In commenting on the resistance he experienced to his own unorthodox views on health, Yale surgeon Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, author of the best-selling book Love, Medicine, and Miracles, asserts that it is because people are addicted to their beliefs. Siegel says this is why when you try to change someone’s belief they act like an addict.
I first met this quote in a talk about quantum physics. Funny that it seems to come from an esoteric book.
If you can’t get people to take something seriously, sometimes it’s because it’s plainly wrong. The concept of “addicted to their beliefs” relieves you of having to listen to them. “Addiction” is no more an explanation of anything than “emergence”.
This is in a context of wondering why “Western science” (an absurd concept) “has devoted several centuries to not believing in the paranormal.” I shall resist the tu quoque against the author and just say that I think that book is made of wrong.
The YouTube link is to a German-language presentation. I have only a fragment of German, but with Google Translate I gather that the speaker was (d.2011) a management trainer and motivational speaker. Not good qualifications for talking about quantum physics. “‘Alles ist mit allem verbunden’ …ja ja und die Erde ist eine Scheibe,” as the first comment says.
I am lucky. I have always known there was more to the world than is generally accepted. I grew up in a psychic family[...]
...and seems not to notice that he himself has never questioned the beliefs with which he grew up?
The talk about quantum mechanics was nice for non-mathy laymen, although it barely scratches the surface. After reading the quantum physics sequence here, I sometimes like to try out stuff like this and compare them to it.
I would not try to use “addiction” as an explanation. I just liked the comparison between trying to get somebody to change a long-held belief and trying to get him to stop smoking.
If you can’t get people to take something seriously, sometimes it’s because it’s plainly wrong. The concept of “addicted to their beliefs” relieves you of having to listen to them.
You are arguing against a strawman. Saying someone acts like an addict is not the same thing as saying that he is an addict. It’s especially not an explanation.
Not good qualifications for talking about quantum physics
She has probably more formal qualifications than Eliezer and is more skeptic about her knowledge about quantum physics than Eliezer.
That is the point I was intending. The author of that book seems to use “addiction” as an explanation. “Why do these people not pay me any attention?” he asks himself. “I know, it’s because they’re addicted to their beliefs!”
She has probably more formal qualifications than Eliezer and is more skeptic about her knowledge about quantum physics than Eliezer.
Does she have knowledge to be sceptical about? I’m not going to slog through two hours of video, even if it were in English. Her works listed at de.wikipedia.org are on other subjects. No, there is nothing here that suggests to me that looking further into it would be useful.
If you read that article you will find that Spektrum (the German version of the Scientific American) wrote her a well meaning obituary.
I wonder why. Via Google Translate, the obituary says only:
Vera F. Birkenbihl, G & G-author of the first hour, passed away on Saturday, December 3, 2011, a pulmonary embolism. Born on April 26, 1946 psychologist and journalist earned a reputation as a manager trainer and author of more than 30 non-fiction books in which they presented their learning styles among others. Since the first edition of 2002, she was an integral author strain of G & G and coined the “Better thinking” section. On the occasion of her death, we have unlocked her contributions as samples.
(I think “Autorin der ersten Stunde” actually means “founding author” in this context. G & G is “Brain and Mind”, a section of the magazine. ETA: Which is a perfectly good reason for giving her an obituary,)
It then has links to a few of her articles, but the ones I sampled were on topics in training and personal development, sprinkled with neuroscience. No QM.
It then has links to a few of her articles, but the ones I sampled were on topics in training and personal development, sprinkled with neuroscience. No QM.
The related skill is communicating science to a broad public in a way the public understands. That’s what she did at Spektrum and what she does in that video. The room in which she’s holding that lecture is a proper university hall at the Technische Universität München.
The lecture doesn’t say something that would damage her reputation among academics.
Your stereotypical patterns don’t work well in her case.
Your stereotypical patterns don’t work well in her case.
I’m not accusing Birkenbihl of peddling woo. The original comment posted by Roho does come from a book of woo, and Roho associated her name with the idea.
As I say, I’m not going to search two hours of video in a language I hardly know to find out what Birkenbihl said on the subject; so I do not know if Roho’s attribution to Birkenbihl is accurate. I can imagine something of the sort being said in a popular exposition of the reception of quantum mechanics. But whether she said anything like it or not, the idea expressed in the quote is a poor one, especially so in the context it was quoted from.
Well, I don’t want to argue about this too much, so just to clarify:
Birkenbihl quoted Bernie Siegel with “If you want to change somebody’s beliefs, he acts like an addict.”, in the context of the famous Max Planck quote that new scientific ideas prevail not because they are accepted, but because those who oppose them die out. In this context, I found the idea interesting, therefore I placed the quote here.
She did not mention that esoteric book. But I searched for the quote in order to provide a source, found it in that book, was mildly amused by it, but thought too little about it.
As it reads in the book, Bernie Siegel sounds somewhat sulky, too, that people do not accept his ideas about medicine. Me, I have no idea what they are. But in this context, the quote is indeed rather unhelpful (to put it politely).
The talk about quantum physics was OK, although nothing to write home about. She happily declares that she knows next to nothing about it, then claims that nobody understands it, which is of course wrong. She did not mention some very important concepts (decoherence, Feynman paths). At least, there was “many worlds” and no “wave function collapse”, which is not so bad for a talk from the 1990s.
Holographic Model of The Universe
I first met this quote in a talk about quantum physics. Funny that it seems to come from an esoteric book. Crisis of faith, a drug withdrawal?
If you can’t get people to take something seriously, sometimes it’s because it’s plainly wrong. The concept of “addicted to their beliefs” relieves you of having to listen to them. “Addiction” is no more an explanation of anything than “emergence”.
This is in a context of wondering why “Western science” (an absurd concept) “has devoted several centuries to not believing in the paranormal.” I shall resist the tu quoque against the author and just say that I think that book is made of wrong.
The YouTube link is to a German-language presentation. I have only a fragment of German, but with Google Translate I gather that the speaker was (d.2011) a management trainer and motivational speaker. Not good qualifications for talking about quantum physics. “‘Alles ist mit allem verbunden’ …ja ja und die Erde ist eine Scheibe,” as the first comment says.
Yes, and right after that he goes on:
...and seems not to notice that he himself has never questioned the beliefs with which he grew up?
The talk about quantum mechanics was nice for non-mathy laymen, although it barely scratches the surface. After reading the quantum physics sequence here, I sometimes like to try out stuff like this and compare them to it.
I would not try to use “addiction” as an explanation. I just liked the comparison between trying to get somebody to change a long-held belief and trying to get him to stop smoking.
You are arguing against a strawman. Saying someone acts like an addict is not the same thing as saying that he is an addict. It’s especially not an explanation.
She has probably more formal qualifications than Eliezer and is more skeptic about her knowledge about quantum physics than Eliezer.
That is the point I was intending. The author of that book seems to use “addiction” as an explanation. “Why do these people not pay me any attention?” he asks himself. “I know, it’s because they’re addicted to their beliefs!”
Does she have knowledge to be sceptical about? I’m not going to slog through two hours of video, even if it were in English. Her works listed at de.wikipedia.org are on other subjects. No, there is nothing here that suggests to me that looking further into it would be useful.
If you read that article you will find that Spektrum (the German version of the Scientific American) wrote her a well meaning obituary.
I wonder why. Via Google Translate, the obituary says only:
(I think “Autorin der ersten Stunde” actually means “founding author” in this context. G & G is “Brain and Mind”, a section of the magazine. ETA: Which is a perfectly good reason for giving her an obituary,)
It then has links to a few of her articles, but the ones I sampled were on topics in training and personal development, sprinkled with neuroscience. No QM.
The related skill is communicating science to a broad public in a way the public understands. That’s what she did at Spektrum and what she does in that video. The room in which she’s holding that lecture is a proper university hall at the Technische Universität München.
The lecture doesn’t say something that would damage her reputation among academics.
Your stereotypical patterns don’t work well in her case.
I’m not accusing Birkenbihl of peddling woo. The original comment posted by Roho does come from a book of woo, and Roho associated her name with the idea.
As I say, I’m not going to search two hours of video in a language I hardly know to find out what Birkenbihl said on the subject; so I do not know if Roho’s attribution to Birkenbihl is accurate. I can imagine something of the sort being said in a popular exposition of the reception of quantum mechanics. But whether she said anything like it or not, the idea expressed in the quote is a poor one, especially so in the context it was quoted from.
Well, I don’t want to argue about this too much, so just to clarify:
Birkenbihl quoted Bernie Siegel with “If you want to change somebody’s beliefs, he acts like an addict.”, in the context of the famous Max Planck quote that new scientific ideas prevail not because they are accepted, but because those who oppose them die out. In this context, I found the idea interesting, therefore I placed the quote here.
She did not mention that esoteric book. But I searched for the quote in order to provide a source, found it in that book, was mildly amused by it, but thought too little about it.
As it reads in the book, Bernie Siegel sounds somewhat sulky, too, that people do not accept his ideas about medicine. Me, I have no idea what they are. But in this context, the quote is indeed rather unhelpful (to put it politely).
The talk about quantum physics was OK, although nothing to write home about. She happily declares that she knows next to nothing about it, then claims that nobody understands it, which is of course wrong. She did not mention some very important concepts (decoherence, Feynman paths). At least, there was “many worlds” and no “wave function collapse”, which is not so bad for a talk from the 1990s.