🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <146@oliveb.UUCP> prs@oliven.UUCP (Philip Stephens) writes:
>In article <447@husc6.HARVARD.EDU> greg@endor.UUCP (Greg) writes:
>>An idea that cannot be evaluated (such as Mitsu's claims of mind-reading) is
>>neither true nor false, neither real nor unreal.  It is a non-statement about
>>reality.  It adds nothing to an understanding of nature.
>>
>>"This isn't true; it isn't even false!" - Wolfgang Pauli
>>gregregreg
>
>Nonsense.  Because he did not propose specific particles or equations he is
>being imprecise?  Hardly.

Whatever makes you think that I insist that a sound idea needs to propose
specific particles or equations?  I never said or meant anything of the kind.

What I did mean is that Mitsu gave no explanation of what he means by
telepathy.  The best that I can tell from his accounts of mind-reading is that
he thinks that telepathy is any extraordinary coincidence between his mental
state and someone else's.

You cannot merely collect a list of coincidences, no matter how extraordinary
or unusual, and call it a phenomenon.  It is more than likely that you are
looking at many different phenomena.  Which is exactly what I think of Mitsu's
examples:  Each anecdote is its own phenomenon.  No two anecdotes have anything
to do with each other, except that they were observed by the same person.

>Before one gets to the point of proposing a
>specific experiment, one discusses hypothesis, wild theories, hunches,
>counter proposals, past experience, and in some fields one even discusses
>--gasp-- folklore.

I saw no hypotheses, wild theories, tame theories, hunches, assertions,
proposals, or counter-proposals in Mitsu's posting.  I only saw past experience
and folklore.  I did see final conclusions (that is, Mitsu has concluded that
he has telepathic powers), but all this stuff in the middle that you're talking
about was missing.
----
gregregreg