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Author Topic:   Perceptions of Reality
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 46 of 305 (310998)
05-11-2006 10:14 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by RAZD
05-08-2006 8:06 PM


Can we pool our knowledge and look for consistent patterns -- patterns consistent with everything that we know to be as valid as possible?
One of the reasons I belive in god.
Can we say that there are consistent patterns of religous experiences, for example? Yes.
Can we say that they are only pertinent to one religion? No.
This to me is where the element of denial comes in.
Yup, Strong Atheism is retarded.
Now we move outside the realm of being able to make repeatable experiments ...
An interesting but hardly useful realm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by RAZD, posted 05-08-2006 8:06 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
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DominionSeraph
Member (Idle past 4744 days)
Posts: 365
From: on High
Joined: 01-26-2005


Message 47 of 305 (311331)
05-12-2006 4:52 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by RAZD
05-05-2006 12:46 AM


RAZD writes:
I'm glad you saw the need to correct your first diagram. What are you going to do to correct this one?
It can't be corrected. Anything that is referenced is not unreferencable.
RAZD writes:
Your redefinition of reality as {perception of reality}
If you perceive reality to be independent of perception, is that not a perception of reality?
RAZD writes:
is a strawman argument
It's a separate argument, not a strawman.
RAZD writes:
that collapses into a tautology - what is in my mind is in my mind.
If each, "my mind," is referencing a different layer, such is not a tautology.
RAZD writes:
There are things you have never seen, never heard of, that do not depend on your "mind"
Those do depend on my mind -- both to define the sets and to place concepts within them. Here's an example of the latter:
"I have seen everything."
I just emptied the set of, "Things I have never seen."
Now I'm back to normal, with it filled with placeholders.
RAZD writes:
There are experiences of other people that you do not share
So I fill them with placeholders. And if I can fill them with placeholders, where do they exist?
RAZD writes:
How do you rescue your perception problem from being a rather meaningless expression of solipsism?
Who says it needs to be rescued?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by RAZD, posted 05-05-2006 12:46 AM RAZD has not replied

DominionSeraph
Member (Idle past 4744 days)
Posts: 365
From: on High
Joined: 01-26-2005


Message 48 of 305 (311875)
05-15-2006 5:14 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by New Cat's Eye
05-04-2006 11:58 PM


Faith writes:
Because I'm calling faith things that cannot be verified by sensory data.
That's fine.
Faith writes:
And your inclusion of sensory data into the defintion of faith is fucking up my definition.
It wasn't included. The accuracy of sensory data is taken on faith. The specific sensory data is separate.
What we have is a circular argument:
1. My sensory data is accurate.
2. As it's accurate, what I sense actually exists.
3. As it actually exists, my sensory data is accurate.
Whether it's sound depends on whether (1) is true, but (1) can't be proven. You can't use sensory data to prove that sensory data is accurate, as you need sensory data to be accurate for it to be an indicator of what is true.
Watch what happens if we don't assume it's accurate, and assume that you can somehow use sensory data in support of its accuracy:
1. My sensory data may or may not be accurate.
2. My sensory data tells me that my sensory data is accurate.
Well, if your sensory data is inaccurate (allowed by 1), what it's telling you in (2) is completely undermined. You'd need it to be accurate for what it tells you (that it's accurate) to actually mean that it's accurate.

This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 49 of 305 (320557)
06-11-2006 3:14 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by DominionSeraph
05-15-2006 5:14 AM


DominionSeraph, msg 47 writes:
Those do depend on my mind -- both to define the sets and to place concepts within them. Here's an example of the latter:
"I have seen everything."
I just emptied the set of, "Things I have never seen."
Now I'm back to normal, with it filled with placeholders.
This argument is just a mental game. Declaring that you have seen everything does not make it so. I am not interested in mental games. I am interested in exploring how far we can validate our perceptions of reality based on what we can experience and know.
Watch what happens if we don't assume it's accurate, and assume that you can somehow use sensory data in support of its accuracy:
1. My sensory data may or may not be accurate.
2. My sensory data tells me that my sensory data is accurate.
Well, if your sensory data is inaccurate (allowed by 1), what it's telling you in (2) is completely undermined. You'd need it to be accurate for what it tells you (that it's accurate) to actually mean that it's accurate.
That's the problem with only one point of view, one observation datum (what your argument in Message 47 and others depends on - a single mind in isolation of data from other minds).
We are not isolated minds, we have the ability to record and communicate experiences and sensations. While this may not be the same as direct personal experience it is not devoid of value.
What we see with a "science" approach is:
1. My sensory data may or may not be accurate.
2. My sensory data tells me that my sensory data may be accurate (ie does not invalidate it).
3. The same sensory data is experienced by all others who repeat the same {experiment\experience}.
4. Different sensory data is not experienced by all others who repeat the same {experiment\experience}.
5. The probability is that the sensory data is accurate.
Applied to your earlier example:
1. My sensory data may be accurate.
2. IF it is accurate, what I sense actually exists.
3. The same sensory data is recorded by other people who repeat the {experiment\experience}.
4. Different sensory data is not recorded by other people who repeat the {experiment\experience}.
5. Therefore the probability is high that the sensory data is accurate
6. Therefore the probability is high that what I sense actually exists
7. As the probability is high that it actually exists, and thus the probability is high that my sensory data is accurate, I can operate on the basis that {what I sense} actually exists and that my sensory data is accurate until shown otherwise.
You'd need it to be accurate for what it tells you (that it's accurate) to actually mean that it's accurate.
All I need is it to be {repeatable} by myself and by others - and not invalidated by any of my or other people experiences - to operate on the basis that it is accurate. We only need it to be reasonably accurate, or accurate enough.
We do not operate in a vacuum, nor in a population of mental clones, but in a population of {many varied, but similar, but different} accumulated experiences, each one of which colors the way we {individually\personally} perceive the {world\universe}. As such, we cannot expect 100% agreement on many {experiences\sensations} - not every {experience\sensation} is repeatable, not everyone can {experience\sense} what others have {experienced\sensed}.
What we can do here is classify {experiences\sensations} by their {repetition\frequency\occurrence} and by the level of data {coherence\dispersal}.
Thus we all agree that gravity is real, that objects dropped on toes hurt, but we don't all agree that ghosts exist.
The many levels of varied accumulated experiences actually acts as a check on the validity of any sensory experience, as the more varied the range of perceptions are, the more likely the results are accurate when they agree.
The question then becomes on {when\where\how} they disagree -- not just an absence of corroborative {experience\sensation} that one party denies because they choose not to believe it, but where {experience\sensation} is contradictory.
What's your take on that situation?

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This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 50 of 305 (320559)
06-11-2006 3:20 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by New Cat's Eye
05-11-2006 10:14 AM


An interesting but hardly useful realm.
But not one devoid of means to explore. See previous message.

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lfen
Member (Idle past 4667 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 51 of 305 (320579)
06-11-2006 4:38 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by New Cat's Eye
05-11-2006 10:11 AM


Apologies as I know this thread has grown cold. RAZD comment bumped it up and in back tracking I came across your comment:
Science cannot disprove anything, it doesn't even try too.
Do you think you meant to type "prove anything"? Or are you giving "falsify" and "disprove" different meanings. I had thought science worked that you can't prove anything but that one example could disprove a theory. I'm just scratching me head a bit in puzzlement.
lfen

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 52 of 305 (356548)
10-14-2006 8:21 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
04-30-2006 8:58 PM


resurrecting this with some modifications.
Take 3 -- see OP for take 2 ... there seem to be a couple of threads on what science is and how do we know things:
What IS Science And What IS NOT Science?
Do you really understand the ToE?
How do we decide about "things"?
Let me start this all over again:
To begin with, I don't think it is possible in the slightest for two people to have exactly the same set of beliefs and knowledge, we are all a little different from anyone else and sometimes a lot different from some others. We are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand.
Some here have contended that there are two opposing camps, each with set presuppositions that exclude elements of the other camp, making a picture something like this:
The area of overlap is the area of agreement, and the areas outside the overlap are the areas of contention.
But nobody really claims to know everything, so everyone has things they know and things they don't know:
To my view everyone has their own "knowledge" circle based on their particular experiences and what they have learned, and what they believe is true. The only difference is the location of their personal circle relative to other circles. Some circles can completely overlap the "science" circle and others overlap the "belief" circle.
But what are these circles - they're all perceptions of reality - but what makes one "science" and one "belief" such that they can be so characterized? Are they dichotomies in thinking or reference points along a progression?
The real question is how does one's personal view relate to {reality}, and how can we determine that (IF we can determine that)?
What is it that we do know?
How can we validate perceptions of reality?
Let me open up the discussion a bit by first proposing the whole playing field of human knowledge and perceptions of reality, in very general terms, using these definitions from Dictionary.com:
sci·ence (click)

1.a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
.. b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
.. c. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.
To my mind this is the most restrictive kind of knowledge - it has to be validated, it has to be replicated, it has to be available to everyone ...
... and then what you do know is not certain, but subject to modification if new information comes along, if not wholesale revision.
phi·los·o·phy (click)
1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
2. Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
3. A system of thought based on or involving such inquiry: the philosophy of Hume.
4. The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.
5. The disciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology.
6. The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
This is a little less restrictive, it takes logic and rational evaluation of what we know (from any source) and sees where it can take us.
Hypothesis based on precepts, where the conclusions are "true" as long as the precepts are "true" and the construction of the arguement is valid, it is not restricted to knowledge and evidence.
This kind of knowledge basically claims that if {X} is true then {Y} is true.
faith (click)
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
This is the freest kind of knowledge. You can believe anything you want, from conspiracy theories to pink unicorns to any number of basic religions.
But the questions are how we come by our beliefs, why do we have faith in them, why can that faith be so sure? Because one thing about faith is that it is not tentative.
Again each of these kinds of knowledge apply to everyone - everyone has such nested knowledge, but they may have different emphasis on different areas, different sizes.
If I were to draw a picture of this it would be something like this:
One could say that {all} science includes knowledge we that we are confident we know (but aren't sure), that {all} philosophy includes knowledge that we think we can know (based on logic etc), and that {all} faith includes knowledge we cannot know that we know (hence we take it on faith, but somehow are sure that we know).
There is nothing within science that is not also {included\accepted} in {some} philosophy or other, and there is nothing within philosophy that is not also {included\accepted} in {some} faith or other.
However, not all of this knowledge is true to reality.
There is knowledge from previous times that has been invalidated - such as a geocentric earth - and it is possible to base conclusions on false precepts.
There are many religions that are exclusive of other religions, so logically they cannot all be true as conceived (although it is possible they could all be close to the reality, just in different ways).
Philosophy based on logic is true if the predepts are true, but how do we know if the precepts are true? There are some philosophies that contradict or oppose other philosophies.
We also know that science has a tendency of finding new evidence that invalidates previous theories and shows new theories and understandings to be more valid, but because we cannot prove a theory in science we cannot know that we know.
So how can we judge the validity of perceptions of reality?
I put to you that there are two relatively easy measures that perceptions of reality are valid:
  • concordance - those elements of the perception of reality that are the most common, universal, plain, and
  • lack of denial - the validity of beliefs is inversly related to the amount of denial of {other knowledge}
Let the discussion begin.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

This message is a reply to:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5023 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 53 of 305 (356553)
10-14-2006 9:02 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by lfen
05-02-2006 2:32 PM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
quote:
ABE: off topic flash insight: Brad is doing to science what James Joyce did to literature!? Could be? yes, no, maybe?
It could be as I think that I have a better handle on Kant's use of "a priori" than Coleridge did.
but rather I think it is because at times I think I make it(my notion of "horizon") to the6th degree and perhaps I have flashed it to the 7th ut most degree before.
quote:


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Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 54 of 305 (356668)
10-15-2006 11:33 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Brad McFall
10-14-2006 9:02 PM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
So Brad,
What do you {use/do/coopt} to validate knowledge?
Is there a matrix of y=concept and x=methodology values that you solve? How many dimensions need to be included?
Edited by RAZD, : coopt

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Brad McFall, posted 10-14-2006 9:02 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by Brad McFall, posted 10-15-2006 3:06 PM RAZD has replied

Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5023 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 55 of 305 (356698)
10-15-2006 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by RAZD
10-15-2006 11:33 AM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
While I was a student at Cornell I had an intellectual experience where it was as clear to me as it was in taking a test in Chemistry that I was thinking something that others might not even try to think when walking AMONG the different quads/schools. This of course was not "knowledge" but a perception that at least at the level of the average Cornellian (which was a decision, to go to an Ivy School instead of some other "state" school etc that differed from all of my immediate Family) I could "sense" I was "Doing" something different and beyond what was happening around me. All I was actually doing was trying to read and understand ANYTHING that happened to come on my mind in science and thus shifting among the libraries on the Campus which caused me to have to walk among the student and faculty population across the very space that I experienced that I was "beyond."
This average daily expereince that also garnered good grades, went in two directions, so to speak. I tried to get beyond myself but this caused friction and lower grades with faculty despite the fact that I was able to WALK away from the "rule" or "experience" with an idea of the highest caliber that I had only subsequently READ from withing Creationism literature.
These days, I decided to stay in the Cornell vacinity so as to "sense" this former experience and thus if I do then that at least "leads me" to suspect that even with some uncertainity I would still be heading in the same direction of increasing my own apprehension and knowledge. Obviously I can only verify if I know something if I find someone else who understands what I explain.
I have however managed to get enough of my ideation across on EvC that I have been able to start feeling confident enough that the material I have not introduced here are equally likely to become acceptable and expected. This is why I am opening up ALL of my ideas on a web site external to EvC.
The Trainer
Basically if THE FORM is within diagrams which I attempted to have Will Provine accept about the same time I started to write to EvC, can be read as a short hand of what I must visualize for the content to be objective enough for me (in biology). Will however not only did not respond to me (this time, many times later) but also refused to respond to Gladyshev's ideas, plus I have sat in the same place I have listened to Linus Pauling that I listened to the religious aspects of Dirac's beauty so I have no problem with the idea I corrected Von Weiskaer for, in the same building, that actual infinity can be cognized in science. Stuart Kaufmann said if this was what I was I thinking not to stop so thinking. Those are two individuals who lectured in the very environment in ways that I considered to be at or above where I was, way back then.
So the end run is to sense the same "feeling" I had on trying to think about acutal infinity as an organizing theme in biological orders which occurred for me in failing to comprehend how mathematical rings were to be applied. I eventually learned that no one was even trying to apply rings in biology in the same way that their existence was being prooved purely.
So until this experience becomes the common everyday one of the average student at an elite institution I will continue to be able to desire that I can work towards this kind of change that really was simply my own desire to set aside a few hours on Sunday to worship and put of running down the latest thought, I might have had. Posting on Evc is way to test THAT, but that does not validate the knowledge only that the way I came to its threshold is communicable beyond the environemt I first came aboard,about, among, around, at it.
Edited by Brad McFall, : did not link "diagrams" they have appeared on EVC before
Edited by Brad McFall, : aDDED lINk
Edited by Brad McFall, : picture from THE LAME (The Lamp) March 31, 1983 added

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by RAZD, posted 10-15-2006 11:33 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by RAZD, posted 10-15-2006 8:33 PM Brad McFall has replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 56 of 305 (356769)
10-15-2006 8:33 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by Brad McFall
10-15-2006 3:06 PM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
Thanks Brad.
Obviously I can only verify if I know something if I find someone else who understands what I explain.
I have however managed to get enough of my ideation across on EvC that I have been able to start feeling confident enough that the material I have not introduced here are equally likely to become acceptable and expected.
This would be one element of concordance, the next one being finding others that shared or had similar {experiences\observations}, or {experiences\observations} similar enough to judge yours to be possible (rather than something supernatural or exotically unconfirmable etc)
btw - is that some kind of antique planimeter on your site?
Figure 11 is interesting - similar to genetic tree relations
http://aexion.org/biographRND.aspx
... within diagrams which I attempted to have Will Provine accept ... Stuart Kaufmann said if this was what I was I thinking not to stop so thinking.
Posting on Evc is way to test THAT, but that does not validate the knowledge only that the way I came to its threshold is communicable beyond the environemt I first came aboard,about, among, around, at it.
This is a test of concordance, yes. I agree that this is one area where all posters can contribute, perhaps to see how much agreement really exists.
Then we can review the issue of denial of aspects. Places where there is NOT concordance - which way to go for validation eh?
Thanks.
Edited by RAZD, : tpyo

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by Brad McFall, posted 10-15-2006 3:06 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5023 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 57 of 305 (356776)
10-15-2006 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by RAZD
10-15-2006 8:33 PM


Reality:What a concept! with another link
Stephen Jay Gould's large book on the structure of evolutionary theory contains most if not all of the general "ideas" that I use only he combines them and weighs relative importances in ways that I do not.
Beyond that, there are some combinations of ideas that lead in different directions towards "extended" evolutionary theory. It is not clear to me that Creationism WILL move in this direction. I am aware that it could and can but because of the longer historical continuity there, than in secular evolutionary studies, they (and there are fewer creationists than biologists who simply accept evolution as it was taught to them) change the guard on a much slower pace. Perhaps that is how it was that I was able to see something in that work that was not being kept up on the fast paced campus of the elite future except by reflexion and over a beer or two.
Yes that is a planimeter that J Clerk Maxwell had diagramed. His writing about it was quite telling to me about his use of "geometry." This of course was superceed by Einstein etc. I am using it a symbol of the vision I have for THE METHOD OF PANBIOGEOGRAPHY that I will work out further on that site. I can predict that some of Gould's work will not survive a critical examination of this METHOD that has been ornamented with minimal spanning trees so far.
I have tried to hierarchicalize this method in a peculiar way and it was from that experience that I was able to criticize historical biogeography but much of that work still has not been presented by me.
I had been interested in becoming an evolutionist becuase I wanted to study how much information and pratical use could be made of actual locations of organisms on Earth but because of the idea of Standard Evolutionary Theory that includes too simply put chance (random)variation and natural selection there seems to be none, except Croizat, who really expected statistical regularities to emerge from distributional data. Unfortunately my first attempts to communicate with others interested in this idea from New Zealand fell out of favor probably because I have an way to read Croizat that IS NOT against special creation but is against Darwin's idea of biogeography. Gould says he read Panbiogeography but his arguments about Darwin and the Galapagoes shows that he has structured the ideas to defend Darwin AGAINST Croizat. This would be real biology but there is just about as little interest in this as there is in my ideas on creationism. So I am still on the "perimeter" realistically. I have been able to come up with few technical products in the course of reasoning somewhat deductively on distributions from Croizat's work plus my own experience so it might be that I will "make it" by spin offs rather than the ideas themselves.
As for where there is NOT concordance, you could easily take up Randy's thread on biogeography and the flood
Biogeography falsifies the worldwide flood
and notice how I struggled to sustain my own broader position. I suppose I could try to work back to that from the YEC side as I work more actual content onto my website.
It is nice that Microsoft offered that boiler plate beta testing as it enables me to get a report on vistors and page views so that just now I was able to come over here on EVC to see if I could figure out who was looking at the site and I see, it was you.
I have now uploaded my first "paper" (as a POWERPOINT) critical of Gould written in high school, as I did not think back then that science needed "another" 'evolution', given that it ALREADY had one. The link to the 10 page paper is at the bottom of this link titled "Evolution of Evolution."
The Trainer's product page
Edited by Brad McFall, : No reason given.
Edited by Brad McFall, : inside EvC link added
Edited by Brad McFall, : new upload off site

This message is a reply to:
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warner
Inactive Member


Message 58 of 305 (358039)
10-21-2006 10:25 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by Brad McFall
10-14-2006 9:02 PM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to reply to. But take for example the possibility of the unseen supernatural. I don't know where to discuss it, but it is taught throughout the Bible and I have tested in various ways its (what would you call it?) possibility. I can only go by my personal experience and that of those I trust dearly. Other than that, my findings could be supported by a host of others but I know that it would not do to 'just believe' it 'unless' however, all that they say is uncannily and prophetically accurate. (When I say prophetically, I mean it was said before hand that such and such would happen if you did such and such and thus when you did it, it was so. Prophetic may not be the best word here but hopefully you get the point.) I do not pretend to know the intricacies of our existance. But I do desire to know and so look into these things. Since I am a Christian, I go about learning by first praying and asking God for wisdom. (I believe that God is real because He has made Himself real to me in various scientifically unexplainable ways. Therefore He is my point at which I begin my search) I'm sure that probably sounds to some the same as me saying "I pray to my dog and he barks" but nevertheless, it is what I do, and the difference between the two, is when God speaks, He answers in ways a dog could never, nor another human for that matter. I might ask Him, in my mind, a question. I wait for a reply for that is what I am taught to do. To wait on the Lord. Then, He answers me with such an answer that I have never conceived. I will have a dream, (for I believe when He says He will guide us with dreams) about an incident that has not yet happened but a week later did of which I was prepared for and knew what to do. Sounds whacky I'm sure of it but I cannot make it sound any less I'm afraid. It is what it is and I will not attempt to make it sound rational. For me, because I have chosen to believe in God, it's as though He is like a personal instructor to me. He gives me solutions to problems in many various ways. And when its the answer I'm looking for, He tells me so. Like a nudge or a voice in my mind that says "thats the answer to 'this' question" or He will make comparisons from the things He teaches throughout the Bible and say "thats the same as that" like He's fashioning a modern day parable specifically to fit my understanding and so that I might help others to understand those truths. Simply put, the truths that are written in the Word of God specifically the New Testament, is that they work. Whether or not there is a formula explaining them, I wouldn't doubt there is, but no formula we have yet tapped into. But again, I believe what He says that one day 'we will know as we are known'. Its the crazy house thats really sane! It's the ludicrous idea put to the test, to find that it actually works! This is God. Just think if that possibility were true? Where would that lead the problems and how would that sum up the equations? To find out that all of our calculations and diggings turned up that we are looking at the wrong body of evidence. I do not mind answering any questions. That is if I'm not kicked off for being in the "wrong forum!" (that has happened before. I can't seem to find my place here.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Brad McFall, posted 10-14-2006 9:02 PM Brad McFall has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by RAZD, posted 10-21-2006 11:02 PM warner has replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 59 of 305 (358043)
10-21-2006 11:02 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by warner
10-21-2006 10:25 PM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
But take for example the possibility of the unseen supernatural.
All the possibilities of all the unseen supernaturals.
... I'm sure that probably sounds to some the same as me saying "I pray to my dog and he barks" but nevertheless, it is what I do, ...
dyslexic?
I will have a dream, (for I believe when He says He will guide us with dreams) about an incident that has not yet happened but a week later did of which I was prepared for and knew what to do. Sounds whacky I'm sure of it but I cannot make it sound any less I'm afraid. It is what it is and I will not attempt to make it sound rational. For me, because I have chosen to believe in God ...
The problem is not to explain this experience\phenomena in terms of your personal experience but to explain it and similar experiences\phenomena in ALL other religions by people all over the world. One conclusion is that all gods must exist. Another is that is doesn't matter WHAT you believe.
That is if I'm not kicked off for being in the "wrong forum!" (that has happened before. I can't seem to find my place here.)
This one is about perceptions of reality and how we can reach some means of validating those perceptions as being reflective of reality.
This does not exclude perceptions of supernatural possibilities, but it does mean there needs to be some way for other people to have comparable perceptions, some basis of shared perception.
It also means you cannot exclude perceptions of others that are less fantastic eh?
Denial of evidence is not perception of reality.
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by warner, posted 10-21-2006 10:25 PM warner has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by Nighttrain, posted 10-22-2006 2:35 AM RAZD has replied
 Message 65 by warner, posted 10-23-2006 11:35 AM RAZD has replied

Nighttrain
Member (Idle past 3984 days)
Posts: 1512
From: brisbane,australia
Joined: 06-08-2004


Message 60 of 305 (358059)
10-22-2006 2:35 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by RAZD
10-21-2006 11:02 PM


Re: Reality: What a concept!
I`m waiting to validate the methods of detecting demons.
Can`t be too hard as a certain group say they are all around us. :-p

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by RAZD, posted 10-21-2006 11:02 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by RAZD, posted 10-22-2006 9:34 AM Nighttrain has not replied

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