@hmmm...

No, you should release your grip on beliefs as if they were defining of your character and learn to hold multiple theories in mind simultaneously and weigh them according to their weight in reason and experience. Become a skeptic and opponent of everything with the ultimate goal of discovering what is true, yet never being satisfied of having found the truth. Don't take climatologists word for it, if you are genuinely concerned, study climatology and any and all alternatives and withhold judgement until you are left no choice but to believe.

If listening to me helps you achieve that goal, great, otherwise, don't waste your time.

I continued this dialog with a co-worker which unearthed some interesting points. For example scientific epistemology was drastically changed by Karl Popper's falsifiability criteria.

This is the thing about science, it is an evolving methodology that is frequently revised according to the insights of scientific epitemologists. The people I've mentioned; Wiliam James, William K. Clifford, Susan Haack and Karl Popper are such scientific epistemologists who have laid the foundations for the scientific method we now possess, but there is no guarantee that our current methods are fool-proof or even very productive. It is possible to appear to be making progress while actually regressing or causing destruction.

The scientific method is aimed at generating statistically probable theories out of myriad conflicting hypotheses. In other words, individual scientists may still be unabashedly deluded and subject to environmental pressures such as peer influence. It is actually extremely common; Pat Churchland doesn't have dinner dates with Sam Parnia, and Peter Fenwick doesn't go to the cinema with Roger Bingham. Rather, Sam Parnia, Peter Fenwick, Dean Radin, and Melvin Morse go to brunch together while Roger Bingham, Michael Shermer, Dan Dennet and Phil Plait hang out on the weekends.

What I mean to say is that they routinely fight amongst themselves and congregate into birds-of-a-feather groups, refusing to see the other's side and looking for ways to debase the other group's convictions. Sam Parnia gave a lengthy lecture/presentation on Flora.TV that looks-over the works of Morse, Fenwick, Blackmore, Radin and Himself, while over-looking the works of Shermer, Bingham, Dennet and Plait. Meanwhile, the Skeptics look-over their own work and over-look the work of the Parapsychologists. It happens all the time, but it is difficult to see if you think that the entire scientific establishment consists of the regular members of the Skeptics Society or The Science Network, and not the members of the Parapsychological Association or the editors of the Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of Near-Death Studies, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and Journal of Scientific Exploration.

These researchers are equipped with a method of challenging each other's biases, but not of overcoming their own biases. If the duality between the skeptics and the parapsychologists should prove to be wrong, both sides will have a hard time letting go of it. Whatever theory seeks to dissolve the illusion of conflict will run up against resistence from all sides. The philosopher in the true sense of the word, whose concern is for the personal attainment of truth, must necessarily surpass the limitations of the scientist and become his/her own skeptic, which should include listening to conflicting ideas with as much openness and skepticism as anything else. A good balance of openness and skepticism that revolves around truth and not advancing one's own ideology or career. That is what is ultimately required, everything else is dabbling. It won't matter how much specificity a person learns within a particular field of research, if they continue to rend the field into two discrete camps, one of which houses their self-worth, and the other acts as their archnemesis. How can anyone see beyond such attachments and definitions? This is what makes "scientists" generally inadequate theorists and debators.

>> "If you are not a scientist or a scientist involved in the field of climate change the only thing you can do is to rely on the consensus in the world of science in this field, if there is a consensus. There is a consensus that supports global warming."

This is asinine, ignorant, bullshit. There is absolutely nothing inherent in the condition of being a "scientist" that makes such people any more capable of discerning truth than does being a "phlebotomist" or "Vitalist". The only advantage you have is being trained in a small area of epistemology, the epistemology of science, but that also has the potential of making you epistemically challenged. I'm pretty sure William Kingdon Cliffords The Ethics of Belief, William James' The Meaning of Truth & What Pragmatism Means, or Susan Haack's New Criterion are not required reading to become a climatologist. As such they are dabbling in a judgment system they only dimly understand. Those are just references, however, what I mean to point to is this lack of understanding of understanding itself, which is a serious problem for anyone proposing to have understanding.

This man seems like a bigot and fraudster. Looking over his statements, such as "I declare private war on Germany", and apparently the Times was an integral part of his legal success, as there were no legitimate means for his winning apart from the public influence of the newspapers headlines. He was a bit of a trouble-maker likening himself to Guy Fowlkes and he appears to be rather unsympathetic to others with some eccentricities that all add up to the image of a Narcissist with Machiavellian qualities.

Though, Narcissism and Machiavellianism continue to woo fools.

Great news, like the comment "On the downside, we have no treatment for this."

Not that I'm a downer, just thought it was funny/sick.

@Timothy P

I've seen "A Scanner Darkly" directed by Richard Linklater, starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane, Robert Downey, Jr., and Woody Harrelson. Does that have any redeeming value?

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." - 1 Corinthians 13:11-12

I probably said the name "Giant Hogweed" three dozen times since monday. The plant proliferates around the Thames river where I live and I'm going camping next weekend around the Thames. I was planning to pull up some pictures to show my girlfriend so she could be aware what we are up against, and now I don't have to, she will probably see this post. So thank you for that.

I'll tell you what makes me strong, if I am strong at all, a number of principals of mind.

A) All suffering is the result of ignorance.
B) Ignorance is the result of ignoring truth.
C) Truth is ignored because it is harmful to one's sense of self-worth.
D) Self-worth is clung to because we fear our own mortality.

These four principals, and maybe there is more, are a constant reinforcement of my psychological well-being. Whenever I feel suffering in the form of depression, anxiety or what-not, I look to my own mortality, try to see in what ways my suffering is bound-up in clinging to existence and self-worth. Pretty soon, I find the answers I'm looking for and I'm lifted out of the abyss. Drugs will never help with this, they can only provide a temporary relief with the consequence of becoming dependent and more depressed. The mind seeks a balance, drugs may aim to rebalance a mind gone haywire, but they are generally global effects that throw the mind into greater disequilibrium.

@Jessss

They didn't think the brain could adjust, they thought it was like a car engine, it contains well-defined parts that once broken are no longer useful. Neuroplasticity meant that even after a brain region became damaged, it had the potential to regain function through Cognitive Behavior Therapy or Constraint-Induced Therapy. But up until the 1980s the prevailing belief was in the removal of faulty mechanisms.

I spoke to my mother last night, a rather dismal conversation as my brother has been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease known as vasculitis, that has the potential to require amputation. Our conversation seemed to revolve around illnesses and I had the opportunity to ask her about her experiences with SSRIs. She wasn't familiar with the term, but she was familiar with Prozac.

As a young mother of three, one of which she almost lost in a near-fatal motorvehicle accident (me), and a cheating husband, she found herself quite depressed and upon seeking medical treatment, found herself taking Prozac. It made her feel suicidal and unable to function at even normal levels, but her physicians refused to discontinue administering the drug to her. She insisted on quiting with or without their help and they warned her "You will not be able to go off Prozac without medical care." She said "I know it is messing with my head, making me want to do things." and she quit cold-turkey. I remember the way she was, Prozac wasn't the only drug she was taking, she was taking drugs to counter-act other drugs and her whole life was a depressive mess. She became bipolar while taking prescription drugs, and said she felt like a Guinea Pig much of the time. I remember the amount she used to cry and contemplate suicide, it was very unsettling for her children. To speak to her now, she is nothing like she was, I don't have to worry about saying the wrong thing or upsetting her, she is incredibly strong, way stronger than she was. When she talks about recovering from depression, the things she mentions are not drugs, not therapy and not even family and friends, the things she talks about is her own psyche, how she dropped anxieties and false beliefs, matured and "woke up" to reality.

@Jessss,

I was adding to your comment, and saying it otherwise in terminology more native to me. I suspect someone will read these comments, have some interest and look up "vestibulo-ocular reflec" and "corticothalamic complex". To anyone doing that; I would suggest trying www.scholarpedia.org first, though there are limited articles.

Pfft, Bob Flanagan "Supermasochist" used to do this for fun. He wasn't happy unless there was a nine inch nail stapling his testacles to a table. Here is the documentary about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SICK:_The_Life_%26_Death_of_Bob_Flanagan,_Supermasochist

Great, you won't need those cognitive features then, you can lean on your crutch and let your muscles atrophy.

I read about this possibility years ago. Climatologists were tossing around the idea that increased green-house gases would actually stabilize the atmosphere and lead to a greener earth. After-all, much of the "pollutants" are plant-food or food for small organisms.

This is why it is a good idea not to go all-in on these issues, like "I believe in Global Warming, that makes me superior to you fools who do not." That kind of thing. Even if it was true, I say its the investment that is troublesome.

A lot of this information is trivial however. Note that it is common to dwell on the background of the people we idolize, it is enjoyable to learn about the roots of the people we love. But what about the people we hate?

Let's clap our hands for the president and Jesus Christ and did I mention Charlie Manson and everybody else, who was nice.
- Daron Malakian, System of a Down

People ask what are my intentions with my films — my aims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be. There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; 'eternal values,' 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.
The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other.
We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal. Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.
Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.
Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (1960)

Sounds like a smart cookie, haven't seen any of his films myself though. Uhh, fail?