(September 23, 2016 at 9:15 am)Esquilax Wrote:(September 23, 2016 at 9:08 am)mcolafson Wrote: O.k.
let's say it is year 1825 anno domini, your name is Robert Brown and you are watching a phenomenon that they will later call Brownian motion. You cannot determine the mechanisms that cause this motion. Does it mean that the particles are not moving? Maybe you had too much drink and you are hallucinating?
If you cannot demonstrate the mechanism behind what you're observing, then you cannot reasonably propose a link between the effect and your desired cause. The particles are moving, and some people who undergo acupuncture are feeling an effect: the problem in both cases is bridging the gap between the effect, and the cause of it, and that bridge is an understanding of the mechanisms behind the effect. Without that, you can't rationally say that the acupuncture is what is causing the effect you feel, any more than Robert Brown could attribute the motion of particles to Brownian motion without knowing what Brownian motion is.
If you don't know how the acupuncture is helping you, in what sense do you have knowledge that it is helping you at all, over and above some other cause that's equally unknown to you?
I can walk, work and sleep without pain-killers.
It's either acupuncture or the Holy Spirit.
