Boundaries of Science: Poetic Pseudoscience

Elsewhere I have rehearsed the idea that all cognition and the expression of this cognition in language or other forms depends on processes which might be called 'poetic'. The distinction which is sometimes made between empiricism and poetics, I would argue, is mistaken and that the empiricism of science for example is best understood as a particular 'genre' of poetic cognition and expression (which is not to dispute the very particular status and application of the genre). At the various boundaries of scientific practice this poetics becomes visible and the metaphors cease being covert and structural and start to appear overtly as em content. This is particularly evident (and to me irritating) at the boundaries where science meets pseudoscience. A lot of the language of pseudoscience depends upon metaphorical substances, forces, fields, and concepts which have no empirical validity whatsoever, and do not stand up to proper critical scrutiny. Here I am thinking about 'morphogenic fields', 'subtle matter', 'orgone', ' etc. These ideas, which may be beautifully rendered as literary poetry, become ugly and laughable when presented within the genre of scientific empiricism. Not only are they bad science, but they are also bad poetry.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• morphogenic
• fields
• subtle
• matter
• energy
• orgone
• science
• pseudoscience
• Rupert
• Sheldrake
• Wilhelm
• Reich
• poetics
• embodied
• cognition
• cogntive
• acting
• theatre

[harveyshideout]

all new discoveries and ideas come from the boundries not the centre

[inertialcapacity]

Science is not perfect. Things fall because they reject the lovelight from above -- explains falling as well if not better than gravity. If we consider the FMMC Electrical Meter for example we can see in series with a resistor that the meter is not actually responding to the wire outside of itself. We see a fat wire outside makes the thin wire inside a fast conductor, and visa-versa, a thin wire outside --relative to the meter wire -- makes the meter wire "fat" and a slow conductor. An inverse.

[theosophers]

Well, even though new pseudosciences are disappointing, you might read some histories of pseudoscience. I read "The history of pseudoscinece in America", don't remember the author, but it was a fun book to to read.

You seem to have a lot of thoughts about what spirituality might be. Spiritual experiences can be had from persons with spiritual gifts. It is likely that you already know people who have some interesting talents. You need to ask , for demonstrations of spiritual effects by them.