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.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
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.
