Aristarchus

I don't fully understand what phenomena you refer to. However, as an aside, free will probably is an illusion. It seems like you have contemplated this, so I don't need to elaborate. It is only illogical from a certain point of view. The ideas of quantum mechanics have explained, to a certain extent, the curious findings of the double-slit experiment. One of the limitations of logic is that it tends to be deductive always, that is we conclude things from certain premises. When, in reality, all of human discovery is essentially inductive. That is, we formulate laws based on observations. This does not mean we should abandon reason, but that we should remain flexible in our concepts of what appears logical or illogical. What is psi? If it is some kind of new-age spiritual theory, than scientists should not be talking to people that are researching psi. It is only a waste of their time. I do not think so. Psychology is defined and determined by the neurological processes. Thus, psychology is really a labeling system for different patterns of neuron firings and brain hormone levels, etc. For example, the psychological phenomenon called 'anger' has a measurable, albeit not fully understood, chemical signature. Scientists find that neurology is more fundamental and enlightening than conventional psychology. However, all of this is academic. Why would the next revolution in science come from neurology or psychology? Certainly great innovations in those fields are being made, but discoveries in quantum mechanics are more fundamental than discoveries in psychology or neurology are, since both of those are dependent upon the workings of quantum mechanics. For me, the importance of a scientific discovery can be determined by how fundamentally it changes our understanding of the world. Therefore, I think that modern physics holds the greatest potential for revelations.

The philosophical problem that Bombus refers to is an old one. It is known in some variations as the 'Brain-in-the-Tank" scenario, in which a human brain is suspended in a vat of liquid and attached to various electrodes that provide stimulation to the brain. These electrodes simulate perfectly the sensations that we associate with our daily lives (conversation, eating, running, etc) although there is no source for the stimuli other than the computer program feeding electrical impulses through the wires. As you may all notice, this is the premise, with few alterations, of the Matrix movies. I am skeptical that we are in such a world, or that we could ever know that we were in one. I suppose that if we all started noticing extremely anomalous behavior, such as any of Newton's laws of motion being contravened, or the gravitational field strength of Earth dropping to zero, we could justifiably suspect that our world is a computer program and that the anomalies are computer errors. So, if you ever see a vampire or a ghost, remember: Its just a system error. This argument is little more than a contemporary revision of the argument given by Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy that he could not trust his perceptions on the grounds that an evil demon might, conceivably, be controlling his every experience. It is also (though more distantly) related to Descartes' argument that he cannot trust his perceptions because he may be dreaming. In this latter argument the worry about active deception is removed. I advise everyone to examine the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the subject: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brain-vat/

Its proposes some interesting theories. I'm generally pessimistic about the whole thing.

This is a story by Jim Holt from Slate, http://www.slate.com/id/2096491/entry/2096506/ *Text removed by Mokele. Please do not just copy & paste the entire text of an essay you've already linked to, it wastes space.*