In various threads there have been various discussions about what materialism is, and isn’t, and various definitions have been proposed and cited. In this thread I want to ask a different question, addressed specifically to those who regard “materialism” as a bad thing. William, for instance, has said that “materialism” was “disproven” in the 18th century, yet laments
the spread of an 18th century myth in our public school system and in our culture at large.
So here is my question: if you are against something called “materialism” and see it as a bad thing (for whatever reason), what is your definition of the “materialism” you are against?
Not to speak for William but I suspect he may not respond to this. Yet, what can we do in the face of such obduracy? Show us the beef, William!
Between doubting of psi and doubting of evolution, which ignores the greater level of evidence?
If evidence for psi phenomena rose to the level of the evidence for non-magic evolution, I rather suspect that most here would accept it.
Glen Davidson
The evidence for psi is of exactly the same kind and quality as the evidence for carbon-14 in fossils.
1. First you take a phenomenon that exists only at the level of instrumental noise.
2. Take lots of readings.
3. Throw out those that show no statistical significance.
4. Declare that some specimens exhibit the phenomenon.
5. Change your name to Rhine and publish.
Perhaps this methodology could be the subject of an OP.
As far as my knowledge of the faith healing literature, there is virtually nothing that can be said to represent any ongoing, replicated scientific research that indicates any consistent, positive, healing effects of prayer. If faith healing or prayer has positive effects, whatever it is, IMO, is of a nature that doesn’t lend itself to empirical, scientific scrutiny at all.
Why would any of my posts warrant movement to guano? Why is it hypocritical of me to point out you are implying I am engaging in bad-faith “game-playing”?
If something makes people feel better or live longer or be less symptomatic, etc. it would lend itself to being noticed in a scientific experiment. If you’re saying that the prayer or faith healing has effects that don’t involve anybody being or feeling better or living longer, etc., maybe nobody here will dispute that.
ETA: I should have said maybe SOME people here wouldn’t dispute that.
OMagain said:
“Demonstrates” is not “it convinced me”. I believed (in the manner i believe in things) well before I heard of such experiments, and would continue to do so if such experiments scientifically demonstrated otherwise. Since I never said I was convinced by her work, and have reiterated many times on this site that I do not come to beliefs via scientific evidence, there was no reason to to do so. I can’t be expected qualify every sentence I write to make it quote-mine proof and to reiterate every single thing about the nature of my arguments.
Because you have repeatedly accused me of bad-faith “scrambling” to defed my “metaphysical materialist bias”.
Are you going to address the statistics or not?
I think there’s a sense in which nobody comes to their beliefs (exclusively) through scientific evidence. Such evidence isn’t generally an exclusive cause of (the “coming to”) belief. It’s warrant for it, however one might have come by it.
I’m saying exactly what I said. To date, there is no research and certainly no body of research I know of that provides any scientific evidence that faith healing works or that prayer has any significant effects. That said, my wife went to faith healers over 25 years ago after she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and after her next round of tests came back, all evidence of cancer was gone. I’ve also personally witnessed open wounds seal & heal and people that could not walk, walk. The healers charged nothing and refused any contributions and kept to themselves, never allowing any media attention.
Sure, it could have been a combination of coincidence, fraud, hoax, and some kind of mass hallucination. I was a materialist atheist at the time. I don’t know what was going on, but to insist that something else was going on other than “faith healing”, whatever it is, would have been intellectually dishonest of me and contrary to my actual experience and what I witnessed. I’m not going to bend over backwards to find some other explanation just because it is metaphysically inconvenient.
I didn’t imply that scrambling represented a conscious intent to be dishonest. I’ve stated outright and part of my argument here is that materialism generates a cognitive bias. It is that cognitive bias which causes materialists to scramble about looking for alternative, possible explanation regardless of how often PSI effects are substantiated in repeated testing scenarios.
Accusing me of “playing games” is not the same thing as characterizing your actions as “scrambling around trying to defend your metaphysics”, especially not after I have made repeated disclaimers about cognitive biases and conceptual frameworks generating “bad materialist” interpretations and perspectives.
What statistics?
I think hardly anyone comes to hold their empirical beliefs (the vocabulary of ordinary descriptions and explanations) as a result of scientific evidence — not to mention all the other sorts of beliefs that we have. In fact, I tend to think that doxastic voluntarism — the idea that we just somehow choose our beliefs — is manifestly false. The vast majority of our beliefs are those we learn in the process of being brought up in a culture, along with what we learn and revise over the course of experience. There could be “innate beliefs” but I tend to doubt it.
That said, it is also true that if one is presented with scientific evidence that conflicts with some empirical belief that one has, then one has a prima facie reason for revising that empirical belief. And it is probably true that one has an obligation to inquire into whether one’s empirical beliefs are consistent with the best available scientific evidence, though very few people actually fulfill that obligation.
KN:
I think that for 99.9% of the human population, you’re absolutely right. I also think very few people – if any – believe what they do because of scientific evidence.
That psi is bullshit is a reasonable Bayesian inference.
When every single medium and faith healer and psychic — upon investigation — turns out to be a fraud, the the reasonable expectation is that n+1 will also be full of shit.
This does not require rocket science.
It will be worth looking into when someone does something that doesn’t look like stage magic.
petrushka said:
More unsupportable, blanket negative rhetoric.
KN:
William:
I think you’re included in that 99.9%, William.
You have the opportunity to provide a counterexample.
William, anyone having psychic powers is welcome to submit to a well constructed test. It’s not expensive and could be done at any university.
walto,
In the context of the debate over direct vs indirect perception, what’s important isn’t so much the working definition of “inference”, but rather the following fact: In the case of the motion illusions I presented, motion is not being directly perceived, because there is no motion in the stimulus. The motion is constructed by the visual system.
petrushka said:
I might do that if my point here was to attempt to prove the existence of psi. What makes my actual point is when materialists make bald, blanket, unsupportable negative assertions against all things related to psi.
walto:
Not to mention that “teensy-weensy” effects, if they are robust, can often be amplified and confirmed by the right experimental design. Teensy-weensy quantum effects have been resoundingly confirmed. Somehow, after all these years, psi remains indistinguishable from noise and/or bad experimental design.
William, the world is full of hustlers. It would be criminal not to point this out to children and to anyone looking for a solution to a difficult life problem.
I have no problem with fantasy movies — even ones with dinosaurs — but I have a problem with faith healers, quack medical practitioners, and anyone else would would make a quick buck taking advantage of other people’s misery. The opposition to such people simply can’t bee too strong.
If you are approaching this purely as entertainment, I have no problem. If you are giving medical advice, I have a problem.
I don’t remember the example you are discussing, but if you are talking about apparently perceiving motion in some object that isn’t actually moving (with respect to you), why call it perception rather than illusion? Direct perception is generally a theory of what happens in veridical perceptual experiences.
What about the perception of colors in the presence of alternating white and black stripes. One can confirm that the color signals originate in the retina rather than in the brain.
I do not think this is a suitable topic for philosophy. We should get the physiology understood first.
Righto. I agree with all of that.
I think the problems posed by fraudulent psi, faith-healing and psyhic/medium hustlers is insignificant compared to the problems posed by the hustlers that have embedded themselves and their views in mainstream science, medicine, business, and the government. Every day it’s another tale of scientific fraud, research malfeasance, political corruption, big finance swindles and a new class action lawsuit.
But yeah, it’s the people who believe in faith-healing and psi that’s the real threat to the republic, public safety, science and the savings of most folks.
Yes, the world is full of hustlers. Being overly concerned about what harm can be caused by belief in psychics and faith healers is a little bizarre when compared to the harm caused by those fully embedded in the system.
Yes, because it is just so, so dangerous, compared to, say, market-breaking and savings-destroying shady financial and mortgage practices, social policy using the imprimatur of science to make enforced, sweeping socio-economic changes funneling more power to a centralized state and generating trillions of dollars of debt; systemic mainstream scientific fraud and research malfeasance due to money and political corruption; and the issue of extremist Islamic aggression.
But you’re right. The people we should really keep an eye on are mediums, psychics and faith healers. They’re they ones that deserve any level of “opposition” we can muster.
There’s a reason materialists are so concerned with psychics, faith healers and mediums. It has nothing to do with any supposed “threat” they pose to other people.
So it’s not “materialists” who are pointing out science fraud, then?
I think we need to be clear on that.
Glen Davidson
Except that when I point out the thoroughly supported statistical or methodological problems with psi experiments you don’t even respond to my posts.
What do [you]* want to complain about? That politicians start out self-serving, become venal and end up corrupt? That drug companies are driven by profit? That scientific endeavour is hamstrung by the need to tout for research money? It is not an either/or thing. That other spheres of life are peppered with dishonest people gives charlatans operating as faith healers a free pass? I’m not buying it.
*Oops
No it isn’t, William. That is bullshit. Sure, it happens, unsurprising in such a vast enterprise. But so it does in every enterprise. And one of the ways we find it out is precisely the kind of meta-analytic and methodological checks you keep ignoring.
As I keep saying: you keep mistaking rigor for bias. Sure there’s bias – there always is. That’s why we need to remain skeptical, whether its of supraluminal neutrons, quantum entanglement, Higg’s bosons, dark matter, or psi.
And double check everything. Assume that it’s your methodology until you are damn sure it isn’t.
And certainly suspect anyone whose idea of an “independent party” is “the experimenter’s spouse”.
Science supports the invention, engineering and production of nearly everything we eat, wear or use.
Psi has been around as a fantasy for all of recorded history and supports the script writing industry.
I give it that.
I have enjoyed “Game of Thrones” immensely! Will Jon Snow resurrect in season six? If William can answer that I’ll be impressed.
walto,
I call it perception because the inference is usually veridical in “real life”. For example, suppose you are looking at a tall fence, behind which there is a sunlit background. The fence slats are closely spaced but not overlapping, so you can see a sliver of light between each pair.
Now suppose someone is walking behind the fence and parallel to it. You’ll see the slivers darken and light up again in sequence, and your visual system will perceive motion. It’s a veridical perception, because a person really is moving on the other side of the fence.
Why bring up the illusions? Well, a proponent of direct perception might try to argue that in the fence example, the visual system isn’t inferring motion from the temporal variation in brightness of the slivers, but rather by detecting motion within the slivers. By setting up a motion illusion in which artificial “slivers” on a screen darken and lighten in sequence, we can show that motion is inferred even when it is lacking in the stimulus.
Ditto for the red ball illusions.
In both cases, the visual system is “betting” on the persistence of objects. In the case of the fence, it’s far more likely that something is moving behind the fence than that objects are poofing into and out of existence in just the right sequential pattern. In the red ball case, it’s far more likely that the ball moved from A to B than that a ball poofed out of existence at point A while an identical ball poofed into existence at point B.
The inference can be wrong in rare cases, but it’s usually right, so selection favors it.
It’s worth noting that Hollywood depends on this. Movies are really just a sequence of static images. Take the “move” out of “movie”, and you’d be left with a rather repetitive photo gallery.
I finally get it.
William is jealous of the scams coming from big pharma. But he thinks that maybe he can get away with a little spoon bending as a side business.
</sarcasm>
I have no sympathy for your position, William. None at all. I’m sorry there is no quick cure for cancer, but I and nearly everyone I know is beholden to Pharma for our lives. I will not argue with the claims of over-marketing. But all the doctors I frequent are drug minimalists.
I’m not so sure. I had my tumour excised – which took a couple of hours – and, ten years on, here I am.
Sounds like little c.
But if William wants to play intentional medicine, he can try positive thinking when he or his wife gets cataracts. He can rail at the greedy bastards who invent IOLs and antibiotics and anti-inflamatory eyedrops. And ask Jesus to lift the scales from his eyes.
The world is fucked, agreed. It’ll be a little less fucked if psi charlatans are barred from plying their trade without objective evidence for their claims.
Not sure what that means. Googling finds me this guy.
Sorry. Incurable cancer is sometimes called Big C. Lots of them left.
Once again, the point I’m actually making is lost tp the cognitive reinterpretations of those insisting I am making some other point.
Well, what goes around comes around William. You have been consistently missing mine.
Well, the issue for me is that you never make a point. Your favourite expression seems something along the lines of “that’s not what I meant”. It wears thin after a while. Will you make a point that you feel strongly about enough to defend [or clarify]* at some stage? If not, why post at all?
ETA*
I know exactly, precisely what point you are making. That’s not the problem here.
I don’t think he will. A belief held by him is held with or without evidence for it. As such, how can it be defended other then “it works for WJM” – as WJM says that is all that actually matters to him. If it has utility, it is “true”.
I think this goes some way to explaining the deflections. That an experimental result is so poor that it can also be explained by “noise” is apparently a point he cannot contemplate.
You see, William, the way I see it is that you are the rat on the table being dissected. You just don’t realise it. We’re talking about you and to you at the same time. How’s that feel?
EL said:
Yes, EL. Whenever the psi effect might possibly be from some form of procedural bias, it’s “rigorous” to conclude that psi has not been demonstrated. I understand. 🙂
Your condescension is probably one of your more attractive features.
Alan said:
Of course I do. They’re just often not the kind of points you’d prefer I make and defend.
petrushka,
Whether the color is constructed by the retina or the brain is beside the point. The point is that the color is constructed. You can’t directly perceive color where there is no color to be directly perceived.
The Adelson checker shadow illusion vividly demonstrates color being constructed, not directly perceived. there is an enormous amount of processing going on pre-consciously, “under the hood”.