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It is well-known and established how the biological brain can direct hormones to be released that can stimulate the immune system to heal the body. The field of scientific research is called neuropsychoimmunology and you can even take a course on it at Georgetown University if you'd like: NSCI-510 Neuropsychoimmunology | 2010-2011 Course Catalog | Georgetown University
There is nothing mystical about this, nor is it beyond science. I don't understand why people jump to a supernatural explanation just because they themselves are ignorant of the scientific explanation.
Natural scientific explanations like the one you mentioned and "the supernatural" are one and the same. "The supernatural" is part of the natural. There's no need for a dualistic view. They are one and the same. We simply have not recognized the full breadth and depth of our natural Universe.
Absolutely, and that is why we can never know for sure that we have learned anything about the reality underneath the consistency. If we truly are in the Matrix all science or our personally experiences can detect are consistencies in the way the computer program generates the perception of our world.
Personal experiences (aka anecdotal evidence) are great for generating hypotheses but are never sufficient as reliable proof of anything. They are too faulty, prone to misperception and misinterpretation, subject to bias and prejudiced by one's beliefs, jumps to unwarranted conclusions like the child who assumes magicians can really turn cards into birds, subject to delusions and hallucinations, are at best a mental model of what happens in the world around them. It is well documented that our memories for personal experiences are crap. Loftus showed through scientific research that witnesses are horrible at describing what happened during a motor vehicle accident they were shown - their accounts contradicted each other and the tape. Memories can be manipulated and planted without a person's awareness.
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I totally see the problem with using personal experience as the ONLY tool. I just think that science is overvalued and personal experience is undervalued. They are both very useful tools and one should not be regarded as more real than the other. Personal experience has its limitations but so does science. That doesn't make either tool less valid or useful.
How about believing that in any foreign country a police station is a different institution than a chamber of commerce. The first would more or less be at fact (of the world), and the other would be more or less at an understanding for theory in one's personal experience.
I have another one to add to the list. And that is the concept of karma. While I would love to believe in karma I as a rational being know that it does not exist. As much as I would like it too.
I also think that many religions and personal beliefs are based off of this concept to one degree or another.
From my experience, beliefs very much color reality. A lot of our reality is shaped by our beliefs. I think part of the reason angels and God exist is because so many people believe in them that they have come to exist.
Well although your belief in magic is quite amusing, for which I thank you for the chuckle, I see absolutely no reason on offer whatsoever to lend anything you just said any credence whatsoever.
However feel free to test your claim. Get a million people together, get them to focus on a spot and believe there is something there, and see if that something appears.
Until then you are welcome to believe that if enough people believe something it suddenly, magically, becomes true. But I am not about to follow you down that path based on literally nothing at all.
I don't think I was clear either. I'm by no means claiming that if enough people believe the sky is green, the sky will turn green. What I was trying to explain is more subtle than that. I was trying to explain that on the quantum level, observation affects outcome. That does affect reality on the macro level, but not in the drastic way tgnostic and Nozzeferrahhtoo offered as examples. I do believe that positivity vs. negativity can help tip the scale one way or another, but they are just factors in the final outcome, not the sole definers of outcome.
So you say enough people believing in spirits and gods has made them exist when you say "because so many people believe in them that they have come to exist."
But the same thing can not turn the sky green or make something materialise.
So essentially what you are saying is that... if enough people believe something it will become true... but only if it JUST HAPPENS to be something we have absolutely, literally, no way to check actually did come true. Everything that would actually be verifiable in any way... just happens to be exempt from your claim.
Well that is just very convenient that is.
With thinking like that I can sell medicine that cures diseases people do not even know they have, and can not detect, but after taking my medicine they will all go away.... but amazingly my medicine just happens not to work on any disease people can actually feel they have, or scientists can actually detect.
I will be rich.
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