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Deepak K. Chopra (1947–) has a medical degree from the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, but nonetheless he is a highly visible peddler of mind-body woo, quantum woo, and alternative medicine. He is a prolific writer of terrible self-help garbage and has made far too many YouTube videos and public speaking appearances. He is a pro at writing New Age self-help spiritual books that say generic pleasant things that anyone could appreciate in almost any setting like "look around you[note 1] at the beauty of the Earth" as well as his genius breakthroughs in human understanding: "to think is to practice brain chemistry." Chopra makes a ton of cash writing completely unprofound comments peppered with unscientific nonsense, mostly through Ayurvedic medicine, which is traditional Indian medicine filtered through the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi all mashed into his awful understanding of "physics". Chopra brilliantly found a way to formulate tons of incomprehensible babble, write dozens of fluff books, recite it on Oprah and cash-in big time. He is now one of America's most beloved hoodwinkers of all time. He is best known among rationalists for inspiring the Chopra woo generator where a website lists randomly generated Chopra like content that literally cannot be intelligently distinguished from Chropra's "original" content. Sam Harris put it best when he asked him why on Earth he would purport to speak as a physicist when it is not what he studied and worse as he clearly knows nothing about it.
Woos and views
Woos and views
Deepak Chopra comes from a long line of pseudo-Hindu spiritualists making money off of gullible Americans, but he is one of the first to successfully merge Eastern ayurvedic woo with Western quantum woo and sell it to a mainstream US audience.
Dosha
Dosha
Another order of that delicious human quantum-body essence, please!
See the main article on this topic: Ayurveda
A key concept in Chopra's woo is the Dosha, or "human quantum-body essence," which he can apparently assess with ease by checking a patient's pulse. The balance between the three doshas in each patient is then corrected with a diet of alternating sweet and spicy foods[32] as well as no doubt expensive treatments available exclusively from Chopra himself. Doshas are essentially a form of humorism.
Dosha (or doṣa) is not to be confused with the extremely delicious Indian crispy pancake often served with lentil stew and chutney, which is far more substantial than Chopra's writings. It is also unrelated to the British slang dosh, meaning currency, but you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise because the only positive results from playing Chopra's Dosha game is his increasing wealth.
Prescription drugs
Prescription drugs
See the main article on this topic: Big Pharma
Chopra said that one of the reasons he created an Ayurvedic organization was disenchantment at having to prescribe too many drugs: "[W]hen all you do is prescribe medication, you start to feel like a legalized drug pusher. That doesn't mean that all prescriptions are useless, but it is true that 80 percent of all drugs prescribed today are of optional or marginal benefit."[33]
Humans as quantum machines
Humans as quantum machines
Somehow, quantum physics explains this. Somehow.
See the main article on this topic: Quantum woo
A significant part of Chopra's philosophy argues that humans don't act in Newtonian ways, but according to the laws of quantum physics. This is nonsense. Quantum mechanics reduces to classical mechanics at levels significantly larger than one atom; for example, at the larger-than-atom level, wave-particle duality is no longer detectible. Humans are far larger than a single atom[citation NOT needed] and thus do not operate under quantum mechanical laws.
Chopra's theories are also not the same as quantum cognition,[34] where mathematical models used in quantum theory are applied to psychology but do not mean that the brain is a quantum computer or that the mind is some sort of immaterial independent entity.
Style
Style
Luckily, Chopra never uses reason, and thus avoids this trap.
Chopra's quotes read like the meaningless confidence-building babble of a motivational speaker, likely because he is a paid motivational speaker.[35] Examples:
"In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you."[35]
"Life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do if you stay in the present moment."[35]
"There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle."[35]
Chopra's style of sounding deep while saying nothing, often via use of confusing or uncommon words, is both typical of New-Age woo and quite monetarily successful. Chopra deeply packs[note 3] a vast vocabulary of meaningless quantum crap into a small space in order to confuse victims.
Nicknames
Nicknames
Orac of Respectful Insolence coined the term "Choprawoo" to refer to Chopra's special brand of woo.[36] Michael Shermer calls it "Deepakese."[37]
Distinction from parody
Distinction from parody
An acco
unt called "DBag Chopra" on Twitter used to produce tweets which were, with subtle differences, nearly identical to that of the D-pac himself:[38]
"Take a moment to embrace whatever is most alive inside of you! Start with your gut flora!"
"If the only prayer you ever said was 'Thank You', that would be enough, though it couldn't hurt to add 'Sir, May I Please Have Another?'"
"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more than the risk of blossoming, so I divested & sought a higher yield."
"The thoughts we allow ourselves to think can create powerful nipples in our lives."
"Oneness is something that multiplies when it is divided. Show your work for partial credit."
The fact that all of those probably felt really deep, just for a second, before snarky reality hit, should tell you everything you need to know about Chopra's "wisdom".
It has been demonstrated that Deepak's thoughts, writings, and particularly his tweets, are indistinguishable from a set of profound-sounding words put together in a random order.[39] Deepak's tweets were used in an Ig Nobel Prize-winning study to test receptivity to bullshit.[40][41]
See also
See also
The coincidentally named "deepity"
External links
External links
Deepak Chopra on Wikipedia.
Richard Dawkins takes on Deepak Chopra (clip from Dawkins' documentary The Enemies of Reason). Scroll down to the comment section to witness some laughable stupidity.
"The Perils Of Skepticism" (by Chopra, in the HuffPo) vs. "Deepak Chopra: redefining 'wrong'" (by Phil Plait, in his blog). Fight!
Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston vs. Michael Shermer and Sam Harris: Does God Have a Future?
Deepak's Dangerous Dogmas, Skeptic
ISHAR a library for mind/body woo, International Skeptics Forum
The enigmatic wisdom of Deepak Chopra — Fictional Deepak Chopra quote generator: the deepity is unparalleled
Deepak Chopra debunked by the Skeptical Educator, a blog by retired physics professor Sadri Hassani (Illinois State University).
Notes
Notes
Not to be confused with Look Around You, though there is a certain Poe'ish element in contrasting the first series' and Chopra's take on (as well as grasp of) science.
Dhanvantari is the Hindu physician to the gods
Get it?
References
References
http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=39603.30
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/deepak-chopra-net-worth/
Chopra and Chopra 2013, pp. 5, 161.
Chopra 2013, pp. 5–6, 11–13; Michael Schulder (May 24, 2013). "The Chopra Brothers". CNN..
Carl Lindgren (March 31, 2010). "International Dreamer – Deepak Chopra". Map Magazine's Street Editors.
Chopra 1991, pp. 54–57; Joanne Kaufman, "Deepak Chopra – An 'Inner Stillness,' Even on the Subway," The New York Times, October 17, 2013.
Chopra 1991, p. 57; Deepak Chopra, "Special Keynote with Dr. Deepak Chopra", November 2013, from 2:50 mins; Richard Knox, "Foreign doctors: a US dilemma", The Boston Globe, June 30, 1974.
"Dr. Deepak K Chopra", U.S. News and World Report.
"Deepak K. Chopra, M.D.", Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine
"Verify a Physician's Certification", American Board of Internal Medicine.
Baer, 2004. "Toward an Integrative Medicine", p.121
Chopra 1991, p. 105ff.
Chopra 1991, p. 125.
Rosamund Burton (June 4, 2006). "Peace Seeker". Nova Magazine.
Chopra 1991, p. 139ff; Baer 2003, p. 237.
Elise Pettus, "The Mind–Body Problems," New York Magazine, August 14, 1995, (pp. 28–31, 95), p. 30. Also see Deepak Chopra, "Letters: Deepak responds," New York Magazine, September 25, 1995, p. 16.
Cynthia Ann Humes, "Schisms within Hindu guru groups: the Transcendental Meditation movement in North America," in James R. Lewis, Sarah M. Lewis (eds.), Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 297.
Cynthia Ann Humes, "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: Beyond the TM Technique," in Thomas A. Forsthoefel, Cynthia Ann Humes (eds.), Gurus in America, State University of New York Press, 2005, pp. 68–69.
Tony Perry (September 7, 1997). "So Rich, So Restless". Los Angeles Times: p. 2.
http://www.virginia.edu/advancement/deepak-chopra-arianna-huffington-visit/
Deepak Chopra, The Skeptic's Dictionary
HuffPo apparently takes him seriously.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/53/07celebrities_Deepak-Chopra_IH5W.html
Your Eyes Will Roll When You Hear Deepak Chopra Describe His Latest Business Venture
LLC, New York Media, (1995-08-14). New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. pp. 95–. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
The 2010 TIME 100: Lady Gaga, TIME
Lawrence Krauss smacks down Deepak Chopra for trying to troll him with New Age nonsense
getting zombies excited (also zombies are relevant, for some reason)
Scientists discover consciousness on/off switch
Ayurvedic medicine, The Skeptic's Dictionary
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "The Crisis of Perception", Media Monitors Network, February 29, 2008.
http://essence.com/2015/03/11/12-inspiring-deepak-chopra-quotes-help-you-become-happier-person/
The Trouble With Deepak Chopra: Part 3, Respectful Insolence
Deepakese: The Woo-woo Master Deepak Chopra Speaks, HuffPo
https://twitter.com/DBagChopra
A Random Deepak Chopra quote generator exists to, in a sense, Turing Test that postulation.
On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit by Gordon Pennycook et al. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2015, pp. 549-563.
Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize
The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore (What?)
Deepak Chopra Launches ISHARonline
Let’s Raise ISHAR – and why we need to by Deepak Chopra
The Mind/Body community is building ISHAR, an online digital Library of Alexandria free for everyone
"Chopra Media" requests a name change to "SAS81"
Viharo as "SAS81" promoting ISHAR on his user page
A sample of Viharo's argumentation "For every scientist out there that you can find a quote of that is unfavorable to Dr. Chopra, I can find another one that is favorable."
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Tumbleman/Archive
Let's Raise ISHAR! "Rome Viharo, the director of operations for the cutting edge ISHAR."
Tumbleman (Rome Viharo) on Wikipedia
http://isharonline.org/content/ishar-boards
ISHAR Will Be the Ultimate Resource for Integral Healing
Click on donation page on the ISHAR website it redirects straight to the donation page for the Chopra Foundation.
Deepak Chopra and the Future of Wikipedia
Bernardo Kastrup - Why we really, really need to RAISE ISHAR - Deepak Chopra
#ISHAR matching Grant. ACEP kicks off the '$2K WAVE' Let's Raise ISHAR - Deepak Chopra
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