And if I stick purely to a pure scientific materialist understanding of the world, where anything I believe has to be intersubjectively verifiable, I’d simply lose access to this ability my body has, and be weaker as a result.
I agree with the point of “if your worldview forbids you from doing these kinds of visualizations, you’ll lose a valuable tool”.
I disagree with the claim that a scientific materialist understanding of the world would forbid such visualizations. There’s no law of scientific materialism that says “things that you visualize in your mind cannot affect anything in your body”.
E.g. I recall reading of a psychological experiment where people were asked to imagine staring into a bright light. For people without aphantasia, their pupils reacted similarly as if they were actually looking into a light source. For people with aphantasia, there was no such reaction. But the people who this worked for didn’t need to believe that they were actually looking at a real light—they just needed to imagine it.
Likewise, if the unbendable arm trick happens to be useful for you, nothing prevents you from visualizing it while remaining aware of the fact that you’re only imagining it.
I think we mostly agree, I was pointing to a strawman of scientific materialism that I used to but no longer hold. Maybe a clearer example is a verbal practice like a mantra, chanting “God is good”—which is incompatible with the constraint to only say things that are intersubjectively verifiable, at least in principle. If someone were to interrupt and ask “wait how do you know that? what’s your probability on that claim?” your answer would have to look something like this essay.
nothing prevents you from visualizing it while remaining aware of the fact that you’re only imagining it.
This does seem to be the case for unbendable arm, but I’m less sure it generalizes to more central religious beliefs like belief in a loving God or the resurrection of the dead! I don’t see an a priori reason why certain beliefs wouldn’t require a lack of conscious awarenessthat you’re imagining them in order to “work”, so want to make sure my worldview is robust to this least convenient possible world. Curious if you have further evidence or arguments for this claim!
I agree with the point of “if your worldview forbids you from doing these kinds of visualizations, you’ll lose a valuable tool”.
I disagree with the claim that a scientific materialist understanding of the world would forbid such visualizations. There’s no law of scientific materialism that says “things that you visualize in your mind cannot affect anything in your body”.
E.g. I recall reading of a psychological experiment where people were asked to imagine staring into a bright light. For people without aphantasia, their pupils reacted similarly as if they were actually looking into a light source. For people with aphantasia, there was no such reaction. But the people who this worked for didn’t need to believe that they were actually looking at a real light—they just needed to imagine it.
Likewise, if the unbendable arm trick happens to be useful for you, nothing prevents you from visualizing it while remaining aware of the fact that you’re only imagining it.
I think we mostly agree, I was pointing to a strawman of scientific materialism that I used to but no longer hold. Maybe a clearer example is a verbal practice like a mantra, chanting “God is good”—which is incompatible with the constraint to only say things that are intersubjectively verifiable, at least in principle. If someone were to interrupt and ask “wait how do you know that? what’s your probability on that claim?” your answer would have to look something like this essay.
This does seem to be the case for unbendable arm, but I’m less sure it generalizes to more central religious beliefs like belief in a loving God or the resurrection of the dead! I don’t see an a priori reason why certain beliefs wouldn’t require a lack of conscious awareness that you’re imagining them in order to “work”, so want to make sure my worldview is robust to this least convenient possible world. Curious if you have further evidence or arguments for this claim!