DCP goes all-in on pseudo scientific quackery

[Morley]

While the whole piece is great, Doc, the Yayoi Kusama Bauhaus portion is priceless. If you added some inane reference to Clement Greenberg, you could probably get it published.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

While the whole piece is great, Doc, the Yayoi Kusama Bauhaus portion is priceless. If you added some inane reference to Clement Greenberg, you could probably get it published.

You laugh, but my wife reminded me this morning that when we were still members we received our second anointing at the Salt Lake City temple no cap, on god. Elder Ballard himself gave me and my lovely wife, who is the picture of perfection by the way, a tour of the Lord’s casa and issued the ordinances to me personally (!), but that’s not what I want to talk about.

While on the tour, he took us to the Holy of Holies where, I civet crap you not my wife also reminded me this morning, there was a mf’ing Montauk Chair right in the middle of the room (wall-to-wall red carpet, by the way), and apparently that's where the Prophet and some prophets before him, would come to receive revelations. Obviously revelations are a form of remote viewing or, I dunno, whatever parapsychological act he might’ve attempted.

Now, I know the church’s attack potato will deny these things, but what does he really know? He’s never had the second anointing, and most likely never will. Imagine that. I’ll go to Heaven, and he might make it to the Top of the Top. Wow!

- Doc

edit: My lovely wife reminded me I took a heroic dose (7 grams!) of Psilocybe Cubensis, Golden Teacher mushrooms right before going into the temple, so my recollection of things might be a little dodgy.

edit2: Paul Stamets and I once had dinner at, where else, The Mellow Mushroom in Salt Lake City where we enjoyed vegan mushroom pizza (of course) and orange soda. We discussed his books Fantastic Fungi, Mushroom Cultivation, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, Psylocibin Mushrooms of the World, Mycelium Running, and The Mushroom Cultivator. Needless to say, he wasn’t a fan of Clement Greenberg, either.

edit3: cleaned up some grammar! Whoopsy!

[Nimrod]

This seems to mean, “I have a weak confidence that I could have a strong confidence.” If the things are demonstrably real, then one could see their reality demonstrated, and then one would no longer be merely inclined to believe in it. After a demonstration one should be quite sure.

The oddly uncertain conviction that something is demonstrable may indicate a reluctance to look closely at purported evidence, a preference for sustaining a possibility rather than getting to the truth whatever it may be.

If he was even a tiny bit curious about testing these theories, he would have set up a simple water dousing experiment. It wouldn’t be difficult to do.

Instead he was satisfied to be told that he had the ability without verifying with a simple double blind experiment.

It is so Mormony. It makes him feel special. It flatters him. That's why he is so in love with Mormonism in the first place--he was one of the most valiant in the pre-existence to have been born to at least one goodly Mormon parent.

[Morley]

edit: My lovely wife reminded me I took a heroic dose (7 grams!) of Psilocybe Cubensis, Golden Teacher mushrooms right before going into the temple, so my recollection of things might be a little dodgy.

edit2: Paul Stamets and I once had dinner at, where else, The Mellow Mushroom in Salt Lake City where we enjoyed vegan mushroom pizza (of course) and orange soda. We discussed his books Fantastic Fungi, Mushroom Cultivation, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, Psylocibin Mushrooms of the World, Mycelium Running, and The Mushroom Cultivator. Needless to say, he wasn’t a fan of Clement Greenberg, either.

Yayoi Kusama, Mushrooms (1995)

[Marcus]

I looked up this artist on Wikipedia. Wow. The things I learn on this Mormon-based discussion group.

Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan,[1] the world's top-selling female artist,[2] and the world's most successful living artist.[3] Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

[dantana]

You’re on a roll, DocCam! Funny stuff indeed!

The good news - I hear Jon Stewart is coming back to The Daily Show to host one night a week. Mondays. I say Doc Cam for Tuesdays.

[dantana]

I understand why the Naturalist looks for the 'Theory of everything.' Everything can be explained through mechanical systems. It seems to me though that for the most part the theist is also looking for the mechanical explanation. E.g. - Trying to define reasons for the atonement. Trying to submit that spirit is also made of particles. Map out how an entity can be created and also eternal.

It just seems to me that a cause and effect god isn't much of a God at all. What we really need is a Theory of Nothing. The only way I can wrap my mind around - why is there something rather than nothing - is that existence is not mechanical based at all. I guess kinda like dreamstate. - Which isn't going to be very helpful to Dr. Radin in his search for the mechanics of woo.

[Gadianton]

I like to explain my own kind of materialism with the concrete example of a book. That avoids dealing directly with the mind, which no-one actually understands. I acknowledge that a book can contain meaning, for example a story. You will look in vain for the story, however, as a constituent of the book alongside paper and ink. The book consists of nothing but paper and ink. The detailed pattern of the ink on the paper forms the story.

I think that's a good example of non-reductive materialism.

There are fundamentally very few distinct substances...but excitations of quantum fields

Whatever celebration there was about reducing everything to atoms, and the intuitive idea that everything reduces to simple stuff, like everything is made of Legos and Legos just are, didn't last very long. However, it's not a boon to spiritualism. In fact, it's the opposite.

So, DCPs rejection of materialism is the most vulgar and uninteresting unibrow rejection of all the rejections out there. He and many spiritualists, liars, and grifters believe in what in philosophy, would be called non-physical ectoplasm. It's certainly logically possible for a dualistic ontology (or N ontology) to exist and for that other realm to be "non-physical stuff".

In Peterson dumb, simplistic, and extraordinarily vulgar world (and people would be right to point their fingers and laugh at this most sacred world of his), there is a realm of non-physical ectoplasm that science has no access to. But lo and behold, mystics like himself somehow do have access to it. Okay, for a moment, ignore the interaction problem whereby two separate fundamental substances (in the philosophical sense) discover each other.

I think there's another problem. This other realm of spiritual stuff is basically a mirror image of the Lego physical world. People there look like people here and wear clothes that look just like ours, but made of ectoplasm. The main difference is there aren't the same constraints there -- people walk and their robes flow as if there is gravity, but then they can fly, and sweep across space as if there is no gravity. They can speak with their mouths, vibrating ectoplasmic air to produce sound waves, but they can also communicate by thought.

The problem then is, despite fewer restrictions on human mobility and communication, the ectoplasmic macro world is pretty close to our world.

The discovery of deep physics does not undermine the certainty of the physical, thereby increasing the possibilities for the spiritual realm to be true. It's the opposite. The discovery of deep physics, which undermines any commonsense notion of what "matter is" -- it's an illusion within the reality of an ocean of quantum waves -- also undermines commonsense understanding of the roughly parallel ectoplasmic world. That world might have its own "deep ectoplasm", it's an illusion of something deeper also. And so the Petersonian thrill of watching science advance and scientists losing their minds over our exponentially increasing uncertainty at what lies at the bottom also undermines confidence in his very similar ectoplasmic world.

If it doesn't, if the world of non-physical ectoplasm is actually a stable "Lego world", a world built of simple ectoplasmic components and nothing deeper, then his realm of the spiritual is nothing more than the fantasy of his caricatured materialists. He becomes the most guilty offender, everything he mocks materialists for becomes his own silly fantasy. What a hypocrite.

[Imwashingmypirate]

Interesting! Wow. Talk about synchronicity. This morning after my usual session of qigong patterned after the teachings of Shi Heng Yi, who himself is the 35th Generation of Shaolin Masters, and is the headmaster of the Shaolin Temple in Europe, I decided to take a breakfast of artisanal avocado toast adorned with edible yeast flakes, paired with a rare Himalayan pink salt-infused poached egg. This ensemble was, of course, accompanied by a meticulously crafted organic acai bowl topped with hand-picked siriguela. It was good!

I followed breakfast with coffee, made with a single-origin, ethically sourced coffee bean that's been through a civet cat's ass, meticulously handpicked from the dung, roasted by a local alchemist, and brewed using a vintage siphon. It's a brew so exclusive that I truly believe only a select few truly appreciate its acquired taste! I paired this delight with lo-fi Icelandic post-rock, played on a vinyl record on my 1968 Victrola. Honestly? I was so immersed I didn’t know if I was listening to music or decoding a secret message from a distant galaxy! It was fun!

As such, I was ready to settle in for a reading of Dean Radin's The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. What can I say? His research and books are like a mind-bending rollercoaster through the quantum realm, where every twist and turn leaves you questioning the very fabric of reality. Radin has a knack for making you believe that your coffee mug full of civet crap coffee might be having a telepathic conversation with your toaster, all while citing experiments that make you raise an eyebrow higher than a scaredy cat’s arched back. Ha.

In this tome, Radin weaves a tapestry of psychic phenomena and quantum entanglement that could make even Schrodinger’s cat (ha) scratch its head in confusion. It's a wild ride where statistical significance dances with the paranormal, leaving you both astounded and slightly amused.

While some may see Radin as the daring explorer of the uncharted territories of consciousness, others might suspect he's the mischievous wizard casting spells with p-values. Whether you're a skeptic searching for loopholes or a true believer in the cosmic dance of mind and matter, Radin's work is bound to entertain and challenge your perceptions. Buckle up, because in Radin's world, reality is just a suggestion, and the journey is as enigmatic as a quantum particle's path! It was neat!

Sadly, after visiting Dowsin’ Dan’s blog and reading his latest turd, thanks to Drumdude, I don’t believe he addressed alternative explanations, or considered the role of psychological and cultural factors in shaping individuals' perceptions of exceptional experiences. Dowsin’ Dan, always, omits the importance of rigorous scientific methods and the need for more empirical research to substantiate claims about the relationship between nonlocality and these phenomena he lists. Sure, psychic are intriguing , but they consistently fall short of meeting the standards required for scientific credibility.

Anyway, I recommend to Sick and Nones obsessive lurkers "The Conscious Universe" and "Entangled Minds," by Radin. I understand quantum mechanics, as it relates to our understanding of consciousness and extraordinary experiences, isn’t as relatable as Dan’s soothsayers and 19th century degenerate-prophets, but he’s going to have to buckle down and actually read some good literature for once in his life.

- Doc

I can't tell if you are joking or not.

[Imwashingmypirate]

(e.g., perception at a distance, extraordinary knowing)

So... he now believes in prophetic gifts, whereas he previously thought it was baseless nonsense?

Cool.

Some testimonies take time to grow.