ConservativeHippie,

I never said that you claimed to have had a mystical experience, and whether you chose to describe your experience as mystical, spiritual, supernatural, paranormal, or synchronicity, you are making a claim to a woo of some form or another, and thus my scepticism and questions remain relevant.

<<For all I know synchronicity may be written into the DNA of individuals who meet unexpectedly at a predetermined perfect moment. There is certainly scope within the study of genetics to suggest its possible.>>

How do you figure that? I mean without getting all What-the-Bleep-Do-We-Know on me and misrepresenting the works of quantum physicists by appealing to the weirdness of quantum mechanics the way some Christians do to shoehorn their god into science.

<<...do you feel Carl Jung wasted much of his life exploring this phenomena?>>

To some extent, yes. But I would say “not entirely” for the same reason that I don’t think Freud wasted his life, entirely, formulating his now-disproven ideas. Some of the psychological theories that we now have, we only have because others set out to disprove Freud’s. We only know that Freud's ideas were wrong because he proposed them in the first place. This is why psychology students still learn about his deas. Freud didn’t necessarily fail, he taught us how not to think about psychology through the rebuttals to his work. The same could be said about Jung's synchronicity.

<<Are you better qualified and more informed that Carl Jung on this topic?>>

On synchronicity? There are no qualifications in it. It’s a pseudoscience. That’s like asking someone if they think they’re more qualified than another in creationism. Clearly I’m more informed, though. Either that or I’m able to think more rationally on the topic than he ever was. So is damn near everyone else on OLO, for that matter. Remember, this is a guy who also believed in astrology, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance and ESP. We have the advantage in living in more education times. Jung, unfortunately, was a victim of his times.

Craig Minns,

I’ve seen many people on OLO say they’re going to leave (heck, I tell myself that on a monthly basis), but they usually return. So it is for this reason that I am not too worried at the moment. I’m sure you’ll be back. I may staunchly disagree with you on this particular topic (and your position on it is a continuous source of bewilderment for me), but otherwise, I think you are a rare and refreshing voice of reason in an otherwise ultra-conservative discussion forum. It would be a pity if you were to never return.

ConservativeHippie,

Since I’m using up another post, I thought I’d just politely add that I’m not intimidated by big names. Ideas stand or fall on their own merit. To appeal to a person’s standing as a way of adding credibility to what they say is to commit the Appeal to Authority fallacy. Even Einstein said some stupid things, although he was often very cryptic in the way he spoke, so it’s hard to say that for certain.

I once had someone on OLO (a mystic, like yourself) quote Sagan to bolster their position. What Sagan had apparently said was so incredibly stupid (or utterly meaningless, at best) that I had look it up to see if he had actually said it, and unfortunately he had! So fallacious was this person’s way of thinking, that they were too busy being flabbergasted (over the fact that I could accuse the great Sagan (who I admire immensely, mind you) of having had a moment of stupidity) that they didn’t have the time to absorb the fact that I actually had a point.

This is an example of just how hazardous fallacious thinking can be.

While Jung's credentials should give reason to pause for a moment and consider his ideas (relevant to his field) a little more seriously, he was still capable of speaking nonsense. And if what he said was nonsense, then it remains nonsense regardless of who he is. Sir Isaac Newton was a creationist; are you going to doubt evolution now?

Dear david f,
>>Probably I noticed an unusual movement in the leaves and stopped the car.<<

This allegedly happened in the 19th century, somewhere in the “Wild West”: A train full with passengers was rushing along, while the pious engine-driver was praying. Suddenly an angel appeared before his locomotive, frantically waving his wings, until the driver stopped the train. They found themselves a few feet in front of a collapsed bridge. When he told passengers what he saw, they prayed, thanking God for sending an angel to save them. Only one atheist among them could not believe it, and indeed, found out that what the driver saw was in fact the shadows of a night moth caught in the lantern. So the other passengers now thanked God for sending a moth (and a pious engine-driver) rather than an angel to save them.

It is “faith seeking understanding” (and sometimes finding it) as Anselm put it, very seldom the other way around. The atheist was happy with finding the moth-understanding of what happened, the believers had a naive angel-understanding and then, thanks to the atheist’s insight, found also a not-so-naive moth-understanding of their faith, more precisely its application to this particular situation.

>>What contributions did ancient Israel make to the development of natural science?<<

The post -Enlightenment development of natural science and technology happened within a culture defined by Christendom that was inspired by BOTH ancient Israel and Greece (of course, religiously Christianity understands itself as having its roots only in the former). So I agree that ancient Israel’s contribution was only indirect, and that not only through Christianity (c.f. Maimonides, Spinoza, Einstein etc).

Dear George,

May other believers combine their beliefs with common sense the way you do.

AJ - you've got to be the most sceptical person I've ever encountered. You won't even believe that a person can say they are bowing out of the OLO forum without challenging them. (Davidf is probably in the top five sceptics, at least on this Form)

I accept we will never see eye to eye and that anything I offer will be shot down in flames. Where we cannot and will not ever agree is whether or not there is more influencing our lives than shear rationality and chemistry. I'm not asking you to accept my point of view; it makes no difference. It does seem however you feel the need to change my thinking with 'cold hard facts', but that's not going to happen.

In closing and as my final contribution to this discussion I offer this quote as food for thought (without any expectation that you or David will even remotely consider it could be a possible)

"Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, defined free will as the possibility that, after making a decision, you could have chosen otherwise. But a "decision," Coyne argues, is merely a series of electrical and chemical impulses between molecules in the brain — molecules whose configuration is predetermined by genes and environment. Though each decision is the outcome of an immensely complicated series of chemical reactions, those reactions are governed by the laws of physics and could not possibly turn out differently. "Like the output of a programmed computer, only one choice is ever physically possible: the one you made," Coyne wrote."

Occasionally I fall into the trap of unreasoning belief in accepting a news report, a public statement or other info. My dear wife will ask, "Do you really think that's so?" AJ has a great command of logic and a knowledge of various modes of false argument, but my wife is the most skeptical person I've met. She is a rare jewel.