Re: Can Hypnosis Solve the Other-Minds Problem?

From: HARNAD Stevan (harnad@cogsci.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Feb 21 1996 - 20:08:28 GMT


> From gv195@soton.ac.uk Tue Feb 20 20:04 GMT 1996
> Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 20:03:26 +0000 (GMT)
>
> that is all very well for the aspect of hypnosis, but what is your
> opinion about other supernatural events including ESP which actually
> have been researched on??? Gianni

Gianni,

Could you please describe the research results you have in mind? The
only ones I know have always turned out to be either (1) errors,
(2) fraud, or (2) chance coincidences that were never possible to
replicate. See prior skywriting discussions on both hypnosis and
parapsychology in:
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Debates/
Some references in:
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/debates.html

Besides the "kid-sibling" test for whether one has understood something
(if one has, one should be able to explain it so that a kid sibling
understands), there is also a "non-pop-mag" test for what one has
"heard" about a scientific subject: Do I know what the experimental
evidence was, or is it just that I've heard or read someplace that
"they've found that..."

Pop-mag evidence is o.k. out in the world of hearsay, but for a
university course (or a court of law) one needs to do a bit better than
that. Suppose one's lunch depended on it...

Chrs, Stevan



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