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Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

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Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#191

Post by beaconstudios »

Jensson wrote: post #184
beaconstudios wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are the one coming with the extraordinary claim, that meditation does something fundamentally different. From your perspective, given you seem convinced that meditation is the same as a nap, sure. That itself seems to me like an absurd proposition. At the end of the day, if you want to think that then that's fine. I think it's silly, like claiming that weightlifting and stretching are the same - and I doubt the…

> From your perspective, given you seem convinced that meditation is the same as a nap, sure. That itself seems to me like an absurd proposition. Occam's razor. If people benefit from sitting and thinking about just one thing then the simplest explanation is that the benefit is that they aren't stressing around about their normal life. If there is some special effect above that then it would need strong evidence comp…

You're trying to frame your position as the default, but it isn't. I've never heard anybody describe meditation as "basically a nap" before.

You're also jumping around in your position - first it's "meditation is sleep" now it's "meditation is time you're not stressing". Sleep does more than just allow you to escape stress. The latter is more like comparing meditation to escapist entertainment.

The simple explanation for mindfulness' effect is it allows you to better observe and understand your own mental processes. If you try to spend 10 minutes focussing on your breath, you train yourself to notice when your attention slips away. This is useful in regular life, but it also allows you to see what your attention is slipping towards - whether that's a stressor, or an unprocessed emotion, or some nonsense that you keep thinking about but can let go of once you recognise it. There's a strong benefit to living more actively in the present, as opposed to being trapped in your worries and imagination.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#193

Post by pessimizer »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #39
Sharlin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no no no. The diagnosis of depression absolutely does not revolve around "changes in body chemistry and the functioning of the brain", except insofar as "functioning of the brain" equals the symptoms reported by the patient! There are no known physical or chemical tests for depression. Even if we have some vague theories about "chemical imbalance in the brain", for the most part the neurological or biochemical mec…

What irks me about this is every human experience is reflected in "changes in body chemistry and the functioning of the brain". But that's about as useful as saying that a car breaks down due to mechanical changes. It's not wrong, but it's pretty useless.

It's a false explanation, like explaining how a sleeping pill works by saying that it contains a sleep-causing agent.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#194

Post by watwut »

JoBrad wrote: post #73
alkonaut wrote: post #41

The interesting question here perhaps isn’t so much whether knowing if you are a particular color or 4-letter Myers-Briggs combination helps you or whether there is a solid foundation to the categorization at all. What’s interesting here is rather: what happens when you think of everyone as a pigeonholed category. Intuitively it seems it should be mostly negative especially if the categories don’t even offer any beha…

Classifying people makes it easier to interact with them. You feel that you understand where their boundaries are, and what motivates them. It’s the reason we have geeks vs jocks, or any other variation of classifying people. Some aspects will bear up under a basic sniff test, which is why they stick around. But it also forces people into boxes that don’t properly describe them well, if at all.

You feel like you understand them, but you don't. You are making up motivations and dismissing their real values, reasons and motivations.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#195

Post by coliveira »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #62
coliveira wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is a similar kind of BS. No scientific basis as well.

So i suppose there is "science" against it? I don't know the science surrounding it. But i took a test through work once and most seems to be correct. I don't think it would be "popular" in businesses if nothing would be correct. That's exactly what suprised me the first time, so I'm hesitant to call it bs. If there is another correlation it could be that the test was pretty positive for me. Perhaps it was the contra…

Perhaps you should consider the main idea in the article: pseudo-psychology operates stating the obvious with different words, to make it sound important. The tests that you took are tautologically true, because they ask questions about you and then give one or more names to that set of responses (blue, sanguineous, etc). Moreover, you rarely get a clear answer, and the creators of these test know that is very difficult, so they disclose that as a known "feature". It gets even worse when they start to pontificate about the meaning of these tests, because there is no scientific or social basis for what they propose.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#196

Post by Jensson »

beaconstudios wrote: post #191
Jensson wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From your perspective, given you seem convinced that meditation is the same as a nap, sure. That itself seems to me like an absurd proposition. Occam's razor. If people benefit from sitting and thinking about just one thing then the simplest explanation is that the benefit is that they aren't stressing around about their normal life. If there is some special effect above that then it would need strong evidence comp…

You're trying to frame your position as the default, but it isn't. I've never heard anybody describe meditation as "basically a nap" before. You're also jumping around in your position - first it's "meditation is sleep" now it's "meditation is time you're not stressing". Sleep does more than just allow you to escape stress. The latter is more like comparing meditation to escapist entertainment. The simple explanation…

> I've never heard anybody describe meditation as "basically a nap" before.

> You're also jumping around in your position - first it's "meditation is sleep" now it's "meditation is time you're not stressing".

I wasn't the one who said meditation is a nap. Stop arguing that point. I do however doubt that there is anything special about meditation. And the process of taking a nap has a lot of similar parts to taking a break or meditating, I'd want evidence that those aren't just the same source. (although a nap also would add the sleeping part)

Edit:

> The simple explanation for mindfulness' effect is it allows you to better observe and understand your own mental processes.

But there is no evidence this actually helps. It helps some people take a break from their worries as you say, I understand that part can help them, but to all the people who can destress without some religious practice like this then I don't see why they would benefit from it. Just sit, don't think about things that worry you and relax. Why wouldn't that get the benefits of meditation? You say meditation also helps in other ways, but I see no evidence that those effects exists. Religions and their practices tend to get a large following who wants the things to be true, I see no reason to believe in those though.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#197

Post by peakaboo »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #149
alkonaut wrote: post #41

The interesting question here perhaps isn’t so much whether knowing if you are a particular color or 4-letter Myers-Briggs combination helps you or whether there is a solid foundation to the categorization at all. What’s interesting here is rather: what happens when you think of everyone as a pigeonholed category. Intuitively it seems it should be mostly negative especially if the categories don’t even offer any beha…

I have a friend who's tremendously into astrology. After years of arguments etc I had a moment of enlightment when I realized she practically uses it more as descriptive model rather than predictive source of truth. I. E. She used classifications for personal shorthand on how she thinks about people. From that perspective, there's a sense where a summarizing framework is beneficial. Almost every high level executive…

People have different personality types and they can be grouped into categories just like anything else.

I think this guy used some science to back his book up, but the book doesn't even need that.

The point is, people are different, and it's an important life skill to realize this because you accept people who are different from you much easier.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#198

Post by pessimizer »

maratc wrote: post #60
Sharlin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no no no. The diagnosis of depression absolutely does not revolve around "changes in body chemistry and the functioning of the brain", except insofar as "functioning of the brain" equals the symptoms reported by the patient! There are no known physical or chemical tests for depression. Even if we have some vague theories about "chemical imbalance in the brain", for the most part the neurological or biochemical mec…

> There are no known physical or chemical tests for depression. The absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence. It is true that so far , we don't have physical or chemical tests for depression. This doesn't prove that the chemistry or the brains or neurotransmitters are functioning the same way in depressed and non-depressed people, it just says the science still can't tell.

Which is entirely irrelevant. The relevant part is that depression is diagnosed based on reported symptoms, not physically detected. The fact that it is not physically detected is not evidence that it can't possibly be physically detected, just a statement that it isn't.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#199

Post by goto11 »

halpert wrote: post #181
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely if a book claims people can be split into 4 colour types it should be the book that should provide the proof?

This article is claiming the author is a fraud. They should provide proof of that claim, just as the author should provide proof of his claims. I didn’t read the book, but I did read this article and the evidence of fraud is lacking.

You should look into the concept of "burden of proof". If someone claims a model is based on scientific evidence, then obviously it is the claimant who has to provide this alleged scientific evidence.

You can't prove a negative, so it does not make sense to require others to prove this alleged evidence does not exist.

Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)

#200

Post by cjalmeida »

watwut wrote: post #190
cjalmeida wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that Popper denounce Plato's political theory as totalitarian. But if you look at it, that's basically how we divide society and government. We cherish technocrats and "philosopher-king" to rule us in the Supreme Court and high ranking agencies and military. In turn they're not expected to have relevant property to avoid temptation. Truth is people like being ruled and being told where they fit, if this l…

For all flaws of current democracy, it is not nearly totalitarian. Just because two things vaguely reassemble when you abstract enough does not make them the same.

That was not my argument. And the organization of state and Plato's politics are way more connected.

But my comment was that people have such a "need for being ruled" that we repurpose ideas with clear autocratic root for our democracy.

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