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Great comment and I apologize in advance for going off topic. We all have our mental models and it takes effort to re-evaluate and change them. And as the sayi

by seer 7y ago

Great comment and I apologize in advance for going off topic. We all have our mental models and it takes effort to re-evaluate and change them. And as the saying goes - there are no right models, only useful ones in some situations. Some are useful in more situations than others. Take “flat earth” model of the world. It’s not right, but it’s precise enough for the purposes of living in a village. Nothing wrong with that, its when you want to venture out, then you have to find a more precise one. But if you live your life in that village - it’s very useful and you can be excused for believing that this is all there is to the world. I once started learning some chinese martial arts, and the instructor was a true believer in more than the fighting techniques, but the spirituality that comes with it. Very easily debunked by modern fact based science. But if you followed the practices that the believes justified, you could help your health tremendously - meditation, physical exercise, calmness - it had a very neat system to explain everything. Imagine being a practitioner several thousand years ago - you had a system and if you made people practice it - they got better. Even if the exact mechanism of why it happened is flawed, and failed in some cases, by the most part it worked. You just had to refine it a bit. And it did help me as well. Had I just dismissed it as shaman mumbo jumbo and not went through with it, I’d be worse off for sure. No reason I had to adopt his model wholesale though - I just needed to attempt to reconcile his one with the science based one I knew, and see where I can learn a thing or two. Anyway just wanted to say that from that I did learn to be more tolerant and not dismiss out of habit things that were not peer reviewed double blind tested, but rather look at the results first. All models are wrong, some models are useful.

crispinb 7y ago
I don't think that's really off-topic & I agree. Another case in point: indigenous Australian cosmology. On the one hand, I don't personally take the notion that ancestors created the landscape very seriously. On the other, this cosmology was part of a system of thought, culture, and action that helped maintain a civilisation's existence for over 40,000 years (a feat we're very clearly not going to match). And such questions naturally address an individual very differently according to their situation. I can't say I'm ever likely to be involved enough with Reiki to need to take a strong stance on its efficacy. So why not just remain open and admit ignorance? That admission seems as hard for humans as does holding an empirical stance. HN is (hardly uniquely) stuffed full of comments proclaiming great certainty about things it's blindingly obvious people hardly know a thing about. It's fine often (and in truth most of the time) just not to know.
mercer 7y ago
> I once started learning some chinese martial arts, and the instructor was a true believer in more than the fighting techniques, but the spirituality that comes with it. Very easily debunked by modern fact based science. What kind of spirituality are you talking about, and how was this easily debunked? Honestly curious. I don't have any 'proper' spiritual beliefs myself, but I've found that a lot of them are dismissed not because they're debunked, but rather because of lacking rigorous study and evidence for/against them. I'd say that's an important distinction/nuance.
- seer 7y ago
  Well for example all of the explanations of how the exercises worked were wrapped around "elements" - you know the usual fire, earth, water etc. And you had "channels" that you had to move energies through by ... rubbing them. The motions and the rubbing itself did help blood flow and it was quite a nice work out, but I'm quite confident there weren't small spirits of fire flowing down my skin, at least not in the sense the teachings portrayed them I think.
  - loopz 7y ago
    Breathing, visualisation, meditation, etc. may train to activate the brain and nervous system in different ways. Research show such practices even modify gene expressions by hormon signals.
travisjungroth 7y ago
> Take “flat earth” model of the world. It’s not right, but it’s precise enough for the purposes of living in a village. Nothing wrong with that, its when you want to venture out, then you have to find a more precise one. I don’t think you have to have a more precise model. The modern world is incredibly tolerant of bad models. Last year, I visited four continents. I don’t think a single thing would have been different if I believed the world was flat. It’s not like I was flying the plane. I just bought a ticket, showed up, and tried to fall asleep.
- kingludite 7y ago
  My model is exact. I don't need my world to be round or flat. Until I do I really don't care. The superiority in this model is that it doesn't distract me from things I do care about. You just have to appreciate what little minds we have and how short it lasts. This is a human doing a puzzle with 2 parts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1qhCtpAa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1qhCtpAa4 This is a human doing a puzzle with 3 parts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zQmkyH0Mr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zQmkyH0Mr0
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Number of pieces isn't strictly the source of complexity. The complexity of the pieces matters too.
- baddox 7y ago
  You just weren’t doing anything that depended on your model of cosmology. I don’t think that says much about how tolerant of bad models the modern world is. The engineers making GPS required good models of physics, but their efforts probably would not have been thwarted by even the most inaccurate models of human medicine. And likewise it’s probably fine if your doctor doesn’t know about relativity.
lloeki 7y ago
True enough. I don't really care about what people believe in, but what I do care about (and don't like about pseudoscience practices) is: - the dilution/dismissal of scientific discourse - the real world consequences The discourse is schematically as follows: - (scientist) "Foo" is true within 5 sigmas under this overwhelmingly frequent hypothesis. - (pseudoscientist) So this is not 100%, so this may be wrong and there's room for any other explanation! Also, Newton was wrong! So scientists can be wrong, ergo you're probably wrong too! Even Einstein is probably wrong, scientists are not sure! Ergo your scientific argument (and preemptively any other) argument is dismissed! Since you can't prove me wrong I may just as well be right! Science is a cult! Maths are not real! Mathematical logic doesn't apply to the real world! Contraposition is loads of poppycock therefore in the real world if A=>B then B=>A and correlation implies causation! A couple of acquaintances of mine are Reiki advocates. One of them has torn her knee ligaments, and refuses to be subject to surgery, instead focusing on binding them again using mind only, in spite of being regularly in pain, and doctors saying it'll only get worse with time. I can only let you imagine the discourse, acts, and consequences about global warming ("Earth is a living being and will heal itself"), I can only let you imagine the discourse, acts, and consequences about the COVID situation ("let me align your aura and it'll help you not getting sick"). I can only let you imagine the discourse, acts, and consequences on close people that got cancer. I can respect everyone having their own beliefs, but there is a line that makes me downright unhinged.
nprateem 7y ago
> but the spirituality that comes with it. Very easily debunked by modern fact based science How does modern science debunk spirituality? Have you got some conclusive proof from somewhere that consciousness is only an emergent property of matter? How about that all the mystical experiences reported throughout the millenia (some with remarkable similarity) were just cross-cultural illusions (that also crossed vast time periods)? It was traditionally acknowledged that there were limitations to the scientific method, and that spirituality/consciousness lay beyond it. I'd be interested in some proof that all this stuff doesn't exist (just as I'm equally searching for personal experience that suggests the opposite).

by seer 7y ago

crispinb 7y ago

I don't think that's really off-topic & I agree. Another case in point: indigenous Australian cosmology. On the one hand, I don't personally take the notion that ancestors created the landscape very seriously. On the other, this cosmology was part of a system of thought, culture, and action that helped maintain a civilisation's existence for over 40,000 years (a feat we're very clearly not going to match). And such questions naturally address an individual very differently according to their situation. I can't say I'm ever likely to be involved enough with Reiki to need to take a strong stance on its efficacy. So why not just remain open and admit ignorance? That admission seems as hard for humans as does holding an empirical stance. HN is (hardly uniquely) stuffed full of comments proclaiming great certainty about things it's blindingly obvious people hardly know a thing about. It's fine often (and in truth most of the time) just not to know.

mercer 7y ago

> I once started learning some chinese martial arts, and the instructor was a true believer in more than the fighting techniques, but the spirituality that comes with it. Very easily debunked by modern fact based science. What kind of spirituality are you talking about, and how was this easily debunked? Honestly curious. I don't have any 'proper' spiritual beliefs myself, but I've found that a lot of them are dismissed not because they're debunked, but rather because of lacking rigorous study and evidence for/against them. I'd say that's an important distinction/nuance.

seer 7y ago
Well for example all of the explanations of how the exercises worked were wrapped around "elements" - you know the usual fire, earth, water etc. And you had "channels" that you had to move energies through by ... rubbing them. The motions and the rubbing itself did help blood flow and it was quite a nice work out, but I'm quite confident there weren't small spirits of fire flowing down my skin, at least not in the sense the teachings portrayed them I think.
- loopz 7y ago
  Breathing, visualisation, meditation, etc. may train to activate the brain and nervous system in different ways. Research show such practices even modify gene expressions by hormon signals.

travisjungroth 7y ago

> Take “flat earth” model of the world. It’s not right, but it’s precise enough for the purposes of living in a village. Nothing wrong with that, its when you want to venture out, then you have to find a more precise one. I don’t think you have to have a more precise model. The modern world is incredibly tolerant of bad models. Last year, I visited four continents. I don’t think a single thing would have been different if I believed the world was flat. It’s not like I was flying the plane. I just bought a ticket, showed up, and tried to fall asleep.

kingludite 7y ago
My model is exact. I don't need my world to be round or flat. Until I do I really don't care. The superiority in this model is that it doesn't distract me from things I do care about. You just have to appreciate what little minds we have and how short it lasts. This is a human doing a puzzle with 2 parts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1qhCtpAa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1qhCtpAa4 This is a human doing a puzzle with 3 parts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zQmkyH0Mr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zQmkyH0Mr0
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Number of pieces isn't strictly the source of complexity. The complexity of the pieces matters too.
baddox 7y ago
You just weren’t doing anything that depended on your model of cosmology. I don’t think that says much about how tolerant of bad models the modern world is. The engineers making GPS required good models of physics, but their efforts probably would not have been thwarted by even the most inaccurate models of human medicine. And likewise it’s probably fine if your doctor doesn’t know about relativity.

lloeki 7y ago

True enough. I don't really care about what people believe in, but what I do care about (and don't like about pseudoscience practices) is: - the dilution/dismissal of scientific discourse - the real world consequences The discourse is schematically as follows: - (scientist) "Foo" is true within 5 sigmas under this overwhelmingly frequent hypothesis. - (pseudoscientist) So this is not 100%, so this may be wrong and there's room for any other explanation! Also, Newton was wrong! So scientists can be wrong, ergo you're probably wrong too! Even Einstein is probably wrong, scientists are not sure! Ergo your scientific argument (and preemptively any other) argument is dismissed! Since you can't prove me wrong I may just as well be right! Science is a cult! Maths are not real! Mathematical logic doesn't apply to the real world! Contraposition is loads of poppycock therefore in the real world if A=>B then B=>A and correlation implies causation! A couple of acquaintances of mine are Reiki advocates. One of them has torn her knee ligaments, and refuses to be subject to surgery, instead focusing on binding them again using mind only, in spite of being regularly in pain, and doctors saying it'll only get worse with time. I can only let you imagine the discourse, acts, and consequences about global warming ("Earth is a living being and will heal itself"), I can only let you imagine the discourse, acts, and consequences about the COVID situation ("let me align your aura and it'll help you not getting sick"). I can only let you imagine the discourse, acts, and consequences on close people that got cancer. I can respect everyone having their own beliefs, but there is a line that makes me downright unhinged.

nprateem 7y ago

> but the spirituality that comes with it. Very easily debunked by modern fact based science How does modern science debunk spirituality? Have you got some conclusive proof from somewhere that consciousness is only an emergent property of matter? How about that all the mystical experiences reported throughout the millenia (some with remarkable similarity) were just cross-cultural illusions (that also crossed vast time periods)? It was traditionally acknowledged that there were limitations to the scientific method, and that spirituality/consciousness lay beyond it. I'd be interested in some proof that all this stuff doesn't exist (just as I'm equally searching for personal experience that suggests the opposite).