The psychoenergetic works of W.A. Tiller: pseudoscience, or is it?

Abstract

Natural sciences. We shall see that the history of science teaches us that there exists no scientific method which on can follow to gain results and in fact, that the thing which we call the scientific method is nothing more than the inherent and fallible human problem solving ability. Together with the slow but constant evolution of the scientific enterprise, this makes it impossible in principle to determine whether or not something can be classified as a science. Furthermore, we shall learn that in using science as a classification, we are dealing with a vague predicate; a linguistic construction which depends on the context in which it is used and when the context is clear, there is no clear way to demarcate one end from the other. Most vague predicates are one dimensional. In determining the nature of an object regarding its scientific status, a vast amount of intertwined dimensions must be considered. Therefore we will speak of a landscape. In relation to its nature I have named it the methodological landscape. In this thesis we explore the methodological landscape by using the work of Prof. William A. Tiller as an agent. I have chosen this work because of my personal interest in the work and its generally regarded controversial nature by the scientific community, where at the same time the work has been done by people with a well founded background in established science. By its controversy, we shall be better able to identify the nuances within the methodological landscape, because we don’t take things for granted. By the people who work with it, we shall not encounter trivial errors through which we can easily discard the work as a science and lose our agent. Firstly we shall establish a demarcation procedure with which to regard our object of study. After this we will study our object. In one sentence, the work of Prof. Tiller is an expansion of current science to include consciousness. Lastly, we investigate the place of our object of study within the methodological landscape, by combining the previous two results. We will find that most of the theoretical aspects which define a science are met, but that the most important factor misses: acceptance within the scientific community. The non-acceptance turns out to be for the greater part a sociological factor which is an intrinsic part of science.