[crankylinuxuser]

Now.. I have no qualms in calling out fraud where I see it. But care in throwing it all out.

We, earlier this week, read about someone who attended a meditation retreat left in handcuffs because meditation did crazy things to the mind. I mean, he was just eating and sitting and sleeping silently. We have holes in understanding of consciousness, and can't even tell if something is sentient or thinking.

And then, we have people feeling emotions in areas. These emotions can be shared. many people can feel being stared at.

The hole seems to be the intersection of: consciousness, mind, and emotion.

Can we point at emotion? Can we throw it against a wall? Can we describe anger without emotions? How do we measure it? Why can some people feel the anger in an area? Same for mind and consciousness - show me an example. Quantify it.

What's confusing is that your declaration of "They're just wrong, and are confused by confirmation bias." is that the very statement is confirmation bias of sciencism. Either there is proof (positive or negative), or there is not. Do not confuse lack of proof as proof of lack.

[EpicEng]

The fact that we can't yet show a mechanism for <whatever> does not make it reasonable to assume some sort of supernatural explanation. Your logic opens the door for believing any wacky idea a person has should be taken seriously. They shouldn't. Show a mechanism or proof of the effect. Otherwise it's nonsense.

[crankylinuxuser]

What part of my logic is in error?

Lack of proof does not mean proof of nonexistence. And if we look at things like the aether, was made a distinct proof that it didn't exist as conjectured (although its rearing its head as a quantum Foam).

But I await for proof, be it positive or negative, of emotion and consciousness. Because all you did was throw insults.

> Show a mechanism or proof of the effect. Otherwise it's nonsense.

One can highlight open questions with no apparent answers. And it absolutely doesn't make those questions "nonsense". But this view is called Scientism, and is not science. "Proof or its fake" is absolutely not science.

"Proof or its unproven" is science.

[tombert]

> Lack of proof does not mean proof of nonexistence.

It is certainly evidence of nonexistence. Do you believe every single claim you've ever heard because you can't conclusively disprove it 100% of the time always? Of course not, you use your reason and assume that more positive claims are false until proven otherwise.

[crankylinuxuser]

Charles H. Duell was the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899. Mr. Deull's most famous attributed utterance is that "everything that can be invented has been invented."

We laugh at it today, because some patent commissioner couldn't see past his own limited view, and made that claim.

Yet, when I postulate questions about things we have very little science with, I'm dismissed. I ask for science to be used with emotions; yet Im the dumb one. I want scientific method to determine consciousness; yet I'm the non-scientific one.

Again, you're the standard fare when it comes to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

[RichardCA]

The problem with Scientism is that the very utterance of the word sets up a Straw Man.

But I do get where you're coming from, having followed some of the same articles you've been referencing in your posts.

I think Deepak Chopra had some useful things to say. He is normally derided as trafficking in woo, especially in his remarks about James Randi.

But if you read what he has to say, his position makes sense. A lot of otherwise intelligent people fall into materialism as a sort of intellectual default and it's not wrong to challenge this.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/skepticism-and-...

And this in turn goes back to what Alan Watts had to say, the idea that materialism should be resisted in spite of its surface plausibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mryZ7e2TUhs

(The meat of it is around 10 minutes in)

[EpicEng]

While you await proof of psychic powers I am eagerly awaiting proof of unicorns and leprechauns.

[tombert]

> Do not confuse lack of proof as proof of lack

If taken to the extreme, this logic can be used to prove literally anything. "Haven't seen any proof of invisible back-massage fairies? Well, don't confuse lack of proof as proof of lack!". When your framework can be used to prove something false, it means that the framework is unreliable.

I don't really know what "sciencism" is, but we know that the scientific method has been demonstrated to work in producing results that are useful to us. I am typing this message on an electronic keyboard, plugged into a computer, plugged into a giant-ass interconnected network hitting satellites and fiber-cables and whatnot, all of which were developed by scientists or engineers following a scientific method.

To use your wording, however, while I can't conclusively say "lack of proof is proof of lack", I can easily say "lack of proof is strong evidence of lack". Occam's razor tells us to discard unnecessary assumptions.