Okay, time for another example of thoughts affecting reality. This man is Masaru Emoto. He is a Japanese researcher who studies water.Emoto is best known for his claim that if thoughts are directed at water before it is frozen, images of the resulting water crystals will be beautiful or ugly depending upon whether the thoughts were positive or negative. In other words, thoughts affect the molecular structure of water.
According to Emoto's research, thoughts can be directed at the water by prayer, concentration, music or by attaching written words to a container of water.
For instance, crystals formed from holy water taken from a church will be distinctly different from crystals formed from water at which a person has directed hateful, angry thoughts. Crystals formed from water exposed to loud rock music will be distinctly different from crystals exposed to nice, pleasant written words like "Love" or "Thank You".
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Here are a few examples:
The above is a crystal sample taken from Fujiwara Dam. No special thoughts had been directed at the water.
This one is a crystal sample taken from the exact same source, Fujiwara Dam. However, the water had been prayed over, before it was frozen and the crystal sample was taken.
This crystal sample is taken from water that had been subjected to the words "You Make Me Sick, I Will Kill You".
Whereas this one above had been subjected to the words "Love & Appreciation".
This one had been subjected to the words "Adolf Hitler".
This one had been subjected to the words "Mother Teresa".
Etc etc. Emoto has thousands of photos, and his research goes on. By now, you get the idea.
In one way, Emoto differs from the other scientists I've recently been mentioning on my blog. Those other scientists are highly eminent, come from top universities and academic institutes like Oxford, Stanford and Princeton etc; have multiple PhDs; are Nobel Prize winners and so on.
Masaru Emoto, however, graduated from a rather obscure university and isn't particularly well-known for academic brilliance or rigour. In fact, his experimental methodology has been criticised for lacking various technical controls (and my personal suspicion is that Emoto really doesn't know scientific methodology very well).
However, the validity of his claims was recently established in a double-blind experiment conducted by Professor Dean Radin and others. The citation is Radin, D. I., Hayssen, G., Emoto, M., & Kizu, T. (2006). Explore, September/October 2006, Vol. 2, No. 5, a peer-reviewed journal.
I understand that a triple-blind experiment is now underway, to test Emoto's theories.
Emoto's theories, if correct, of course have very wide implications. For example, if thoughts can affect the molecular behaviour of water, how might thoughts affect the molecular behaviour of, say, our own red blood cells or white blood cells or cancer cells or other cells?
Of course, those who already believe that consciousness is required for the collapse of the wavefunction resulting in the creation of waves or particle will not be altogether surprised by Emoto's theories.
54 comments:
Hi Mr. Wang,
I read his Wikpedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto .
You should know that, I quote,
"Even sympathetic commentators have criticized Emoto for insufficient experimental controls,[4] and for not sharing enough details of his approach with the scientific community. [5] In addition, Emoto has been criticized for designing his experiments in ways that leave them open to human error influencing his findings. [6]
In the day-to-day work of his group, the creativity of the photographers rather than the rigor of the experiment is an explicit policy of Emoto.[7] Emoto freely acknowledges that he is not a scientist,[8] and that photographers are instructed to select the most pleasing photographs.[9] Emoto says that he selects the photos that he wishes for consistency[citation needed]. This is an explicit admission of observer bias.
James Randi, founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation, has publicly offered Emoto one million dollars if his results can be reproduced in a double-blind study.[10] Randi has also stated that he does not expect to ever have to pay the million dollars." -Wikipedia.org
Sounds very unscientific to me.
You are quite right. As I had mentioned in my post, emoto's methodology is very weak and he does not even consider himself to be a"real" scientist, just someone who has stumbled on an exciting discovery.
Wiki pedia however has not been updated to reflect last year's experiment by Radin and others to replicate the experiment under much tighter scientific controls. In Radin's experiment, foir example, the persons taking the photos is not allowed to know what thoughts or words each water samples has been subjected to - he just takes the best photos he can, of crystals from every sample (including control samples) that is given to him. Also the photos are then judged and ranked for "aesthetic appeal" by a group of people who again do not know what had been done, in each case, to the water from which the crystal being photographed had come from. The statistics are then ranked, and the overwhelming conclusion (something like 0.000001 chance of statistical random error) that water subjected to words "Love" etc produces crystals which are ranked much higher for aesthetic appeal than water which has beem subjected to nasty words like "I hate you". In summary, emoto's lousy experiment has been reperformed under much tighter scientific controls, and the clear conclusion is still that thoughts affect the molecular structure of water.
Hi Mr Wang,
Just came across a TED talk by Alan Russell titled "Why can't we grow new body parts?", where he shows it is possible.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/142
Cool stuff, if one doesn't mind the bloody images. Thoughts affect reality indeed!
Thanks for the inspirational stuff. Inspires me to clear my thoughts to improve my studies :-)
wow! this is very interesting!
I will give a try on my aquarium. Transmit my love thought to my fishes via aquarium water. Let my dear fishes live in great quality water!
Do you have the link to Dean Rabin's study? There is no mention of it in his Wikipedia entry.
Others have already done research on this guy:
http://www.is-masaru-emoto-for-real.com/
There's also some criticism towards Dean Radin in his wikipedia entry if you go through the references.
It's directed more at his methods of cherry-picking data.
"...
My overall impression of Radin is that he is sincere, albeit way too much infatuated with his theories. He clearly selects his data and is not all that interested in ways of falsifying his theories.
While it is humanly understandable, it is scientifically unacceptable.
Is something happening? If we can refrain from equating "anomalies" with "psi", it does seem that something is going on. Whether it is flawed research or a real phenomenon is still out. But when we take into account that Radin and GCP are not all that eager to falsify their own theories (as well as quoting Sagan and Hyman out of context to support their own agenda when in fact neither do!), it is very hard for me to accept that a real phenomenon is happening.
But, hey, I could be wrong!"
evening with dean radin
Hi Mr. Wang,
An interesting article!
Let's discuss this.
You say that:
However, the validity of his claims was recently established in a double-blind experiment conducted by Professor Dean Radin and others. The citation is Radin, D. I., Hayssen, G., Emoto, M., & Kizu, T. (2006). Explore, September/October 2006, Vol. 2, No. 5, a peer-reviewed journal.
PubMed doesn't have this full article, so I'll post the abstract here for the benefit of your readers.
The hypothesis that water "treated" with intention can affect ice crystals formed from that water was pilot tested under double-blind conditions. A group of approximately 2,000 people in Tokyo focused positive intentions toward water samples located inside an electromagnetically shielded room in California. That group was unaware of similar water samples set aside in a different location as controls. Ice crystals formed from both sets of water samples were blindly identified and photographed by an analyst, and the resulting images were blindly assessed for aesthetic appeal by 100 independent judges. Results indicated that crystals from the treated water were given higher scores for aesthetic appeal than those from the control water (P = .001, one-tailed), lending support to the hypothesis.
I won't say that his claim has been "established". We can immediately see one weakness of this research - how do you quantify "aesthetic appeal"? Wouldn't it be easier and more striking to score the crystals either as "regular 6-sided" vs "disorganized"?
In addition, if they really had important results then they wouldn't have submitted their manuscript to a 2-year-old journal that specializes in complementary medicine.
So when you say:
In summary, emoto's lousy experiment has been reperformed under much tighter scientific controls, and the clear conclusion is still that thoughts affect the molecular structure of water.
No it isn't.
You also assert that:
Emoto's theories, if correct, of course have very wide implications. For example, if thoughts can affect the molecular behaviour of water, how might thoughts affect the molecular behaviour of, say, our own red blood cells or white blood cells or cancer cells or other cells?
I know you are TARing very hard, but the world simply doesn't work that way.
If my mind can move my finger directly, why can't I levitate a cup from across the table? Why can't I make a toaster fly across a room? Why can't I drag a house across the road?
I can't because I can't. There are physical limits.
Of course I could be wrong about how far the limits go.
Tell you what - I'll TAR as hard as I can that you (Mr. Wang) will get an unexpected, giant cash winfall within this week (from 4.00pm 18 Jul 2007 to 11.59pm 22 Jul 2007).
If you suddenly get lots of money, I hope to see a cheque in my mail next week because I TARed it for you.
Only fair that I get... oh... 10 percent.
If you don't, then I just suck at TARing. Whether I win or lose, you still win.
What say you?
On or not?
Hi Lim, I am posting from blackberry, hence shall be brief. Will write more later. The "weakness" of this research is the inherent weakness of science - in the same way, it is difficult to scientifically prove that I, Mr Wang, am less handsome than Brad Pitt; sing worse than George Michael; or draw art that is less masterful than that by Michelangelo. But if you briefly abandon your "scientific" thinking, I believe you will have little difficulty expressing a view as to which photos in my post are aesthetically appealing and which are not. In the same way, if you saw my face, heard me sing and saw my doodles, I believe you will have no problems judging me vis a vis Brad, George and Michelangelo. However, science would struggle badly here.
I think that science cannot provide answers to all the questions. Some questions like, "Should I steal this money?", "What does Heaven look like?" or "Is Mr Wang more handsome than me?" are, like Mr Wang says, it's inherent 'weakness'.
But for other questions that has to do with the natural world, I think the scientific method is the best way so far. It's reliable because it requires rigorous reviews and checks before it can accept any claims.
Why believe in someone who didn't bother to go through all the necessary requirements?
??? Radin's experiment is a double blind experiment, results have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Why do you say that he has not gone through the necessary requirements? If he had failed to do so, his paper would not have been published........ The inherent weakness of science that I was referring to is its inability to measure something like the "beauty" of a crystal, forcing Radin, for the sake of complying with the scientific method, to use a statistically rigorous approach of using 100 indepedent judges to subjectively rank 2000+ crystal samples for their beauty. Of course, the "beautiful" crystals overwhelmingly came from water that had been subjected to "beautiful" thoughts. To scientifically prove that Mr Wang sings worse than George Michael, science would require 100 independent judges to listen to 2000+ samples of Mr Wang and George Michael singing too. But anyone who has a single shred of musical intelligence need merely listen to one sample of Mr Wang singing and one sample of george michael singing, to arrive at the correct conclusion.
Lim wrote "I won't say that his claim has been "established". We can immediately see one weakness of this research - how do you quantify "aesthetic appeal"?"
Hi Lim, I understand that you come from a physical science background, and may not be familiar with this line of approach.
But for most social scientists (say, economists, psychologists, etc), using people to (blindly) judge aesthetic is generally accepted as a scientific approach, since aesthetic is really hard to quantify using machines.
See, for example, the paper "Beauty and the Labor Market" by Daniel S. Hamermesh; Jeff E. Biddle in The American Economic Review, Vol. 84, No. 5. (Dec., 1994), pp. 1174-1194.
Here, in order to see whether there is a relation between beauty and pay, they asked "different interviewers in each year to categorize the respondent's physical appearance into five rubics: strikingly handsome or beautiful, ... average, ... quite plain and homely" (p. 1176).
By the way, "American Economic Review" is generally considered the top economics journal in the world.
By the way, Lim, you just gave me a most interesting idea. I will be back to tell you about it later.
I can't comment on the study since I haven't read the paper, but you can learn more about the methodology here:
http://www.psiarcade.com/crystal2/intro.html
I haven't read through the study either so my judgment was based on reviews of his work by others. However, it seems that Radin likes to pick and choose the data that fits his theory while dismissing those that don't. That should already hint enough about his objectivity.
Another point is that having a paper accepted by a journal doesn't mean that it's credible. There are plenty of journals out there and not all studies are rigorously peer-reviewed before being accepted. An example would be the Sokal hoax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair
Anyways, the abstract for that study you mentioned states that results show P=0.001. Anyone care to explain what that means?
Sending from blackberry, hence shall be brief. P equals 0.001 means that statistical analysis indicates 99.9 per cent certainty that the results were not due to random chance. Be comforted - let this experiment not distress you. TAR says that you always have freedom to choose your thoughts, and your reality will always reflect your thoughts. Even if there were 100 scientists, 100 replications of this experiment, and 100 separate papers published in 100 peer-reviewed scientific journals, TAR predicts that you can still disbelieve. Eg you could always simply choose to believe that all of them are wrong, mistaken or lying. As long as you hang on strongly to that thought, in your reality you will still be right
Eg you could always simply choose to believe that all of them are wrong, mistaken or lying. As long as you hang on strongly to that thought, in your reality you will still be right
So even though I'm wrong, I'm actually right?
Then how should we explain away child rapists who strongly hold on to their thoughts that they're right. We can say that the child and the rapists both share the same reality. So who is right? And I find it really disturbing to think that the child TAR-ed herself to be raped.
I know I used an upsetting example but these things do happen.
Mr. Wang said:
The "weakness" of this research is the inherent weakness of science - in the same way, it is difficult to scientifically prove that I, Mr Wang, am less handsome than Brad Pitt; sing worse than George Michael; or draw art that is less masterful than that by Michelangelo.
Not necessarily. In the examples given, the crystals formed after hateful thoughts are clearly different from those exposed to happy thoughts.
If the Emoto effect is really that pronounced then there is no need to score on aesthetics. Even a machine can see that one crystal is six-sided and the other is disorganized.
Jon said:
Hi Lim, I understand that you come from a physical science background, and may not be familiar with this line of approach.
But for most social scientists (say, economists, psychologists, etc), using people to (blindly) judge aesthetic is generally accepted as a scientific approach, since aesthetic is really hard to quantify using machines.
My background is neuroscience. I am familiar with the approach of social scientists.
I am saying that aesthetics is not needed to score these results. You can still use your 100 independent judges, scoring on "6-sided vs irregular" and the results should be more striking.
Mr. Wang said:
??? Radin's experiment is a double blind experiment, results have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Why do you say that he has not gone through the necessary requirements? If he had failed to do so, his paper would not have been published........
His research was published in a complementary medicine journal, peer-reviewed by other complementary medicine practitioners. Explore! journal started in 2005 (it was only about a year old when Dr. Radin submitted his manuscript).
If this is an important result, why didn't (or couldn't) he get it published in a more established physics journal or a neuroscience journal?
Mr. Wang said:
Even if there were 100 scientists, 100 replications of this experiment, and 100 separate papers published in 100 peer-reviewed scientific journals, TAR predicts that you can still disbelieve.
Oh, I'm far from being that picky. If these results were accepted by a top-tier journal like Science or Nature, and repeated by another independent research group just once - I'll be immediately convinced.
You'll find me positive-TARing every single bottle of water I drink, every day. I will even recommend water TARing to everyone I meet.
And what about my cash TARing offer?
If you really believe in TAR there's no harm trying. After all, scientists may really be super powerful at TAR, which is why they can discover bizarre things about the Universe that other people cannot.
I could TAR more money for you than Han Solo could possibly imagine.
On or not?
Angry Doc said:
I can't comment on the study since I haven't read the paper, but you can learn more about the methodology here:
http://www.psiarcade.com/crystal2/intro.html
Thanks for the link! I've scored all 50 crystals.
None of the samples I got had the 6-sided regularity of "Love & Appreciation".
Most of them look like puddles of water and the few crystals that look somewhat regular - seem to be out of focus.
Something strange going on.
Hi Mr Wang,
Have you watched the film / documentary "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"
If not, I think you would find it interesting. You can watch it in parts in Youtube. There're 2 versions - the original, and then a quantum version "What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole". The latter is an extended version with more interviews and info. They also included a short segment featuring Emotosan's water experiments.
Misome.
Hi people, did some google-fu, came back with a few interesting links. So take a break from the debunking exercise and enjoy some distractions (that are related to the topics you guys are discussing anyway):
1) Dean Radin's blog:
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2006/10/effects-of-distant-intention-on-water.html
2) D wave company; they supposedly made the first quantum computer chip:
http://www.dwavesys.com/
3) Raw for 30 days, about 5 people with type 2 diabetes going on a Raw food regime for 30 days. Seems quite scientific in the way the whole thing was conducted.
http://www.rawfor30days.com/about.html
Lim wrote "I am saying that aesthetics is not needed to score these results. You can still use your 100 independent judges, scoring on "6-sided vs irregular" and the results should be more striking."
It depends on what conclusion is more appealing to you.
Their conclusion, as it stands, seems to be "Praying causes the water to appear more beautiful (beauty, as judged by humans - whatever that is)".
Using your methodlogy, the conclusion might be "Praying causes the water to look more like a six-sided cyrstal".
Personally, I like their conclusion more.
On a related issue, I will be interested to know if TAR can make me more beautiful. I won't be that interested to know whether TAR can make me more symmetrical or regular shaped.
While I agree with you that beauty is subjective (lacks objectivity, etc), I will argue that it is these subjective things in life that matters more to most people.
"If the Emoto effect is really that pronounced then there is no need to score on aesthetics. Even a machine can see that one crystal is six-sided and the other is disorganized."
Yes, possibly the study could have been done that way. In fact, if you analyse the same experimental results, you could already draw those conclusions.
I think Dean Radin was interested in examining aspects. What interests you may be rather peripheral to him. One of the things that he was interested in examining was the nonlocal effects of thought on matter.
As mentioned before, quantum physics tell us that one particle can affect another particle anywhere in the universe, so long as they have been entangled. Then you have people like Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson studying telepathy; and Dr Fenwick examining the possibility, by studying near-death experiences, that consciousness is not restricted to the physical body/brain. There are others who have studied, from different angles, the possibility that mind can affect reality in nonlocal ways -
Radin's approach, as you can see, involves the thoughts of 2,000 people in Tokyo can affect the water samples in California. Experimental results say yes, and p=0.001. Sorry, I think you hate to hear that, but science is science, this was done on double blind basis, and the results speak for themselves.
(As for your TAR offer - I guess you're still not understanding how this works. You obviously don't believe very much in TAR, hence you wouldn't be able to TAR money into Mr Wang's life. You see, your thoughts affect reality, but you certainly won't be able to change everything, and that's because of the limits of your ability to change your own beliefs and thoughts.)
Hi Mr Wang,
Suppose TAR really works, someone ought to TARed to enable his TAR method to work EVERY SINGLE TIME regardless of how hard he TARed.
After that person has TARed for everything he wants, he'd probably realise that he needs to keep this special ability to himself. Hence he would also TAR to have TAR only working for him and no one else.
Wouldn't that mean TAR will not work regardless if it existed in the first place or not? Or are you gonna throw in additional rules such as "TAR do not work for the greedy" etc.?
LOL, no lah, your understanding of TAR is wrong. And no I am not just making up rules as I
go along. There are many "rules" that are already out there about TAR, from different sources. To answer your question, suppose that all your life you have been afraid of dogs. On countless occasions, for years and years, you have had thoughts like "dogs bite", "dogs are such fierce animals", "I am terrified of dogs" and so on. Thus your fear becomes very real. Then this morning, you wake up and think to yourself "from today onwards, I shall no longer be scared of dogs. In fact I shall be a dog lover." Now, use your common sense, do you think this will work? Very, very, very unlikely. How can this single thought overcome the effect of tens of thousands of "dogs are scary" thoughts you've had over the years?? It is certainly possible to remove phobias, but a single random passing thought without much conviction isn't going to do it. A vastly better way is to see a hypnotherapist (under hypnosis, you can rework your deep beliefs including subconscious ones much more directly). And yes if you succeed, your reality will change - one entire species of the animal kingdom will cease to be frightening, and become extremely lovable to you. You may see this as an alteration of your perception of reality rather than an alteration of reality itself, but at a deeper level there is no distinction. You know nothing of reality except through your perception of it.
Jon said:
It depends on what conclusion is more appealing to you.
Their conclusion, as it stands, seems to be "Praying causes the water to appear more beautiful (beauty, as judged by humans - whatever that is)".
Using your methodlogy, the conclusion might be "Praying causes the water to look more like a six-sided cyrstal".
Personally, I like their conclusion more.
*Sigh*
For the benefit of other readers, I'll explain this clearly.
My recommendation is based on Emoto's own data. He claimed obvious differences in crystal structure depending on their thought treatment.
The "beautiful" crystals all have regular 6-sided snowflake patterns. The "ugly" crystals are all irregular and look like puddles of water.
The claim that:
1. Thought alone can change water crystal structure
is fundamental to the claim of:
2. Thought alone can beautify water crystal structure
since you at least need to change something to make it more beautiful.
The first claim, if clearly supported by evidence, is already a huge discovery that deserves a Nobel Prize.
No need to address criticisms about subjectivity or aesthetics - a direct road to Stockholm.
That is why I recommended this improvement to the crystal scoring method.
While I agree with you that beauty is subjective (lacks objectivity, etc), I will argue that it is these subjective things in life that matters more to most people.
Of course subjective things are important. For example, human facial beauty has been studied by psychologists for a long time.
It may be hard to pin objective values to beauty, but psychologists agree that measurable features such as age, facial symmetry, minimal blemishes and minimal deviation from "averaged" face are important to the perception of facial beauty for most people.
When some rules apply to many people (even if the precise mechanism is unknown) these are called intersubjective rules.
If some rules only apply to you in the entire Universe, then it is purely subjective. In your opinion you will always be right, but you cannot recommend this view to anyone else.
So if you prefer to believe that black is actually white, big is small, wrong is right, illegal is legal and false is really true, then that's your own opinion. You win.
However, for the rest of us - if I have a heart attack and must choose between a nitroglycerin tablet or a bottle of Emoto water, I'll bet my life on the tablet.
Any time.
Lim, you're making a wild leap here. Radin's experiment only shows that thoughts affect the formation of the water crystals - it does not in any way show that drinking "emoto water" is good for your health. You may wish to make such wild extrapolations but personally I would prefer to be more scientific. I really am rather surprised by your assertion. As for your nitroglycerin pill, yes, you should certainly take it especially if you strongly believe that it will save your life - in that case, you may benefit not merely from its medicinal properties but also from the well-documented placebo effect. By the way, the more cogent criticism I have of radin's experiment is that in itself, it does not necessarily show that the 2000 thinkers' thoughts have affected the water. It may be that the 2000 thinkers' thoughts may have affected the 100 independent judges' judgment of aesthetic appeal. Seems less likely though, since the 2000 people presumably do not know the 100 judges and were not thinking of them.
Mr. Wang said:
Radin's approach, as you can see, involves the thoughts of 2,000 people in Tokyo can affect the water samples in California. Experimental results say yes, and p=0.001. Sorry, I think you hate to hear that, but science is science, this was done on double blind basis, and the results speak for themselves.
Again I emphasize that it was published in a complementary medicine journal. You say science is science as if complementary medicine is mainstream science, but it isn't.
As for your TAR offer - I guess you're still not understanding how this works. You obviously don't believe very much in TAR, hence you wouldn't be able to TAR money into Mr Wang's life. You see, your thoughts affect reality, but you certainly won't be able to change everything, and that's because of the limits of your ability to change your own beliefs and thoughts.
It's a pity that you rejected my offer. I intended to follow your TAR method and write down this goal. You could have become $10 million richer before the end of this week.
I believe even TAR experts realise that they don't know everything about TAR yet.
There are many unsolved mysteries in the Universe, yet you are absolutely certain that:
1. I don't believe very much in TAR.
2. I won't be able to TAR money into Mr. Wang's life.
3. I have limited ability to change my own beliefs and thoughts.
Since you say that these points are true, they are true for you.
However, if you really believe in TAR, I hope that one day when you have a sudden winfall, you will contribute generously to charity and education.
Because you'll never know if the money actually came from some unknown TAR expert, somewhere out there...
And a little food for your thought. Whatever "intersubjective" rules you believe exist, exist in your reality only because you think and perceive that they do. And what you think and perceive is merely your subjective experience. Yes I know this is hard for you to see, especially when it inevitably leads you to only a few possible ultimate conclusions eg 1. Reality is illusion (as per Buddha) or 2. We are all ultimately just part of one vast, expanding consciousness etc etc
Lim, you're making a wild leap here. Radin's experiment only shows that thoughts affect the formation of the water crystals - it does not in any way show that drinking "emoto water" is good for your health. You may wish to make such wild extrapolations but personally I would prefer to be more scientific. I really am rather surprised by your assertion.
No sir, it shouldn't surprise you at all, since I'm merely learning how to extrapolate results just like you:
Emoto's theories, if correct, of course have very wide implications. For example, if thoughts can affect the molecular behaviour of water, how might thoughts affect the molecular behaviour of, say, our own red blood cells or white blood cells or cancer cells or other cells?
Even if thoughts can change the shape of water crystals, what if it has no effect on water molecules in the liquid phase?
Thus having no effect on most living organisms, except those that are currently freezing to death?
Silly old me - you are right, Mr. Wang. I cannot make such a wild extrapolation.
Well, lim, I guess the difference between you and I is that I qualify my comments appropriately. I just reread my post again, and I don't see anything I should edit or change. Eg I said that IF emoto's theories are correct, THEN the implications are major. I invited readers to consider the potential implications eg I posed the question: "IF thought can affect the water, how MIGHT thought affect our cells etc" bearing in mind that the body is 70 per cent water. Emoto's past methodology was questionable, and I had also pointed that out, which is quite ethical and responsibleof me, if I do say so myself. So I do consider that my post is fairly written. Can you honestly say the same for all of your own comments? Seriously, go reflect. And don't worry, I will not say that your statements are scientifically invalid just because they haven't been published in a "top-tier science journal like Science or Nature".
Hi again Mr Wang,
"You may see this as an alteration of your perception of reality rather than an alteration of reality itself, but at a deeper level there is no distinction. You know nothing of reality except through your perception of it."
Seems like you think that there's no difference between perception and reality.
After all how would i know if what i precieve as green is the same as what you precieve as green. Or how do i prove that photography exists to a blindman.
Rather subjective you might think.
BUT.... there are other ways of objectively quantifying things such as colour. For example, the wavelength of electromagnetic waves absorbed by a colored object.
For how to prove that photography exists to a blind man, go to http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/03/how_do_you_prov.html
Regardless if your green is my green, green is still green. Your perceptions do not alter reality. If your thoughts can alter the wavelength of green light, i will kowtow to you.
As for the scary dog analogy, my phobia of the dog has nothing to do with how dangerous the dog is in reality.
Hey guys, why such caustic responses? No one is asking you to change your belief systems or values here. The man just put across some interesting ideas for you to ponder on. Can't you just open your mind to possibilities instead of trying to immediately disprove and snuff them out?
Life is not a scientific experiment. Why the need to try to always find some logical explanation? What is it that scares you to do this? How very sad and soul-less :(
Misome.
Well, lim, I guess the difference between you and I is that I qualify my comments appropriately. I just reread my post again, and I don't see anything I should edit or change. Eg I said that IF emoto's theories are correct, THEN the implications are major. I invited readers to consider the potential implications eg I posed the question: "IF thought can affect the water, how MIGHT thought affect our cells etc" bearing in mind that the body is 70 per cent water.
And I'm just pointing out that the human body usually don't have any ice crystals in it.
Emoto's past methodology was questionable, and I had also pointed that out, which is quite ethical and responsibleof me, if I do say so myself. So I do consider that my post is fairly written.
I gather that you believe that the Radin experiment is vastly superior to Emoto's experiments.
Are you saying that Explore! is a mainstream science journal?
So I do consider that my post is fairly written. Can you honestly say the same for all of your own comments?
Of course. If you really believe in TAR, you needn't ask.
Seriously, go reflect.
Done.
And don't worry, I will not say that your statements are scientifically invalid just because they haven't been published in a "top-tier science journal like Science or Nature".
Ah that's where you're wrong. If you really believe in TAR, my statements are always valid for me because you say that:
... you could always simply choose to believe that all of them are wrong, mistaken or lying. As long as you hang on strongly to that thought, in your reality you will still be right
So you already know that I am correct and you are wrong from my perspective.
And I agree with you.
For other readers though, let's wait for results in mainstream science journals to support the hypothesis that thought can affect ice crystal formation.
If the Radin study does have important findings then we needn't wait long.
Misome said...
Life is not a scientific experiment. Why the need to try to always find some logical explanation?
Mr. Wang has been pointing to *science* as evidence that TAR works. Science as you know works with empirical data and logical deduction.
So why is asking for logical explanations such an anathema? You would rather we ask for illogical explanations? Or maybe no explanations at all are necessary? So you are arguing that we should accept ALL claims and conjectures as fact?
If Mr. Wang had claimed that TAR is a mystical and magical methodology then I agree, no logical explanations are necessary.
All you need is faith and TAR away.
What is it that scares you to do this? How very sad and soul-less :(
How does getting to the truth or falsity of claims and conjectures make one a coward, sad or soul-less? Can you explain?
Hi IMBS: short answer to your question is that whatever mechanism you use to study the EM waves absorbed by a coloured object, you still have to perceive and observe the results produced by that mechanism. The results do not exist unless perceived by you, and the only meaning they have is whatever meaning your mind attaches to it. What you have stated is merely the same old same old problem of the "consciousness causes collapse" theory in quantum physics, in another form. You can also compare to einstein's question - "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?". In your case, the question would be "If light falls on an object and no one is around to observe, verify or measure this, does the object still absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others?"
I think that mainstream science journals will only deal with mainstream science. What is mainstream science depends in turn on a variety of factors. For example, in the 1980s, any scientist reporting his research in DNA or human genomes would not have been able to get published in mainstream science journals of that time. Most likely he would have had little choice but to publish his work in "fringe" science journals. Actually, the same happens in many other fields. The avant garde and the cutting edge ideas are always "obscure" and "on the fringe" and viewed with suspicion, before they eventually become mainstream.
I've been a long time reader but I've made very few comments. This post, however, absolutely demands me to comment.
To anonymous above, you did not qualify your statement, which is obvious from the words 'I think',
And to which I say: nonsense, Watson & Crick published their groundbreaking paper on the structure of nucleic acids (read: DNA) in Nature.
Mr Wang, here, we are talking about a strictly scientific experiment in general. Science is about falsifiable hypotheses which can be repeated under the same experimental conditions. You cannot take one paper on one experiment as proof until other researchers try to repeat the experiment under the same conditions.
And from what I can see, your mindhacking has one noticeable effect: it has indeed altered your perception of reality. You believe that you are right, and in so doing, you seem to be resisting lim leng hiong's observations which are entirely valid.
But then again, I might be wrong, because you believe I'm wrong.
Ah, no, JL, I actually quite agree with you. Science indeed is about falsifiable conditions which can be repeated under the same experimental conditions etc etc. That is why after I referred to radin's double blind experiment, I still said: "IF emoto's theory is right, THEN the implications are major" etc etc. It is not my fault if some readers here cannot understand English and end up thinking that I said things which I did not say. But personally I do feel it is very, very unscientific to doubt the results of a double blind experiment for no other reason than (1) the fact that the results are published in a "lower-tier" science journal (eg the average journal published by, say, NUS or NTU is probably not "top tier" but surely that's not a good reason to scoff at the research of NUS or NTU scientists who publish their research there) or (2) the fact that the scientist in question actually has theories about a fringe area of science.
JL said:
Mr Wang, here, we are talking about a strictly scientific experiment in general. Science is about falsifiable hypotheses which can be repeated under the same experimental conditions. You cannot take one paper on one experiment as proof until other researchers try to repeat the experiment under the same conditions.
And from what I can see, your mindhacking has one noticeable effect: it has indeed altered your perception of reality. You believe that you are right, and in so doing, you seem to be resisting lim leng hiong's observations which are entirely valid.
But then again, I might be wrong, because you believe I'm wrong.
Thanks, JL.
I also thank Mr. Wang for posting this interest topic for us to discuss.
And with that - I take leave of this debate.
Have an good weekend everyone!
Mr Wang, I guess we'll just have to wait and see if any other researchers will repeat this experiment successfully!
I suspect that we'll be waiting for a very long time!
Sorry, missed this part of your comment earlier:
"As for the scary dog analogy, my phobia of the dog has nothing to do with how dangerous the dog is in reality."
LOL, sure it does. If you're very afraid of dogs, they're much more likely to attack you.
In other words, your thoughts affect your reality. Your fearful thoughts make dogs more dangerous in your reality.
The mechanics go like this. If you're afraid of dogs, then when a strange dog approaches you, you're likely to stare straight at the dog; make nervous, jerky, quick movements; scream and/or turn around & run away. Exactly the kind of behaviour that excites and agitates dogs into attacking people.
See for example, this:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=31767
"When you are in a situation where a strange dog is displaying aggressive behavior toward you, try to control the way you react. The old axiom that animals can smell fear probably is better stated that they can "see" fear. If a dog growls at you and you take off screaming and running like a Saturday morning cartoon character, the dog is probably going to chase you. Each situation is different, but generally speaking, it is a good idea not to turn and run, not to scream and not to make eye contact with the animal. If the dog approaches you, it is recommended that you keep arms, legs and hands close to your body. Maintaining control is important."
So yeah, that's how thoughts affect reality, in this particular kind of situation.
Wow, JB that's a very creative interpretation of my message. You choose to read into it and come up such a string of arguments and accusations that I did not make. So I will leave it to you to answer your own questions.
MY question is why the NEED to always look for a logical explanation. I did not condemn logic or ask you to be illogical, and I surely am not 'arguing' that you accept 'ALL claims and conjectures as fact'. That is just you being illogical :)
I just noticed that many readers tend to respond aggressively, and read excessively into entries related to TAR. They also tend to overanalyse, and misunderstand to arrive at a logical explanation that satisfies them. Is this because of a fear of the unknown or the inexplicable? Or what? Either way, I think it's sad when people only see things in black and white. Some colour is good for the soul. But, again, let me clarify that I'm not advocating technicolour if you choose B/W. The choice is yours. Just RELAK a little, this one good for the heart.
Misome.
Hi Mr Wang,
After reading all of what you have said, i would think that Risperdal affects reality.
Why?
That's because Risperdal can affect thoughts which in turns affect reality,
Oh no. It could be that you precieve the existence of Risperdal first, which means thoughts still affect reality in the first place.
I must be stupid after all.
No, you are not stupid, you're actually quite correct. Whatever affects your perception of reality, affects your reality.
Whatever temporarily affects your perception of reality, temporarily affects your reality.
Whatever affects your perception of reality for a looooong time, affects your reality for a looooong time.
Drugs/alcohol are examples of things that could temporarily affect your reality.
Deep beliefs are examples of things that can affect your reality for a looooong time. For example, the Pope's reality and a staunch atheist's reality and the Dalai Lama's reality are all very different, even if they are sitting together in the same room.
Anonymous Misome said...
Wow, JB that's a very creative interpretation of my message.
It isn't creative at all but mere logical deduction from your statement - why the NEED for logical explanation
I did not condemn logic or ask you to be illogical, and I surely am not 'arguing' that you accept 'ALL claims and conjectures as fact'. That is just you being illogical :)
I am being logical. Since you questioned the NEED to look for logical explanations, the converse conclusions I had suggested were derived using simple deduction. Ok, the "illogical explanation" bit was really meant to be sarcastic but no less logically derived.
I just noticed that many readers tend to respond aggressively, and read excessively into entries related to TAR.
What I have observed is quite the opposite. Lim Leng Hiong isn't at all aggressive but debating this topic with facts and logic and arguing quite persuasively too.
They also tend to overanalyse, and misunderstand to arrive at a logical explanation that satisfies them.
The rebuttals and responses have been specific to the many points raised and not what anyone could term *overanalysing* - well except for maybe you.
Either way, I think it's sad when people only see things in black and white.
Your colour analogy is a false one. The debate has revolved around the validity of the 'scientific method' surrounding Emotos's water crystals. Why should logical explanations be out of place and sad? On the contrary, it is extremely relevant.
Your statement doesn't make any sense.
Of course in your reality it could make all the sense in the world provided you TARed hard enough.
I have a very simple question that I hope the smart neuro scientists and doctors here can enlighten me on.
I remember being taught in school long long time ago that ice crystals have hexagonal lattice structures. Why do the ice crystals in Emoto's photos all look so different? Is it due to different magnification levels?
If I believe Emoto, I would conclude that the scientist who first discovered the hexagonal lattice structure in ice must be harboring happy thoughts at the time...
I have some relevant experience regarding the dog phobia analogy. I almost got killed by my uncle's dog when I was around 4 or 5, and ever since that incident I've had a very huge phobia of dogs and believed all of them would attack me if I went near them. And true to the article Mr. Wang posted, dogs used to become more aggressive around me.
Sometime around late teens/early twenties, I had a change of heart and decided I do not fear dogs, instead, it is dogs that should fear me, for if they come close I will seriously hurt them.
Of course, it takes time to really remove such a strongly embedded phobia, however I have noticed that ever since my change of heart, most dogs no longer become aggressive around me anymore.
I'm not a believer of the mystical aspects of Mr. Wang's TAR theories (though I've experienced many 'coincidences'), but I do believe that it is possible to change your outlook and perception of life, which inadvertedly also changes the way you live your life, your reactions to events and your body language, all which affects the way others around you will perceive you.
"I remember being taught in school long long time ago that ice crystals have hexagonal lattice structures. Why do the ice crystals in Emoto's photos all look so different? Is it due to different magnification levels?"
How do they photograph the water samples? Basically the water is subjected to extremely cold temperatures well below zero degrees celsisu, maybe something like -20.
The water (ice) is then taken from the special freezer, placed in a petri dish, observed under a microscope and with special photographic equipment.
As the ice begins to melt, (or at least move towards a higher temperature), crystals may begin to form.
(I understand that distilled water / treated tap water subjected to no thoughts generally produce no crystals, in this kind of process. However, water subjected to different thoughts will produce different kinds of crystals. Water taken from the same natural source (eg the same river) will produce the same kind of crystals. However two samples of water taken from the same natural source but subject to different thoughts will produce different kinds of crystals).
That's the basic process. In Radin's experiment, the photographer is not told where each sample comes from (ie he does not know whether any particular sample has been subjected to thoughts, or has come from the control group); he just takes photos of whatever crystals he can find forming.
"I'm not a believer of the mystical aspects of Mr. Wang's TAR theories (though I've experienced many 'coincidences'), but I do believe that it is possible to change your outlook and perception of life, which inadvertedly also changes the way you live your life, your reactions to events and your body language, all which affects the way others around you will perceive you."
What you mean is that you believe in TAR, to the extent that your thoughts affect your own behaviour, which in turn affect the "external" reality.
One day, you may see that there is no "external" reality. Some religious leaders teach us that it is this illusion - that there is an "external" reality - which causes conflict in the world.
What they say:
When you believe that there is a "I", and a "you", and a "them", then there is selfishness, there is fear and there is greed. But if you could understand that there is no separation, then you would have only love and kindness for all mankind. Because all of us are each other, actually - there is no separation.
That's what the religious teachers say, anyway. No, I don't think this can be proven in a double-blind experiment and published in a top-tier mainstream science journal.
Peace and Love to you, JB.
Misome.
hahah.. i haven been reading the comments. So what i say here might be repeating. Dr Emoto once gave a talk in singapore. During that time, I am telling my friend, if it is really true, it could explain why pple who prays and pple who prays to those who are ill will get better. Perhaps this crystalizable water is a healthy component to cure the bad baterials invading the patient's body. hahaha... If this is really true, perhaps religon don't really exist, its only the powerful thoughts is working on the water. Nevertheless, water is the major component of our body right?
Another thought is that, we probably could encode and decode our thoughts through water inthe future.. hahahaha.....
this blog is particulary fun. Few thoughts
1) To be able to form a crystal, is to form regular periodicity, and thermodynamic principle has a factor call entropy which is talking about the state of disorder. However for a things to be stable, the state of disorder will increase. Therefore to be in regular form, a lot of energy must be placed to overcome this entropy, the parameter for disorder. I believe one of Dr Emoto's example is to use polluted water as a prove to form water crystal which in scientific view, it is difficult as polluted water has lots of impurity that stops water to form water crystals (in principle, to form crystals, your precursor must be very pure)
2) So if water can form water crystals out of polluted water, and if we has minus the theory of probability, it means that there is huge amount of energy involves to form these water crystals
3)Now u will be thinking where does these energy comes from? I am thinking too.. hahah but from what Mr Wang has posted some article, relating to Quantum Mechanics and Religion through thoughts.. i wonder this could be the weak link to talk about.
4) Anyway Mr Lim, verification is always slow and does not take a quantum leap, but it always start from a discovery. Your arguement that if one has a heart attack which u will choose the pills, u are not wrong, but did you realise, the entropy is extremely high, the water prepared by Dr Emoto might not be powerful enough.. hahahaha..
""I remember being taught in school long long time ago that ice crystals have hexagonal lattice structures. Why do the ice crystals in Emoto's photos all look so different? Is it due to different magnification levels?"
Only to a certain extent. In scientific terms, its shape depends on the medium its growing on. For example, the crystal grow on window panel is different if its grown on other materials.
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