lost in labels

[Guest guest]

I think I need to clarify a point. If one can show a reliably

reproducible connection between two or more phenomena or variables, I

consider that a scientific verification. This would apply to ESP,

healing at a distance, prayer, magic, etc. While the mechanism of

action is also of interest and in the domain of science, it is mainly

the reliability and reproducibility that concern me in this instance.

Magical thinking is essentially defined as drawing connections between

phenomena based upon faulty deduction and induction. It has nothing to

do with the phenomena themselves. If you have ever read Murphy's

Future of the body, there is ample evidence that unexplainable

phenomena exist. TCM makes connections not known in western thought.

They are not magical because they have a certain reliability and

reproducibility that has been shown in both history and science. We

might not know how these connections are all explained, but that is one

part of science.

 

For example, it was faulty to believe that the sun rises in the east

and sets in the west when in actuality the earth rotates and revolves

around the sun. The literal idea of the flat earth and the moving sun

impeded rational thinking for centuries. The observer will naturally

draw the connection between two events even if none exists. Only math

and technology showed that the casual connections made by untrained

minds are often faulty. This assumption that one thing is happening

when it is really another is called magical because in the absence of

explanation, invisible forces were often resorted to in explanation.

But it applies to any connection between two events that can be shown

to be flawed. Another example is Sheldrake's experiment where one

seems to sense being stared at. But that experiment has been shown to

be fatally flawed and easily explainable by nonmagical means.

 

When religion attempts to explain the physical world, it fails the test

of evidence. When religion attempts to explain the spiritual realm,

many sources seem to concur. This would lend some validity to religion

as a source of information about aspects of consciousness and reality

that may transcend the physical. But it would be a mistake to extend

the domain of religion into the flesh. Ken Wilber writes clearly on

the domains of science, art and religion and the eyes of the flesh,

mind and spirit. This has been the great failure of the new age, the

idea that spiritual sources provide the best explanation for physical

reality as well as transcendent consciousness. The idea that those in

the past may know more about consciousness than we do makes sense as

they were unburdened by technology. But we know more about the

physical world. It never ceases to amaze me that TCM herbology is

consistently proven valid when subjected to science. Anything method

that works can be shown to work. If it works, it is rational, if not,

it's irrational. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

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