Roy,

Thanks for your thoughts on the subject(s).

You said :

> Science is not, and does not claim to
> be, the answer to everything.

No, I didn't think I was inferring that.
I meant that people who regard Science as the explanation for
everything
are missing a lot.

[snip]

> > Indeed, some of these
> > "unmeasurable features" are closer to everyone's daily experiences
> > than most people realise. For example, all living beings use energy. I
> > would like to know how that energy is stored and how it is used.
>
> Well, that *is* science, and can be related in explicable biochemical and
> biomechanical processes. There is a device called a calorimeter, in which a
> human can be placed and in which his/her energy intake and output can be
> measured, and which will demonstrate that the principle of Conservation of
> Energy, from the branch of science called physics, holds for living creatures
> as well as for inert matter.

I don't recall that anyone has actually managed to measure the energy
(or
life force or "Chi" or "Ki") in a meaningful way.

[snip]

> Science does teach us to deeply distrust intuition as an objective measure;
> and you are moving into the realms of metaphysics here.
>
> But equally, it also teaches us how to measure such things. I'm not sure what
> incredible feats the Buddhist monks perform, exactly - but let's assume
> psychokinesis. Calorimeter experiments could rapidly determine whether the
> energy involved in moving something outside the calorimeter, by psychokinesis,
> was being burned up within the calorimeter - i.e the monk was using his own
> energy but exerting it at a distance - or not - which would imply channelling
> of outside energy. But I really wouldn't expect any such phenomena - no matter
> that we couldn't explain the exact mechanism - to lie outside the principle of
> Conservation of Energy.

I think you are attempting to apply scientific values to something
basically
unmeasurable by science which is my point. You may be able to measure
some
changes using a calorimeter, but it does not explain anything.

[snip]

> But if such powers exist, I am sure that they will be amenable to the
> disciplines of scientific measurement, and eventually of explanation too. They
> might be mysterious, but they won't be mystical....

Once again you assume that science will "eventually" provide an
explanation.
I tend to disagree.

Cheers,

John Dunlop

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