3 ms·

What kind of “mechanism of action” you are looking for? I mean, physicists provide no “mechanism of action” for the forces they stipulate to exist. There is no

by xyzzyz 4y ago

What kind of “mechanism of action” you are looking for? I mean, physicists provide no “mechanism of action” for the forces they stipulate to exist. There is no “mechanism of action” for electromagnetism, it just does what it does. Similarly, ESP force might not have “mechanism of action”, it just could do what it does. What you are doing here is that you are betraying two huge hidden assumptions that you implicitly make. First is that you are most likely expecting to obtain “mechanism action” in some kind of mathematical terms, which implicitly assumes ability to use mathematics to explain the observed universe. Second is that you are looking for “mechanism of action” for ESP in terms of known physical forces and theories. Here, you implicitly assume that known physics is all there is. Now, I do not believe in ESP either, my point is only that you are demanding rigor from ESP you don’t from electromagnetism.

josephcsible 4y ago
I think it's the combination of "ESP has no mechanism of action in terms of known science, and so would require new fundamental physics to be possible" and "ESP has never been successfully tested, and not for lack of trying" together that's a really hard pill to swallow.
wnkrshm 4y ago
Physics can replicate electromagnetic effects with an extremely high degree of precision, it's almost trivial to replicate said effects. Physics has formulated models of how electromagnetism works and from that model, predicted other effects that could be replicated in experiments as well. That's what a 'mechanism of action' means here. The predictive power of a model, by whatever means it's formulated makes it useful. There are infinitely many ways to model electromagnetism but only a few of them are useful because they allow to make theoretical predictions that then also match reality.
n4r9 4y ago
If a natural phenomenon is claimed to exist and be observable, then it is reasonable to expect a theoretical framework which allows others to formulate experiments to test it in novel ways. It does not have to be couched in mathematics, but once the description is transmitted it should permit thinking along the lines of "Aha, you're saying that this <well-defined-thing> causes that <well-defined-thing>! If that is the case then this <new-experiment> should have that <surprising-outcome>". That framework should also be clear about under what circumstances the phenomenon occurs, so that an outsider can in principle understand its limits and be able to perform tests without the advocate claiming that their experimental conditions were "not conducive" to the phenomenon. Another example of a "hypothesis" which has no mechanism of action (and I therefore do not regard as a hypothesis) is the "Stoned Ape Hypothesis". It claims that the ingestion of psylocibin explains the sudden increase in size of the brain at one point in our evolutionary history. But it does not actually give a mechanism for how your or my genes today would be affected, it just says that hunter-gatherer culture would have changed and there would be more group sexual activity. If I were to be presented with this "explanation", I would not expect a dramatic effect on brain size, because there would be less sexual selection going on. Homeopathy also strikes me as a claimed effect without plausible mechanism.

by xyzzyz 4y ago

josephcsible 4y ago

I think it's the combination of "ESP has no mechanism of action in terms of known science, and so would require new fundamental physics to be possible" and "ESP has never been successfully tested, and not for lack of trying" together that's a really hard pill to swallow.

wnkrshm 4y ago

Physics can replicate electromagnetic effects with an extremely high degree of precision, it's almost trivial to replicate said effects. Physics has formulated models of how electromagnetism works and from that model, predicted other effects that could be replicated in experiments as well. That's what a 'mechanism of action' means here. The predictive power of a model, by whatever means it's formulated makes it useful. There are infinitely many ways to model electromagnetism but only a few of them are useful because they allow to make theoretical predictions that then also match reality.

n4r9 4y ago

If a natural phenomenon is claimed to exist and be observable, then it is reasonable to expect a theoretical framework which allows others to formulate experiments to test it in novel ways. It does not have to be couched in mathematics, but once the description is transmitted it should permit thinking along the lines of "Aha, you're saying that this <well-defined-thing> causes that <well-defined-thing>! If that is the case then this <new-experiment> should have that <surprising-outcome>". That framework should also be clear about under what circumstances the phenomenon occurs, so that an outsider can in principle understand its limits and be able to perform tests without the advocate claiming that their experimental conditions were "not conducive" to the phenomenon. Another example of a "hypothesis" which has no mechanism of action (and I therefore do not regard as a hypothesis) is the "Stoned Ape Hypothesis". It claims that the ingestion of psylocibin explains the sudden increase in size of the brain at one point in our evolutionary history. But it does not actually give a mechanism for how your or my genes today would be affected, it just says that hunter-gatherer culture would have changed and there would be more group sexual activity. If I were to be presented with this "explanation", I would not expect a dramatic effect on brain size, because there would be less sexual selection going on. Homeopathy also strikes me as a claimed effect without plausible mechanism.