Comment by rkachowski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rkachowski | Hacker News Reader

The author seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the bible (referencing individual psalms by number), wears a cross around his neck to hospital, practises all kinds of eastern religious meditations (recommends "Awaken the Healing Light of the Tao" in the midst of describing himself in a diaper on a CAT scan machine). On top of this he works as a particle accelerator operator at cornell. And still eats some of the mushrooms he previously identified as growing next to some clearly poisonous mushroom colony.

At the end of the article he questions whether it was an act of god or meditation that saved him, yet concludes that realistically it was not taking the time to identify the mushrooms correctly which caused the whole process. Yet starts the article with the comment that he was somehow in an altered mental state from a "Aligning the Three Tan Tiens" exercise which left him feeling invincible. Surely if you belive that god or meditation was the cure, you would have to believe that they could also be the cause - especially in this case when you're doing the "nothing can kill me" meditation before picking mushrooms.

It's a weird half baked half-rational half-esoteric thought process that staggers me. Religion and science are always a controversial mix, but this is an extreme example.

I found it on the whole endearing. Through the author's religion we saw his valuation of his friends and family as well as his whole life. I think it's certainly within reason that people can believe contradictory 'truths' and I'm sure you do as well.

I'd make that point even stronger, humans don't tend to analyze their every thought with extreme care and I'd say _most_ hold some kind of contradictory believes. Or, believe something but don't actually act accordingly. (Cognitive dissonance)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Some contradictory beliefs, but the author is a walking stewpot full of contradictory beliefs.

Not the end of the world, but certainly remarkable.

I know it's maybe even the norm, but I can't get my head around this disconnect between doing deep scientific work on the one hand and having such a profoundly mystical world view that seems to sometimes eschew rational reflections on cause-and-effect.

> Why did I live and the rest not live?

There are many factors at play. Among those not listed by the author are: age, genetics and biochemical happenstances, and pure random luck. Yet, the question seems to angle for a deeper meaning, as if to evoke the intent of a higher power who lets people live or die for personal or moral reasons.

> Was it the amount of toxin? Was it that I knew what had happened to me and sought care and help quickly?

Yes.

> Was it my meditation/visualization and somatic self care/self help practice?

It's been shown that a patient's determination and outlooks do have a noticeable effect on their outcome, so your mental framework may very well have helped here for reasons that are not related to specific practices themselves, but because they have a positive effect on your attitude.

> Was it the prayers of my friends and family and my faith?

No. And I would object to this even if I was a religious person. The idea that an all-powerful and infinetely wise entity, who decided on the fate of the entire universe well in advance, would change their mind and let someone live on account of the amount of fawning being performed on behalf of that person - that idea is both intellectually and theologically bankrupt.

> Was it the doctors’ care? One of them said it was a miracle!

Yes, it was the doctors' care, which was most likely necessary to save you. Using a throwaway utterance like this as evidence in support of a miracle-based world view seems self-deceiving.

If we're going to assign miracle status to improbable events, it should probably not be those that fall within the 20-50% range. The most disconcerting thing is that we would expect someone whose work involves particle physics to have a better grasp of probabilities, but I think once a person subscribes to the idea of a personalized universe that cares about the conduct of individual humans, a whole different set of rules suddenly comes into play.

On the subject of 'prayers from friends and family' being an intellectually and theologically bankrupt theory, here's a meta-study on the phenomenon.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cindy_Crawford/publicat...

That doesn't address my criticism of the premise. I chose to critique the assertions made of why prayer helps. You address the question of whether it helps. It's one of these "distance healing" prayer studies, and a meta-study at that. If you dig down into any of these data sources, you will find plenty of wishful thinking is involved in the design of the individual studies.

But again, whether you believe that it works or not, I wanted to move the discussion to address the claims of why it supposedly works. What I mean by "bankrupt" is the idea that people believe there is an omniscient superintelligence who actively controls the universe on a micro level and takes a direct interest in your personal life choices, who at the same time can be made to change its mind whenever enough people get together to praise it in a transparent attempt to beg for someone's life.

Even putting aside the obvious scientific problems with this concept, I call it also theologically bankrupt because - while it's not completely inconceivable that the universe works like that - it still flies in the face of what most religions portray their deities as.

There seems to be a deep misunderstanding of religion here.

"Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. Not that it is necessary in order to make known to God what we are, but in order to enable us to receive Him. Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him"

Just before giving His disciples the Lord's Prayer in the New Testament, Jesus says, "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

Then the prayer itself follows up saying, "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."

There's a lot of philosophy tied up in all of that (even for non-Christians). Most people who win the lottery go bankrupt in short order. If you aren't ready for a good thing, it can be destructive. Prayer is an acceptance that God knows what is best for the universe. It helps the person praying to become "in tune" with God's plan and accept that plan no matter if it is personally costly.

As you can see, "Begging for someone's life" is a very different mindset. The change in mindset from prayer's self-reflection can instill a positive outlook which improves medical outcomes. If the outcome is terminal, that same self-reflection can help a person reach acceptance and turn their remaining time into a more positive experience (and help with their loved ones after they have passed away).

That is all true even if there were nobody listening because they believe it to be true.

It's true that I lack a good understanding of religious thinking, thank you for helping out there.

> That is all true even if there were nobody listening because they believe it to be true.

I absolutely agree, whatever contributes to the patient's positive attitude helps. As does the involvement of friends and family. This is why I felt that I shouldn't criticize the perception of the overall effect so much, because I do agree that there is a positive mechanism at work here.

It is with the metaphysical aspects themselves where I have trouble, and in a sense that's how this whole thread got started because it seems a stark contradiction.

But coming back to your explanation, I agree, if your god wants to see signs of compliance from you and your social circle, it does stand to reason that people would believe this would cause him to intercede in the universe's processes in order to spare your life when he would not have seen the necessity to do so before.

SuoDuanDao's point then was that the idea that your god would change his mind on account of prayers is not theologically bankrupt (in hindsight this was a very poor choice of words by me) because it works. My thesis however, was that even if prayer works that doesn't mean the specific reasoning behind it is automatically valid.

> If we're going to assign miracle status to improbable events, it should probably not be those that fall within the 20-50% range.

It's telling, for example, that God never heals amputees.

This illogic is fairly harmless in the OP's situation--if his belief in a God makes him happy, good for him I guess. But a lot of my atheist friends have had serious accidents or illnesses where religious people have tried to use it as on opportunity to proselytize. "Hey, you survived X horrible event, don't you think that means someone was looking out for you?" Well, if someone is looking out for us, they're doing a crap job, or X horrible event wouldn't have happened in the first place. The last thing I want when I'm lying in a hospital bed in pain is to hear about your imaginary friend.

Although of course everyone can believe what they please, and I found myself in much sympathy with the narrator, in a couple of points I couldn't help thinking of a famous comedian's joke: "The doctors saved your life. But remember when you picked the wrong mushrooms? That was the act of God".

Psalm 23 is the most famous one, so knowing it doesn't indicate an encyclopedic knowledge of the bible.

There were three words missing from the article that are necessary for me to have taken the author seriously.

"I was stupid"

This is a pretty uncharitable comment friend... presumably you aren't the intended audience for this article. Anyway, you've never met anyone like this before? I meet people like this all the time. They are much more interesting than those devoted to hyper-rational atheism AKA the Times New Roman of metaphysics. For one, these 'half-baked' types tend to be staggered by genuinely marvelous things, rather than just their perception of another person's incoherence.

If "hyper-rational atheism" were the "Times New Roman of metaphysics", you'd think it would be far more common than it actually is.

Going with your n=1 "I meet people like this all the time." theme, I know far more people of various religious flavors than I do atheists of any kind, "hyper-rational" or not.

No, I have never met a particle physicist that meditated his way into eating the notorious death cap and thanked god and spirituality for saving him.

I find it pretty sad that you'd preclude rational people from being able to experience genuinely marvelous things. I can tell you that there is a whole spectrum of rational thought, including both your hyper rational and 'interesting' people. I don't think you actually believe that these people live a myopic life of sterile scrutiny and flavorless examination.

The road is long my friend, and you have a distance to travel.

Your original comment was drawing generalisations about a certain character of thought from one person's experience. Obviously, I am not asking if you have met another particle physicist with this specific set of eccentricities.

Nor do I preclude anything about the scope or validity of someone's experiences, unlike your original comment.

"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

If I was as close to death as he was I think even I may become religious. Wouldn't have the encyclopedic knowledge of the bible though.

On the other hand I think that a Destroying Angel is one of the few mushrooms that I would know not to eat (my limited knowledge would also mean that I wouldn't actually eat any without positive identification). It's the second most poisonous after a Death Cap from what I know almost completely white.

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