_See http://www.bigpicture.tv/videos/watch/07e1cd7dc _
Chopra has always made sense because he is able to ´whole-think´, to integrate most current conditions and knowledge to a oneness of health and sustainability.
I hope you can write more about this and your work on ET! Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
But I haven't really spent much time on dissecting him - I just noted some of the quantum mechanics abuses and general anti-science red flags, and filtered him out. You'd be better off browsing Respectful Insolence or Denialism; they seem to find it amusing to fisk him. You'd have to go back in the archives a while, though, because both seem to have grown tired of posting about him - not that I blame them.
It does not seem far-fetched at all for a ´full human being´... to be more than the sum of its studied parts. A lot of people snicker at terminology, like New Age, and are not willing to consider a farther development of consciousness that is experienced and not researched yet.
A lot of knee-jerk reactions come from the connotations of words also and/or the hidden agendas of personal gain, but I cannot discard the ´woo´ just yet.
Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
Thanks for the explanation, Jake, but I find the links unconvincing because they are based on a rigid view of science-nothing-but
Well, if you want to convince me that I should go 'beyond science' or somesuch, you really need to make a good case for why that's going to be worth the bother. Science has, for the last several centuries, been coming up with exceptionally good descriptions of the world (not to mention neat technological spin-offs) with an efficiency and rapidity that is simply unmatched by any other human endeavour in the history of mankind.
So, if you want me to do something other than science in order to understand some part of the world, then you need to convince me not only that that part of the world is inaccessible to science (which is a pretty extraordinary claim in and of itself) and that your ideas of how to investigate it actually make sense. You also have to convince me that your new field is at least as interesting to study as science. That's a darn tough job.
and keep bouncing back to a shared, personal dislike as support for their argument.
That really is not a particularly fair summary of their posts. They don't base their judgement of Chopra as a woo-woo on their dislike. They dislike Chopra because they judge him to be a woo-woo. And considering the things they quote him as saying, they aren't too far wrong about that.
It does not seem far-fetched at all for a ´full human being´... to be more than the sum of its studied parts.
Lots of stuff 'doesn't seem far fetched' but still turns out to be wrong. Like the Aether. Or phlogiston. Or epicycles. History is littered with ideas that seemed good at the time. Most new age woo-woo doesn't even rise to that level.
A lot of people snicker at terminology, like New Age, and are not willing to consider a farther development of consciousness that is experienced and not researched yet.
The problem isn't that it's not researched yet. The problem is that none of these guys seem to have a clue how to start researching it. If they can put up a falsifiable hypothesis or propose an experimental design that'll let us measure whatever it is they claim exists, then we're talking. Vague feel-good statements about 'conciousness' and 'experience' just don't cut it.
Science has been immensely useful in describing the world outside the mind - as experienced by the mind. But current scientific methods are less useful in experiential study. Ask a victim of Altzheimers. Or someone with bipolar disorder or a dog.
When the measuring instrument has a mind of its own, some new thought (by minds) is required. I read a lot about the physiology of the brain. I'm quite aware of Learned Behaviour theory. But I do not understand 'Belief'. I know it can exist. But I don't know what it is or how it could be scientifically examined. You can't be me, I'm taken
I'll freely grant you that the brain might be the limit of scientific knowledge. Every new line of research might be the limit of science. It's always possible - in a strict philosophical sense of 'possible.' We don't know that the barrier isn't there, because we haven't tried to go beyond it yet.
But the flip side of that is that we don't know that it is there either until we've actually hit the barrier, and it makes no sense at all to assume when going into a new avenue of study that it's impossible to carry to a successful conclusion. Such an assumption would be a show-stopper. If the limit is there, we'll find it. The hard way.
Now, IANAD, but your medical examples seem rather poorly chosen. We can slow down Alzheimers. We can't stop it yet, but there are credible research programs that are trying to figure out how to do that. We do understand many of the proximate causes, and several of the ultimate causes underpinning the disease. Same with bipolar disorder. I don't understand 'belief' either, but I have a couple of more or less credible guesses, as have the people who are actually researching it. I don't know where you're getting with the dog, though?
The salient point, however, is that you can always find a subject that's on the frontier of science, because, to paraphrase a famous populariser of science (whose name escapes me at the moment) 'as the island of our knowledge expands, so do the shores of our ignorance.' Pointing out that science can't explain everything (yet) is nothing more than an exercise in perpetually moving goalposts.
And it is a fundamental misconception that the instruments we use to measure brains have 'a mind of their own.' I am not involved in that kind of research, but my understanding is that we use (mainly) 3d-NMR imaging, ultrasound Doppler and image contrasting to measure and interpret blood flow in different regions of the brain. I see a lot of electrical circuits, a couple of piezo-electric crystals, a RF emitter and some big-ass magnets in those experimental setups. Don't see no minds, though.
Don't see no minds, though. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
It is even more uncertain: how do we know that a barrier is a barrier? How do we know that we NEVER EVER get to know the other side? All we can surely know is the possibilities that we experienced!
I am rather optimistic about mind research. As we try to build robots, we may conclude that most key qualities (including bias in strength of earlier of first experiences, say) are kind of necessary to a cybernetic system of certain complexity level.
On the other hand, will the knowledge of human mind would necessarily be spread without reservations and just as openly as the knowledge in fundamental physics? Couldn't that knowledge be "worth" more restricted?! We even have commercialization of "standard" scientific research under way.
The NLP (Neuro-lingquistic programming) development is interesting. The NLP guys do not want themselves to register their discipline as science by official institutions. Either they do not wish to bother with merely academic status (and perhaps "open source" standards), or prefer to make money - it depends how cynically you want to see them. Their approach is pragmatical foremost, but they possibly have much interesting knowledge and experience, and there is a vague philosophy behind. If someone would wish, some interesting science could be made of that, I think.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here? Because science does not (yet) understand the brain, science never can understand the brain? I'll freely grant you that the brain might be the limit of scientific knowledge. Every new line of research might be the limit of science. It's always possible - in a strict philosophical sense of 'possible.' We don't know that the barrier isn't there, because we haven't tried to go beyond it yet.
It's possible that the mind is an emergent property of the brain and thereby has to be explained and understood in its own terms. This can be to a greater or lesser degree. A lesser degree might be pictured as the emergence of waves in water, and the greater degree as the emergence of matter from quantum interactions (at this point someone and migeru may flame me for getting my physics so crude and wrong).
We have had a couple of runs at a purely 'positivistic' understanding of the brain/mind/human psychology (cue B.F. Skinner) and these have not been very fruitful. This is not to say that the angle should thereby be closed, but if you are a government that has to decide which research programmes to fund, you might more successfully go for some mix of qualitative and quantitative research (and if you're a research department applying for funds you should always use the over-abused 'interdisciplinary' buzzword).
You can either base this on a pragmatic estimation that the science to go quantitative all the way is not there yet, or on a philosophical hunch that the mind is an emergent phenomenon.
A lesser degree might be pictured as the emergence of waves in water, and the greater degree as the emergence of matter from quantum interactions (at this point someone and migeru may flame me for getting my physics so crude and wrong).
Wikipedia: Quasiparticle
In physics, a quasiparticle refers to a particle-like entity arising in certain systems of interacting particles. It can be thought of as a single particle moving through the system, surrounded by a cloud of other particles that are being pushed out of the way or dragged along by its motion, so that the entire entity moves along somewhat like a free particle. The quasiparticle concept is one of the most important in condensed matter physics, because it is one of the few known ways of simplifying the quantum mechanical many-body problem, and is applicable to an extremely wide range of many-body systems.
There are two main theories of the FQHE. Fractionally-charged quasiparticles: this theory, proposed by Laughlin, hides the interactions by constructing a set of quasiparticles with charge , where the fraction is as above. Composite Fermions: this theory was proposed by Jain, and Halperin, Lee and Read. In order to hide the interactions, it attaches two (or, in general, an even number) flux quanta to each electron, forming integer-charged quasiparticles called composite fermions. The fractional states are mapped to the integer QHE. This makes electrons at a filling factor 1/3, for example, behave in the same way as at filing factor 1. A remarkable result is that filling factor 1/2 corresponds to zero magnetic field. Experiments support this.
There are two main theories of the FQHE.
Barbara was telling me once about the intriguing claims of a certain esoteric researcher (for lack of a better term). Apparently this person refuses to disclose her method in detail on the grounds that it is dangerous in the hands of untrained practitioners, or something like that. But the problem is that this prevents her claims from being confirmed independently, and that means that I don't have to take the claims seriously. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
I´ve heard Chopra speak in favor of garlic, ginger,... the harm of artificial chemicals, or using motors near the head...´ I didn´t need more ´proof´ because it confirmed my knowledge and experience. He spoke as a doctor who used reason and Common Sense to integrate health into the bigger picture of western lifestyles, so I contrasted the information and decided it was good. I couldn´t care less about qm in this context, because it´s irrelevant.
If I get other direct material and it doesn´t add up for me, I will know it and/or contrast it again. No prob. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
Of course the world is flat! Otherwise we'd fall off!
Of course there have to be ether, and light cannot possibly have a fixed speed! That would result in all sorts of senseless absurdities in the very nature of time and space itself!
Etc. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
And it's fairly obviously tautological to say that bad science is the enemy of good...
Jake S puts it better below when he says common sense is fine but can't replace controlled studies.
It took a Newtonesque experience to actually understand gravity and the nature of the planet, so it made sense to me.
With quantum mechanics I'm not there yet, if I'll ever be. Sure, it can be both a particle and a wave, and stuff depends on if you look at it or not. I've done the math, know the theory, have done the laser experiment and seen it being proved with my own eyes, but still, it doesn't make sense! Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
I remember quite well how as a small child I learned something about inertia. Not believing it I constructed experiments in a moving car. Throwing an object, and observing how it landed right in my hand, and did not move backwards as my hand ceased to impart impetus upon it, I verified to my satisfaction that it did indeed seem correct, no matter how counter to common sense. Galilean inertia is hardly a new or strange theory. No, physics does not seem 'rational' or 'sensible' or whatever. It just measures out correctly!
The problem in this thread is that on the matters that often seem more important or meaningful to us as human beings, not even the evidence or its interpretation is unambiguous and then you can get competing models (including competing logics) which all claim to give the correct answer but are mutually nonsensical. kcurie made a comment to that effect regarding economics in reaction to Jerome's deconstruction of Greenspan.
I just do not get anything... It seesm like Greenspan is saying this stuf because it can.. but one could make another narrative, as the one Jerome is doing.. but there is actually not fundamentals to support one or the other.Economics is void of any of the scientific fundamentals.. it does not even have a set of standard data features whcih could be analyzed. ... Add to this the contamination of non-enquiring scientific minds with no freaking idea about maths and you get a very awful picture... economic articles keep on sounding as other purely symblic knowledge ... like astrology...being everythign reduce to a competition of naraatives (which is not small featrue but still...).
Economics is void of any of the scientific fundamentals.. it does not even have a set of standard data features whcih could be analyzed.
...
Add to this the contamination of non-enquiring scientific minds with no freaking idea about maths and you get a very awful picture... economic articles keep on sounding as other purely symblic knowledge ... like astrology...being everythign reduce to a competition of naraatives (which is not small featrue but still...).
We also have a basic disagreement on "science". To some it represents methodological scepticism that can be applied everywhere and is more or less successful depending on the subject matter. To others it represents the scientific establishment, or academic "hard science" with little bearing on meaningful issues. Ultimately it is a disagreement on whether to take things on faith. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
That´s a long littany against and it only says you see no reason to look into it.
A summary that is as wrong as it is unkind. I gave you pretty explicit reasons why I don't see a need to look into it. I furthermore gave you a step-by-step guide of how to convince me that I'm wrong about the need to look into it. Just come up with a testable model, design a couple of experiments and show that there's a promising preliminary result. If you have a revolutionary development, that should not be that hard.
There seems to be a lot of so and so called it ´whatever´,
A rather heavy-handed accusation. I am going to have to ask you to quote the parts of my posts here where I refer to 'so-and-so-says' - the only place I've done that is when I referenced Orac and MarkH at the end of a post that explained - at some length - why I am unconvinced that Chopra is worth spending my time on.
but little understanding of context.
It's not my job to research every woo-woo claim that someone throws up on the 'net. Show me an experimental design that might actually work. That's the kind of context that matters.
You will convince yourself of what you need, when you want, so I don´t need to convince
Doggerel.
or prove and the vigor against doesn´t convince me.
I'm not asking you to be convinced by my vigour. I'm asking you to stop fencing with straw men and either evaluate my objections in some fashion or concede them. Your choice. Put up or shut up, as they say on the other side of the Pond.
I´ve heard Chopra speak in favor of garlic, ginger,... the harm of artificial chemicals, or using motors near the head...´ I didn´t need more ´proof´ because it confirmed my knowledge and experience. [Emphasis mine - Jake]
The plural of 'anecdote' is 'anecdotes,' not 'data.'
He spoke as a doctor who used reason and Common Sense to integrate health into the bigger picture of western lifestyles,
Common sense is all well and good, but it does not and can not replace controlled studies. Lots of things that were considered 'common sense' turned out to be wrong. Geocentrism, astrology, the divine right of kings, etc.
I couldn´t care less about qm in this context, because it´s irrelevant.
Sloppy thinking is rarely completely irrelevant. If somebody says things about QM - a field in which I am competent to evaluate what he's saying - that are not only embarrassingly wrong but downright absurd, then I have to question either his honesty or his ability to judge his own competence. Which one is at fault matters less than nothing to me; either one makes me highly suspicious of him in fields where I can't judge his competence directly or haven't taken the time to read his opinions.
You are supporting your view with jumping links that may be credible science and I don't need to read them thoroughly to discuss the central point: Science is GOOD, but it is not... ´everything there is´. For example, science is beginning to understand pieces of brain functions, but AFAIK it cannot explain, cell memory, olfactory triggers, a sneeze, or a yawn yet, and we are not going to stop experiencing them because of it. If that´s not a good example, take exams´ first-guess, intuition, mind, gut feeling, chicken soup for a cold, or people acting out under a full moon like yes-today (: etc., etc., etc.
I´ll ignore your demands for scientific study on what science hasn´t answered for us because I´m not denying science. If pure science was my vocation, I´d have studied it, so I leave that to you/science when it´s time.
In the meantime, I guess I have become more and more of a generalist instead of a specialist, which is just a non-exclusive, different view, with the same human value. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
There is nothing unkind about different people having different interest priorities, so don´t find offense.
I do not find offence at your difference of priorities, or at the fact that you note said difference. What I find unkind is that you summarise my post(s) as nothing but an out-of-hand dismissal when I have in fact gone to some length to explain the reasons for my dismissal.
On the other hand, my definition of Common Sense is an innate, personal knowing integrated from experience that continues to adapt to new information as I live and learn.
And I largely agree with that definition, apart from the fact that I see nothing 'innate' about common sense, simply learned behaviour. What I point out is that common sense is all well and good when you're dealing with common phenomena. If you throw me a ball, I don't roll out Newton's Second Law and the Navier-Stokes equation to determine the motion of the ball and then look up which nerves to activate in order to move my hands to intercept the trajectory. I just use my common sense and experience with thrown objects to catch the ball (or not, as the case often is - I'm bad with balls).
But once you venture into the uncommon - when you look at the cell, or inside the atom, or when you fall ill - you are better off supplementing your common sense with the kind of uncommon sense derived from systematic controlled experiments. After all, controlled experiments are the best-yet way to learn from other people's mistakes.
And the repetitive, offensive wording like ´po-mo (?), woo-woo, new age, crank, doggerel, wacky´, et al, prove nothing, yet when you wrote ´guess´ I thought you got the idea.
You may rail and rant all you want against 'offencive wording' (I would note, however, that I am much kinder to Chopra than most of the critiques I've read), but that does not detract from the fact that many of the rhetorical gambits used in this thread have been doggerel, many of the ideas promoted have been admitted and/or shown to be new age, several passages that I have quoted in my posts have been indistinguishable from po-mo-babble [1] and taken together this makes "wacky" and "crank" among the kinder of the terms that I could have applied.
(Po-mo is shorthand for post-modernist. Means different things in different disciplines (which should raise red flags right there, by the way...). Used here in a pejorative sense where it denotes a position of extreme epistemological scepticism couched in fancy but vacuous and/or nonsensial rhetoric. The left-wing version of Intelligent Design, if you will.)
You are supporting your view with jumping links
Yes. That's called providing references and giving credit where credit is due. I kinda like those concepts.
that may be credible science and I don't need to read them thoroughly to discuss the central point:
True. That is also in the nature of references. Then again, in some cases you do need to read them thoroughly for other reasons. Going through Bronze Dog's doggerel list is a good idea all of its own - it'll both sharpen your thinking considerably and give you a pretty good idea what arguments any sceptic who's been on the 'net for more than a month has already heard a bazillion and one times before.
Science is GOOD, but it is not... ´everything there is´.
I see your straw man...
For example, science is beginning to understand pieces of brain functions, but AFAIK it cannot explain, cell memory, olfactory triggers, a sneeze, or a yawn yet, and we are not going to stop experiencing them because of it.
...and raise by an argument from ignorance.
- Jake
[1] I would love for someone to prove me wrong on that count - just take one of those passages and explain in your own words what it says. If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I understand your self-importance requires attention, but I recommend you can take your frustration to the source.
Next! Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
And you do lose the ability to argue back if you refuse to read his points. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The problem is that you can currently only access quantum mechanics at the level of popular science, which is to say in metaphorical language, and so it is not impossible that you find Chopra's metaphors more appealing. But that doesn't mean that there is an underlying theory or that the underlying theory is compatible with quantum mechanics let alone more effective than it. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
Brave man.
Supersymmetric GUTs are a prime example of intriguing scientific innovations that didn't make it. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
haven´t looked at his site. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
The CV given in the link you provide contains a few - ah - interesting lines that make me go for crank:
1975: Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, Dartmouth College 1976: Masters of Arts Harvard University 1981: Ph. D. in physics Harvard University where he studied under Howard Georgi, 1979-1995:Publishes ([3]) a number of peer-reviewed papers in particle physics dealing with supersymmetry and grand unification theory. This includes an article presenting the first successful superstring theory, the E8 x E8 heterotic superstring theory, which he conceived and published in cooperation with the CERN researchers John Ellis and D.V. Nanopoulus. 1982: Researcher at CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics) in Switzerland 1983-1984: SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center). 1984: Moves to Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa and founded a graduate program in Theoretical Physics. 1992: Is selected as Presidential Candidate by the Natural Law Party in the USA 1992: Receives the Kilby Award, for scientists who have made "major contributions to society through their applied research in the fields of science and technology". The award states it is for "a scientist in the tradition of Einstein, Jeans, Bohr and Eddington". 1994: Awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for his experimental conclusion from a rigorous scientific study, published in the peer review journal "Social Indicators Reserarch", that found that 4,000 practicitioners of the TM-Sidhi program who gathered in Washington, D.C. for the Summer, caused a 23.3 percent decrease in crime in that city during an 8 week period. This annual award is for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think." 1994: Last published Physics research. 1999: Published a study (made 1994) on the preventive effect of TM-Sidhi program on crime in Washington, D.C.. See "Further reading" below.
When I read that CV, I think Michael Behe. It reads like the CV of a real scientist who became enamoured with woo-woo somewhen in the early 90s.
In general, however, I could care less about where Chopra - or anyone else - learns their quantum mechanics. If they can solve the Schrödinger equation, they could have learned it from David Letterman, for all I care. Touting his teacher(s) reeks of credentialism and argument from authority.
I don´t talk qm, or popular science, nor do I associate it with Chopra, so beats me what it´s doing here. That´s square stuff. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
I do in fact think that JakeS has taken a tone in this thread that is at times needlessly aggressive, but it's also clear that your ratings are not limited to those comments and are being used to express general disagreement with him, as are your ratings of Colman, Jerome and Migeru in this thread. This is inappropriate behavior, as I think you are aware. Please consider this your first warning.
And as a general note to all the participants in this thread, I do hope that everyone will take a few moments to step away from this thread and think about maybe toning it down a few notches. I don't care if you think you're right, if you can't be respectful to each other, you shouldn't be posting here. Period. That goes for all of you. Knock it off.
He has some straaange ideas about a universal consciousness-field
I would say this is not so much Chopra as Rupert Sheldrake:
Morphic field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Morphic field is a term introduced by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake, the major proponent of this concept, through his Hypothesis of Formative Causation in the early 1980's. It is described as consisting of patterns that govern the development of forms, structures and arrangements. As a new theory challenging established concepts, Sheldrake's theories have received criticism by some members of the scientific establishment, have been ignored by others and have been taken as a possible new line of research by borderline researchers.
I do not like Chopra very much, he is not an original thinker - he is taking his ideas from different sources, what he sales has been thought by others before him, however, he is good at marketing.
He was talking about the "extra sensory perception" of animals. ie things they "pick up" that we don't.
There are plenty of things out there relating to human and animal consciousness etc that science cannot currently explain. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Like different sizes and shapes of vocal elements and auditory elements allowing for the production and perception of sounds humans cannot? Or the fact that bees can see in the ultaviolet, or snakes in the infrared? Or the fact that dogs have much more sensitive smell, both in intensity and variety? Or...?
How is that extra sensory? Maybe extra human-sensory, but still not unphysical nor supernatural. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
The Register: Cat senses impending death
Dr David Dosa, also of of Brown University, elaborated that on one occasion Oscar had curled up on a female patient's bed, prompting staff to "make calls and set up vigil". When the family arrived, the grandson asked his mother why the cat was there, and she explained: "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Grandma died an hour later. Thomas Graves, a feline expert and chief of small animal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, described Oscar's actions as "such a cat thing to do", but admitted: "Those things are hard to study. I think probably dogs and cats can sense things we can't." Dr Teno concluded: "I don't think this is a psychic cat. I think there's probably a biochemical explanation."
Dr David Dosa, also of of Brown University, elaborated that on one occasion Oscar had curled up on a female patient's bed, prompting staff to "make calls and set up vigil". When the family arrived, the grandson asked his mother why the cat was there, and she explained: "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Grandma died an hour later.
Thomas Graves, a feline expert and chief of small animal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, described Oscar's actions as "such a cat thing to do", but admitted: "Those things are hard to study. I think probably dogs and cats can sense things we can't."
Dr Teno concluded: "I don't think this is a psychic cat. I think there's probably a biochemical explanation."
Wikipedia: Ethology
Lorenz's collaborator, Niko Tinbergen, argued that ethology always needed to pay attention to four kinds of explanation in any instance of behaviour: Function: how does the behaviour impact on the animal's chances of survival and reproduction? Causation: what are the stimuli that elicit the response, and how has it been modified by recent learning? Development: how does the behaviour change with age, and what early experiences are necessary for the behaviour to be shown? Evolutionary history: how does the behaviour compare with similar behaviour in related species, and how might it have arisen through the process of phylogeny?
Lorenz's collaborator, Niko Tinbergen, argued that ethology always needed to pay attention to four kinds of explanation in any instance of behaviour:
You are absolutely right about his marketing and I am still staying out of discussing other sciences, about which he could be a heretic. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
taying out of discussing other sciences, about which he could be a heretic.
Now I am curious what that might be, I have read some of his work, but didn't consider anything heretic - but then maybe I am heretic too. :-)
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Deepak Chopra
He claims to be influenced by the teachings of Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita from his native India, and quantum physics. ... Principal themes Many of Chopra's themes and beliefs are stated in his first book, "Creating Health" in 1986. He launched himself as a staunch advocate of the interconnection between mind and body, advocating meditation and self-awareness as primary factors in both illness and healing. He deepened these themes in "Quantum Healing" (1989), where he examined the mysterious phenomenon of spontaneous healing of cancer. Here he introduced quantum physics as a means of understanding the mind-body connection, arguing -- as he would in many other books -- that consciousness is the basic foundation of nature and the universe. ... Criticism Chopra has been both appreciated and criticized for his frequent references to the relationship of quantum mechanics to healing processes, a connection that has drawn skepticism from some quarters because it can be considered as possibly contributing to the general confusion in the popular press regarding quantum measurement, decoherence and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.[7] Biologist PZ Myers has also criticized these claims in depth. [11] In October 2006, Myers again criticized a blog post by Chopra [12] for displaying a lack of understanding of genetics. [13] Fellow science blogger Orac has also criticized Chopra's views [14] In 1998, Chopra was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in physics for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness." [15]
Principal themes
Many of Chopra's themes and beliefs are stated in his first book, "Creating Health" in 1986. He launched himself as a staunch advocate of the interconnection between mind and body, advocating meditation and self-awareness as primary factors in both illness and healing. He deepened these themes in "Quantum Healing" (1989), where he examined the mysterious phenomenon of spontaneous healing of cancer. Here he introduced quantum physics as a means of understanding the mind-body connection, arguing -- as he would in many other books -- that consciousness is the basic foundation of nature and the universe.
Criticism
Chopra has been both appreciated and criticized for his frequent references to the relationship of quantum mechanics to healing processes, a connection that has drawn skepticism from some quarters because it can be considered as possibly contributing to the general confusion in the popular press regarding quantum measurement, decoherence and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.[7]
Biologist PZ Myers has also criticized these claims in depth. [11] In October 2006, Myers again criticized a blog post by Chopra [12] for displaying a lack of understanding of genetics. [13] Fellow science blogger Orac has also criticized Chopra's views [14]
In 1998, Chopra was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in physics for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness." [15]
Sokal intended to expose postmodern 'reasoning' / abuse of language.
To me this is a subset of exposing BS, which is indeed essential in making headway in anything associated with vested interests.
An interesting approach can be found at http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/video/frankfurt/
Chopra points to a larger whole and implicitly invites you to use the scientific method to see what his point amounts to.
The tools in such an endeavour should be suited to explore the relevant domain: one's (your) interior. This transcends (and includes) the rational mind. On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory you can find some inroads.
I'd appreciate your comment on the content of Chopra position and mine as well.
This would illumine the readers of ET.
Thanks,
Emil Möller
For a start you could explain what you mean by "spiritual".
Jake, your referral to the Sokal hoax seems odd. Sokal intended to expose postmodern 'reasoning' / abuse of language.
And Chopra strikes me as practising po-mo-babble.
'Cept that he's not, to my knowledge actually employing the scientific method.
What's his model? What experiments can be used to test it? How is it falsifiable? How does it tie in with the rest of our physical/chemical/medical knowledge? What theories does it unify? What data does it explain better and/or more elegantly than previous theories? Can you point to any papers in the relevant scientific literature? What future research does it open up?
These are basic, basic questions that should be immediately answerable by anyone with a half-serious scientific program.
The tools in such an endeavour should be suited to explore the relevant domain: one's (your) interior. This transcends (and includes) the rational mind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what experiments can you make? What data have you got? Where is this stuff published? How many citations does it get?
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory you can find some inroads.
I don't know what I'm supposed to look for there. It sounds an awful lot like po-mo or new age nonsense. Take something like this, for example:
The essential characteristic of this stage is that it continues the inclusive nature of the pluralistic mentality, yet extends this inclusiveness to those outside of the pluralistic mentality. In doing so, it accepts the ideas of development and hierarchy, which the pluralistic mentality finds difficult.
What does that even mean? I mean, I understand all the words, and I recognise the syntax. But I still can't read it.
As I said, I can't comment on the contents of Chopra's position, since I've yet to hear him put forward a position that actually has any content to comment on. While I'll be the first to admit that I haven't studied his writings extensively, everything I've read from him has been, to use a phrase borrowed from Intellectual Impostures, either true but trivial, or else interesting but false.
I will note, lastly, that anyone who claims to have a theory founded upon quantum mechanics but does not mention the Planck constant and either the Schrödinger equation, one of its standard solutions or a commutator relation is very likely full of horse manure.
Chopra <...> implicitly invites you to use the scientific method to see what his point amounts to.
Wouldn't it be better if he were to use the scientific method so that we could all see what his point amounts to?
He uses it in medical science at least, but is that the only, overruling method?
I'm sure you don't need medical science to cure people of obese bank accounts, but if you're trying to cure real humans of real diseases you should certainly give reality-based medicine the place of honour in your armamentarium.
Because quackery kills.
