By the way, I am not being antagonistic here. I am in total agreement that truth comes in many forms and in many states of mind. My problem is that except for empirical truth, I don't know how to evaluate any other kind of truth. Its a question I have been thinking about for years, especially as a person of faith. So, yes, truth comes in many forms and in many states of mind, but so do delusions. There is my problem.
How do you separate out the "woo woo" of any crackpot's notion of ""spiritual vibrational planes" and "life force dimentions" from true wisdom imparted from God, the universe, or life, if there is no way to verify it. If there is a way to verify it, then it is, by definition, empirical truth.
So my compaints below are simply a sincere attempt at answering my lifelong question.
.... Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable, we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach.
lavever,
I am familiar with Dr. Bob, AA, and The Big Book. I live only a few miles away from where it all began in Akron, Ohio. I have a dear friend who has been going to AA for quite a while, and I have accompanied her to meetings and read the Big Book. I am totally convinced that AA is one of the most effective techniques for fighting alcohol addiction.
However, I don't see why AA is not an empirical technique. For example, can the success rate of remission for the AA technique can easily be measured to be superior to other forms of therapy? If so, then it is a practice that has been empirically proven to be superior.
Secondly, although the Big Book talks about a higher power, the actual practice of the BB is a human communal one. In other words, would prayer alone be as effective without meetings and the other secular steps in the process? And, could an atheist still benefit from the AA process if he followed it without belief in a higher power?
Finally, as a Lutheran, I would readily believe that God's influence on us is mediated by other humans in community, and not directly. But ask me to separate out the influence of a community and God's influence through the community and I would not have a clue.
Dr. Bob developed the AA technique in the 1950s, before the great advances of such highly effective techniques as Behavioral Cognitive Therapy. His argument is based on a rejection of the state of the art of psychology in the 50s, but that doesn't prove that what he invented was not a form of therapy. I maintain that AA is a kind of Group Cognitive Therapy.
The piece of your posting from the Big Book that I quoted above could easily have been applied to depression and anxiety in the 1950s. These days, the success rate for treating depression using drugs and modern therapy is higher than any other kind of treatment, be it medical, non-medical, or religious.
Your use of Dr. Bob's complaint about psychology in the 1950s is an "appeal to ignorance" which is not a valid way to falsify a notion. It is equivalent to saying that since we don't yet have a vaccine for the common cold, all vaccines are bogus.
Well... here's where it becomes a bit more difficult. hehe... As I said, I'm absolutely no expert, but what it means to be "integrally informed", is to always take the 4 different quadrants into account when dealing with ordinary life experiences. So there's the good, the true and the beautiful (which are three of the quadrants. We, It, I.)
So, in integral medicine, for example, one would take all of these factors into account. What is the empirical evidence that this will work, what are the ethical implications, how will the person feel and experience the treatment. This is of course a bit over simplified, but just to make an example.
The goal, I think, is to expand your consciousness and understanding of consciousness to as high a level as you can. He even has developmental levels like this:
level 1. Archaic
level 2. Mythic
level 3. Magic
level 4. Traditional (these are the people who believe the bible is the exact word of god and should be taken literally.)
level 5. modern
level 6. post-modern (these are the baby boomers, I think.)
level 7. Integral.
pheew... :redface:
I can't argue that there are all kinds of states of mind, besides reason and empiricism. And I totally agree that truth comes to us in all manner of forms. What you just quoted, though, doesn't sound like anything more than just good advice. For example, who would advise a doctor to ignore the emotional state of a patient either before or after treatment? Yes, it is true that medical doctors are not very good at that, but this is changing very fast as practices improve.
The problem with the Integral stuff so far is that I still haven't seen how to apply it. For example, it would seem that Integral Thinking would suggest that an oncologist urge his cancer patient to think positive because a positive state of mind will influence the success rate of the chemotherapy. But studies have shown that this approach can often be counterproductive, since when any setbacks occur, the patient is extremely disappointed and tends to blame it on his own inability to think positive properly.
So how does Integral Thinking actually inform a doctor better than the various medical studies that are done about the emotional states of patients and their affect on their cures?
