Sam Harris

hahahahhahahahahahaha! That’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen Salty. (gee, maybe I better get out more often… wearing pancakes on my head of course.)

ImmediateS, No one ever said there isn’t a lot we don’t know about the universe… or even possible parallel universes. Get over your “electro pulse” already… everyone experiences the sensation you’ve described. I don’t think it’s top priority on scientists’ lists to study said phenomenon. Common sense can pretty much do the trick.
Again: ask yourself with “honest practicality,” which is more likely: that your dead grandmother; an alien; a subatomic invisible E.L.F.; or an undetectable, subconscious/emotionally-based internal stimuli; a virus or a bacteria; or a psychic parasite, caused said sensation?

Now where’s the syrup?

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

Like I said on another thread, sometimes scientists need to throw some mud on the wall, just to see what sticks.

No, one needs to analyze the mud for sticky qualities before throwing it, and it may be that none of the mud is sticky at all. Otherwise, one could be throwing mud for years without results. That’s what I mean by separating good ideas from bad.  To carry your analogy further, with many unexplained events we don’t even know if there is phenomenon called stickiness and we don’t know if there is a wall.

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

And there is evidence of alternative possibilities, the electro pulse I have experienced.

That assumes that the phenomenon cannot be explained by biological and neurological causes. Even if it cannot, we have no basis for any speculation about its cause. The “electro-spiritual pulse” you describe sounds like Christian “revelation” disguised as generic spirituality, although that may be not be your intention.

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

It is an intentionally vague description, out of honest practicality, not convenience.

What practical purpose does it serve? The only one I can imagine is to exempt any such descriptions from scrutiny.

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

Look, there is a lot we don’t know about the universe.  Can’t all of us agree on that?

In general. A better way to describe it is that there are many things in the universe for which we don’t have explanations. True respect for that gap in knowledge would require no speculation without evidence.

Salt Creek - 14 November 2008 12:42 AM

In the interest of observational accuracy, that looks like two pancakes to me.

M is for Malapert - 14 November 2008 07:41 PM

Salt Creek - 14 November 2008 12:42 AM

In the interest of observational accuracy, that looks like two pancakes to me.

Nah, I think it’s a reversible pancake, sort of like my now-legendary Peruvian chullu.

Immediate Suppression response’s in bold

Carstonio - 14 November 2008 12:53 PM

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

Like I said on another thread, sometimes scientists need to throw some mud on the wall, just to see what sticks.

No, one needs to analyze the mud for sticky qualities before throwing it, and it may be that none of the mud is sticky at all. Otherwise, one could be throwing mud for years without results. That’s what I mean by separating good ideas from bad.  To carry your analogy further, with many unexplained events we don’t even know if there is phenomenon called stickiness and we don’t know if there is a wall.
I think my mud might have a little stickiness to it, but I realize the chance is very, very, slim

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

And there is evidence of alternative possibilities, the electro pulse I have experienced.

That assumes that the phenomenon cannot be explained by biological and neurological causes. Even if it cannot, we have no basis for any speculation about its cause. The “electro-spiritual pulse” you describe sounds like Christian “revelation” disguised as generic spirituality, although that may be not be your intention.
I re-read some of my post’s and it doesn’t sound very clear, but I am certainly not trying to be religious.  So I will not continue to talk about it or attempt to describe it anymore. 

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

It is an intentionally vague description, out of honest practicality, not convenience.

What practical purpose does it serve? The only one I can imagine is to exempt any such descriptions from scrutiny.
Honesty.

Immediate Suppression - 14 November 2008 12:11 AM

Look, there is a lot we don’t know about the universe.  Can’t all of us agree on that?

In general. A better way to describe it is that there are many things in the universe for which we don’t have explanations. True respect for that gap in knowledge would require no speculation without evidence.

So I’m not being respectful of the gap, huh?  Neither was Einstein.

Jefe - 20 November 2008 02:05 AM

With all due respect, you’re no Einstein.

Not without a theory that is backed up by significant evidence anyway.

Interesting (to me) is that Heisenberg disagreed with Einstein.  (That theory precedes or is independent of observations / evidence / data.)  In fact, Einstein developed his theory of general relativity because of observations, even though he later called this method “nonsense”.

I’ve read examples of people taking this for Einstein’s “realist” vs. Heisenberg’s “idealist” approaches, which boils down to Einstein’s statement that “I like to think that the moon is still there even when I’m not looking at it.”  In reality, Heisenberg believed this as well when it comes to the Newtonian world.  As I heard him say, the sun had to exist before anyone was there to observe it, or there would be nobody in the hall to hear him lecture.  (Since there would not have been evolution.)  You had to be there, I guess, but people thought it was funny.

Let’s throw Immediate Suppression against the wall and see if his brain behaves rheologically like mud does. See: I’m twice the empiricist he is.

Something definitely is intervening.

I had a chill down my spine this morning while driving to work, as I listened to Loreena McKennitt’s awesomely beautiful 11 and a half minute, 14 stanza rendition of Tennyson’s ‘Lady of Shallott’

I just can’t explain it. It must be a force from out there in the universe somewhere. Some ‘woo’ from far and beyond our comprehension.

Of course all that ginseng tea and coffee I drank could be part of the explanation.