Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Breaking Bad Habits

[Eugene I]

There is no proper philosophy or science which does not start from experience and test results against experience. It's really a simple concept. Implicit in your statements above is that everyone's inner experience must be isolated to their own personal bubbles.

Right. So, the question is now, how can we properly use the experience as the verification means in science and philosophy. So far science and philosophy used the following method. It was found that we can not use any experience as such means. We have a plethora of experiences, such as dreams, hallucinations, drug trip experiences and what's not, that are not verifiable and not reproducible, and therefore can not be used as such criteria. Still, the situation is not so hopeless, and we find through communication that there is still a large amount of experiences that are verifiable and reproducible, and those experiences have been used in natural science and philosophy as the means for verification. Now, if the spiritual science is committed to use the same verification method based on verifiable and reproducible experiences, then you should confirm that and then we can move ahead and scrutinize the claims of the spiritual science against such verifiable and reproducible experiences. If you can not confirm that, then please explain what other kinds of experiences the spiritual science accepts as verification criteria.

[Apanthropinist]

I can't speak for anyone else, but if the field were not "in crisis", along with pretty much every other dimension of human existence, I would not be here.

Well that's certainly a personal opinion but the fallacy Cleric employed, remains, philosophically. Perhaps there's a forum somewhere called 'Spiritual Science' where you don't have to employ the philosophical method at all but I doubt Kastrup, after whom this forum takes its name, would put his name to it. I'm not for one moment suggesting it wouldn't be interesting, I think it would, but it would likely be chock full of any number of Spaghetti Monsters which would only say something about the believer rather than the 'thing' being discussed.

What Cleric is saying is nothing new - it is a continuation of the Hegelian tradition and phenomenological tradition. But instead of settling for only the intellectual arguments those traditions produced, it seeks to verify those arguments and more through direct experience.

So I'll be able to verify those arguments and more through my own direct experience? Meaning, effectively, I am simply verifying my own experience......but then that's circular. Or maybe I can verify yours because it will be the same experience, right? That's what the scientific method aims for isn't it? Testable, verifiable, repeatable experiments which produce consistent results and can make predictions and are falsifiable......

I may not be able to confirm the accuracy of spiritual scientific claims until I experience them myself......

....and then you'd be engaging in a form of solipsism wouldn't you? Because you'd have no other metric to reference other than your own experience. That's not science in any way that I understand. Not that I'm a fan of materialist science, I'm not, but it is useful at what it does when it stays within its domain of competence.

......but to pretend they are discontinuous with all of prior philosophy is not at all accurate.

You then introduce and answer your own argument here, rather than one I have explicitly or implicitly made. It's called 'So you're saying....' However I can answer it for you by saying that it is discontinuous with the philosophical method we have employed for two millennia. Premises, conclusion, logic, valid and sound argument etc.

It is continuous in exactly the way we would expect it to be given our other knowledge of paradigmatic revolutions in the 20th century.

Well that's a good example of an ambiguous assertion.

There is no proper philosophy or science which does not start from experience and test results against experience. It's really a simple concept. Implicit in your statements above is that everyone's inner experience must be isolated to their own personal bubbles. But such an assumption is not coherent under idealism and only superficially reflective of our experience. It falls apart when we reflect more deeply on how it is that our ideal content is shared with others to make everything from communication to empathy possible. Western metaphysics has taken several turns for the "worse" in the last 2500 years, especially with the rise of nominalism, rationalism and materialism-dualism. Idealists like to assume they stand apart from those major detours, and that somehow they have managed to avoid being influenced by them, but nothing could be further from the truth. That is the bad habit which needs to be broken and soon. It is the habit of mind which convinces us we are only developing linearly without paradigmatic shifts, yet Thomas Kuhn has shown clearly why that is not the case. As Barfield says, "the obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to those who have genuinely lost sight of it." Do we want to take the metamorphoses of consciousness seriously or only pay it lip service?

OK, I can see you don't want to address any of my specific objections, fair enough. Instead you have offered 'special pleading' (Using arguments that appear to support your position, but ignoring or somehow disallowing the arguments against) and 'argument ad nauseam' (If you say something often enough, some people will begin to believe it.) and then end up with your piece de résistance 'argument by rhetorical question' (Asking a question in a way that leads to a particular answer). There are a couple more fallacies in there but we can leave it at that because you're playing your own game and are at liberty to do so.

I'm familiar with Kuhn's idea and as soon as you or Cleric come up with a coherent, logically argued paradigm changing philosophy which can stand up to scrutiny, any form of scrutiny will do as a start, then please let me know and I'd be happy to read it. That's not sarcasm, it's genuine because I am interested in ways that could help us to move out of an increasingly nihilistic materialism/consumerism. But it isn't going to happen by endless rounds of sophistry employing linguistic and semantic gymnastics. That's not where the rubber meets the road for the common man like me and as the Americans would say 'That dog just won't hunt'.

As Jung once noted "Not nature, but the "genius of mankind," has knotted the hangman's noose with which it can execute itself at any moment."

[Eugene I]

Ditto to Apanthropinist. There are basically different categories of human collective knowledge and mental activity: sciences (plus technology based on them), philosophy, religion and all kinds of pseudo-sciences and pseudo-philosophies. So far the "spiritual science" you presented failed to comply with any kind of acceptable criteria to belong to the area of sciences or philosophy. If it belongs to religions, then there is nothing wrong with that, we have plenty of religions in the human culture, they do have their important roles. Unfortunately, their acceptance by masses have been rapidly declining over the last centuries and it is doubtful that some kind of new religion will become compelling enough to people to reverse the trend and make a significant difference on the global scale. But if you claim that the "spiritual science" is not a religion, but that it is still a science or philosophy, yet fail to support such claim by providing scientifically of philosophically acceptable arguments and experimental facts, then such spiritual science by default will be categorized as a pseudo-science or pseudo-philosophy, which we already have a plethora in our civilization.

It seems that you are trying to re-formulate and reform Christianity by re-shaping it with ideas from modern philosophy and anthroposophy to make it look like a real science or real philosophy (rather than just another reformed version of traditional religion) and to be more appealing to modern scientifically and philosophically more educated people. But simply mixing religious beliefs with quotes from this and that philosopher or scientist will not make it a philosophy or a science, it still needs to meet certain criteria to belong to the field of science or philosophy, of which we have no evidence so far.

This is not to say that Christian philosophy is not possible, there is and have been plenty of Christian philosophers nowadays and in the past able to represent professional-level defendable philosophical paradigms aligned with Christianity. None of those belonged to sciences yet, but at least they did and do belong to philosophy. If you guys are up to a similar endeavor and want your paradigm to be qualified at least as a philosophy, you need to follow and comply with certain standards accepted in the filed of professional philosophy. And you would need to comply with even more strict standards if you want it to be qualified as a science.

[Eugene I]

When professional-level science and philosophy leaves its academic circles and tries to reach to masses in order to make people more aware of its recent discoveries, it is often confronted by a massive amount of amateur-level pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy. People without philosophical or scientific background who are not properly trained in these areas are often not able to differentiate between good quality professional level science or philosophy and the pseudo-one. We have seen an abundant amount of such pseudo-philosophies on Bernardo's older forum, and are also seeing them on this one. Any attempts to demonstrate the fallacies of these pseudo-philosophies to their inventors are rather useless and futile as they are typically not able to even understand the arguments that challenge them. Often these people have read quite a few books in the area, are familiar with basic concepts and seem to be able to speak in scientific and philosophical language, however that does not qualify them as scientists or philosophers. There was a guy on an older forum claiming to refute the Einstein relativity theory and presenting mathematical proofs for that, and it turned out that the guy did not even know how to add two vectors.

On another note, we are seeing the modern science and philosophy pushing beyond the reductionist limits of materialism. We are seeing significant developments in non-materialistic philosophy (idealism, panpsychism, neutral monism explored by many professional philosophers etc), and we are similarly seeing significant scientific research and developments in the areas of paranormal studies, NDE, reincarnation studies etc that are being done by properly trained and professional researchers. If we really want to challenge materialism and move the society away from it, a solid philosophical and scientific foundation needs to be developed to support that. Pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy will actually be counter-productive and work against that movement, as it will make an impression that idealism is just another religion or pseudo-science/philosophy. This is why Bernardo (even though many of his views are still questionable) is trying hard to maintain high standards of professional philosophy in his works, and so far I can only applaud him in succeeding with that. And the best we can do as amateurs (and most of us here are amateurs in philosophy) if we really want to contribute to this movement is to stay away from pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy.

[Apanthropinist]

When professional-level science and philosophy leaves its academic circles and tries to reach to masses in order to make people more aware of its recent discoveries, it is often confronted by a massive amount of amateur-level pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy. People without philosophical or scientific background who are not properly trained in these areas are often not able to differentiate between good quality professional level science or philosophy and the pseudo-one. We have seen an abundant amount of such pseudo-philosophies on Bernardo's older forum, and are also seeing them on this one. Any attempts to demonstrate the fallacies of these pseudo-philosophies to their inventors are rather useless and futile as they are typically not able to even understand the arguments that challenge them. Often these people have read quite a few books in the area, are familiar with basic concepts and seem to be able to speak in scientific and philosophical language, however that does not qualify them as scientists or philosophers. There was a guy on an older forum claiming to refute the Einstein relativity theory and presenting mathematical proofs for that, and it turned out that the guy did not even know how to add two vectors.

On another note, we are seeing the modern science and philosophy pushing beyond the reductionist limits of materialism. We are seeing significant developments in non-materialistic philosophy (idealism, panpsychism, neutral monism explored by many professional philosophers etc), and we are similarly seeing significant scientific research and developments in the areas of paranormal studies, NDE, reincarnation studies etc that are being done by properly trained and professional researchers. If we really want to challenge materialism and move the society away from it, a solid philosophical and scientific foundation needs to be developed to support that. Pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy will actually be counter-productive and work against that movement, as it will make an impression that idealism is just another religion or pseudo-science/philosophy. This is why Bernardo (even though many of his views are still questionable) is trying hard to maintain high standards of professional philosophy in his works, and so far I can only applaud him in succeeding with that. And the best we can do as amateurs (and most of us here are amateurs in philosophy) if we really want to contribute to this movement is to stay away from pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy.

Totally agree Eugene and well said, you have my vote. I think it is the only way it can change bar aliens landing or a strange cosmic event. The game of changing the paradigm is won by the hand of its own methods, not by giving it the opportunity to cry 'pseudo' and making things easy to dismiss.

I have my own esoteric beliefs but in many ways, most, probably, they say more about me than any 'truth' to the beliefs themselves and it is simply pragmatic to be honest about it.

[Soul_of_Shu]

There is a good reason why the previous version of this forum was called metaphysical speculations. What makes one speculation any more or less provisional than any other? I suppose parsimony, but even that isn't fail safe. Speculation about what gravity is has shifted over time to now having something to do with the curvature of spacetime. I've no idea how that works, but I suspect that that too is provisional. Will there ever be any speculation that is not just the penultimate one?

[Apanthropinist]

What makes one speculation any more or less provisional than any other?

Evidence for science. Argument for philosophy. Those are the currencies by which they are judged more or less provisional. Though science is always provisional whereas a logical (or mathematical) proof is final.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Evidence for science. Argument for philosophy. Those are the currencies by which they are judged more or less provisional. Though science is always provisional whereas a logical (or mathematical) proof is final.

So, for example, e=mc2 is not provisional?

[Eugene I]

It's fine to do speculations, and it's fun too. Sometimes they give rise to interesting insights and ideas that later develop into less provisional and more philosophical or scientific concepts, but for that to happen, they have to go through a lot of scrutiny to find sufficient support from evidences, math, logic and philosophical arguments. Such scrutiny makes them less provisional, but never entirely non-provisional. But to name this kind of metaphysical or esoteric speculation a "science" or "philosophy" is a misnomer, they really do not belong there.

[Apanthropinist]

Evidence for science. Argument for philosophy. Those are the currencies by which they are judged more or less provisional. Though science is always provisional whereas a logical (or mathematical) proof is final.

So, for example, e=mc2 is not provisional?

E=mc2 is provisional because it is a physics equation. It is not a mathematical theorem, it is a physics equation.

This might help:

Misconceptions about the nature and practice of science abound and are sometimes even held by otherwise respectable practicing scientists themselves.

Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about science. One of the most common misconceptions concerns the so-called “scientific proofs.” Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a scientific proof.

Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic (philosophy), not in science. Mathematics and logic are both closed, self-contained systems of propositions, whereas science is empirical and deals with nature as it exists. The primary criterion and standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence, not proof. All else equal (such as internal logical consistency and parsimony), scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to theories for which there is less and worse evidence. Proofs are not the currency of science.

Proofs have two features that do not exist in science: They are final, and they are binary. Once a theorem is proven, it will forever be true and there will be nothing in the future that will threaten its status as a proven theorem (unless a flaw is discovered in the proof). Apart from the discovery of an error, a proven theorem will forever and always be a proven theorem.

In contrast, all scientific knowledge is tentative and provisional, and nothing is final. There is no such thing as final proven knowledge in science. The currently accepted theory of a phenomenon is simply the best explanation for it among all available alternatives. Its status as the accepted theory is contingent on what other theories are available and might suddenly change tomorrow if there appears a better theory or new evidence that might challenge the accepted theory. No knowledge or theory (which embodies scientific knowledge) is final. That, by the way, is why science is so much fun.

Further, proofs, like pregnancy, are binary; a mathematical proposition is either proven (in which case it becomes a theorem) or not (in which case, it remains a conjecture until it is proven). There is nothing in between. A theorem cannot be kind of proven or almost proven. These are the same as unproven.

In contrast, there is no such binary evaluation of scientific theories. Scientific theories are neither absolutely false nor absolutely true. They are always somewhere in between. Some theories are better, more credible, and more accepted than others. There is always more, more credible, and better evidence for some theories than others. It is a matter of more or less, not either/or. For example, experimental evidence is better and more credible than correlational evidence, but even the former cannot prove a theory; it only provides very strong evidence for the theory and against its alternatives.

The knowledge that there is no such thing as a scientific proof should give you a very easy way to tell real scientists from hacks and wannabes. Real scientists never use the words “scientific proofs,” because they know no such thing exists. Anyone who uses the words “proof,” “prove,” and “proven” in their discussion of science is not a real scientist.