"“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
― Nikola Tesla
Think we are making progress. And perhaps more importantly, this will kill religion if it becomes a branch of science..
[wakeup-world.com]
I guess it is easy to take a quote from 100 years ago, but more difficult when you put it in context of the time. The “Spiritual movement “ was at its peak during Tesla’s hey day. It was a big topic and included in scientific discussions and journals of the day. It wasn’t until people like Houdini (the original James Randi) began debunking the claims that the spiritual movement declined.
So in the heightened religious/spiritualist moment, the quote was relevant.
Of course it is silly by our standards, but hey, the best surgeons in the world did not know enough to wash their hands before surgery, and that was only 100-150 years ago.
Kirlian Photography produces interesting and colourful images. I think that anything added to those images by way of interpretation is very subjective and is essentially no more different or objective than a group of religious people espousing their belief in a supreme being.
How would non-physical phenomenon be measured? What sort of nonphysical phenomenon is he referring to?
Social sciences study nonphysical phenomenon already. The create situations and observe subjects reaction. They may also take surveys from subjects to see what they report about their experience while participating in the research. This sort of research has been going on for many decades now. Somehow, I don't believe this is the kind of nonphysical phenomenon the quote had in mind, so answering the original question become important.
Putting aside the spiritual vs scientific labels, let's just do good science without a prejudiced mindset and see what we come up with. What's so wrong with that, sounds like what science is based upon?
Yes, let’s just do good science without a prejudiced mindset.
I agree. Be curious and when something puzzles me, describe it in a way that helps me learn more about it. In short, make a hypothesis I can test.
Edwin Hubble wanted to know if the universe is expanding and wrote two hypotheses.
Georges LeMaitre had a prejudice. He took one of Hubble’s hypotheses and wrote math that supported his prejudice. He ignored Hubble’s other hypothesis.
That's how a mathematician stole the universe from the scientists a century ago. Today's mathematicians don't want to return it.
Gravity, electricity, electrostatic and electromagnetic fields, magnetism, radiation. These were all mystical and nonphysical phenomena until we investigated them and found ways of measuring and reproducing them. And the description of the arc of the covenant which supposedly held some spirit sounds suspiciously like a leyden jar (google it), a box plated inside and out with gold foil.
I do not agree. People seriously involved in rigorous scientific research are interested in the discovery of the truth based on evidence. If there was any use for the scientific process in researching non-physical phenomena, they would have done it long time ago without the prompting of Mr. Tesla. Serious scientists follow their research wherever they lead them to. Tesla, like Edison and others, were not scientist. They were very intelligent and curious practical inventors with very practical and utilitarian results, not a small feat, but not necessarily scientists dedicated to pure research with strict methodology and peer reviewed publications.
In making his assertion, Tesla begs the question of why is it that he did not dedicate more time to those phenomena and made the huge scientific advances himself? In fact, he dedicated himself to the total oposite; practical material physical phenomena resulting in practical utilitarian inventions.
I think science will find there is nothing to study with the non-physical.
@powder Imo, Tesla WAS a Genius well beyond his time, he suffered very deeply under the derisions, etc, casts upon by Edison, hence he went, as history shows well, in to seclusion, etc, etc.
If it were NOT for Tesla and his discovery of Alternating Current over Direct Current, for example, WHERE do Americans, etc, think they'd be now?
@powder
Here's a couple to get you started.
[weforum.org]
[wisegeek.com]