Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post
Noetic theory or noëtics (from Greek νοητικός "mental" from νοεῖν "to think" from νοῦς - noûs) is a branch of metaphysical philosophy and science concerned with the study of mind and intuition, and its relationship with the divine intellect. Among its principal purposes is to study the effects of perceptions, beliefs, and intention with respect to human consciousness.
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, not hard science. If they are studying whether perceptions, beliefs and intentions affect how we respond to stimuli, then yes, I think the answer is rather obvious. I'm not sure if they could determine just how these effects are produced, or in what proportions they combine to cause the effects. I would think you would need to completely map all of the synaptic passageways of the brain to even begin to predict what a person's responses would be, and even then it would only be valid for that one individual, since we are all different. General trends, perhaps, can be determined, but isn't that what philosophy and psychology are already doing?

The theory of noetics centers around the idea that the human mind is capable of affecting or even doing work to the physical world. It is suggested that thought and spirit are not in fact imaginary, but Bose or photon based, meaning essentially that the mind can be quantified by formulae which describe quantum materials such as light. This is a radical conclusion where many people think thoughts are weightless. Just as gravity affects all matter, so do thoughts to an apparent lesser degree.
Now here we seem to be delving into the arena of hard science. Maybe. Have they actually measured these photons? I'm not sure what you mean by "Bose based", unless you're referring to bosons? And if they have detected them, have they determined whether or not they are the basis of thought, or the effects of thought? What frequency of photons would the brain produce? And most importantly, what evidence is there to show that thoughts directly affect matter?

Funny when one can see science and religion come full circle without clashing isnt it.
I'm not yet sure whether or not noetics will have any bearing on scientific thought. It's certainly in its infancy and I don't know if any actual relevant data has been produced or evaluated. From what I've read so far it seems to be more akin to astrology and ESP, though, not religion. In fact, if they are able to prove what they claim I would think this would be another stroke against religious thought, rather than for it.