Glenn, Platt and the Large Number.
On 6 Aug Glenn wrote:
(to Platt)
> Oh, now it's science you want.
> You and other MOQ students might point your browsers at
> www.boundaryinstitute.org and play the on-line psi tests. The Card
> Test tests one's precognitive ability (you try to influence a future
> event by guessing which one of five cards a computer program will
> pick). Perhaps this could simulate a living organism's ability to
> influence a favorable future genetic mutation.
> With the tests on this site, Dean Radin has collected more data in one
> year than Rhine and his colleagues did over 60 years of psi-testing.
> Unfortunately, after nearly 2.8 million trials, the Card Test had an
> overall hit-rate of 19.98%, where the hit rate expected by chance is
> 20%. While this doesn't say much for psi, it's yet another unheralded
> example of the Law of Large Numbers.
> But maybe students of the MOQ, being especially open-minded, can
> overcome the static grip of rationality holding back Western
> civilization, feel the value-force of DQ, and evolve us toward
> betterness as we snub our noses at the law of averages. Glenn
I understand Platt's wish to snub the scientific world view (which he sees as
representing the 'O' of SOM) but I doubt if REG and such will forward the
MOQ cause which is as opposed to the 'S'. Dr This and Dr That are
scientists and their experiments are set up to test if mind influences matter,
but if we adopt that dichotomy do we need experiments? It is demonstrated
each time we move our limbs, and that the influence is reciprocal is shown
by mind-altering drugs ....alcohol will do.
The point where thoughts (about moving a finger) becomes the electro-
chemical signal for the actual action - or where alcohol "takes effect" - will
never be found because there is no such point. Subjectively seen it is
thoughts all the way and objectively it's nerve pulses all the way. Which
shows that the mind/matter dichotomy is false False FALSE!!!! This is the
starting point of the MOQ. I agree with Glenn that no such experiment
(based on the idea of a disembodied mind trying to influence a mindless
coin) will show anything above random. Glenn's scepticism may be that
mind don't work at the a distance, but it doesn't matter.
Science is the intellectual level as it manifests in our era and its search for
the mind/matter interaction shows that it is as 'S' focussed as 'O' and thus
SOM, but - as said - even if this dualism is false at the metaphysical level, it
has countless positive effects. Can't list them all. Good old technology!!
Platt had said:
> > Students of the MOQ would suggest the experiments demonstrate the
> > war between biological and inorganic levels. Since life requires a degree
> > of certainty to survive, it must have power to dominate the probability
> > patterns of the inorganic level.
Hmmm. Is this the relationship? That life manipulates matter by willing it to
perform biologic? Then Dynamic Quality becomes "mind" and that I see as
dubious.
> > Other types of experiments could be devised to test the MOQ thesis,
> > but someone a lot smarter than me will have to think what they might be. I
> > believe Bo had one idea in connection with the Libet experiments that show
> > we subconsciously know what to do before we consciously know it.
Wow, the Libet experiment! I would say that it demonstrates the mind/matter
doctrine is fundamentally wrong and that even its subconscious/conscious
notion is inadequate. The weirdest is the "forwarding in time" which goes like
this. Nerve signals travel relatively slow and if a big toe is pricked it takes a
considerably time to reach the brain, yet it is "felt" as taking place
simultaneously. Libet found (by experimenting on exposed brains) that once
this signal reaches some cerebral centre it is forwarded in time exactly
enough to compensate for the delay (nothing to do with the autonomous
nerve system). This sound inconspicuous at first glance but is absolutely
outrageous: While the actual signal is in the calf region (nay, ,just starting)
we have already felt the touch. I know that this is taken as some proof that
the mind creates experience, but that is not Libet's point - if I could send a
signal to my lazy body to look up the book it says for example (I'll try to
translate):
--------------
"In her great work "Neurophilosophy" the philosopher Patricia Churchland
writes for example that the experimental findings seem to claim that the
mental phenomena precedes the brain phenomena which are supposed to
give rise to them, but that is not Libet's point, he merely says that it is
EXPERIENCED that way?"
--------------
In addition to Churchland there are references to almost every name who
has been mentioned at this site: Dennet, Popper, Eccles, Penrose ...etc and
they all try to explain it in some mindish or matterish way, but none are
convincing to the author (Tor Nörretranders).
My point is that scientific testing is intellectual and won't allow anything else
than SOM results.
Greetings from the "spoilsport".
Bo.
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