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Fool wrote

Reply to comment by MHC in theorists you regret reading? by Dumai

Yes, exactly. There is a midpoint in most things that needs to be reached.

Critical Reflection is a good example of this, Social Work is a profession built on knowledge through direct experience and reflection on this - as there is no way to quantify this type of knowledge, practices are written off as unscientific, and overruled by "scientific" practices often based on coercive studies which only cover the issues rather than address them.

Nature has no laws

I take this in as not so much that there is no physics, etc. but that the "rules" we have for these things are only approximations based on observations made in regards to these things. ie. This information assists us in understanding these things, and predicting the outcomes, but the fact that certain observations contradict each other shows that these observations are not hard "laws" of how things much react. Take the example of General Relativity vs Quantum physics, both work but conflict in regards to how things work.

Of course people have trouble not taking these ideas as simple yes or no, there is a grey area of possibility, and often things fall in here.

I would also bring up the concept of astral projection - a person's consciousness leaving their physical body. Science says it's not real, but many people believe in it, and the construction of certain pre-historic monuments only make sense if people were able to view the landscape while flying. This may be what they were discussing with people rising from chairs, as such it is not inconsistent with "laws of nature", as the physical body did not fly, but an entity in a non-physical dimension (they call it the 5th dimension, after time being the 4th).
I personally have no idea if it is possible, but if true it would be evidence which explains some of these types of situations wherein people observe inconsistencies with scientific observable physics.

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MHC wrote

I'm pleased that you're interested in science. As I was told by an individualist chieftain, that technophobia was de rigueur! Psychological theories were taught outside their validity. Maslow was based on a sample of American academic high achievers like Einstein. Yet his needs hierarchy got taught to lower-range accounting students in Australia! Similarly textbooks memorized overseas, were based on unethical experiments that may not be repeated nowadays! And anyhow, college funding was devoted to teaching the same--not conducting (say validation) research. Also governments proclaim which patch of dirt is reserved for wildlife. So indeed human legislation even applies to nature! I recall an anarchist book club prescribing so much reading that it couldn not possibly be critically discussed at meetings! All that was required, I gathered, was full-throated adulation. This to me was hagiography. Guru so-and-so said that the-moon-is-made-of-green-cheese, so no alternative theories were allowed! There are social sciences in which people's beliefs were important. For example, in a marketing project, the client was a retailer. And its chief explained that when the store's ownership had changed from Protestant to Catholic, its sales doubled! Open mindedness has been important in innovation. Whereas the papacy had persecuted Gallileo for claiming that the cosmos was not a simple sphere. Indeed particle wave duality was not taught to me until what is here second year university.

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Fool wrote

I think I now understand what you were mentioning about rejection by Anarchists. Many Anarchist can take a fundamentalist stance where certain ideas can't be challenged, so even attempts to clarify can be met with aggression.

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MHC wrote

Yeah. I had come across authoritarianism in a supposedly broad socialist party. That turned out to be run by un-reformatted old school commies! But finding devotion to the One True Guru amongst supposed freedom lovers, was a bit much. I happened to score Anarchist, and so came here.

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