Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA15321 (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 19:42:55 GMT Message-ID: <001d01c1cd29$ad294200$5e2ffea9@oemcomputer> From: "Philip Jonkers" <philipjonkers@prodigy.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <NEBBKOADILIOKGDJLPMAMELPCMAA.debivort@umd5.umd.edu> Subject: Re: MD Dawkins on quantum/mysticism convergence Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:32:21 -0900 Organization: Prodigy Internet Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_001A_01C1CCDE.3C782F80" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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It sounds like a clear case of sexual abuse of a good theory (in the sense of being successful
at least) by parasitic charlatans. It's seems to be a good steal however, though only in the sense
of also possibly being successful, as quantum theory is generally equally incomprehensible as
it is successful. In other words, everything QM touches turns into gold but nobody understands why.
Any well propagandized parasitic paradigm, with a good deal of mysticism too, has a free ticket to
ride on the same wave of success.
If the matter weren't that serious I would have wet my pants by now,
Philip.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence DeBivort
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 4:00 AM
Subject: FW: MD Dawkins on quantum/mysticism convergence
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.
--
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