Thread: An Empirical View of Science Dogma

Originally Posted by Original Poster

dreams exist purely in the brain.

It's like talking to a brick wall. You've made statements like this repeatedly and I've directly addressed the problem with repeatedly. Not once have you even shown any recognition that I said anything, let alone given some kind of substantive response. Acting like this in a thread about "dogma" would be funny if it weren't so annoying.

The brain is certainly a necessary tool for consciousness, but from knowing it's a necessary tool, the leap is made that it's the beginning and end of understanding regarding dreams. This assumption then destroys investigation of shared dreaming even though plenty of evidence for shared dreams have been observed as well.

Do you understand why it's considered dogma now?

Uh... because you made an uncited claim about shared dreaming?

No.

Lucid dreaming used to be deemed false, but it's now scientifically accepted, because it was empirically proven. Shared dreaming is relatively easy to make into a solid statement about observations, and thus enters the domain of science. In fact it's far easier to give conclusive evidence for shared dreams than it is to give conclusive evidence for lucid dreaming; yet nobody has ever done so.

I'll be honest, were someone to make a claim about science, I would be giving the same responses you are. I know how it works, I know that there are no real dogmas in science. I don't know how much the scientific community clings to any particular preconception because I don't personally have to deal with them. I only have to deal with people, let's call them materialists, which believe in preconceptions and label them scientific facts without any evidence to actually back their statements up. You have, in the past, done the same, and now that I actually address the issue you slip into the easiest possible claim, which is that you're not guilty of this trait. Fine, you don't to be guilty, I won't hold you to it. You claim the scientific community doesn't cling to dogma, fine. I'll admit that at best I've dealt with materialist dogmatists who simply misunderstand what science has created data for and what logical leaps have filled in the gaps to give people the easiest understanding. You're obviously not going to admit for falling into this same dissonance in a thread about it anyways.

I am curious what conclusive evidence for shared dreaming would satisfy you, though. You claim no one has ever found any, but I suspect if they have you'd simply change th goal posts on what qualifies as conclusive.

OP, I think what you keep missing here is that Xei is never actually making a claim to the opposite be true simply because something is proven false, or that because the lack of credible evidence, the hypothesis is false for good. As a man of science, he believes that unless there is empirical evidence to suggest said phenomenon is true, there is no reason to investigate it. It should be plainly obvious how this saves time, as researching down any little old path that suits your fancy is bound to leave you feeling like a dope. You need not prove every possible wacky hypothesis wrong to conclude that it is. For instance, if I said pigs given massive amounts of alcohol shit into space and the result is a star, there isn't a need to give this claim a "proper analysis" because no attempt to make it fit the scientific method of investigation was made. In order for a hypothesis to be taken seriously, it must fit the criteria the scientific community has set out in the name of quality control. If you can't even begin the process scientifically, how can you end it scientifically?

Originally Posted by snoop

... For instance, if I said pigs given massive amounts of alcohol shit into space and the result is a star, there isn't a need to give this claim a "proper analysis" because no attempt to make it fit the scientific method of investigation was made. ...

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I'll be honest, were someone to make a claim about science, I would be giving the same responses you are.
I know how it works, I know that there are no real dogmas in science.

I don't know how much the scientific community clings to any particular preconception because I don't personally have to deal with them.
I only have to deal with people, let's call them materialists, which believe in preconceptions and label them scientific facts without any evidence to actually back their statements up.

You have, in the past, done the same, and now that I actually address the issue you slip into the easiest possible claim, which is that you're not guilty of this trait. Fine, you don't to be guilty, I won't hold you to it.

You claim the scientific community doesn't cling to dogma, fine. I'll admit that at best I've dealt with materialist dogmatists who simply misunderstand what science has created data for and what logical leaps have filled in the gaps to give people the easiest understanding. You're obviously not going to admit for falling into this same dissonance in a thread about it anyways.

I am curious what conclusive evidence for shared dreaming would satisfy you, though. You claim no one has ever found any, but I suspect if they have you'd simply change th goal posts on what qualifies as conclusive.

Ookay - so this is very satisfying actually - thank you OP for not further dogmatically clinging to this assertion of Mr. Sheldrake's.
Also - interesting to see, where you are coming from.
So - you basically have a feeling, that if there was more money and more attention put into shared dreaming research - then we would have it established just as officially as LDing is.

I agree with Xei here - proving that LD is real, was comparably much more difficult, than it would be to prove shared dreaming.
For that you wouldn't even need equipment - just making sure, there is no communication between subjects and see, if content - like a password - can be transmitted.
If you really want to scientifically prove it - you need a premises, which is objectively observable. So it doesn't help, that so many people slip and slide about and claim, this would not be in the nature of SD.
What on earth is in it's nature then - if there can be no specific communication - why bother? Why actually claim it at all then?
You sure understand, that nobody would do serious research into it, if it wouldn't even be believed to properly work by it's own proponents.

I don't know how long this has been going on on here - but since this forum has this huge beyonder section - one would expect, that you have proven it all over and comprehensively years ago.
With no need for funding or equipment or anything - and where, where is the evidence??
What I have come across on here is all very, very vague and weak indeed. Not once did I see even a claim to have transferred real information.

You want science - and you claim there is lots of evidence for shared dreaming - open a thread, where you collect significant anecdotal evidence wafting about in this forum, which you personally deem credible and worth considering in a scientific way?
That's what you want - science, right?

If you were really good - the only argument against said evidence should then be an accusation of fraud.
And conduct an experiment with the people you deem credible and able - something realistic, please - like password transfer.
If you get that to seemingly work - the only thing you needed to do then to get it to it's in your eyes scientific relevance - repeat under controlled conditions to make sure there is no fraud.

That is not step one, to look for money for such a thing - step one is to make a good case.
What I see on here is most and mainly wishful thinking, delusion and a lot of insincerity as well.
So - go about making such a thread!
Instead of bashing phantom-dogmas with Mr. Sheldrake - not a good company for aspiring (hobby-) scientists.



By the way - it is refreshing to see, that somebody is actually able to consider arguments and step back from a false assertion.
Makes me feel less stupid with arguing, than I feel doing it with people like astralboy.

Okay Kip, something you should be aware of is if you're going to make a thread about dogma in science, you can't expect people to predict what you're saying if you're not explaining a bit more in detail on your premise.

Most of what seems to be a concern for you in relation to science being dogmatic are:

• The nature of science itself, and whether or not Science has an epistemic standpoint (which it does if there’s constant emphasis for rigorous repetition of experimentation, objective standpoints, and empirical evidence). If you’re wanting to make claims on the rudiments, you’re pretty much making Science a monolithic being so you can have something to complain about. Don’t tackle this, because you’re just creating an imaginary argumentum ad populum that ends up with you giving Xei straw mans, non-sequiturs, and feeling as if you don’t need to clarify to him because you feel laconic responses are sufficient enough (even though Xei has clearly been asking for more clarification on your end to hopefully move this discussion forward; you’ve been eliminating that opportunity, and seeing how you made the thread, you’re not really being consistent in that).

• Then there’s the matter of institutions (i.e. those utilizing the scientific process in academia is what may be deemed as leading to dogma.) It would be natural for those individuals to contribute the overwhelming influence of dogma that may be apparent in this perspective, because it’s what would mold, or to say without being a social Darwinist, the fruition of dogma in science. And this includes those materialistic individuals you’re faced with apparently that may reference that and other sources in creating pseudoscience to have their half-baked dispositions true to them.

• People who subscribe to epistemic standpoints of science, teleological standpoints of science, or whatever standpoints they want to utilize will be just as likely to make errors when it comes to conformity. Whatever you feel is dogma is mostly just a transient mode of logic a scientist would utilize every now and then, but it wouldn’t necessarily affect overall development of paradigm shifts that science would be dependent on for making a conceptual framework of reality based on the few rudiments I mentioned already (objectivity, repeatability in experimentation, and peer-review).

• You’re focusing on two elements (dogma in academia of applying science vs. materialists that just spew pseudoscience when they deem they have empirical evidence for their claims). And you’re trying to fuse them together, which makes your points so far as if you’re on a militant hunt for confirmation bias. Scientist being opinionated over their theories doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. Seeing how if a scientist gave up their research at every instance of a theory that challenges theirs, there would be an impasse of progress. This isn’t something revolutionary if you ever bothered to have a generalization over the history of Science.

• You’re basically talking about (and this is me having to conjecture your laconic responses so far, so please clarify more if I'm wrong) reasonable scientific arguments vs. opinionated views of scientists (or the materialists in your case) that stifles development of science in general. If that's eliminated (scientific arguments that you're confusing to be dogmatic arguments), that’s cutting off the whole competitive nature, a part of the framework of science, and the ambition to sustain the standard for repeatability to filter out the frauds and nonsense. If you’re talking solely about the materialist that probably have no credibility, then I don’t see any reason for you to fixate on them if you feel their pseudo-intellectualism is really just that. Sure, you may argue the source in which they sustain their dogma may be from academia, or even other modes of institutional "dogma" of science, but it’s the individuals you should be focusing on, not the framework of science.

__

Now, for shared dreaming, that’s entering metaphysics, and you’ve made the assumption that dogma in science is apparently stifling any opportunity for observing unobservable concepts. If the individual can provide a sound and pragmatic framework to go about shared dreaming, this doesn’t mean it can’t enter the domain of science.

Xei has already told you that, so I won’t contribute to an echo chamber, but I felt the need to tell you that because you probably were too indolent to read what he was stating to you. Like StephL mentioned with passwords, and all those presumptive models a community like this can create, it’s about seeing if there can be predictive regularities that can be repeatable and consistent. Even if it ends up being a scavenger hunt for making connections for that aim, wanting to discover something new isn’t something apparent only in Science. Dogma, or just being opinionated is what adds on to (partially) hopefully making breakthroughs in Science. Dogma itself is only an intimidation, and not a deadlock that physically stops people from wanting to create predictive regularities, and anyone that may want to offer premises to enter the domain of Science.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I am curious what conclusive evidence for shared dreaming would satisfy you, though. You claim no one has ever found any, but I suspect if they have you'd simply change th goal posts on what qualifies as conclusive.

Simple; just demonstrate the sharing of information via dreams which can't be explained by any other physical mechanism or by chance.

All you need to do is take two people who claim to be able to share dreams with one another, and let them sleep in isolated rooms. You give one of them a piece of information to communicate to the other. Communicating strings of numbers like "4668" would pretty quickly provide overwhelming evidence for shared dreaming. It will probably be protested that strings of numbers are particularly difficult to communicate via dreams or something, but communicating simple, memorable things like "blue apple" would also provide conclusive evidence if it were repeated a small number of times.

This is basically the entire definition of shared dreaming being real. If people can't demonstrate any better-than-chance coinciding of information, then there's no basis for calling it a "shared" dream.

Yupp.

Aand - here is such a thread: hi guys has any project yeileded astonishing results ?

As if somebody would have asked for it...

Originally Posted by snoop

OP, I think what you keep missing here is that Xei is never actually making a claim to the opposite be true simply because something is proven false, or that because the lack of credible evidence, the hypothesis is false for good. As a man of science, he believes that unless there is empirical evidence to suggest said phenomenon is true, there is no reason to investigate it. It should be plainly obvious how this saves time, as researching down any little old path that suits your fancy is bound to leave you feeling like a dope. You need not prove every possible wacky hypothesis wrong to conclude that it is. For instance, if I said pigs given massive amounts of alcohol shit into space and the result is a star, there isn't a need to give this claim a "proper analysis" because no attempt to make it fit the scientific method of investigation was made. In order for a hypothesis to be taken seriously, it must fit the criteria the scientific community has set out in the name of quality control. If you can't even begin the process scientifically, how can you end it scientifically?

But what Mr. Sheldrake supposes is that no scientific data actually supports any of the dogmas he lists, which is why he calls them dogma. They are assumed true without a drop of evidence in their support, and in fact these ideas are often grandfathered in from old ways of thinking which have already been disproven.

I am not making an affirmative claim in favor of shared dreaming or anything else like it. The claim I have made is that many assumptions are held by so called empirically minded people only because they're rooted in our culture and not because they have actually been proven or predicted.

My view is similar to Bill Nye's in the debate he had with Ken Ham recently. If you can actually show evidence to prove any of the "dogma" listed in OPs youtube video, then fantastic. As it is, they are culturally created bias and are no more viable than stars being born of alcohol induced shit. So when Sheldrake proposes theories and shows evidence that would require us to change the culturally inherited model, he meets more resistance than evidence which does not contradict the culturally inherited model. I understand science has always worked this way, phrenology and early theories of evolution is a great example of how a theory was validated based on cultural bias, and theories which contradicted these racist assumptions were met with far more resistance but eventually won out because the evidence was too compelling to ignore. I also believe that if the theory of the extended mind is true it will eventually win out.

But it's not based on bias to start with, and it's not so outrageous to be unworthy of investigating either, the theory of the extended mind started the same way the theory of the Big Bang started. Hubble observed an expanding universe and wondered why that was. Sheldrake observed the sense of being stared at and couldn't find an explanation in our current understanding of science so he went on to explore other possibilities, did several experiments which validated his hypothesis until he formed the theory of the extended mind, and then met resistance from the scientific community which he chose to label dogmatic to draw similarity to the dogmatic way early scientists repressed theory that did not prove us superior to black people.

This repression is rooted in the way non-racist evolutionary theory would be compared to the poop stars theory you just made. They are called outrageous and unworthy of investigation by de facto even though they're born out of a question, hypothesis and experiment. They are considered outrageous because cultural bias opposes it and seeks easier explanations. In fact, outrageous explanations are often considered more rational so long as they agree with the current bias. For example when Sheldrake did his experiments to show pets have a psychic link with their owners one of the pieces of criticism he met was that it really just showcases how fantastic a dog's hearing is. The actual experiment had the owner leaving work for home at different times and utilizing different methods of transportation throughout the day with dogs dependably still sitting by the door the moment the intention hit the owner's mind to begin the journey home. At this point, the evidence is pretty compelling but hearing is still used as an easy excuse and remains the more popular explanation for the experiment's result. This explanation does not have more compelling evidence than Sheldrake's explanation, it does not account for how the dogs could predict their owners' intentions so dependably, it's solely more likely if you believe that the mind cannot exist outside the brain. In other words, it is based on a de facto (or as Sheldrake put it, dogmatic) assumption which creates inherent resistance to psychic theory.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

But what Mr. Sheldrake supposes is that no scientific data actually supports any of the dogmas he lists, which is why he calls them dogma. They are assumed true without a drop of evidence in their support

Why do you keep saying this? Please read my first post? There's a mountain of evidence for e.g. energy-mass conservation. Sheldrake is lying to you.

Sheldrake observed the sense of being stared at and couldn't find an explanation in our current understanding of science so he went on the explore other possibilities, did several experiments which validated his hypothesis until he formed the theory of the extended mind.

There have been studies in the past which found no correlation between being stared at and the sensation of being stared at. That's not the failure to detect a positive correlation; that's a positive detection of no correlation. Sheldrake has done experiments that gave a positive result, but scientists found that he had not randomised properly. It's pretty easy to create a properly randomised series of experiments. A serious question I would ask you is why you give greater weight to Sheldrake's questionable positive result than to the negative results of others? What's your basis for that decision? I mean, the guy's given you a lecture in which he repeatedly made false and misleading statements.

In the video he points out the major problem with energy and mass conservation, which is the birth of the universe. He quotes Terence McKenna (which I'll paraphrase cause I don't remember exactly): "Give me one miracle and science can explain the rest."

Today, the creation of the universe agrees with foundational theory on chaos magick, which is that universal laws of physics such as the conservation of mass and energy came about as the universe formed and did not pre-exist it. However, it is also assumed, and this is why Sheldrake cries dogma, that currently these laws are stationary, and more cannot be created only discovered. In other words, yes physical laws were made up in the development of the universe but it's fully grown now and not still developing. This is unproven but an assumed bias which creates inherent resistance to new ideas.

Secondly you asked me why I choose Sheldrake's findings over other findings, and the reason is because my experience of life created for me the same questions Sheldrake has and my hypotheses are also the same, he's doing the experiments I would be doing if I were a scientist. I have seen plenty of his experiments repeated with differing results but I don't see many people attempting experiments based on the same questions, which is why does it appear we have an extended mind? Why do we score above chance at predicting who's calling us, or at sensing when we're being stared at or sensing when someone is looking at the same thing we're looking at (such as reading over our shoulder)? Many scientists have repeated his experiments without scoring above chance in favor of his hypotheses but they aren't making these questions go away and so far as I know he's the only person of reputation still seeking these answers rather than excusing every "paranormal experience" (experience defiant of inherent bias) as charlatan or cognitive illusion.

So to fully answer your question, I do not necessarily side purely with Sheldrake's results and ignore other results, but I still hold that there is baseless resistance to his hypotheses, and it's the same kind of resistance that existed against non-racist psychology and evolutionary theory back at the birth of those sciences.

Originally Posted by Xei

Why do you keep saying this? Please read my first post? There's a mountain of evidence for e.g. energy-mass conservation.
Sheldrake is lying to you.


There have been studies in the past which found no correlation between being stared at and the sensation of being stared at. That's not the failure to detect a positive correlation; that's a positive detection of no correlation. Sheldrake has done experiments that gave a positive result, but scientists found that he had not randomised properly. It's pretty easy to create a properly randomised series of experiments. A serious question I would ask you is why you give greater weight to Sheldrake's questionable positive result than to the negative results of others? What's your basis for that decision? I mean, the guy's given you a lecture in which he repeatedly made false and misleading statements.

Exactly my point.
That's why I got into the monkey example.
He does know better, he is not a misguided man - he is a fraud. That's what I see.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

In the video he points out the major problem with energy and mass conservation, which is the birth of the universe. He quotes Terence McKenna (which I'll paraphrase cause I don't remember exactly): "Give me one miracle and science can explain the rest."

The idea that scientists haven't considered the start of the universe in the context of energy is just bizarre. Of course they know that the universe started..? It was a major scientific discovery.

It doesn't contradict the conservation of energy, because conservation means a quantity is unchanged at any two points in time. Theoretical physicists would say that the idea of a point in time makes no sense prior to the Big Bang; at any rate there is no observation of such a point in time or how much energy was there (so ascribing an energy of 0 to one second before the Big Bang is incorrect).

So, every observation of every event has followed this pattern. That's... millions of experiments and not a single one out of kilter. I really really struggle to see how you can listen to Sheldrake call this a "dogma" and not feel you're being lied to. It's an absolutely ridiculous statement.

However, it is also assumed, and this is why Sheldrake cries dogma, that currently these laws are stationary, and more cannot be created only discovered. In other words, yes physical laws were made up in the development of the universe but it's fully grown now and not still developing. This is unproven but an assumed bias which creates inherent resistance to new ideas.

I already responded to this in my first post. This is just another repetition. Plenty of physicists have considered the possibility of universes with changing laws and constants. Physicists know that our existing physics does not work for very exotic conditions such as those at the very beginning. In contemporary times we can't detect any change in the laws; that's why we don't think they're changing, not because of some inherent bias. To claim that the laws are changing would be in contradiction of what we see.

Secondly you asked me why I choose Sheldrake's findings over other findings, and the reason is because my experience of life created for me the same questions Sheldrake has and my hypotheses are also the same, he's doing the experiments I would be doing if I were a scientist. I have seen plenty of his experiments repeated with differing results but I don't see many people attempting experiments based on the same questions, which is why does it appear we have an extended mind? Why do we score above chance at predicting who's calling us, or at sensing when we're being stared at or sensing when someone is looking at the same thing we're looking at (such as reading over our shoulder)? Many scientists have repeated his experiments without scoring above chance in favor of his hypotheses but they aren't making these questions go away and so far as I know he's the only person of reputation still seeking these answers rather than excusing every "paranormal experience" (experience defiant of inherent bias) as charlatan or cognitive illusion.

All of the cases you mentioned can be explained by confirmation bias, which is a well-studied phenomenon with a large amount of very good evidence. One of the most important purposes of science is to use a rigorous method to make sure a phenomenon really is objective and not the result of e.g. a psychological effect. When you use such methods, the effects disappear. After that, I don't understand what questions remain.

As Sheldrake described, the idea that the laws of nature are fixed is a hangover from the Scientific worldview predating the Big Bang. Evolving universal habits falls in pattern with biological evolution, and because the big bang theory necessitates that universal laws evolved into being as the universe developed, it also follows pattern that they continue to evolve over time just as a species never finishes developing. This is simply a hypotheses that allows physics to follow the same patterns as biology, and like biological evolution (such as fish losing their eyesight when they live in complete darkness) an outside change must occur the necessitate the change in the habit, or a random accident will occur and pervade throughout. There are many posits as to what types of changes could necessitate further development and what types of accidents could pervade the whole system. One particular accident is that the universe accidentally created one extra particle of matter (rather than equal matter and antimatter) and thus the whole system developed. I don't know exactly how this goes but it's in some documentary narrated by Stephen Hawking.

Universal Laws leave no room for error, universal habits follow the same mechanic of evolution and thereby leave room for accidents, glitches and constant development. And it's only through a glitch that the universe can be explained in the first place.

And we have observed universal constants change. In the video the example given is that the speed of light dropped by 20 kilometers per second between 1929 and 1948. The explanation is that scientists were committing "intellectual phase-locking" where they fudged their numbers to agree with other scientists, and the solution to the problem was to fix the speed of light in 1972 so even if it changed, the meter would change with it.

So basically, constants are being deemed constants, and thus not subject to change by the fact that they're constants. And your assessment of this story was that it was a cheap laugh but you never substantially explained this intellectual phase-locking story nor the fact that they fixed the speed of light to leave little room for questioning. Wouldn't intellectual phase-locking suppose a bias in favor of what people want to see rather than what they actually observe, which is universal constants?

You can't claim resistance to new ideas has never existed, it's well documented that the worldview and thus scientific results were twisted in favor of white supremacy, but it seems now that everything contradicting mainstream science fails simply because it cannot produce enough evidence rather than because it meets inherent bias. I do not believe this is necessarily true.

I described before the thing about the speed of light as a cheap laugh and completely disingenuous. He's playing off the audience's general ignorance of the theory of relativity. We could give him the benefit of the doubt and guess that maybe he's ignorant too, rather than just a plain liar. I don't know of the specifics in the case of fudging the speed of light, but I do know of a similar case recounted by Richard Feynman:

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of
the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that
kind of a disease.

Full article: Hot Fudge: CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman

The point is not that the constants were changing. If that were the case then they would continue to change; they did not, they settled down to a value and stayed there. The point is that when scientists got a value way outside of the error range, they would look for problems with their own experiment, as all the evidence showed that they had been incompetent somehow. It's a human error. Fortunately science is rational: it noticed the pattern, and the human problem was picked up on. This was relatively early in the days of experimental physics. Now we're aware of these kinds of psychological effects and, as Feynman says, have developed methods to eliminate them.

When Sheldrake implies at the end that scientists just randomly and smugly "defined" the speed of light to be a constant and so eliminated the problem, that is completely wrong. It was made a constant unit to bring it into accord with the acceptance of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity from 1905, in which the motion of light is fundamental. Being a speed, its definition is essentially a relation of two quantities; distance, and time. Previously the metre and the second were our fundamental units, and the speed of light, c, was defined in terms of them, and so c would display any variation in the relation. In light of relativity it made more sense to let the second and c be the fundamental units and let the metre be defined in terms of them. If there is any variation in the relation between these constants, it will still be detected, but it will be displayed through the changing of the metre. Nothing substantive has changed, only definitions.

You now seem to have done something odd, which is admit that scientists are capable of falling victim to bias based on past results, and then claim because that problem has been fixed scientists are not capable of inherent bias influencing them at all. At least it appears you're making this claim as you haven't yet admitted it's possible for scientists to fall victim to bias and instead claim it's only because none of the evidence has been compelling enough to support any theory that contradicts the default materialist worldview.

Society always assumes its current paradigm has the universe understood and only the details need be filled in. In the debate with Ken Ham, Bill Nye said if you could find evidence to contradict the current model you'd be a hero, and he's right. People like Galileo were heroes for changing everything we understood, but not in their paradigm. Modern Science hasn't suddenly changed and released all bias, willingly accepting all contradictory evidence. They only wear the face of acceptance more readily now because no one would feel comfortable if capable of comparing themselves to church-leaders and white-supremacists of the past.

And let's face it, we know we don't really have the universe mostly figured out. We've dispelled a lot of misconceptions but major questions remain ripe for discovering, questions constantly posed by creationists to challenge scientists with the assumption that obviously any observation which contradicts the bible is false if the people that accept the observation as valid cannot replace the bible's answers for every other mystery. But they're still mysteries, and all Sheldrake has claimed in this ted talk is that our current worldview claims to have answered many more mysteries than it actually has. And I agree with that, our paranormal experiences are not necessarily the work of God but that doesn't mean they're purely psychological effects either. I do continue to hypothesize that when a flock of birds or a school of fish move in unison they are taking advantage of some form of telepathy because I do not find other explanations I hear valid. Not because I want to believe in telepathy but because other explanations I hear for it sound sillier than telepathy and an extended mind. And so far no one has proved exactly how it works nor even found repeatable evidence because they assume, through bias, that whatever it is, it can't be telepathy because telepathy is purely a psychological illusion. They're not even open to it, they've fallen victim to inherent bias.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

You now seem to have done something odd, which is admit that scientists are capable of falling victim to bias based on past results, and then claim because that problem has been fixed scientists are not capable of inherent bias influencing them at all

I guess you didn’t read my previous post (no surprise), but you’re still going back again on how scientists suddenly have to be sentient entities that must be flawless with no room for erroneous acts/observations/etc. I don’t know how you’ve developed the presumption that Xei, or anyone for matter, would think scientists aren't capable for falling victim to bias and conformity in encroaching past results.

If it’s inherent bias for an individual to state that despite of whatever model has been contradicted/challenged/moot/etc., one would still need to go through finding a sound framework to go through the same scientific process, it’s not even a dogmatic approach – it’s just a scientific argument. Whether it’s observational or experimental science, it seems you’re just throwing in burden of proof, and trying to create anomalies.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Society always assumes its current paradigm has the universe understood and only the details need be filled in.

[citation needed]

That would be the typical trend for any societal group trying to find purpose in their quotidian lifestyles, though I'm not sure how argumentum ad populums (i.e. people garnering favoritism that because the populace agrees to a certain disposition(s), it is true, and must be true) sets up any direction for the rest of your posts (that garners a favoritism to something similar to that based on your personal experiential cases apparently).

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Modern Science hasn't suddenly changed and released all bias, willingly accepting all contradictory evidence. They only wear the face of acceptance more readily now because no one would feel comfortable if capable of comparing themselves to church-leaders and white-supremacists of the past.

Again, this is focusing on what may happen at an individual level, and presuming the scientist in this hypothetical situation of yours is completely naïve and insecure about something like this. This is stripping away the aggregate and communal aspect (e.g. academia, institutional, and even industrial) that wouldn't be giving free passes from errors to that same scientist. Maybe you’re confusing on how pretty much anyone can use pre-existing counter-arguments for creationists, and other minority scientific groups as acceptance instead. I would see that as individuals just being resourceful with their time, and know that as much as the minority/unpopular groups try to connect the dots, it usually just ends up in wasted time, or for a lack of better words, cyclical. Since you saw the argument with Ham and Nye, it’s just like any creationist/religion-based science vs. *insert any secular scientific approach*.

And typically, scientists (that you would see in the media debating for quite a while of course) wouldn’t really want to tackle such arguments sometimes (i.e. creationists), because the end result would generally be the same.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I do continue to hypothesize that when a flock of birds or a school of fish move in unison they are taking advantage of some form of telepathy because I do not find other explanations I hear valid. Not because I want to believe in telepathy but because other explanations I hear for it sound sillier than telepathy and an extended mind.

So you basically tried to falsify your disposition on telepathy and an extended mind (which is probably introducing a mélange of philosophies and implications like universal consciousness, panpsychsim, solipsism, and other potentially metaphysical beliefs). If you feel you don’t want to believe it as telepathy, but can’t find other forms of diction that may be better at conceptualizing your paranormal experience cases, you’re just falling victim to inherent bias just like any other human being.

I’m not sure how you’re utilizing this fallacy as an argument, or any means to move forward other than reaching an impasse. The entire trend of your posts so far is stating how scientists can fall to inherent bias, conformity, and other fallacies, but it’s still not presenting anything on how that would cause a huge paradigm shift to the framework of Science. It's like you're setting up these sham arguments to distract others that you've been expressing inherent bias just as any other human being. Is bias wrong? That's just a matter of disposition, though it's obvious that people would be biased on how they go about conceptualizing reality with people that have different conceptual frameworks that may contradict theirs.

But if you want another word for conformity and collective trends apparently fulfilling themselves, you could just call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or to expound more on that, people with similar dispositions that would go through the mannerisms/behavioral trends to be consistent with their dispositions being fulfilled (e.g. shared dreaming, telepathy, spirit guides, and any other paranormal experiential cases). If anything, one could set up a framework for self-fulfilling prophecies vs. accurate data (that may fall victim to self-fulfilling prophecies as well), and potentially introduce that to sociological mediums, or something of that nature to get started in entering the domain of science.

It’s one thing to acknowledge and see theories as progressive models, but it’s a completely different matter when you’re parsing psychological trends, human fallacy, and such that will magically affect the framework behind the scientific process (which is what you were doing honestly). If people want to salvage and go for ad hoc rescues (i.e. theories that were a lost cause and damaged), I’m pretty sure there’s nothing dogmatic about that at all. If you want dogmatic:

Kip: “I say Professor, based on paranormal experiential cases, anecdotes, and other compelling sources catered to argumentum ad populum, there seems to be unintelligible equivocation in your scientific model/theory – I suggest that you modify, and potentially go through the scientific process for it as well.”

Scientist: “Nyup.” –Stick fingers in ears – “LALALALALALALALA!”

Zelda I don't read your posts because you misinterpret me immediately and clash at strawmen. I apologize, but I'm currently dealing with an anger problem that's triggered from being misunderstood (because it was being misunderstood that led to my violent and PTSD inducing incident in Texas) so yes, I ignore posts where I am willfully misunderstood unless I don't know any better. I give them as much chance until I see that they are attacking strawmen and simply don't put myself through the rest of them. I realized I was getting riled up with Xei and took a little break from this thread. Snoop gave an argument that wasn't so ad hominemey so I responded to that one. As I skim your post, I see you simply accusing me of blindness and confirmation bias and I don't feel like reading through that. Sorry, I'll respond to the parts I skimmed. If my response misses a big point you addressed, please stop communicating in such an accusatory fashion.

I see at the beginning it refutes a claim you think I made that scientists consider themselves flawless. The claim I made is that the current paradigm thinks it has the universe mostly figured out and is more resistant to ideas which contradict the working model than ideas which support it. There's not even anything wrong with it so long as they continue listening to claims in case compelling data exists which contradicts it. If scientists were completely unwilling to give themselves a good hard look they would have never fixed the problem of phase-locking, but they did. I'm not trying to point out some vast conspiracy against telepathy, I'm simply agreeing with Sheldrake that I do see, in our current paradigm, a resistance to it that jades the way the evidence is looked at born out of the assumption that consciousness comes from matter and is locked in matter which has not been tested or proven.

You go on to say I won't allow for other explanations besides telepathy to exist and this is also false. I said that other explanations are not compelling and do not answer the questions telepathy answers. One example I mentioned is the movement of a flock of birds. I'm not asking you to explain it, I know scientists can't, as of yet, explain it. When they can, they'll have discovered something new about physics, feedback loops, self organization and adaptive agents. But it also appears, to me at least, that they may discover the possibility of a hivemind type of connection. When I read of this hypothesis, I didn't go, "See I knew telepathy was real!" But I'm accused of doing so anyways because I consider telepathy a viable hypothesis to test. The more questions like that I see (such as the ability for pets to anticipate the intentions of their owners, or the phenomenon of predictability between close relationships of people, and various case studies), the more compelled I am to find this explanation viable. But that doesn't make it the only explanation capable of satisfying me, so far other explanations simply come off silly.

My problem is the current materialist paradigm thinks they can satisfy themselves with the "dogmas" listed in Sheldrake's talk so long as they can disprove any of his experiments and come up with some sort of materialist explanation for any of these questions that generate hypotheses like an extended mind or evolving universe, no matter how far-fetched the explanation is. After all, eliminate the impossible and whatever remains is the truth no matter how improbable, right? And don't get me wrong, it's good to think that way. Otherwise every magician would be considered real. But I don't consider these explanations more viable.

I haven't followed this thread in detail, but the topic is important to me, so I'll dip my toes in for this brief comment. If it is meaningless to the current debate, then please simply disregard it.

The physical nature of the universe is not completely understood. There is wide spread belief in the dimensionality of the universe exceeding three, but disagreement on the exact number.

If there are more than three dimensions, then there is the possibility for things, that apparently are unconnected as far as the usual three dimensions are concerned, in reality do have an immediate connection. This could explain telepathy (and a whole lot of other stuff, including astral travel, and shared dreaming).

Therefore, to reject telepathy etc. completely, is not consistent with current knowledge in physics. That is not to say that telepathy is reality, for it may still turn out not to be. But, on the existing evidence, telepathy cannot be ruled out.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

You now seem to have done something odd, which is admit that scientists are capable of falling victim to bias based on past results, and then claim because that problem has been fixed scientists are not capable of inherent bias influencing them at all.

Link was able to point out that this is a false statement, so I know it's not a problem of communication on my end. I never said that scientists can't be influenced by bias. Of course they can. They're humans and it's can be very hard to even recognise what your biases are sometimes. What I've been saying, (in addition to disproving that scientists have no variation of opinion with respects to some "dogmas", and disproving that they have accepted various "dogmas" with no evidence), is that the scientific method is such that correct ideas will always win out; and that it is the only conceivable such method. I asked you for an alternative approach to knowledge - other than the scientific method of deference to patterns in observations - a while back and you ignored the question, like you've ignored most of what I've been trying to say.

Society always assumes its current paradigm has the universe understood and only the details need be filled in. In the debate with Ken Ham, Bill Nye said if you could find evidence to contradict the current model you'd be a hero, and he's right. People like Galileo were heroes for changing everything we understood, but not in their paradigm.

Yet again you're just showing off your ignorance of science and scientific history. There were alternate models of the solar system in science before Galileo! Your statement is just... patently false to anybody who knows what you're talking about. Have you never heard of Copernicus?? He was one of the first people to realise that a heliocentric model is as good a model of the planets' motion as the geocentric models at the time. This idea is extremely counter-intuitive and contrary to the intellectual culture, so the fact that many scientists gave it serious consideration, without being prompted by any startling new observations, pretty much shatters your claims of a dogmatic, unanimous paradigm. Many people remained sceptical however, and rightly so, because there were many contradictions with other observations. Only when Galileo became the first person to ever observe moons around a planet did the evidential scales tip, and most scientists came to accept the truth of the heliocentric theory. I should note that this all took place, of course, despite of a climate of intellectual fear created by the religious establishment, who were, to anybody with a shred of sense, the real dogmatists. Now, the same question as before: please explain to us what was the problem with science in this history? Where did it fall into dogma? Which alternate epistemological approach should have been taken? As far as I can see, this is pretty much a perfect example of the scientific method in action; it's pretty funny you brought it up.

And let's face it, we know we don't really have the universe mostly figured out.

Everybody knows this. You're the only one who seems to think this is esoteric knowledge. Let me direct you to this page:

List of unsolved problems in physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I do continue to hypothesize that when a flock of birds or a school of fish move in unison they are taking advantage of some form of telepathy because I do not find other explanations I hear valid. Not because I want to believe in telepathy but because other explanations I hear for it sound sillier than telepathy and an extended mind. And so far no one has proved exactly how it works nor even found repeatable evidence because they assume, through bias, that whatever it is, it can't be telepathy because telepathy is purely a psychological illusion. They're not even open to it, they've fallen victim to inherent bias.

In a world where nobody has observed any good evidence for telepathy, not ascribing to telepathy is not bias. This... should be patently obvious.

I'm not aware of any difficulties in understanding how fish move. In fact I thought people had studied it pretty thoroughly. The fish move in reaction to the motions of other fish. They can do this because they have, for example, eyes. It's... really not that amazing. You can find some pretty models on the internet of shoal behaviour using very simple and local rules for each fish.

What can one add?
Nothing much, superb post, Xei.

Thought mine above over - took it out - and post the video, I looked up, when you cited Feynman:



Definitively right on topic.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I apologize, but I'm currently dealing with an anger problem that's triggered from being misunderstood (because it was being misunderstood that led to my violent and PTSD inducing incident in Texas) so yes

I’m more concerned about one of my exes from Texas trying to kill me if tried to go cerebral on her again than this incident of yours. It’s amazing how you went from Utah to Texas to do something like that, so either you’re just trolling and feigning the victim complex, or you have weird ways of premeditating incidents.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I ignore posts where I am willfully misunderstood unless I don't know any better

Alright, if you wanted lollipops and sunshine to make the wounds better, you should’ve told me. This is where the beauty of clarification comes in. People have asked you to provide examples to your posts, and you’ve shifted to a laconic response of saying how it’s unnecessary. Right there, we can’t even move the discussion forward because now we have to give you a euphemistic approach to get you going. People really want to know where you’re getting at, but since you give laconic responses most of the time, we have to conjecture what you’re saying. The more you keep giving laconic responses, and a repetition of not getting your points across (and also misinterpreting others as well), people will just get annoyed and give up on you.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I see at the beginning it refutes a claim you think I made that scientists consider themselves flawless

Here’s what you stated:

Originally Posted by Original

At least it appears you're making this claim as you haven't yet admitted it's possible for scientists to fall victim to bias and instead claim it's only because none of the evidence has been compelling enough to support any theory that contradicts the default materialist worldview.

You implied Xei wouldn’t know about that in the first place (that any scientist can be erroneous, fall to inherent bias, conformity, and such)
Obviously, that wasn’t the case that Xei thinks scientists are infallible from error, inherent bias, and other fallacies.

Then,

Originally Posted by Original Poster

You now seem to have done something odd, which is admit that scientists are capable of falling victim to bias based on past results, and then claim because that problem has been fixed scientists are not capable of inherent bias influencing them at all

• You’re stating that because the framework of science “fixed” past results, this allows scientist a free pass from their errors that may have been sustained by inherent bias (which also introduces the probability of said scientist skewing results; and if there’s any indication of that, that’s where you have the 3 rudiments come in: objectivity, peer-review, rigorous repeated experimentation).

• It seems you’re more militant on inherent bias, and other fallacies that may “skew results” from the past that were erroneous. You imply that the scientist gets a free pass from their previous errors (that may have been sustained by inherent bias). This is the part where you felt Xei was saying that because Science fixes the problems, the scientist is absolved from error. I can’t even fathom where in his previous posts where that’s implied.

• You’re twisting your words to essentially state the common trend of Science being a progressive learning curve is a bad thing. You could care less on how Science fixes the problem, and you’re trying to tackle the individuals that are may have had inherent bias. It’s like wanting to get every drip of humiliation you can enact towards these individuals even though the problem has been fixed/updated/improved/peer-reviewed/etc; you’re just beating a dead horse at this point

• Science and the modes for trying to conceptualize reality should be seen as a progressive learning curve. Whatever disposition the individual has (e.g. inherent bias, dogmatic, intolerant), there’s scientific groups (e.g. academia, industrial, institutional) that are there to reduce the probability of corruption with results based on bias. Even if Science fixes the issue and finds a way to improve on the working model/theory, it doesn’t necessarily mean the individual gets a free pass. They can take the criticism they receive (constructive criticism for instance from peer-review), and crawl back to their labs, and go through trial and error to hopefully find a breakthrough.

So when you made this sentence after the first here:

Originally Posted by Original Poster

The claim I made is that the current paradigm thinks it has the universe mostly figured out and is more resistant to ideas which contradict the working model than ideas which support it.

You’re just not able to sequentially sustain your arguments so far. That’s why I felt it was just non-sequitur after non-sequitur with you, but I am still trying to understand the underlying concepts you’re attempting to discuss. But now it’s just a series of clarifying before a new topic comes up, I guess. Not really a big issue, since it’s better for us to see where we’re getting at before we go off to another tangent.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

There's not even anything wrong with it so long as they continue listening to claims in case compelling data exists which contradicts it.

Okay, anyone can listen to a claim, be open-minded about them, but with previous posts you’ve made, it’s obvious you want the listening to be transcended to a workable scenario using the scientific method. That doesn’t mean the scientist(s) can’t use their working model to see how the other model that challenges theirs is “viable” or not.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I'm not trying to point out some vast conspiracy against telepathy,

I don’t think anyone presumed you were being a conspiracy theorist.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

a resistance to it that jades the way the evidence is looked at born out of the assumption that consciousness comes from matter and is locked in matter which has not been tested or proven.

That’s where hard/soft problems of consciousness comes in, so if you want to talk about anything like that, feel free. From this sentence of yours alone, I can already tell it’s introducing holism, monism, and other philosophies.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

You go on to say I won't allow for other explanations besides telepathy to exist and this is also false. I said that other explanations are not compelling and do not answer the questions telepathy answers.

Read carefully on my quote:

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

If you feel you don’t want to believe it as telepathy, but can’t find other forms of diction that may be better at conceptualizing your paranormal experience cases, you’re just falling victim to inherent bias just like any other human being.

Nowhere did I state (or imply) that you were completely intolerant to other probabilities. You’ve already admitted to being subjective and open-minded to other alternatives to help conceptualize those experiential cases you and others have been through (but based on your experiential case with other terminologies being incompatible and sillier, you have to conform to telepathy and extended mind – that’s not you being intolerant (somewhat), that’s just relying on those two concepts as a transient means of explaining those experiences. There’s nothing wrong with using those temporarily while you try to find other forms of diction/vocabulary/etc.).

My response for that particular part of your post was due to you trying to find modes of diction to explain your points. I even addressed a potential term to use (self-fulfilling prophecies) that could help explain the examples you were giving us with flock of birds, conformity, and other types of groups that sustain the fulfillment in occurring.

• You could even introduce Memetics as a way to explain how those psychological/mental trends or the paranormal can be used in tandem to the extended mind presumptions you’ve presented (though that might encroach social Darwinism, gene ontology, and other controversial theories and branches of science as well)

• You can even talk about simulacra, or theories relating to signs, simulations, and what have you to expand your options instead of being reliant on telepathy, extended mind, and other implications of cosmic consciousness and such (not implying you’re gravitating only on implications of cosmic/collective/universal consciousness, but usually things you’ve stated so far leads to something like that). Like here for instance:
  
  
  Originally Posted by Original Poster

  But it also appears, to me at least, that they may discover the possibility of a hivemind type of connection.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

When I read of this hypothesis, I didn't go, "See I knew telepathy was real!"

I wouldn’t have that implication seeing how you made a thread that would probably have modes of discourse to refute that. I can understand it’s an experiential truth you’ve developed, but I didn’t state you had empirical evidence, or other valid deductive reasoning for it whatsoever

Originally Posted by Original Poster

But I'm accused of doing so anyways because I consider telepathy a viable hypothesis to test.

Stop feigning the victim complex, and maybe people can take you seriously. You’re not the only individual in existence to attempt formulating a potentially viable theory. If the posts so far are considered ad hominem for you, then I can only imagine it’ll get worse if you stepped into an actual scientific group in academia or something.

Maybe you should seek professional help, and this isn’t trying to be patronizing, it’s just that if you genuinely have those presumed disorders and psychological ailments, maybe it’s best to not expound on anything until you can cognitively straighten yourself. But seeing how the victim complex you’re emphasizing is nonsense (based on your posts in the past), you’re clearly trolling.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

One example I mentioned is the movement of a flock of birds. I'm not asking you to explain it, I know scientists can't, as of yet, explain it.

Maybe you should expand your knowledge of other branches of science before you make a claim like that.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

But that doesn't make it the only explanation capable of satisfying me, so far other explanations simply come off silly

If the dog example you gave to be one element of your general theory that has a myriad of implications of consciousness is the only explanation (for the time being apparently) that can help conceptualize your point (and I’m not implying you’re only attached to this one, and are intolerant to others), then it seems you’re just being apophenic in your presumed viable theory.

And if going through finding meaningful patterns or connections that are irrelevant to your theories (apophenia) is your current mode of conceptualizing this, you’re not going to have much of a chance; you could be deemed as a fraud, pseudoscientist, or completely ignorant of trying to make your model compatible with other theories (and reducing the likelihood of contradictions being made from that attempt at compatibility).

I can see that you’re trying to find uniformity in these things, but now you have to make a workable model that can be consistent even in random and sporadic scenarios. And if that’s the case, maybe you could refer to what Xei and StephL mentioned before on how one would go about trying to use the scientific method for something like that. Your theory is a progressive learning curve like any other theory, and you shouldn’t really be feigning a victim complex just because people can find contradictions from it.

If you can’t even grow a thick skin and gracefully accept rebuke that actually challenges your theory, you’re probably just incapable of having ambition in re-evaluating your theory to progressively improve on it.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I give them as much chance until I see that they are attacking strawmen and simply don't put myself through the rest of them.

Not sure if this is hypocrisy, or you seriously have cognitive ailments that prevents you from rationalizing and being reflective of what you’ve been doing to others so far (straw manning).

You don’t seem to give these individuals any chance no matter how euphemistic or militant they are. All you’re doing is setting up conditions so that things can be cohesive enough for you to penetrate and debate about.

This is what prevents any decent discussion from occurring because you’re steadfast on the confirmation bias.

A simple trend for someone going through that:

Originally Posted by Original Poster

I ignore posts where I am willfully misunderstood unless I don't know any better

That’s merely your disposition, and whatever implied tonality you impose on those posts that are apparently filled with ad hominem. This sentence you’ve posted just now just portrays how you’re not even attempting to apply rudiments of going about having discourse/discussion with others (i.e. actually explaining clearly to people asking for clarification).

You’ve attempted to expound on your clarifications, but it’s clear we’re going about in a cyclical trend where any experiential case (paranormal, psychological, whatever) has potential in having a framework to support it, and potentially allow it to enter the hub of science. But your posts have been apophenic thus far to even consider that.

So far I have still not received any viable explanation on how dogs can anticipate the actions of their owners or how a flock of birds/school of fish move. "By observing other fish" doesn't hold water and "explore other branches of science" also doesn't hold water. It doesn't compel me, and it doesn't remove these fundamental questions. You're labeling this confirmation bias, as if these explanations are somehow supposed to satisfy me when they aren't viable and they don't answer the question.

Then, because I say telepathy is a possibility, you jump to say that I think it's the ONLY answer. All I'm saying is that it's a hypothesis that continues to warrant further testing. Xei was satisfied with an explanation that fish just observe other fish, which has been shown not to be true at all, so if the people I'm participating in this discussion are going to give ridiculous and unsatisfactory answers to these questions then don't blame the confirmation bias on me.

Here's what they've got so far:

Animal flocks, be it honeybees, fish, ants or birds, often move in surprising synchronicity and seemingly make unanimous decisions at a moment's notice, a phenomenon which has remained puzzling to many researchers.

New research published today, Wednesday 15 September, in New Journal of Physics, uses a particle model to explain the collective decision making process of flocks of birds landing on foraging flights.

Using a simple self-propelled particle (SPP) system, which sees the birds represented by particles with such parameters as position and velocity, the researchers from Budapest, Hungary, find that the collective switching from the flying to the landing state overrides the individual landing intentions of each bird.

In the absence of a decision making leader, the collective shift to land is heavily influenced by perturbations the individual birds are subject to, such as the birds' flying position within the flock. This can be compared to an avalanche of piled up sand, which would occur even for perfectly symmetric and cautiously placed grains, but in reality happens much sooner because of increasing, non-linear fluctuations.

As the researchers explain, "Our main motivation was to better understand something which is puzzling and out there in nature, especially in cases involving the
stopping or starting of a collective behavioural pattern in a group of people or animals.

"We propose a simple model for a system whose members have the tendency to follow the others both in space and in their state of mind concerning a decision about stopping an activity. This is a very general model, which can be applied to similar situations."

Possible applications include collectively flying, unmanned aerial vehicles, initiating a desired motion pattern in crowds or groups of animals and even finance, where the results could be used to interpret collective effects on selling or buying shares on the stock market.

Understanding behavioral patterns: Why bird flocks move in unison

And it's a far more viable explanation than "observing each other" (and though it doesn't completely satisfy the question it's a good start) but the fact that "observing each other" was supposed to be a reasonable explanation represents the core of my and Sheldrake's dilemma. When he proposed his study on pets and owners and was given the explanation "That just shows how good dog's hearing is," it's the same kind of dogmatic explanation, or as StephL put it earlier in the thread, a No-Brainer. In other words, questions are answered this way because alternative methods are simply out of the question. So long as we think in this paradigmatic model we won't be capable of coming up with hypotheses to solve these riddles. This paradigmatic model is made up of assumption which, as listed in the video, do not validate themselves when analyzed. There are problems when one looks at them critically. Plenty of researchers do look at them critically, and I also believe if true then Rupert Sheldrake's theories or any other theories currently cropping up on telepathy, etc, will with-stand the test in time. I believe the scientific method is capable of this. It's a matter of time. In the mean time, it's fun to remind people that a lot of the default views of the paradigm were not ever validated scientifically to begin with, and yet still somehow manage to slow down progress.

Originally Posted by Xei

Lucid dreaming used to be deemed false, but it's now scientifically accepted, because it was empirically proven.

For thousands of years mankind has been experiencing lucid dreams. For thousands of years there was never a need to empirically prove because its clearly self-evident if you have a lucid dream.

But it must have been so frustrating for lucid dreamers in the age of science when science decided that lucid dreaming wasn't real - even though people were clearly experiencing it. The science of that day would make silly claims like "you just imagined you were lucid when you woke and created false memories".

Point is, we never needed empirical evidence to prove lucid dreaming. It really is self-evident! Its one thing for a scientist to say "we should study the true nature of lucid dreaming" and another to say "lucid dreaming isn't real until its empirically proven". That's just a denial of the human experience.

You're arguing that there are no dogmas in science. I disagree. Just like lucid dreaming in the past, there are still a whole family of human experiences that are brushed aside as being nothing more than mere hallucinations that simply happen because the brain hiccuped.

One of these experiences which is currently being researched is the NDE. When the NDE was duplicated in the lab they discovered something amazing - the brain is engaged! When certain areas of the brain becomes active, people experience NDE's and all sorts of spiritual related phenomenon.

But here is the dogma. The dogma says "because these areas of the brain were active during this experience, then these experiences themselves originate from those areas of the brain" in other words, hallucination.

Why is this dogmatic? Because this assumption is based off of fluff.

Let's say there's an apple in front of you. Its a real apple. And scientists have you plugged in so that they can measure your brain activity. Naturally, when you see the apple the visual cortex is engaged. The scientists are in the room with you, they can see the apple too. When looking at your brain activity are the scientists going to say you 'hallucinated' an apple? Not likely. Because they can see the apple too, confirmation bias and all that.

Now lets repeat the same experiment, except someone has pranked the scientists. A los vegas magician has set up mirrors or whatever and only you can see the apple. As far as the scientists know there is NO apple in the room. Your brain lights up just the same as before.

Now what do the scientists conclude? You hallucinated an apple.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Why this assumption is dogmatic? Yet is happens all the damn time.

NDE research and other similar research, like the effects of DMT, have discovered that are very specific regions in the brain *and compounds* directly associated with spiritual experiences. Do these regions in the brain and compounds CREATE the experience (hallucination)? Or do they function just like the visual cortex, do they allow us to EXPERIENCE these aspects of reality?

How can a researcher answer that question? Think about the implications of having a region in your brain responsible for experiencing another aspect of reality - another visual cortex.

How does the researcher KNOW that a REAL apple is in the room? Because they have a visual cortex and are actively engaging that region of their brain. If the visual cortex isn't enough they have hands *hopefully* and can pick it up. If picking it up isn't enough they have the sense of smell, the sense of taste.

If you can not EXPERIENCE apple in any way then apple does not exist to you. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Experiencing is how you determine reality, even in science we experience data via graphs or lines or numbers or etc. Or it didn't happen!

Are NDEs real and does DMT really let you see the spirit world? You can't ask this standing on the sidelines "blind" and "senseless". The science is there. It says you need to engage in those regions of the brain, those other 'senses', to have said experience. The dogma does not allow this understanding to take place.