Woo v. Science: A DU Tempest in a Teapot

[99th_Monkey]

About 50 years ago, I took my first LSD trip. Together with the wondrous colors, hyper aliveness of trees, clouds, people, rocks, was a new awareness that took several days to come fully into focus. Undergirding the sensory tsunami of dancing energy patterns was some new piece of important information that would profoundly change how I viewed my world. In my "new" world the jig was up, there was an inherent sense of knowing that all things are intricately and delicately connected and inter-related somehow. Spirit and matter were no longer at odds with one another, and truth could take me wherever it led without my "science v. spirit" blinders.

This new insight, simply stated, was this: That there is nothing inherently oppositional or problematic about the seeming dichotomy of "science v. spirituality", because they are ultimately one in the same thing. The endless war of words about "science v. spirituality" is nothing more than a proxy war for those at the top of their respective authority structures seeking personal/professional advantage. Truth does not oppose itself, but humans -- when possessed by greed and avarice -- have an unfortunate habit of misusing truth to abuse one another.

During the intervening 50 years, advances in the field of quantum physics and string theory have pretty much confirmed the voracity of my experience on acid: i.e. that all things are alive and somehow interconnected in ways that cannot be adequately explained with the Newtonian mechanistic worldview, that there is life-force energy permeating everything, etc.

So please forgive me if I find this "woo v. science" kerfuffle on DU 50 years later to be downright laughable.

[snooper2]

1. Monkey #32 says you've gone off the deep end again...

Back on track, back on track!

[get the red out]

2. Great post

Cool insight! Thank you for sharing it. I hope you don't get blasted too much for it.

I think all the blasting people do at one another generally has to do with fear of some sort. We all fear things, but how do we use it? And we certainly do misuse truth to abuse one another.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. This is DU. It's what happens. We have a whole collection of teapots

in which to create tempests. Don't worry; a new one will come along soon.

[99th_Monkey]

9. LOL - true dat ~nt

[Vashta Nerada]

4. Science is perfectly capable of explaining the LSD trip.

Don't need woo for that.

[LionsTigersRedWings]

33. What the hell is this "woo" stuff?

What are people using it as a word for? I really don't understand?

[Vashta Nerada]

34. There's an excellent definition here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4288539

[valerief]

36. When you espouse/believe in the outcome of a process without any scientific

evidence of the process being able to yield that outcome, it's woo.

[Skidmore]

39. How is that also not true when a hypothesis

is not proven? I see a universe of the unknown and that some of this "woo" may be proven at some time in the future. Who knows...

[valerief]

44. Considering possibilities is one thing. Espousing/believing is another. I think that's the

difference.

[roguevalley]

52. arrogance uses words like this when they want to demean someone who says

something they don't like. Its a Rovian-Republican tactic to demean and demonize someone you have differences with. I loathe it completely.

[MattBaggins]

56. An example of woo

would be believing that a chemically induced states of synethesia and visual hallucinations gives insight into non existent magical realities and that modern day scientific theories some how support that delusion.

[NuclearDem]

5. Super cool story bro.

Published right alongside the study about how the refrigerator turning into a puma validates alchemy.

[PowerToThePeople]

8. Rec.

[edhopper]

6. All things are alive

is a meaningless phrase. What do you mean by alive? Unless you are saying rocks and lakes and comets and quarks are all alive?

[99th_Monkey]

12. All things, including the InterWebs.

http://www.pinterest.com/shannonamick/all-things-alive/
http://thewrong.org/All-Things-Are-Alive

If the statement "all things are alive" holds no meaning for you, then it is indeed "meaningless" in your experience. My experience is very different, gratefully.

[edhopper]

27. Define "alive"

otherwise it's just another new age vague and meaningless expression.
God is Love
Everything is Everything
Yadda, Yadda.

[Squinch]

57. Thank god.

I was clipping my fingernails when I read that, and started to feel really guilty.

[MineralMan]

7. Nope. Not going there in this thread...

Uff da!

[gcomeau]

10. Oh good grief...

During the intervening 50 years, advances in the field of quantum physics and string theory have pretty much confirmed the voracity of my experience on acid: i.e. that all things are alive and somehow interconnected in ways that cannot be adequately explained with the Newtonian mechanistic worldview, that there is life-force energy permeating everything, etc.

You really need to not be getting your education on quantum physics from people like Deepak Chopra.

QM and string theory say nothing resembling any of that.

[NNadir]

20. But on the other hand...it says a lot about what "woo" confirms...

[mike_c]

31. ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Bingo.

[SidDithers]

11. Not merely woo, but quantum woo!...

nicely done

Sid

[treestar]

13. where were you earlier when this needed to be resolved?

That solves it! No more threads!

[progressoid]

14. What a coincidence. I came to the same conclusion at my Raelian Church.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

26. For real?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism

[progressoid]

35. Naw

I was just being an ass. Not enough sleep and I'm hungry.

[retread]

15. No!! Quantum physics and string theory have NOT "pretty much confirmed the voracity of my experience

on acid"

[WillyT]

16. K & R !!!

[eShirl]

17. If I may be a spelling nazi

veracity

[sufrommich]

18. You realize that science can explain the

way LSD works on the brain,right?

[Locrian]

19. thanks for this post

I suspect that there will be a lot of people who will not have a clue how these can be combined. Thankfully, I share your view.

[SomethingFishy]

21. Wow, that is one of the most accurate descriptions..

of the discovery found in LSD that I have heard.. Thumbs up!

Peter O'Toole passed away this year. He was in a movie called Creator in the 80's and a line from that movie has stuck with me ever since..
"When science finally peers over the mountain, they will find that religion has been there all along".

[justiceischeap]

47. Actually, Peter O'Toole died last year--it's 2014 now. You been dippin' into the LSD? :) nt

[Progressive dog]

22. So instead of education all you need is LSD

to let you see the life force in everything. The confirmation you claim does not exist in any science.

[Phlem]

24. Yes.

That's exactly what he's saying.



-p

[99th_Monkey]

42. Yet another major post-LSD life change was profound & passionate curiosity about everything

THAT was when I decided to go back to school and get my BS, and eventually an MS.

So actually the effect was just the opposite of what you suggest. LSD actually "made me"
want to go to school, for the first time in my fucking life.

[Progressive dog]

46. Okay, better living through chemistry I guess

but it still doesn't make woo the same as science.

[99th_Monkey]

48. Distinctions can be very useful, false dichotomies, not so much. ~nt

[Progressive dog]

49. You should look up dichotomy because I

didn't use one. Not even close.

[99th_Monkey]

51. Woo v. Science = false dichotomy IMHO

Which you seem to be suggesting are distinctly different somehow,
by saying "it still doesn't make woo the same as science".

[Progressive dog]

54. They are entirely different things, by definition

but I did not contrast them. That would be giving woo credibility.

[Phlem]

23. K&R!

-p

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. Mean-spirited claim about motives. Mischaracterization to assume it's "science vs spirituality".

Often it is science versus ignorance of science (or gross misunderstanding of science) and sometimes it is genuinely open-mindedness versus hide-bound traditionalists.

Further, saying that the people debating the issues are doing the bidding of and carrying water for "those at the top of their respective authority structures seeking personal/professional advantage" is an extreme dis-service and an attack on many well-meaning people on both sides in the DU discussions. You have very little idea of the motives of DU posters, so assigning them corrupt hypocritical motives the way you do is very mean-spirited and unenlightened.

[99th_Monkey]

50. You make a somewhat valid point

in that the characterization you cite is admittedly an oversimplification:
true as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.

It is not ONLY people at top of power structures who "carry water" for
one side or the other of "science v. spirit" rifts. It is also legions of lesser
minions who get egotistically fused to a certain point of view as being
their own -- mostly based on their own personal experiences.

We in Western societies have been ham-fistedly force fed "us v. them",
true v. false, good v. bad, dualism from cradle to grave for well over a
hundred years. These thought patterns do not change easily or effortlessly.

Professional sports in the USA is a great example of this "us v. them" motif
being milked for all it's worth, both to create a bread & circuses for the masses,
AND to line the pockets of Madison Avenue tycoons.

Shall I go on?

[dorkulon]

28. Great. Now give us some science that proves your 'spirtuality' is more than a hallcuination.

[cantbeserious]

29. Thank You For Sharing

eom

[zeemike]

30. Virtually no one who has not done psychedelics will understand.

But I do and I have...and experienced just what you did.
For me every trip was a good one...and the ones where I was out in nature were wonderful.

And they will be perplexed when you say there is life in everything...and that is funny because in mysticism of most primitive religions that is exactly what they believe is real.

[sufrommich]

32. I did more acid than I could count. I understood I was

hallucinating and never believed for a minute that the drugs were anything but a great deal of fun.

[zeemike]

41. Well it is different for everyone.

And I knew i was hallucinating too...because anything out of our normal way of seeing things is called hallucinating.
And some get insight and others do not...and a few freak out...that is why they developed the acid test.

[lisby]

37. I agree with you completely

It is all the same. Only the words we use to describe it change.

[AtheistCrusader]

38. Is that you, Deepak?

[Xyzse]

40. You're most likely right.

I am not a huge fan of subjects such as these that merely divide.

Yes, I had to use the gif of soup being separated in a bowl.

[Phlem]

43. Man do I hear you 99th Monkey.

I got PTSD early in child hood (born in 66) and remember the first punch to my face around 3 or 4 years old. He was my step father and he let me know he hated me from day 1.

At around 13 or 14 I was a mess but fortune looked down on me and I had my first toke on some good homegrown. It turned my downward spiral into something manageable as along as I had a bud to smoke.

Around 16 I picked and tried mushrooms. That was it, a whole new outlook on life, for the better. I tried it a few more times and had the same experiences almost exactly like yours and for me it was very uplifting.

All of a sudden marijuana is legal and in Bernie's State, people with PTSD qualify.

You know if I even mentioned anything of the sort back then it would have been totally "woo" to everyone. But not now.

Having been into science for the last 20 + years it's just amazing the contrast from what people knew then to what they know now.

Yet we had an understanding that is probably labeled as "woo" today.

Thank you for sharing my friend, it's awesome when I can find someone who relates.



-p

[99th_Monkey]

53. Thank you Phlem.

Thanks for being true to your experiences, and for holding space for more
inclusive, integrated, all-embracing modes of consciousness.

Is good to see that there is a growing awareness that dualistic oppositional
"thinking" is a counter-productive mind virus we can no longer afford to let run
amok, creating pointless separation, endless wars, obscene income inequality, etc.

[Blue_In_AK]

45. Similar to my own experience.

Plus, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

[longship]

55. Far out, man. Far out.

Did you solve quantum theory on that trip?

Actually, Richard Feynman took LSD, too. But that was after he solved Quantum Electrodynamics, for which he won a Nobel Prize.

Of course, he (arguably, but probably) single handedly solved the cause of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster as his part of the Rogers Commission. That was after he took LSD.

So maybe there's still hope.

I too have taken LSD. I would never put that on my CV as an attribute of anything, let alone insight into the universe. I prefer to list my degree in physics. One pill makes you larger; one pill makes you small. I leave it to others to decide which is which.

On the whole a good post. I just don't agree with it.

I will, nevertheless, R&K it.

[99th_Monkey]

59. Das cool. thanks. ~nt

[rosesaylavee]

58. K&R

Thanks for the post!

[Zorra]

60. Yeh, nothing blows away preconceptions quite like the blast of a serious dose of

psychedelics.