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From: usenet@ucbvax.ARPA (USENET News Administration)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Purging Stoll and his kind
Message-ID: <10450@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 07:03:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10450
Posted: Mon Sep 23 07:03:30 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Sep-85 16:23:15 EDT
Reply-To: tedrick@ucbernie.UUCP (Tom Tedrick)
Distribution: na
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 73


In article <1292@ihlpg.UUCP> you write:
>> [Steve Dyer]
>> >   ......     I would go further, setting as one of the ground
>> >rules a certain respect for logic and scientific materialism.  ....
>-------
>> [Tom - tedrick@berkeley]
>> [Stuff omitted]
>> I thought that Godel's incompleteness theorems, Quantum
>> physics and such had blown scientific materialism out of
>> the water, at least as far as being a "true" description
>> of the world.
>-------
>[Bill Tanenbaum] 
>Wrong.  Only as far as being a "complete" description.
>-------
My point is that logic and scientific materialism are
useful, but not sufficient for solving all our problems.
-----------
>> What the unorthodox approach has in its favor
>> is often based on personal experience, which tends to be
>> difficult to treat scientifically.
>-------
>Those on the "orthodox" side have personal experiences too.
-----------
Yes, of course. 
-----------
>Sometimes these experiences include controlled double blind experiments.
>Amazing how the personal experiences of the "unorthodox" are almost
>never reproducible by non-true believers in that particular
>"unorthodoxy".  In those few cases when they ARE reproducible, they
>quickly become the new orthodoxy.
>-------
Well, I will risk being branded as a heretic and say that the fact
that an experience is not reproducible does not mean it is invalid.
(Unfortunately if one is willing to accept reports of such experiences
one is likely to be victimized by charlatans and/or irrational people.)
Some things may not be susceptible to experimental verification
(isn't there a principle in physics that observing an event changes it?)
I am not rejecting the scientific method. I am surrounded by
these holistic types out here in Northern California and for
years have been trying to get some of them to be more rational.
But I also think they do a lot of good.
I would also like to state that I do not have as much faith
in the representatives of orthodoxy as you seem to. I seem
to recall that some pioneers in science have been put through all
kinds of persecutions before their views became the new orthodoxy.
Perhaps some correct views never were accepted. How do you know?
---------
>> I think that the orthodox group might benefit from practices
>> promoting personal experience (perhaps Yoga/meditation, fasting
>> or whatever),
>--------
>How about voodoo? Or wife beating.  Those are personal experiences
>too.  Tell me what isn't a personal experience.
>--------
I don't have any first hand experience with voodoo or wife beating
so I can't endorse those practices. What I was trying to say is
that since reason can only take us so far, techniques for
changing one's state of awareness may be useful in obtaining
new insights.
---------
>> while the unorthodox group might benefit from a study of logic.
>--------
>Right on.
>-- 
>Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
----------------
In conclusion, I think there is room for some more understanding
from both sides. 

-Tom
 tedrick@berkeley