My love for this clip is infinite.

Is there a word for the confidence technique he's using? He tosses out a bunch of vague words around a vague theme and since his audience is trying their hardest to understand him they fill in the blanks for him and attribute deep meaning to his bullshit.

It's the essence of a bunch of scams-for instance every fast-talking petty scammer at my old CVS job would tell a long, hard to understand story that would include a bunch of phrases like "talked to customer service" or "I talked to someone on the phone". Then I'd try to parse what they said in good faith and think they had talked to some authority. He's doing the same thing but trying to convince me he's smart rather than trying to convince me to issue a questionable refund. It's the first step to cold reading too. And why I used to think The Doors and Led Zeppelin were deep.

That wasn't supposed to be a reply.

I believe it would be a fallacy of equivocation, of sorts.

Also, I don't know the formal term for it (if there is one), but what Chopra and his ilk primarily do is latch on to some aspect of science that is not well defined and exploit it for its mystical properties. In exactly the same way that religious folks take gaps in scientific knowledge and fill it with "God did it", Chopra just does the same thing with "quantum did it" or something like that.

The term is religion.

Find a hole in current understanding, fill it with magic.

rats grow from straw

=

soul is quantum gibberish

It is infinitely possible at a quantum locality in all matter and matters that relate to the energies of both time and space infinitesimally. That's all the words I know.

if the word "guru" was a verb, it would be "deepaking".

Whatever he's doing, he keeps trying it, no matter what.

What bothers me is that people who hate him won't want to give the time of day to philosophers that want to talk about God and quantum physics who actually know their quantum physics. Not all philosophers are arrogant pyramid scheme generators.

You are partially correct, Mr Wildcat. I've long maintained that there are problems with the way theoretical physics are sold to the lay public, things like string theory, scale relativity, and m-brane theory suffer from what I like to call "the Michio Kaku Effect", being oversold and misrepresented as being, not as-yet-unproven (and in some cases, unprovable) mathematical models, but actually confirmed (or nearly confirmed) Scientific "Truths".

However, there is a difference between "quantum physics" and "theoretical physics". Certain quantum properties are known to exist, can be and have been tested for, and are so well-documented that they provide the basis for various modern technologies, suhc as lasers and transistors. *Why* systems behave the way they do on a quantum level, and *how* quantum laws might translate up to the Newtonian/Einsteinian laws that appear to govern the macrocosmos, is not known, and this is where the lions-share of theoretical physics comes into play. But you can't point to problems with various esoteric theories like supersymmetry and say that ALL quantum physics is just mysticism, or half-heartedly excuse Mr Chopra's reprehensible behavior (because it really is reprehensible).

Well EH, the foundations of QM were laid at the beginning of the 20th century, in large part based on experimental evidence that had no classic interpretation. The modern theoretical focus is on string theories and the like, that is what I am referring too. Both QM and Relativity make testable predictions: the string theories do not as such do this. That is my point.

Also, what the hell is a quantum physicist? Does he come in dscreet packets? Or is he just really small? Enquiring minds want to know. Leonard is a theoretical physicist. There was another kind, used to call them experimental physicists, but where are they now? Dying breed.

>>Both QM and Relativity make testable predictions: the string theories do not as such do this. That is my point.

Yes, I know that's the point. Like I said, you are correct. About that.

What I am taking issue with are your apparent need to pen apologetics for that Mr Chopra, as well as your j'accuse-style scientist-shaming ("maybe Leonard should look closer to home " my foot! Whose side are you on?!). Deepak Chopra rests his gibberish (allegedly, according to him) on quantum physics. QM is NOT gibberish - it makes testable predictions, and it's signs have real, if poorly understood, meaning - so it is most unfair of you to go dragging science through the muck on his behalf. Furthermore, even the whackiest and least-tested of serious theoretical models are on a completely different level than Deepak's mumblings. Most theoretical physicists concern themselves, not with the drudgery of lab work, like their lesser colleagues, but with building mathematical models. In many cases, these mathematical models actually work (well enough, to a degree) - the only trouble being, that it is usually impossible to test whether they are "true", or are merely currently-convenient mathematical shorthand for something far different (in much the same way that Ptolemy's theoretical model of planetary motion "worked" for centuries, until new evidence and even more elegant theories to explain that evidence came along). But the "problems" of barely-testable theoretical physics - which DO have a grounding in scientific fact - are a far cry from the pseudo-philosophical jargon that Mr Chopra propagates, jargon which doesn't even begin to make an effort to approximate physical reality, except in the most lazy, scientifically-illiterate manner possible.

Going back to Dr Kaku for a minute (as he is arguably one of the worst offenders amongst this new breed of mystic-scientist), let me ask you this: how would you measure Mr Chopra against Dr Kaku? Would you say that the two of them are at all comparable, on any but the most superficial of levels? Why or why not?

And another thing, if you really feel the need to take the piss out of contemporary science, then you should probably begin by focusing on something like social "science", or political "science". There a great many soft sciences, and they've been in vogue for ages now; fix the rotting foundation first before you start trying to repaint a patch on the ceiling.

Why do I care about Deepak or Kaku, for that matter? Nobody is expecting them to produce anything but another best selling book.

Actually, if I wanted to piss on old Deepak, I'd make the same argument I made with Leonard. I'd say, "There used to be these guys, we called them shamans. They're a slippery race of cats, but you know, they're finding out some remarkable new things with their weird experiments. You should look into that, it may give you some new theoretical religious ideas. It's how we got this point, why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?".

Well, the answer to that for both Leonard and Deepak is similar. But I'll leave that to you to piece together. And as you've a background in the humanities, here's a clue. Look at the relationship between Prometheus and Zeus. It's all there.

I printed those out and put them on my basil plants. They grew like 3 inches overnight! That's some powerful fertilizer you got there.

The sad truth of the matter is that there are some compelling reasons for studying the natural world and applying those ideas to fields outside of physics. Any field that relies on statistical methods of analysis will have some of the odd quantum effects in them. That is not what is happening here. The people writing these things have not a clue as to what QM is or the experiments that gave rise to the ideas. But I see, they've also branched into computer science and an equally dim understanding of object oriented programming. Well, quelle surprise and all that...