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Yudkowsky has just published a logically rigorous refutation of your point of view

Hi Mark - I think this is an interesting examination of the problems with Rationalism.

However, I am not a Rationalist I don't believe in human rationality. I am an empiricist, of the eliminative materialist breed

I think the Rationalist worldview has its issues, such as the link you sent me.

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the ones who tortured and ordered the torture of anyone ... stuck in a rut ... the less right they'll be ... they won't live long enough to prove it materialistically

Hi Kweden - It is quite frequent that a mystic will tell the materialist that they are missing out on key knowledge, that they are somehow without crucial insights into something. They also make claims about oppression and, in your case, torture.

That's fine. In the same fashion, many theists have told me I am missing out on the key knowledge of their god, and that I will burn in hell for eternity. Materialists do this as well, calling mystics 'quacks' or 'charlatans'.

I take such statements with a grain of salt, and continue hoping for more progressive dialogue between the various worldviews that do not resort to these sorts of tones.

quote:

Originally posted by darwin:

quote:

Yudkowsky has just published a logically rigorous refutation of your point of view

Hi Mark - I think this is an interesting examination of the problems with Rationalism.

However, I am not a Rationalist I don't believe in human rationality. I am an empiricist, of the eliminative materialist breed

I think the Rationalist worldview has its issues, such as the link you sent me.

Darwin, you do understand that saying "I am a ____" without considering that the evidence might upset your point of view is a Statement of Faith, not a logical or empirically supported conclusion? I urge you to consider this and accept the possibility that you have come to your personal viewpoint for emotional reasons and consider if you wish to open your mind to new possibilities based on both reports by reliable observers and personal experience.

Hi Darwin,

I think we do understand eachother within the limits of our respective worldviews.

A materialist worldview by its definition can not understand a transcendent worldview in any but materialistic terms: its a closed system.
And a mystical worldview would never reduce itself to a materialistic one. I like to compare the relationship to the one between Newtonian Physics and Relativity or quantum mechanics. You can get most places, but the most significant ones, not from there!

For example, how could a materialist comprehend or have a context for "intuiting"* patterns in chaos before the modeling software program discovery MIT made with fractal geometry? Feelings and emotions can't do that, right? It HAD to be poppycock to the materialist beforehand, and a happenstance coincidence after the fact. The significance of the mystic's perception is utterly lost in this worldview by necessity.

*intuition is actually a cognitive and not emotional/emotive process, by the way. emotions hav a way of clouding intuition. You may be thinking of empathy; may I suggest to you you have again conflated subjective experience in a classically materialistic manner?

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you will find much more to human emotional responses, even varying degrees of significance

This depends on what you mean by "human emotional responses" You need to clarify and specify more here, perhaps with examples.

Yes, absolutely there is friction between the two perspectives, because both are "right" and "wrong" in their own ways. The hope of reducing the phenomena of mysticism to a materialistically-based explanation is a futile one, kind of like hoping to reduce art, music or philosophy to an equation. Won't happen. When I said some phenomena will possibly explained within the context of technology we currently don't have, for me, would only demystify the "how" of a miracle: not the "why". I think the best definition of a miracle for this discussion is an apparently nonrandom, hoped for phenomenon that makes a beneficial difference in one or more people's lives that happens through mechanisms that cannot be either perceived or articulated by means of current technology. I also don't believe in the word "supernatural", though I believe nature includes and transcends the material, so I suppose "supermaterial" would be a more accurate description.

Arguably, this, more than any other single reason, is what is slowing down progress on uncovering some of what most if not all materialists claim healers, psychics, and mystics can't possibly do.

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I think this is an interesting statement, because I think it reflects some of the political spark in the mystic v. materialist dance. I think that, for many mystics/theists/etc, the materialist mindset is oppressing their ancient wisdom or magical cures, and thus materialists are causing real harm to society.

What I actually meant was that the difficulty of human beings to pull out of a closed mindset slows down ALL scientific and technological revolutions (hence the reference to Kuhn), not just discoveries and advances in this particular realm.

I actually believe that more room is being made for alternative approaches to healing than at any time in modern history BECAUSE of the massive amount of anecdotal and empirical data nurses (the ones who see the most of patients) and medical doctors are increasingly being exposed to. Let's face it: doctors prescribe new medications that pharmaceutical companies don't understand the pharmacodynamic properties of, and (if they are ethical and prescribe past perquisites) assess the new med based on patients' response over time. Many of these get effects barely above the placebo effect in trials. When they do see remissions, drastic and even moderate improvements by means of alternative methods outside their frame of reference, it gets their attention, science or no science. Combine this with patients advocating for themselves after iatrogenic harm or no prospects of improvement, and the medical community can't really ignore it.

I do believe there is much charlatanism and poor practice about, and that a complementary model for healthcare should govern standards of care which limit unnecessary harm from either side of the continuum. This would require us to invite nonpragmatists out of the room so that good sense and open minds prevail. I believe this is part of the political issue.

Another part is the massive influence of the AMA and pharmaceutical lobbies in how healthcare is conceptualized and delivered in the modern world. Suggesting that treatments which destroy crucial systems of the body in order to destroy a tumor might not be a good idea just isn't going to be welcome commentary.

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QT practitioners, for example, may see us as keeping their work out of hospitals and universities.

I think these kinds of situations are gradually changing. Hopefully with widespread use of healing energy techniques like QT among the lay population, this will continually turn into a non-issue.

In terms of understanding, I can't imagine you would understand anything past what your paradigm allows you to, which makes up most of what mystical understanding is. That isn't a sleight: just the facts. So the limits of such dialogues.

Blessings to ya!

Alfred

I have wasted far too much valuable time reading this Rational Skepticism nonsence and BS. And since I am not interested in saving your darkened souls or debating with you to face what you fear, I will try to be brief on logicial Rational Skepticism. ( how I hate those words!)
Thank God I don't meet any of you people, crazy enough to not trust your brain when I'm driving my car!
Your sk. is FEAR of yourself, your mind and Your soul. You block your own path of evolution.
Don't count me s a believer I KNOW WHAT I KNOW! I have been there and experienced and don't take away my experiences or mess on them!
Zen is not rational but there is No teaching or experience higher than that!
I think there must be a special Hell for people who don't believe their own minds and perceptions!We had many of them locked up!
Let me know when you are about to ruin QT in the sieve of rationalism and I'll be long gone!
Why don't you drop all ilrational things out of your life - starting with LOVE and BEAUTY!?
Huggie

Let me just add a thought from someone far smarter and wiser than me ...

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
-- Albert Einstein

Roy