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Originally Posted by moonrambler  JF -- Another problem with the Randi challenge is he's treating parapsychology as though it's a hard science, which I don't think it is. It's a social science, which is much more difficult to measure. And you know some aspects of social science simply cannot be measured in the lab -- they need to be observed in the field -- and it's possible parapsychological events are of that nature, even though many of us really would like a way to "prove" it more definitively. |
Ok, fair point. The problem with that is that if it were actually useful, or, let's say, if it were really impressive with how often it happens, or how powerful its effects are, or if it were more predictable so we could use it, then it would be predictable enough and powerful enough to show up in hard scientific tests as well.
Constantly the claim of psychics whose experiments don't show a positive result is that 'it' (the effect, their power) doesn't perform on cue. It's not a performing monkey, but a spiritual thing to be respected. Ok. So what this means is that even if it is a real effect, it is virtually useless. It is so unpredictable (literally) that it can't be measured. Yet the psychic is giving the impression that this is a really important thing.
I've agreed elsewhere on this forum that it is perfectly feasible that you're the only consciousness, dreaming everything in your world, and your social-science argument could fit somewhere along the line between that and material realism. However, if it's not provable, nor demonstrable, nor reliable, then I see little point in making it a central point of my philosophy. I could choose any number of arbitrary cosmologies that can't be proven and have no use. Like I kept saying to ALG, if I'm just a figment of your imagination, what's the point in talking to me, and why send me off to read bad research? We have to choose - reality or makebelieve. There's not much middle ground. And IM is
literally makebelieve. Do you actually CARE whether there are ACTUAL fairies at the bottom of the garden? Because whether there are or are not is, IMHO, a question of what is real. Do you mind if you believe in them and they're not really there? Because that's fine too if you want to live like that, in a world of deliberate renunciation of rationality and reality-testing. Is there
any belief you'd consider silly and misguided? Do you know that Santa Claus isn't real, or is that a matter of opinion, of imagination?