People do not seem to appreciate my spiritual endeavours .. A proof is the comments on my last post...
Raza and bodi are my friends from Giki..and i still have this grudge that they didnt let me be their partner in writing the novelette for the first official Giki magzine.. btw, I did take my revenge later by never making it to the list of those 4,5 people who ever actually managed to read that story completely.. :)
Anyways, I have lived with objections on my spiritual endeavours for long..4th Dimension , Hypnosis, NLP , Silva, Reiki, Out of body experience.... all these things never made sense to anyone in my social circle.. But i have never cared .. i have my beleifs .. I do not mind changing them..and i dont mind putting them in front of people to get criticized... but till yet no objection has made much sense to me..
Raza...! your initial argument was that there is no place in the world doing research on such things.. We never talked about your opinions on the results..so that is a new argument that you are coming up with.and btw we can always have objections on all kind of experiments.. All great sceintists have experienced great opposition at their times.. This doesnt mean that they were wrong .. this does mean that they stood with what they believed.... but anyways this doesnt mean that i whole heartedly support Emoto..though i do know that even research in USA is not as good and authentic as it is considered..and if you dont believe me, i can cite a person who has worked in two research labs of NASA... do you know that guy Raza!! :)
And about my wasteful life...(was it wasteful or waistful??) ..well..I guess thats it is for me to decide how much value is getting added to my life by learning all these things... I have always liked paranormal things...and i enjoy doing paranormal stuff... I know people who spend thousand of rupees on expensive graphic cards and then they waste hundereds of hours playing computer games.. so...you see!! my case is just like that....with the only difference that the stuff i do and i believe has a lot to do with coincidences... and recently i have started to have a lot of coincidences.. and it will be very stupid of me if i fail to relate these increased coincidences with my recent increase in spiritual practices...
but offcourse i never mind people objecting me...how else will i ever know that i am going...
PS.. i miss KB here...though Raza is compensating his absence a lot by being as much logical as he gets at times..but still KB has his own his class.
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11 comments:
awwww... there there becharay ne bara dukhya blog likha hai
btw, i bought my card after waiting on it for 6 months :p, where did I spend more sameer?
Anyway, the point is that you should start thinking about settling down now. if you start now, u will make progress in 1 to 2 years.. so get on it pronto
Sameera!
First off, nobody would ever discourage you from having a spiritual side. Any practicing Muslim is also someone who believes in spirits and spirituality, so its perfectly good from my perspective that you seek a spiritual path. I do a lot of writing on the same, and although the tracks you and I are on are vastly different, I think the quest for higher reality stays the same.
I disagree with you on key aspects though, foremost that you are too easy a believer, and thereby you undermine your own quest by taking whichever spiritual door shown to you without really questioning anything.
Now, coming to your points:
Raza...! your initial argument was that there is no place in the world doing research on such things.. We never talked about your opinions on the results..so that is a new argument that you are coming up with.and btw we can always have objections on all kind of experiments.. All great sceintists have experienced great opposition at their times.. This doesnt mean that they were wrong .. this does mean that they stood with what they believed....
Do you remember you asking me what defines science? I told you to look at publications and research labs. Both of those are still valid.
An expositionary book with pictures is NOT research. A photo essay is NOT research. A movie is NOT research.
My point is still that there is NO research going on about this stuff, and you have not produced evidence to the contrary. I very pointedly accuse Mr Emoto of being a scammer at worst and delusional at best.
but anyways this doesnt mean that i whole heartedly support Emoto..though i do know that even research in USA is not as good and authentic as it is considered..and if you dont believe me, i can cite a person who has worked in two research labs of NASA... do you know that guy Raza!! :)
Exactly, dont even trust all scientific research but atleast have some criteria. An overhyped bit of research is better than absolutely no research at all (which is what the case is here). Even though all publications I wrote over there were always trying to present their results the best possible way, there was never lying involved, or fabrication of results, and thats what the Peer Review Process forces on you, if your even slightly worried about respect in academia, you wont lie.
Yes, there have been a few cases of people lying in peer reviews, but they were found out, and shamed.
This guy can claim NO research. None of the opposition hes getting is opposition a scientist would get (because a scientist would publish his material in scientific journals)
He has a new age book, a photo essay, and a movie. NO RESEARCH!
in short, my original point stays, because you havent shown me an example of research acceptable in a scientific community.
oye..tum nay to baat dil per lay lee hay...
lekan khair lets continue... :)
An expositionary book with pictures is NOT research. A photo essay is NOT research. A movie is NOT research.
Research is basically your experiment results right!! and that can be in any form. and i guess a person who works on experiments involving study of molecular level structure of water crystal using a higly magnified microscope has got no other option but to publish those images in a so called "PHOTO ESSAY".
so i am still not clear what you mean by a research...something appearing in a american scientic journal??? using some extremely complex technical jargoon...with citations in different other scientific publications...well! if thats the case then i guess you are completely confusing the word 'research' with the word 'research done in america'...so yeah! in that meanings Emoto has never done any research ... but ...i guess not every one takes 'research' in the same meanings you do...not everyone gets the chance to work in NASA labs.
Btw.. all the thing that i am learning ..most of them have my personal experiences..if i ever try to write about them or publish them..will i have to send my thoughts to your NASA labs first to get it labelled as a proper research... ???.. I am definately not interested in following the methodology of your labs..I may have my own methodology...i may have my own criteria that may or may not involve peer reviewing ..and i may develop my own methodoly that may even disapprove the NASA people's research..
the way the argument is going...is that you yourself has talked about a mechanism to do a research (focusing on a peer review ) and you are arguing that Emoto did not follow the methods that you believe are true... I know this one thing about research in Japan and China that there papers hardly ever make it to English scientific communities..i remember this about many electronics related thesis..Prof. Karimov can give you the exact examples..
we can have a simple comparison..lets talk about something that you consider acceptable as research...i just a wanna see how you prove its authenticity...so tell me about something...something that you really consider an example of research acceptable in a scientific community. ..let me just see the criteria..and btw i may or may not accept the tests and research done in things that i do not know.... thats a very old trick to win arguments..
oye..tum nay to baat dil per lay lee hay...
lekan khair lets continue... :)
Research is basically your experiment results right!! and that can be in any form.
Wrong. Heres are definition of scientific methods taken from wiki:
Although specialized procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, there are identifiable features that distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of developing knowledge. Scientific researchers propose specific hypotheses as explanations of natural phenomena, and design experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. These steps are repeated in order to make increasingly dependable predictions of future results. Theories that encompass whole domains of inquiry serve to bind more specific hypotheses together into logically coherent wholes. This in turn aids in the formation of new hypotheses, as well as in placing groups of specific hypotheses into a broader context of understanding.
Among other facets shared by the various fields of inquiry is the conviction that the process must be objective so that the scientist does not bias the interpretation of the results or change the results outright. Another basic expectation is that of making complete documentation of data and methodology available for careful scrutiny by other scientists and researchers, thereby allowing other researchers opportunity to verify results as well as to establish statistical measures of reliability. The scientific method also may involve attempts, if possible and appropriate, to achieve control over the factors involved in the area of inquiry, which may in turn be manipulated to test new hypotheses in order to gain further knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
Now the criticism of Emoto is that he does not put his methods together in a fashion that is repeatable for others and does not follow mechanisms that would exclude his bias or guarantee that he hasnt lied (the double blind restriction that he admits he doesnt follow).
and i guess a person who works on experiments involving study of molecular level structure of water crystal using a higly magnified microscope has got no other option but to publish those images in a so called "PHOTO ESSAY".
Wrong. Photo Essay implies that the text surrounding the photos was presented in non technical, non scientific terms. That is the criticism I have read about him on the net.
so i am still not clear what you mean by a research...something appearing in a american scientic journal??? using some extremely complex technical jargoon...with citations in different other scientific publications...well! if thats the case then i guess you are completely confusing the word 'research' with the word 'research done in america'...so yeah! in that meanings Emoto has never done any research ... but ...i guess not every one takes 'research' in the same meanings you do...not everyone gets the chance to work in NASA labs.
Btw.. all the thing that i am learning ..most of them have my personal experiences..if i ever try to write about them or publish them..will i have to send my thoughts to your NASA labs first to get it labelled as a proper research... ???.. I am definately not interested in following the methodology of your labs..I may have my own methodology...i may have my own criteria that may or may not involve peer reviewing ..and i may develop my own methodoly that may even disapprove the NASA people's research..
the way the argument is going...is that you yourself has talked about a mechanism to do a research (focusing on a peer review ) and you are arguing that Emoto did not follow the methods that you believe are true... I know this one thing about research in Japan and China that there papers hardly ever make it to English scientific communities..i remember this about many electronics related thesis..Prof. Karimov can give you the exact examples..
Not American. Every scientific community in the world has the peer review journals process in place. Even Pakistan, let alone China and Japan (some of whom by the way have more competetive and well established and higher integrity (more rigorous) scientific bodies than America).
If you have your own methodology, you cannot claim it as scientific method. All scientists follow mechanisms such as reproducable results (Emoto hasnt put his methods out in scientific terms that scientists can reproduce to challenge him), ensuring freedom from bias (your convictions are not scientific fact).
It isnt about NASA labs, science goes much beyond what I might have been exposed to. Peer review ensures that your methods are reproducable and scientificially correct and double blind ensures they're free from conscious or unconscious bias.
The debate about Emoto is not about the contents of his research (like you suggested all scientists face opposition), at this point the objection from the scientific community is that it isnt research. His claims were dismissed as such by scientists about 6 years ago, and have consistently been a thorn in his side, but he has NOT tried to do anyhting about it. He hasnt published his methods in a technical (thus reproducible) fashion nor has he incorporated mechanisms to ensure the integrity of his work (double blinding)
we can have a simple comparison..lets talk about something that you consider acceptable as research...i just a wanna see how you prove its authenticity...so tell me about something...something that you really consider an example of research acceptable in a scientific community. ..let me just see the criteria..and btw i may or may not accept the tests and research done in things that i do not know.... thats a very old trick to win arguments..
Okay, I'll even come to your side of the spectrum and give you an example of research into the soul. Heres the research group I told you abour http://veritas.arizona.edu/ . Notice the differences in their methods versus Emoto's. They have published their research in scientific journals (and their publishing means that their work has been put before a scientific body that examined it and gave it the OK). They detail their methods in a reproducible way, and ensure that their resutls are not swayed by bias and common tricks psychics use (incidentally tricks also used by Silva... called cold reading). Notice the lengths they go to to eliminate bias and fraud in a demonstrable way.
Finally notice that they are tied to a University (which should also be something you look at, links in the academia and not commercial scam artists like emoto who gets his money from writing new age spirituality books and movies). This ensures that their research is done in a scientific environment, for scientific goals, not commercial ones. Their funding comes from the government, and they have no incentive to lie.
by the by this is interesting:
The James Randi Educational Foundation has a standing offer to Emoto since 2003 to give him 1 million U.S. dollars if he can demonstrate his claims with a double blind procedure. Emoto has not responded to the offer.
:D
wonder why...
also look at:
Structured Water Psuedoscience:
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/clusqk.html
And the Placebo effect (from the last time we met)
http://skepdic.com/placebo.html
Raza..lets just stick to the basic things..you are deviating things...let me make this one more attempt to bring the things back to the center...
Since YOU consider wikipedia as an authentic source (i wonder why, can you give your reasons for accepting something that can be edited by any person in the world..even i have changed a few wikis).....it, the wikipedia defines RESEARCH 's main identifying things to be
Formation of the topic
Hypothesis
Conceptual definitions
Operational definitions
Gathering of data
Analysis of data
Conclusion, revising of hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research
There is no requirement of Peer Reviewing..The whole wiki never described any peer reviewing thing... but dont worry i will still talk about it..its just that i want to clearify that you are not staying on the track and are deviating from the topic by giving importance to irrelevant and trivial things..
Now the criticism of Emoto is that he does not put his methods together in a fashion that is repeatable for others and does not follow mechanisms that would exclude his bias or guarantee that he hasnt lied (the double blind restriction that he admits he doesnt follow)
WRONG!! Lets see how..there are two objections
not repeatable
double blind
REPEATABLE:
Emoto's experiements are repeateable...Not only that the whole process has been described on the same wiki from where you learnt all the things against him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto) but also on NBC's website where they even tell you to experiment it yourself.. They the NBC guys call him a researcher btw...
(http://www.nbc10.com/news/5455548/detail.html)
http://www.nbc10.com/news/5476558/detail.html)
DOUBLE BLIND
....now lets go to the "double blind" thing...Lets go into its detail and the 1million dolar offer..its a link from the same wiki site that says:
In 2003, skeptical writer James Randi posted an item inviting Emoto to perform his tests under double-blind procedures (a strict standard in which researchers don't know which samples are part of the experiment and which are only there for comparison) and promised to pay him $1 million if the tests confirmed his earlier results. In last week's interview, Emoto said he had never met anyone who had challenged him directly, then went on to say that he didn't "understand this double-blind too much."
Emoto approaches the issue of objectivity from a radically different perspective: Since each person's state of mind will affect the water, and since much of the experiment is based on the "consciousness of wanting to find that beauty," then a person with a neutral or disinterested perspective might not find the crystals at all, he said.
so are you getting it..the water gets effected differently by the thoughts of different people..so you can not go for the blind test.. Blind test can be used only at the places where the state of changing a person mind wont effect the result..Here , the results WILL be effected..and thats the basic essence of the whole research...the way you presented this thing was as if Emoto was denying any offer of the peer review and was hiding his findings...he, instead, has described his method so clearly that even you yourself can do them to check their authenticity..What else do you want..
Is it clear now.. i have given two things that the criteria you specified you use to verify authenticity.. I dont think its necessary if people take names of some stupid university or college but anyways if you notice such things then see...
http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2108.html
where Emoto gave a talk on water crystals at Xiaolan Community College, in Seattle, Washington
What else?? Oh!! read comments on him at http://66.201.42.16/viewitem.php3?id=511&catid=510&kbid=ionsikc where a woman who is M.D., Ph.D. , Founding President, of American Holistic Medical Association talks about Emoto..
So Dear Raza ..now i have used your own criteria to prove the guy true...I CAN definately give you more things but there are other important things in life and writing things here needs good html scripting practice from me... so i will have to write someother post on it..but then again..aint it a very useless thing to talk about.. Talking about existance of no research...and then denying an example ...and then keep reading it about from other websites to prove it wrong....when the problem is not the research ...but in my ability to believe those things quickly which you do not...you have been targeting the wrong thing Raza from the very start.... :) .. so let me be clear..i have been into paranormal stuff and though i have not been able to come up with earthshaking results , i have had enough experinces/reading that make me understand a few phenomenons... uff!! i am tired now...(ignore wrong spellings and grammer..am in no meed to correct that)
James Randi Educational Foundation
And about the skeptical writer James Randi who owns James Randi Educational Foundation and claims to give 1 million dollar to any person (not only Emoto) who can prove paranormal things...The guys has been criticized a lot..and was a member of the very Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP,USA.. The guy had to resign (fired??) when Uri Geller was filing numerous civil suits against him. The guy gives lame excuses whenever anyone tries to come up to win the prize..A proof is that fact that this guy denied a request of breathranism from one person but later himself gave a prize to a woman for the same thing.. and at that time too he didnt do it the method he claimed he will ..
....so what... still hungry...get snickers...
OMG... i cannot read all of this!!
you can always come downstairs to get the summary..
and let me be clear..Raza is a friend of mine who has worked in NASA...so when we talk , not everybody can understand...
First off, there is a distinction between research and scientific method. Research is a part of science, and thereby you cannot do research applicable to science unless you meet other criteria of scientific method. That research is associated with scientific method is in the definition of Research from the wiki link you cite.
I gave you the criteria for scientific method, which includes peer review. It was paraphrased, here it is again in case you missed it:
Another basic expectation is that of making complete documentation of data and methodology available for careful scrutiny by other scientists and researchers, thereby allowing other researchers opportunity to verify results as well as to establish statistical measures of reliability.
You ask me why I give such importance to Wiki, for one you quoted it when you posted on Silva so I assumed its a resource you trust, for another although everyone can edit Wikis, Wiki is "open source". Anyone can raise objections and contest material, thereby if there are differing opinions on a matter they are often contested. If you find anything misleading here, you can do the same.
WRONG!! Lets see how..there are two objections
not repeatable
double blind
REPEATABLE:
Emoto's experiements are repeateable...Not only that the whole process has been described on the same wiki from where you learnt all the things against him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto) but also on NBC's website where they even tell you to experiment it yourself.. They the NBC guys call him a researcher btw...
(http://www.nbc10.com/news/5455548/detail.html)
http://www.nbc10.com/news/5476558/detail.html)
When I say repeatable it is in context of technically complete specifications, which is not the case.
A group of students in colorado (i think) tried to repeat his experiements (the very last link on the wikipedia site on Emoto) and they came up with the conclusion that it was impossible to do it, because the specification is just too vague. (They also found that virtually all of the crystals across different emotions looked the same in general)
Emoto approaches the issue of objectivity from a radically different perspective: Since each person's state of mind will affect the water, and since much of the experiment is based on the "consciousness of wanting to find that beauty," then a person with a neutral or disinterested perspective might not find the crystals at all, he said.
so are you getting it..the water gets effected differently by the thoughts of different people..so you can not go for the blind test.. Blind test can be used only at the places where the state of changing a person mind wont effect the result..Here , the results WILL be effected..and thats the basic essence of the whole research...the way you presented this thing was as if Emoto was denying any offer of the peer review and was hiding his findings...he, instead, has described his method so clearly that even you yourself can do them to check their authenticity..What else do you want..
First off he hasnt presented his methods in a way that I can do it, or even you can. I've cited you a link where a group of students tried to replicate his results and couldnt simply because there wasnt enough information, and what he did give did NOT give any fancy results.
His saying that you only find the crystals when you WANT to consciously find them, doesnt that send off warning signals? The blind tests do NOT impact the conditioning of the water (that would cause the crystals to form). They are there to discourage people from finding the crystals they'd like to find.
What Emoto is essentially saying is that you consciously look for crystals that support your hypothesis. Either that, or I misunderstand you.
At any rate, theres nothing stopping people from using all their mind power when they're creating the crystals. However if they start using their mind power when photographing the crystals, then you basically are never going to be wrong :).
Since he says its language independent, he could follow blinding by cursing in one language and hiring the photographer of a different origin who is unaware of what to look for.
But then no...you have to consciously look to find structure right.. So you have license to fabricate any relationship you want.
And it is true that Emoto has not published in peer review, nor are his methods repeatable (I once again urge you to read the report of the psychology class that tried to redo his experiments).
By the way, the *Photo Essay* he has out is in the American Journal of Alternative Medicine. So it is clearly not a case of him not having access to scientific journals or anything like that. He merely, for some reason, does not put his research out in a scientific way.
What else?? Oh!! read comments on him at http://66.201.42.16/viewitem.php3?id=511&catid=510&kbid=ionsikc where a woman who is M.D., Ph.D. , Founding President, of American Holistic Medical Association talks about Emoto..
I didnt give my links any credibility just because they were written by Phds. Nor because any TV station called someone a researcher, because I am a "researcher" and that doesnt really mean anything.
Masuro emoto ofcourse could be called a researcher. He is after all a Phd, even if thats from the Open University of Alternative Medicine in India or whatever.
So Dear Raza ..now i have used your own criteria to prove the guy true
You havent *proven* anything. Nor have I *proven* anything. Lets not claim results we havent got. Neither of us is Masuru Emoto :D
Talking about existance of no research...and then denying an example ...and then keep reading it about from other websites to prove it wrong....when the problem is not the research ...but in my ability to believe those things quickly which you do not...you have been targeting the wrong thing Raza from the very start.
Well this has been an encouraging exercise for me because I've gotten you to read about him, even if that has been from the section of Wikipedia that was sympathetic to him :D.
The last time we talked, you gave me an example of the "science" of your stuff, do you remember? That they have captured the katra or whatever with some magnetic resonance stuff. And I dismissed that and said tahts not science. And we had a whole discussion on what science is then, and I told you that the body of knowledge that is accepted in universities and scientists is science (becuase science is a function of what we know).
Do you remember that debate? We ended on whether science is the same as knowledge.
So clearly, my saying that there is no research on this was in context of scientific research. I have shown you how this isnt research, the guy hasnt put out a scientific publication and that he doesnt shield his results from bias (the requirement again is that you dont need to be unbiased when cursing/being nice to the water crystals, but be unbiased when filming it).
If you think the Randi stuff is non-credible then I'll drop that argument. Anything that either one of us doesnt trust becomes a red herring.
so let me be clear..i have been into paranormal stuff and though i have not been able to come up with earthshaking results , i have had enough experinces/reading that make me understand a few phenomenons... uff!!
The way it will work out Sameer (and you can put this upto my being in tune with the cosmic energy of your future) is that you will realise that these things do not bring any appreciable value to your life, eventually, and will discover how people can take advantage of your genuine longing for spirituality in order to fulfill their own very material need for money. However, you will do that only when you've paid a very hefty physical and career price for it.
From various parts of our conversations I've come to see that you want to lose weight but you dont because a lot of your time is spent in this stuff. You want to be progressing career wise but dont because you spend your time and money on this.
There is a time when one needs to look around and evaluate what is holding him back in life, and drop it like it never existed. Tell me this, do either me or Bodi still prefer games over advancement in life?
What kind of spirituality inhibits a person's personal life? What is the difference between your tablighi jamaats gasht and making you lose ICI mails and these tapes and meditations and 15000 rupee conferences?
What kind of spirituality is so corporate, so manufactured, so marketed, so prepackaged into nice little consumer boxes?
You are supposed to be a free man, free from anything that enslaves you. IF you have control over this, IF you can give this up and focus on other things in your life that absolutely need your focus, and IF this is not hampering your career and health, I would have no objection to it, nor would I write so much.
But I dont see it that way. I see you held hostage to this. And I dont think one has an indefinite time in life.
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