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Author Topic:   Is My Hypothesis Valid???
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 361 of 409 (516137)
07-23-2009 2:48 PM
Reply to: Message 360 by Straggler
07-23-2009 1:33 PM


Re: Can Anyone (Including RAZD) Explain RAZD's Position To Me?
I'd very much like it if RAZD could simply give one or two examples of subjective experiences he would count as evidence.
He's clearly told us that experiences while asleep and unconscious are not what he's talking about.
But what is he talking about? I've never been able to quite figure it out.
Is RAZD referring to personally-interpreted experiences empirically observed with the five senses? For instance, a song that happens to play at the right moment corresponding to your thoughts that provides comfort or clarity of thought? In this case the actual experience itself is empirically verifiable (anyone could hear the song) but the subjective meaning of the experience is not (the song will not correspond to everyone's thoughts and feelings).
Would that count, RAZD? The individual is awake and conscious, the experience is not one that would have been sensed by Straggler's unfortunate insensate paraplegic, and the subjective meaning of the experience may justify to the individual a belief that the song was specifically caused by an as-yet not understood entity.
How about being in the woods and seeing something that the observer interprets to be Bigfoot? The actual observation was empirical (the observer saw something, and that something should be visible to anyone else), but the interpretation of his observation is subjective. Again, the observer is conscious and aware, our insensate paraplegic cannot detect it, the experience comes from the five empirical senses, and yet the interpretation is subjective and not available to anyone else.
Or is RAZD talking about experiences like "hearing voices?" The observer can be awake and conscious, and can "hear" the voice as if it were coming from his sense of hearing. But if only the individual hears the voice even when others are around, the experience is subjective and does not appear to exist outside of his mind. If the observer is convinced that his auditory experience that was miraculously heard only by him was caused by an external agency, is that belief justified? Does it count as evidence?
I'm just throwing out anything non-dreamlike to find something RAZD will confirm is what he's talking about. If RAZD would provide his own clearly defined example of what counts as evidence.
If we're restricting ourselves to empirically verifiable evidence, then Straggler has RAZD dead to rights:
# Can gods, deities and other such supernatural entities be detected by means of our 5 empirical senses?
# If they can then in what way are they inherently immune to scientific investigation? In what way are they "scientifically unknowable". Is it just a question of inadequate detection technology?
# If however they are inherently immune from empirical sensory detection then how, with the restriction of being detectable by empirical perception agreed above, can they possibly be considered to be evidenced in any way at all?
I simply don't understand how an assertion can be unable to be evidenced through the five senses (or equipment that expands on those senses) and yet still be supported by evidence that does not come from a dream or other such experience.
But then, RAZD says this isn't his position, so perhaps we're just completely barking up the wrong tree.
RAZD, in just a few paragraphs, could you explain what you mean about evidence and subjective experiences, specifically with regard to evidence that supports an entity that is seemingly immune from direct empirical observation?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 360 by Straggler, posted 07-23-2009 1:33 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 362 by Perdition, posted 07-23-2009 3:13 PM Rahvin has not replied
 Message 375 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 3:57 PM Rahvin has not replied

Perdition
Member (Idle past 3238 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 362 of 409 (516140)
07-23-2009 3:13 PM
Reply to: Message 361 by Rahvin
07-23-2009 2:48 PM


Re: Can Anyone (Including RAZD) Explain RAZD's Position To Me?
Or is RAZD talking about experiences like "hearing voices?" The observer can be awake and conscious, and can "hear" the voice as if it were coming from his sense of hearing. But if only the individual hears the voice even when others are around, the experience is subjective and does not appear to exist outside of his mind. If the observer is convinced that his auditory experience that was miraculously heard only by him was caused by an external agency, is that belief justified? Does it count as evidence?
I believe, and again, we're all just spitting in the wind until RAZD pipes up, is that if this person "hears" this voice and no one else is around, how is he supposed to know if it was empirical or not?
I also believe, if I can be excused for writing down two things I think RAZD means, that until he can be sure if this experience is empirical or not, RAZD is considering it not empirical. That way, it can lead to a belief, it can lead to further investigation, but we can never know if it was an empirical sound, or merely a subjective "sound."
Edited by Perdition, : Spelling, spelling everywhere and not a word to read.
Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 361 by Rahvin, posted 07-23-2009 2:48 PM Rahvin has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 363 by RAZD, posted 07-23-2009 8:31 PM Perdition has not replied
 Message 365 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 12:39 PM Perdition has not replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 363 of 409 (516185)
07-23-2009 8:31 PM
Reply to: Message 362 by Perdition
07-23-2009 3:13 PM


Not so difficult, once you discard useless preconceptions.
Hi Perdition, pretty good summation.
... if this person "hears" this voice and no one else is around, how is he supposed to know if it was empirical or not?
Exactly. I don't understand what is so difficult about this. I consider the specification that I have made to be anything but ambiguous: the evidence in question must be sensed (or appear to be sensed) by an aware and conscious individual, a person who validates his senses every day in his relationship to the mundane things we all consider to be real due to experience and conformity with the experiences of others. A person who based on years of experience has reason to believe the validity of their senses.
I also believe, if I can be excused for writing down two things I think RAZD means, that until he can be sure if this experience is empirical or not, RAZD is considering it not empirical. That way, it can lead to a belief, it can lead to further investigation, but we can never know if it was an empirical sound, or merely a subjective "sound."
Seeing as we cannot know that it is necessarily empirical, we are left with not empirical (or not known) until more information becomes available.
That's a good part of the picture.
Message 361: Hi Rahvin, I'll continue with your post for continuity here:
But what is he talking about? I've never been able to quite figure it out.
What kind of experiences do you usually have when you interact with reality through your senses? Does your experience have some quantifiable difference when in a crowd compared to when you are alone? Don't you think that years of experience give you a high degree of confidence in your ability to sense reality?
Is RAZD referring to personally-interpreted experiences empirically observed with the five senses?
...
How about being in the woods and seeing something that the observer interprets to be Bigfoot? The actual observation was empirical (the observer saw something, and that something should be visible to anyone else), but the interpretation of his observation is subjective. Again, the observer is conscious and aware, our insensate paraplegic cannot detect it, the experience comes from the five empirical senses, and yet the interpretation is subjective and not available to anyone else.
This is the other half of the problem isn't it? People will naturally interpret their experiences according to their particular world view, and without any other verification of the experience all we - those of us who did not have the experience - all we have to go on is the anecdotal evidence as it is related by the observer. This is why anecdotal evidence in court is suspect, yet still considered indicative in the absence of any contradicting evidence.
There is uncertainty about the quality of the evidence itself, because it is not verified by any other experience\evidence, and there is uncertainty about the quality of the representation of the evidence by the observer. These uncertainties are unavoidable.
The third unavoidable uncertainty comes with the acceptance of the experience/s by others. Onifre made an excellent observation here: that there is a variation in the acceptance of such evidence such that some will pursue further validation and others will not, based on their particular world views.
What you often see is that secondary observers make assumptions about the related experience based on their particular world views, with the result that one experience will seem reasonable (ie it is consistent with their world view) while another will be viewed as unreasonable (ie it is contradictory to their world view). One need only think for a minute to recall the number of times Straggler has exclaimed "of course that is empirical" or "but there is more evidence that these experiences are all made up in a persons mind" to know the verity of this. This is nothing less that Straggler trying to impose his world view on the evidence rather than to consider the evidence on it's own.
An open-minded view is that the process of the related experience is identical, the quality of the observer can also be similar, or similar enough, not to bias the information, so the use of pre-conceptions on the part of the secondary observer to categorize the evidence represents personal bias rather than rational evaluation of the evidence on it's merits alone. A skeptical view is that no such experience can be considered conclusive, only that it can form a reasonable basis for further investigation.
If we're restricting ourselves to empirically verifiable evidence, then Straggler has RAZD dead to rights:
This is the red car fallacy. See Perdition on this. What we have in addition to evidence where we can be (relatively) sure that it is empirical, is a lot of evidence were we just cannot be sure, because there just is not enough evidence to ascertain it.
But then, RAZD says this isn't his position, so perhaps we're just completely barking up the wrong tree.
Interestingly, there is something to consider in this light: Rrhain has commented that anyone that believes in creation of any kind must logically believe that everything is created/explained by that force (I trust I have this right, I wouldn't want to misrepresent anyone). A corollary of this is that it is inherently impossible to sort out between supernatural force and natural force: this rock was created, but that rock wasn't? That makes trying to use the evidence of rocks to prove a supernatural force rather ludicrous at best.
Curiously (you knew it was coming), I consider faith\belief to be orthogonal to logic and the types of scientific knowledge we can learn by testing concepts (all concepts) against the known evidence of reality, so any attempt to understand faith\belief by these methods is doomed to failure before you even start. You can't get there from here, because that dog don't hunt. Understand this and you will know that all of Straggler's claims of me trying to do that are inherently, laughably, false.
RAZD, in just a few paragraphs, could you explain what you mean about evidence and subjective experiences, specifically with regard to evidence that supports an entity that is seemingly immune from direct empirical observation?
I'm afraid I'm already over the Granny Magda Limit (GML), so I better draw to a close.
Evidence is evidence, some of it good at leading to more information, some is not so good, and some of it leading to no conclusions at all. In the face of an absence of contradictory evidence, what we have are testable, rational possibilities to start an investigation for further understanding, places that are better than random guessing.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : clrty
Edited by RAZD, : s
Edited by RAZD, : gmled

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 362 by Perdition, posted 07-23-2009 3:13 PM Perdition has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 364 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 12:20 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied
 Message 366 by Rahvin, posted 07-24-2009 1:47 PM RAZD has replied

Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 364 of 409 (516274)
07-24-2009 12:20 PM
Reply to: Message 363 by RAZD
07-23-2009 8:31 PM


RAZDs Problem In A Nutshell
In Message 150 you unequivocally restrict "evidence" to experiences that are detectable by means of our 5 empirical senses. If you wish to dispute this fact say so now. Given this restriction this whole argument becomes a very simple three step exercise in logic.
  • Can gods, deities and other such supernatural entities be detected by means of our 5 empirical senses?
  • If they can then in what way are they inherently immune to scientific investigation? In what way are they "scientifically unknowable" as you have claimed them to be.
  • If however they are inherently immune from empirical sensory detection (which if they are supernatural and non-empirical entities surely must be the case) then how can they possibly be considered to be "evidenced" in any way at all?
    So which is it?
    If you restrict evidence to that which can be detected by our five empirical senses then either deities are actually "scientifically knowable" or they are unevidenced. But they cannot possibly be both simultaneiously
    Do you now understand the inherent contradictory nature of your claims?
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

  • This message is a reply to:
     Message 363 by RAZD, posted 07-23-2009 8:31 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 369 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:26 PM Straggler has replied

    Straggler
    Member
    Posts: 10333
    From: London England
    Joined: 09-30-2006


    (1)
    Message 365 of 409 (516278)
    07-24-2009 12:39 PM
    Reply to: Message 362 by Perdition
    07-23-2009 3:13 PM


    Re: Can Anyone (Including RAZD) Explain RAZD's Position To Me?
    I believe, and again, we're all just spitting in the wind until RAZD pipes up, is that if this person "hears" this voice and no one else is around, how is he supposed to know if it was empirical or not
    If you "see" Nessie who knows? If you "see" a non-empirical entity how can you have seen it by means of empirical sight? Nessie and all of RAZD's other favorite conflations can, if they exist, be detected with our 5 senses and scientific instruments of detection. Gods apparently cannot.
    Can Nessie, Bigfoot etc., if they exist, be photographed? Can gods be photographed? Is this just because we don't have the technology to record gods on camera? What is the difference between the two classes of concept? Why will RAZD only talk about physical entities in his examples?
    I also believe, if I can be excused for writing down two things I think RAZD means, that until he can be sure if this experience is empirical or not, RAZD is considering it not empirical. That way, it can lead to a belief, it can lead to further investigation, but we can never know if it was an empirical sound, or merely a subjective "sound."
    If RAZD wants to invoke any form of "evidence" that is unable to be detected by our 5 senses he needs to explain how this evidence is detected at all. A sixth sense?
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 362 by Perdition, posted 07-23-2009 3:13 PM Perdition has not replied

    Rahvin
    Member
    Posts: 4032
    Joined: 07-01-2005
    Member Rating: 9.2


    Message 366 of 409 (516293)
    07-24-2009 1:47 PM
    Reply to: Message 363 by RAZD
    07-23-2009 8:31 PM


    Re: Not so difficult, once you discard useless preconceptions.
    quote:
    But what is he talking about? I've never been able to quite figure it out.
    What kind of experiences do you usually have when you interact with reality through your senses? Does your experience have some quantifiable difference when in a crowd compared to when you are alone? Don't you think that years of experience give you a high degree of confidence in your ability to sense reality?
    So you're basically just talking about experiences through the five senses that are had only as an individual, with nobody else to help verify whether your interpretation of that evidence is accurate?
    That's interesting.
    And for the record: no, I don't think that my many years of experience give me a high degree of confidence in my ability to sense reality. I've had so many cases where my eyes (or ears, or nose, or jsut my mind) have played tricks on me that I'm skeptical even of my own sensory input. I live by the basic logic of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If I see a cat, I know that other people have seen cats; I have two of them, and I see them every day, and other people interact with them. I have a large amount of sensory input from all five senses as well as corroborating evidence that a cat has been present even without direct observation (I'm the one who scoops the litter, after all), and I have observed friends and family interacting with the cats as well. I have pretty good evidence that cats do in fact exist, and so if I see something that I believe is a cat, I tentatively go along with that conclusion.
    Of course, even with all of that, I've still mistaken squirrels for cats.
    How much evidence would I require to convince myself that I've seen bigfoot alone in the woods? How much to believe that I had actually observed evidence of a deity? If I'm so tentative about so simple and mundane an observation as seeing a cat when I know that cats at the very least exist, it would take quite a bit more than an unverifiable personal experience to convince me of anything supernatural.
    I've had personal experiences that I thought were ghosts. I;ve had personal experiences where I could have sworn I saw a man walking across my apartment complex, but when I looked directly he wasn't there (it was just a plant, but my brain constructed a full description of a white heavyset male in a striped shirt around 5'10" with dark short hair from my bare corner-of-the-eye glimpse). Unless my personal experience is easily repeatable and can be verified by other people, I very much doubt all of my sensory input. The human brain too easily recognized false patterns to do otherwise.
    quote:
    Is RAZD referring to personally-interpreted experiences empirically observed with the five senses?...
    How about being in the woods and seeing something that the observer interprets to be Bigfoot? The actual observation was empirical (the observer saw something, and that something should be visible to anyone else), but the interpretation of his observation is subjective. Again, the observer is conscious and aware, our insensate paraplegic cannot detect it, the experience comes from the five empirical senses, and yet the interpretation is subjective and not available to anyone else.
    This is the other half of the problem isn't it? People will naturally interpret their experiences according to their particular world view, and without any other verification of the experience all we - those of us who did not have the experience - all we have to go on is the anecdotal evidence as it is related by the observer. This is why anecdotal evidence in court is suspect, yet still considered indicative in the absence of any contradicting evidence.
    I understand what you mean, I think. When I thought I saw a man out of the corner of my eye, it would have been a reasonable conclusion that there was a man had I not been able to determine that the plant had simply fooled my brain (ie, contradictory evidence).
    There is uncertainty about the quality of the evidence itself, because it is not verified by any other experience\evidence, and there is uncertainty about the quality of the representation of the evidence by the observer. These uncertainties are unavoidable.
    The third unavoidable uncertainty comes with the acceptance of the experience/s by others. Onifre made an excellent observation here: that there is a variation in the acceptance of such evidence such that some will pursue further validation and others will not, based on their particular world views.
    It's not just a world view, and it's not simply pusuance of further verification. In many cases it's the simple ability for an experience to be verified. If I think I;ve seen bigfoot in the woods, there are actions I can actually take to verify the presence of such a creature (search for footprints in the location he was seen, etc). In the case of deities, there's very little I can do to verify their existence, since they don't appear to be empirically observable, and any "answered prayers" and other such "evidence" have consistently had no greater effect than placebo. The fact that I don't concern myself overmuch with seeking further validation of a god concept is primarily caused by the nigh-impossibility of performing any test at all. If you tell me there's life on a specific planet in the Andromeda galaxy, there's absolutely nothing I can do currently to try to validate that claim. That's independent of worldview, that's simple practicality.
    And you know full well that we aren't simply talking about a justification for further investigation - we're talking about confidence that something actually exists. Seeing a man out of the corner of my eye was sufficient cause to justify further investigation, sure - but it wasn't sufficient justification for me to believe a man actually existed. Even within my own immediate internal dialog, I thought "was that a man over there, or am I seeign things?" I had absolutely no confidence that there was actually a man, I simply had a reason to check for one.
    People who believe in deities don't say they have reason to check for a god. They say that god(s) actually exist. They skip the verification stage and jump straight into confidence in actuality. This has nothing to do with a "reason for investigation." I'll agree with you right away that, if you hear a voice identifying itself as God, you have definite reason to investigate. You do not have evidence supporting the idea that this God actually exists. Hearing a voice as an individual does not support a God conclusion any more than it supports hallucination or simply being mistaken (hearing the neighbor upstairs playing a movie and not realizing it, false pattern recognition in the white noise of a radio or television, etc). This means it cannot be evidence for a deity - in fact, since the God conclusion is an extraordinary claim (it posits the existence of a supernatural entity), the more reasonable conclusion is that your brain interpreted mundane sensory input incorrectly. I would consider that reason to listen for a movie upstairs, or to consider what I;m actually observing rather than a reason to drop to my knee and pray.
    In other words, I see personal subjective experiences as a reason to seek verification for a mundane explanation first, rather than seeing them as reason to immediately investigate the supernatural. Only after all possible mundane explanations have been exhausted would I consider there to be reason to investigate the supernatural.
    Is this due to my "worldview," RAZD? Or is it simply the most rational course of action given that human beings are typically rather gullible? Is it perhaps possible that some "worldviews" are more rational than others?
    What you often see is that secondary observers make assumptions about the related experience based on their particular world views, with the result that one experience will seem reasonable (ie it is consistent with their world view) while another will be viewed as unreasonable (ie it is contradictory to their world view). One need only think for a minute to recall the number of times Straggler has exclaimed "of course that is empirical" or "but there is more evidence that these experiences are all made up in a persons mind" to know the verity of this. This is nothing less that Straggler trying to impose his world view on the evidence rather than to consider the evidence on it's own.
    I rather strongly disagree. There is ample evidence that concepts of the supernatural are purely made up: we have countless examples of exactly that. Fairies are made up. Goblins are made up. Most gods that have ever been believed we now know were simply made up.
    That's not Stragglers "worldview," RAZD, that's a simple statement of relevant fact.
    You seem to be arguing from the perspective of human credulity. I'll agree that personal credulity can be determined by compliance with a person's worldview. But personal credulity has nothing to do with whether a position is rational or not. Human beings are irrationally credulous (or incredulous) all the time. A person can hallucinate while on LSD and find those hallucinations to be completely convincing that (insert absurdity here). That doesn't mean his credulity is rational.
    An open-minded view is that the process of the related experience is identical, the quality of the observer can also be similar, or similar enough, not to bias the information, so the use of pre-conceptions on the part of the secondary observer to categorize the evidence represents personal bias rather than rational evaluation of the evidence on it's merits alone. A skeptical view is that no such experience can be considered conclusive, only that it can form a reasonable basis for further investigation.
    But again - when has this discussion ever been about a reasonable basis for further investigation? Over multiple threads we've discussed whether the IPU is evidencially identical to other deity concepts, the nature of evidence, etc. Only lately have I noticed the "rational basis for further investigation." Have I been missing something? I'll freely admit that the shear number and length of posts may have caused me to forget or overlook this, but I don't see how a basis for investigation has anything to do with evidence, or confidence that an assertion is accurate.
    quote:
    If we're restricting ourselves to empirically verifiable evidence, then Straggler has RAZD dead to rights:
    This is the red car fallacy. See Perdition on this. What we have in addition to evidence where we can be (relatively) sure that it is empirical, is a lot of evidence were we just cannot be sure, because there just is not enough evidence to ascertain it.
    With the clarification you gave earlier, I think we can throw this out. To reiterate, you're talking about experiences that appear to come from the five senses while awake and conscious, but that cannot be independently verified because they happen only to an individual. These experiences, because they are observations that by all appearances are made through the five senses, appear identical to other empirically observable experiences. No visions in one's mind, no internal monologues, no dreams, no "gut feelings." Am I still on track here?
    quote:
    But then, RAZD says this isn't his position, so perhaps we're just completely barking up the wrong tree.
    Interestingly, there is something to consider in this light: Rrhain has commented that anyone that believes in creation of any kind must logically believe that everything is created/explained by that force (I trust I have this right, I wouldn't want to misrepresent anyone). A corollary of this is that it is inherently impossible to sort out between supernatural force and natural force: this rock was created, but that rock wasn't? That makes trying to use the evidence of rocks to prove a supernatural force rather ludicrous at best.
    Curiously (you knew it was coming), I consider faith\belief to be orthogonal to logic and the types of scientific knowledge we can learn by testing concepts (all concepts) against the known evidence of reality, so any attempt to understand faith\belief by these methods is doomed to failure before you even start. You can't get there from here, because that dog don't hunt. Understand this and you will know that all of Straggler's claims of me trying to do that are inherently, laughably, false.
    I think the issue here is that Straggler (and I, as a matter of fact) reject the notion of belief in something that cannot be empirically investigated. If it cannot be empirically observed, why believe in it? If you cannot define it, what makes you think "it" is there? Where?
    But then, this is because I used to be a person who valued faith very strongly, and who has recognized it as inherently irrational. You're quite right that faith is orthogonal to logic and science - which basically makes discussion of the rationality of faith to be a non-starter: faith is not logical, faith is not rational.
    But it also means that what you're saying is "this doesn't count. You can't argue against me with logic." How are we then to have a discussion? Should Straggler simply have faith that you're wrong, so that the two of you can reach an impasse that is completely unassailable? If faith is immune to the rules of logic, why even have this entire discussion? Why try to justify your beliefs if they are unjustifiable by the only means your opponents will accept, through evidence and logic?
    I think I finally comprehend your Venn diagrams now. You're saying, essentially, that there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. You're saying that some aspects of reality can only be taken on faith, and have nothing to do with evidence or logic.
    I accept that for personal, subjective conclusions. A preference for red over blue has nothing to do with either logic nor evidence.
    But I reject that notion for assertions regarding objective reality, such as the assertion that a deity actually exists. The accuracy of such an assertion is no more immune from logic or the requirement for evidence than the assertion that there is a pencil on my desk. It's not a personal preference or a subjective emotion, it's an assertion about an objective fact.
    How can you argue that belief in god(s) is comparable to color preference, and immune from logic or the requirement of evidence?
    quote:
    RAZD, in just a few paragraphs, could you explain what you mean about evidence and subjective experiences, specifically with regard to evidence that supports an entity that is seemingly immune from direct empirical observation?
    I'm afraid I'm already over the Granny Magda Limit (GML), so I better draw to a close.
    I fear that in responding I've shattered Granny's limit. Apologies to Granny.
    Evidence is evidence, some of it good at leading to more information, some is not so good, and some of it leading to no conclusions at all. In the face of an absence of contradictory evidence, what we have are testable, rational possibilities to start an investigation for further understanding, places that are better than random guessing.
    When those possibilities are actually testable, I agree.
    But how does this mesh with actual confidence in the existence of supernatural entities? If you hear a voice or think you see something, I agree that there is ample reason to search for the source of the auditory or visual input. But in most relevant cases the observer jumps directly past investigation (or investigates in such a cursory manner that it's plain that they are not genuinely searching for a mundane explanation but are instead looking for support for their already-formed and completely unfounded supernatural conclusion) and directly to confidence in actuality.
    That's irrational.
    Enjoy.
    Likewise.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 363 by RAZD, posted 07-23-2009 8:31 PM RAZD has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 367 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 2:14 PM Rahvin has not replied
     Message 368 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:24 PM Rahvin has not replied
     Message 385 by RAZD, posted 07-24-2009 8:43 PM Rahvin has not replied

    Straggler
    Member
    Posts: 10333
    From: London England
    Joined: 09-30-2006


    (1)
    Message 367 of 409 (516301)
    07-24-2009 2:14 PM
    Reply to: Message 366 by Rahvin
    07-24-2009 1:47 PM


    Single Experience
    So you're basically just talking about experiences through the five senses that are had only as an individual, with nobody else to help verify whether your interpretation of that evidence is accurate?
    Once we get past the confusing terminology RAZD's argument falls apart with regard to the supernatural. It has some merit with regard to concepts which are physical (e.g. dinosaurs in lochs) and he uses that to unjustifiably extend it to the supernatural. This is why he resists talking about deities and insists on talking about aliens et al.
    If something is expereinced by means of the 5 senses then, regardless of it being a single isolated experience or not, can it be an experience of the supernatural? If the supernatural can be detected by our 5 senses why can they not also be detected by our scientific instruments? In what way are they "scientifically unknowable"? In fact how are they supernatural at all?
    Most of what RAZD is saying can apply perfectly well to Nessie, Bigfoot, aliens or any of the other very physical concepts that he is willing to talk about. But none of us are disputing that Nessie and bigfoot can be detected by eyes, ears, cameras or sound equipment etc. etc. If they exist they can be seen, heard, smelt, touched (and should one so wish) tasted. Can deities? Are we saying that we just don't have the technology to find gods?
    When it comes to deities RAZD is trying to have his cake and eat it. He is saying the expereince might be have been detected by our five senses (and thus should be considered as possible evidence) whilst also saying that the entity in question definitely cannot be investigated empirically.
    But if he is restricting himself to the 5 senses as per Message 150 then either his deities are natural, knowable and poorly evidenced by isolated anecdote OR supernatural and completely unevidenced.
    But they cannot be both. Am I making sense here?
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 366 by Rahvin, posted 07-24-2009 1:47 PM Rahvin has not replied

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     Message 370 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:29 PM Straggler has not replied

    xongsmith
    Member
    Posts: 2578
    From: massachusetts US
    Joined: 01-01-2009
    Member Rating: 6.8


    Message 368 of 409 (516302)
    07-24-2009 2:24 PM
    Reply to: Message 366 by Rahvin
    07-24-2009 1:47 PM


    Re: Not so difficult, once you discard useless preconceptions.
    If you tell me there's life on a specific planet in the Andromeda galaxy, there's absolutely nothing I can do currently to try to validate that claim. That's independent of worldview, that's simple practicality.
    no. your idea of "simple practicality" is a component of your worldview. your conclusion that there's absolutely nothing you can do is a result of your well-established worldview.
    In other words, I see personal subjective experiences as a reason to seek verification for a mundane explanation first, rather than seeing them as reason to immediately investigate the supernatural. Only after all possible mundane explanations have been exhausted would I consider there to be reason to investigate the supernatural.
    and that is a very good position to hold.
    Is this due to my "worldview," RAZD? Or is it simply the most rational course of action given that human beings are typically rather gullible? Is it perhaps possible that some "worldviews" are more rational than others?
    it isnt an OR - it's both (although before i say it's the MOST rational, i'd qualify that to allow for a better way to be found later) . and, yes, worldviews run the gamut of rationality.

    - xongsmith

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 366 by Rahvin, posted 07-24-2009 1:47 PM Rahvin has not replied

    xongsmith
    Member
    Posts: 2578
    From: massachusetts US
    Joined: 01-01-2009
    Member Rating: 6.8


    Message 369 of 409 (516303)
    07-24-2009 2:26 PM
    Reply to: Message 364 by Straggler
    07-24-2009 12:20 PM


    Re: RAZDs Problem In A Nutshell
    # Can gods, deities and other such supernatural entities be detected by means of our 5 empirical senses?
    # If they can then in what way are they inherently immune to scientific investigation? In what way are they "scientifically unknowable" as you have claimed them to be.
    # If however they are inherently immune from empirical sensory detection (which if they are supernatural and non-empirical entities surely must be the case) then how can they possibly be considered to be "evidenced" in any way at all?
    So which is it?
    Gods & deities are Off Topic, Straggler.

    - xongsmith

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 364 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 12:20 PM Straggler has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 371 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 2:30 PM xongsmith has replied

    xongsmith
    Member
    Posts: 2578
    From: massachusetts US
    Joined: 01-01-2009
    Member Rating: 6.8


    Message 370 of 409 (516305)
    07-24-2009 2:29 PM
    Reply to: Message 367 by Straggler
    07-24-2009 2:14 PM


    Re: Single Experience
    But if he is restricting himself to the 5 senses as per Message 150 then either his deities are natural, knowable and poorly evidenced by isolalated anecdote OR supernatural and completely unevidenced.
    But they cannot be both. Am I making sense here?
    you are.
    but it's Off Topic.

    - xongsmith

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 367 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 2:14 PM Straggler has not replied

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     Message 372 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:39 PM xongsmith has not replied

    Straggler
    Member
    Posts: 10333
    From: London England
    Joined: 09-30-2006


    (1)
    Message 371 of 409 (516306)
    07-24-2009 2:30 PM
    Reply to: Message 369 by xongsmith
    07-24-2009 2:26 PM


    Re: RAZDs Problem In A Nutshell
    Gods & deities are Off Topic, Straggler.
    I wrote the topic and I included supernatural entities in the OP. So whather RAZD is willing to confront the problem of claiming that supernatural entities are evidenced by natural means or not is irrelevant. I say it is on topic.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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     Message 369 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:26 PM xongsmith has replied

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    xongsmith
    Member
    Posts: 2578
    From: massachusetts US
    Joined: 01-01-2009
    Member Rating: 6.8


    Message 372 of 409 (516309)
    07-24-2009 2:39 PM
    Reply to: Message 370 by xongsmith
    07-24-2009 2:29 PM


    Re: Single Experience
    But if he is restricting himself to the 5 senses as per Message 150 then either his deities are natural, knowable and poorly evidenced by isolalated anecdote OR supernatural and completely unevidenced.
    by the way, when we are saying The 5 Senses, we also mean to include those other senses talked about in How many senses are there?, i presume. at least we should - just to cover our tracks. i think when we say The Five Senses, we mean senses that are physical, perhaps even quantifiable.

    - xongsmith

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 370 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:29 PM xongsmith has not replied

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     Message 374 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 2:51 PM xongsmith has not replied

    xongsmith
    Member
    Posts: 2578
    From: massachusetts US
    Joined: 01-01-2009
    Member Rating: 6.8


    Message 373 of 409 (516310)
    07-24-2009 2:43 PM
    Reply to: Message 371 by Straggler
    07-24-2009 2:30 PM


    Re: RAZDs Problem In A Nutshell
    I wrote the topic and I included supernatural entities in the OP. So whather RAZD is willing to confront the problem of claiming that supernatural entities are evidenced by natural means or not is irrelevant. I say it is on topic.
    yes you did! my bad. i was thinking of the older other thread.

    - xongsmith

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 371 by Straggler, posted 07-24-2009 2:30 PM Straggler has not replied

    Straggler
    Member
    Posts: 10333
    From: London England
    Joined: 09-30-2006


    (1)
    Message 374 of 409 (516315)
    07-24-2009 2:51 PM
    Reply to: Message 372 by xongsmith
    07-24-2009 2:39 PM


    Re: Single Experience
    Jeez lets not confuse things any more than RAZD has already succeeded in doing!! But yes. Physical senses. Senses that are "empirical" by most common definitions of the term. Ours methods of detecting the natural world that exists external to our own minds.
    If gods exist and are inherently immune to our methods of investigating the natural world (as most theists claim) then it cannot also be logically claimed that they are evidenced by means of normal natural sensory perception.
    It is just contradictory. But RAZD only accepts the normal natural methods of sensory perception to constitute valid evidence of external reality Message 150. Thus I don't see how he can claim that supernatural entities can be evidenced?
    yes you did! my bad. i was thinking of the older other thread.
    Actually it is the same topic! But RAZD previously was unilaterally dictating what he would and would not discuss in terms of evidenced concepts. Apparently he makes no distinction between physical concepts like Nessie and ethereal "unknowable" entities like gods because they are all "evidenced" by means of "experiences". Whether they can be sensed by empirical methods of sensory perception seems to be something he wishes to gloss over or ignore altogether.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 372 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 2:39 PM xongsmith has not replied

    Straggler
    Member
    Posts: 10333
    From: London England
    Joined: 09-30-2006


    (1)
    Message 375 of 409 (516330)
    07-24-2009 3:57 PM
    Reply to: Message 361 by Rahvin
    07-23-2009 2:48 PM


    Bigfoot Vs Gods: Which Tastes Better?
    Rahvin writes:
    If we're restricting ourselves to empirically verifiable evidence, then Straggler has RAZD dead to rights:
    Straggler writes:
    # Can gods, deities and other such supernatural entities be detected by means of our 5 empirical senses?
    # If they can then in what way are they inherently immune to scientific investigation? In what way are they "scientifically unknowable". Is it just a question of inadequate detection technology?
    # If however they are inherently immune from empirical sensory detection then how, with the restriction of being detectable by empirical perception agreed above, can they possibly be considered to be evidenced in any way at all?
    This is exactly where I thought I was back in Message 323. It was soon after this that RAZD started throwing around wild accusations. In my opinion because his reliance upon non-empirical "evidence" (i.e. that which cannot be detected by the 5 senses) had been found out and he needed a way out of looking ridiculous. But that is obviously my own personal view of things.
    But then, RAZD says this isn't his position, so perhaps we're just completely barking up the wrong tree.
    It matters not. If RAZD's deities are evidenced by "experiences" that might be empirical (borne from the 5 senses) then RAZD must also concede the possibility that his deities are potentially scientifically knowable.
    However if RAZD insists that his deities are scientifically unknowable (i.e. inherently unknowable - not just due to inadequate technology) then he cannot also claim that they are evidenced by our fives senses. What can our eyes detect that the most conceivably advanced camera cannot (for example)?
    Are gods either natural and poorly empirically evidenced by means of unverified anecdote alone (like Bigfoot or Nessie for example) OR non-empirical, supernatural and utterly unevidenced as a result of being immune to human empirical sensory perception (i.e. all the methods RAZD agrees are essential in Message 150)
    It is an either or situation. He needs to decide which it is. But he cannot say it is both, or even that it might be both, without invoking silly concepts like a sixth sense.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
    Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 361 by Rahvin, posted 07-23-2009 2:48 PM Rahvin has not replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 376 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-24-2009 4:15 PM Straggler has replied
     Message 380 by xongsmith, posted 07-24-2009 4:50 PM Straggler has not replied

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