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Pseudoscience and the New Age

 
  

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*
19:54 / 12.06.07
Well, some do, Quantum, or are at least investigating those routes (thus my comment about the lower electrical conductivity along the meridians). One of my teachers confided in me that qi probably has something to do with how the effect is directed, but he thinks the most important component of acupuncture's effectiveness is stimulating an immunological reaction to the needles. But, yeah, in my experience at least there's a little more trust in the practice itself to do what it's supposed to do. And there's a gulf of difference between that investigative mode and the trick of lining up sciency-sounding words to add con capacity to a totally unsubstantiated claim.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
20:03 / 12.06.07
I would like to say that a system that is reputable has no need for unscrupulous practitioners to be lying about how it works, or lying about how much they know about how it works.
-Zippy McCavanaugh

Now that's a brilliant turn of phrase. Could this be equally true for politicians, scientists, healers and sorcerers?
 
 
*
20:42 / 12.06.07
Suggest it to your doctor and then ask why people get cancer.

I shouldn't have said "reputable." Maybe "not a scam."
 
 
Quantum
22:06 / 12.06.07
some do, Quantum, or are at least investigating those routes

Yeah, grant's got some ace links on chinese research into qi as I recall, and I firmly believe it'll one day be understood and explained in terms of biology. It worked for thousands of years before that though, and if there were no scientific research being done I don't think too many practitioners would lose too much sleep. It's pretty thoroughly explained on it's own terms as far as I know, and that's functionally effective.

To me Tarot is the same but for psychology (and a lot more besides). Although science can't say how it works yet, that doesn't mean that it doesn't, and until science gets there it's best to use the traditional systems as they're tried and tested. Like the Egyptians or Greeks didn't have orbital telescopes or contemporary astronomical techniques or a heliocentric solar system model, but they could predict the motion of the stars. Like a black box problem, although you can't easily tell how it works with enough observation you can tell what it does and when.

Anyway, more crap science!
 
 
EvskiG
01:35 / 13.06.07
Yeah, grant's got some ace links on chinese research into qi as I recall, and I firmly believe it'll one day be understood and explained in terms of biology. It worked for thousands of years before that though, and if there were no scientific research being done I don't think too many practitioners would lose too much sleep. It's pretty thoroughly explained on it's own terms as far as I know, and that's functionally effective.

I wonder to what extent the effectiveness of, say, acupuncture goes beyond a mere placebo effect. For example:

To determine the credibility of the placebo needles, the investigators subjected the volunteers to a three-part questionnaire. The first section asked patients about their interest in and knowledge of acupuncture; the second section focused on the patients' acceptance of acupuncture as a treatment for headache; and the third section measured the credibility and expectations of the patients toward the actual treatment. To test credibility, the patients filled in the third part of the questionnaire after the first treatment. After four or five treatments, patients were then asked to state whether they felt the needle being inserted and whether they had felt the de qi sensation.

Researchers Find "No Significant Differences" between Treatments

Sixty-four patients answered the questionnaire. After tabulating the results, the scientists found "no significant differences" between the groups' responses in any section. In the interest section, the difference between the true and placebo acupuncture groups was two-hundredths of a point; in the general acceptance section, the difference was seven-hundredths of a point; and in the credibility section, the difference was less than half a point.

Or this:

Both groups improved statistically from baseline, and acupuncture and placebo had similar credibility. For the primary outcome (weeks 1 to 5), a statistically significant difference in visual analogue scale score in favor of acupuncture (6.3 mm [95% CI, 1.4 to 11.3 mm]; P = 0.01) was observed between the 2 study groups, after adjustment for baseline pain and other covariates. However, this difference was not clinically significant because it demonstrated only a 12% (CI, 3% to 21%) difference between acupuncture and placebo. Secondary outcomes showed a similar pattern.

But it sounds like this is a question for another topic.
 
 
EvskiG
01:44 / 13.06.07
On topic, there's always Dr. Nick Rivera:

"Sir, calm down, you're going to give yourself skin failure. The symptoms you describe lead me to believe that you are suffering from bonus eruptus, a rare disorder in which the skeleton tries to jump out of the skin. The only way to stop it is through transdental electromicide. I'll need a golf cart motor and a thousand volt capacimator, stat."
 
 
*
05:54 / 13.06.07
"Headache" was an unfortunate thing to pick to test, really, because there are about ten kinds of headache with ten different differentiations and different points for all of them, and almost any damn point on the head will treat at least one of those kinds of headache. The problem is you'd have to run the study on one specific differential diagnosis (which could manifest in several ways) to be valid from an acupuncture perspective, and that would never seem valid from a Western medicine perspective. You mean you're testing the same points for abdominal pain as you are for irritability and for headache behind the eyes? WITCHCRAFT!
 
 
Papess
12:18 / 13.06.07
Has someone already posted this:

Morphogenetic fields are basically non-physical blueprints that give birth to forms.
According to its founder, the biologist Rupert Sheldrake, a morphogenetic field, is an equivalent to an electromagnetic field that carries information only, not energy, and are available throughout time and space without any loss of intensity after they have been created.
Morphogenetic fields are created by the patterns of physical forms. They help guide the formation of later similar systems where a newly forming system "tunes into" a previous system by having within it a "seed" that resonates with a similar seed in the earlier form.
Morphogenetic fields can be used to describe how the human consciousness is shared. The Morphogenetic fields therefore play the main role in the idea that humanity at one point in time will go thru a dramatic collective shift in consciousness. A shift that will happen when the critical mass for a shift is reached, or in other words, when a certain number of spiritually awakened individuals are reached.


One of the difficulties with not being too scientific myself, and having all these sciencey terms floating around in relation to magick, it is hard to know what these terms actually mean. Then, how is that term applied to magick? I don;t know if it would be possible, but a science to magick dictionary would be really helpful. Say, how would the idea of an "atom" be represented in magickal context? To think of science in terms of magick, instead of the other way around. But still holding true to the science, of course.


'Trix, I'm sorry if the link distressed you it is however a Role Playing Game example rather than IRL. (though UA has some of the best RPG examples of magical techniques I've ever seen.)

I am not terribly swift sometimes, but I fail to see the role-playing game aspect to building a "hatebox". I can see the magickal work possible, but I don't think it is a necessarily healthy way to go about magickally dealing with one's emotions - especially hate and anger. If we want to think about magick scientifically, even a little bit, then compressing volatile substances/states seems like a disaster waiting to happen. At least, to me it does.
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:00 / 13.06.07
it is hard to know what these terms actually mean

In this case it seems to be another pseudoscientific "energy" that can't be detected (and, therefore, must exist because it can't be proven that it doesn't).

Although I hold my hand up to getting a bit crotchety about the way the word "energy" is used generally I can't really argue with it when used in reference to things like qi and reiki, etc. Energy is the amount of work physical systems can do on each other, so therefore it's accurate.

It's just the undetectable "glowy" lifeforce/morphogenetic energies that really wind me up. That come from these sites that talk with authority about these energies as though they were exactly the same as, for instance, gamma radiation (except, of course, they can be channeled and controlled by the human mind in a way no detectable energies can).

Doesn't mean they don't exist, I guess. Makes it quite unlikely though *

*From my reductionist mindset, naturally.
 
 
EvskiG
13:46 / 13.06.07
Although I hold my hand up to getting a bit crotchety about the way the word "energy" is used generally I can't really argue with it when used in reference to things like qi and reiki, etc. Energy is the amount of work physical systems can do on each other, so therefore it's accurate.

Huh?

From what I understand reiki posits that human touch, or gestures in the air, or mere thoughts from a distance, combined with the right intention, can manipulate some essentially unmeasurable "energy" in the body of a patient to heal that patient. This seems to me like an incredibly controversial, scientifically questionable position.

Here's Wikipedia:

Reiki energy is described as an "intelligent" energy, which "knows what to do," or "where it is needed the most." The Reiki energy will go where it needs to for healing. If the intended recipient does not accept the energy on some level, the energy will not be absorbed. Some schools teach that spirit guides keep watch over Reiki energy and assist the practitioner. It is said by them that any intention to do harm will block the flow of Reiki energy.

For all I know, all of this may be true. But it doesn't sound like any scientific definition of "energy" I know.
 
 
Ticker
14:20 / 13.06.07
I am not terribly swift sometimes, but I fail to see the role-playing game aspect to building a "hatebox". I can see the magickal work possible, but I don't think it is a necessarily healthy way to go about magickally dealing with one's emotions - especially hate and anger. If we want to think about magick scientifically, even a little bit, then compressing volatile substances/states seems like a disaster waiting to happen. At least, to me it does.

I fear Quantum and I are going to have to start a hidden top secret thread about RPG's that come up with workable magical systems and the pros and cons of using them IRL. If we put it out in public every wingnut possible will appear and we'll get booted out of the Temple. I cringe at even uttering such a possibility. That said the RPG UA is exceptional in tying magic to consequence. Trust me, hateboxing would IRL and does in game lead to all sorts of potential bad high weirdness.

Though after participating in this thread and looking at my own misappropriation of Science's relics I am quite tempted to willfully build some contraption, maybe get into joyboxing. There's some childlike wonder in combining bits of technology to do something unexpected. Sure I might just take a hand crank radio and turn it into the heart of a crystal glowing blissconfabulator, but you know that's not such a bad crazy personal hobby right there. I transformed a plastic cheesy toy carousel into a haunted burton-esque delight last year for a b-day gift so it's only a few extra steps to combine my talents into something really looney...

Check out some of the interesting overlap between art/science/magic at the American Visionary Art Museum.

Perhaps what I see as the divide between my approach and much of what we're poking fun of in this thread are the claims of effective mystical techniques *because* they're scientific (which is of course not true from a solid scientific POV). Trying to position magical practices inside of the scientific realm without using the scientific method to present proof is ridiculous and obviously crap science.

However as evident in the early days of the last century some scientific discoveries and processes lend themselves very well to a mystical bias. That's why to my thinking there were so many snake oil cures using electricity including electroshock therapy. Electricity, magnetism, gravity, hell even refrigeration and optics bring wonder and awe into our daily lives. It seems to me a modern magician should consider how to use these newish and omnipresent tools, albeit honestly and with a respectful attitude regarding the appropriation of Scientific toolsets.

Less about trying to trade on Science's prestige and credibility and more about tapping the awe, wonder, and dammit, the sheer 'holy crap look what I can do'.

Where's my soldering iron and dremel tool?
 
 
EvskiG
14:28 / 13.06.07
You always could build an orgone accumulator, or, better yet, a cloudbuster.

Here are the plans.
 
 
Papess
14:45 / 13.06.07
Trust me, hateboxing would IRL and does in game lead to all sorts of potential bad high weirdness.

Not only do I trust you about that, I trust my gut!

Though after participating in this thread and looking at my own misappropriation of Science's relics I am quite tempted to willfully build some contraption, maybe get into joyboxing.

To house joycore? *passes dremel tool to XK*
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
15:11 / 13.06.07
Trixy: Morphogenetic fields are basically non-physical blueprints that give birth to forms.

You know, it just occurred to me that somebody took Plato's idea of essential forms and scientificated it. Or rather, pseudoscientificated it. I wonder if rival gangs of Morphogeneticists employ spies to steal each others' "non-physical blueprints" using psionic mini-cameras in an ongoing Morphogenetic Cold War.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
15:14 / 13.06.07
Lol... can I quote that as being a one-upmanship in terms of nonsensical bollocks, or is it already taken?
 
 
Ticker
15:15 / 13.06.07
Ev G, not enough shiny blink bits. MORE.SHINY.BLINKY.BEEPITY!

Besides you can collect orgone by leaving water to charge in cobalt blue glass in sunlight.
 
 
Ticker
15:20 / 13.06.07
Also my dear ol' Dad does cloudbusting the old fashioned way. I remember being quite young and watching him do it in the backyard. I should go bug him to do it again for my nephews and niece. Never learned to do it myself as I'm not really into weather magic.
 
 
Papess
15:50 / 13.06.07
Trixy: Morphogenetic fields are basically non-physical blueprints that give birth to forms.

Just to be clear, I never said this. It's from that other site.

Oh! This one is a beaut...

Your Thoughts Are The Blueprint of What You Experience in Life
Some call this the law of attraction; others call it the matrix. In quantum physics it is called the collapse of a superposition. It is the moment when you have a thought or you make a decision! Movies like “What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?” and “The Secret” finally bringing this knowledge into the mainstream.


Here is a link to their "Scientific Background on Quantum Manifesting in a Nutshell". I Just don't know enough, but it looks suspicious, and very funny! I can see some truth in it, but I can also see the gratuitous use of scientific terms for concepts that are as the site claims itself "ancient wisdom". I imagine it would be to sell the concept to skeptics and atheists.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:22 / 13.06.07
Trix: Just to be clear, I never said this. It's from that

I know, I was just attributing for the sake of clarity.

others call it the matrix

That sets itself up, doesn't it?
 
 
Quantum
16:41 / 13.06.07
Where's my soldering iron and dremel tool?

Hang on... XK IS UNCLE CHUCKIE! I want my money back, your psionic helmet was rubbish! The helmet didn't automatically grab the psychic stuff as it came out of my head, run it around real fast and then shoot it out the top blasting it's way to the target, it just made me look silly!
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:43 / 13.06.07
Why did I have to click on those links? Now I have to go down the off-licence with a forklift truck again.
 
 
Quantum
17:02 / 13.06.07
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.


Don't click the links!
 
 
Ticker
17:17 / 13.06.07
no I is not this Chunkie you speak of. I is nobody's unkle.

Also I'm pretty sure non of my toys/services are for sale. You can ask and maybe I'll send you one for your b-day.

Sobriety is often burdensome when researching/enduring other people's beliefs.
 
 
Quantum
18:25 / 13.06.07
Why risk it- get drunk *before* reading new age guff and avoid the eyepain!

Ah, if only I had less scruples. My RPG character had some really plausible sounding theories* that justified all kinds of impossible science, and they were way more coherent than the stuff thousands of people swallow hook, line and sinker.

Talking of which-

From Mr. Emoto's work we are provided with factual evidence, that human vibrational energy, thoughts, words, ideas and music, affect the molecular structure of water, the very same water that comprises over seventy percent of a mature human body and covers the same amount of our planet. Water is the very source of all life on this planet, the quality and integrity are vitally important to all forms of life. The body is very much like a sponge and is composed of trillions of chambers called cells that hold liquid. The quality of our life is directly connected to the quality of our water.
...
Energized water has had its molecules returned to their original life-giving, super moisturizing state. This allows maximum moisture absorption into the cells of your body, pets and plants; a major key to healing, and the maintenance of health and vitality.



*go on, ask me, you know you want to
 
 
Ticker
18:40 / 13.06.07
super moisturizing state

Water becomes more watery? What quackfuckery is this?

Quants I think we need to take our RPG infected magical selves elsewhere to hold that particular conversation.
 
 
Quantum
19:00 / 13.06.07
What if we just pretend it's not pretend? My theory on subatomic rainbows is much more coherent and pragmatic than extra-wet memory water.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
19:32 / 13.06.07
One droplet of extra-wet memory water will continuously replenish your body's moisture levels and eradicate the need for conventional oil-based lotions. Absorbing your EWMW droplet will initiate a full transformation sequence in your body's natural water reserves to replicate its unique molecular structure.

Kurt Vonnegut is not dead, Emoto should be marketing Ice Nine, and I collect my five quid.
 
 
Ticker
19:43 / 13.06.07
What if we just pretend it's not pretend?

*le sigh*

Then we'd be endangering our immortal souls by becoming the foolish asshats who do that very thing without actually trying it out. If you actually try it out then you don't have to pretend to be using it. Don't make me ask TtS to give you the pikachu summoning lecture.

I'll build my blissconfabulator and you can ride the subatomic rainbows. Then we can talk about them as real things. Possibly stupid things but real nonetheless.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
20:11 / 13.06.07
I prefer my water amnesiac, but super-wetness, WHAT A GLORIOUS IDEA! Drinking just one drop a day, washing your clothes with a cuppa. Imagine the savings.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:29 / 13.06.07
Except you know that super-wet water would be super-expensive, super-wet water. It's the sort of financial plan that makes Lex Luthor, ahm, moist.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
21:14 / 13.06.07
Maybe, fishman. But hear this:

The following message about aliens was posted by UFO Gallery Aliens at 2007-02-27 10:44:40

The main raw material used to create the UFO flying saucer : jies gas

With jies gas will be able to create a flying saucer. Air from the gas molecules and jies gas composition, because of the existence of gas molecules can not be used in the production of the flying saucer. jies gas needs to pure space exploitation requires jies gas transported to the ground from space use However, it can also be used in space jies gas, creating the flying saucer, just inconvenient.

The principle of creating the UFO flying saucer

Quantum nuclear planet and is the prototype flying saucer, or they have been able to nearly Moving Light. If nuclear quantum become large enough or become small enough star and son with a large amount of containers carrying nuclear or small satellites, jies flow set up the import and export of additional storage and control system is a practical flying saucer. Electronics and electric and magnetic fields produced in the nucleus, atoms when they are combined, The electric and magnetic field combined electromagnetic field. Nuclear non-stop around the electromagnetic field of electronic campaign jies continued to put the body into space -- jies flow-ray or other particle quantum particles These particles on the velocity of light in the universe Lane campaign flight. Now what we need to do is to create such a suitable quantum of nuclear or sing.
[...]
Modern technology is no way of the flying saucer. It would take-off, landing and ground do not need ground command is able to weather any time movements, grounded, can be suspended Tingzaikongzhong than rocket technology we do not know how many superior. It would radically change our concept of time and space. It would put our solar system to reduce the size of the Earth, the Milky Way reduced to the size of the solar system. If the speed of 10,000 km per second flying saucer flying around the Earth in the last 1,000 meters of altitude week only four seconds, only half a minute to the Moon, Venus one more hour, Flores less than three hours, about 2 hours on Mars. Jupiter 17 half hours, the solar system would fly the farthest Pluto need only seven days time. Utilization rate superposition principle, for example, the use of multi-level flying saucer propulsion technology, as multi-stage rockets propulsion technology, will be able to increase the speed trap even superluminal speed of light, the theory is feasible. If that is so, then we become vulnerable to possible outside our solar system on the planet. For example, the recent stellar system is the solar system from Centaur Pakistani stars, the sun distance gap of 1.3 seconds or 4.2 light years. is 40 trillion km, the distance from the Earth to the sun's 270,000 times. If the speed of 10,000 km per second flight will take about 30 years, if we need to target for Flight 420, If superluminal flight to five times the speed of light, only 10 months, flying 10 times the speed of light, only five months. In jies school age, and health "jies gashealth technology" that could lead to a specific function like qigong (potential life). It would be able to adapt to the environment, with Magic, which can solve the food problem.


That was our correspondent from China
 
 
Quantum
22:53 / 13.06.07
becoming the foolish asshats who do that very thing without actually trying it out.

Haha, not here silly, I was thinking of setting up a website and charging for subatomic colour healing. By 'pretend it's not pretend' what I meant was 'cheating gullible fools out of their cash'. It's wrong to be tempted, I know, but when people buy extra-wet water and 'What the Bleep' is a bestseller and I'm poor you can see why I might consider marketing nonsensical quantum gizmos.
Ah well.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
22:59 / 13.06.07
Huh! I've been waiting for the right moment to get my AURACLEANSER2012 down from the loft and into a showroom. Such solid craftmanship too.
 
 
brother george
19:56 / 17.06.07
I'm amazed no one mentioned Time Cube !

Cubic Creation of 4 corner
separate simultaneous 24
hour Days within 1 Earth
rotation - transcends and
contradicts the 1 Day
rotation/1 God Creation
of Christianity - and all
ONEism / Singularity
religions - proving them
to constitute Evil on Earth
for the parallel Opposites.


In all its 64 px size font colorful glory

[Mod note: contains antisemetic and homophobic hatespeech.]
 
 
Quantum
10:45 / 18.06.07
Wikipedia claim that the
Time Cube is non-science
constitutes a Grave error
by the half-brain bastard
who can't think opposite
of the lies he was taught.

I was born to think Cubic
as in a 4 corner family life,
therefore I rise above you.
You are educated Stupid,
You are educated Evil ---


Wow.
 
  

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