Revision and Revisioning of Psychology by Stanislav Grof
gaiamedia.org
gaiamedia.org
So astrology is the answer? If I were a psychologist, I would ask Doctor Grof not to be on my side.
It was experiential evidence that caused Grof to revise his views of the world - what makes you change your mind?
Let's say that I believe Bigfoot exists. Have you ever independently falsified my belief yourself, personally? No? Then you have failed to meet your burden of evidence and Bigfoot really does exist.
What is wrong with the above claim? Apart from unfairly shifting the burden of evidence, the problem is that it contradicts the central posture of science toward evidence -- the null hypothesis, the precept that an idea is assumed to be false in the absence of positive evidence.
Using the null hypothesis as a logical basis, Grof's claims have no meaning until they are supported by positive scientific evidence (not merely the absence of contradicting evidence).
Without the null hypothesis, anything anyone cares to assert is accepted as true. I say that Bigfoot exists, and because you cannot disprove my claim by looking under every rock in the universe, my claim is true. The problem with my claim and posture is that disproof would require proof of a negative, an impossible evidentiary burden, for reasons given here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot
A quote: "Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others ..."
> I guess you missed the part where Grof said he was a materialist monoist Freudian prior to the use of therapeutic LSD in his practice.
Oh, well, that makes it all right then. I'm glad you cleared that up.
Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, to assert the central role of astrology in human affairs requires evidence.
> It was experiential evidence ...
"Experiential evidence" is not evidence, it is anecdote. Calling this "experiential evidence" is to string together terms that contradict each other.
> ... that caused Grof to revise his views of the world - what makes you change your mind?
The other kind of evidence -- the real kind. The kind of evidence on which two or more independent, dispassionate observers can agree. The kind of evidence that favors vaccines over dried gourds and witch doctors. The kind of evidence that dispassionately falsifies racism and sexism. The kind of evidence that keeps Creationism out of public classrooms.
Science is not merely a set of rules for identifying and processing evidence, for crafting and testing theories. It is also a way to undermine some really stupid ideas that appear spontaneously from time to time. Ideas like astrology.
I'll start from the top down with your post and explain how I feel and think:
Well I don't think Bigfoot exists either. But falsifying that claim would require very careful investigation of the whole Maine landscape(or wherever Bigfoot supposedly lives). In contrast, you could investigate your mind by taking high doses of tryptamines(http://countyourculture.com/2012/03/10/n-alkylated-tryptamin...) in a safe space and seeing if your experiences jived with anything Grof claims, or not. By the way the above url is very focused on quantitative information and the chemistry of some psychoactive compounds - no woo there don't worry. So Bigfoot is not a good analogy because investigating Grof's claims is an obtainable goal, not an impossibility.
I don't intend this to come off as snarky or rude, but I've been reading rationality literature myself for many years. Dawkins, Dennett, Russel, some Hume, LessWrong, etc. I've actually used Russell's teapot myself as a conceptual metaphor while arguing with naive religious people. I'm also a math major so I'm not exactly immune to logical thought. So please hear me out.
It seems like you are being triggered by the word astrology, this is very understandable and I normally associate astrology with bullshit myself. Let me shift my attention to some of the other things you wrote about experiential evidence.
Here is my take on experiential evidence. All evidence is experiential in the sense that we must use our sensory organs to use any machine or observe the world 'directly' but of course we really experience only what our brains construe from sensory bombardment of light, sound, etc. All this is quite orthodox so far as I hope you'll agree.
So, with various methods, high doses of tryptamines being the easiest and most reliable, humans can experience a variety of states that feel just as real, indeed often "realer than real" as everyday sensory reality. So by what basis except gut level feeling do we disbelieve in the reality of dreams and believe in the absolute existence of waking sensation? It's really only that dreams feel vague and are hard to hold on to mentally and the real world is bold and seemingly objective because other people agree they experience it in similar ways. So much for the reality of the world and the unreality of dreams.
But there is a third category of experience available to humans and that is a visionary state. In such non ordinary states of consciousness people often have experiences that correlate with the experiences of others. So in this way it is similar to the situation with waking reality - independent verification of a 'territory' except that one is material and one is experiential/internal.
Secondly, as I've said before, often these experiences feel realer than real. Thus there is no reason to dismiss them out of hand, but rather treat reports and self-investigation as evidence of the same class as evidence from the material world. That said, we must be careful to avoid mistakes and confusion and make false theories based on evidence regardless of its kind.
Grof has taken large doses of LSD with sensory isolation hundreds of times and he has observed, for the full duration of the experience, over 5000 therapeutic sessions where LSD was used. He also had colleagues that did similar work and had access to their notes. In addition, many of the things Grof claims are compatible to a large degree with other researches who have used visionary plants and chemicals.
I myself have had several experiences that led me to find some of Grof's ideas credible. Specifically Grof thinks humans can undergo a state of 'cosmic consciousness', or identification with the Godhead, unitive experience, there are many names for it. I know for a fact this can happen because it happened to me.
Back to astrology. I admit I'd call bullshit in almost every instance I see the term 'astrology' but I give Grof a bit of benefit of the doubt. For one thing I believe he probably does not mean that the actual planets materially influence human affairs. But rather that some sort of periodic system that is analogous to the movements of the planets influences the internal world of our minds. I have no idea if this is true or not.
I think it's quite likely that Grof, as a modern pioneer of this type of research, has gotten some things wrong. I also think that he's on the right track to a much greater degree than conventional psychotherapists and psychologists with regards to the inner workings of the mind.
Why do I think this? Because of my lived experience both in normal waking life and in NOSC. Also conversations with friends. Why does Grof think this? Because of his own extensive experience with NOSC and his work with thousands of therapy clients.
If that's not empirical then I don't know what is.
However, I would have completely rejected my own argument and taken your position years ago before I had sufficient experience with NOSC. So I can sympathize if even this post does not convince you.
Edit: To use one of the standard atheist stories for my own benefit, consider the whole telescope and Galileo and the Church incident. Supposedly some thought that they mustn't look at the sky through the telescope and thus could dismiss any claims made by those who chose to look. Clearly in that case those who used the telescope had a privileged position, more accurate, and indeed incomprehensible by non-lookers. So I submit to you: NOSC are telescopes/microscopes for our interior world and if you only use your rational/cognitive mind you're essentially missing half of the picture of what it means to be human.
This is your primary logical error, one that runs thorough your entire essay. No one can possibly falsify the idea that Bigfoot exists, because it would require proof of a negative, and proof of a negative is an impossible evidentiary burden. This is why scientists have adopted the null hypothesis as the core posture toward unresolved questions -- it saves huge amounts of pointless effort.
On that topic, you very clearly didn't bother to read the Russell's Teapot Wikipedia entry, so here it is again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot
> Here is my take on experiential evidence ...
Don't bother. "Experiential evidence" is not evidence, any more than a horse chestnut is a chestnut horse -- meaning that the words we choose can't change the identity of the thing being described.
> I myself have had several experiences that led me to find some of Grof's ideas credible.
Where is your evidence? Subjective experiences are not evidence. Anyone can report personal experiences, but this doesn't turn them into scientific evidence.
Let's say that my "personal experience" is that women are dumber than men. Does this personal experience stand as an argument against gender equality and justify a change in public policy? Not in a society that either respects the scientific method or is able to think logically.
For a dozen reasons, science is not steered by anecdotes. If this were not true, I could claim to have cured the common cold, and here's how: I shake a dried gourd over the sufferer until he gets better. It might take a week but the patient always gets better. So, based on my personal experience, I deserve a Nobel Prize for curing the common cold, isn't that right?
> So I can sympathize if even this post does not convince you.
Want to persuade me? Locate some evidence. Evidence by its very nature is objective and repeatable. Personal experiences are neither.
You've chosen to live in a world ruled by belief, and you have every right to do so. But I think you may want to try to imagine how your defense of these beliefs looks to an educated person.