Should this 'rice experiment' question be opened or closed?
Why? If it were open what sort of answer could you write, how could you answer it?
What kind of answer might the OP be hoping for?
Can it be improved in any way or clarified somehow before reopening?
Is it on-topic (related to Buddhism)? Isn't this (Masuro Emoto's conjectures and experiments) considered "pseudo-science", and can it be worthwhile to associate that with (or to address it in the context of) Buddhism?
Can it be improved in any way or clarified somehow before reopening?
User @Swapnil actually made a sound edit, changing "rice" to "mind", but OP rejected the edit.
Is it on-topic (related to Buddhism)? Isn't this (Masuro Emoto's conjectures and experiments) considered "pseudo-science", and can it be worthwhile to associate that with (or to address it in the context of) Buddhism?
The question might not be within the scope of this SE. It might be considered off-topic since Buddhism does not teach any of it.
The scientific community has not even validated Masuro Emoto's experiments due to insubstantial proofs and failing to give details about his approach:
Commentators have criticized Emoto for insufficient experimental controls and for not sharing enough details of his approach with the scientific community. William A. Tiller, another researcher featured in the documentary What The Bleep Do We Know?, states that Emoto's experiments fall short of proof, since they do not control for other factors in the supercooling of water. In addition, Emoto has been criticized for designing his experiments in ways that leave them prone to manipulation or human error influencing the findings. Biochemist and Director of Microscopy at University College Cork William Reville wrote, "It is very unlikely that there is any reality behind Emoto's claims." Reville noted the lack of scientific publication and pointed out that anyone who could demonstrate such a phenomenon would become immediately famous and probably wealthy.
Writing about Emoto's ideas in the Skeptical Inquirer, physician Harriet A. Hall concluded that it was "hard to see how anyone could mistake it for science". Commenting on Emoto's ideas about clearing water polluted by algae, biologist Tyler Volk stated, "What he is saying has nothing to do with science as I know it."Stephen Kiesling wrote in Spirituality & Health Magazine, "Perhaps Emoto is an evangelist who values the message of his images more than the particulars of science; nevertheless, this spiritual teacher might focus his future practice less on gratitude and more on honesty.
Emoto was personally invited to take the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge by James Randi in 2003, and would have received US$1,000,000 if he had been able to reproduce the experiment under test conditions agreed to by both parties. He did not participate.
In its current format, I don't think this question should be reopened, due being pseudo-science, possibly off-topic, primarily opinion-based and of low-quality.
Our Help Center, defines what questions one should avoid asking:
To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …
•every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”
•your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?”
•there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
•you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”
•your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”
I have highlighted the bullet points I think the question reflects.
The most visible internal inconsistency of the question is that it asks about a hypothetical result and based on that, whether or not Buddhism gives an explanation for it:
"In case this works, is there a Buddhist explanation to it?"
"In the case it works" is a huge inconsistency, since Masuro Emoto himself has not even been able to provide proofs to his experiments, thereby leaving them invalidated and as merely superstition.
Asking for a Buddhist explanation to an experiment that might work or might not work is just too vague, hypothetical and non-practical.
Thanks for the link - its nice to see you think this things through (yet still i think this is overthinking this)
there are a ton of stuff discussed here than can not be proved - there are questions about ghosts and deamons for crying out loud :)
AS i suspected some readers of this question have heared about it so there are opinions on it
what answeres might i expect ? :
1 . I have heared about this expirement sounds fishy to me becuase a b c
2 . I have tried this myself and it worked i belive it works because a b c
3 . i dont think it can work cause metta just dosnt work this way and dont affect food / i think it will work cause metta affects rice so no reason it wont work
4 . this works and can be implemented in peoples practice cause of a b c
just a few things i think of about answers that could have been posted im sure there are more variations and answer types
And from that people can expand about the effects of words on the mind of people is or whatever other implications this thing might have on our practice and not conncted to our practice as well
there are a ton of stuff discussed here than can not be proved - there are questions about ghosts and deamons for crying out loud
Ghosts and demons (or rather, entities which were described using words which have been translated as "ghosts" and "demons") are referenced in some Buddhist scriptures ... and the content of Buddhist scriptures are on-topic.
That doesn't mean, by the way, that any and all questions about "ghosts" would be on-topic: for example I think that "Is this a real photograph of a ghost, or is it a hoax?" would not be on-topic.
Conversely I don't think the rice experiment is on-topic, because I think there's nothing like that in Buddhist scripture or teaching: it's not a subject that's addressed by Buddhist Dharma or tradition.
"Metta", though, is a Buddhist practice. Would it work to rework the question, so that the question is more about "metta" and less about "the rice experiment"?
Perhaps you could ask something like,
Is there a Buddhist tradition or practice, which involves developing or showing metta towards a non-sentient entity ... for example, towards a jar of rice? If not, why not? Is it theoretically possible (according to Buddhist theory) that such a practice might have an effect, an effect not only on the mind of the practitioner but also on the object ... for example, might speaking kindly to a sealed jar of cooked rice cause it to rot more slowly (as suggested by Masuro Emoto's rice experiment)?
