Is it possible to debate woo woo topics?

a reply to: Profusion

Is it possible to debate woo woo topics?

No. People who subscribe to woo do not understand that they are woo. They ultimately retreat to subjective arguments (I know what I've seen) or accuse anyone who does not accept their beliefs as truth of being "shills."

3. "We're all one consciousness"

On one level you are a consciousness program running on a biological quantum machine built up on individual separate cells having their own conscious program.

If your consciousness is built up on lesser part consciousness then it it so strange that another "group consciousness" is manifested from the interaction of consciousness of different levels?

a reply to: VegHead

Exactly, I don't like that term either.

Furthermore, lot of stuff that was previously considered to be "woo woo" (such as meditation) have now been supported by science.

Brian Cox (the physicist) likes to use the term 'there is nothing woo woo about it'.
I watched a programme where he held a large diamond in his hand and as he rubbed the diamond between his hands he said, 'because i am rubbing this diamond all the atoms in the diamond are heating up and this causes the atoms in the diamond move - because all the atoms in the diamond move, all the atoms in the universe have to move. There is nothing woo woo about it'.
What struck me when he said it was - so what is being rubbed to make Brian Cox move?

Brian Cox (the body that is seen consists of atoms) is moving - not because Brian Cox is doing the moving but because all that is moving is being moved by everything else moving.

This could answer the 'woo woo' question of 'is it all one'?

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: Profusion

Is it possible to debate woo woo topics?

No. People who subscribe to woo do not understand that they are woo. They ultimately retreat to subjective arguments (I know what I've seen) or accuse anyone who does not accept their beliefs as truth of being "shills."

I suppose you like playing with your own subjects or toys of the conceptual wile looking out your window at the other kids... I hope they are benicfical in some manner like progressing scientific concepts etc.

David likes playing with reptiles and other things... not my kinda fun so I dont play at his house either. If anyone likes to play statues and buddha in a nice relaxing peaceful manner I share those toys freely.

originally posted by: VegHead
A thoughtful debate requires respect on both sides of the issue. The term "woo-woo" is condescending and dismissive. So, no, I don't think you could see a quality debate on "woo-woo".

Surprisingly I'm ok with it being called woo-woo or The woo. Totally not insulting.
It's an all encompassing term.

Kinda like the f-bomb.
It's a noun, it's a verb etc....

When someone says they want to discuss the woo I know right out of the gate it's going to regard high strangeness, the weird and oddness. Same with tin foil hat...that's to me a more defined UFO-govt records maybe EMP stuff.

Maybe the terms started out being derogatory but that was a long time ago and doesn't apply now.

Have to mention, 2 pages of woo-discussion with no actual woo being discussed....ridiculous!

a reply to: Profusion

People who are CONVINCED to their bones that they have experienced "woo" become changed.

It's like a religious conversion.

After that, "debate" becomes problematic.

Now, I fall into that category (I've been changed).

It's certainly possible to be relatively logical with your woo.. and if you make theories involving science, then you are taken more seriously, but you''ll have the "pseudo-science slur" used then.

It's also certainly possible to discuss woo philosophically, but then you run into the huge problems of subjectivity, epistemology, and ontology, which lead to exactly nowhere.

Those changed by "real woo" become like democrats, compared to those who have not experienced 'real woo'
are like republicans (just metaphors here).

It's really difficult to come together.

The standards of what constitutes "proof" becomes altered irreconcilably.

I think that you could have taken Carl Sagan, who wrote "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" and if you dropped a black triangle ufo on his head (like happened to me), then he'd have to struggle with "woo" just like the rest of us "woo people".

Kev

yes

a reply to: Caver78

You must have been writing this wen itsnowagain was sharing some woo woo.

The conceptual actually moved his hand to explain a concept, so the woo woo does produce its own woo woo, but when proven reality and fact then it becomes law or absolute... the wonder and mystery fades and then its off to more woo woo.

Here is an interesting article on this subject:

Cambridge Science Historian Contemplates Place of Parapsychology

The idea that parapsychology is unscientific, or pseudoscientific arose in the 19th century from “political, philosophical, and religious concerns rather than scientific work,” he argued. This idea has been perpetuated, in part, due to fear.

He quoted physicist Léon Foucault’s comments on telekinesis: “If I saw a straw moved by the action of my will … I should be terrified. If the influence of mind upon matter does not cease at the surface of the skin, there is no safety left in the world for anyone.”

Sommer qualified: “I don’t want to appear as trying to substitute one crude psychological explanation (‘interest in occult phenomena has been motivated by an irrational need to believe,’ etc.) with another, equally simplistic one (‘opposition to psychical research has been motivated by irrational fears’) and use it as a historiographical argument.”

He continued: “At the same time, once we acknowledge that cultural and personal biases constitute fundamental problems in any realm of human activity, the insight that we have to deal with them somehow seems inescapable.”

What Sommer calls “fuzzy but immensely loaded” words—such as “mysticism” and “superstition”—were used to discredit parapsychology and distance it from the new psychology that developed in the late 19th century.

Are you afraid of the dark? Notes on the
psychology of belief in histories of science and the
occult
Andreas Sommer European Journal of Psychotherapy
& Counselling, 18:2, 105-122, DOI: 10.1080/13642537.2016.1170062

ABSTRACT
The popular view of the inherent conflict between science and the occult has
been rendered obsolete by recent advances in the history of science. Yet, these
historiographical revisions have gone unnoticed in the public understanding of
science and public education at large. Particularly, reconstructions of the formation
of modern psychology and its links to psychical research can show that the
standard view of the latter as motivated by metaphysical bias fails to stand up
to scrutiny. After highlighting certain basic methodological maxims shared by
psychotherapists and historians, I will try to counterbalance simplistic claims of a
‘need to believe’ as a precondition of scientific open-mindedness regarding the
occurrence of parapsychological phenomena by discussing instances revealing
a presumably widespread ‘will to disbelieve’ in the occult. I shall argue that
generalized psychological explanations are only helpful in our understanding of
history if we apply them in a symmetrical manner.

I don't think 'debate' in the true sense is possible with what I'll call 'fringe' topics. Meaning fringe of what our 'mainstream' culture believes.

I've learned this the hard way, because I'm a communicator by nature, and a natural mystic (if that's how to explain it), and conveying that is easier said than done.

The first problem is language. It is designed for "shared experience." When you are talking about things that are uncommonly experienced and perhaps unique to the individual, already you may have no words.

The second problem is still language. English has a crazy amount of implicit baggage in it. For example there is no way to say you are neutral about someone in english (except like that); English gives the positive and then "negatives" it. So you either like someone, or you don't like someone which implies you DISlike them even though technically you didn't say that.

The third problem is still language. A lot of "esoteric" awareness has elements not common in physical reality. For example say you are talking to someone and they are both singular and many, or they are both male and female (or neither, or both and neither). Our language has no damn idea what to do outside the "binary" of singular vs. not-singular, gender vs. not-that-gender. Another still simple example is the perceived difference in 'span of awareness.' I may perceive someone as "superior" to me, but metaphysically it is merely an observation such as "that fellow is four inches taller than I am" -- it's not a social judgement on my lesser worthiness or something as interpreted if I say it out loud.

I force myself to write down my meditations and observations and I'm constantly running into how impossible it is to convey it in the words I have -- like I have about 8 big fat crayons, and 3 are something weird like "mauve," and with this I'm supposed to convey and huge spectrum of subtle, unique experience.

The fourth problem is still language. Our cultural paradigms have taught us things are either measurably physical or they are fake. The 'fake' can extend to 'sincerely experienced totally subjectively by an individual' but it amounts to the same thing for group-reality of course. We don't have a category for "this is valid but you cannot put it into a test tube because probably very few people can perceive it and possibly only at a given unpredictable moment."

You can mention quantum slit experiments but most scientists haven't caught up with science, and for that matter mainstream science really hasn't caught up with science either, and most people can't even wrap their head around humans having more than five senses, or that there is no such thing as matter just collections of vibrating energy perceived through the awesomely complex filter of our biology assuming one is in the right spectrum and the correct 'beat pattern' -- starting to sound woo, but all that just goes back to a degree of physics. We aren't even to the woo yet!

The fifth problem is we assume on a standard set of perceptual tools. For example, I assume if I can see that mountain, Jane can too. But when I see my throat chakra at times, what does Jane see of hers? Maybe she never sees hers. Or feels it. Or has any awareness of it. John sees his now and then and he thinks it's like a spinning dinner plate. Jack has never seen or felt it but he can talk to it like it's an entity, once in a rare while in dreams or when awakening. Are they all different degrees of hallucinating or are their "perceptual tools" different? Or of different degree? Or is their psychology or memory interfering with communication or even knowing it happened? We don't even understand that ability to perceive, let alone what it is perceiving, so nobody knows. But we do know it's not an "objective visual" so, even if we skip the test tube requirement, it still fails the live-or-memorex challenge.

These perceptual tools are more than the obvious analogies like visuals though. For example not until I was older did I have what I call a "capacity" open in me that seemed to "allow me" to "perceive the divine" more than I ever had -- most things had been "jungian-ish psychology" to me before then; they were distinctly spiritual after that. It wasn't like anything changed except the "scope of my perceptual abilities." Like how little kids don't get irony until they're older. Later, I found out in some ancient traditions people weren't even allowed to be part of some things until after the age of 40 because it was considered that spiritually-which-has-a-physical-correlate they just weren't really capable until then.

So for my younger self, she was knee-jerk hated-with-frothing 'religion' and despised the "making some nebulous entity a cosmic superior" and then suddenly, I could perceive nebulous entities better than ever and some were cosmic... and superior. What then. I once joked -- 25 years ago when having some offbeat experiences some call alien-ish -- that I was in the dilemma where if I shared my experiences with people whose minds I respected they'd think I was a moron, but if I shared them with people who would understand, they were morons. LOL -- that was my bias I have grown out of, but when you're coming out of the skeptical medical-model world into the world-of-woo it's a tough transition to wrap your brain around.

Worse, discussing anything about one's perception of something divine, whether it's an insight or a conversation or whatever, is impossible when the moment someone hears you suggest something has divine energy their brain turns off because they hate religion (human made governmentlike-marketing-control-ish BS). They might have no experience with a sense of holy or divine, so they condescendingly assume anyone using such words is a moron deluding themselves. There is no word to give them, they have not "shared" the experience for it to have any meaning to them.

Of course people don't "believe in" X if they have never experienced it. Who would?? I wouldn't expect anybody sane to believe in stuff there is no evidence to them for. But evidence can be personal, subjective, empirical, too. And when you get something "internally" it's not a matter of intellectually 'believing' it. You 'believe' in politics. Deep stuff, you 'are.'

What is 'weird' to us was often totally normal long ago or in other cultures. So judging "what" is "woo" is itself a prejudice. :-)

RC

a reply to: TheBandit795

Science is the bastard child of woo woo, and thats just going to have to be accepted, simply because its fact.

i'm sorry about going a bit off topic, but that episode forever engraved woo woo in my mind in a way i will never forget. couldn't find the right part from Mulder's trip, so this will have to suffice.



when i think about it, it's actually quite fitting here. think about it: everything that's outside of one's closed box of thinking, is a woo woo for that person. so the answer is: yes, woo woo can be debated, as long as you can convince a person to think outside of their box, so that woo woo stops being a woo woo.

a reply to: Profusion

I've never been a fan of 'woo' as a term. It was coined as a pejorative and is usually wielded for scorn or giggles by people wanting to impose their own ideas. Scepticism has more value, in my opinion, because it can be a process or perspective that doesn't have to control a discussion.

That aside, the examples you list are pointless for discussion. I mean, it may be possibleto debate them and I'd ask who would want to? With the exception of 'we're all one consciousness*' the claims are rather vague and slippery. Debating these contentions is redundant unless passing the time of day in a feedback loop is the aim. I mean, why engage with someone who believes teenage pop stars are illuminati glove-puppets sent to mock the population by 'hiding in plain sight.' Like Flat Earth and Moon hoax debates, they can be reduced to the essence of 'did vs did not.' I guess my overall point is anything can be debated but who would bother??

"Saturn's rings are an amplifier for broadcasting control signals from the moon in a holographic reality," is a statement based on zero evidence and has equal value for discussion. Same again when someone picks a constellation (Draco) that sounds scaly enough for an origin story for 'reptilians.' The 'red dress program' doesn't compute with me and I'd have to go and read up on it to make sense - no chance.

When conspiracists present all-encompassing space operas to make sense of the world, it leaves me cold; they aren't the same as someone saying they saw a ghost or UFO or had a meaningfully weird experience. These 'grand theories' are woven from the stuff as dreams are made on. The subjective experiences are far more interesting in my view and rarely come packaged with back-stories and overarching narratives.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Have you never heard any old 20s and 30s spooky caber music? Like in the old spooky merrie melodies cartoons? With the skeletons and ghosts... plenty of woo sounds and not just those making ghost noises... seeing how theres spooky action at a distance why not woo, its a nice blend of science and supernatural... things were only concidered supernatural because they werent known and as science has been progressing a lot of the woo aside from Einsteins spooky is ceasing to become supernatural or pesudoscience. Like turning lights on or flying hover toys with brain waves and all sorts of woo.

I suppose it is sort of like science coming in trying to wreck the mystery of the unknown or woo but hey its just saying maybe these people werent kooks or weirdos afterall and isnt about time one can take their tinfoil hat of and shed a tear for the death of crazy and eccentric? Now if its someone bread and butter, I can see how soon such woo becoming fact would eventually lead to just crickets chirping like eh black triangle ufos have an hourly schedule to titan if you wanna go these days stop being weird.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

I have some type of internal scale that dictates the value I can ascribe to unusual claims. That's what controls the level of interest or amount of time to give something.

I like the analogy of science as a 'wrecking ball' and it's certainly true for many people. Hasn't it always been on the front-line of the war between emerging and dominant ideologies? Geocentrism and technophobes springs to mind.

a reply to: Kandinsky

well science is a blend of all pseudosciences, from alchemy all the way to astrology... the thing thats progressing science the most these days is tossing out the scientific method coming at tings from different angles as te scientific method as metods improve and change only was and is a variable... not a constant. The only reason its eld as a constant is because in that situation it statistically repeats more than others. Then they take that highly likely statistical variable and stack more and more concepts on top... and in most cases these things are not repeatible except in the conditions or circumstances under which they fell like the Hutchinson effect... whichh is science but dont tell me theres no woo to that.

People also forget math is a theory and not yet proven science, and yet use a not proven theory to prove theory as fact? Yeah head slapper... its patterning and statistical likelyhoods of variables that tries to make chaos a constant. Well sir your lab results do not match 95% percent of people in you demographic so something must be wrong with you... lets waste 1000s of dollars trying to find out. But Dr. I feel fine, well lets guinea pig err I mean waste your own money and other peoples money anyway mmmk? Ok youre the Dr. says so by that fancy lab coat and piece of paper hanging on a wall... so you know best.

Um no. Were all circus freaks here, and trying to make like theres a science to the circus is cute, theres experience and whatever experience can stand on its own in that moment verified valid or real to anyone else doesnt actually matter in the slightest... and thats how we keep the wonder, aside from science going ow do we repeat that effect and exploit it to make money off the masses.

Even when its rocket science it isnt.

originally posted by: Profusion
Is it possible to debate woo woo topics?

Let me translate;
Are 'beliefs' subject to the original critical analysis of philosophical/scientific examination (debate)!
The logical strictures of a true philosophical discussion (not the 'entertainment 'debates' for the fool public consumption!
The 'believer' is the chess playing pigeon; it knocks over the pieces, poops on the board and returns to the flock claiming victory.
The flock, perforce, must believe that he 'won'!

A 'belief' is a pathologically symptomatic infection of the imagination, the ego! Vanity!
'Beliefs' are 'caught' and 'spread' like other infections!
No one rationally, logically, sits down and 'chooses' to host a belief!
We catch them, often from those deliberately sallying forth to infect as many as do not have your strain already!
Three simple 'symptoms' are that 'beliefs' must be constantly 'defended', 'validated/fed' and propagated, 'spread'!
This is hardly the intellectually honest logic of philosophical discussion!
It is all ego/emotion on behalf of the pigeon!

Only the fake philosopher entertainers making their 'name' and money' ever waste their time with 'believers'!
'Belief' is insanity!
Even if you are Icky!

Besides, what is to debate about someone's imaginary friends?
Everything exists, even imaginary friends!
The problem with believer insanity is the lack of understanding of what is imaginary, and what is 'common experience'.
No one will argue with me if I say that Jesus lives in my imagination!
When I suggest an 'objective' existence for my imaginary friends, therein lies the rub!

Another symptom of a 'belief infection' is that it inhibits cognitive and intellectual function (as the 'believer' descends into insanity)!
Eats holes in the brain like Swiss cheese!

So the sandbox in which the 'believer' plays is completely different that the judicious rule bound philosophical debate sandbox!

3. "We're all one consciousness"

Sorry, son, but that is not a woo-woo (other than to your own ignorance)!
That has good science and philosophy behind it!
But, I guess that one man's woo-woo is another man's science and Knowledge/Experience!

how hard is it to just focus on the things that resonate with you in life?

the more effort you put into things that dont resonate with you the more you waste your time and effort which in turn takes away from the value of your life

counterproductive? i think so.

a reply to: dreamlotus1111

Do having to take extra curriculars in college irritate you? Nothing wrong with well rounded to see as many perspectives as possible in my opinion.

Of course being somewhat of an information sponge it might borderline as a healthy compulsion... never at a loss in about any conversation possible.

Sure theres the know thy self, but until that happens filling it with something while figuring it can be with just about anything.

Sure admittedly Ive more hobbies than I can possibly manage but yet Im still productive, they simply rotate by mood though, perhaps thats just life as an artist making life an art though, as one day I may sculpt, one day I may paint, another day I may do digital art(if comp wasnt down), another I may metal work, research something til my head explodes and keep going, may play guitar or violin however poorly that may be elvis knew 4 chords I think it was so hey whatever right? everyday I write and constantly meditate the entire time... so its spin the wheel and see what mood grabs and off I go... never ever bored, rarely watch TV only watch movies in company so it not seen it seen it seen it as I rarely like watching one twice. Yet some cartoons could be on an infinite loop in the background while doing other things and not tire of those.

So not a full life with things that dont resonate? Mines a bit overflowing but I have a passion for life itself so that means a ton Ill likely never get around too like own every instrument but hey as wheel barrowed guy in monty python said, Im not dead yet... at least I dont think, and if so who cares? Feels and looks like life well enough... aside being one of those always happy types people dont seem to like, but meh their feelings not mine... misery is not my kind of company.



PS I call all this simple too, and I had the nerve to ask George Takei how he managed to do so much all the time.