"Doesn't it ever occur to you that you might be blind to the shrouds used by a quack? And if that were the case, you would not think the quack is a quack?"

yes it does occur to me. you just made me realize something though. a good bit of the first part of Dr. Dick's work deals with this very issue.

for example:quoting from Foundations of Physical Reality:
"It is actually quite astonishing how much supposedly "scientific" work is based on blind unthoughtout faith in the correctness of our authorities. One should recognize that misdirection of attention is the essence of magic and, with it, magicians can hide errors in our perceptions for years -- even when we know they are trying to fool us. How much worse off are we when we don't even know we are being fooled.

I am of the opinion that we make the mistake of relegating the problem of miss-perception to parlor games. Against all evidence to the contrary, it is the standard assumption of the scientific community that our perceptions are absolutely and incontrovertibly correct. In all cases, our perceptions are taken as "Truth" unless we can absolutely prove they are in error. In actual fact it seems much more rational to assume our perceptions are in error until we can prove they are correct!"

regards, tim

• You are the one making false assumptions... - bruce - September 26, 2003 - 08:22 UTC
  • then you agree? - sagefr0g - September 26, 2003 - 09:19 UTC
    • This whole Stafford misconception of proof - harvey1 - September 26, 2003 - 14:19 UTC
      • Tanaka lunacy - aurino_ - September 26, 2003 - 14:44 UTC
    • Tim... - bruce - September 27, 2003 - 01:11 UTC
      • i'd have to take exception - sagefr0g - September 30, 2003 - 00:38 UTC