The Line Between Science and Pseudoscience

This is why it's hard to tell people I've seen visions of near future incidents in dreams, and I mean ones which are outside of possible chance or prediction. Even I know it makes me sound looney, but I cannot deny the handful of highest fidelity 'hits' I've had... :blush:

I think there's lots of pseudoscience that's real and I know some will think I'm a conspiracy theorist but there is evidence pseudoscience is real and I think some of the top scientists are discrediting such abilities as being real to discourage people from finding out that such powers do exist. Such as they did with magic, when magic has been practiced for thousands of years.

Respectfully, I disagree, and have not been convinced by anything said here to influence me to change my belief that there is no truth, only interpretations. What was true before the tectonic plate theory is not the truth posited after its acceptance. It is acceptable to me that the truth changes and that an acceptable theory of truth is that the truth is simply an interpretation. For a detailed discussion of Popper and science: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. Also, much more challenging, The Archaeology of Knowledge or Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault.

Maybe an interesting working definition of truth might better be a measure of accuracy for present tense, and a history of success for past tense.

On the subject of truth, I don't believe in capital T "Truth", but I believe there might be truth in the sense of things which--were it the case that these things were not true--our (personal perception) of the world would not function: historical truth, scientific truth, personal truth; all of which might be obscured by various gaps of understanding and willful ignorance.

Ah! Now this just got more interesting! The question is do you think that truth exists whether or not anyone is there to observe it. For example, either I exist or I do not exist. Only one of those statements is true but not both. This does not make which ever one is true a subjective statement open to interpretation but an absolute fact. That is unless i only exist if someone else observes me existing.

I think i exist because i experience myself. However i can never know the truth of that existence since i have to make some assumptions about the nature of my existence. ( what i described earlier). Because i must make those assumptions i can never know the absolute truth of my existence. I can only make a best assessment of my existence basd on available evidence. However that still does not negate that fact that one state of my existence or not is absolutely true.

What it boils down to is that absolute truth exists, but we can never experience it personally.

Thanks for everyone's comments.

Jamie-

Maybe I need to reread the article, but it would seem to me that if you read that article and thought, "what other pseudosciences might be true?" then it seems like you may have missed the point.

I may have miscommunciated here sorry- I didn't mean to ask what pseudosciences might be true but rather, What do we think is true or 'science' but haven't actually looked into whether it can be tested or not (which is often the difference between pseudoscience and science). Under what conditions to our mantras/ideas/ways of living fail? (And if they can't be tested are they pseudo-mantras, pseudo ideas, pseudo ways of living?) I'm just wondering is all, Have I explained myself better?

Kyrin-

On the contrary, Truth is the only thing that is NOT subjective. (or relative) Either something is true or it is not. Just because the tectonic plate theory Alan speaks about didn't fit current science did not make it NOT true. We just misinterpreted the data based on old conclusions due to less than accurate evidence.

This above seems a little too black and white for my liking, I'm pretty gooey (as opposed to prickly)! I think there's a problem when we limit our choices to be honest, for example saying It must be like this OR this- or You're in OR you're out. using the example you later speak of; the choice between I existing or not. Let's ask the question under what conditions does the question fail. Well... IF 'I' is a changing variable from moment to moment, 'I' only exists in the present moment when it is being defined (or observed as you put it). But because that 'I' is ever changing, it is, as some say, an illusion and arguably doesn't exist. So if my logic serves me correctly (Gisteron if you read this- please correct me, ) So all in all, 'I' exists at the same time as I doesn't? Excuse me if I'm using faulty logic.

Anyway- I think I prefer what you said later-

What it boils down to is that absolute truth exists, but we can never experience it personally.

But I'm not sure why I prefer that ha. Does it matter if absolute truth exists or not?

Your right, from our context it does not matter if absolute truth exists or not because we can never know it or experience it in any sort of personal way.

As for your other comments about our ever changing status. Yes I agree that from moment to moment we are different people. We shed cells at at amazing rate and replace them with new ones. Our thinking evolves as well as we learn new things, gain new insights and wisdom and experience. However the pattern of who we are remains the same. It is the reason I can still recognize you from moment to moment. Even though we change every second, our pattern remains the same. If it did not we would never know who anyone else is and our world would become meaningless.

So in the end we must make a best guess on any matter we wish to discern some sort of validity on. To try and steer this back to the original subject of this conversation, that is why it is so important to take ALL the facts we observe to be true and apply those in as much of an objective manner as possible so we can arrive at the most likely answer to any question. When it comes to pseudoscience no one has ever presented any credible evidence to justify our belief in them. Hence the reason they remain on the fringes of what is commonly accepted as "true".

Don't get me wrong, I am a skeptic but I am also one on a journey. I recognize the limits of our knowledge and our tendencies towards fallibility. That is one reason (among others) that I continue to have an open mind about such things and continue to explore my own personal beliefs about them by constantly examining new evidence. There are institutions like the James Randy Educational Foundation that have a million dollars on the line if anyone could satisfactorily prove they have psychic abilities under controlled laboratory conditions. To date many have tried and all have failed.

I would love for psychic ability or other paranormal phenomena to be true. (Adder, If you truly have some ability I would love to see you walk away with a million bucks!) How awesome would it be to gain something like true Jedi Powers like in the movies!! But I also refuse to pretend to believe something that in my heart I cant justify. That's just me though...

Jaden Smith would say: "how can you know the sun is hot if you've never been there?" :laugh:

Can anyone please answer this question? I'm just wondering if a to this anyone knew the answer to this one because I can't find answers on other forums.

If psionic abilities or magic and mysticism was fake, how come some of the greatest scientists and thinks practiced it or at least had an interest in it. Leonardo Da Vinci had plenty of occult symbols in his art, Isaac Newton was said to have done rituals and George Washington Carver had even said he was able to communicate with plants. Yet scientists today discredit such abilities despite the fact that they idolize scientists who did practice such abilities.

I'm thinking such abilities are being covered up. And I think they use people who claim such abilities but really don't have any. Such as with psychics. I think they use fake psychics and magicians in order to convince the public that such powers is silly and not possible when there are actual real psychics and magicians out there. But people end up seeing the fake ones so they end up ignoring all of them, including the ones that actually do have powers.

And of course when people think of telekinesis or magic, they think of stuff from hollywood, but a lot of that stuff is exaggerated and real psionics and magic doesn't work like that. It isn't flashy and it's more subtle but nonetheless real.