Aya

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"What really happened to the Malaysian airliner is that everyone on the plane collectively stopped believing in covalent bonding."

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

We can solve for it algebraically.

"In the Illusionary Universe: The Illusion of Force equals the Illusion of Mass times the Illusion of Acceleration."

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)
I     I        I      I

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)
I     I        I      I

U: f=m*a

Psh. This equation relies on the assumption that I=I. SUCH HUBRIS!

[Demolition Squid]

I'm vaguely curious who he thinks enjoys his presence here as well.

I hope it isn't me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm vaguely curious who he thinks enjoys his presence here as well.

I hope it isn't me.

I don't know, but he had a friend at university who was an organic chemist, but his first job made him cry and he quit science, which is how Holist knows all the things there are to know about science, and my best bet is that it's something along those lines.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Much like I have a friend who has a PhD in British History from Oxford, which is how I know all about it and can answer pretty much any question about it, except that I never studied it and don't really know anything about it at all.

That is how much Holist knows about science, and also how much people like him.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The funny thing about this thread is that the parts where Holist isn't are quite good.

[LMNO]

We can solve for it algebraically.

"In the Illusionary Universe: The Illusion of Force equals the Illusion of Mass times the Illusion of Acceleration."

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)
I     I        I      I

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)
I     I        I      I

U: f=m*a

Psh. This equation relies on the assumption that I=I. SUCH HUBRIS!

Indeed. I must have forgotten that in some instances, force equals mass times vindaloo.

My proof is Roger's ass.

QED, bitches.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We can solve for it algebraically.

"In the Illusionary Universe: The Illusion of Force equals the Illusion of Mass times the Illusion of Acceleration."

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)
I     I        I      I

IU: I(f) = I(m)*I(a)
I     I        I      I

U: f=m*a

Psh. This equation relies on the assumption that I=I. SUCH HUBRIS!

Indeed. I must have forgotten that in some instances, force equals mass times vindaloo.

My proof is Roger's ass.

QED, bitches.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just read the rest of your rant. I had forgotten how much you hated science.

Forget what I said above, please continue sniffing your own flatulence.

I don't hate science, in fact I like it a lot. I do dislike the science delusion, but that's not the same thing as science.

Try this.

I just noticed that he linked to the "banned" (ie. Rupert Sheldrake's a whiny drama bitch with entitlement issues and delusions of grandeur) TEDx (different from an actual TED talk, BTW) talk that was removed from the TED site because it's shit.

TEDx are independent community-organized talks that are allowed to freely organize under the TEDx name but are not endorsed or vetted by TED at all. Most of them never get linked on the TED website at all. Sheldrake had a loud public hissy fit because his was, briefly, linked on the TED site, and then TED took the link down because they didn't feel it met their standards..

Which it shouldn't, because it's woo-woo gobshite. But then he pitched a wobbler right up to and including accusations of conspiracy to hide the truth because it "threatens the establishment", so they posted this: http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/19/the-debate-about-rupert-sheldrakes-talk/

Of course, Holist is exactly the kind of rube who would buy it, hook line and sinker.

[hooplala]

This whole thing about whether the physical universe exists or not is pissing me off.

It comes down to one thing: replication.  If I do action X in context Y it results in Z.

If Roger does action X in context Y it results in Z.
If Nigel does action X in context Y it results in Z.
If Hoopla does action X in context Y it results in Z.
If you do action X in context Y it results in Z.

If one proposes that everything on the opposite side of our eyeballs is an illusion, then it turns out that proposed illusion has demonstrable rules, and those rules are true for everyone.  And those rules have an effect on our bodies, and those effects are the same on every body.  So the proposed illusion has exactly the same characteristics as an objective external universe. 

So, to call that an Illusion is inserting a meaningless term into our understanding of these effects. It can be easily removed without changing the nature of the effects, nor the observed rules.

Unless, unless... your claim is that the proposed Illusion is mutable, and is open to subjective change.  IS that what you're saying?

Dildo can try to prett it up as much as he likes, it still all ends in bloody noses.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

A little background: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake

He claims, among other things, that telepathy is real, that the speed of light is decreasing, and that species are not defined by their DNA but by a type of cosmic vibrations. I believe he is also a fan of the "water has memory" ideas that homeopathy is based on, and that there is a huge global science conspiracy to conceal evidence of all of these things.

He's about one step away from reptilian shapeshifter overlords.

And now I know where Holist gets his ideas.

[LMNO]

Oh lord.  I remember this now.

And this is where the majority of his responses in this thread come from:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake#Skeptical_conspiracy

In June 2013, Sheldrake began endorsing the opinion of Spiritualist crank Robert McLuhan that a group called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia‎ (GSoW) were coordinating the actions of editors at the online encyclopedia to unfairly label subjects as pseudoscience and promote a skeptical point of view about psychic phenomena. He also came to believe they unfairly targeted his own Wikipedia biography article for special abuse.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh lord.  I remember this now.

And this is where the majority of his responses in this thread come from:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake#Skeptical_conspiracy

In June 2013, Sheldrake began endorsing the opinion of Spiritualist crank Robert McLuhan that a group called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia‎ (GSoW) were coordinating the actions of editors at the online encyclopedia to unfairly label subjects as pseudoscience and promote a skeptical point of view about psychic phenomena. He also came to believe they unfairly targeted his own Wikipedia biography article for special abuse.

Wow, that's a whole raft of crazy.

I wonder if Holist actually read one of Sheldrake's books, or if he's basing his fanboi faith entirely on blogs (ie. what woo experts like to call "research")?

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Oh lord.  I remember this now.

And this is where the majority of his responses in this thread come from:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake#Skeptical_conspiracy

In June 2013, Sheldrake began endorsing the opinion of Spiritualist crank Robert McLuhan that a group called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia‎ (GSoW) were coordinating the actions of editors at the online encyclopedia to unfairly label subjects as pseudoscience and promote a skeptical point of view about psychic phenomena. He also came to believe they unfairly targeted his own Wikipedia biography article for special abuse.

Yup. I love how it all boiled over into this MASSIVE CONSPIRACY OF SKEPTICS. This is made especially hilarious considering the GSoW bring all the froth and flame of the lady at a church bazaar who thinks that knit shawl would really look better in a nice lavender.

[Demolition Squid]

This video is one of the dumbest things I have ever been subjected to.

Each one of these 'dogmas' has an immediate, obvious and glaring flaw which even I - as very much an amateur - can identify immediately. Lets go through them because lol. (Disclaimer: as an amateur I am fully prepared to admit I may be wrong about what 'most scientists' think but this is what I've gathered from a vague interest)

1) Nature is mechanical or machinelike - well, no. I think the most that biologists would claim is that there are some mechanical processes underlying the natural world. Not that the natural world runs 'like a machine'.

2) Matter is unconscious, and therefore much of the philosophy of the mind has been trying to prove we're not really conscious at all - this is a pointless claim to make without defining the term 'consciousness', but I think it is fair to say that most scientists believe that consciousness arises from and is rooted in matter, not that matter cannot be conscious; that would be a ludicrous claim.

3) The Laws of Nature are Fixed and the Constants never change - well, yes, but they don't claim that we know what those laws are.

4) The total amount of matter and energy is always the same and it 'sprang out of nowhere' in the big bang - pretty sure scientists don't claim the big bang 'came out of nowhere' but was in fact everything in one place. So it was all there already.

5) Nature is purposeless and there is no purpose in evolution - nnnnno, the purpose of evolution is to spread genes from one generation to the next. It isn't a conscious direction, but it definitely has a point.

6) Biological heredity is material - everything you inherit is in your genes. - Again, this is a 'yes, but'. You can inherit traits which predispose you towards taking advantage of environmental factors, but inheritance isn't a perfect art and it doesn't necessarily guarantee things. There's a lot of fuzziness around nature/nurture right now.

7) Memories are stored inside your brain in material processes but nobody knows how it works - we know quite a lot about short term/long term memory encoding and the physical processes behind them. We don't know EVERYTHING, and I certainly don't know a lot, but even 10 years ago when I was taking Psychology in high school, memory and the physical format it took in the brain was a part of the curriculum. It wasn't just a 'nobody knows'

All your consciousness is the activity of your brain and nothing more - Well, no. Consciousness is again a difficult term to define, but nerves are spread throughout the body and the effect that different glands, hormones and so forth have on your mood is well documented.

9) Psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible - a lot of research has been done in this field, and in fact, I believe there has been some success with brain-to-brain communication recently. It is fucking hard work requiring expensive specialist tools, and not done by waving your hand and going 'woo' though.

10) Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works - nope, vast amounts of research have been done on the placebo effect. These produce real, genuine effects - just not always over long periods.

In conclusion: video is dildos.