Magic: Who thinks they can do it, and why otherwise intelligent people buy it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

God fucking hell. Shut the fuck up and go do some science. You people are making me puke. Assholes. The only one of you fit to have this fucking conversation is Kai.

SHUT

THE

FUCK

UP

You bunch of retarded fucking incompetent assholes

if any ONE of you had any fucking idea what you were talking about, you would have SHUT UP ALREADY.

Um.

[Faust]

Wow that's pretty circular.

So, science cannot falsify itself.

Does that make it flawless?

Guy Incognito said that hypothesis testing may be flawed. That is absolutely true, because science can neither prove nor disprove it.

Not meant to be a burden-of-proof trick. Just that any statement you make about whether science is flawed or not, is a scientifically meaningless statement.

If that's not a limit to the scientific method, I don't know what is.

Well thats not really fair either, its not a case of proving, its a case of proving beyond a reasonable doubt, which does give consistent results which more importantly are able to be applied to similar systems to get predicable results. That is not a flaw in hypothesis testing or the scientific method, its an acceptable margin of error.

[Triple Zero]

1) Nigel if it bothers you so much, may I suggest you stop reading the thread? jeez. What is your problem going round the forum telling everybody to shut up?

2) And what makes Kai more fit to have this conversation than me? cause s/he's a scientist? cause you know, I went to university as well, did 2-3 years of research and co-wrote a paper that got presented at ESANN, also followed a couple of philsophy modules, including philosophy of science. is that enough credentials for me to have this conversation? or are there additional requirements?

3) there were unicorns in LotR?

[Cain]

The question isn't whether there were unicorns in LOTR but whether we can falsify the hypothesis that unicorns were in LOTR.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

1) Nigel if it bothers you so much, may I suggest you stop reading the thread? jeez. What is your problem going round the forum telling everybody to shut up?

2) And what makes Kai more fit to have this conversation than me? cause s/he's a scientist? cause you know, I went to university as well, did 2-3 years of research and co-wrote a paper that got presented at ESANN, also followed a couple of philsophy modules, including philosophy of science. is that enough credentials for me to have this conversation? or are there additional requirements?

3) there were unicorns in LotR?

FUCK YOU

It is six am and I am drunk. SUCK MY DICK.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

YOU ARE ALL TOTALLY INCOMPETENT

THIS THREAD IS THE CLOSEST THING TO CONTENT ON THE BOARD ATM

THAT MAKES ME WANT TO DIE.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

 STILL DRUNK

FROM LAST NIGHT

FUCK YOU

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I WILL SHIT UNICORNS FROM MY VAGINA IF YOU WILL JUST FUCKING SHUT UP ABOUT PHILOSOPHY YOU INCOMPETENT SHITHOLES.

[Faust]

shut up, go to bed.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

[Triple Zero]

Wow that's pretty circular.

So, science cannot falsify itself.

Does that make it flawless?

Guy Incognito said that hypothesis testing may be flawed. That is absolutely true, because science can neither prove nor disprove it.

Not meant to be a burden-of-proof trick. Just that any statement you make about whether science is flawed or not, is a scientifically meaningless statement.

If that's not a limit to the scientific method, I don't know what is.

Well thats not really fair either, its not a case of proving, its a case of proving beyond a reasonable doubt, which does give consistent results which more importantly are able to be applied to similar systems to get predicable results. That is not a flaw in hypothesis testing or the scientific method, its an acceptable margin of error.

What do you mean with fair?

Ever since I was 23 and read about Godel's incompleteness theorem, I've been reading up on this stuff in order to find the parts where the scientific method is incomplete.

It has to be. And that blew my mind at the time. Cause I had a Spock-like absolute faith in that thing. But I figured, well if that means there are things that are True, but are not covered by the scientific method, I want to know what they are.

I'm not sure whether I have found it or not, but among other things that search led to the occult.

About which, btw, there's yet quite a bit of science to do. I mean, it seems to me that the resistance against it must be mostly in, as ECH put it, "dangerous thought" or as Roger said "lying to yourself".

Because the other part, about which we seemed to agree a couple of pages back, that magic is basically mind-reprogramming or something. The cry against that was, you shouldn't need silly robes and chants to do that.

Well, that's an easy hypothesis to falsify, try it with the robes and without the robes, see what works best. Just that whether it "works" or not can only be determined subjectively, or in other words it can only be objectively determined by the subject.

So either everybody gotta test that for themselves, and if Roger and ECH say they don't need the robes, I can only take their word for it.

I haven't tried myself btw. Like Roger, I find it pretty hard to trick myself into believing something when I know I'm tricking me.

On the other hand you can also say, that's not Science cause it's not peer-reviewable!

Well in that case, we hit another limit of science. Is this one also unfair?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

[Triple Zero]

YOU ARE ALL TOTALLY INCOMPETENT

THIS THREAD IS THE CLOSEST THING TO CONTENT ON THE BOARD ATM

THAT MAKES ME WANT TO DIE.

Right. So just what we need is drunk posts in our treasured last bastion of content on this forum.

What Faust said, go to bed.

[Faust]

Wow that's pretty circular.

So, science cannot falsify itself.

Does that make it flawless?

Guy Incognito said that hypothesis testing may be flawed. That is absolutely true, because science can neither prove nor disprove it.

Not meant to be a burden-of-proof trick. Just that any statement you make about whether science is flawed or not, is a scientifically meaningless statement.

If that's not a limit to the scientific method, I don't know what is.

Well thats not really fair either, its not a case of proving, its a case of proving beyond a reasonable doubt, which does give consistent results which more importantly are able to be applied to similar systems to get predicable results. That is not a flaw in hypothesis testing or the scientific method, its an acceptable margin of error.

What do you mean with fair?

Ever since I was 23 and read about Godel's incompleteness theorem, I've been reading up on this stuff in order to find the parts where the scientific method is incomplete.

It has to be. And that blew my mind at the time. Cause I had a Spock-like absolute faith in that thing. But I figured, well if that means there are things that are True, but are not covered by the scientific method, I want to know what they are.

I'm not sure whether I have found it or not, but among other things that search led to the occult.

About which, btw, there's yet quite a bit of science to do. I mean, it seems to me that the resistance against it must be mostly in, as ECH put it, "dangerous thought" or as Roger said "lying to yourself".

Because the other part, about which we seemed to agree a couple of pages back, that magic is basically mind-reprogramming or something. The cry against that was, you shouldn't need silly robes and chants to do that.

Well, that's an easy hypothesis to falsify, try it with the robes and without the robes, see what works best. Just that whether it "works" or not can only be determined subjectively, or in other words it can only be objectively determined by the subject.

So either everybody gotta test that for themselves, and if Roger and ECH say they don't need the robes, I can only take their word for it.

I haven't tried myself btw. Like Roger, I find it pretty hard to trick myself into believing something when I know I'm tricking me.

On the other hand you can also say, that's not Science cause it's not peer-reviewable!

Well in that case, we hit another limit of science. Is this one also unfair?

Hrm, not quite, you CAN still test the robes/no robes hypothesis... Just not personally, you need lab rats who are unaware of the test. Obviously this would lead to other causes of error. For instance each persons unique experiences can skew the outcome, the only way to get a result that works within a certain margin of error is to increase the size of your test group to a comfortable amount (thousands or more). Its not untestable, just difficult.
All psychological hypotheses are tested over large groups to build up an average, but it is true that hypothesis testing is less reliable when people are involved.

[Faust]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.