The Paranormal

[Embar Angylwrath]

I have quite a bit of faith in modern medicine, but I don't include all "pills" or "drugs" in that. I think pharma-companies are the devil on so many levels.

Really?

You were pregnant once, yes?

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Better living through chemistry is my motto

[Alluveal]

I have quite a bit of faith in modern medicine, but I don't include all "pills" or "drugs" in that. I think pharma-companies are the devil on so many levels.

Really?

You were pregnant once, yes?

I said "All pills." For the most part, I think pharma-companies are fucking assholes. Pushing drugs through for profit, then "oops! Sorry, that causes internal bleeding and ass cancer. Our mistake!"

Most of what's out there, awesome. But, it's not about milestones now, there's a bottom line to it. Maybe it's more the healthy industry in general (including insurance companies in there.) Trust me, I'm thankful that we have our doctors and our medicine, vaccines, etc. But there are more than a few cases where it's not about someone's health, but rather about bringing in the dough.

Ironically, I also think that at lot of so-called "faith healers" and herbologists are doing the same thing: exploiting someone's ailments for money. I don't know where I'm going with this line of thought anymore. Haha. I think I know where you're going with that question, though.

[Ddrak]

Science is just a methodology - that's all it is. It's a damn good one, but when all you have a is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, so I think someday advancements will come through advancing the methodology and not just the technology that's created by following the methodology.

There might be other technologies possible through other methodologies/processes. There might be subjective truths that will never be reproducible.

Most of the advancements of mankind were made by intuitive leaps, which there's no real formalized methods for. Science didn't give us relativity - it (eventually) verified the truth of it - but science doesn't create - methods don't create. Humans create.

So there might be other systems of thought someday to place in our toolbox next to proven methods that we already have. And what may seem like fantasy today might be accepted as fact tomorrow - just look at history. We like to pat ourselves on the back for being so clever but what we don't know would fill volumes, and every generation thinks it's hit the pinnacle.

Most of our electronics technology is based on the transistor. Grats us, we invented an on/off switch and made it really super small, and we've spent 80-ish years perfecting it, and we congratulate ourselves for creating quad core processors and high pressure espresso machines. But what are we missing? What's right in front of our faces that we can't see becuase we're trying to pound a square peg into a round hole?

So I guess what I'm saying is that mankind makes the biggest advances when people keep open minds and are unrestrained from dogma. In Zen it's called the "beginner's mind". We approach all these problems carrying the baggage we all have, and then someone like Einstein comes along and turns are accepted beliefs upside down.

That doesn't make much sense, Freecare, and I think you have a poor idea of what science is if you really think it's so restrained as to carry "dogma". Dogma is and always has been the antithesis of scientific discovery and the concept that a scientist is laden with it and needs to somehow "discard" it is just senseless anti-science stupidity.

Einstein developed special relativity through a derivation of the fact that Maxwell's equations predict the speed of light but don't actually give a reference frame for that prediction. There was a lot of prior work to his development, and a lot after it. Sure, there were some intuitive leaps, but those leaps are part of science and not somehow divorced from it. Man's progress has almost exclusively been through scientific discovery through rational and logical thought, not through some abandonment of reason to "discover" something beyond.

Look through the lists of Nobel Prizes. They're all from careful research and usually the methodical analysis of apparent contradictions in what we thought we knew. A large amount of it is purely theoretical, which you are seemingly discounting as "not science" somehow.

Science certainly doesn't believe it's anywhere near any pinnacle of anything, in fact if anything is the hallmark of the last century's research it's simply that the more it finds out the more questions it ends up posing. The more we discover about quantum theory, the more questions and apparent contradictions come to light. We barely know anything about gravity (for example) and it's the most pervasive force in our lives. We know very little about where all the antimatter went, let alone how they all interact to create DNA and how the vast majority of that genetic code actually goes towards building us from a pair of half-cells.

In Zen it may be called the "beginner's mind", but in western philosophy it's just called "science". They are the same thing.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

/Agree LuLu

I've always had good doctors who constantly remind me that my health is my responsibility. The pharma companies push the drugs on the doctors, who in turn push them on the patients, but it's ultimately up to the patient to do his/her homework and make informed choices. I've had a few instances where I'll stop taking the medication and ask my doctor to find me alternatives, and they always do.

And for new drugs, most of what doctors have to go by is just marketing from the drug companies. And most prescriptions are nothing more than a best guess. You take the pills, the doc observes the results and adjusts accordingly, hopefully before your ass turns green or falls off or something.

So as my doctor says: "Trust but verify."

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Yeah, Ddrak, I didn't frame my post very well. I wrote it and re-read it and it doesn't make much sense to me either lol. I knew what I was trying to say, but feeling this lousy I shouldn't have posted anything, and I'll try again tomorrow.

I will say now that I'm standing behind my belief that science tends to be dogmatic just like religion. Maybe I'll even make a halfway decent point someday

Or maybe I'll just paste a few quotes from others who've put forth what I'm trying to say in a more coherent fashion than I can.

[Ddrak]

I will say now that I'm standing behind my belief that science tends to be dogmatic just like religion. Maybe I'll even make a halfway decent point someday

I think there's a certain amount of momentum, especially when you're away from the cutting edge of research into the genuinely unknown and back towards the engineering side of creating real and useful ideas from the pure science. Science itself though always starts with the hypothesis, which is generated from ingenuity (and usually a keen insight into the field). Developing that hypothesis against what's known and what's only derived or approximated is the tricky part, and the fact that you almost always get shot down by a single counter-example is one of the hardest things for people to grasp in their general distrust of science or claim of "dogma". It's hard to come to terms with the idea that science isn't about setting up laws, but it wholly about tearing them down to see which ones are left at the end of the carnage.

Science as a whole will tend to criticize new ideas, especially when they're unrefined, untestable or unreproducible. This is generally why anything that falls into the paranormal draws such scorn - there's rarely any concept of a test to any paranormal theory, and when there is it fails. Come up with a testable and reproducible phenomena that's outside science's current "knowledge" and you'll immediately draw a bunch of scientists trying to prove you wrong - that's not because of dogma or because they hate new ideas, but because counterexample is the cornerstone of science. Unless you're prepared to have several million skeptics try to prove you wrong in every way possible then you're not searching for truth but merely some sort of social acceptance.

"Subjective truth" is simply the synonym for "subjective falsehood". Both must have an objective truth encapsulating them somewhere.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I guess I don't know what the hell I was trying to say, other than science should be giving us better answers to issues like the paranormal. Take mass UFO sightings for example, where you have thousands of people witness what appear to be piloted craft, sometimes seemingly violating newtonian physics. Some of these are very well documented cases and science just shrugs and says it's impossible.

That's nice that we're seeing phenomenon which should be impossible except people are seeing it. It can't all be swamp gas, or Jupiter, or bad PCP. There's this debunking mentality and what sometimes seems like a total lack of curiosity to potentially valid phenomenon. If someone I trust and look up to tells me they saw something, I pretty much assume they're telling the truth.

It's like what I do for a living with software. A client reports a bug with the system that hundreds of other people haven't seen and no one is able to reproduce. I proceed from the assumption that the client is correct. That's not always the case: "read me the url on your browser please. oops you're on the test system", but giving them the benefit of the doubt has given us great results, not to mention our clients fricken love us.

Contrast that with my cable going out and someone with 6 months of experience reading from a script telling me that clearly there's no problem. So I guess my beef is more with human nature than science itself. In some ways, the more knowledge we accumulate, the more smug we become.

So I'll conclude this line of thought by saying that there's probably something to some of these paranormal phenomenon which should be stoking our insatiable quest for the truth, but it's not, probably because it reminds us of an age we'd rather forget - where the plague was punishment from god and we saw the boogeyman around every corner.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

I've been involved in the medical field for a long time, all of my adult life and some before that as well. The advancements in modern medicine are phenomenal, take for example my friends baby who's living, and thriving at 23 weeks gestation. Her sister lost 2 babies at about 30 weeks, 15 years ago, and they weren't able to save the babies, however the pharmaceutical side is one I've never really been able to bring myself to dabble in. I understand the advancements on the part of companies wishing to help those who need the help, but putting people into bankruptcy because they can't afford the medicines they NEED to live is unacceptable. If you need a pill to stay alive (and i'm not talking about a pill to HELP reduce blood pressure, which for someone like my 28 year old ex husband may be medically necessary since he's so young) then iss it worth staying alive ?

I have nothing to add to the paranormal discussion at this time, as anything I' have experienced was simply unexplained feelings... like when you walk into a house or a building and it just feels dark and evil ? or like there's a force around it that you don't want to be near.

[Embar Angylwrath]

As far as the pharma companies go Allu, I'm betting if you were pregnant and had an epidural, you would have sold your soul to teh evil pharma companies to keep it in.

I'm also betting if you have a child, and that child gets sick, you'd sell your soul, and the souls of anyone around you, to get the meds that kid needs in order to be well again. Any parent that has endured a child with an ear infection will sing the praises of antibiotics.

Lets say your kid is hurt, slices his/her head open by falling on the coffee table (seems to be a rite of passage for most kids). Are you going to tell the doc to stitch the kid up without a little procaine to help numb the pain?

Do you have your teeth drilled without the dentist numbing you up? Can you imagine having your wisom teeth cut out of your skull without a little night-night juice? How about open heart surgery without anesthesia and blood agents? No chemo for cancer patients?

Pharma companies arent' evil, they're just companies. And they provide many valuable, and some not so valuable, products. I know there would be a massive collective cry of outrage and terror from men (and a good number of women) if Viagra was taken off the market.

[Klast Brell]

friends baby who's living, and thriving at 23 weeks gestation. Her sister lost 2 babies at about 30 weeks,

This probably belongs in the other thread, but having these similar events happen to siblings suggests a genetic link to me. I suspect your friend is at risk of this happening again with any future pregnancy.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

It's incompetent cervix Klast, yes. They didn't know what to do 15 -20 years ago, now they do circlages, but they don't know if someone has an incompetent cervix until it's too late. They're also half sisters, so it comes from their fathers side. She's very much at risk, but now they know and can take preventative measures early. Still no guarantee of success of course, but she'd have a better chance.

Embar brings up a valid point I really hadn't thought about, drugs for pain, antibiotics, chemotherapy. So i'd like to recant my statement aboutif you need drugs to live is it worth having. The answer depends on the person and the drugs of course, but consider this my apology Embar.

[Klast Brell]

And back on topic. Derren Brown is a British magician who has duplicated most of the paranormal stuff people talk about. Look him up on you tube.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

And back on topic. Derren Brown is a British magician who has duplicated most of the paranormal stuff people talk about. Look him up on you tube.

While I do believe that some of these phenomenon are real and worthy of investigation, yeah, just about anyone who claims psychic powers is a phony. And that just increases the likelyhood that people won't take the really interesting events seriously.

Some so-called psychics though are brilliant at reading and understanding people, and they should probably be in psychology rather than bilking old ladies out of their social security.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Old ladies pay better than a career in psych....

[Alluveal]

As far as the pharma companies go Allu, I'm betting if you were pregnant and had an epidural, you would have sold your soul to teh evil pharma companies to keep it in.

I'm also betting if you have a child, and that child gets sick, you'd sell your soul, and the souls of anyone around you, to get the meds that kid needs in order to be well again. Any parent that has endured a child with an ear infection will sing the praises of antibiotics.

Lets say your kid is hurt, slices his/her head open by falling on the coffee table (seems to be a rite of passage for most kids). Are you going to tell the doc to stitch the kid up without a little procaine to help numb the pain?

Do you have your teeth drilled without the dentist numbing you up? Can you imagine having your wisom teeth cut out of your skull without a little night-night juice? How about open heart surgery without anesthesia and blood agents? No chemo for cancer patients?

Pharma companies arent' evil, they're just companies. And they provide many valuable, and some not so valuable, products. I know there would be a massive collective cry of outrage and terror from men (and a good number of women) if Viagra was taken off the market.

Dude, I'm ok with painkillers. I think that's obvious. But, when they're doling out Ritalin and Adderall to kids like it was candy? I have issues with that. The anti-depressant drug business is worth billions of dollars. Billions. 1/4 of the nation is estimated to be on some form of "mental med" whether it's ritalin, adderall, prozac or whatnot.

That disturbs the fuck out of me. In a bad mood? Take a pill? I'll give you this free sample packet. Mmm mmmm.

Every time I see a drug advert in a magazine, it takes me 4 pages to flip through it all. And half of that are side-effects that sound so atrocious that I'd almost rather go through my life w/o the drug they're selling so I could poop normally and want to have sex.

I was happy with my meds during my baby stuff, absolutely. Topomax is great, though it did give me a wicked itchy nose.

If you have high blood pressure, take your lisinopril. If you're really and truly depressed and need prozac, good for you. It's just disgusting that we have the most expensive healthcare in the entire world and we seem to have the sickest fucks as well (mentally speaking.)

[Taxious]

It's just disgusting that we have the most expensive healthcare in the entire world and we seem to have the sickest fucks as well (mentally speaking.)

Isn't it a property of human nature that we make problems for ourselves if we don't have any? /shrug

[Alluveal]

It's just disgusting that we have the most expensive healthcare in the entire world and we seem to have the sickest fucks as well (mentally speaking.)

Isn't it a property of human nature that we make problems for ourselves if we don't have any? /shrug

I think this is exactly what happens, Tax. And peeps are out there exploiting that desire.

[Taxious]

It's just disgusting that we have the most expensive healthcare in the entire world and we seem to have the sickest fucks as well (mentally speaking.)

Isn't it a property of human nature that we make problems for ourselves if we don't have any? /shrug

I think this is exactly what happens, Tax. And peeps are out there exploiting that desire.

So, if they are aware of it and want to exploit the pill-happy system, what's wrong with that?

[Embar Angylwrath]

Big pharma doesn't dispense the meds, Allu, doctors do. If you have an issue with all the Ritalin and Adderall out there, the issue isn't with Big Pharma, its with doctors who prescribe too easily. And primarily its with the PARENTS who would rather drug their kids than deal with them. We are a country of weak-minded, victim mentality, blame-seeking people. We would rather blame everything and everyone for our own shortcomings rather than deal with them ourselves. You stance towards Big Pharma and painting them as "evil" is a good example.

Let me ask you this.. who is ultimately responsible for your health, and the health of your kids? Maybe that's where the responsibility starts and stops. Big Pharma doesn't force Adderall and Ritalin down kids throats... parents do.