defense of Wozniak
a reader
one article is much more informative than reading the dozens of blogs
of those who fail at polyphasic schedules (speaking of which, the
creator of the uberman is now on a biphasic pattern, though for some
reason prefers to call it "Everyman"). There is a lot, even for
experienced and inexperienced polyphasic sleepers to learn from the
article. First, the man received his first master's in molecular
biology, then another master's in computer science, and then a PhD
combining his work on learning, memory and computer software. From
Wozniak's interest in learning and memory, he began to study sleep.
He has been studying this material since the 1980s. Instead of
dismissing his scholarly research, perhaps it would be worth learning
from it. And, as he puts it at the end of his essay, it would be
worth trying to have your body work for you and not against you.
For example, the polyphasic community really stresses creating a
strict pattern (or regiment) based on a 24 day, especially in the
first month of "adapting." Wozniak's research suggests that most
human sleep cycles do not have a 24 hour period, but are slightly
longer (though, some have shorter periods). His article on free-
running sleep describes the periods of normal people as well as those
with different kinds of sleep disturbance. If someone wants to change
their sleep cycles, it would be very helpful to figure out what their
period for their sleep cycle currently is. Once the period is
determined (you can use his free sleep software), if you want to begin
some sort of polyphasic schedule, you can use the knowledge of your
individual sleep period to stagger your naps and/or core to that
period--rather than attempting to match it to the 24 hour clock that
is different from your body's clock.
Futhermore, Wozniak is quite right in criticizing the pseudoscience of
the polyphasic community. In this thread, a member asserts that he
dropped into REM while wide awake; I mean no offense to that person,
but were you hooked up to a polysomnogram? What does it even mean to
be in REM while awake? How did you know this was REM sleep--because
from all accounts, it sounds like simple sleep deprivation. Try
telling a sleep scientist (not Wozniak, try any sleep scientist) that
by staying awake and reading, you managed to drop into REM sleep while
awake...Statements like this are speculation, plain and simple--and
Wozniak, as a scientist, has somewhat of an obligation to explore the
pseudoscientific theories that are rampant in polyphasic literature.
While this may be insulting to some, it is certainly insulting to
scientists to tell them you were awake in REM sleep while up reading
late one night. Let me quote Wozniak quoting a polyphasic blog: "When
my naps fell short and I was forced to awaken from the deepest stage
of NREM, it was quite apparent that my brain was not immediately
producing the neurotransmitters histamine or serotonin"--the reason he
includes these pseudoscientific gems is to display the lack of
scientific evidence and the almost total reliance upon anecdotal
evidence and pseudoscientific claims. Try telling a psychiatrist or
physician about waking up and finding that your brain was not
immediately producing serotonin; better yet, tell them about a friend
who claimed this--that way they may not stifle their laugh out of
courtesy. For a community that criticizes the lack of scientific
vigor in Wozniak's writings, it could vastly improve its public image
by criticizing the lack of scientific vigor within the polyphasic
community.
There are plenty of things the polyphasic community seems to misread
or ignore in Wozniak's article, most likely from a lack of familiarity
with scientific research. There is a range of normal behavior that
Wozniak expects. It seems likely that the majority of people who
experiment with polyphasic schedules suffer from some form of sleep
disturbance--this is admittedly true of the inventor of the uberman,
who was suffering self-diagnosed insomnia. Those who try adopting an
uberman schedule frequently come across as manic or hypomanic from a
psychiatric standpoint (especially the "euphoria" described). People
suffering from sleep disturbances or psychiatric illness obviously
will fall out of the norm. For that reason, the creator of the
uberman should not take it so personal--after all, he admits that any
successful polyphasic sleeper may indeed be suffering from a sleep
disorder.
I want to stress: Wozniak does not say that only men experiment with
polyphasic sleep. This is the most common complaint I have seen about
the man (no doubt stemming from the fact that the uberman was named
and first tried by two women). Instead, Wozniak seeks to describe why
men are predominantly the ones to engage in polyphasic sleep. In his
explanation, he links it to testosterone and mentions several other
character traits scientifically linked with this predominantly male
hormone. If you read his statement like most of the polyphasic
community seems to, you would assume he does not think women ever
attain a leadership position either. This is silly; Wozniak is doing
the same thing as those that researched leadership and saw a
predominantly male population (look at the US Senate!). No researcher
is saying that women do not gain leadership positions, nor that they
may experiment with polyphasic sleep--instead, they are attempting to
explain why the majority, in each case, is male. Please stop
criticizing Wozniak on this point--it is a blatant misreading of the
man.
I think that his conclusions get a lot of flak from this community--
let me take the first two:
"1. Healthy humans cannot entrain polyphasic sleep without a degree
of sleep deprivation. It is not possible to sleep polyphasically and
retain one's maximum creativity, alertness, and health in the long
run"
----This is backed up by every single scientific study--from NASA to
Italian pilots to Stampi. No scientific study sees polyphasic
sleeping as beneficial in a long run, and basically every study has
tried to quantify and qualify the amount of alertness lost by
polyphasic sleeping. The only person who seems to think a polyphasic
lifestyle could have a benefit was Buckminster Fuller, who thought
that the great leaders should adopt the schedule during wartime.
However, Fuller's recommendation was based on his own experience and
no others. More on Fuller later.
"2. Whoever claims to be on a perpetual polyphasic schedule must be
either suffering from a sleep disorder, or be a liar, a mutant, or a
person with a mulishly stubborn iron-will that lets him plod through
the daily torture of sleep deprivation"
-----This seems to be true. Those on longterm polyphasic schedules
generally admit to one form of sleep disorder or another (though
often--or maybe even always--self-diagnosed). It is unfortunate he
chose the word liar--but let's say that instead of liar, he means
someone who tells a falsehood or misrepresents the situation
(deliberate or not). This is somewhat true; some members of the
polyphasic community try to label biphasic sleep as polyphasic. By
claiming to be polyphasic while on a normal biphasic schedule, it is a
misrepresentation of the facts; ie, these individuals are not
polyphasic, but they are claiming to be. I would not call these
people liars, and I'll admit that the term probably wouldn't have come
up if Wozniak's article was peer-reviewed; however, I believe that
many "successful" polyphasic sleepers may somewhat misrepresent
themselves. As for mutant, there is the case of the man who lost the
ability to sleep, who can be put in that camp; there will surely be
others. Finally, as for the mulishly stubborn iron-will--this seems
true for the majority of (semi-)successful sleep--they still complain
about being tired frequently (though there are "highs" or "euphoria"
that may be indicative of other sleep/psychiatric disorders including
mania and hypomania). There are frequent claims that they feel tired
on a monophasic schedule as well--but as these blogs/experiences are
anecdotal and not scientific, there is really very little qualitative
or quantitative data on if they perform better or worse on mono- or
polyphasic schedules. Since all scientific data suggests that
polyphasic sleep results in below-average performance and/or
alertness, I see little reason to disagree with NASA, Italian pilots,
or solo sailmen. It has been suggested there is a bias against
polyphasic sleep--but in most scientific studies, especially pilots
and NASA, it seems that they would desperately want polyphasic sleep
to be successful. With their goals in mind, I can see no reason
scientific studies would want to suppress the efficacies of polyphasic
sleeping.
Finally, regarding Buckminster Fuller--Wozniak talked to the man's
biographers. Though Fuller is reported to have stayed on his Dymaxion
schedule for a couple years, the comments from his biographers suggest
he followed some variation of a free-running sleep schedule for most
of his life.
I would encourage potential polyphasics to try and perhaps adapt to a
free-running sleep schedule. Whenever I want/need to rearrange my own
sleep schedule, I will go for an 18 to 36 hour of sleep deprivation,
then begin a free-running schedule. I have found that my free-running
schedule is fairly polyphasic (2 to 4 hours of sleep per night, with
(usually) two naps ranging from 45 minutes to around an hour). This
is the schedule that I return to time after time, though I can miss
one or both naps and sleep a little longer at night if the situation
calls for it. When I was 17 to 18, I would frequently "crash" once a
week, getting 10-12 hours of sleep while still continuing to nap at
least once that day. Within the last few years, this "crash" occurs
once a month or maybe even once every six weeks.
In terms of the science of sleep, learning and memory, I think that
Wozniak's free-running sleep is probably ideal.
However, I think that the polyphasic community is probably a community
of folks unsatisfied with monophasic sleep. This may because of
legitimate sleep disorders or because their bodies are more suited for
biphasic sleep or perhaps some sort of "everyman" with a couple naps.
I had no clue there were names for my sleep schedules a couple weeks
ago. Then, reading about Buckminster Fuller, I came across Dymaxion
sleep. I eventually found Wozniak's paper, and although it suggests
that biphasic sleep is "normal", I have been taking one or two naps
for years and felt this was normal for me. I think that instead of
trying something that lacks scientific validity, give free-running
sleep a try. You may find that you tend towards some variation of the
everyman by simply sleeping on a free-running schedule. I sleep less
than monophasic sleepers (except the odd crash day), but from a free-
running schedule, it is pretty easy to pull an all-nighter or miss a
couple naps and easily make up for it without making driving or other
activities dangerous. Furthermore, it seems far far healthier to
allow for at least one substantial sleep period in terms of memory and
brain function.
puredoxyk
from people who lack scientific data acting as though they have it,
usually because they've spotted that the other guy doesn't. Wozniak
does this, and you do it too, for example here:
"Those who try adopting an uberman schedule frequently come across as
manic or hypomanic from a psychiatric standpoint (especially the
"euphoria" described)."
--If that's not a load of pseudoscientific hogwash, then I don't know
what is. I guarantee that if my friend the psychologist read that,
she'd laugh just as hard as any sleep-scientist would at the wonky
comment about REM sleep that you pointed out. Pseudoscience is not
hard to come by in any case, but especially when there isn't real
research to counter it with -- and remembering that we don't have that
research, and unfortunately aren't likely to get it soon, is a major
challenge that polyphasers face. (But not a challenge that our
detractors DON'T face, and they forget this every bit as often as we
do.)
The polyphasic community has grown large, and some members in it have
started spouting pseudoscientificalities -- I suppose in any large
group of humans, that's bound to happen -- but I and the people I "run
with" in terms of polyphasic discussion have tried hard to stick with
"there is no scientific data on this", and to discuss things as
honestly as possible based on what we know, which is almost 100%
testimonial evidence (except for Stampi). What galls many of us about
Wozniak's paper (and its attendant pseudoscientific conclusions) is
that he doesn't even HAVE testimonial evidence to go on -- he's never
tried it, witnessed someone trying it or as far as we know, even
talked to someone who's done it -- but he has no problem swinging the
BanHammer of Science (i.e. claiming unilaterally that "polyphasic
sleep can't work") based on nothing but his own street-cred in the
scientific community. Hell, he even ignores the one bit of good
research that IS out there -- Stampi's -- and furthermore uses
testimonial evidence to support his claim AGAINST polyphasic sleep
working, but won't allow testimonial evidence FOR it.
As I said in my original post about it, I have little argument with
the facts of science that Wozniak writes about; it's immediately
apparent that he knows his stuff about sleep and sleep-studies. But
that isn't the same as knowing about polyphasic sleep. Since knowing
about polyphasic sleep can only be done, presently, by doing it, or
interviewing people who've done it, then everything Dr. Wozniak has to
say is completely his opinion, informed by nothing but who he is and
stuff he read on the Internet. And that's fine (or it would be fine
if he wasn't claiming it was something else); but it is also exactly
the same thing I have to go on -- my opinion and what I've read on the
Internet -- except that, instead of knowing nothing about polyphasic
sleep and a lot about sleep-science, I happen to know little about
sleep-science and a whole lot about polyphasic sleep. In my eyes,
that makes our opinions pretty equal on the subject, at least.
Also, imagine that you're black. Now imagine that some scientist
presents to you "evidence" for why "hormonal factors" can "explain"
why there aren't many blacks serving in Congress. Obviously there are
a thousand million social, economic, and systemic (i.e. caused by the
structure of the system) reasons that better explain this, but because
they love to sound "objective", the scientists would rather show why
you blacks (or you women) are *inherently, physically* not cut out for
whatever it is you do less of. (In the case of polyphasic sleep, to
even say that women do it less is a gross generalization that can't
possibly be based on any evidence at this point. What are we
counting? Blogs? A ninth-grade scientist would tell you that, if
there are more polyphasic blogs by men (and I have no proof that there
are), to draw any conclusion other than "more men BLOG ABOUT
polyphasic sleep" is the worst kind of intellectual laziness.)
Science as an institution has been making those kind of statements
about women and racial minorities etc. for years, and not only are
they unscientific (I won't even grant them the grandiosity of being
labeled "pseudoscience"), but when you're in the group that quote-
unquote-facts are being used to discount, label, or pigeonhole, a
claim like that is absolutely insulting. I won't apologize for
reacting to it that way.
Lastly, thank you for sharing your experience with free-running sleep;
I'm always interested in hearing more about that, even if I can't
imagine making it work IRL. You seem to have invented some arguments
from me about how polyphasic sleep must be the same for everybody, and
inferred that the human tendency to not live on exactly a 24-hour
clock somehow means polyphasic sleep won't work, but I've said from
the beginning and everywhere that all sleep-schedules would need to be
tailored to some extent to the individual. (Monophasic schedules are;
why wouldn't polyphasic?) I think that in a perfect situation, free-
running sleep would be the ideal polyphasic implementation; but the
reality of hammering it out and fitting it around any kind of
scheduled tasks seems unrealistic to most people -- I think the
polyphasic schedules provide something of an answer to this, by being
efficient schedules that anyone (well, anyone who wants to and can
sleep polyphasically; I understand that's probably a small percentage
of "everyone") can adopt and make work for them with just a little
tweaking, usually. As I've often said, I still can't explain WHY
these schedules seem to work, but I don't need science to confirm for
me that they CAN work. (Human beings as a whole, though, will need
science to confirm the viability of polyphasic sleep, especially in
the long term, which is why I remain hopeful that those studies will
get done, eventually. And I've babbled long enough, but I'd like to
add one more thing, if I may: Personally, my reaction to Dr.
Wozniak's writeup was colored by many things: sexism and
pseudoscientificism were among them, but another prominent thing was
my disappointment, because Wozniak was--is--someone whose pull could
have helped make real scientific exploration of polyphasic sleep
happen sooner. Instead he read some poorly-written blogs and decided
it wasn't worth anything but a sharp, but shallow, retort. I confess
that made me angry. I've largely gotten over it, but it's definitely
there, in my early writeup -- which is one of the reasons I didn't
send that writeup to Dr. W or use it to pry open a bigger
dialogue...best not to do those things angry, eh?)
Oh, and I'm sorry you don't approve of my labeling of "Everyman 6/1",
which you prefer to call biphasic. I'm also sorry that my living on
Everyman 3 for almost three and a half years was not enough to
convince you that it's a viable schedule...but having done that, I now
feel pretty safe concluding that people who still don't find my
experience convincing at this point, simply aren't going to be
convinced (unless perhaps--in spite of articles like Dr. Wozniak's--
the scientific research gets done that could support polyphasic sleep
further). I am sorry that the situation as it is upsets you, but
since I'm not in a position to perform, fund, or quit my job and
dedicate my life to demanding scientific research, I'm afraid that's
what we're left with. Let's both cross our fingers that other
scientists eventually see the merit in further research on polyphasic
sleep, so we all have more to argue about later, yes? ;)
I apologize to the group for taking up so much space here...back
behind the mod-curtain I go! ;)
PureDoxyk
Michael Turner
uncomfortable to be joined in these critiques by someone who clearly
can't meet Dr. Wozniak's own standards for scientific opinion. For
example, "a reader" writes:
> ... It seems likely that the majority of people who
> experiment with polyphasic schedules suffer from some form of sleep
> disturbance ....
Though "a reader" notes one case (PureDoxyk) of claims for treating
sleep disorders with uberman, no substantiation of this supposed
"likelihood" follows. I don't think Wozniak would approve of putting
things this way. It's anecdotal evidence, pure and simple.
Something else that bothers me is a lack of citation, or better,
direct quote, where some decidedly serious claims are made. For
example, "a reader" claims that "the creator of the uberman [sleep
schedule] should not take it so personal--after all, he admits that
any successful polyphasic sleeper may indeed be suffering from a sleep
disorder."
Leaving aside that PD identifies as a "she", not a "he", I must say
that, in the course of several years of following her writings on this
list and on her blog about polyphasic sleep, I can't remember one
instance where she said that having a sleep disorder might be a
prerequisite to success with polyphasic sleep. Source, please? I'm
sure if Dr. Wozniak were reading this, he'd cringe to know that such
sloppy scholarship was being used to support his point of views on
this subject.
Then there's this:
> I want to stress: Wozniak does not say that only men experiment with
> polyphasic sleep.
That's a bit disingenuous isn't it, given what his actual words were?
No, he doesn't say that. He says "Why don't we hear of polyphasic
women?". Well, now, I don't want to rant here against *him*, but
that's a little unscientific and tendentious, isn't it? Who is "we"?
Really, at that point, a true scientist (like Dr. Wozniak) would say
something more like this:
"Anonymity on the web has made it difficult to identify any claimed
female polyphasic sleepers. Of those seen by this researcher claiming
a gender [footnote][footnote][footnote].....[footnote], all are male."
THEN it would be followed by taht line of speculation about why --
which, by the way, I don't really have too much of a problem with.
Men have the apocryphal role models (da Vinci, Edison), etc. Men are
more prone to risk-taking (especially young ment). Men are more
competitive because of testosterone. Sure. (But anecdotally, I have
an impression that young *women* succeed at higher rates than men,
with uberman.)
[snip]
> Please stop criticizing Wozniak on this point--it is a blatant misreading of the
> man.
Now, speaking as someone who recently defended Wozniak on this very
point, in this forum, I think that this "blatant" is uncalled for.
Consider the obscure context required to even see it as a misreading:
(1) You have to know that PD "came out" as female somewhat later than
Wozniak posted his "Facts and Myths" piece, and that yet other women
who had apparently successfully transitioned to ultrashort schedules
had yet to become obvious.
(2) You have to know that a likely reason there's been no response
since 2005 is that Wozniak basically hides from the world and pursues
a research agenda decoupled from any external pressures to review the
status of his various speculations and hypotheses. So decoupled is
he, in fact, that the man who actually *runs* Supermemo, the company
Wozniak founded, says he sometimes isn't apprised of Wozniak's
whereabouts, and sometimes has to wait four months for an e-mail reply
from him. Very few people in the world remain so out of touch on
subjects about which they written seriously.
I believe these two facts make Wozniak's problematic statement about
polyphasic and gender, even as late as 2010, more forgiveable.
However, I also believe that it's not a "blatant" (which I take to
mean "intentional") misreading of Wozniak to express a some
unhappiness about this statement, when you consider the effort
required to learn the context in which it can be seen as forgiveable.
As I'm sure Dr. Wozniak himself would agree -- after all, whatever his
eccentricities, he's clearly an intelligent man, and I see no reason
to question his integrity.
In closing, let me say this: despite the differences between his views
and those of the polyphasic community (hardly uniform and flawless
themselves) I think Dr. Wozniak should be considered a kindred spirit
by the community. He's someone who's clearly pushing the frontiers of
human potential, just (mainly) at a different border: learning.
Respect is a two-way street, and I think if we respectfully (but
persistently) point out where we think he is in error, he will (in his
own good time, of course) modify his views where it's scientifically
appropriate. Defending him in *unscientific* terms, as "a reader"
does here, however, is not progress in that direction. It only
polarizes an "us" against both Wozniak and "a reader". On net, then,
I'd say "a reader" is doing both Wozniak and the polyphasic community
a disservice, notwithstanding the merits of much of what he says in
this post.
-michael turner
Someone Anonymously
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Daniel Smith
most animals are polyphasic and so must be humans
adaptation period is hard but it ends at some point
polyphasic sleep saves you time
polyphasic naps are REM-only
you are more alert if you sleep polyphasically
you are more productive if you sleep polyphasically
you lose weight on the polyphasic sleep schedule (opposite may happen)
polyphasic sleep is healthy
long naps are bad for you
many naps are better than one nap even if you are not sleep deprived (see FAQ for more)
Claudio Stampi recommends polyphasic sleep to everyone
polyphasic sleep maximizes the amount of REM an individual gets
Daniel Smith
http://www.schaumburggoclub.org/
Charlotte Ellett
HalfABrain
think Piotr Wozniak's article really IS that horrible, and reading his
one article is only much more informative that reading dozens of blogs
if you only want one very opinionated side of the issue. And if you
don't mind getting misinformation and pure opinion stated as fact.
Wozniak has no pretense of being fair or balanced. He makes no
apology for his one-sided and blatantly biased criticisms of
Polyphasic sleep. He excuses this by saying "The article is as biased
against polyphasic sleep as you would expect an article written by an
oncologist to be biased against smoking." What an excellent example
of a False Analogy! Where are the studies that show how polphasic
sleep will cause cancer? Where are the pictures of blackened lungs
this dangerous practice is supposed to cause?
The other big beef I have is what you call "scholarly research" I call
the exact same form of pseudoscience Wozniak rants against. He makes
a big deal (rightly so) out of "Theories" that Polyphasic sleepers
come up with to try to explain what they're seeing. He states (again,
possibly rightly so) that these theories have nothing to do with
Science. Certainly these folks don't pretend to have any scientific
evidence to back up what they're thinking. They're just making
guesses.
But then Wozniak goes out and does the EXACT SAME THING he was ranting
against. He puts out a bunch of his own theories. No scientific
evidence to back them up, either. Did you miss the blatant irony of
this? Why are his theories any better than those of the people he is
ridiculing? Because he has a P.H.D.? Did you even READ his sleepy
potion and hourglass model? Talk about theories that have nothing to
do with Science! The hypocrisy of this is unbelievable!
You're claiming that Wozniak's article is based on Science, and that
I'm mis-representing it most likely from lack of familiarity with
scientific research? Please familiarize me with the scientific
research you're talking about. From what I could see, most of his
conclusions were either based on his own personal observations, or
just guesses. Here is what he says about women:
"Why don't we hear of polyphasic women? Their sleep physiology is not
much different from male sleep physiology. The answer lies in the
links between hormones and personality."
You call that Science? Talk about speculation, plain and simple!
When Wozniak shows us a study (or even a simple survey) that shows
some link between polyphasic sleepers and testosterone, then you can
think about criticizing me for pseudoscience. Not that I have ever
claimed any scientific vigor. Show me some of Wozniak's vigor, and
maybe you can make your point. Your double standard is incredible.
> In terms of the science of sleep, learning and memory, ...
>
> read more »
jerry1962
That was me who spoke of falling into REM while wide awake. How did I
know I was doing this? The symptoms, viz, seeing a bright light,
twitching sensations, and distortion of body image. (I really did feel
that some other body was moving around inside my own physical body.)
These symptoms are detailed in Dr. Stephen LaBerge's works about lucid
dreaming, which takes place during REM sleep.
As for your other point? I noticed almost right away that Dr. Wozniak
ignored a lot of evidence that supported polyphasic sleep, and picked
out single sentences, *often from the same source*, that did not
support it. That's disingenuous, and in my opinion, a half a step away
from lying.
And I detest liars, especially from scientists, who're the ones we
usually look up to for the truth. Dr. Wozniak? Guilty as charged.
> ...
>
> read more »
Daniel Smith
> ...
>
> read more »
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jerry1962
I wrote the preceding entry after just waking up. I apologize for its
lack of clarity.
You asked the question,"How did I know I fell into REM sleep"? The
answer is that it fit the symptoms, which were "seeing a bright light,
body twitches, and the sensation that my "inner body" inside me was
jumping around like a Mexican jumping bean." These are symptoms laid
out in S. LaBerge's tome Lucid Dreaming--the symptoms which signify
the onset of REM sleep.
To continue on in this vein of thought, I knew when I fell into SWS
for the same reason--I recognized the symptoms. Falling into SWS is
more like fainting or otherwise losing consciousness: a blackness that
descends on you.
On an unrelated note, I see that you did not address the cherry-
picking Dr. Wozniak did. I find that this cherry-picking is too big to
let go because it casts grave doubts on his credibility. If he's
dishonest on a paper on polyphasic sleep, who's to say he's not being
honest about the product he sells?
The difference between everybody here and the doctor is that we ADMIT
that we don't know all the answers an polyphasic sleep, while he
insists that he does.
On Feb 26, 12:29 pm, Daniel Smith <lukenin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @jerry, (& Charlotte)--
>
> I also have fallen into a dream or dream like state while reading (while
> very sleep deprived during my adaptation); it was weird, my brain continued
> the story, and I was still looking at words on the page, but they were
> getting replaced with a dream-story, which would begin very convincingly and
> then get less and less like the book I was reading. I would snap to after
> reading a paragraph or so and realize that what I'd just "read" wasn't
> remotely like what was written.
>
> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Michael Turner
I replied to Jerry on that thread, consciously choosing to *not* get
into whether he was expressing himself scientifically, when he talked
about going immediately into REM. I wasn't very interested in
correcting him at that point (or ever, really). He was pursuing a
line of speculation that seemed useful to me, in developing my theory
of hexaphasic nap entrainment through 6 equally space meals in a day.
That was enough.
If I *had* been overridingly concerned with his scientific accuracy, I
might have responded to Jerry something like this:
"It would be more accurate to say that you experienced no subjective
delay between a waking state and a dream in which you saw things very
similar to your last waking experience: reading a book in the early
hours of the morning. Dreams correlate with REM, but there are non-
REM dreams. Dreams often contain images from recent experience, and
if you nodded off and went into a dream quickly enough, your sensorium
might still retain an eidetic image of the book in front of you. Time
perception of non-dream sleep stages can be very distorted --
lengthening or telescoping dramatically. Without direct external
observation and instrumentation, you can't really support your
statement."
But this would have been beside the point, and in my long experience
on this group, I've found that getting pedantic about every little
thing just antagonizes people. To what end? Even if the list
membership of 700+ overstates actual participant numbers by an order
of magnitude, the list still represents a huge resource of intuitions,
experiences, and capacity for co-theorizing that I can't easily get
elsewhere. It's far from scientifically perfect, of course. AFAIK,
there's only one known actual scientist among the members, and
Cavendish is not a sleep scientist. (Maybe Sara Mednick is lurking?
I think she was a member once.) My own intuitions, experiences and
theorizing will also be highly imperfect. And science itself is not a
perfect process, even if it tends to converge eventually on good
answers.
So I've just decided to just try to take whatever insights and data I
can get here, where they seem useful, and to only get very stiff about
scientific standards in two circumstances:
(1) when I believe someone is clearly wildly off-base, to the point of
possibly hampering other people's progress or misinforming them in
ways that might be unhealthy,
or
(2) when I've proposed a theory and people are attacking it without
first carefully acquainting themselves with the evidence (or, for that
matter, with what I'm actually proposing.)
It's not easy for me to dial it back like this, because I'm very
analytical and fairly critical, by nature. But if I can't muster the
determination to change in this way, how likely am I to gain the will-
power (not to speak of community support here) for taking even a
gradualistic approach to uberman?
-michael turner
jerry1962
the beginning of that post, I insisted.....and I mean insisted...that
my ideas were not science. ;)
One essential point has been missed by the OP. That point is that
polyphasic sleep isn't necessarily the issue, anyway; the issue is
psychological. (Michael, remember the snide remark I made about
scientists and intuition?)
Dr. Wozniak may have "boo-coo" degrees under his belt, but he
apparently has no grasp of human psychology whatsoever. Take a look
at the psychology: all of these people in this polyphasic group are
assessing his paper as "dishonest" because of some cherry-picking that
he did. Of course, none of us is going to believe a word a dishonest
scientist says.
Apparently he has tunnel vision too much to realize this.
On Feb 26, 10:50 pm, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> ...
>
> read more »
Michael Turner
theories need to be falsifiable, an apparent black/white absolute. In
practice, falsifiability tends to be a matter of degree, since most
theories have multiple failure points.
You could pile all current ubersleepers in the world into Wozniak's
office, demonstrating to him daily that their performance was
unimpaired compared to baseline, and he'd still have his defense that
it's just some weird mutation. You'd have to get some genetically-
representative, statistically significant sample of the human race
doing much the same, in long-running, repeated, double-blind
experiments run by reputable sleep researchers, before his skepticism
might be overcome. What are the chances of that?
Look at plate tectonics. It's been high school science textbook
material for a couple decades now, at least, but a quite reputable
geologist died in 2002, the last of his tribe, still refusing to
believe in it. He wasn't stupid. Just unusually stubborn, and with
unusually high standards for evidence. Maybe he was ego-invested in
some alternative, I don't know. Wozniak's clearly ego- (and
business-?) invested in free-running sleep. That makes swaying him
toward neutrality, at least, no easier.
Our time is, I repeat, better spent building up solid evidence and
documentation (www.polyphasicsleep.info anyone?), and improving the
pagerank of those sources, to the point where they look better, and
are clearly more popular, than Wozniak's Facts and Myths essay on the
web.
But more important: those sources should actually BE objectively
better. I instigated the No Minors policy here to help make
polyphasic look more socially responsible. But that's pure defense.
Making polyphasic more *intellectually* responsible is offense.
Offense may be the better half of defense, but it's necessarily much
more difficult. I know. I probably put three days of full-time work
into the Dymaxion article at polyphasicsleep.info. I did it mainly
because I got tired of hearing about failures with that schedule
(which, unlike Uberman, has no sleep-theoretical motivation at all),
and wanted to put some some substance behind my warnings to avoid it.
But people are still getting it wrong -- e.g., our "a reader" here
says Fuller advocated some such schedule as a *lifestyle*, even though
the Time article itself shows him advocating it for *the war effort*.
And "a reader" hikes Fuller up as poster child for free-running sleep,
citing "biographers" he's talked to -- even though Fuller's
biographers actually all say different things about what Fuller
reported of his sleeping and napping, casting the reliability of all
these second- and third-hand sources into doubt.
-michael turner
Boreale
articles I wrote on my blog as answers to Wozniac's denial :
http://www.lafabriquedesidees.com/2009/01/le-sommeil-polyphasique-est-il-impossible-wozniac/
http://www.lafabriquedesidees.com/2009/02/le-sommeil-polyphasique-est-il-impossible-adaptation/
As I said, after having read Wozniac's text, I asked myself : am I
living an impossible life ? And... DO I EVEN EXIST ??? ;-)
That being said, I join my voice to Puredoxyk : beginning his article,
I was excited to read scientific facts about polyphasic sleep, whether
it be to say it's wrong or it's good.
At the end of the article, I was disappointed, and shocked by such a
spread of subjectivity, from someone claiming his scientific
legitimity.
("A reader" may be right about some people in the polyphasic community
claiming some pseudoscientific assertions, but the big difference is
that they don't call themselves big scientists.)
Not to say that I also felt insulted, both as woman and as polyphaser.
But the main problem with Wozniac's article remains that it is an
insult toward the scientific method.
jerry1962
polyphasic community
claiming some pseudoscientific assertions, but the big difference is
that they don't call themselves big scientists.)"
That's right, Boreale. Most of our ideas aim to make adapting to
Uberman easier. We don't pretend to know all the answers; instead, we
posit ideas.
From Michael: "Our time is, I repeat, better spent building up solid
evidence and
documentation (www.polyphasicsleep.info anyone?), and improving the
pagerank of those sources, to the point where they look better, and
are clearly more popular, than Wozniak's Facts and Myths essay on the
web"
You are right, Michael.
Why don't we just forget about him? We can't change him.
On Feb 27, 5:22 am, Boreale <basten...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The few french readers out there can also refer to the series of
> articles I wrote on my blog as answers to Wozniac's denial :http://www.lafabriquedesidees.com/2009/01/le-sommeil-polyphasique-est...http://www.lafabriquedesidees.com/2009/02/le-sommeil-polyphasique-est...
zade
> strict pattern (or regiment) based on a 24 day, especially in the
> first month of "adapting." Wozniak's research suggests that most
> human sleep cycles do not have a 24 hour period, but are slightly
> longer (though, some have shorter periods). His article on free-
> running sleep describes the periods of normal people as well as those
> with different kinds of sleep disturbance. If someone wants to change
> their sleep cycles, it would be very helpful to figure out what their
> period for their sleep cycle currently is. Once the period is
> determined (you can use his free sleep software), if you want to begin
> some sort of polyphasic schedule, you can use the knowledge of your
> individual sleep period to stagger your naps and/or core to that
> period--rather than attempting to match it to the 24 hour clock that
> is different from your body's clock.
It is true that most people have circadian cycles longer than 24
hours. But in healthy people this difference is not large. And every
day their circadian cycle shifts to adapt to day and night cycle.
People who have abnormally long circadian cycles would have problem in
adapting to day and night cycles every day. For them free-running
sleep might be the best option. For everyone else, following a 24 hour
schedule would be most natural.
> In terms of the science of sleep, learning and memory,...
>
> read more »
zade
> know I was doing this? The symptoms, viz, seeing a bright light,
> twitching sensations, and distortion of body image. (I really did feel
> that some other body was moving around inside my own physical body.)
> These symptoms are detailed in Dr. Stephen LaBerge's works about lucid
> dreaming, which takes place during REM sleep.
The state that you describe is most probably Hypnagogia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
and it is really very REM-like
> > > "1. Healthy...
>
> read more »
jerry1962
fell swoop.
Michael contended that my dropping into REM was really eidetic
imagery; you contend that it was really hypnogogia.
It is not your fault that you don't know this, but at one time I was a
*very* advanced practicioner of dream recall. So I already knew about
hypnogogia, eidetic imagery, slow-wave sleep (and the dreams that
occur then), and of course REM sleep dreams. (There is a fifth
category I've never seen described anywhere.)
Hypnogogia is experienced in the earliest stages of sleep and consists
of fleeting, mostly-disconnected images. Slow-wave sleep features
vague, chaotic images that are usually tied together in some kind of a
common theme. (Very seldom are they remembered by most people, but
after a spell, I could.) After SWS moves into REM, the dreams begin to
take on a melodramatic tone and "carry a story". It is during REM
sleep that lucid dreaming occurs, which I've done many times. For
those who've never lucid dreamt, it's Playtime with a Capital P, a
worthy endeavor in its own right. (If you want to look at polyphasic
sleep as "living science fiction", lucid dreaming is "dreaming science
fiction at will.")
I became so good at this that I began to tell the point in which SWS
turned into REM sleep. (If you want to know, it's a rather gradual
process, not one-minute SWS, then the next REM. It was during this
transition period that the dreams began to show "something bigger".)
I know what eidetic imagery is, too, because I've experienced enough
of it. Oddly enough, reading never brought it on, but playing video
games (especially Ms. PacMan, popular at the time) brought on an event
of eidetic imagery that sometimes lasted a half an hour.
People who experiment with dream-recall, to the extent I did,
eventually get to a point that they are conscious from the time they
hit the sack, to the time they wake up. To those who've never
experienced this, it's like watching a movie for eight hours.
It sounds cool, but the truth is that eight hours of this is extremely
boring, and you begin to worry about the fact that your conscious mind
is not sleeping. (Will this affect my performance at work, or affect
my health?) I hypothesize that perhaps activity in the right parietal
lobe is being trained to increase, allowing the rest of the brain to
sleep at the same time that consciousness is kept.
One thing I can tell you for sure: total dream recall causes major
time dilation. It seems like an eternity passes in one nighttime.
To abbreviate, I knew exactly what I was experiencing, and I am still
convinced that what I experienced that night was REM sleep.
If you don't believe me, why don't you guys try it out for yourself?
The exercise's certainly easier than polyphasic sleeping!
On Feb 28, 12:05 am, zade <polyphasic_sl...@live.com> wrote:
> > That was me who spoke of falling into REM while wide awake. How did I
> > know I was doing this? The symptoms, viz, seeing a bright light,
> > twitching sensations, and distortion of body image. (I really did feel
> > that some other body was moving around inside my own physical body.)
> > These symptoms are detailed in Dr. Stephen LaBerge's works about lucid
> > dreaming, which takes place during REM sleep.
>
> The state that you describe is most probably Hypnagogiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
> ...
>
> read more »
Michael Turner
Zade writes:
> It is true that most people have circadian cycles longer than 24
> hours. But in healthy people this difference is not large. And every
> day their circadian cycle shifts to adapt to day and night cycle.
I like to take the longer-run evolutionary perspective on these
things, and that perspective tells me that, within limits, this
variability is likely to have been good-- but probably not for any
immediately obvious reason.
People with a naturally longer circadian rhythm will, as Zade points
out, get re-entrained to 24 hours all the time. But there's more: they
will probably be able to stay up a little longer and get more done,
when daylight hours are lengthening in the spring. People with a
naturally shorter circadian rhythm would be similarly entrained, but
provide the opposite a "social gravitational force" for getting people
in the society around them to sleep sooner as the daylight hours (and
temperatures) were dropping in the fall. The influence of one type or
the other would be season-dependent, and net out to positive survival
value at the group/species level. Similarly for the lark/owl
chronotypes (if in fact these categories aren't correlated somehow.)
You don't have to talk about how a 23- or 25-hour day is "more
natural" for some people. Human beings didn't evolve under anything
*but* a 24-hour day. So why would there be any variation at all? You
have to look at how such trait variation serves a whole social species
even if it never achieves full exercise in an individual.
The one function I can see for free-running sleep, in the social
context, is to reduce social friction when there's cause for it during
periods when there's a lack of daylight as photic zeitgeber. I.e., if
you're all clustered together in huts surviving the winter, with not
much to do, and no place to escape, it might be better if 1/3 or more
of the group is asleep, at any given moment. You wouldn't have so
many people getting on each other's nerves -- and perhaps eventually
flying at each other's throats.
Free-running sleep under such conditions might also guarantee some
social variety, as people fell in and out of phase with various
members of their group. Somebody's starting bore you? Do the natural
thing (for you). That's either to sleep (if your phases are shorter
than theirs) or, if your phases are longer, wait for those tedious
people to go to sleep. Then you can get chat-zeitgebered more easily
into the phases of other people you haven't talked to in a while
because they've mostly been asleep when you've been awake.
I've argued recently that similar conditions might favor collective
entrainment of longish naps around many (6?) small meals per day. But
that's also assuming low winter stores of food, and arctic regions.
With a larger supply of winter-over rations, it might actually have
been better to have everybody on free-running sleep. I don't see the
two as necessarily mutually exclusive. In any case, my theory of
uberman as originally evolved around 6 meal/day ultradian entrainment
is more dependent on arctic summers than on arctic winters.
-michael turner
> People who have abnormally long circadian cycles would have problem in
> adapting to day and night cycles every day. For them free-running
> sleep might be the best option. For everyone else, following a 24 hour
> schedule would be most natural.
Michael Turner
even a rather mystical sect of Christianity whose founder was
reportedly capable of the practice.)
But here's my problem, Jerry: you say if we try it for ourselves,
we'll know you're right. The thing is, SWS and REM aren't defined as
reported internal states (so far). They are clinical observations.
Sleep stages are defined and identified (albeit with imperfect
accuracy) as objective measurements. So when you say you could tell
when you were transitioning from SWS to REM, well, repeating your
*subjective* experience still won't prove anything. You might have
been able to do that. But I'm a stickler for evidence -- in what
sleep lab did you signal to a technician (through eye-movement, or
some other measurable phenomenon) your awareness of this subtle change
from SWS to REM? And did the experimenters corroborate your
impression?
You're proposing a scientific hypothesis. Because of Stephen
LaBerge's work, it actually qualifies as such because of signalling
techniques he developed -- conscious eye movement during lucidity.
That makes your hypothesis *potentially* falsifiable. And there are
other signaling techniques, based on EEG analysis, are being
established.
However, the *verification* method you're proposing is not a
scientific one: it's that we simply try to repeat your *subjective
experience*.
This isn't about whether you're right or wrong. It's about what can
be shown to be right -- through accumulation of weight evidence with
no contradiction -- or wrong -- through direct contradiction by even a
single counterexample. This is how science settles questions.
Through accumulation of evidence, LaBerge showed that self-reports of
out-of-the-body experiences (AKA "astral travel") were not able to
produce better-than-chance guesses of what the supposed travelers were
seeing, when they asked to go look at some new information in the real
world, while dreaming. Maybe someday, somebody will show up and
actually demonstrate out-of-the-body experience with reliable reports
of real-world information and events. But I'm betting otherwise.
Likewise, somebody might show up and demonstrate fairly precise
awareness of SWS-to-REM transition. Maybe that's possible (I actually
consider it far more likely than OOBE confirmation), but adding
anecdotal reports to other anecdotal reports won't be enough. At
least, not for me. Because SWS and REM are defined as events that an
external observer sees -- not as ones felt by the sleeper -- what you
say can only be confirmed by reliable external observers in repeatable
experiments.
-michael turner
jerry1962
When I'm saying that SWS is this and that, and REM is this and that,
it's because the type of dreaming I'm having at the time matches
published accounts of what it's supposed to be. To reuse a phrase,
"the symptoms fit." If subject A in a sleep lab says he had vague
chaotic dreams while the lab technician records SWS, when I report the
same kind of dream, it's *likely* that I, too, amm having SWS, but of
course not certain without being hooked up to an EEG.
In the end, the point's mute, however. I only reported my experiences
with REM sleep here in an endeavor to posit a theory. That theory had
to do with making adaption to Uberman easier, by working with our REM
cycles.
In the end, we won't know if that theory works until somebody tries
it.
On Feb 28, 2:54 am, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> ...
>
> read more »
jerry1962
human psychology, but I see that I've done the exact same thing here.
(At this point, I chuckle at myself.)
I have used the wrong choice of words all along. When I wrote, "then I
dropped into REM", I really should have written "then I dropped into
what SEEMED to be REM"....and so on. That would be more accurate,
wouldn't it? From now on, my subjective experiences will be related
with the word "seemed".
I have forgotten that I'm speaking to a bunch of scientifically-minded
individuals..I've gotta watch that diction.
Anyway...
> ...
>
> read more »
zade
it.
But is possible to be conscious during SWS. And since there is no
sleep paralysis during SWS could not that cause us to act in sleep?
> > > > > > > Polyphasic sleep. He...
>
> read more »
Michael Turner
> .... When I wrote, "then I
> dropped into REM", I really should have written "then I dropped into
> what SEEMED to be REM"....and so on. That would be more accurate,
You might have been able to feel the transition between SWS and REM (I
don't see any theoretical reason why not), but there's another
possibility: you were feeling the difference between the brain states
associated with non-lucid and lucid REM. It's enough of a qualitative
difference that it actually inspired the term "lucid" to some extent
-- it's not just that you're "lucid" in the sense of "non-psychotic/
non-delusional" (ordinary REM dreaming being rather a lot like a kind
of insanity.) Nor is it just that the dream is vivid.
http://www.lucidity.com/vanEeden.html
I think I might have sensed some such transition myself. It never
occurred to me that it was SWS-REM transition though. Whether that
feeling is that, or instead of the transition from can't-be-lucid to
ready-to-be-lucid is worth exploring. And it can be explored, I
think: the LD state appears to have objectively observable
correlates. I saw reference to some sleep-lab work on this not so
long ago. I wish I could find it now, and I wish I'd bookmarked it
then. Hobson et al., did propose a model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream#Neurobiological_model
and maybe the recent reference I saw was verification of something
like that.
Oh wait, I think I found it after all: Hobson & Voss, 2009 ' 2010:
http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~voss/homepage/en-engl/publ.html
Unfortunately, finding this took me about 10 minutes of googling
through various garbage, until I finally got Voss's name from this
article:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20090702234346data_trunc_sys.shtml
That article makes quite a hash of her results, in part by trying to
cover too many dream-related topics in one story. I might have missed
Voss's name except that it rung a faint bell, AND it occurred to me
that this journalist was getting the story not-quite-right -- which
happens all too often in science reporting.
(Unfortunately, reliable information about lucid dreaming isn't easy
to find. As with polyphasic, there's an enormous amount of crap
written about LD, and you have to patiently paw through it sometimes.
For example, even on Wikipedia, OOBEs are described uncritically in
these terms: "Scientists are starting to learn about the phenomenon.
[45]" with the footnote referencing a BBC story in which a researcher
is quoted as saying "If someone has had an experience, then we take
that as real. We can't disprove or prove anything." But a little
further on in the same BBC story, there's corroboration of LaBerge's
result: "[Dr] Sam [Parnia] has suspended boards below the ceiling and
these have images on the upper side. The idea is that if people do
look down from above, they may recall the extra information. As yet,
no patients have reported seeing these images.")
> On a related note, I fed Dr. Wozniak to the dogs for misunderstanding
> human psychology, but I see that I've done the exact same thing here.
> (At this point, I chuckle at myself.)
These things can be unconscious. Look at, well ... me? After all, it
was only the other day that I wrote in this forum about the stringent
rules I'd set for myself about not harassing people here over
inconsequential lapses into unscientific thinking and terminology
Gee, could I have broken those rules I set for myself only, what,
*twice* since then? I don't even notice I'm doing it.
Lucid Dreaming? Maybe I should work on Lucid Waking first. (Buy my
buttons & bumper stickers: "Consciousness: It's Overrated.")
-michael turner
Michael Turner
Depends on what you mean by "consciousness". The coiner of the term
Lucid Dreaming discussed why he avoided calling it Conscious Dreaming,
http://www.lucidity.com/vanEeden.html
though that hasn't stopped some people.
I also got curious about whether you could have lucid SWS dreams, but
searches didn't turn up anything solid. LD might be a feature only of
REM sleep. The problem here is that you have anecdotal reports of
being conscious *continuously* in sleep, as with the days-long trance
states of Emanuel Swedenborg. (He 'theologized' that both God's
forces and Satan's had better access to him in sleep, so it would be
better to be continuously conscious, the better to fend off satanic
temptation and get closer to God. In his LDs, he reported visiting
both heaven and hell.)
Since REM is typically reached after passing through a few other sleep
states, you might think that Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDs, in
LaBerge's terminology) are evidence of being able to stay conscious
and aware that you're sleeping as you pass through most, if not all,
stages, possibly including SWS. The problem here is that WILDs seem
to happen only after one is (briefly) woken in REM state, and that's a
state with a *lot* of inertia. Just because you're awake and aware of
the external world for a short time doesn't mean you've really left
the *brain* state characteristic of REM.
http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html
One reason I got interested in uberman was that I hoped to
dramatically increase the frequency of my lucid dreams. LDs had
already been shown to by LaBerge and Levitan to more likely during
certain kinds of naps, with a strong positive correlation between LD
frequency and the length and activity levels of waking period just
before such naps:
http://www.lucidity.com/NL63.RU.Naps.html
Unfortunately, LDs also seem to correlate with REM length (which is
necessarily shorter for uberman naps), and with having a remembered
dream just a little earlier the same night (with uberman you've got a
minimum 3.5-hour gap between dreams). Anecdotally, both Giancarlo
Sbragia
http://polyphasicsleep.info/index.php?title=Giancarlo_Sbragia
and Puredoxyk in her 2006 update
http://everything2.com/title/Uberman%2527s+Sleep+Schedule
report the virtual extinction of dreams (memory of them, really).
Many report "solid REM" early in their uberman adjustment period
(puredoxyk mentions this in her initial everything2 post), but this is
symptomatic of sleep deprivation, not of a stable schedule, from what
I can tell.
Worse, there's some evidence (Stampi's studies) that only about half
of uberman naps feature REM, which might be the only LD-gateway
state. You might not get dramatically more LD frequency or (perhaps
more important to some people) more total minutes spend in LD. For
all I know, uberman actually makes LD virtually impossible. It could
go either way, I guess, but I'm still hopeful.
-michael turner
Michael Turner
distinct lucid-dream brain state:
http://www.dreaminglucid.com/articles/The%20Science%20of%20Lucid%20Dreaming%2052.pdf
It's all about the gamma waves, apparently. More sales for the
brainwave-entrainment people, I guess. Long-term meditation practice
helps people produce gamma
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html
The idea of meditation as an aid to settling down for polyphasic naps
has been discussed quite a lot on this group. And some research
suggests that meditation can be used not only to promote lucidity in
REM, but in stages 1 and 2 of sleep. From a scrap some publication
found at http://sawka.com/spiritwatch/physiolo.htm:
"[In a] study of ours (Gackenbach, Moorecroft, Alexander & LaBerge,
1987) .... [w]e had a long term meditator who during meditation showed
physiological signs of transcending correlating with his self reports.
This individual claimed that he was conscious of his true state
throughout his sleep cycle. That is, he knew he was sleeping and
sometimes dreaming during the entire night. He characterized his
ability as witnessing sleep which you will recall is a way of
describing the experience of pure consciousness. This ability and its
stabilization is said to be a result of the regular practice of
meditation (Alexander, Boyer & Orme-Johnson, 1985). In the sleep
laboratory this meditator was able to signal with prearranged eye
movements that he knew he was dreaming/sleeping during REM, Stage 1
and Stage 2 sleep....."
But not SWS, interestingly enough.
-michael turner
On Mar 1, 3:14 pm, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
jerry1962
I think from this point forward, I will speak in E-Prime, lest our
points get misperceived as representing science by geniuses such as "a
reader".
Now then:
Do my experiences with what I interpret as lucid SWS really seem all
that rare? I always assumed that continued consciousness could be
attained by anyone with the proper motivation. Continued awareness
seems to be the key to open the door to what we term "lucid SWS".
Zade: at any rate, the endeavor of lucid SWS, in my opinion, does not
seem a worthy one. If my assessment of lucid SWS is correct, it seems
to consist of montages with a theme—interesting only briefly. Lucid
REM dreams seem to me a far more laudable goal to which to aspire.
On another note, I found that the attainment of "continued awareness"
was a whole lot less fun than it sounds. In fact, I assessed the
phenomena as a curse. I wondered,"Oh, goodness; how do I turn this
thing off?" Indeed, "continued awareness" seems to plague me, from
time to time, to this very day. Conscious mind needs sleep, too.
Michael, on a related note, your post on SWS-to-REM transition
dreaming titillates, and seems worthy of many a repeated read. I
haven't heard any of the theories you posited, but I find them very
interesting. I'll get back to you after I digest the information more
fully.
On Feb 28, 10:46 pm, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> P.S. A relatively accessible treatment of the Voss/Hobson result on a
> distinct lucid-dream brain state:
>
> http://www.dreaminglucid.com/articles/The%20Science%20of%20Lucid%20Dr...
>
> It's all about the gamma waves, apparently. More sales for the
> brainwave-entrainment people, I guess. Long-term meditation practice
> helps people produce gamma
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html
>
> The idea of meditation as an aid to settling down for polyphasic naps
> has been discussed quite a lot on this group. And some research
> suggests that meditation can be used not only to promote lucidity in
> REM, but in stages 1 and 2 of sleep. From a scrap some publication
> found athttp://sawka.com/spiritwatch/physiolo.htm:
Michael Turner
On Mar 1, 5:27 pm, jerry1962 <jerryunderwood1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Esteemed colleagues:
>
> I think from this point forward, I will speak in E-Prime, lest our
> points get misperceived as representing science by geniuses such as "a
> reader".
>
> Now then:
>
> Do my experiences with what I interpret as lucid SWS really seem all
> that rare?
Yes. Because from what I turned up above, there's *still* no lab
result showing lucid SWS, *despite* apparently demonstrated ability to
show lucidity in other sleep stages, in experiments run by researchers
(LaBerge, Gackenbach) who had to fight a bit to prove the existence of
lucidity in REM states.
> I always assumed that continued consciousness could be
> attained by anyone with the proper motivation. Continued awareness
> seems to be the key to open the door to what we term "lucid SWS".
IF there's a door, and IF there's a key. I don't make assumptions if
I can help it.
> On another note, I found that the attainment of "continued awareness"
> was a whole lot less fun than it sounds. In fact, I assessed the
> phenomena as a curse. I wondered,"Oh, goodness; how do I turn this
> thing off?" Indeed, "continued awareness" seems to plague me, from
> time to time, to this very day. Conscious mind needs sleep, too.
Swedenborg spoke of visiting hell itself. Well, spiritual practices
aren't necessarily about what's pleasant or fun. Giancarlo Sbragia's
account of an experience of something like six months of uberman
contains some poignant passages suggesting that even the punctuated
consciousness of that schedule can evoke a changed perspective on time
and its meaning:
"It may be interesting to note that from a physiological point of
view I was feeling very good, which I think demonstrates that it's
perfectly possible to follow such a sleep pattern without any stress
whatsoever [....] Nevertheless, [....] [a]fter a few months I felt
psychologically a wreck, because due to this experience I eventually
had to admit to myself that I was not the genius I had thought I was
[and] realized that time is something not lacking at all [....]
"I then went back to sleeping for 8 full hours [.... and] I was at
peace with myself because I now recognized that my ingenuity was not
so great as to require more time than what I had already received from
my life and my own physiology. [....] The problems I had to face were
of a personal nature: this experiment obliged me to look at myself in
the mirror in a way that made me learn more about me in just 6 months
than I might have learned in my whole life. After this experience I
learned how to pace myself according to my own rhythms [....]
"The experiment was like a long analysis session that forced me to
reconsider myself with humility and in a more objective way. Today,
because I am no longer 30 years old but twice that age, I am intrigued
by the idea of repeating the experiment [....] I would now approach
it with a totally different attitude, because I no longer have
anything to prove. Today, a reason for trying the experiment again is
that perhaps this would help me to push away and get through a step
that everyone has to deal with: death. It would be like undergoing
another long psychoanalytic session to help myself to deal with this
unquestionably obligatory passage of one's own existence."
From _Why We Nap_ (Claudio Stampi, ed), pp. 182-3, ch. 10: "Leonardo
da Vinci and Ultrashort Sleep: Personal Experience of an Eclectic
Artist", Giancarlo Sbragia
Dreams are full of possibilities, and some impossibilities as well.
Lucidity is fun in part because it allows you to engage in the
impossibilities: flying by simply flapping your arms; visiting not
just foreign contries, but weird *hybrids* of foreign countries; wild
sex with exciting, imaginary people.
In a way, when people speak figuratively of their dreams, what they
mean is "a future in which I'm free of limits and happy because of
that." Sbragia liberated himself from a supposedly fixed personal
limit -- the 16-hour day. But this only freed him to discover that he
had other limits over which he had far less control. I once heard a
vipassana meditation teacher say something to this effect: "What
meditation has taught me is that I've only been given so much, and I'm
going to lose it all eventually." It sounds like Sbragia came to the
same conclusion in a different way.
Sbragia lived for perhaps 8 more years after writing the above essay
(which, since he was about 60 at the time, would have be ca. 1986.) I
don't know if he ever repeated his experiment. Maybe he did, but
decided to keep his conclusions to himself.
-michael turner
> On Feb 28, 10:46 pm, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
jerry1962
equipment, so we must "go by the symptoms".
Scientist say that SWS induces sleep inertia. If a subject is awoken
at the right time, he could write down what he was dreaming—after he
recovers from the sleep inertia, of course. I believe that recall of
those dreams will fail to impress, but Zade will have to decide that
for himself. (Note that this experiment doesn't evoke true lucidity,
but at least Zade will know what takes place during that period.)
On Mar 1, 4:13 am, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> ...
>
> read more »
jerry1962
continued awareness, and equally disliked the experience.
Puredoxyk, who wrote the tome Ubersleep, suffered from it before she
became an Ubersleeper. She regales us with tales of lying awake, while
the body felt asleep, for hours and hours, bored out of her skull.
(PD, I can relate to this!) Continued awareness might seem less rare a
phenomenon than one might think.
> ...
>
> read more »
Michael Turner
On Mar 2, 3:50 am, jerry1962 <jerryunderwood1...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Puredoxyk, who wrote the tome Ubersleep, suffered from it before she
> became an Ubersleeper. She regales us with tales of lying awake, while
> the body felt asleep, for hours and hours, bored out of her skull.
That's interesting, because in neither her original uberman post at
everything2, nor her 2006 update, nor in any other posting I can
remember, does she relate any such experience. Quite the contrary, if
anything.
2001: "If you have sleep disorders like nightmares, night terrors, mid-
sleep choking fits, thrashing, muscle soreness or sleepwalking, this
will probably flat-out cure you."
2006: "At the time I started this schedule, I was sleep-walking,
talking, had rampant recurring insomnia, nightmares, night terrors
(try punching a cinderblock wall in your sleep...mmmm) and lord knows
what else."
Could you quote where in Ubersleep she adds that she was continously
conscious in sleep as well? That's quite a remarkable phenomenon
(even if you've come to think of it as tedious), and quite the kind of
thing she'd remark on, I think. She does mention hours *lying awake*
with insomnia, perhaps you're remembering wrong?
[snip]
-michael turner
Michael Turner
of an SWS period will give you more sleep inertia than being woken
from REM. It's also possible to write down dreams while suffering
sleep inertia -- it's not a state of utter mental disabilty, it's
little more than a fancy name for feeling sleepy upon waking.
-michael turner
jerry1962
From Ubersleep, by Puredoxyk, Page 12:
[...and I was having the worst and weirdest insomnia bout ever. For
almost two weeks, I
couldn't sleep more than about 20 minutes at a time – I would fall
asleep normally, and then wake up,
sometimes in a state of paralysis10, and be unable to go back to sleep
for many hours. Sometimes I would
give up and get up, and other times I would lie miserably in bed for a
few hours, bored out of my skull,
listening to the minutes tick away. It was not fun, and I was
desperate for a way out, but nothing was
working...]
Michael, perhaps you missed the footnote. I draw your attention to the
word paralysis, which in the original text, has the footnote labeled
"10" next to it.
And now, I copy and paste that footnote 10:
[10 Actually, it was more like my body was asleep, but my mind wasn't.
I could move if I wanted to, but if I did I would “wake up” -- as long
as I laid still,
though, I could feel that my body was totally relaxed and “under”. But
my mind was wide awake. Yeah, it was really weird, and if it hadn't
been interfering
with any sort of normal sleep, I might have thought it was cool!
Mostly I just got bored and frustrated after laying there mentally
awake for a while, and got
up, exhausted, to do something else.]
Michael, this may not fit your definition of "continued awareness",
but it does indeed fit mine, and mirrors my own experience pretty
closely, if not identically.
(Puredoxyk, if you're reading this, I beg your indulgence at quoting
your work. I hope I did not break any copyright laws.)
On Mar 2, 6:10 am, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
> ...
>
> read more »
Michael Turner
except sleep paralysis, the body is significantly (and usually
totally) cut off from sensation and motor control, I don't see how the
state (as puredoxyk ambiguously describes it -- a paralysis in which
she could move easily? a paralytic state which in fact would be
interrupted when she moved? -- even counts as being aware that she was
sleeping while she was in some sleep state.
She wrote she had trouble getting back to sleep for hours, but she
doesn't clearly say that she was in some sleep state for those hours,
much less a paralytic one, while aware of being asleep -- which is the
claim you're making for her
Could it have been SWS? That stage of sleep is so far removed from
bodily sensation or awareness of the environment that people can walk
around while in it, and talk in it, with no memory of the experience.
If there's a good candidate for a stage of sleep in which one can't be
aware that one is sleeping, SWS is it.
I'm sorry, but I just need objective observations corroborating
subjective ones, especially when the subjective ones are somewhat self-
contradictory in the first place, as they are here. We have such
observations, from a study I referred to above. Someone who was
reportedly able to signal awareness of being asleep in stages 1 & 2,
and in REM, was apparently not able to do it in SWS.
Finally, reports of being aware of a transition from SWS to REM are
open to a pretty serious objection: the typical pattern seems to be
that, on the way from SWS to REM, there's a reversion to stage 2
sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_stages#Stages_of_sleep
I wouldn't have "missed the footnote", because I don't own the book.
As I said, what you reported about her -- that she has experienced
being aware of being asleep through all stages of sleep -- is the kind
of remarkable thing she would have reported elsewhere in places I've
been reading -- her blog, this group. If in fact she'd been aware of
being asleep during a whole sleep period, I think it's something she
would have talked about, and that I would have noticed. The part you
quote is, however, is far too ambiguous and self-contradictory to
qualify as such a remark.
She's on this list. She responds to comments on her blog posts. Why
don't you ask her directly instead of claiming to speak for her?
(By the way, simply quoting from work doesn't count as copyright
infringement, especially when it's for educational purposes and not
for profit. You don't have to ask permission, and you certainly don't
need to apologize.)
-michael turner
Michael Turner
"Sometimes [distinct from the times described as 'paralysis' with
a qualifying footnote] I would give up [trying to sleep] and get up,
and other times I would lie miserably in bed for a few hours, bored
out of my skull, listening to the minutes tick away"
it doesn't match your claim of her
"lying awake, while the body felt asleep, for hours and hours,
bored out of her skull."
At best, saying her experience "mirrors" yours of continuous awareness
of all sleep stages, "closely if not identically" sounds like yet
another another case of not only moving the goalposts but of burying
them in somebody else's back yard.
Worse, this part of her account closely resembles the anecdotal
reports of insomniacs who complain of lying awake for "hours and
hours" -- including not a few who, it turns out, get quite a lot sleep
during those "hours and hours". To cite just one study confirming
this misperception (all the more significant when you consider that
most people, whether insomniacs or not, have trouble sleeping in sleep
labs):
Accuracy of sleep perceptions among insomnia sufferers and normal
sleepers
Sleep Medicine, Volume 4, Issue 4, Pages 285-296
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1389945703000571
"Results: Consistent with previous studies, the insomnia sufferers, as
a group, showed a greater tendency to underestimate the time they
slept than did the normal sleepers .... Conclusions: The
underestimation of sleep time is not a generic characteristic that
separates all insomnia sufferers from normal sleepers. Sleep setting,
personality traits, and perhaps constitutional factors appear to
influence perceptions of sleep and wake time duration."
I.e., it's not just that insomniacs as a whole unwittingly overreport
their time awake, it's that some of them *grossly* overreport it
(which balances out those who are fairly accurate.). I'm not saying
puredoxyk was one of the unwitting gross exaggerators. I'm not even
saying she overrepresents her time lying awake (though she shouldn't
be ashamed if she does -- it's apparently a very common
misperception). But we don't have measurements, so we just can't
know.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the case of
uberman, I think there's enough evidence: two formal sleep-lab studies
(Stampi's) with results that were encouraging, at least, together with
what's now a fairly large number of anecdotal reports that are both
pretty consistent among themselves in their patterns of failure and
success, *and* pretty consistent with those lab studies. I no longer
see uberman as an "extraordinary claim" -- just as very unusual and
still poorly characterized phenomenon.
However, for this claim of continuously maintaining consciousnes and
awareness of all sleep states, I have yet to see a single verified
report. A further strike against its credibility is that it's been
most strongly claimed by unabashed mystics -- Emanuel Swedenborg being
the only Western examplar I know of. Mysticism can take you into cult
territory. And we all know what can happen to the truth there.
Swedenborg was indisputably a scientific and technological genius
earlier in life, but you have to wonder about a guy who'd later claim
to have spoken with angels and visited hell -- it's somewhat as if
Nicola Tesla had left General Electric to found Mormonism. Kant was
fascinated by accounts of Swedenborg's psychic powers, but despite his
hopes of verification, he ended up debunking most of the claims. Some
scholars even suggest that it was Kant's disappointment with
Swedenborg that turned him toward rational skepticism. He wrote the
following in back-handed admiration of the coherence of Swedenborg's
utterly unprovable system of beliefs:
"For a coherent hallucination is a much more remarkable phenomenon
than an illusion of the reason, the causes of which are well enough
known. This kind of illusion can be prevented by an effort to guide
the facilities of the mind. The former on the other hand, concerns
the deepest foundation of all judgements, against which the rules of
logic have little power."
(quoted from a letter from Kant, in Lars Bergquist's Swedenborg's
Secret. http://tinyurl.com/yaow2g8)
As many a cult follower has exclaimed, "But it all makes perfect sense
when you think about it!" Yes, and so did bleeding patients as
treatment for various ills, before it occurred to the medical
profession to actually test and measure. Who knows how many they
actually killed, before that?
-michael turner
On Mar 4, 12:50 am, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
jerry1962
five words are a dead giveaway.)
Oh, heavens, Michael. We're just not cut out of the same cloth.
You seem to be viewing this discussion from a scientific point of
view. You did hint at that earlier, but I underappreciated the gravity
of the situation.
For my own part, in spite of the fact I have insisted...and I mean
insisted...that my viewpoints aren't science, and besides the fact
that Puredoxyx states in her tome Ubersleep, in capital letters, "THIS
IS NOT SCIENCE", you seem determined to look at this through the lens
of science, and its boring columns, figures, graphs, proofs beyond a
level of chance,etc. There's a fine line between scientific certainty
and pedantry, in my humble opinion.
Now, Michael, I'm not bashing your point of view, I merely state that
I don't share it. I prefer to look at the enigma of polyphasic sleep
through the lens of an exciting adventure—the same sense of adventure
that has fueled "nutty" experiments on my part since I was young. I
intend to continue these nutty experiments until I pass on to the
other side, or get planted six feet under and get eaten by the worms—
whichever it turns out to be.
Some are scientists, some are the dreamers. Nothing wrong with either,
and I think we need both.
So on that note, I think a gentlemen's parting of the ways is in
order. I thank you for a lively discussion and wish you all the best
in your endeavors to adapt.
On Mar 3, 9:13 pm, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> P.S. As for this:
>
> "Sometimes [distinct from the times described as 'paralysis' with
> a qualifying footnote] I would give up [trying to sleep] and get up,
> and other times I would lie miserably in bed for a few hours, bored
> out of my skull, listening to the minutes tick away"
>
> it doesn't match your claim of her
>
> "lying awake, while the body felt asleep, for hours and hours,
> bored out of her skull."
>
> At best, saying her experience "mirrors" yours of continuous awareness
> of all sleep stages, "closely if not identically" sounds like yet
> another another case of not only moving the goalposts but of burying
> them in somebody else's back yard.
>
> Worse, this part of her account closely resembles the anecdotal
> reports of insomniacs who complain of lying awake for "hours and
> hours" -- including not a few who, it turns out, get quite a lot sleep
> during those "hours and hours". To cite just one study confirming
> this misperception (all the more significant when you consider that
> most people, whether insomniacs or not, have trouble sleeping in sleep
> labs):
>
> Accuracy of sleep perceptions among insomnia sufferers and normal
> sleepers
> Sleep Medicine, Volume 4, Issue 4, Pages 285-296http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1389945703000571
> Secret.http://tinyurl.com/yaow2g8)
> ...
>
> read more »
Michael Turner
"Gentlemen's parting"? After you sneer at some "dead giveaway" of
mine, when I'm not hiding anything? After bemoaning the "gravity of
the situation" of, well, you being found out making baseless claims,
over and over, on a thread originally about the baseless claims by "a
reader" and Piotr Wozniak? After sneering at science's "boring"
methodology, as if science could never be something that "dreamers"
also do, could never be an "exciting adventure", but is only for
unimaginative drudges unwilling to take risks? After implying I'm a
"pedant", but without coming right out and saying it -- indeed,
following that one right up with the patently disingenuous claim that
you're not "bashing" my point of view, merely expressing your own?
I guess where you come from, "gentlemen" peer down their noses at
people who roll up there sleeves and tries to substantiate a claim or
prove a hypothesis.
"My dear sir, we're just not cut from the same cloth. For one thing,
my cloth is ever so much finer than yours. Not that there's anything
wrong with the coarse stuff, oh no, I'd never say that. So let's have
gentlemanly parting, now, shall we?"
Yes, lets.
-michael turner
jerry1962
answering your points. The only thing I could come up with is that I
need to be completely honest with myself.
The thing was, I was beginning to feel like you were asking me to
prove every word I wrote. I was even writing in ePrime, which is an
admittedly extreme measure. I began to ask myself,"Why is this guy
busting my chops?"
I have realized since that my own attitudes about scientists fueled
this anger on your part. I think I owe you an explanation, Michael.
All my life I've seen evidence of, and been disgusted by, bad science.
For example, in 1982, a whole team of them solemnly announced on
national television that "there was no link between nicotine and
addiction". (Never mind that so many of my relatives have died from
smoking-related illnesses that you could stack the corpses like
firewood.) And of course, you know that anything a scientist says
who's employed by the oil industry is going to be OneBigFatLie™. More
recently, there has arisen some grave doubts about the sincerity of
global warming science. And you yourself have mentioned the bad
science behind the systematic administration of SSRIs. I could go on
and on, but I think you get the message.
It doesn't help that Dr. Wozniak published his polyphasic sleep paper
with such dishonest intentions. I find that this is particularly
unfortunate, because if the paper had been more honestly written, I
don't think so many people would dismiss it so out-of-hand. What's
worse, he may actually be spot-on about successful polyphasic sleepers
being "mutants", but we, after reading his paper, naturally "throw the
baby out with the bathwater" and are disinclined to believe anything
he says.
However, my own attitude towards scientists is an example of doing the
exact same thing: "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Of
course there is good science, and thank God there is, because we'd
never know about SWS, REM, neurotransmitters, or anything else
concerning that remarkable organ, the human brain. Undoubtedly, good
science is responsible for almost all of our medical advances.
As for you yourself, you do seem interested in adhering to the
strictest standards of scientific discipline, but I have never doubted
for one moment your honesty as a scientist or as a human being.
And from that point of view, I'd like to offer you an apology. Let's
bury the hatchet, shall we?
I have had several ideas over the past few weeks that I'd like to run
by you, to see if the ideas are tenable from a scientific point of
view. I guess I mean to say, "I need ya, man." To use an analogy, a
man who has ideas about constructing a super-plane is useless without
an aeronautical engineer.
On that note, I'd like to offer you an olive branch, and a sincere
wish of peace and reconciliation....
On Mar 5, 4:11 am, Michael Turner <michael.eugene.tur...@gmail.com>
>
> read more »
--
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Polyphasic-...@googlegroups.com
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%d
Michael Turner
On Apr 30, 3:24 pm, jerry1962 <jerryunderwood1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> All my life I've seen evidence of, and been disgusted by, bad science.
> For example, in 1982, a whole team of them solemnly announced on
> national television that "there was no link between nicotine and
> addiction".
company *CEOs* (not scientists) who claimed they believed nicotine was
not addictive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNk5meJHs
That their own scientists had been telling them for decades that
nicotine *was* addictive is actually firmly established:
http://www.ok.gov/okswat/documents/Tobacco%20Industry%20Quotes%20on%20Nicotine%20Addiction.pdf
Now, if you want to say that the scientists who helped the tobacco
industry promote a killer habit were bad people, fine. Whatever. I
might even agree. But that's different from whether their science
(qua science) was bad. Apparently, Big Tobacco's science was actually
pretty good: they figured out (scientifically) how to make cigarettes
even more addictive, working with the scientifically established
properties of nicotine and how to deliver it more efficiently.
If, after all that research they not only sponsored but acted on in
actual product design, a bunch of CEOs then went on TV and said they
didn't believe nicotine was addictive, they were obviously operating
under the advice of lawyers. Lawyers routinely tell their clients to
act dumb when that's the safest alternative. Ever see Bill Gates'
testimony about his monopolistic moves in the web browser market? He
sounds like a total dufus. Which he is not. Not by a long shot.
He's not even a good liar. But business survival for Microsoft, at
that point, depended on him looking stupid and lying. So that's what
he did, whether it was fair and right or not.
> It doesn't help that Dr. Wozniak published his polyphasic sleep paper
> with such dishonest intentions.
don't think you know either. I do believe he's biased.
> And from that point of view, I'd like to offer you an apology. Let's
> bury the hatchet, shall we?
agree that a bad scientist (moral sense) can do good science (by the
standards of science), and vice versa. Science is good when it
adheres to certain standards that, for better or worse, has nothing to
do with morality.
Big Tobacco is hardly the worst of it: at Nazi death camps (especially
Treblinka) a lot of very competent science was done on the question of
the most efficient way to incinerate huge piles of corpses. Good
science in a bad cause. Before (and during) that, a lot of Nazis who
probably thought their intentions were as pure as intentions can ever
get were involved in working out how certain people (whose corpses
ended up incinerated in those death camps) were inherently degenerate
and inferior -- by, for example, facial features and head shape. Bad
science in a bad cause, by people who thought they were being good.
Did science itself *cause* all that evil? Obviously not. Anything
can be used to enable evil. Even benificent intentions. There is
even good science in good causes, but performed by people who turn out
to be bad. You need to separate out all these things, if you really
want my help.
> On that note, I'd like to offer you an olive branch, and a sincere
> wish of peace and reconciliation....
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Michael Turner
Just to hit a couple other points:
> .... And of course, you know that anything a scientist says
employed by an oil company, a petrochemicals chemist. He was actually
very honest, and quite enthusiastic about alternative energy and
global warming abatement.
> More
> recently, there has arisen some grave doubts about the sincerity of
> global warming science.
who either aren't scientists or who are (or were) but who haven't done
any relevant science in a while, if ever.
Some climate skeptics have seriously told me that I should assume a
certain piece of program code at Hadley was modified to produce bad
results, because you have to assume those horrible people are guilty
until proven innocent. Why, I asked. After all, the supposedly
offending line was actually commented out, so it couldn't even be
executed. How do you know that the code was used to generate bad
date, with the problematic line activated? Because, I was told, they
had also intentionally destroyed raw data to cover their tracks.
When I go look at this issue of supposed intentional destruction of
raw data, it turns out that some data was lost or erased but that it
was no big deal because ... well, the actual raw data came from other
sources, national weather centers all over the world (who, we can
reasonably hope, have hung onto it). The data was not from the Hadley
center -- which doesn't actually generate any raw climate data itself.
Oh, I was told, but the destruction MUST have been intentional and
perfidious, anyway, we must assume guilt rather than innocence
because ... well, because one of the scientists employed at Hadley
"threatened" a skeptical climatologist.
So I go look at that "threat" claim, and it turns out, one scientist
had e-mailed another saying he felt like punching a guy out if he met
him at a conference. In private e-mail. Who did this guy feel like
decking? I check out the supposed target of the threat. After
reading for a few minutes, *I* felt like punching the guy out. (Does
it count as a "threat" that I'm writing that in a public forum like
this one?)
If the sender never addressed the supposedly threatened person, how
could it be construed a threat? Ah, I was told, the reason we must
also assume guilt rather than innocence in this case is because the
same people egregiously modified some program code to produce bad
results. See, look over there, at that blog, where they are analyzing
that particularly egregious ethical breach.
Uh-oh, I thought, this is exactly where I came in.
Google on it: "epistemic closure".
Not exactly scientific thinking here.
> ... And you yourself have mentioned the bad
never completed appropriate double-blind protocols, but rushed the
products to market.
Medicine itself isn't really a science. Medical science is science,
but sometimes gets pushed in bad directions.
> Yes, but that's I could go on
inadequate science. Sure, there are bad people doing bad things,
using science. And sometimes, some of those bad people are
scientists. But science is just a bunch of standards for how to
conduct experiments and gather evidence and evaluate theories. Those
standards evolved into what they are today because they work very
well, when applied diligently and in good faith, at disproving certain
theories and lending support to better ones.
-michael turner