Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA15250 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 16 Mar 2002 19:24:23 GMT From: <AaronLynch@aol.com> Message-ID: <cf.1413439f.29c4f44a@aol.com> Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 14:17:30 EST Subject: Re: FW: MD Dawkins on quantum/mysticism convergence To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 113 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
In a message dated 3/16/2002 11:45:46 AM Central Standard
Time, Douglas Brooker <dbrooker@clara.co.uk> writes:
> Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
>
> > Good morning, everyone,From another list...
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
> > [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of nargess
> > sabeti
> > Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 7:41 AM
> > To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> > Subject: Re: MD Dawkins on quantum/mysticism convergence
> >
> > Glenn Bradford <gmbbradford@netscape.net> wrote:
> >
> > Richard Dawkins, in a Forbes article written three
> > years ago, speaks his
> > mind on the notion, popularized by Fritjof Capra
> > and others, that the
> > science of quantum mechanics is converging with
> > religious mysticism.
> >
> > DAWKINS:
> > [A] kind of marriage has been alleged between
> > modern physics and
> > Eastern mysticism. The argument goes as follows:
> > Quantum mechanics, that
> > brilliantly successful flagship theory of modern
> > science, is deeply mysterious
> > and hard to understand. Eastern mystics have
> > always been deeply
> > mysterious and hard to understand. Therefore,
> > Eastern mystics must have
> > been talking about quantum theory all along.
> >
> > Similar mileage is made of Heisenberg's
> > uncertainty principle ("Aren't we all,
> > in a very real sense, uncertain?"), fuzzy logic
> > ("Yes, it's okay for you to be fuzzy,
> > too"), chaos and complexity theory (the butterfly
> > effect, the Platonic, hidden
> > beauty of the Mandelbrot Set--you name it,
> > somebody has mysticized it and!
> > turned it into dollars). You can buy any number of
> > books on "quantum
> > healing," not to mention quantum psychology,
> > quantum responsibility,
> > quantum morality, quantum immortality, and quantum
> > theology. I haven't
> > found a book on quantum feminism, quantum
> > financial management, or
> > Afro-quantum theory, but give it time.
> >
> > The whole dippy business is ably exposed by the
> > physicist Victor Stenger in
> > his book, The Unconscious Quantum, from which the
> > following gem is taken.
> > In a lecture on "Afrocentric healing," the
> > psychiatrist Patricia Newton said that
> > traditional healers "are able to tap that other
> > realm of negative entropy--that
> > superquantum velocity and frequency of
> > electromagnetic energy--and bring
> > them as conduits down to our level. It's not
> > magic. It's not mumbo jumbo. You
> > will see the dawn of the 21st century, the new
> > medical quantum physics really
> > distributing these energies and what they are
> > doing."
> >
> > Sorry, but mumbo jumbo is ! precisely what it is.
> > Not African mumbo jumbo but
> > pseudosc! ientific mumbo jumbo, down to the
> > trademark misuse of the word
> > energy. It is also religion, masquerading as
> > science in a cloying love
> > feast of bogus convergence.
> > --
Hi Douglas.
My earlier use of the phrase "the ineffable Quantum of being"
a few months ago was also in reference to some of the mystical
interpretations of quantum mechanics.
> and memetics is a science?
Just suppose that Eastern mysticism got attached to quantum
physics in the early days, so that a substantial fraction of
the physicists reading their first quantum physics books were
asked to swallow a lot of mysticism. The word "quantum"
would have gained a very bad reputation among serious
physicists.
> sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.
Perhaps this is the old strategy of the best defense
being a good offense.
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.thoughtcontagion.com
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