Graham Hancock, Carlson, & Shermer on JRE

Drama!

Shermer got owned in the debate, and the other guy on the phone also... when they had a moment to realize they were no match for Hancock and Carlson, they changed tacks and got much nicer and more agreeable.

The other Rogan interviews (I think there's 3 or more?) with Hancock and Carlson are really great to watch on YouTube as Carlson loves his slides and has a lot of great pictures from all his explorations.

I got Magicians of the Gods for Christmas and hopefully I'll have time to read it soon.
I go through phases of listening to Rogan . . . I find him pretty admirable, being so incredibly well rounded: MMA, comedy, podcasts, then interests in things like this . . . not to mention conspiracy, which I think he's very level-headed about.

With Hancock, I'm not fully with him nor dismissive either. I like him, his approach, attitude, and ideas. Some of them I wager he's right about, others, maybe not. But really the coolest thing about this sort of deal is that it can open you up to a whole other field you've previously dismissed. When you realize the contentiousness of it, it makes you feel like there's a bigger stake in figuring things out and small details become important . . . in the end, regardless of where you fall, you end up a lot more educated on it than you would've been otherwise. I found this to be the case when reading about Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, being the author of the Shakespearean canon. All kinds of things I would've likely never known anything whatsoever about becomes of the greatest interest to me . . . it's like solving a mystery, and everything's of critical importance. I do, in this case, firmly believe the Earl authored the works, by the way. At any rate, this is what this podcast reminded me of, because I suddenly found I had an interest in archeological things that the day before I cared almost nothing about.

I think I'm gonna start with the suggestion above: Supernatural. I've always been interested in how and why we suddenly, out of nowhere, seemingly, became so smart; human as we now understand it . . . same thing with that, whether I agree with Hancock or not, I imagine I'll still learn a good deal.
 
Yeah, in my opinion, Shermer and his operating tactics are very much laid bare.

Have you (or anyone else) read much of Hancock's material? I'm wondering which book to start with. I mean, I know there's Fingerprint's, but it seems he may've backed off of some of that so I hesitate to start with it. Any suggestions, anyone?

I've read both Finger Prints .. And Magicians. I'd recommend starting with Magicians, because you don't really need Finger's first as a prerequisite. Then, knowing what he has backed off from, you can go back to Fingers and read it for the fun of it, as its still worthwhile. Also, I don't recall Finger's covering the Younger Dryas comet impact hypothesis, which I thought was one of the best part of Magicians.
 
I read supernatural years and years ago, it seemed to be mostly about fairies...perhaps I should re read it

I seem to remember coming away with the thought that psychedelic drugs might break the filters that the brain enforces and allow us to peek into adjacent or subjective realities. By that I mean that what we see is a subjective interpretation of what is there. If there are beings, we might see them as reptilian or maybe as fairies. I think this kind of filter permeability might occur in other circumstances but more readily with these kind of drugs. It might explain a lot of the mythology we have inherited from shamanic times through Egyptian, Greek and Native American cultures.
 
I'mfamiliar with that theme from other sources but don't remember it from the book, I do remember the discussion about fairies in days of yore corresponding to alien visitations in modern times

Or something like that!
 
I've read both Finger Prints .. And Magicians. I'd recommend starting with Magicians, because you don't really need Finger's first as a prerequisite. Then, knowing what he has backed off from, you can go back to Fingers and read it for the fun of it, as its still worthwhile. Also, I don't recall Finger's covering the Younger Dryas comet impact hypothesis, which I thought was one of the best part of Magicians.
Thanks, Ethan. Good to know. I might start with that.
 
I Think that I can answer your question. The Electric Universe hypothesis has been disproven and gravity from dais objects are too weak or non existent.
But when the Leak Project (a YouTube channel) was interviewing John Michael Greer, at the end of the interview, he asked Greer why do people keep using astrology? Greer replied, "because it works."
John Hogue talked about astrology a lot in his works and in his many interviews.. He doesn't know what makes it work, but he does know that it works.
 
Throughout the debate, Shermer kept asking where this came from from and that came from. Hancock replied "not to my problem." The way I got this interaction was Shermer the Christian fundamentalists "where's this missing link?" Hancock: "not my problem."
Where am I wrong?
 
I have no idea what a "dais" object is, but I do know that the EU theory hasn't been disproven.
Thanks to modern technology, I meant to to say "said" object.
You know, the more I thought about astrology and it's origins, I was wondering if that perhaps in our ancient past, someone started to see coincidence with planet alignments and actions here on earth.
I believe that a few years ago, there was this story how unrelated things shown to have a causality effect on each other. And I thought that someone in our distant pass came across similar research showing how jupiter always seems that when it's in this part of your sky, this type of event happened. And I'm wondering if there was an advanced civilization back then, that maybe they wanted to create tools to predict the future, and they just happened to create astrology and through the ages, it is a great tool to use for making money and getting by. And that's how I picture Astrology being invented. Yes I have no evidence to support my hypothesis, but it does make sense.
 
Thanks to modern technology, I meant to to say "said" object.
You know, the more I thought about astrology and it's origins, I was wondering if that perhaps in our ancient past, someone started to see coincidence with planet alignments and actions here on earth.
I believe that a few years ago, there was this story how unrelated things shown to have a causality effect on each other. And I thought that someone in our distant pass came across similar research showing how jupiter always seems that when it's in this part of your sky, this type of event happened. And I'm wondering if there was an advanced civilization back then, that maybe they wanted to create tools to predict the future, and they just happened to create astrology and through the ages, it is a great tool to use for making money and getting by. And that's how I picture Astrology being invented. Yes I have no evidence to support my hypothesis, but it does make sense.

You're talking about astrology here: you do know that that's different from Electric Universe theory, don't you?
 
the role electro-magnetism plays in the universe and it seems to me could actually give credence to astrology.

Astrology is always debunked using the "gravity" Strawman. However, if we consider how planetary alignments may effect variables in earth's electrical environment like the Schumann Resonance, which are known to influence human behavior, Astrology becomes slightly more plausible.

Anecdote: I was a hard-kore Astrology Skeptic for decades. Then I met wealthy people who used Astrology to successfully predict financial markets. They convinced me there is something to it.

They don't like to talk about it because of the social stigma, but I had become comfortable friends with them via Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu comradery and long car rides to Jiu-Jitsu tournaments where we would discuss such things.

Unfortunately, I was too uneducated on financial gaming and the mathematics behind their strategies to understand them, and I retired from the Jiu-Jitsu industry a few years ago so I no longer interact with those people, and a couple of them passed away.
 
I've meet a few people that I consider practical and high functioning. That have told me they believed astrology was useful to them.
When I asked them how they thought it worked.. They tended to admit they had no idea, and then reiterate their belief in it's predictive capabilities.
Which I find,hard to argue with.
 
You're talking about astrology here: you do know that that's different from Electric Universe theory, don't you?

Yes, I'm quite aware of the electrical Universe theory, but it is a result of trying to figure out how things work like astrology with limited amount of what the universe is made out of.
Mysterious Universe did an episode of the origins of the study of Orgone a while back. And when you see people try to put together the Electrical Universe, and replace it with Orgone, then it's starts to make a little sense.

But if you want to know how astrology was invented, it was probably invented with big data, and comparing the positions of stars and planets. And that's my theory and to me at least, it makes sense.
 
Yes, I'm quite aware of the electrical Universe theory, but it is a result of trying to figure out how things work like astrology with limited amount of what the universe is made out of.
Mysterious Universe did an episode of the origins of the study of Orgone a while back. And when you see people try to put together the Electrical Universe, and replace it with Orgone, then it's starts to make a little sense.

But if you want to know how astrology was invented, it was probably invented with big data, and comparing the positions of stars and planets. And that's my theory and to me at least, it makes sense.

You are incorrect. EU theory isn't the "result of trying to figure out how things work like astrology with limited amount of what the universe is made out of" (whatever that is supposed to mean). Velikowsky hypothesised that the source of similar symbols and myths found all over the world was in a cosmic phenomenon that could be seen from everywhere on earth: Venus, which had arisen out of Jupiter. First it was a comet, but later it settled into its present orbit between Mercury and Earth. If his hypothesis were true, then he predicted certain characteristics of Venus which have subsequently turned out to be correct:



It's true that Velikowsky's ideas have been accepted by many EU people, but their theories are based on the idea that the universe is overwhelmingly composed of electrical plasma. They propose that much of what could be seen in the ancient skies could be accounted for by plasma effects such as Birkeland currents; that is, they interpret similar symbols from all over the world in terms of the depiction of plasma events. And that's where they link up with Velikowsky, because such plasma events could have been associated at one time with Venus.

That said, EU theory isn't dependent on the truth of Velikowsky's hypothesis: there is much other evidence in favour of it, and it too has made predictions that have turned out to be true. It's very far from being astrological or even remotely woo-woo. As regards Velikowsky's ideas, even Einstein was impressed that one of his predictions turned out to be true (see around 11:30 on in the 2nd video), namely, that Jupiter should be emitting radio signals.
 
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I wish E.U. folks would keep their Science well-separated from Dave Talbot's mythicism.

They believe ancient Sky Legends will lend credence to their quest for acceptance. I feel they just muck things up unnecessarily.

The "Gravity as an Electrical Phenomena" is where I feel they should focus efforts. Easier to document. Big, BIG pay-off.
 
I wish E.U. folks would keep their Science well-separated from Dave Talbot's mythicism.

They believe ancient Sky Legends will lend credence to their quest for acceptance. I feel they just muck things up unnecessarily.

The "Gravity as an Electrical Phenomena" is where I feel they should focus efforts. Easier to document. Big, BIG pay-off.

Fair comment, I suppose. They don't actually need to support Velikowsky's ideas, and it could be said that doing so does muddy the waters somewhat. Even so, if Velikowsky is indeed correct, and Venus is in fact a relatively recent addition to the solar system, EU theory would be sympatico with that.
 
Related to the EU thing and also my comment in the Tim Freke thread about science being fossilised at the moment, here's a splendid editorial from the Thunderbolts site:

Scientific Correctness

Jul 18, 2017

Think of the scientific method as the methodical application of human cognitive abilities.

Everyone uses cognition to some extent; scientists use it methodically. It works through the interplay of three activities: observing or experiencing or paying close attention to some particularly interesting thing or event; thinking of or imagining some idea that might explain the thing or event, giving it meaning; and testing the idea, verifying whether it stands up to further observation and experience and thinking, judging its truthfulness. (Although described here as three separate activities, they occur together and recurrently.)

One characteristic of the scientific method – and of any knowledge based on cognition – is that it seldom provides absolute certainty. Risk is an essential part of it. This is what makes it dynamic, adaptable, and, hence, useful. We are small people in a big and changing universe. There are always more things and events to experience, more viewpoints from which to observe them, and more ideas to make sense of them. This means the particular theories of science at any particular time are apt to change. In biological terms, they are “selected” by the intellectual environment of their times. Usually, they change in small ways. The big theories (such as evolution, atomic theory, and gravitation) are adaptable and can be modified to accommodate many new observations.

But occasionally new observations are so different and so many that a consensus arises to abandon a big theory and to develop an altogether different one. This is what happened when Copernicus’ idea of a heliocentric arrangement of the planets “succeeded” Ptolemy’s geocentric idea. The intellectual establishment of the time resisted the change, but the leap in progress of knowledge that accompanied the new theory abundantly repaid the “transaction costs”.

The multitude of discoveries in the last few decades has opened modern science to the opportunities of adopting new big theories. The competition of proposals is itself a process of discovery: Which proposed theory not only explains the new observations better but holds the greatest promise of aiding further discoveries.

I’ll use the term ‘paradigm’ for only these big theories. Some of their properties are: They provide guidelines for “where to look” and “what to look for”. They set standards for what constitutes a problem worthy of research and what qualifies as a solution. One of a paradigm’s greatest benefits is also one of its greatest liabilities: It provides guidelines (or excuses) for what to ignore. This saves time (that can be devoted to details of research) not having to consider “crackpot” ideas, meaning other paradigms that are substantially different. The history of science provides many examples of a new discipline making little progress, squabbling over fundamentals, until a paradigm is adopted. But at the other end, when a paradigm is becoming obsolete, the ignoring of alternatives results in “paradigm paralysis” that wastes time and resources trying to force-fit big anomalies into the undersized clothes of the established paradigm.

A paradigm does more than just make sense of existing observations. It leads to new observations, new data, new places to look and new ways to look, and to new technologies. This tension constitutes a creative dynamic. Paradigms enable discoveries that go beyond the limits of the paradigm, observations that can’t be explained by the paradigm, thus motivating a search for a more inclusive paradigm. This continues the process of articulation and succession.

But there are things that obstruct this process. One I’ll call “scientific correctness”: The (proper) concern that a theory is “correct” or “right” or “true”, that it “fits” or explains the relevant data, becomes confused with a pseudo-religious “Right” or True” that exceeds the cognitive domain of the paradigm. All other ideas come to be judged by the standards of the one. “Crackpot” becomes a term of dismissal rather than one of mere differentiation. The process of discovery gets lost in defensiveness.

A recent example of this is the behavior of the astronomical establishment toward Halton Arp. His observations of connections between quasars and galaxies put the brakes on the expanding universe and exploded the Big Bang hypothesis. But instead of saying, “Here’s an interesting observation; we don’t have time for it, but let’s see what he can make of it,” the reaction was, “Deny him telescope time and refuse to publish his findings and crop out quasars on photos of galaxies.”

Contrast “scientific correctness” with the concept of “domain of validity”. The former assumes that its paradigm is “right” and that all further observations can be explained, requiring at most tinkering with the details. This assumption of continuous cumulation of knowledge becomes absolute and straitjackets further discovery. It leads to stasis and intellectual death.

With the latter, science is seen not as the establishment of a catechism but as a process of discovering the borders. It assumes the continuous cumulation of knowledge within a paradigm will reach a limit. The cup of the paradigm will fill up, will reach a limit of explanatory power, and observations will spill over, that is, will be ill explained or unexplained. A new, bigger cup will be needed, a paradigm with a larger domain. In deference to Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge, this could be called “punctuated cumulation”.

Thus, one mark of a good paradigm is that it leads to its own replacement. This is the effect of Popper’s criterion of falsification. It means “true” knowledge is, in this larger sense, ultimately “false”. That doesn’t mean the knowledge isn’t useful for its time. It merely means we need to maintain a sense of humility in the face of our, and our theories’, mortality.

Scientific correctness rejects old paradigms as “wrong” and their proponents as stupid or evil. There can be only one “right” paradigm. With domains of validity, many paradigms can be accepted as true within their limits. Their intelligibility and the intelligence of their innovators can be appreciated. Science becomes a tool box with many tools (paradigms) that can be chosen according to their appropriateness for solving particular problems: geocentrism for siting a house, heliocentrism for sending a robot to Mars, something yet to be worked out for explaining quasars.

Scientific correctness masquerades in the dress of science, but it’s only a mannequin without the vitality of science. In contrast with the three aspects of cognition, scientific correctness refuses to look at new observations, refrains from considering new ideas, and disdains to verify new insights. It’s essentially anti-intelligent. It confuses verification with conformity; it replaces the innovations of intelligence with the parroting of dogma; it lacks the provisionality that keeps science always on the move. It’s a tyrant of stasis.

Mel Acheson
 
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