The science of opinion ...

How to Clone a Pseudo Skeptic 🤨 🤨 🤨 🤨

1. Assume a condescending air that suggests your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Employ terms such as "ridiculous" or "trivial" in a manner that suggests they have the full force of the science community.

2. Reinforce the popular misconception that certain subjects are inherently unscientific.

3. Arrange to have your message echoed by persons of authority.

4. Avoid examining the actual evidence. This allows you to exclaim, "I have seen absolutely no evidence to support such ridiculous claims!"

5. Insist that the subject device is easily explained by conventional science so there’s no mystery there.

6. Since John Q Public doesn’t appreciate the distinction between evidence and proof, do your best to obscure the difference.

7. Use the tried-and-true skeptics expression, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” as much as possible.

@teo_audio Do we have any examples of reformed "dogmatic mindset negative proofing types" and their redemption stories? Likely not to help, given the ’type,’ but may make for interesting reading....

Erik was smart enough from the get go, IMO, but I’ve noticed recently that he has decided to go more public with his thoughts and ideas on how intellectualism, discovery work, and exploration works - re some of the threads he has started.

I sensed he had it in him to do so..and he does...

Thus I find it is more of a internal psychological perception and perceptual base issue than anything else.

eg, in congruent fashion of illustration of the base required re shifting one’s self... never sign off a letter with ’take care’, but sign off with ’take risks’.

These sort of perceptual base shifts can’t happen over night and take years years (even decades) to execute. Slow boil, slow burn. It is the nature of the mind. Most that make it to this nebulous ’there’ point, have had things in their lives that seeded that coming condition of mind. Eg, stress and extremes can be very useful, in some critical or fundamental ways, when in the right life at the right time.

Thanks, @teo_audio   I meant in the greater human historical universe...I'm guessing here, but there are likely to be some luminary examples and they may even have written about their transformations / shifts....

Then we get into the concepts behind the origins of science, which is philosophy, and that can garner some very nasty barbs from the overtly dogmatic.....

Oh, my, it’s getting deep in here! Where are my wadin’ boots?