Can I possibly bear another bucket of gobbledygook from Deepak Chopra? One must soldier on, I suppose, even as Chopra becomes even more vague. I'm going to keep it short, though.
Dawkins, along with other arch materialists, dismiss such a search [for "god"]. Are information fields real, as some theorists believe? Such a field might preserve information the way energy fields preserve energy; in fact, the entire universe may be based upon the evolution of information. (there's not the slightest doubt that the universe has an invisible source outside space and time.) A field that can create something new and then remember it would explain the persistence of incredibly fragile molecules like DNA, which by any odds should have disintegrated long ago under the pressure of entropy, not to mention the vicissitudes of heat, wind, sunlight, radiation, and random mistakes through mutation.
Well, no. We can see the chemical processes involved, we can measure rates of degradation, we can calculate how selection would maintain a viable DNA sequence. This is all very silly; we don't need his "invisible information field" to account for the characteristics of DNA. He's fond of conjuring up these magic sources for phenomena we do understand, so maybe we should all be a little skeptical when he invents them for phenomena we don't.
As for his lack of doubt about an "invisible source outside space and time" for the whole universe—I have my doubts, but I'll defer to the physicists on this one. I don't see why a source for something before which there was no space or time is at all necessary.
The man gets grandiose:
The entire universe is experienced only through consciousness, and even though consciousness is invisible and non-material, it's the elephant in the room so far as evolutionary theory is concerned. This is a huge topic, of course, and I've offered earlier posts on the many flaws in current evolutionary theory. under the topic of Intelligent Design. It's difficult threading one's way through the battlefield, with fundamentalists firing smoke on one side and skeptics arrogantly defending the scientific status quo on the other, but earth-shaking issues are at stake. When we understand both intelligence and design, a quantum leap in evolutionary theory will be possible.
Actually, since most organisms lack any kind of consciousness yet evolve just the same, consciousness has almost no applicability to evolution at all. It's a very narrow topic limited to a relatively tiny lineage, and the question isn't how consciousness contributed to evolution, but how evolution produced consciousness. I don't quite understand why he's got that dangling sentence fragment splat in the middle of the paragraph, but his message is clear anyway: he's just another Intelligent Design creationist, asserting that his god must have played a role in our origins, but he has no evidence, no real theory, and his ignorance of biology is pathetic.
Maybe he should ask the Discovery Institute for a membership application. He'd fit right in.
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"Quantum," "Energy fields," "Entropy,"
He certainly hits on all the buzz-words. The only thing that's missing is Chakras and Ley lines!
Damn Nemo, you beat me to it, but you you forgot "outside space and time". If you are in the mood for some devious fun, the next time someone starts talking to you like this, demand they define "energy" precisely, and don't let them move on until they do. Much dancing and sputtering will ensue.
Ask them to define 'consciousness' too, while you're at it.
The question isn't how consciousness contributed to evolution, but how evolution produced consciousness
Practically true, but some physicists and cosmologists might quibble with it (wheelers game of twenty questions, the past is defined by observing it, etc).
Actually I *am* kinda curious how consciousness has contributed to our evolution but I'm guessing not in the same way Chopra is.
I don't know if I'm remembering correctly, but I vaguely recall me thinking he said some helpful things a decade or two ago, but holy smokes, he sure seems to be losing it of late.
I also liked "the way energy fields preserve energy."
What a polytard.
Some idiot going by the 'nym ChopraFan has been spamming the comments of my blog about this "part 6." I haven't decided if I'll respond yet, but if I do it'll be brief (brevity being highly unusual for me, I know).
Isn't this "information field" baloney just another name for Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance? Been there, done that. It's not a theory, Deepak. It's a magical wishing hamster.
Hey, no dissing the Magical Wishing Hamster!
Don't you just love the comments for Chopra's posts? It's the only reason I still bother following the links.
Really.
A field that can create something new and then remember it would explain the persistence of incredibly fragile molecules like DNA, which by any odds should have disintegrated long ago under the pressure of entropy, not to mention the vicissitudes of heat, wind, sunlight, radiation, and random mistakes through mutation.
First, DNA is not all that fragile. RNA is, but DNA is pretty stable. Second, DNA is usually found inside a cell, where there are mechanisms present to protect against radiation and mutation. Viruses exposed to such threats are often released in such numbers that attrition is expected, or they don't spend much time (if any) exposed to the elements. Heat and wind, unless extreme enough to stress the cell aren't exactly a threat. Next, selection pressures sort out positive vs negative mutations, so no "energy field" is needed to act as protector. Finally, the cell devotes some of it's energy into maintainence of the DNA, so entropy isn't a threat.
Our host PZ here seems to have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with Deepak Chopra. I think he needs a distraction. Who wants to go in with me on a shotgun and a big barrel of fish for him for Xmas? Sounds like just the kind of hobby he'd enjoy.
I've really enjoyed everything I read by Rupert Sheldrake. I'm wondering what people here think of him.
First, guess.
Shouldn't it set off alarm bells in the U.S. public when this guy starts spewing streams of scientific words without meaning or context? Or does the public lack even the basic scientific grounding to recognize word salad when they hear it?
Chopra is only marginally more coherent than Timecube.com.
Maybe there is work on information fields, but I doubt it. Ordinary Shannon or any type of algorithmic information can't be it - the first is information communicated in a channel, the second resources to specify an object. Chopra has the usual information problem of an IDiot - he has it backwards. More information means more noise. Sheldrake's ideas seems a more likely source.
But have they got very far with that?
First, it is my impression that the use of decoherence removed the need for special observers - classical systems makes themselves.
Second, cosmologies with a final state deciding the earlier history seems hard to do. For example, Hawking-Hartle no-boundary cosmology seems to end with an empty de Sitter space without initial inflation. Not what we observe. ( http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006hep.th...10199P )
I read somewhere that 50% of Americans have sub-average IQ's.
You'd think that the scientific word salad would ring alarm bells, but the public generally isn't educated enough in the sciences to detect BS. :(
That being said, I love his use of "quantum leap" since quantum generally means "smallest."
[this is a placeholder for the quanto-theoretical comment energy field in which I successfully "leap" to the defense of Deepak against PZ's misguided, obsessive attacks against the great cosmic principle of non-material invisibility. Long live the quantum woo!]
Chopra is right on one thing. It is indeed "difficult threading one's way through the battlefield" of the anti-creationism struggle, if you lack a basic grounding in science. Creationists have worked hard to manufacture a "controversy" they could then demand that we teach; the smoke and mustard gas with which they have filled the sky do not make life easy.
Chopra says that it is difficult to navigate this battlefield and find the truth. He proves his point by example, since his content-free antiscientific blather demonstrates quite clearly that he has failed to understand any of the sciences he so arrogantly appropriates. He says that finding truth is difficult, and he's not making it any simpler.
Chopra's use of words and meaning summarized by "Quantum Leap" is just plain wrong. The IDers and all the woo woo's have no basis in fact for their proper use of the language and in turn reveals their undereducted ideas. They need to either go back to school or maybe just get themselves to a Proper University.
The only hope I have is that We keep up our pressure that forces them to come to grips with us because we are watching.
These post-everything New Agers do realize, don't they, that quantum mechanics was invented by Dead White Males. Planck, Einstein, de Broglie, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Born, Jordan. . . All right, a lot of them were Jewish, but they're still penis-bearing Caucasians who are now fertilizing daffodils. (Insert your own yellow-flower Chopra joke here.) OK, sure, there's Satyendra Nath Bose (he of bosons and Bose-Einstein condensation), Heideki Yukawa and also Sin-Itiro Tomonaga — but Tomonaga only discovered what Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman were also inventing independently!
Dead. White. Male. The perfect combination for a quantum mechanic.
(Disclaimer: no, I don't think this means anything about the relative abilities of men and women to do science. Do I look like Larry Summers? It's just history.)
"More information means more noise." - More noise means more information.
First rule of the net - when you accuse someone of something, first look in a mirror. Backwards, indeed. :-(
Huh?
You must never have read an American newspaper, nor watched American TV.
Many Americans think 'streams of scientific words without meaning or context' are normal. That's what's wrong over here.
Julia Sweeney said it best:
"Quantum leap"?
This clown has made millions and is famous for lecturing us on quantum mechanics and he uses an expression like that? I don't know who is stupider, Chopra or his mob of fans.
(Okay, the answer is obvious)
One of the most popular radio shows is Coast to Coast where they spend every night night talking about ghosts, ufos and the reptile people that live among us. There are literally millions of listeners every night, and this is Chopra's base of support. They are people to lazy to educate themselves in true science and prefer the excitement of "fantasy science."
IMO, the following contains bad science, and invokes evolution wrongly -
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/16085802.htm
For instance, where is the evidence that our ancestors were selected for any of "communal sharing, equality matching, authority ranking and market pricing" ?
Will pharyngula take this on?
Arun: market pricing? That's a neat trick, since many social groups do not use fiat money ...
If it's necessary for PZ to harp on Deepockets in order to be steered towards the latest in science (slow to percolate through those Morris cornfields) then so be it! In fact quantum chaos IS required to explain mysteries of evolution, as the below book proves.
The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man (2002)
by Jeffrey Satinover
"...A field that can create something new and then remember it would explain the persistence of incredibly fragile molecules like DNA, which by any odds should have disintegrated long ago under the pressure of entropy..."
and I was wondering what those pesky organisms were for...
Hameroff looks kinda like an Orc hence the acronym.
From Dr. Stuart Hameroff:
7. Microtubule quantum automata - The 'Orch OR' model
The Penrose - Hameroff model of "orchestrated objective reduction" (Orch OR) proposes that:
Quantum superposition/computation occur in microtubule automata within brain neurons and glia.;
Tubulin subunits within microtubules act as qubits, switching between states on a nanosecond (10-9 sec) scale governed by quantum London forces in hydrophobic pockets;
Tubulin qubits interact computationally by nonlocal quantum entanglement according to the Schrodinger equation;
Figure 20. The basic idea in the Orch OR model is that each tubulin in a microtubule is a qubit.
Figure 21. Microtubule automaton sequence simulation in which classical computing (step 1) leads to emergence of quantum coherent superposition (steps 2-6) in certain (gray) tubulins due to pattern resonance. Step 6 (in coherence with other microtubule tubulins) meets critical threshold related to quantum gravity for self-collapse (Orch OR). Consciousness (Orch OR) occurs in the step 6 to 7 transition. Step 7 represents the eigenstate of mass distribution of the collapse which evolves by classical computing automata to regulate neural function. Quantum coherence begins to re-emerge in step 8.
ISI Web of Science has 1989 hits for DNA and Quantum -- so I'll refrain from continued spamming and just post the first one:
Title: Quantum theory of DNA - An approach to electron transfer in DNA
Author(s): Sugawara H (Sugawara, Hirotaka)
Source: PROGRESS OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS SUPPLEMENT (164): 17-27 2006
Document Type: Article
Language: English
Cited References: 9 Times Cited: 0
Abstract: Inspired by Ikemura conjecture about electron transfer in DNA playing an important role in information exchanges, the field theoretical approach is applied to pi-electrons and phonons inside DNA. Under some approximations, three-dimensional string action is derived. The DNA string model is applied to formulate the three phenomena - luminescence quenching, eletric current through DNA and absorption of light.
KeyWords Plus: POLYACETYLENE; MOLECULES; TRANSPORT
Addresses: Sugawara H (reprint author), Grad Univ Adv Studies, Hayama Chou, Kanagawa 240193, Japan
Grad Univ Adv Studies, Kanagawa 240193, Japan
Publisher: PROGRESS THEORETICAL PHYSICS PUBLICATION OFFICE, C/O KYOTO UNIV, YUKAWA HALL, KYOTO, 606-8502, JAPAN
Subject Category: PHYSICS, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
OK -- I can't resist since this is just too easy! On stability of DNA and quantum dynamics:
Title: Estimation of strength in different extra Watson-Crick hydrogen bonds in DNA double helices through quantum chemical studies
Author(s): Bandyopadhyay D (Bandyopadhyay, D.), Bhattacharyya D (Bhattacharyya, D.)
Source: BIOPOLYMERS 83 (3): 313-325 OCT 15 2006
Document Type: Article
Language: English
Cited References: 49 Times Cited: 0
Abstract: It was shown earlier, from database analysis, model building studies, and molecular dynamics simulations that formation of cross-strand bifurcated or Extra Watson-Crick hydrogen (EWC) bonds between successive base pairs may lead to extra rigidity to DNA double helices of certain sequences. The strengths of these hydrogen bonds are debatable, however, as they do not have standard linear geometry criterion. We have therefore carried out detailed ab initio quantum chemical studies using RHF/6-31G(2d,2p) and B3LYP/6-31G(2p,2d) basis sets to determine strengths of several bent hydrogen bonds with different donor and acceptors. Interaction energy calculations, corrected for the basis set superposition errors, suggest that N-H center dot center dot center dot O type bent EWC hydrogen bonds are possible along same strands or across the strands between successive base pairs, leading to significant stability (ca. 4-9 kcal/mol). The N-H center dot center dot center dot N and C-H center dot center dot center dot O type interactions, however, are not so stabilizing. Hence, consideration of EWC N-H center dot center dot center dot O H-bonds can lead to a better understanding of DNA sequence directed structural features. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Author Keywords: extra Watson-Crick hydrogen bonds; cross-strand bifurcated hydrogen bonds; ab initio quantum chemical studies; strength of hydrogen bonds; DNA structural rigidity; pyramidal amino groups
KeyWords Plus: ACID BASE-PAIRS; NONPLANAR AMINO-GROUPS; C-H; AB-INITIO; MOLECULAR-STRUCTURE; STABILITY; COMPLEXES; DENSITY; GUANINE; H...O
Addresses: Bandyopadhyay D (reprint author), Saha Inst Nucl Phys, Div Biophys, 1AF Bidhannagar, Calcutta 700064, W Bengal India
Saha Inst Nucl Phys, Div Biophys, Calcutta 700064, W Bengal India
Raja Peary Mohan Coll, Dept Chem, Hooghly 712258, India
E-mail Addresses: dhananjay.bhattacharyva@saha.ac.in
arch materialists
Worshipers of giant, stainless-steel, catenary curve-shaped structures? Is this the symbol of the great collapsed quantum wave? Right under my very nose......uh, soaring above my head?
PS When visiting, try the cheeseburger at O'Connel's Pub
Do you have any proof that drew-oo has visited earth at all?
Anyone mentioning Penrose's quantum-woo must be off meds...
I find PZ's (and Orac's) dissection of Chopra-woo to be very valuable, as there seems to be a surprising number of educated theists who find these arguments -- or similar ones -- to be intellectually satisfying midpoints between the silly religious creationists who don't understand God and the arrogant materalist scientists who also don't understand God. Liberal theism, you see, DOES understand God, and DOES value science, and isn't it just peachy keen the way science is finding evidence that God is very much the way liberal theists instictively understood it to be.
Chopra's version of ID is the form I usually personally encounter in friends, as opposed to what I read from angry local creationists writing letters to the editor. And they are surprised that someone "into" science like me doesn't really like this view. It's not as if this is silly fundamentalist stuff. Deepok *respects* science. Just like me.
Sheesh. Why does this gibberish pass as science? I think PB Medawar once nailed the state of mind as "Really it's beyond my poor brain, but doesn't that just show how profound and important it must be?" After all, since Chopra is not saying anything scientifically coherent, it can't be that anyone is really understanding what he says. They only *think* they are getting the jist, and look at all the pretty technical phrases you can throw off to back up your intuitions in a rigorous sort of way. Accepting Chopra's version as "science looked at the right way" is a sign of their humility.
As philosopher Simon Blackburn explained, "This is an intellectual version of passive-aggressive syndromes in psychology--an attitude very much like taking pride in one's own abasement. The novice is to trust the master all the more because the master humiliates him; and his trust in the master numbers him with the elect."
Drew - be careful of the company you keep or you may disappear further over the edge.
"The Quantum Brain: The Search for Freedom and the Next Generation of Man (2002)
by Jeffrey Satinover"
This is this same really creepy anti-gay guy?
http://www.narth.com/docs/senatecommittee.htm
Often I've taken the easy way out on responding to Chopra at Liberal Values by linking back to the excellent refutations here, but sometimes, such as last night, I've gotten to Chopra first.
This installment was so absurd it really isn't worth much effort to respond. To sum it up quickly, Chopra's argument is that "We are in God as a fish is in water." To this I ultimately responded, "reviewing Chopra's posts demonstrates that anyone desiring understanding of evolution or any other aspect of the universe no more needs Deepak Chopra than a fish needs a bicycle."
As for the ending above, "Maybe he should ask the Discovery Institute for a membership application. He'd fit right in" there is no doubt. I'm sure that those who have followed Chopra have noted that his arguments against evolution are basically the same talking points coming from right wingers such as the Discovery Institute.
Been talking with someone on a forum for a while about the issue of science and "he", while rejecting most of the "woo" in it, has had his thinking influenced by Hinduism. While, for the most part, I agree with most of his interpretations, he makes some category errors and harps on one factor that bugs the hell out of me. Isn't Deepok also channeling some wierd ass version of hunduism as part of this goofy nonsense?
Anyway, my discussion partners basic premises are:
1. The observation is not the same as the observed. (Ok, so far.)
2. Sprirituality and even religion is a conglomeration of "observations", which since we can't be "sure" anything really "is" there, is, for the person that has them, completely real. (Hmm... Ok, will give him that one.)
3. Science is just like religion, since it only describes what we "think" we see, not what "is". (This is starting to go badly..)
4. Neither science nor religion can be seperated from the ideology and thinking of those that use it. (Umm. Sorry, I don't agree here. One "can" seperate the math used to buid a casino from the ideology of the guy that built it to rob people of their money, to suggest otherwise is quite stupid.)
5. Science in the west is flawed, not just do to its failure (mind you, he mean the failure of its "practitioners", since after all, you can't seperate the tool from its use, right...) to a) produce positive results all the time, instead of a lot of negative ones, and its refusal to recognize "other ways of knowing". (Ok, this is now going off the deep end...)
6. But, religions is worse, which is why he thinks that a) science needs to become less dogmatic in its assertions about reality and b) religions should be replaced with one that is "logical".
Now.. I have been arguing for days with this fellow atheist on the subject (technically accurate in that he rejects gods, but a bit sloppy otherwise imho), and the problem comes down to us not being able to agree one two points:
1. Spirituality and religion are not the same thing. The former is what an individual experiences, the later a loony set of idiocies that someone tries to shovel as the "correct" interpretation of those experiences.
2. Science "is a tool", the fact that a lot of idiots with ideologies that are **not** scientific use it as a means to screw up the world doesn't mean its the fault of "science" for having some gap in its understanding that fails to encompass "spirituality" or, as he also said, tries to "force" meaning on things, by doing silly stuff like labelling trees as trees...
I think the problem with both Deepok and this guy I have been arguing with is like.. radioactive religion or something? Long term exposure causes irrepairable damage to logic? I don't know. All I am sure of is that, at times, this guy I am arguing with (its on usenet, so hard to point anyone to) sounds way too much like every religious appologist I have ever seen, using the same goofy arguments against science, while ironically admitting that religion tends to be worse, and there seems to be a basic language barrier that we can't cross, which keeps leaving me with the impression he is saying insanely stupid things, and him with the impression that I am attacking his "ways of knowing"...
Oh, and this guys idea of how to solve the conflict between religion and science is "not" to point out how many holes are in the oppositions position, but to tell them, "I observe" that X is Y. As though the average religious person isn't going to just go, "Yeah, and I observe that you are a fool for believing in X at all and I am right!"
Kagehi:
Next time you get into it with your friend, start out by making it clear that (1) you don't care if his feelings get hurt, and (2) what is actually true is independent of what he wants to be true. If he refuses to share this common starting point with you, go down to your local park and talk to the ducks instead. It will be more productive.
"If he refuses to share this common starting point with you, go down to your local park and talk to the ducks instead."
I tried it and you're right. The duck said, "I live in water, and I live outside of water. I can understand beings which live each way, including fish which breath water and mammals which do not. Therefore Chopra is wrong and an intelligent designer does not exist."
I'm not sure if the duck really proved anything, but at least his argument made more sense than Chopra's.
I read somewhere that 50% of Americans have sub-average IQ's.
When an Irishman emigrates to the US, the IQs of both countries are raised, so I've heard. Now, if Deepak Chopra were to emigrate from the US, how many Irish would it take to maintain the staus quo there? Will the information field contain the answer?
It seems to me that it's Deepak Chopra consciousness that disintegrated long ago under the pressure of entropy, not to mention the vicissitudes of heat, wind, sunlight, radiation, and random mistakes through mutation.
How do people fall for this crap? Same way as they do for the mainstream religious crap, I guess.
Kagehi:
I'm currently involved in the same sort of argument. Your friend is following the standard line on how an "integrative, holistic" science would include all of the natural world -- and the cosmic consciousness, which underlies all of reality, is by definition natural. This is not a "true" form of Naturalism and it's not "real" science. It's a combination of vitalism and idealistic monism, and as you've seen it's just as pernicious as more traditional forms of religionized science.
If you have not already encountered her, you should search out and read Meera Nanda. There are some excellent essays on the net. She critiques Vedic science and postmodernism. Your friend seems to have a bad case of both.
Quantum leap? Man, Scott Bakula was cute in that.
"Are information fields real, as some theorists believe?"
Aaaargh!!! The use of the determiner 'some' is supposed to indicate that the quantity referred to is inconsequential to the point being made---but this convention is clearly abused by Chopra, who means "some" in the same way most people mean "only a couple of complete idiots."
The fact that the world appears to be so perfectly knit, so stunningly precise down to the millionths of a degree, so beautiful, and in the end so meaningful to anyone who can appreciate these qualities, is a problem for materialists.
-Deepak Chopra
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in--an interesting hole I find myself in--fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'
-Douglas Adams
THE GURU DELUSION -- Catnto 6, A Bucket of Gobbledygook
"Can I possibly bear another bucket
of gobbledygook from Deepak Chopra?"
~ P.Z. Myers
Scienceblogs.com
***
Here comes the guru
with "another bucket
of gobbledygook" --
God preserves DNA.
Without fields of
consciousness in space,
DNA would degrade,
and then
your genes, your body
your soul, your brain.
Complete disintegration
complete dissolution
complete annihilation
and then
nothing will remain,
Without God.
His knowledge of
biology is pathetic,
and of physics, no
better than biology.
He's aways
quantum this
or quantum that.
His knowledge of
medicine is Ayurvedic.
His spiritual
knowledge is Vedic,
and his logic, all illogic.
So what does he know?
He speculates, speculates.
And he's honest about it.
He says he speculated
for 20 years to come with two
speculated conclusions:
God exists, and there is
life after death.
Har har Gangay
Har har Krishna
Har har Shiva
Har har Guru maharaj.
http://whitewings.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/12/the-guru-delusion-catnt…
Well. Mind you, I agree with is stance that Hinduism is probably one of the more "sane" religions, at least prior to the recent "westernization" that has started to creep in. I also agree that on the most basic level, even science and scientists generally admit that observation is fundamentally transitive and its only concensus that determines that the tree is a tree and not a puddle. Its is refusal to seperate the tools from the ideologies of the people using them, and thus equating western science with the destruction people cause with it that I have a problem with. That and, fundamentally, once you agree that the observation you are making it only subjectively connected to the object under observation and that one could be "seeing" something completely different than assumed, you have only two choices, reject any and all definitions *or* accept the ones that the majority of people say is actually there, within the limits of similarity in their perceptions. While its interesting to talk about a holistic system, even Hinduism denies that such a system exists or can exist. His argument is basically, "There has to be a better way that doesn't rock the boat so much and is less likely to be misused the way science is, but all I have is a insistent demand that some better way must exist." As I told him in the latest post, once you get to the, "Everything is a personal observation with no means *beyond* that same flawed perception to verify it.", you are at a dead end. You either shrug your shoulders and go back to using that flawed system, or you go insane. There isn't a middle ground, or he would have been able to state clearly what that was, not just make vague hand waving jestures in its presumed direction.
Hmm. Reading the article from Meera Nanda now.. Just goes to show that even something that looks vaguely sane when examining the "apparent" precepts, as my dear co-combatant sees them, doesn't mean that, when you look at the real thing, its not batshit insane. Hindu seems to be one case where, if you ignore the goody BS on the top, you can "interpret" it to have reasonable ideas about how the world works. This makes it different than Christianity in a lot of ways, but apparently not different enough. lol
I am definitely hearing strains of Rushdooney in Chopra; a paraphrase as it might be. I would like to check that if I have time.
If not a sophist artisan, then I would like to know what the hell Copra is about.
If I have my own squakky belief, it is that consciousness is merely nature's way of contemplating herself (I stole that quote from someone but can't remember who she was.)
If ever there were a phrase for one of Bronze Dog's doggerel posts, it's this one. I'm in a class right now on the "Rhetoric of Sustainability," and while I tend to agree with the movement (mostly E.O. Wilson, for obvious reasons), half of the articles we've read have contained appeals to "other ways of knowing," and have criticized science for closed-mindednes, and then have gone on to purport newagey quasi-Buddhism or neopastoralism as some kind of viable option. One of these navel-gazing woo-vians suggested that true sustainability could only be achieved through a worldview that considered all things, down to the smallest speck of dust. Yada yada Buddhism, consciousness yada yada.
And then someone in the class with more of a Buddhist background talked about how this even contradicted Buddhism; I never even needed to bring up chaos theory. But damn if this stuff isn't annoying and omnipresent. I'm doing my semester-end project on how people use the movement as a smokescreen to promote their other ideologies.
E-gal:
She may very well have gotten it from Carl Sagan; I seem to remember him saying something very much like that in Cosmos. But I wouldn't call it a belief. It's just a poetic way of describing the simple syllogism that humans are aware of nature, and humans are part of nature, so, in some sense, nature is aware of itself. It's only woo if you make the leap (a quantum leap, if you will) that something innate in nature, or some supernatural force outside of it, purposefully drove it to assemble itself into conscious clumps. I don't recommend making that leap.
cbut,
It pisses me off that we don't know why , yet.
What makes you think that such a "why" exists?
If you really must know I was bored and just did it all for a bit of a laugh.
It seems to me that in nature, the most common answer to "why" is "because."
Except in Physics. In Physics, it's "why not?"
More peer-reviewed corroboration of Deepockets:
Title: Quantum computation, non-demolition measurements, and reflective control in living systems
Author(s): Igamberdiev AU
Source: BIOSYSTEMS 77 (1-3): 47-56 NOV 2004
Document Type: Article
Language: English
Cited References: 72 Times Cited: 0
Abstract: Internal computation underlies robust non-equilibrium living process. The smallest details of living systems are molecular devices that realize non-demolition quantum measurements. These smaller devices form larger devices (macromolecular complexes), up to living body. The quantum device possesses its own potential internal quantum state (IQS), which is maintained for a prolonged time via reflective error-correction. Decoherence-free IQS can exhibit itself by a creative generation of iteration limits in the real world. It resembles the properties of a quasi-particle, which interacts with the surround, applying decoherence commands to it. In this framework, enzymes are molecular automata of the extremal quantum computer, the set of which maintains highly ordered robust coherent state, and genome represents a concatenation of error-correcting codes into a single reflective set. The biological evolution can be viewed as a functional evolution of measurement constraints in which limits of iteration are established, possessing criteria of perfection and having selective values. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Author Keywords: quantum computation; coherence; internal quantum state; limit of iteration; measurement; reflection
KeyWords Plus: MOLECULAR COMPUTATION; GENERATIVE CAPACITY; BIOLOGICAL-SYSTEMS; GENETIC-CODE; DNA; INFORMATION; PHYSICS; SUPERPOSITIONS; CONSCIOUSNESS; ORGANIZATION
Addresses: Igamberdiev AU (reprint author), Univ Manitoba, Dept Plant Sci, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada
Univ Manitoba, Dept Plant Sci, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada
E-mail Addresses: igamberd@cc.umanitoba.ca
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD, THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD OX5 1GB, OXON, ENGLAND
Subject Category: BIOLOGY
Taking candy from babies? Yes I think so.
Title: Spontaneous ultraweak photon emission from biological systems and the endogenous light field
Author(s): Schwabl H, Klima H
Source: FORSCHENDE KOMPLEMENTARMEDIZIN UND KLASSISCHE NATURHEILKUNDE 12 (2): 84-89 2005
Document Type: Review
Language: English
Cited References: 40 Times Cited: 1
Abstract: Still one of the most astonishing biological electromagnetic phenomena is the ultraweak photon emission (UPE) from living systems. Organisms and tissues spontaneously emit measurable intensities of light, i.e. photons in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum (380-780 nm), in the range from 1 to 1,000 photons x s(-1) x cm(-2), depending on their condition and vitality. It is important not to confuse UPE from living systems with other biogenic light emitting processes such as bioluminescence or chemiluminescence. This article examines with basic considerations from physics on the quantum nature of photons the empirical phenomenon of UPE. This leads to the description of the non-thermal origin of this radiation. This is in good correspondence with the modern understanding of life phenomena as dissipative processes far from thermodynamic equilibrium. UPE also supports the understanding of life sustaining processes as basically driven by electromagnetic fields. The basic features of UPE, like intensity and spectral distribution, are known in principle for many experimental situations. The UPE of human leukocytes contributes to an endogenous light field of about 10(11) photons x s(-1) which can be influenced by certain factors. Further research is needed to reveal the statistical properties of UPE and in consequence to answer questions about the underlying mechanics of the biological system. In principle, statistical properties of UPE allow to reconstruct phase-space dynamics of the light emitting structures. Many open questions remain until a proper understanding of the electromagnetic interaction of the human organism can be achieved: Which structures act as receptors and emitters for electromagnetic radiation? How is electromagnetic information received and processed within cells?
Author Keywords: ultraweak photon emission; endogenous light field; photobiophysics; electromagnetic bioinformation
KeyWords Plus: LIVING SYSTEMS; LUMINESCENCE; BIOPHOTONS; IMAGERY; CELLS; DNA
Addresses: Schwabl H (reprint author), Padma AG, Wiesenstr 5, CH-8603 Schwerzenbach, Switzerland
Padma AG, CH-8603 Schwerzenbach, Switzerland
Osterreich Univ, Atominst, Vienna, Austria
E-mail Addresses: h.schwabl@padma.ch
Publisher: KARGER, ALLSCHWILERSTRASSE 10, CH-4009 BASEL, SWITZERLAND
Not EZ enough for PZ -- apparently.
Title: Mechanism of nucleotide incorporation in DNA polymerase beta
Author(s): Radhakrishnan R (Radhakrishnan, Ravi)
Source: BIOCHEMICAL AND BIOPHYSICAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS 347 (3): 626-633 SEP 1 2006
Document Type: Article
Language: English
Cited References: 44 Times Cited: 1
Abstract: DNA polymerases play a central role in the mechanisms of DNA replication and repair. Here, we report mechanisms of the beta-polymerase catalyzed phosphoryl transfer reactions corresponding to correct and incorrect nucleotide incorporations in the DNA. Based on energy minimizations, molecular dynamics simulations, and free energy calculations of solvated ternary complexes of pol beta and by employing a mixed quantum mechanics molecular mechanics Hamiltonian, we have uncovered the identities of transient intermediates in the phosphoryl transfer pathways. Our study has revealed that an intriguing Grotthuss hopping mechanism of proton transfer involving water and three conserved aspartate residues in pol beta's active site mediates the phosphoryl transfer in the correct as well as misincorporation of nucleotides. The significance of this catalytic step in serving as a kinetic check point of polymerase fidelity may be unique to DNA polymerase beta, and is discussed in relation to other known mechanisms of DNA polymerases. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Author Keywords: DNA polymerase fidelity; phosphoryl transfer; molecular dynamics; mixed quantum mechanics molecular mechanics simulations
KeyWords Plus: ACTIVE-SITE; 2-METAL-ION MECHANISM; REPLICATION FIDELITY; MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS; CRYSTAL-STRUCTURES; TRANSITION-STATE; KINETIC-ANALYSIS; REPAIR ENZYME; CATALYSIS; SIMULATIONS
Addresses: Radhakrishnan R (reprint author), Univ Penn, Dept Bioengn, 120 Hayden Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
Univ Penn, Dept Bioengn, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
E-mail Addresses: rradhak@seas.upenn.edu
Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 525 B ST, STE 1900, SAN DIEGO, CA 92101-4495 USA
Subject Category: BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY; BIOPHYSICS
IDS Number: 071GN
ISSN: 0006-291X
Forgive me for being dense, but what the hell are you trying to prove? Something about "quantum" and "DNA," by the looks of it, but I can't for the life of me see how ultraweak photon emission or any of the rest of this corroborates Deepak's information fields and conscious universes.
Isn't it interesting that only two of the articles you've provided have been cited? And only once each?
Ignore him. He's a kook. No one knows what he's going on about... ever.
He's the king of the cut and pasters.
Oh, okay. Wow, you know, usually the kooks show at least some consistency, but anyone who can call Deepak Chopra a derogatory name in one line and cite "corroboration" for him in the next is on some really powerful stuff. Can you freebase woo these days?
Wikiality at work. Just use the weasel phrase "some X believe Y", where X is critics, "scientists", or random people off the street and any statement Y, no matter how ludicrous, is instantly legitimized!
OK so Henry Stapp, a quantum physicist, has been invited to advise DARPA on consciousness and quantum biology. I guess DARPA are idiots? The idiots are in charge that's for sure!
Then there's NASA scientists Menfas Kafatos and professor Robert Nadeau at George Mason -- their two books on consiousness and quantum physics also propose the same model as Deepak Chopra (please someone have these idiots taken off the staff of top institutions!!)
On biophotons and quantum consciousness -- well don't talk to the Germans about it since they're throwing heavy weight science behind it.
But Dr. Mae-Wan Ho's book "The Rainbow and the Worm" might be a good place to start for those of you still in the dark.
http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~streater/stapp.html
We argue that Stapp has made three errors, one in each of the subjects of classical mechanics, quantum mechanics and experimental brain dynamics. Together they make his version of brain theory a lost cause.
http://cornea.berkeley.edu/duality/
Don't have to go much further than this to see what's wrong with the quantum consciousness theories.
Excellent! So true for science, which is mostly in the business of disproving the wrong ideas. The remainder is indeed equal to "why not".
Nice try Steve "pinhead" -- Stapp works for Lawrence Livermore Labs -- and the link you gave? Might as well be some data entry wage-worker right?
On philosophy of science -- well Dick Fineman (Feynman) said it quite plainly -- no one understands quantum mechanics and those who think they do are wrong!
I defer to professor H.M. Collins who eloquently details how "negative results" only have value for proofs dependent on technology. There is no "pure" science: even the Pythagorean Theorem was so that Archytas, the military dictator, could be a better catapult.
Proof by contradiction or Aristotle's "exclusion of the middle" analysis is solely for Freemasonic imperialism.
Despite the fact that those idiots Sir Karl Popper and Sir John Eccles created a consciousness-based model for quantum biology. Then there's that other idiot -- Nobel physicist Brian Josephson.
I, myself, stand by the logic of Kurt Godel. I don't need no stinking science. In fact implementing Godel's practice of the inference of the I-thought I went 8 days without water and food and not only did I create more energy, needing only 5 hours of sleep, but I created paranormal powers used for healing.
I would never trust a physicist to understand biology... especially that of the brain.
And I wouldn't trust Drew with healing a plant much less a person.
Absolutely. Though in my experience, the exchange is more "why do we want to freeze X with liquid nitrogen and smash it?"
"Why not?"
Q.E.D. :)
And Feynman was right, to some degree. However, you have shown no inkling that you understand any of the things you've posted, and you've evaded my question (i.e., what are you trying to prove with these article abstracts?). Furthermore, your beliefs on the value of the negative proof in science are fundamentally wrong, and I have a feeling that the only thing you produced after that long without sleep or sustenance is delerium. No, clearly you don't understand quantum mechanics, or you'd realize that "quantum" is not a buzzword for "woo that I want to make sound scientificalistical."
Tom:
Also true. Though mostly I remember it as "Darn, this experiment doesn't work either. Why not?".
Seems like we have several different uses for why not. Well, why n... huh.
Oh, I remember that one. Also, "well, we know what the graph is supposed to look like, can't we just fudge the results?"
Ah, undergraduate Physics lab. I can't say that I miss it, per se, but it sure was fun sometimes.
Sastra: What really saddens me is that the level of scientific literacy necessary to see through 99.9% of all pseudoscience (including Chopra's) is extremely low. I don't see an easy solution, unfortunately, due to a bootstrapping problem. (Can't teach good science at a young age because elementary school teachers are generally scientifically ignorant; and so the cycle gets perpetuated.)
Tom Foss: Fortunately also there are a lot of critiques of such things from various directions. (Including some unpublished things by yours truly.) But it is tiresome ...
Sastra: What really saddens me is that the level of scientific literacy necessary to see through 99.9% of all pseudoscience (including Chopra's) is extremely low. I don't see an easy solution, unfortunately, due to a bootstrapping problem. (Can't teach good science at a young age because elementary school teachers are generally scientifically ignorant; and so the cycle gets perpetuated.)
Tom Foss: Fortunately also there are a lot of critiques of such things from various directions. (Including some unpublished things by yours truly.) But it is tiresome ...
Well I took quantum mechanics from Professor Herbert Bernstein, Harvard-trained, with classified defense research in quantum computing.
David Deutsch thinks we're all computers! I wouldn't trust a physicist with anthropology either -- modern humans are 100,000 years old and computers are what -- 100.
Physicists are insane. As I stated all one needs is Kurt Godel.
Meanwhile there's 25 years left of freshwater on the planet and the top ecologist ODUM was funded by the Atomic Energy Commission.
So biologists? C'mon -- it's a total joke.
For example an administrator at the U of Minnesota stated "For enough money and I can get you tomatoes as big as basketballs" -- to whom?
MONSANTO -- that's biology.
The question for me is not only consciousness but also self-consciousness. Only humans are self conscious. Only we can say, "I am." Animals have consciousness, sure. Therefore, we first have consciousness and then self-consciousness. How can we define these scientifically without the nonsense of Chopra?
Maybe there is work on information fields, but I doubt it. Ordinary Shannon or any type of algorithmic information can't be it - the first is information communicated in a channel, the second resources to specify an object. Chopra has the usual information problem of an IDiot - he has it backwards. More information means more noise. Sheldrake's ideas seems a more likely source.
But have they got very far with that?
First, it is my impression that the use of decoherence removed the need for special observers - classical systems makes themselves.
Second, cosmologies with a final state deciding the earlier history seems hard to do. For example, Hawking-Hartle no-boundary cosmology seems to end with an empty de Sitter space without initial inflation. Not what we observe. ( http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006hep.th...10199P )
"More information means more noise." - More noise means more information.
First rule of the net - when you accuse someone of something, first look in a mirror. Backwards, indeed. :-(
Do you have any proof that drew-oo has visited earth at all?
Anyone mentioning Penrose's quantum-woo must be off meds...
Excellent! So true for science, which is mostly in the business of disproving the wrong ideas. The remainder is indeed equal to "why not".
Tom:
Also true. Though mostly I remember it as "Darn, this experiment doesn't work either. Why not?".
Seems like we have several different uses for why not. Well, why n... huh.