It’s so hard for me (and I expect for many around here) to read this section because it promotes at almost every turn a confusion that is infuriating when discussing people debating science, knowledge, and the concept of truth. I’m not saying that you necessarily share these confusions, but I feel like there’s a better way of making your point without pushing most readers to discard you as someone saying ridiculous stuff.
What are these confusions?
Truth is not democratic. That the majority of people believe something doesn’t make it true. And historically (still now probably), most people believes stuff that we actually no know to be false. Note that this even apply to forms of knowledge outside of the scientific epistemology: even in Traditional Chinese Medecine, Voodoo or Divination, just a handful of people had the actual no bullshit knowledge. (The confusion sometimes comes from the use of scientific consensus, but that’s a consensus of informed opinions, not random opinions)
The fact that most scientists in history believe these paranormal phenomena is, first, not clear at all (given the explosion of the number of scientists in the modern world, I wonder if that’s not the opposite). Even if it was, the most simple and obvious causal explanation is that most of them lived in periods where literally everyone believed in those things. It is as relevant as noticing that most bakers in history believed in these paranormal phenomena
Believing doesn’t make you the perfect fit to investigate it; it makes you the worst possible fit! One point that you imply and that is right is that believing with certainty that it doesn’t exist is the second worst possible fit. What we actually want is investigators which are curious and reserve judgement from after thinking about them.
The fact that Newton was principally an alchemist, although relevant, doesn’t at all imply that alchemy was what made him a successful physicist. After all, there where no real physicist before him, and significantly more alchemist. More than anything, what sets Newton apart from the tradition is his work on physics. So it’s completely viable to see Newton as one of the first alchemist to glimpse the actual way of finding knowledge.
You don’t need to believe in paranormal stuff or alchemy to have many different perspectives. Many current scientists have far more wide ranging view, ideas, pet theories than any believer in paranormal stuff.
Believing in paranormal stuff looks like opening so many perspectives, but actually almost all such ideas and phenomena are basically the same. Myths, legends, ghost stories all share a very limited view of the world, hidden behind an apparent complexity of minor variations. I’m probably biased, but from my experience, anything paranormal or conspiracy becomes incredibly boring very quickly, because it’s obvious fast that it’s always the same. Whereas science forces constant shifts in viewpoints and actually adapt to new investigations.
I just don’t really see it as that problematic if a small percentage of scientists spend their time thinking about and working on the paranormal/supernatural because (1) scientists throughout history did this and we still made progress. Maybe it wasn’t necessary that Newton believed in alchemy/theology but he did and belief in these things is certainly compatible with making huge leaps in knowledge like he did, (2) I’m not sure if believing in the possibility of ghosts is more ridiculous than the idea that space and time are the same thing and they can be warped (I’m not a physicist :). UFOs would probably have been lumped into these categories as well and now we know that there are credible reports of anomalous phenomenon. Whether they are aliens or not who knows, but it is possible that studying them could lead to an understanding of new phenomenon (I think it already has led us to understand new rare forms of lightning but I’m forgetting the specifics).
Look, I don’t really believe in these things and I don’t behave as if I did, but I am open to the possibility. The main argument here is that being open to the possibility, having a sense of mystery and epistemic humility, does make a difference in how we think and do science. This kind of goes back to the discussion of paradigm-shifting science/normal science. If absolutely no believes that a paradigm shift is possible then it will never happen. I’m of the opinion that it’s important for us to maintain a kernel of doubt in the hard-headed materialist atheist perspective. In truth, I think we are pretty closely aligned and I am just playing devil’s advocate :)
It’s so hard for me (and I expect for many around here) to read this section because it promotes at almost every turn a confusion that is infuriating when discussing people debating science, knowledge, and the concept of truth. I’m not saying that you necessarily share these confusions, but I feel like there’s a better way of making your point without pushing most readers to discard you as someone saying ridiculous stuff.
What are these confusions?
Truth is not democratic. That the majority of people believe something doesn’t make it true. And historically (still now probably), most people believes stuff that we actually no know to be false. Note that this even apply to forms of knowledge outside of the scientific epistemology: even in Traditional Chinese Medecine, Voodoo or Divination, just a handful of people had the actual no bullshit knowledge. (The confusion sometimes comes from the use of scientific consensus, but that’s a consensus of informed opinions, not random opinions)
The fact that most scientists in history believe these paranormal phenomena is, first, not clear at all (given the explosion of the number of scientists in the modern world, I wonder if that’s not the opposite). Even if it was, the most simple and obvious causal explanation is that most of them lived in periods where literally everyone believed in those things. It is as relevant as noticing that most bakers in history believed in these paranormal phenomena
Believing doesn’t make you the perfect fit to investigate it; it makes you the worst possible fit! One point that you imply and that is right is that believing with certainty that it doesn’t exist is the second worst possible fit. What we actually want is investigators which are curious and reserve judgement from after thinking about them.
The fact that Newton was principally an alchemist, although relevant, doesn’t at all imply that alchemy was what made him a successful physicist. After all, there where no real physicist before him, and significantly more alchemist. More than anything, what sets Newton apart from the tradition is his work on physics. So it’s completely viable to see Newton as one of the first alchemist to glimpse the actual way of finding knowledge.
You don’t need to believe in paranormal stuff or alchemy to have many different perspectives. Many current scientists have far more wide ranging view, ideas, pet theories than any believer in paranormal stuff.
Believing in paranormal stuff looks like opening so many perspectives, but actually almost all such ideas and phenomena are basically the same. Myths, legends, ghost stories all share a very limited view of the world, hidden behind an apparent complexity of minor variations. I’m probably biased, but from my experience, anything paranormal or conspiracy becomes incredibly boring very quickly, because it’s obvious fast that it’s always the same. Whereas science forces constant shifts in viewpoints and actually adapt to new investigations.
I just don’t really see it as that problematic if a small percentage of scientists spend their time thinking about and working on the paranormal/supernatural because (1) scientists throughout history did this and we still made progress. Maybe it wasn’t necessary that Newton believed in alchemy/theology but he did and belief in these things is certainly compatible with making huge leaps in knowledge like he did, (2) I’m not sure if believing in the possibility of ghosts is more ridiculous than the idea that space and time are the same thing and they can be warped (I’m not a physicist :). UFOs would probably have been lumped into these categories as well and now we know that there are credible reports of anomalous phenomenon. Whether they are aliens or not who knows, but it is possible that studying them could lead to an understanding of new phenomenon (I think it already has led us to understand new rare forms of lightning but I’m forgetting the specifics).
Look, I don’t really believe in these things and I don’t behave as if I did, but I am open to the possibility. The main argument here is that being open to the possibility, having a sense of mystery and epistemic humility, does make a difference in how we think and do science. This kind of goes back to the discussion of paradigm-shifting science/normal science. If absolutely no believes that a paradigm shift is possible then it will never happen. I’m of the opinion that it’s important for us to maintain a kernel of doubt in the hard-headed materialist atheist perspective. In truth, I think we are pretty closely aligned and I am just playing devil’s advocate :)