Same with the myths and stories associated with meditation, physical culture, martial arts and so on where what they're doing is communicating ways to trick your mind and body into effectively doing something. It's when you move outside that and start claiming that the stories have something to do with reality that the problem arises. So chi as an imagined feeling of energy flow that assists in getting your body and mind to co-ordinate to do something is fine. Chi as a unifying force which you can use to affect people at a distance is, uh, less than proven ...
I presume you have never taken heroin, opium and possibly no other external mind-altering drug beyond the low-level endorphin experience of alcohol. I also assume you have not undertaken a rigorous 3 years of constant meditation. But you may have experienced the sublime transcendantal euphoria of hearing a particular piece of music (for example) in which your world suddenly seems perfect, unending and, for just a moment, you become at one with everything.
Is this a change in mind equivalent to hearing the voices of a schizophrenic or the irrational fears of a paranoid, or the narrow-minded blind conviction of the fundamentalist Christian? All of whom believe they are right.
These experiences or states may be 'tricking' the mind and body, but, like poetry, it is the 'tricking' that becomes part of the experience and if rewarding, affects the future interpretation of experience.
There is a tendency to equate science with reality, and everything else is fiction. That seems to preclude the possibility of art also being about reality. That which is not fully communicable by numbers and words, but must be experienced without them, is indeed hard to convey in scientific terms:-)
The fact that often the discussion of science, and the use of science in discussion, pass through the medium of words and numbers puts the arts lot here at a disadvantage sometimes. That is why some of us like to put up pictures and videos.
I think 'll get me coat.... You can't be me, I'm taken
the arts lot
Please... :-(
There is a tendency to equate science with reality, and everything else is fiction. That seems to preclude the possibility of art also being about reality.
Look, if the newagers were talking about art, or poetry, or even literature, I'd give them a shrug and a pass. But they are not. They are talking about medicine. They are talking about quantum mechanics. They are talking about crime prevention. And so on and so forth. Those are all serious real-world issues, and fucking around (you should excuse my French) with nonsensial babbling about spirit planes when faced with real and serious issues is doing humanity a severe disservice.
The Pope doesn't suddenly become entitled to immunity from criticism for his genocidal policies on reproductive health just because he claims that the BS he spews is an art form or should be interpreted artistically (not that he even goes as far as to acknowledge that, but that's for another diary). Neither does Chopra. Or anyone. Reality is not a matter of taste, or subject to popular vote, or revealed through divine intervention. Superstition kills people every day precisely because too many people fail to grasp this simple fact of life.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
