Transcendentally Tempted Anonymous
John A. Johnson
officer and criminal, between psychologist and psychologically
disturbed, etc. Is this true in some cases for skeptics? I must
confess that, although I describe myself as a skeptic and atheist,
I am fascinated by paranormal claims and unusual experiences.
I know all about statistics, but I can't help being intrigued when
a host of startling coincidences intrudes into my life. This happened
just recently when I read the Celestine Prophecy. Should I ask my
doctor for anticonvulsant medication for my temporal lobes? Is there
a support group for recovering transcendentalists, or are there enough
people out there like me to start one?
[followups to either group or by personal email appreciated]
John A. Johnson (j...@psuvm.psu.edu)
Todd I. Stark
In article <94124.1...@psuvm.psu.edu>, John A. Johnson <J...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes...
>I know all about statistics, but I can't help being intrigued when
>a host of startling coincidences intrudes into my life. This happened
>just recently when I read the Celestine Prophecy. Should I ask my
>doctor for anticonvulsant medication for my temporal lobes? Is there
>a support group for recovering transcendentalists, or are there enough
>people out there like me to start one?
>[followups to either group or by personal email appreciated]
>John A. Johnson (j...@psuvm.psu.edu)
It isn't pathological for us to want to believe in something extraordinary.
It's simply not particularly rational to believe it _solely_ because we
would like it to be true. Not rational, but perfectly human.
kind regards,
todd
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Eric Pepke
>
> Sometimes people suggest that the line is very thin between police
> officer and criminal, between psychologist and psychologically
> disturbed, etc. Is this true in some cases for skeptics? I must
> confess that, although I describe myself as a skeptic and atheist,
> I am fascinated by paranormal claims and unusual experiences.
So am I. I would dearly love it if a whole host of psychic things were
true or if extraterrestrials really were visiting our planet or if there
really were big hairy bipedals walking around in the woods. If Roger
Nelson perfects a psychic teevee channel changer, I'll be the first to buy
a copy of the plans. I just don't think there's a helluva lot of evidence
for those things right now.
Remember cold fusion? I work in an interdisciplinary research program with
lots of physicists. Back when the P & F experiments first came to light,
this place was abuzz with activity. Everyone was trying to figure out what
the mechanism was. Every week we had a speaker who proposed a possible
theory. Everyone, without a single exception, was eager to have cold
fusion verified. I even went to a skeptics' conference in Tampa where one
of the speakers used cold fusion as a specific example of how scientists
eagerly went after new ideas, and it was exactly right.
Later, when it became clearer and clearer that the results had more to do
with bad calorimetry and contaminated samples than with anything great,
those who were the most excited were also the most skeptical.
A while back I heard a radio broadcast with some people giving the standard
constructivist drivel about how cold fusion failed because of closed-minded
scientists who thought they knew everything and didn't want to see their
precious worldview challenged. That really drove home the fact that
there's no point in arguing with these idiots, although it's kind of fun to
poke them and make them twitch once in a while. They Know the Truth, and
Their Truth is Just as Good as Anybody's In Our Socially Constructed
Reality.
We've always been at war with Eurasia, Winston.
Eric Pepke
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University
pe...@scri.fsu.edu
Cary Kittrell
<In article <94124.1...@psuvm.psu.edu>, John A. Johnson
<<J...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
<>
<> Sometimes people suggest that the line is very thin between police
<> officer and criminal, between psychologist and psychologically
<> disturbed, etc. Is this true in some cases for skeptics? I must
<> confess that, although I describe myself as a skeptic and atheist,
<> I am fascinated by paranormal claims and unusual experiences.
<
<So am I. I would dearly love it if a whole host of psychic things were
<true or if extraterrestrials really were visiting our planet or if there
<really were big hairy bipedals walking around in the woods. If Roger
<Nelson perfects a psychic teevee channel changer, I'll be the first to buy
<a copy of the plans. I just don't think there's a helluva lot of evidence
<for those things right now.
<
<
<Eric Pepke
[ ... ]
Well put. Well put indeed.
I imagine that there are lots of us among the skeptical who would be
hugely delighted if just one of these "sense of wonder" items were ever
to prove true. (I remember Martin Gardner confessing in one of his books
how discomfited he would be if anything of the kind he debunks ever
came up true. I was very puzzled by that attitude. I still am).
But I fear we'll wait forever ...
--
cary kittrell
ca...@as.arizona.edu
"a geyser of pishposh" -- H.L. Mencken
D. Dale Gulledge
Cary, I find neither your attitude nor Gardner's puzzling. Nor do I see as
much difference between them as I think you do. They are both expressions of
a disbelief that one of these items will be proven true. And they are both an
attempt to pin an emotional label on what is a supremely rational conclusion.
I neither fear nor expect that a "sense of wonder" item will prove true. The
universe is what it is. If some paranormal phenomenon is proven, it will not
be supernatural. It can't be. Instead our understanding of the natural world
has to expand to encompass it.
- Dale
--
Well in excess of 99% of the world's population, including my employer,
remains blissfully unaware of my opinions. The remainder are still trying to
ignore them. Please refer to the above message to see why.
--
d...@cci.com, D. Dale Gulledge, Software Engineer, Northern Telecom,
Network Applications Systems, 97 Humboldt St., Rochester, NY 14609
Roger D. Nelson
><true or if extraterrestrials really were visiting our planet or if there
><really were big hairy bipedals walking around in the woods. If Roger
><Nelson perfects a psychic teevee channel changer, I'll be the first to buy
><a copy of the plans. I just don't think there's a helluva lot of evidence
><for those things right now.
>
>
>I imagine that there are lots of us among the skeptical who would be
>hugely delighted if just one of these "sense of wonder" items were ever
>to prove true. (I remember Martin Gardner confessing in one of his books
>how discomfited he would be if anything of the kind he debunks ever
>came up true. I was very puzzled by that attitude. I still am).
>
>But I fear we'll wait forever ...
I've always appreciated Erik's pragmatism, and I certainly respect the
feeling both he and Cary express. Oddly, though, as best I can be
objective about what would delight me, the psychic things and ET's and
other "sense of wonder" items don't amount to much except to the extent
they teach us how to grow to our potential (which I assume to be a
positive change from where we are). The example I use to symbolize how
little practical use there is for the psychic effects we appear to be able
to demonstrate in the lab is a garage door opener, sort of a big teevee
channel changer. I don't think such are likely applications, not least
because these are so easy to do so well in the mundane way. I don't think
I would spend my time in this research if it were not for the implications
about consciousness and world. The findings, if veridical (and I have a
great deal of confidence in those of my own lab, at the very least) mean
that there are missing elements in standard physical models, and
interactions that connect us directly as conscious beings to our environment.
Not to allow us to indulge our sloth yet more deeply so much as to allow
us to create, probabalistically and incrementally, change in the world.
Just to be clear: The data suggest/indicate that human intention is
directly, though weakly correlated with changes in the distribution of
probabalistic events. They suggest that a small amount of information
can be transferred by consciousness across both spatial and temporal
separations anomalously, and this is tantamount to a capacity for
entropy reduction without energy transfer. If this is all true, it is
worth more than a garage door opener, as a scientific and philosophical
challenge, and as a pointer toward understanding our place and
possibilities as humans.
Roger
--
______________________________________________________________________________
The Fool
> Sometimes people suggest that the line is very thin between police
> officer and criminal, between psychologist and psychologically
> disturbed, etc. Is this true in some cases for skeptics? I must
> confess that, although I describe myself as a skeptic and atheist,
> I am fascinated by paranormal claims and unusual experiences.
Me too. So are a lot of other people (witness the success of
Prometheus Books).
I would not be surprised if it turned out that the fascination
you refer to is one ingredient in atheism.
Perhaps it is fascination with the unusual that gets people
to thinking about it enough to convince themselves that it
doesn't exist.
Whereas the many people who don't find it interesting, don't
bother to question it or even examine it closely enough to
notice the glaring flaws.
I am thinking here of the bulk of people who apparently go
to church &/or believe in God simply because they haven't
bothered to consider the alternative--they just don't care.
[note that I am merely making a statistical suggestion--I don't
want to imply that *all* atheists are closet Weekly-World-News
readers]
> I know all about statistics, but I can't help being intrigued when
> a host of startling coincidences intrudes into my life. This happened
> just recently when I read the Celestine Prophecy. Should I ask my
> doctor for anticonvulsant medication for my temporal lobes? Is there
> a support group for recovering transcendentalists, or are there enough
> people out there like me to start one?
> [followups to either group or by personal email appreciated]
> John A. Johnson (j...@psuvm.psu.edu)
Read the Skeptical Enquirer. That way you can have all the fun
of the paranormal, and still convince yourself you are a
genuine unbeliever. :)
--
The Fool
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|"The Fool has said in his heart, there is no God." (Psalms 52:1) |
|"The cosmos is interesting rather than perfect, and everything is |
| not part of some greater plan, nor is all necessarily under |
| control." --Starhawk |
| ksu...@mason1.gmu.edu |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mel Wilson
CA>I imagine that there are lots of us among the skeptical who would be
CA>hugely delighted if just one of these "sense of wonder" items were ever
CA>to prove true. (I remember Martin Gardner confessing in one of his books
CA>how discomfited he would be if anything of the kind he debunks ever
CA>came up true. I was very puzzled by that attitude. I still am).
Well, Mr. Gardner shouts his debunking from the rooftops; I just sit
at a keyboard and snipe. If I'm wrong I've still got some deniability.
I was dismayed and puzzled by his rough handling of `Adam Smith's
(George Goodman's) "Powers of Mind" which I thought was as objective an
account as you would ever get given the vapourous subject matter.
Checking out footnotes in "Science, Good, Bad and Bogus" suggests that
elsewhere Goodman might have written some ... credulous ... columns on
Geller or what have you. Maybe you get a Gardner review for your
overall work, kind of like a Nobel prize.
Regards. Mel.
CA>But I fear we'll wait forever ...
---
* SLMR 2.1a * "Flight of the Foo Birds" - Count Basie