Lagayscienza wrote: ↑Yesterday, 2:47 am
Yes, and that's a shame because subjective experience is a very real, natural phenomenon which, like everything else, can be studied to further our understanding of it. And, after all, what is life for us without subjective experience? Maybe there is till as much for us to learn about it as there is about the universe out there.
Religions sparked people's creative imaginations. Now we dare not have an original thought lest it be contradicted by the new gods of the ivory tower - who are increasingly biased due to post-modernism, politics, ideology, commercial interests and, well, letting themselves be typical humans.
Science (like philosophy) was supposed to be an attempt at being completely honest, in defiance of our human frailties. The well has now been poisoned - universities are no longer trustworthy organisations - and my own faith in those particular "gods" is gone. I will still be aware of what they say but I'll also check all manner of alternative views, including those that are reviled by academia.
The problem with the interaction of science and mysticism is exemplified in James Randi's million dollar offer for evidence of psi, which was never successfully taken on in 50 years.
Thing is, intuitive things are not well suited to laboratory/test settings. Can an artist produce inspired work while in a sterile laboratory, attached to various measuring instruments, and aware that their every move was being analysed? Could a couple to have transcendent intercourse under lab conditions?
The most amazing feelings, sensations and ideas of life seem to happen "in the field", and they are not replicable in studies.