Fact Checking

[degringolade]

 

New Ink Art / Alfred Freddy Krupa/ Reductivism & Minimalism "en plein air" (below zero °C)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

Juvenal

I am supposing that my current little foray into the occult and steampunk style mechanisms are a symptom of a larger problem.  I really am having a lot of trouble not questioning just about everything that comes across my field of vision as to whether or not it actually is the way that it is being portrayed.  

Now, this doesn’t apply to everything, I feel that the ideas that my sink contains a couple too many dishes that need a washin’ and that the wind chimes are telling me that things are happening outside can be trusted as valid.  My sense organs, despite the protestations of Mr. Schopenhauer seem to be pretty reliable.

But it seems that the farther away in space and time the information that I am privy to, the less reliable the “truth” of those statements.  There is also the problem of scoring “information” along the axis of objective to subjective when it is delivered to me.  While the wind chimes tell me that the weather is flexible, and I feel that the temperatures given to me over the internet for places far away (current temperature in blenheim sc = 52℉ and don’t ask why that popped up when I started typing “current temperature” into Google!!).  But when I hear about oncoming snowpocalypse and other things I start getting a little leery.  When the descriptions of the problem have demands for federal compensation attached, I feel that there may be cause for doubt.

Things get even worse in the political arena.  Edward Bernay’s children are assiduous in their studies.  The truth presented by those descendents have been polished to a fine luster, but bear little relation to the complexity of the truths that out there in the real world.

Where this is going is the science that is being bandied about in today’s world may well be similarly tainted.  

Folks brought up Einstein’s dismissal of Reich’s work and seemed to think that settled the issue.  After all, wasn’t Einstein the smartest person ever?  So if Saint Albert of nuclear weapons thought it was wrong and dismissed it, who are we to challenge?  Plus the fact the psychology professors of the day all said the idea was balderdash.

I am mostly thinking about this because I am curious.  What I am curious about (damn you John Michael) is how hardcore materialists went about doing their measurements to “disprove” the theory.  If orgone is a separate type of “stuff”, how are you measuring it?  It seems like there is an assumption of a relationship between the object being studied (orgone) and the metrology available to the researcher.  The old saw “if all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail” comes to mind.

So right now I have to read enough and try to understand enough to see if this is even a do-able project.  I am not a huge fan of indirect measurements, because as soon as that starts occurring, you fall back into the problems stated in the first part of this piece.

Comments

sense organs

[chefxh]

Yeah, they work to a degree. Beyond that I recall that all is illusion. I suspect there is much we cannot sense or prove.

That place came up because Blenheim SC is where they make the best ginger ale In The World.

EINSTEIN CANNOT HANDLE REICH

[mschmidt]

Maybe I sounded like a smart ass, but I think the Einstein involvement is encouraging not discouraging.

Einstein thought Reich's research lacked experimental rigor, but that brings up the question of whether there could be experimental rigor, under the circumstances. Science does not extend beyond imagination and maybe Reich and Einstein were imagining different things.

"Upon further correspondence from Reich, Einstein replied that he could not devote any further time to the matter and asked that his name not be misused for advertising purposes."

That further correspondence might be Reich trying to tell Einstein that he was imagining the wrong things. It seems to me that might be where to look – after Feb 1941. Reich must have been saying,” but you do not understand – it is X not Y!”

Einstein might not have been the best scientist, but you could do worse when you are after a scientific opinion of Reich’s experiments. For example, you could believe what I say below.

I still say it is wrong to presuppose that "behavior is systematic", i.e., accessible to science, and for this reason, behavioral science cannot be truly scientific.

To say behavior is systematic is true simply because behavior can be systematic. It is called predictable behavior. Is all behavior predictable?

Certainly not; for example, responses to fear and evasive behavior intended to be unpredictable.

If behavior can be un-systematic, then the presupposition is false. So, I say do not believe any scientific conclusion about behavior. The conclusion probably applies to the cases studied; but never universally. So how can there be scientific rigor?