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useful models and the bounds of their usefulness

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Posted by isaacthe54 on April 02, 2001 at 11:04:41:

In Reply to: Re: Lets talk about this, shall we? (revised for clarity) posted by pork ^(oo)^ on April 01, 2001 at 00:40:57:

: : I myself do not believe in psychic abilities.

: I do, and I'm not going to play the fool's game of citing "evidence." I can't prove I'm not lying, so what's the use of trying to convince you with my stories?

: "Do not waste time trying to convince the sceptic." -A shady mystic with an intense gaze. ;)

but yet, you DO imply the existence of evidence, without actually talking about it. why else would you believe in it, if it was never backed up by your experience? perhaps we could say that your experience is questionable, as far as being reason to set up a real nice tight theory about it, but it's worth examining. perhaps, if we're gonna "not believe in psychic phenomena", we should talk about why it's so appealing to believe in it; or other reasons for the experience that seems to imply the existence of psychic phenomena, especially in people with well-developed intuitive abilitites, like 4s. (this IS after all the 4 board :)

i should make the point first off that i'm not talking about iNtuition in the jungian sense. i'm far from being a jungian scholar. i simply mean to refer to all of the information that our brain comes up with "behind the scenes", without the rational center. the things we know, but don't know how we know.

our brain does a lot that we don't "know" about; ie, it processes information that cannot be "watched" by the rational center, and thus cannot be rationally explained without a bit of introspective examination and guesswork. the creepy thing about this (if you're a 5, i suppose most 4s are used to this, so it's not creepy :) is that those non-rational processes produce correct and useful information. there's a tendency, since we don't fully understand the workings of these processes, to say that it's some sort of magic, completely unknowable. however, it's a horrible mistake to say that unknown = unknowable, at least until we have a go at it.

let's play with an example. let's say that my coworker comes in after breaking up with his girlfriend. he's a 98, so he's not gonna talk about how sad he is. in fact, he'll repress it so even HE doesn't have to feel anything bad, and hold it in as well as he can. he'll talk about unrelated subjects, like what we're doing for lunch today, and did i take care of dr. SoAndSo's computer yet, or should he do it? and so on. i get this nagging feeling that something is wrong. not sure what, but he seems "different" in a negative sort of way. i get the impression of sharpened electricity moving through him, despite his seemingly pleasant demeanor. this is clearly my telepathic abilities picking up his negative "energy", right?

here's another theory...
the bulk of psychic phenomena is perfectly normal processing of information into predictions about the future and conclusions about the present. a lot of that information that you process blows right past the rational center. for example, the pheremones that my coworker sitting next to me is secreting. i can't just sniff em and know what they are, and if i could, i probably wouldn't know what they mean. however, my subconsious CAN keep track of the signals from my nose, and make sense of them. it's also keeping track of the muscles around his eyes and how they twitch, the (nearly) imperceptible change of timbre in his voice, and a barrage of other minute changes in his characteristics. then, like my rational center but faster and invisibly, it comes up with an explaination that makes all of these bits of evidence "make sense", and it tells me that he's sad about something. since it doesn't speak english, it tells my rational center in the form of an emotional/sensory impression.

both scenarios explain the phenomena equally well. however, the "psychic" explaination throws in another factor, the Great Unknowable Unscientific Energy. guue is a bitch. guue is gooey goo that sticks everythign up so your theory is heavy and annoying. cause once that's there, you can't progress at all. suddenly the world is "magic" and the only way to know about it is to go to some mystic who knows all about guue. guue is radically unsound as a basis for metaphysical claims. occam's razor tells us that the second one is better, since it is simpler (doesn't need to bring in another element that we don't and can't know anything about.) what's more, it's a huge roadblock. since we can't explain it or know it, we can't get to the heart of it and figure out what's goin on. so what's the point of it?

the guue explaination is kinda nice, simply because it provides an appealing and powerful psychological model which may assist in getting in touch with one's intuitive ability. indeed, in order to really use your intuition as well as you can, it might be best to abandon rationality altogether for a time and just go on the psychological journey. from that point of view, it seems perfectly alright to adopt it in solving problems; even it's not really fit for making claims about the world outside the self, since there's a simpler explaination that's just as good. and the "rational" explaination should really not mean that you can't use the other when it's more useful, especially since it is closer to the experience of the phenomena. ie, i don't experience pheremones and muscles twitching; isaac sees sharp energy. and, we should have models to interpret experience, even if they are not good for interpreting the world at large.

it's not just useful in dealing with telepathy, either, but all over the place, wherever the subconsious mind is more suited to the task at hand. when i'm playing darts, i try to "be" in the center of the board, and in the dart. i see a path of energy from the dart-point (which is my *here*) to the board, and loose the dart to fly along that path of energy towards the bullseye. i know there's no mysterious "path of energy", it's just my muscles pushing the dart at the proper angle and with the proper speed to hit the target. but my subconsious mind is better at controlling my hands than i am, and is better at interpreting the information coming from my eyes, so i let it take the controls when i'm playing darts. my acceptance of the fact that it's all in my head shouldn't really affect things.

isaac

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Re: useful models and the bounds of their usefulness pork ^(oo)^ 21:46:40 04/02/01 (0)

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: : : I myself do not believe in psychic abilities. : : I do, and I'm not going to play the fool's game of citing "evidence." I can't prove I'm not lying, so what's the use of trying to convince you with my stories? : : "Do not waste time trying to convince the sceptic." -A shady mystic with an intense gaze. ;) : : but yet, you DO imply the existence of evidence, without actually talking about it. why else would you believe in it, if it was never backed up by your experience? perhaps we could say that your experience is questionable, as far as being reason to set up a real nice tight theory about it, but it's worth examining. perhaps, if we're gonna "not believe in psychic phenomena", we should talk about why it's so appealing to believe in it; or other reasons for the experience that seems to imply the existence of psychic phenomena, especially in people with well-developed intuitive abilitites, like 4s. (this IS after all the 4 board :) : i should make the point first off that i'm not talking about iNtuition in the jungian sense. i'm far from being a jungian scholar. i simply mean to refer to all of the information that our brain comes up with "behind the scenes", without the rational center. the things we know, but don't know how we know. : our brain does a lot that we don't "know" about; ie, it processes information that cannot be "watched" by the rational center, and thus cannot be rationally explained without a bit of introspective examination and guesswork. the creepy thing about this (if you're a 5, i suppose most 4s are used to this, so it's not creepy :) is that those non-rational processes produce correct and useful information. there's a tendency, since we don't fully understand the workings of these processes, to say that it's some sort of magic, completely unknowable. however, it's a horrible mistake to say that unknown = unknowable, at least until we have a go at it. : let's play with an example. let's say that my coworker comes in after breaking up with his girlfriend. he's a 98, so he's not gonna talk about how sad he is. in fact, he'll repress it so even HE doesn't have to feel anything bad, and hold it in as well as he can. he'll talk about unrelated subjects, like what we're doing for lunch today, and did i take care of dr. SoAndSo's computer yet, or should he do it? and so on. i get this nagging feeling that something is wrong. not sure what, but he seems "different" in a negative sort of way. i get the impression of sharpened electricity moving through him, despite his seemingly pleasant demeanor. this is clearly my telepathic abilities picking up his negative "energy", right? : here's another theory... : the bulk of psychic phenomena is perfectly normal processing of information into predictions about the future and conclusions about the present. a lot of that information that you process blows right past the rational center. for example, the pheremones that my coworker sitting next to me is secreting. i can't just sniff em and know what they are, and if i could, i probably wouldn't know what they mean. however, my subconsious CAN keep track of the signals from my nose, and make sense of them. it's also keeping track of the muscles around his eyes and how they twitch, the (nearly) imperceptible change of timbre in his voice, and a barrage of other minute changes in his characteristics. then, like my rational center but faster and invisibly, it comes up with an explaination that makes all of these bits of evidence "make sense", and it tells me that he's sad about something. since it doesn't speak english, it tells my rational center in the form of an emotional/sensory impression. : both scenarios explain the phenomena equally well. however, the "psychic" explaination throws in another factor, the Great Unknowable Unscientific Energy. guue is a bitch. guue is gooey goo that sticks everythign up so your theory is heavy and annoying. cause once that's there, you can't progress at all. suddenly the world is "magic" and the only way to know about it is to go to some mystic who knows all about guue. guue is radically unsound as a basis for metaphysical claims. occam's razor tells us that the second one is better, since it is simpler (doesn't need to bring in another element that we don't and can't know anything about.) what's more, it's a huge roadblock. since we can't explain it or know it, we can't get to the heart of it and figure out what's goin on. so what's the point of it? : the guue explaination is kinda nice, simply because it provides an appealing and powerful psychological model which may assist in getting in touch with one's intuitive ability. indeed, in order to really use your intuition as well as you can, it might be best to abandon rationality altogether for a time and just go on the psychological journey. from that point of view, it seems perfectly alright to adopt it in solving problems; even it's not really fit for making claims about the world outside the self, since there's a simpler explaination that's just as good. and the "rational" explaination should really not mean that you can't use the other when it's more useful, especially since it is closer to the experience of the phenomena. ie, i don't experience pheremones and muscles twitching; isaac sees sharp energy. and, we should have models to interpret experience, even if they are not good for interpreting the world at large. : it's not just useful in dealing with telepathy, either, but all over the place, wherever the subconsious mind is more suited to the task at hand. when i'm playing darts, i try to "be" in the center of the board, and in the dart. i see a path of energy from the dart-point (which is my *here*) to the board, and loose the dart to fly along that path of energy towards the bullseye. i know there's no mysterious "path of energy", it's just my muscles pushing the dart at the proper angle and with the proper speed to hit the target. but my subconsious mind is better at controlling my hands than i am, and is better at interpreting the information coming from my eyes, so i let it take the controls when i'm playing darts. my acceptance of the fact that it's all in my head shouldn't really affect things. : : isaac

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