In article , Jangchub
wrote:

On 28 Aug 2006 20:56:07 -0700, "Mike" wrote:

The pseudo-scientific community draws all kinds of idiotic conclusions
of this type. If you are a big fan of this kind of New Age fluff you
should check out the crackbrain theory of the ``morphogenic field" and
other such absurdities. The world is full of idiots who dabble in
quantum mechanics and other au courant fields of physics and draw
preposterous philosophical and even spiritual conclusions from what
they think they understand about physics. BE WARNED: Charlatans
abound in these areas.

I understand what you think, but I am growing tired of terms like,
idiotic, and crackbrain. Here is the link for Mind Science
Conference. Hardly a group of new age idiots.

http://www.investigatingthemind.org/

I was raised in a mixed race Buddhist household & meditation was part of
our daily activities & I do believe meditation is a healthful practice &
never surprised when that benefit is measurable.

Everything that might be said in favor of meditation, however, might also
be said of regular ol' Christian prayer.

It's a religious practice, & the mind science crew are about incorporating
faith practices in a wholistic health program that comingles Faith &
Medicine. Insofar as this means a legitimately sick person is NOT
encouraged to rely on faith healing alone it seems to me it can do no harm
& might do some good. But listening to Mozart or reading Keats might also
do some good -- there is no implication, to me, that a disregard for Faith
necessarily weakens the ability to heal. Being ****ed off, bitter, angry,
depressed, & lonely might hamper healing, but being faithless is not
inherently a demerit to health.

ANYwhere that faith attempts to prove itself to be scientific has an
element of crackpotism to it. Whether it's Buddhists seeking "interfaces
between neuroscience and the meditative disciplines" as the idiotic jargon
of the Mind Science crew would have it, or Southern Baptists with some
lame-ass "scentific" studies about how prayer induces improvements in
healing, either may be proof that religious practice under rare ideal
conditions enriches & improves life & health, but so would be composing a
sonnet to Reason or getting better excercise.

The REAL "interface" between science & these religious practitioners in
the Buddhist "mind sciences" is $$$$. They raise money from religious
folks & give it to medical institutes in exchange for perks, favors,
office space, memberships, chairs, & the right to select which
pseudo-sciences the funds can be used for. The Mind & Life people are
religious folks foremost.

My own life & imagination & creativity was shaped in great part by
Buddhism & I have love for some of the practices & for the mythology & the
folklore & the history. That buddhism encompasses even atheism as an
acceptable belief system is a rather charming feature of the faith; an
air-tight system of belief SHOULD be able to coopt everything, even
science & unbelief; the ease with which Christian fundamentalists are
spooked by science suggests to me it's not a well worked out system, as
circular logic can sustain just about any idea, whether poetic or moronic.
But at the very heart of the matter, it's religion, & I am not offended
that some would equate even a pretty religion with crackpotism.

If Einstein was alive, he'd have finished the Theory of Everything.
He was right on the cusp and possibly had the equation, but he died
before he wrote it down somewhere.

This is one of the myths of the saint Einstein, not the mathematician, who
did his great work early on and never achieved anything so substantial the
rest of his life. "If Einstein had lived a little longer he would have
unlocked all secrets of the universe" is paralleled by "If Eddison had
lived a little longer he would have perfected his psychic-telephone for
calling up the dead." Both assertions are theosophic.

I think string theory is a parallel system to the beliefs in Buddhism.

Many mystical systems could be interpretted as string theory & classical
Kabbalah comes closest, Tantric buddhism a close second, or the aeonic
theories of gnosticism. This is not evidence that religion has a
scientific basis but only that there's something in humanity driving us to
ponder origination. Whether one adapts the vocabulary of the mystic or the
vocabulary of the mathematician, the goal is to put a "handle" on the
nature & origin of the universe & all the phenemona within that universe.
Human understanding will always have similarities whether the conclusion
of meditative process or of scientific theory. To "believe" that is
evidence of a singular Absolute is a bit like believing a stick and a
stickbug are the same thing.

A part of me likes to believe a stick & a stickbug are the same thing, &
that in my mediations I become a miniature reflection of the entire cosmos
& the little thing that is me or us becomes as significant as the big
thing in which we all reside smaller than dust. But my admiration for
these thought processes is the admiration I have for poetry rather than
science.

Then again, I don't know your working knowledge of the philosophy of
Buddhism. That would help. It's odd to me when someone poopoos
something they may not have fully examined.

That's a bit like the argument "you can't condemn pornography if you don't
collect it" or "you can be sure murder is a bad thing unless you kill
people." One doesn't have to be steeped in buddhism to regard the
influence of faith on scientific research as crackpotism. And what
surprises ME is your alarm in the category of "crackpotism" because the
Little Wheel tradition in which I was raised would not take offense to it.
All things are true & untrue, & are beside the point. It's all illusion.
Recognizing this as crackpotism is as good a road to Liberation as any.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
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