by Chris McKinley on Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:21 am
Sorry, dude....that was meant to be light-hearted and even a bit self-effacing. As to my feelings about the subject, I haven't actually posted them yet, either here or in the thread that spurred this one. I have only expressed a very strong opinion that trying to discuss this particular topic while simultaneously trying to have a serious discussion of real-world tactics to deal with violent assaults is inappropriate to begin with, and even as a stand-alone topic is further fraught with the complications we've seen borne out in this very thread to prove my point.
That being said, fair is fair regarding adding something relevant. I've stayed out of the discussion on this thread so there isn't any notion of me trying to derail it, or shut it down before it gets a chance to be discussed legitimately, or somesuch. My own personal views are a lot more like Dmitri's and Cryptohominid's, though I'm far less dogmatic about it. Even to the point where I not only pursued the hardcore science of neurophysiology partly to determine the actual scientific basis for some of this kind of stuff, TCM, qigong, etc., but even paid my way through grad school practicing TCM and TCM-based bodywork.
There's a lot of leeway I'm willing to take with my own beliefs compared to what I'm willing to cross the line and tell others is actually true. Part of that comes from my discussions with Richard Bandler regarding beliefs in general. Bandler showed me the fun and curiosity of playing with a belief to find its usefulness before necessarily having to permanently adopt it, defend it to the death, or dismiss it once and forever. As such, I take a far more playful approach to subjects such as these. Unlike a lot of folks that swear by X-Files-ish stuff as being the gospel truth, I don't let my identity get wrapped up in it, so if a given modality is ever shown to be pure bullshit, it's okay with me. It doesn't change the fun I might have had with it anyway. Likewise, unlike some of my fellow scientists, I'm very, very willing to use what should be the most common phrase to pass a scientist's lips, "I don't know", or at least, "I don't know yet".
The truth is that full scientific exploration of this topic not only hasn't happened yet, it's not even yet possible with today's existing technology. Neurophysiology is constantly pushing the technological boundaries of what is even possible to measure, nevermind exhaustively explore. For example, due to breakthroughs in technology in the last ten years, we've finally been able to determine that pre-cognitive perception not only exists, it happens continuously to every human being walking the planet at all times. It's not paranormal, metaphysical or supernatural in any way at all, it's simply a function of the neural pathways that govern both the visual cortex and collective proprioceptive information. Kinda disappointing to the wide-eyed child in me, but very intriguing to the scientific explorer in me. It's a whole new world that we're just starting to be able to explore in the same way that the concept of genetics was in the early 70's.
That's why I've got no problem with a legitimate separate discussion of this topic on its own, complete with all of the various arguments pro and con. They all spur more thought on the matter, thought that people might not have put in otherwise.