law of attraction, or just about anything else, what you'll get is a convoluted explanation of why it doesn't necessarily work in certain situations. Someone will tell you that it works, but then you'll try it and it doesn't work. When you come back to them and say it doesn't work, they will unleash the list of reasons why you were doing it wrong, or had the wrong expectations, or perhaps will even tell you it *did* work and you just don't know it.

It's all rather frustrating. Unfortunately, most of the people I run into that are heavily into alternative medicine or these sorts of paranormal things just aren't rational people, and they don't want to be. I'm not saying all of them are like that, but most of them have been.

Even on this board there are some wonderful people who I think are super sweet and caring, and they have the best of intentions, but they just aren't rational about their beliefs. It's almost as if nothing is too fantastic to believe.

I've been rather frustrated by this recently. I feel drawn to the study of spiritual things, including energy medicine and spirit communication, but it seems like every avenue I follow leads to another load of BS. I want to give up, but something keeps driving me. Maybe it's just a feeling that I have that there must be more to life. I don't know, but I'm growing weary of this path I've chosen.

I hear that you are frustrated.

In my life, my frustration with mystics vanished the day I realized that they are not asking the same questions as I am, and their base assumptions are different than my own - so of course we reach different conclusions.

If you honestly believe that your brain is a source of logical thought, and that you can trust your own natural conclusions, then I think the belief in the paranormal, the supernatural, quantum magic, etc, is a reasonable outcome.

However, if you believe your your brain is highly fallible, haphazardly evolved to handle the savanna, and requires the aid of tools (mathematics, formal logic, measurement tools, etc) to be logical, then I think materialism is a reasonable outcome.

I believe that the human ape, in its natural state, believes in gods/magic/forces/energies/etc. These phenomena exist throughout the entire species! So it is cruel to criticize such beliefs.

Yet, just as I believe chimpanzees face mental limitations in understanding mathematics, I think the human ape faces mental limitations with formal logic.

Some people choose to work within these limitations (theists/mystics), and some people choose to try and break out of them (materialists/scientists). I applaud both efforts.

That's a really interesting perspective!

I don't think that mysticism and science are mutually exclusive by necessity. To the contrary, I think it is possible to be drawn toward mysticism by the study of science. That is, in fact, how I got to this point. I wasn't attracted by the mysticism. I was attracted by certain sets of scientific study that seemed to keep pointing me toward the mystical.

But then once you can define something through science and/or experiment, does it remain mystical? I think that's my goal, in a way--to take all of this mystical stuff that I find, run it through the sieve of rationality and science, and then dig through what's left.

I'm quite open to experience. Our experiences can push up toward certain types of research. However, we can not trust our experiences. The human mind is easily fooled and manipulated. I think a balance between the right and left brain is necessary. The creative side of us seems to push us forward into new territory, while the left brain analyzes the new territory and helps to explain it while also alerting us to dangers within it.

We humans all have a problem with being rational but we also have to be willing to investigate ideas that, on the surface, appear irrational according to our accepted worldview. Following the scientific method (data collection, hypothesis, experiment, replication) is the most accurate method we have of understanding reality... and, unfortunately, usually the slowest. If a "supernatural" technique such as QT appears to work we usually can't wait for validation from double-blind studies.

Our "monkey brain" may be adapted to believe in what appears to be "supernatural" because of an error in wiring or because it exists. How can we tell? More experiments, please.

That said, inductive techniques can never logically "prove" anything, they only determine the degree of confidence you can have in something working in the future.

For those interested in a rational approach to the supernatural I recommend http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/

For those interested in a greater understanding of unbiased, rational thought I recommend http://www.overcomingbias.com/ and especially the paper on the virtues of rationality at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/

quote:

But then once you can define something through science and/or experiment, does it remain mystical?

It is commonly said by debunkers that alternative medicine ceases to be 'alternative' the day there is evidence to support it.

Many proponents of alternative medicine ask questions such as "Does this resonant with me?" or "Does this work for me?", which are entirely different questions than the materialistic scientist is asking, and these questions will never result in the type of evidence required for most alternative medicines to become accepted by most non-mystical doctors.

I personally enjoy participating in alternative medicine, and being a part of a phenomena that exists in all cultures throughout all time.

quote:

If a "supernatural" technique such as QT appears to work we usually can't wait for validation from double-blind studies.

I hear you, and I think I understand. Again, there seems to be this trust or reliance on personal experiences. This is totally reasonable and I don't disparage it! What I am saying is that you are starting from a different place than I am (and other materialists). I'm starting from a place of "my personal perceptions are not useful in determining the usefulness of QT", and you seem to be starting from the opposite. We ask different questions, with different assumptions, and thus end up with different answers.

I don't think time/money should stop proponents of QT from performing randomized, controlled, double/triple blinded studies. While showing healing potential in humans this way is costly, I bet you could do some studies on cut plants in your garage in under a week for $10. Afterwards, be thorough and honest in your results, and share them with the world - make a cool Youtube presentation of your work to get the conversation started. If I saw your plant study on youtube, and it had positive results, and it was well designed (such as CONSORT criteria), I would change my perspective on QT instantly. Especially if there were a whole movement of QT practitioners publishing dozens of results.

There are lots of small studies QT could do for cheap and in a matter of hours. To show you can detect quantum events, try blinding practitioners and seeing how accurately they can identify a ray of photons being shot into their hand (ie, flashlight). Some say that some people can detect when they are receiving distant healing - there are lots of quick experiments you can do with this! There are dozens of studies you could do.

Imagine a Youtube channel with a dozen presentations of randomized, controlled, double blind, at-home studies showing the effectiveness of QT in a variety of circumstances. Then you might start bringing materialists to the table, and the nature of discussion would become far more productive.

It's not going to get into 'Nature' - but it is infinitely better than doing nothing.

We live in the fine thin line between science and mysticism. What is mystical today may be science tomorrow.
As to QT experiments, it is easy to make experiments to show that QT works BUT to explain the how or why don't ask me.
A seeker's life is weary but when we get REALLY tired of seeking we start getting glimpses of the truth.
As Bruce Lee said"There is no path to truth. Truth is living therefore changing; when you understand this, you will understand what you are"

Nicky, wasn't Bruce Lee also a proponent of the "empty cup" theory?

As in one can not add anything to a full cup.

He was right.

zeneagle