complicated (mis)using physical concepts as a form of analogy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_(esotericism) WARNING, PSEUDOSCIENCE IN THE LINK, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK So basically I have this annoying assignment in a philosophy of science course, which ask us to spot out the pseudoscientific and legit portions of an article http://www.suzymiller.com/bsb/FREE-FOR-YOU/rileys_story_suzymiller.pdf While I have no trouble picking out the pseudoscientific stuff, underlined in red in the attachment (there might be more), the fact that omitting these red alarming bits and the article still make sense started to make me wonder 1. In a Nutshell, the pseudoscientific sounding yellow bit, is the actual thing that happened is that (somehow), the therapist Suzy Miller managed to put herself in the shoe of thinking of the autistic Riley, and that the method claimed here is to try to thnk in the perspetive of the autistic thus allow one to be emotionally connected to them? That is ,whenever she mentions "energy", maybe it's a erroneous attempt to put into analogy of what the actual concept is, "the way an autistic think"? 2. More generally, when reading some esotericism items, I also found this weird thing that even if you completely ignore the non scientific "energy stuff", the remaining things is logical and reasonable. So is esotericism the result of some people trying to comprehend social phenomenon and interactions (which are known to be unpredictable, ambigurous, complex and hard to reproduce the responses in experiments (hence the distinction between natural and social sciences)), using some intuitive terms such as energy as a rough (even inaccurate) analogy?
There are two sides of the brain, with each side processing data differently. The left brain is more logical (cause and effect is 2-D) and differential, while the right brain is more intuitive and spatial or 3-D. Esoteric results when you attempt to translate a 3-D right brain concept into the 2-D left brain, since the left brain is the side that processes the words of language. It is not easy to represent an actual 3-D ball, on a flat 2-D piece of paper, because you lose the z-axis that makes it 3-D. However, you need the left side of the brain, since this is where language is processed. The esoteric is an attempt to use the words processing capacity of the 2-D left brain to represent the z-axis of 3-D. As a visual analogy, consider the 3-D images below. These look 3-D to the eyes, but if you touch your computer monitor, you will notice that these are flat and are therefore only an images of 3-D on a 2-D plane. The z-axis is approximated in an illusionary way, that gives the gist of 3-D, but still lacks real 3-D. The images of 3-D, below, require shadowing and highlighting to approximate the z-axis, with shadow and highlights sort of opposites; the contrast of light and dark points, attempting to generate an intuition of 3-D; esoteric. In one's own right brain, the z-axis is generated with an intuitive feeling, sort like an extra sense for the z-axis. Although this may be good enough for the individual, to reach others, you need language and language processing in the left brain. This falls short of the 3-D and will require contrast between high lights and shadows; esoteric. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My dance teacher is the one who finally "erased" all vestiges of my own undiagnosed hypersevere autism. This transition was miraculous enough, I don't even recognize my previous personality, if you could call it that. I uniformly preferred dealing with things rather than most people for most of my life. The talent I eventually developed for working with "things" remains (and some think even to a miraculous extent), but no traces of my previous extreme introversion are evident. My wife, whom I eventually met while dancing, is coincidentally also an SLP. These are actually medical professionals trained in the mechanics of normal and abnormal development of speech, which includes many neurological conditions including those diagnosed with autism and previously also Aspberger spectrum disorder. This whole category (Aspbergers) of autistic behavior is no longer recognized as such by the American Psychological Association. Autism, I think, is on the way out as a useful diagnostic category as well, to be replaced by observations and diagnoses more specific to various ways autism may manifest. Psychology may be a "soft" science, but it is hardly a "pseudoscience". At least, it is close enough to a hard science that one can build on decades of observations corroborated by the hard facts we are currently seeing in the details of brain physiology and chemistry. Calling psychology a pseudoscience is something only a SCIENTOLOGIST might do. Scientology, by the way, is both a cult and a pseudo religion. It should never have been granted the legal status as a legitimate religion it currently enjoys, but it is true that the same could equally be said of certain mainstream religious ideas.
I read some of that Suzy miller article. She either really thinks that stuff is true, or she is a con artist. I don't know which is worse. That kind of delusional thinking isn't helping anyone figure out what is really going on with things like autism. Higher vibrational children? Wtf is that? His light body was out of alignment with his regular body? Give me a break. If you are seeing that kind of stuff, you might be having a stroke.
