Formscapes vs. Professor Dave drama

[undeather]

UPDATE: Formscapes response to the allegations
 

 

[Extreme Z7]

Professor Dave's denial of Science Dogmatism is utterly pathetic.

[zurew]

I peeked in how Dave responded to the video - I am only 3 minutes in and it is really bad quality.

1) Dave tries to imply that its unreasonable to criticize science, because it produces so many tangible and beneficial things to us.   - starting with this is already weak, because just because it produces things doesn't mean it cant be done better and also there are things other than the scientific method that one can criticize regarding science (dogmatism, corruption etc).

2) The video just started and Dave is already making a lot of assumptions about the formscape's intentions why he made the video and why he said the things he said. - this is just pure rhetoric and doesn't have much substance to it. In fact doing moves like this is distracting the audience from focusing on the critique to solely focus on the flaws of the character who made the critique. People often times do this rhetoric move, when they can't directly engage with the criticism that was made.

Edited February 7 by zurew

[Scholar]

5 hours ago, undeather said:

UPDATE: Formscapes response to the allegations
 

 

Why does this guy sound so much like Terence Mckenna?

 

3 hours ago, Extreme Z7 said:

Professor Dave's denial of Science Dogmatism is utterly pathetic.

Dave is a reactionary, meaning he reacts to the anti-science crowd that will use these types of arguments to invalidate established scientific facts. He is mostly focused on arguing against people who are scientifically illiterate, bad faith or just profoundly stupid.

I don't know enough about the topic, from the video it seems like the critique he has provided of Formscape is accurate.

 

Obviously there won't be any deeper philosophical discussions about the limitations and the nature of science, because neither Formscapes nor Dave are interested in that.

Edited February 7 by Scholar

[undeather]

Quote

Why does this guy sound so much like Terence Mckenna?

He is what an AI would come up when prompted with:"Create a male avatar of an esoterically heterodox thinker who looks exactly like the secret love child of Jeffrey Dahmer & Terence McKenna." lol

Edited February 7 by undeather

[DocWatts]

My take, for anyone who's interested.

What stands out to me is that there's an interesting commonality between those who adhere to scientism and those who propagate various forms of pseudo-scientific magical thinking, and it's a failure to recognize that there's both a phenomenological and a metaphysical dimension to phenomena. The former is concerned with how things are disclosed to us in the immediacy of our direct experience, and the latter deals with our interpretive schemas about the overall functioning and purpose behind Reality.

Put another way, the phenomenology is an 'inside-out' approach, while metaphysics is (typically) an 'outside-in' approach. Which of these two dimensions is more appropriate to emphasize in any given scenario depends entirely upon what it is that you're trying to understand. Which is to say, the 'correct' methodology is always tied to a purposive context.

The reason that this distinction matters is that something can have considerable value when approached from a phenomenological framing, apart from the metaphysical claims that its attached to. The rituals and practices found within many of the worlds wisdom traditions are often ways of intuiting important phenomenological truths, using whatever metaphysical framing device that culture had access to at the time. 

For instance, from the vantage point of the physiology of the human body (ie an 'outside-in' approach), the chakras 'do not exist'. But as a way of systemizing the lived experience of how energy moves throughout our bodies, its utility or 'truth' becomes clear.

Pseudo-scientific thinkers tend to get into trouble when they advance dubious metaphysical claims, while scientific materialists have a long history of throwing the baby out with the bathwater for phenomenological truths that don't fit into their limited worldview.

Edited February 7 by DocWatts

[undeather]

9 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

My take, for anyone who's interested.

What stands out to me is that there's an interesting commonality between those who adhere to scientism and those who propagate various forms of pseudo-scientific magical thinking, and it's a failure to recognize that there's both a phenomenological and a metaphysical dimension to phenomena. The former is concerned with how things are disclosed to us in the immediacy of our direct experience, and the latter deals with our interpretive schemas about the overall functioning and purpose behind Reality.

Put another way, the former is an 'inside-out' approach, while the latter is an 'outside-in' approach. Which of these two dimensions is more appropriate to emphasize in any given scenario depends entirely upon what it is that you're trying to understand. Which is to say, the 'correct' methodology is always tied to a purposive context.

The reason that this distinction matters is that something can have considerable value when approached from a phenomenological framing, apart from the metaphysical claims that its attached to. The rituals and practices found within many of the worlds wisdom traditions are often ways of intuiting important phenomenological truths, using whatever metaphysical framing device that culture has access to at the time. 

For instance, from the vantage point of the physiology of the human body (ie an 'outside-in' approach), the chakras 'dont exist'. But as a way of systemizing the lived expensive of how energy moves throughout our bodies, its utility or 'truth' becomes clear.

Interesting take.

Does your heuristic allow the possibility to infer metaphysics through phenomenology and vice versa?
And if yes, by which standards?

Edited February 7 by undeather

[DocWatts]

3 hours ago, undeather said:

Interesting take.

Does your heuristic allow the possibility to infer metaphysics through phenomenology and vice versa?
And if yes, by which standards?

Thanks! By this heuristic, neither metaphysics nor phenomenology are sealed / walled off from one another, as one's pre-existing metaphysical beliefs influence how things are disclosed to us in our direct experience. And vice versa.

(For instance, the content of a person's mystical experiences is heavily contingent upon which religion one was brought up in, to list just one example).

I guess the broader point of my heuristic is that neither metaphysics nor phenomenology should be treated as an Absolute Ground for knowledge, they should be applied in a more contextual and flexible way depending upon what one is trying to understand. 

As for drawing inferences, we can reasonably infer that some things necessarily have to be true for us to be able to have different types of experiences. For instance, certain things about our physiological structure have to necessarily be in place for us to be able to experience the world in certain ways. This also includes the type of relationship that we have with Reality, which is different for living beings than it is for non-living entities (such as a disembodied AI like Chat-GPT).

And at the same time there's no such thing as a 'neutral' phenomena, since every observation about some aspect of Reality is necessarily experienced from a point of view, and thus involves us. Which is to say that because of our physiology and the structure of our minds, we don't like in a 'neutral' version of Reality. Instead we live in an experiential Reality that comes 'pre-arranged' in terms of our needs and capacities.

Edited February 7 by DocWatts

[Extreme Z7]

10 hours ago, Scholar said:

Dave is a reactionary, meaning he reacts to the anti-science crowd that will use these types of arguments to invalidate established scientific facts. He is mostly focused on arguing against people who are scientifically illiterate, bad faith or just profoundly stupid.

I don't know enough about the topic, from the video it seems like the critique he has provided of Formscape is accurate.

Dave is a Science Fundamentalist. And he had either no interest or was not capable of accurately understanding Formscape's points.

Formscape is not "Anti-Science". He is against the almost religious attitude of adherence to the "One True Science" establishment that makes its adherents intellectually-arrogant and woefully closed-minded.

10 hours ago, Scholar said:

Obviously there won't be any deeper philosophical discussions about the limitations and the nature of science, because neither Formscapes nor Dave are interested in that.

Formscapes genuinely has a deep understanding of philosophy and epistemology.

Dave literally called Formscape a "hypocrite" for "criticizing Science but still using Science to make videos" which is a very old and blatant strawman. Dave is a fucking monkey.

Edited February 8 by Extreme Z7

[Leo Gura]

Dave is a hypocrite for using God to talk about science.

[DocWatts]

On 2/7/2024 at 7:13 PM, Extreme Z7 said:

 

Dave literally called Formscape a "hypocrite" for "criticizing Science but still using Science to make videos" which is a very old and blatant strawman. Dave is a fucking monkey.

This one gets on my nerves for how intellectually lazy it is.

It's the equivalent of trying to have a substantiative sociological discussion with someone, only for the person on the other end to say something asinine like "you say that you don't like capitalism, even though you're writing this on a phone that you bought at a store."

Then, me: "Welp, guess that's on me for having the audacity to exist now instead of some unspecified other time and place I guess" 😂

Edited February 9 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

You can't criticize America, because you're living in it.

You can't criticize the military, because it's defending you.

You can't criticize the police, because they protect you from mass shooters.

You can't criticize your boss, because he's paying your paycheck.

You can't criticize academia, because they gave you your degree which you now use to make a living.

You can't criticize your father, because he gave birth to you.

You can't criticize your wife, because you have sex with her.

You can't criticize oil company pollution, because you drive a gas car.

You can't criticize social media companies, because you're using them.

You can't criticize cable companies, because they provide your internet.

You can't criticize the healthcare system, because it provided you with useful drugs.

You can't criticize language, because you're using language.

Edited February 9 by Leo Gura

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

You can't criticize America, because you're living in it.

You can't criticize the military, because it's defending you.

You can't criticize your boss, because he's paying your paycheck.

You can't criticize academia, because they gave you your degree which you now use to make a living.

You can't criticize your father, because he gave birth to you.

You can't criticize your wife, because you have sex with her.

You can't criticize oil company pollution, because you drive a gas car.

You can't criticize social companies, because you're using them.

You can't criticize cable companies, because they provide your internet.

Lol...so true l. We're all delusional. I'm starting to see through some of the delusional ways in which we see the world. It gets very tiring to fight against life and the only way out is acceptance to what is and the wisdom of discernment. So much energy being directed towards the wrong things and we're just over exerting ourselves in trying to right what's already perfect. The answer is just to focus on what is forever present and just enjoy the show. 

[Osaid]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You can't criticize America, because you're living in it.

You can't criticize the military, because it's defending you.

You can't criticize your boss, because he's paying your paycheck.

You can't criticize academia, because they gave you your degree which you now use to make a living.

You can't criticize your father, because he gave birth to you.

You can't criticize your wife, because you have sex with her.

You can't criticize oil company pollution, because you drive a gas car.

You can't criticize social companies, because you're using them.

You can't criticize cable companies, because they provide your internet.

Dunno if this is what you really think or what the context is, but this kind of logic is commonly used in an abusive relationship. "I did all of this for you, therefore you cannot complain." I am not saying the logic itself is inherently wrong or abusive, or that you are those things, but that it can be used for such things.

The abusive relationship offers certain benefits which make you feel happy and comfortable, in return for being abused. Leaving the relationship often creates financial and environmental instability, which you can of course potentially recover from.

This part especially highlights the dynamic: 

Quote

You can't criticize your father, because he gave birth to you.

In certain situations, simple criticism will have actual objective consequences. For example, you criticize the cable company, causing them to change their policies and remove their services to you. In other cases it is just a vague moral stance which is self-imposed, like "I'm not allowed to complain because they did stuff for me in the past." In the former case, there is an obvious gray area, and so it is important to look at the pros and cons and then decide from there what you believe is the most intelligent thing to do. The latter case is essentially just emotional/psychological brainwashing, often imbued in the psyche by a narcissistic personality.

Edited February 9 by Osaid

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

Dunno if this is what you really think or what the context is

He is trying to point out the fallacious nature and the ridiculousness of that logic.

Edited February 9 by zurew

[Osaid]

15 minutes ago, zurew said:

He is trying to point out the fallacious nature and the ridiculousness of that logic.

Thanks, figured.

[undeather]

Dave sometimes interacts with comments under response-videos.
Let's see - I would even debate him on that.

 

[lostingenosmaze]

@undeather I can't find that comment

 What video is that under?

[zurew]

5 minutes ago, undeather said:

Dave sometimes interacts with comments under response-videos.

I think Dave is really egotistical and he will get butthurt and defensive by your last paragraph.

14 minutes ago, undeather said:

Let's see - I would even debate him on that.

You don't even need to have domain knowledge about paranormal stuff or near death experience stuff in order to showcase Dave's unprincipled thinking. You could just continouasly ask him for an argument why all those things are stupid and if he cant provide a clear argument against them, then that alone will clearly showcase that he is emotionally and ideologically driven against those things and he is ruling out things in an unprincipled way and he is not serious in his thinking. 

You can push him on this: why does he act smug, when his confidence can't match the quality of argument he can provide against such cases. The objection of "I cant prove a negative" or the "onus is on you to provide a positive argument" - won't fly here, because he is taking a negative position against such cases and as long as he doesn't take an agnostic position on something (where you withold judgement, and you don't take any positive or negative stance against something), the onus is on him as well to justify his position. - Its the same with  God debates. If you take an atheist position where you say that God doesn't exist - you will have to provide justification for that claim. Its very easy, whatever claim make or stance you take you will have to provide justification for it unless you are taking an agnostic route. The problem for Dave with taking an agnostic route though is that he won't be able to justify his confidence and smugness.

[Leo Gura]

My science series was designed to preemptively deconstruct all of Dave's logic.

A fundamentalist scientist mind works in a very predictable way. You're never going to argue him out of his dogma because he would have an existential crisis if he realized how self-deceived he is about the nature of reality.

Again, Dave himself is the best evidence of dogma in science. If science was truly conscious it wouldn't produce people like Dave. And of course that's the last thing Dave will ever admit.

Edited February 9 by Leo Gura