What is it about woo that upsets you?

It's better than being wrong. It's also a discussion forum so if you post something don't be surprised to find a differing opinion or way to look at the issues being discussed.

As you've pointed out...don't shoot the messenger. Thinking that you know what someone needs however is a sure sign that you are losing the debate. Personalizing is losing.

 

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I didn't know we were debating. I'm not really into competing in discussions, it's more about learning for me, and less about ''winning.''

Anyway, back to woo. Another definition that I've stumbled upon is that woo is considered by some, to be science ''mixed with magic.'' Woo isn't always that obvious. Not only is woo itself subjective, but no two people can agree on what the heck it is!

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can be a collective of formulative rational that defines its own sense of factualisation.

e.g
ambivalent flash cards of life reasoning
vs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs based reasoning

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contradictions in theme yet not always separate to someones concept of logical thinking.

it could be termed as collective subjective reality factualisation

a most reasonable choice of action of thought would be contained within boundarys established by the set of regulations of implied thought paradigm.

associate blue used to connect directly to the red is quite common. often because the orange & yellow & green are missing

 

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"Debating" in the sense that we are discussing a subject not "debating" in the formal, competitive sense. Apparently, it's necessary that I lecture.

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I agree that woo isn't always that obvious. One approach that I've noticed is that someone will agree with you only to turn out in the end to be full of woo.

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The approach is, "Hey I'm an atheist too, I'm not religous but I just think there is something more out there. I'm all for science. I'm just thinking that we don't know everything and things are always changing, you know, as we learn more. One day we may learn that the Earth is only 6,000 years old".

 

lol :=}

Could be a closet woo-worshiper. They can be more frustrating than a straight forward woo supporter, since you don't know what you're getting into, with the discussion.

Nothing that a good lecture couldn't cure.

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That's true. You make an excellent point.

 

You speak as a US citizen, I take it. I don't. But we've been through this before ad nauseam.

 

Ummmm "math as a virtual sensory organ"......."aspects of the universe we have no sensory organs to perceive"

Got it

So we have a virtual 1 and another (of the same kind) virtual 1 adding together making a virtual 2 of some aspect of the Universe we have no sensory organs to perceive any other way

Makes sense

Do I get a Elephant stamp on the back of my hand please?

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laymen version
people preoccupied with gender conformity
and the culture around demanding normative culture that demands a sense of expected culture norms as a form of culture.
then the behaviours and culture that gets normalised to define that idea of conformity to be a normal state of expected bigotry.
or
hyper gender definition by symbolism's to define a sense of normal culture.

... watching TV that stereo types gender conformity as a form of perceptual normal behaviour modelling...
to a point of caricaturing gender symbology as a form of normalcy
physiological gender is one thing, but mental and or spiritual gender in my opinion is a sliding scale with no right or wrong position.

i have worked with & partied with gay straight & bi & drag queens and prefer to only socialise in such places where LGBTQ+ people feel comfortable to socialise.

 

Expressing opinions is more like it. I don't feel any compulsion to fight with anyone who disagrees with me.

That seems to be Exchemist's idea too. (I kind of like it.) It needs to be more precise though and I'm not exactly sure how to do that.

Ostensible science pursued for what might be called religious motives? Interest in science motivated by the idea that science reveals the secrets of the universe? Interest in science motivated by a desire to conceive of the universe as mysterious and transcendent (even divine)? I think that a lot of the breathless and credulous lay interest in anything "quantum" can be traced to this. There's a whole genre of popular literature that tries to associate science with "eastern" religion. (The 'Tao of Physics', 'Wu Li Masters'.)

But that's not satisfactory as it stands, since JamesR's and Paddoboy's hero Carl Sagan seemed to be thinking in much the same "feed the sense of wonder" way when he reverently intoned his "Billions and Billions" as the music swelled. (I wonder if he ever knew the profound effect that his show would have on impressionable young minds down there in Australia.) Newton and Einstein had religious motivations of a sort for pursuing their scientific innovations. Even our own W4U with his rather Pythagorean mathematical mysticism.

So pointing to an underlying emotional motivation for being interested in science isn't sufficient. Something more needs to be said about the content and methodology of the "woo". So we seem to be back that the philosophy of science's long-standing "demarcation problem". The problem of defining what is and isn't 'science'.

Must "woo" even purport to be science? Much of it doesn't seem to. While "UFOlogy" and "parapsychology" try to be sciences, belief that alien spaceships are visiting Earth and that telepathy and other psychic powers exist need not be scientific at all. Is it still "woo"?

I agree. Many of our most common words are like that. (Beauty, good...)

Considering that this particular "skeptical" usage of the word "woo" is new (the word used to refer to what young lovers do), I wonder whether it even has a precise established (established by whom?) definition.

I suspect that it started out vocally, as a sarcastic little cheer at the end of an opponent's idea. ("woo-hoo") Then the first half seems to have become a noun, a term for whatever elicits the cheer. Apparently the self-styled "skeptics" started doing it first, since its use still seems restricted to things that particular group opposes.

 

Same.

Maybe the science version of ''woo'' came from the actual definition, to ''woo'' people or convince them of a point. Or to ''woo'' a person into a romantic relationship. In science, someone is ''wooing'' you to believing their nonsense.

And there's this:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

People exclaim ''wooooo'' when they see a magic trick. haha That fits, I guess.

 

Stealth woo?

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I think woo is objective, but we have subjective views of what defines it.

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Anyhoo, as I once heard: "Life is like a box of woo... so full of empty calories... or is that a box of chocolates? Nurse?!"

 

On the etymology of "woo", my understanding is that it is a contraction of "woo-woo", which is the sort of sound effect you often get in films, when something aiming to brainwash or otherwise befuddle the protagonist is happening on screen. cf "Ipcress File":

 

The human math was wrong. But the functional math unwittingly employed by the universe is never wrong. Any universal expression is always governed by a mathematical function,

The very essence of spacetime has a mathematical aspect to it. It's a result of spacetime configuration and potentials this configuration allows to become expressed.

My posit is that the universe functions mathematically. This is what allows humans to represent these functions with symbolic languages representing these mathematical functions.

Human can be wrong in their representative math, for various reasons. But that is not the gist of my argument.

I am saying that, because humans can represent the mathematics of the universe (right or wrong), it follows that the universe functions in a mathematical manner. If I see a fern and it displays a fractal petal organization, I can represent that mathematically. But the fern has already represented the fractality (an evolutionary asset) by emplying the fractal function in its growth pattern. The fern doesn't know that it grows in a fractal manner. It's DNA has the fractal coding through its chemical coding system. It is the chemicals which govern the fern's growth pattern, not the fern. The final result is a mathematical pattern.

My position is that all activity within the universe functions with a mathematical precision, which can be represented by human maths, to any degree of precision, depending how well understand the function.

And from your previous posit , you seem to agree with that.

Note that was my only argument. The universe functions in a mathematical manner, which humans can observe and codify into human mathematics, but actually that is irrelevant, except to humans, IMO.

Can we say that, regardless of human translation into symbolic mathematical language, the universe functions in a mathematical manner, from the very subtle to gross expression in observable reality?

 

[quote Wegs said,
Anyway, back to woo. Another definition that I've stumbled upon is that woo is considered by some, to be science ''mixed with magic.''[/quote]

I believe you are misinterpreting my position.

If woo is science mixed with magic, then removing the magic leaves what? Science? And how can we symbolize our scientific observations? How can we symbolize universal communication of information. The only language we have identified as having that functional property is the language of mathematics.

This does not mean the universe employs human mathematics. It means the universe functions in a mathematical manner.

My position is that what people see as magic is in reality an underlying mathematical aspect to all activity in the universe, from the very subtle probabilistic "fields" to gross expression in "physical reality". The mathematical precision has been misinterpreted as "ID" or "Gods will", but that is mysticism, no?

It all works in a mathematical manner. That is the only thing which can replace any mysticism associated with the workings of the universe, no?

What else is there? Anyone ? Mysticism or Mathematics? Woo or mathematical Precision?

IMO, there is nothing mystical about mathematical functions. They are hard firm rules of permissible behavior in the geometry of the universe. It ain't complicated.

 

Nope. Any physical process can be MODELED by a mathematical function. Those functions can provide answers that are close to correct. They will never be entirely correct.

And that mythical species I mentioned earlier would say that the very essence of spacetime has a musical aspect to it. Both are correct.

Nope, we can't do that. We can come up with good APPROXIMATIONS of those functions. But quantum mechanics has taught us that you can never be 100% accurate.

No, it has nothing of the sort. There is nothing encoding that fractal pattern. The resulting pattern is an emergent property of the growth of the fern that just happens to be fractal.

Again, no. You cannot use math to figure out if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead, for example. For other purposes (orbital mechanics, for example) you can use math to get very, very close to the correct answer.

 

You're still stuck on associating mathematics with the human symbolic representations. Mathematics exist independently from humans as part of the fabric of spacetime itself.

This is what allows us to represent it (right or wrong), with human symbolisms in the first place. How can that be controversial?

Note that the word "mathematics" itself is a human symbolic representation of naturally occurring universal values and functions.

We need to let go of this human perspective. Humans themselves are an expression of universal mathematics.
Nothing mystical about that.

 

Nope. Math is the map. The physical process is the territory. You can use a different map, and as long as you understand it, it's just as useful. Doesn't change the territory.

You seem to be hung up thinking "process" equals "math." It doesn't.

That is not controversial at all. Human symbolism makes it easier to understand the universe, and that's great. The mistake you make is that you think that symbolism IS the universe.

 

No, it has a wavelike aspect to it. Music is the human use of wave-lengths arranged in a mathematical pattern.

Still looking at it from a subjective human perspective. Look at it from an objective universal perspective.

 

That is just plain wrong. Fractal growth patterns are controlled by genetic instructions. Come on, that is fundamental.
DNA coding is a result of evolution and natural selection for efficiency and survival advantage. It has nothing to do with mystical motivation or random chance.