Quantum Physics Woo - Sixty Symbols

[snooper2]

You start to get scared for the human race reading all these threads--

Keep in mind there are still a lot of smart people out there

Like this guy! He helps explain why woo is bad-
This video features Professor Phil Moriarty, a physicist at the University of Nottingham.

[MineralMan]

1. That was excellent. Sadly most people won't

see it, understand it, or accept it. They've already decided, based on misinformation and, well, woo.

[L0oniX]

2. K & R

[longship]

3. That guy's great.

And nothing gets me more upset than people pitching pseudoscience claptrap by playing the quantum card.

They think it's a trump card. Those who have knowledge of what quantum theory actual is and what it says, see that play as nothing but a Joker.

[napkinz]

4. So has the thread below been debunked?

Searching For The Science Behind Reincarnation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024282219

It's all beyond my ken, but I just want to know if there is still any dispute about the subject matter of the above thread (which has over 200 replies). Is the debate going on in that thread resolved? Has the issue been put to rest based on the findings of the physicist in the video you posted?

Thanks

[snooper2]

5. has anything ever been resolved here LOL

That thread is just for entertainment..

Like this guy
I didn't know this, but he even has a name!

Giorgio Tsoukalos!

[awoke_in_2003]

12. How can anyone take that guy serious...

His hair gets crazier by the day.

[edhopper]

6. Woo never dies

people still argue about the Shroud of Turin and the Loch Ness Monster.

Reincarnation would fall under the "How do you know it isn't true" argument.

[napkinz]

7. So is there any merit in discussing quantum physics and an afterlife or reincarnation?

I'm asking as one who pleads ignorance to a whole lot, and I'm not being sarcastic when I ask the question, "So is there any merit in discussing quantum physics and an afterlife or reincarnation?"

[Humanist_Activist]

8. No, because they have nothing to do with each other...

its the misuse of science terminology to advocate for superstition.

[edhopper]

10. There is no merit in discussing quantum physics

outside the field of quantum physics.
But seriously, this is similar to Deepak Chopra and others who don't understand what quantum physics claims and doesn't claim.
Absent any evidence an afterlife exists at all, this kind of speculation is just spinning tales.
I can't find the link, but Daniel Dennet says some pertinent things about this.

[NuclearDem]

11. But, as Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum mechanics teaches us

That anything can happen at any time for no reason. Also, eat plenty of oatmeal, and animals never had a war! Who's the real animal?

[edhopper]

18. I do like oatmeal

and i am told it is "heart healthy".

[napkinz]

19. Isn't Deepak Chopra a medical doctor?

Has he debated someone whose field IS quantum physics, and if not, wouldn't Chopra want to if he really believed and was sure of what he's espousing?

(I would rather watch that debate than Bill Nye and the nutcase Creation "scientist.&quot


edit: OK, I see further down that Quixote1818 posted a video of such a debate I had asked about.

[immoderate]

9. Wha? Some sanity?

I just got off a thread where I was told that "quantum" is my friend! And it explains reincarnation!

Woo!

--imm

[Marr]

15. I've noticed this woo version of the 'god of the gaps' approach myself.

Peek into any area that current science doesn't fully understand, and you'll find some charlatan standing there, saying he understands it, and that it all supports his claims, and you can benefit from his deep insights for just $20.

Sometimes it's a religious figure, sometimes it's a quack, but it's always the same bullshit.

[Marr]

13. Great video-- looks like he has a lot of others as well.

I'll have to check them out. Thanks for the link.

[Quixote1818]

14. On a similar note, this is a great debate between Sam Harris and Deepak Chopra etc.

Harris and Sherman get Chopra completely flustered. It's a very entertaining debate:

[immoderate]

20. Deepak is a wealth of nonsense.

--imm

[Quixote1818]

21. As Harris points out, Deepak is very skilled at using a bunch of

New Age terms and mixing them with quantum Physics. To a lot of people who generally are pretty smart but not well versed in real science, they often get taken in. The question was about proof of God and Deepak literally threw up a shit load of smoke an mirrors and then acted offended when they called him on his very unscientific BS. Then he goes the dishonest route like the religious right does by lying about Einstein and Hawking. I posted this video in the multimedia section and have people thinking Deepak won and Harris was smug for literally debating on the actual issue. It's very disappointing to see that on DU.

[PowerToThePeople]

16. REC

This is the first woo discussion thread I have jumped into. I am happy to Rec this thread.

Funny thing is, I have a copy of "The Tao of Physics" on my shelf. I got it from a second-hand bookstore because the title caught my eye. I do not think I ever got around to reading it. Now, I do not think I ever will.

In olden days, philosophers discussed ideas of meta-physics. Newton tried to use physics to prove the existence of a God. There was a period of time where I read a lot of these style works. But, even back in 14th century or whenever, philosophers and scientists knew that these ideas certainly fell outside of "correct science." and described the ideas as such.

[Waiting For Everyman]

17. That's all fine, he has debunked that guy that he's talking about

and there are probably lots of debunkable guys, but that isn't really the point is it? He probably can't debunk this guy, Andrei Linde, who had this to say...

“Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness will be inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other?”

Consciousness, eh? Inseparably linked to physics? Is that "quantum physics woo" too, then, or not? Just curious, how that would be classified?

I think he probably knows what he's talking about, as well as anybody does. Wiki bio here. There are some mysteries left to address in the QM area -- as the guy in the video admits too, he just doesn't address them.