Marty is on a roll!

[Alanzo]

Excellent choice on the course. Steven Novella is da man for sane critical thinking!

I read his blog often. He's all over You Tube as well.

I'm not an atheist but I have great respect for most all that I have read. Each one I've read, from Seneca to Epicurus to Sam Harris, has taught me the very healthy and vital skill of skepticism, and of valuing our life right here and now as a human being.

I believe that some atheists make the mistake that, as a human being, they know what happens to us after death.

Silly humans.

They all think they know.

Alanzo

Edit: Sorry! I thought I was answering another post. But I'll leave this here anyway because I keep mistaking you, lone star, for someone else.

 

[Terril park]

While I agree with SOT that there is not one scientific method, there is a constellation of generally related approaches. They all have to generally conform to Feynman's Cargo Cult Science Essay. And I can tell when a method is not scientific. What distinguishes the scientific approach is that it continually questions itself, within the paradigms of the boat analogy SOT posted on another thread.

But I'm not sure I'm a materialist. I'm an evidence-ist.

Right now I have not seen anyone come forward with any reproducible evidence for the spirit realm that I can not explain using materialist explanations that also fit with other phenomena in nature. I also see those who believe in the spirit realm engaging in recognizable logical fallacies much more often than materialists do (by orders of magnitude). And since so many on the spirit side have engaged in sloppy and wishful thinking, I think it's perfectly justified to say those are extraordinary claims, and I'm not going to go traipsing off looking into them without extraordinary evidence.

Philosophically, one really should not privilege one claim over another based on who's making it. Pseudoscience is a hobby of mine becuase it helps me to further define the fuzzy boundary area between hunch and bullshit. But it is exasperating sometimes, because of the jello, nails and wall nature of the debates. Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt isn't practical, life's too short for that shit.

My trust is in the people who took mankind from horse-drawn carts to the moon in about 300 years.

So, since I don't have any good evidence to invoke the spirit realm, I don't. I'm open to proof or evidence, but it's got to be better than the same old stuff that's been trotted out so far.

I'm perfectly happy to expound on that here, in the open playground. But I think it would be aggressive at best, rude at worst, to go over to Marty's place and piss on his parade, as long as he's not telling someone to avoid modern medicine. That doesn't mean I won't vociferously disagree in the public space, but his place is his place. If he wanted to play over here with us materialists, he'd be here on ESMB, no?

I too am an evidence-ist. I have had a lot of experiences of exteriorization, all of the
classical "3 feet back of your head" type. The majority of which happened in childhood
between the ages of roughly 8-14. I had not heard of scientology at that time. The first time
I went back of my head I didn't understand what was happening and was scared. For the next 6 years this would happen from time to time, and when out I'd try to get back in, and sometimes
vice versa. Finally at around 14 I was able to go in and out at will. Problem solved! I
then didn't bother anymore and lost the ability. I can't recall if at that time I thought it was
a spiritual manifestation. Many years later in Scn I also had quite a few exteriorisations. I have
never had exteriorisation with with external perception, but I know people who have. Marty
describes this happening to him in his latest book. A class 6 friend took up astral walking
and seemed to have a similar experience. Its occasionally reported in forums including by
critics. My mother described in vivid detail how she looked down at herself hiding behind a brick wall when a V1 dropped out of the sky. You'd know it was about to fall because the engine would stop, thus scaring her witless.

Past life recalls in auditing are experienced by just about everyone who does reasonably extensive amounts of auditing. I don't nessesarily consider my own such recalls as valid, or invalid. But once As a student I had to drag someone in off the street and do some dianetic auditing on them. On his first session this person went way back a very long way. He had never been a scientologist and had never been "programmed" to think such things possible.

One extrordinary experience I had while solo auditing OT 2 was separating from another being
and the affinity between us is the most intense I've ever experienced. This is not generally
explained by scn AFAIK. Someone told me that this seems to be a phenomenon known as
"twin-flames". Ones spirit splits and one lives many lives apart and one day re-unites again wiser
and stronger. There are very many forums for such people. The usual story is that they meet again have enormous attraction to each other and mostly seem to get into difficult situations,
magnified by the intense attraction. Whether all of these really are twin flames is probably questionable. The thing I found most extrordinary is that all or most seem to have some
special abilities such as empath, telepath, prediction and so on and everyone seems to find this normal.

http://harusami.com/phpbb3/viewforum.php?f=2


All the above are about personal experiences. The auditing has been very
beneficial also. The conclusion I reach is that whatever else is going on our
lives and selves have a spiritual content.

 

[Student of Trinity]

As I understand it, thermodynamics is an emergent phenomena . You couldn't possibly derive it from particle physics but nothing going on in thermodynamics violates particle physics. It is of course reasonable to expect that we will continue to discover emergent phenomena.

The problem is that 'emergent phenomenon' isn't really an idea, just the feeling that there should be an idea. If you start with a few atoms, nobody thinks thermodynamics is relevant, and everybody understands the basic mechanics of how those atoms move and shake around. If you start with a bazillion atoms in a pot of soup, everybody thinks thermodynamics is essential and correct, and nobody has any hope of understanding the motions of all those atoms. But just start following the thread from either end towards the middle. Start adding atoms, or taking them away. At some point thermodynamics and mechanics will have to either agree, or disagree, explicitly. Either we learn how we actually can derive thermodynamics from mechanics, or we learn that thermodynamics is wrong, or we learn that mechanics is wrong.

Today we're actually approaching that point, with experiments on little clouds of a few million or hundred-thousand atoms, at very low temperatures. It's not an obscure field of physics; a big advance in it got the Nobel Prize in 2001, and it's sort of a hot topic today, though still a fairly small research community. But it hasn't really made it out into public awareness much yet. Anyway, this is the kind of stuff I try to work on.

If God is our Cloud storage, the back-up and restore operations should in principle be detectable. Additionally, it raises the question of which version of us is restored but that is probably a tangent.

I don't know about detectability. Can Hamlet detect Shakespeare? I'd think not. The version control question is actually really interesting, though. Even quite apart from the question of whether God actually exists, the hypothetical scenario of God making back-ups of people might be a good way to explore some basic issues about consciousness. How much can I be changed, and still be me? If I have a major stroke, do I become a different person? What if I just learn something new, or change my mind about something? It's not just a matter of semantics, deciding what names to give things. If there's anything to be understood about consciousness as a robust phenomenon, it should imply some actual answers to at least some such questions.

I think you can define spirit in such a way that it becomes outside the realm of science, but as we were discussing in another thread, I don't see how anyone can assert actual knowledge in this area.

I'm not sure I see that either (how anyone can assert knowledge about unseen realities).

But on the one hand there's the issue quite apart from actual knowledge, of selecting strategies for action in the presence of uncertainty. Sometimes it's wiser to pick an assumption and invest on it, than to sit on the fence forever. And sometimes when you do that, and pick an assumption, there's no point in doing much looking back afterwards. Pick your partner and dance with them without making eyes at all the other ones. I wouldn't call that knowledge. I'd call that faith, and maybe even belief, because once you've made your choice, you just don't spend much time entertaining alternative notions. It's not necessarily stupid. Sometimes it's the wisest course. No risk, no gain.

And on the other hand, if you really want to be nit-picky, it's not so clear that anyone can assert actual knowledge about anything. My reading of philosophy and science is that the quest for certainty of knowledge is old, and has always failed. For lots of things it seems to me like a wise strategy to just move closure, pick an assumption, and not look back, at least not unless I hit some big and unexpected bit of adverse evidence that will force me to reconsider. The sun is going to come up tomorrow, I won't fly off into space when I step out the door in a few minutes, and past performance is a good guide to future results, at least up to a point. Could be wrong, maybe I don't really know all those things for certain, but ehhh, life's just too short, you know? So I'm going to get on with it.

 

[SpecialFrog]

The problem is that 'emergent phenomenon' isn't really an idea, just the feeling that there should be an idea. If you start with a few atoms, nobody thinks thermodynamics is relevant, and everybody understands the basic mechanics of how those atoms move and shake around. If you start with a bazillion atoms in a pot of soup, everybody thinks thermodynamics is essential and correct, and nobody has any hope of understanding the motions of all those atoms. But just start following the thread from either end towards the middle. Start adding atoms, or taking them away. At some point thermodynamics and mechanics will have to either agree, or disagree, explicitly. Either we learn how we actually can derive thermodynamics from mechanics, or we learn that thermodynamics is wrong, or we learn that mechanics is wrong.

Today we're actually approaching that point, with experiments on little clouds of a few million or hundred-thousand atoms, at very low temperatures. It's not an obscure field of physics; a big advance in it got the Nobel Prize in 2001, and it's sort of a hot topic today, though still a fairly small research community. But it hasn't really made it out into public awareness much yet. Anyway, this is the kind of stuff I try to work on.

That's an interesting area. I know of a former Scientologist who wrote a paper on Bose-Einstein Condensates as a model for consciousness.

Yes, the concept of "emergence" is possibly a bit hand-wavey. My general point was that we have examples where while we cannot currently connect the behaviour of the system to the behaviour of its members there is no compelling reason to think that there is a magic ingredient involved in getting from one to the other.

I don't know about detectability. Can Hamlet detect Shakespeare? I'd think not.

I think you are pushing the limits of the story metaphor.

To be fair, if you are positing an upload-only afterlife where the spirit originates in the body but then leaves the physical universe after death and never returns, it may be possible for that to be non-detectable (though it implies some non-physical mechanism for "reading" a brain). If a spirit is originating elsewhere and then somehow writing to the brain, this writing process seems like it has to have physical consequences since at least a good amount of how the brain works is certainly physical. At the very least, it should be possible to detect that something you can't detect has happened, which is kind of a form of detecting it.

The version control question is actually really interesting, though. Even quite apart from the question of whether God actually exists, the hypothetical scenario of God making back-ups of people might be a good way to explore some basic issues about consciousness. How much can I be changed, and still be me? If I have a major stroke, do I become a different person? What if I just learn something new, or change my mind about something? It's not just a matter of semantics, deciding what names to give things. If there's anything to be understood about consciousness as a robust phenomenon, it should imply some actual answers to at least some such questions.

Indeed. It will be interesting to see how this area develops.

But on the one hand there's the issue quite apart from actual knowledge, of selecting strategies for action in the presence of uncertainty. Sometimes it's wiser to pick an assumption and invest on it, than to sit on the fence forever. And sometimes when you do that, and pick an assumption, there's no point in doing much looking back afterwards. Pick your partner and dance with them without making eyes at all the other ones. I wouldn't call that knowledge. I'd call that faith, and maybe even belief, because once you've made your choice, you just don't spend much time entertaining alternative notions. It's not necessarily stupid. Sometimes it's the wisest course. No risk, no gain.

I don't think it is stupid but I just don't see how any particular choice is either warranted or more likely to provide "gain" than any other one. No option I have heard expressed seems more probable than a god who solely punishes people who believe things on no evidence.

And on the other hand, if you really want to be nit-picky, it's not so clear that anyone can assert actual knowledge about anything. My reading of philosophy and science is that the quest for certainty of knowledge is old, and has always failed. For lots of things it seems to me like a wise strategy to just move closure, pick an assumption, and not look back, at least not unless I hit some big and unexpected bit of adverse evidence that will force me to reconsider. The sun is going to come up tomorrow, I won't fly off into space when I step out the door in a few minutes, and past performance is a good guide to future results, at least up to a point. Could be wrong, maybe I don't really know all those things for certain, but ehhh, life's just too short, you know? So I'm going to get on with it.

I don't think knowledge requires absolute certainty. I agree that we can't know anything with certainty. We can assert a reasonable degree of certainty about many things. However, I don't see how you do this without reference to a method that has shown itself to be generally reliable.

 

[SpecialFrog]

I too am an evidence-ist. I have had a lot of experiences of exteriorization, all of the classical "3 feet back of your head" type.
...
All the above are about personal experiences. The auditing has been very beneficial also. The conclusion I reach is that whatever else is going on our lives and selves have a spiritual content.

Terril, what you are describing is the opposite of being an "evidence-ist". If you care about evidence you need to look the variety of possible conclusions that could be drawn from the evidence and try and honestly determine which one is most likely to be true. You also need to honestly consider whether you have enough evidence to draw any sort of conclusion.

Only seeing evidence that supports what you want to believe is called confirmation bias.

 

[Terril park]

Terril, what you are describing is the opposite of being an "evidence-ist". If you care about evidence you need to look the variety of possible conclusions that could be drawn from the evidence and try and honestly determine which one is most likely to be true. You also need to honestly consider whether you have enough evidence to draw any sort of conclusion.

Only seeing evidence that supports what you want to believe is called confirmation bias.

Well certainly my younger years there was no bias to be given confirmation. I had a
problem no one else could understand and I set about solving it, did so and then I forgot about it. Many years later reading scn books I came across the phrase "3 feet back of my head" and that was a description of what had been happening to me. I wasn't back then a scientologist and had never heard of the subject. Nor was I trying to confirm anything.

 

[NoName]

Right. Because all non-rednecks are so well traveled and well educated.

Not at all - I'm referring to the stereotype of rednecks being dull-witted and uncultured.

 

[SpecialFrog]

Well certainly my younger years there was no bias to be given confirmation. I had a problem no one else could understand and I set about solving it, did so and then I forgot about it. Many years later reading scn books I came across the phrase "3 feet back of my head" and that was a description of what had been happening to me. I wasn't back then a scientologist and had never heard of the subject. Nor was I trying to confirm anything.

The confirmation bias is what you are doing now. You are interpreting selected childhood memories in a way that is consistent with what you now believe.

There are other explanations that on the surface seem much more probable. Caring about evidence means ruling those out before reaching a conclusion.

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

..

--snipped--

Once I did learn critical thinking and become more scientifically literate, I spotted the tendency in me to fall in love with crazy and controlling sluts like Scientology.

That's why the abbreviation "STD" has a two-fold meaning, both Doctor of Sacred Technology and Sexually Transmitted Disease.

Actually, let's make that a three-fold meaning:

STD: Scientologically Transmitted Delusion

 

[Caroline]

Hello, Caroline.

Thanks for this. I'm going to check it out.

I'm so glad that you take the time to post here.

You are very good for Scientologists.

Alanzo

Hi Alanzo. You're welcome, and you made my day. I'm likewise very glad that you're posting here.

Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills looks and sounds like a really good course. I appreciate the recommendation.

 

[Alanzo]

..







That's why the abbreviation "STD" has a two-fold meaning, both Doctor of Sacred Technology and Sexually Transmitted Disease.

Actually, let's make that a three-fold meaning:

STD: Scientologically Transmitted Delusion

I can tell you that while I was wearing that Neuro-Nanny Software called "The Data Series" she gave me, I had no idea how much she was screwing people behind my back!

It was like a big fluffy, blousy shirt she gave me to wear. I was SO glad to throw that crap in the trash as soon as we broke up!

Alanzo

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

I can tell you that while I was wearing that Neuro-Nanny Software called "The Data Series" she gave me, I had no idea how much she was screwing people behind my back!

It was like a big fluffy, blousy shirt she gave me to wear. I was SO glad to throw that crap in the trash as soon as we broke up!

Alanzo

If blowing Scientology is analogous to breaking up with a slutty, cheating gf--then posting about the cult on the Internet must therefore be the proverbial "Revenge F*ck".

 

[Vittorio]

..

Re: MartyWorld

Remarkable stuff, a life-long Scientologist, as hardcore as they come, leaves Scientology after decades of psychological and physical abuse, suffered by self and inflicted upon others--all in the pursuit of wisdom.

A short time later, Marty emerged as a Homo-NovisNovis--a new breed one step above the COS's trademarked old brand of "Operating Thetan"--which he labeled Indie Scientologist.

So, how did the new-new Man fare? Judging from his website, not so well. Marty spent the first few years bitterly dead-agenting anyone who dared challenge the sanctity of the Commodore's "tech" or hallowed name. Who can forget the uproariously funny failed efforts to prevent people from "besmirching the good name of L. Ron Hubbard"? It's too God-awful-cringey to publish again, but if you want to know how much KoolAid Marty still had in his system many years after leaving the COS, just read his "An Ode To L. Ron Hubbard" from 2011.

Well, then there was real progress. Marty started to look and doubt the policies of L. Ron Hubbard--mainly because Marty saw his beloved church being cannibalized from the inside (COB) by means of Hubbard's sacred green-on-white Fair Game mandates. More significantly, Marty was himself being targeted by Hubbard's sociopathic scripture--and he didn't much care for that. lol

So, that began Marty's cult iceberg starting to fissure and crack and break away. Within the past year he dared to disagree with Ron's tech and was then promptly attacked by his loyal KSW Klub. Marty really didn't like that any more than he liked when Miscavige physically attacked him or his friends. Thus began Marty's next leg of the journey--to become a full-fledged apostate and publish heretical views of the tech not working--and Marty began to look for other answers. He had officially become a squirrel and he even publicly announced that he was no longer a Scientologist.

Now, Marty is reading voraciously and still trying to find some answers to the more than puzzling questions about existence nobody actually has an answer to. But Marty is convinced that he is on the path again--and who could disagree that it's a good idea to read what interests you and seek wisdom even in small portions.

So! Here we are with Marty's suggested reading list for other Indie Scientologists--or, more correctly, Ex-Indie-Scientologists who are seekers of truth. Many have observed on this thread that Marty does not include any additional books on "Critical Thinking" but I suggest that there is a reason for that. As cynical as it may sound, I think the simple reason he does not feel the need for scientifically-reasoned or logical filtering methodologies is that he already has one in the form of Hubbard's "Data Series" which purports to train people how to think.

If Marty can keep moving out of his personal hall of mirrors and shed the cognitive bias of "thinking with Ron's data" he may yet emerge as a normal human being one day. As yet, the jury is out whether Marty can see "outpoints" relative to "Clear" and "OT" while the Data Series is still running Neuro-Nanny software on his mind--dedicated to filtering out the rather obvious hoax of Hubbard's "tech" and entire "bridge". When Marty gets rid of the "Data Series" method of thinking, he'll know and say what every other completely average human being, Joe-on-the-street says:"Hey Hubbard's Clear and OT levels and Xenu are all complete bullshit! LOL "

I just wanted to remind everyone that with all the years and hundreds of books he has studied, Marty still hasn't figured that out yet, so it's no wonder that I am hardly inspired by his sharing a "must read" list of "enlightening" books. Let me say this to Marty, who is no longer a Homo Novis nor even a HomoNovisNovis:

Dear HomoNovisNovisNovis,

Try to forget about this "novis-novis" stuff, it's not working out for you. Go back to Homo Sapiens buddy. And read books for enjoyment, rather than trying to alter your species.
​

Good post.

But remember hoaxy; if Marty had to let go of his beliefs entirely, he won't be an expert or opinion leader anymore in terms of where he is at mentally. Arnie, Tory and Gerry will be.

 

[Student of Trinity]

[On my question whether Hamlet knows about Shakespeare:]
I think you are pushing the limits of the story metaphor.

No, I think this is precisely the point of the metaphor. Believing in God, at least the way I do, is kind of like believing in the Matrix. Everything we see and even we ourselves are just things God makes up. You can't possibly catch any physical traces of God in the universe, any more than Hamlet can get an inky thumbprint from William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare could even conceivably have written another character into his play, and had it say things to Hamlet that were just what Shakespeare himself would have liked to say to a guy like Hamlet. Some authors have gone on record about how they themselves would have related to their characters (Proust, I think, for example), and some have written themselves into their stories even by name (Stephen King). Supposing something like that happened, though, Hamlet would still just be hearing a bunch of words from another character in the play. The fact that that character in some sense 'was' the author would have no physical consequence that Hamlet could test.

Of course Hamlet can't actually do anything like that, because Hamlet is only a short text strings, and does not contain an AI implementation; here, I admit I'm pushing the metaphor. The real universe has a lot more bandwidth than Elizabethan drama and we have leisure to think about more things than just killing Claudius by Act V. With that greater bandwidth, we might be able to get a sense that we're in a meaningful story. That, to me, is what it means to talk about 'the spiritual world'.

 

[Alanzo]

No, I think this is precisely the point of the metaphor. Believing in God, at least the way I do, is kind of like believing in the Matrix. Everything we see and even we ourselves are just things God makes up. You can't possibly catch any physical traces of God in the universe, any more than Hamlet can get an inky thumbprint from William Shakespeare.

What we maybe can do, because the real universe has a lot more bandwidth than Elizabethan drama and we have leisure to think about more things than just killing Claudius by Act V, is get a sense that we're in a meaningful story. That, to me, is what it means to talk about 'the spiritual world'.

A sense of meaning, a sense of awe, love and purpose could all be things created by the right ingredients in the brain, but none of this is even testable or falsifiable by science.

And even if it was, Pascal's Wager still rules.

For me.

Alanzo

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

Good post.

But remember hoaxy; if Marty had to let go of his beliefs entirely, he won't be an expert or opinion leader anymore in terms of where he is at mentally. Arnie, Tory and Gerry will be.

That seems about right.

But, I am just wondering if Marty's research protocols are yielding useful knowledge. I mean, it's been 35 years since he started researching Scientology (in 1978) and he still hasn't figured out that Ron made up that whole "modern science" and "clear" hoax.

I am not sure, but I am just guessing that Marty has an MU on the subject of scientific research. Could it be the term "Double-Blind"? LOL

 

[SpecialFrog]

No, I think this is precisely the point of the metaphor. Believing in God, at least the way I do, is kind of like believing in the Matrix. Everything we see and even we ourselves are just things God makes up. You can't possibly catch any physical traces of God in the universe, any more than Hamlet can get an inky thumbprint from William Shakespeare.

...

Of course Hamlet can't actually do anything like that, because Hamlet is only a short text strings, and does not contain an AI implementation; here, I admit I'm pushing the metaphor. The real universe has a lot more bandwidth than Elizabethan drama and we have leisure to think about more things than just killing Claudius by Act V. With that greater bandwidth, we might be able to get a sense that we're in a meaningful story. That, to me, is what it means to talk about 'the spiritual world'.

I'm still not sure the metaphor holds up.

I can't quite decide if your God sounds more like Paine's God who doesn't interfere in the universe (and therefore whose existence is kind of irrelevant to us) or Al-Ghazali's God who causes everything to happen but generally does so in a way that appears to follow naturalistic rules (except when he decides not to).

A sense of meaning, a sense of awe, love and purpose could all be things created by the right ingredients in the brain, but none of this is even testable or falsifiable by science.

And even if it was, Pascal's Wager still rules.

Is Pascal's wager the reason you believe? I find that interesting. It always seemed like a bad bet to me.

And I'm not sure the things you mention are inherently untestable.

 

[hpm1999]

stuff

Lots of QUACKERY on this list- equal to Hubbard minus the cultic part.
But my expectations of Marty are especially low- despite his law suit

 

[hpm1999]

Jesus. Fritjof Capra. Scott M. Tyson, the "award winning" physicist who's never won an award in Physics or even earned a Ph.D. in it. Bruce Lipton, the crank biologist who had such a promising career in the 1970s, then went off the rails thinking he had applied Quantum Physics to biology. They guy who claimed he had "proof" that DNA can be manipulated by the mind, got shot down, then jumped back into the fray when epigenetics came along, claiming his work presaged that discipline (showing a complete misunderstanding of that subject in the process).

Shoot me now.

I wouldn't say that they know less than Hubbard about, well anything. But I wouldn't say that they know any more, either.

Marty needs a bozo filter, stat.

UDAR are you my long lost older brother! Your comments are most welcome!

 

[Alanzo]

Is Pascal's wager the reason you believe? I find that interesting. It always seemed like a bad bet to me.

And I'm not sure the things you mention are inherently untestable.

Well I deleted some of the costs such as the eternal damnation from a jealous God for not believing.

And kept all the benefits for believing.

Also, I dump belief where it is counter-productive, financially burdensome, annoying to others, dis-proven by existing evidence, or in any way inconvenient.

It's a much better bet that way.

Alanzo