Is My Hypothesis Valid???

I like this presentation, and I think it's quite good in the sense of an efficient and clear way to present what a hyposthesis is. I think that practical terms of irrefutable-ness are irrelevent when forming a hypothesis. As long as it's not inherently irrefutable.Example:
Einstein's hypothesis when thinging about relativity was that light would bend with gravity too.
This was based on objective evidence (previous observations and resulting equations) and logic... therefore it is a fine hypothesis.
However, it couldn't be tested for a while. How do you measure the bending of light from gravity with early 20th century technology? You need some big gravity to bend light even a little bit.
Eventually Einstein figured out he could use a solar eclipse. Even with the mass of the moon, however, the light from the sun would only bend a very tiny amount... but, luckily, technology was just good enough to detect such a tiny amount.However, regardless of the practical ability to test the hypothesis, the hypothesis was still scientifically valid (well-formed).Would the impossibility of a solar eclipse remove the well-formness of the hypothesis? (Say our planet didn't have a moon or something like that...)
Would the impossibility of technology recording the bending remove the well-formness of the hypothesis? (Say Einstein was genius enough to come up with such a theory in the 12th century...)I would say the answer to both those questions is "no." No. There is no objective evidence. The question is too vague.If "alien life" = bacteria or single-cell type stuff that lives in water
-Yes. There is plenty of objective evidence to support this as a valid, well-formed hypothesis.If "alien life" = green humanoid-like men who also speak english
-No. There is no objective evidence.

Yes, you're right. I suppose I should have said that "ID" was too vague of an idea as well Yes, I agree again. I originally meant for my water-based life example to extend into "more complicated life" from there. But I don't know much of biology so I quickly stick a foot in my mouth at this point. We have good evidence that life forms in water... pretty much all the time. We have good evidence to suggest that water exists on other planets. We have good evidence to suggest that once you have small life, you will eventually (perhaps a really long "eventually") have larger (or more intelligent) life. The SETI project is strange.
I think of the water-to-small-life-to-larger-life chain, and think there is good evidence to form a SETI-like hypothesis. Then I think of the idea of throwing out "a signal" in "all directions" and "hoping for some sort of return signal"... and I can't help but think of a two year old crying out a tantrum until someone notices him I think that there is an objective base to form a good, scientific, extraterrestrial life hypothesis and therefore the foundation for a well-formed scientific experiment of some kind in order to test for intelligent life. However, I think our technology (space travel/signal processing) has not reached the level necessary to implement a good scientific experiment. SETI seems to be "filling the gap" so to speak. Doing what they can, with what resources we have now, while we wait for technology to catch up for a firmer more scientific experiment.So... I think, yes, the SETI experiment is derived from good scientific princples. But I think it's current implementation is more of a "this is all we can do right now" thing rather than a strictly scientific process. I didn't mean to imply that you did
My point was to show that if we define 'extraterrestrial life' to something very specific, then we'll require much more specific scientific evidence to create a well-formed hypothesis about that life.

Any technology that would allow a sensory system to visit other planets and report the findings back to society. Yes. Although they'll take a long time. But "taking a long time" doesn't remove scientific rigour, it just makes it annoying. The technologies are practically realistic. They just don't fit into the timeline we would like. This doesn't make them practically unrealistic, it simply makes them expensive. Expensive in a monetary and temporal sense. It's likely that our current society isn't at a point where such exploration is affordable. But affordability doesn't affect scientific well-formedness. Or my grammar, apparently

I've got to admit that I didn't read any of the last bunch of pages of replies here. And, I'm most likely taking this quote out of context so please take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt.But something popped into my head, and I think it's kind of interesting: This quote sounds very familiar to the fall-back argument of one of the favorite theistic friends here... namely iano. The old "we all rely on our subjective brains so therefore everything is subjective" rabble.I just found that kind of interesting.

Hey RAZD, I didn't really want to get too involved, but your questions intrigue me, so here I go: I should, but I am not that good of a person. I am too lazy, and this long-ongoing-debate between you and Straggler has me kind of scared of it. But I can offer another, hopefully acceptable, solution. I can certainly begin with a "clean slate" so to speak and start from scratch with what you've posted here to me. My answer is "there is no methodology I'm aware of to do such a thing." The only method I know how to identify something as being a reflection of reality or not is through validation. Validation requires other people to also test the experience.To me, there are two main categories of experiences: "imaginary" and "validated".
'Validated' is along the lines of "commonly-viewed" or "shared-experiences". It is what most people refer to as "reality." Except I don't like to use that word when being precise. I do not understand how to possibly know that anything is the absolute-truth of reality or not. However, since that is a problem we all have equally, I also think it's an irrelevent issue.So, we have imaginary and validated.And, we are fallible humans. We can have brain malfunctions, tricks, mistakes... the list is long for the possibilities on how we can be incorrect.Then we add an experience.With just an experience, we cannot (alone) know if it is imaginary or validated.
Validation requires others to test the experience as well. Without such, the experience's claim to reality remains identical to an experience that is known to be imaginary. Until validation occurs, we must concede that any number of human errors could be affecting the experience. Possibility? Yes, there's a possibility. But without knowing that the experience is validated, we are forced to acknoweldge that it is identical to any other known imaginary experience. Therefore, the probability of it being "real" is exactly the same as the possibility of any other known-to-be imaginary experience.Luckily, this kind of situation is so extreme as to be practically non-existant in our world. We live in a world where it is almost impossible to not interact with other people. Therefore, most of our experiences are validated exactly as they happen. "Science" is in the business of validating experiences to a professional level.So, there is a possibility, but is there a reasonable possibility? No. Such things require validation on some level. Otherwise we are ignoring the fact that humans are fallible.
And, if we do begin interacting with other people, and we research and look for validation, and if we cannot find any validation at all... anywhere... for 1000's of years... we can become confident that the experience indeed is only imaginary.

That's certainly the interesting point, isn't it? What is the cut-off point? The cut-off point for what, though? Sufficient validation for what?Any different answer for that will provide us with different cut-off points.The fact that we are incapable of identifying "actual, true, absolute" reality means that there is no cut-off point to reach that level because we don't know where that level is.If my purpose is to find food for others, my cut-off point is having food in my hands and other's can see, touch and taste.If my purpose is to have others agree with me, my cut-off point is as loose as a silver-tongue.For this argument, I'd assume our purpose is to see if something is a part of the shared-reality we seem to exist within. Again, we have a strange fork in the road.A scientist would only agree that something is "part of this reality" if it can be thoroughly tested and verified.
Someone with less motivation would agree that something is "part of this reality" as long as they see it with their own eyes.Who's right? We don't exactly have a book from above to tell us For me, if the question is "does this actually exist?", I first remember that we can't answer that in the absolute sense anyway because such knowledge is currently beyond us. So I go for the next best thing... the standards of science. My cut-off point is "the highest cut-off point I know of." Why should we settle for anything less? I don't like this system, I don't think it accurately shows the way things are, or even should be. I will give my thoughts of how things break down, and my reasoning:For me, it is more of a vast ocean of "unknown." This vast ocean is occupied by an island of "imaginary." That is, when something in the unknown is identified as being imaginary, it just slides from the same level of the ocean right onto the island, a simple adjustment. Perhaps it's not so much an island as a giant, pangea-type land mass... but the size of it is pretty irrelevent.Anyway, the "spectrum" part of it (for me) only exists in the "validated" area. That is, we don't have grades of imaginary. It's either imaginary or unknown. But I certainly do agree that we have grades of validation. In my picture, "validated" would be equivalent to "feet above sea-level". (For the sake of my picture, the island-of-imagination is an ironically flat and boring land where everything is level at 0 feet above sea level). A short list to finish the picture (but not meant to be exhaustive):5,000 feet above sea level - two people sharing the same experience at the same time
6,000 feet above sea level - many people sharing the same experience at the same time
35,000 feet above sea level - two people confirming the same experience in independent ways
45,000 feet above sea level - many different people confirming the same experience in many different ways
50,000 feet above sea level - many different people continually confirming the same experience in many different ways while trying to disprove it (Science)
Heaven - "True, Absolute Reality"A few points that differ between my picture and your spectrum, and my thoughts about them:My "unknown" is equal to "imaginary"
-The one thing all parts of known-shared-experience (colloquial reality) have in common is that they have ALL been verified, whether through curious searching explorers and scientists or through sheer force of practicality.
-There is an infinite number of unknown things, they seem to have A LOT in common with imaginary things
-the only thing that will ever differentiate an "unknown" from an "imaginary" is if it becomes validated... at which point it is "lifted up into the known areas of knowledge", to stick with my pictureThe "spectrum" between imaginary to validated is not gradual.
-I think there's a big jump, a big gap that's suddenly crossed when something begins to be validated. Imagination and unknown should be far from being close to "real" until there is something to indicate it's validity.
-There are things that might hint to something being validated that, upon closer inspection, have a high-chance of still being imaginary. Single person experiences to mob-mentality-experiences come to mind. (this should not be ignored when the purpose of the investigation is "to see if something exists")
-Things that are unknown are not "some closer to imagination" or "some closer to validated". To me, something is "unknown" or it has begun it's trek up the slopes of validation in which we can search for further testing. The spectrum isn't in the unknown, it is only in the levels of validation/confidence.If recorded human history has shown us anything, it has shown that we humans are critically susceptable to thinking things are real when in fact, we eventually learn that they are not. For me, when honesty is desired, time is available and importance level is high... I accept this fallible human condition and reverse the situation. When the stakes are high, I find it only prudent to assume unknown/imagination until validation can occur in the highest of degrees....I hope some of this further explains something useful. I must admit that I am at a loss to provide the topic at this point. What's the main question we're trying to answer? Or what's the main theme we're trying to explore?

I didn't mean for it to seem so cut-and-dry. I was just trying to keep it simple to focus on a more-important-at-the-time point (that there are two main groups).Hopefully my post #200 explained this part a little more in-depth.

Thanks for the kudos. I really like these discussions. I know that there are two different camps of "things" (imaginary and validated). And I know that there is also a varying spectrum of confidence-in-existing.One of the main issues in this forum (that I'm interested in, anyway) is gettingn such things clearly defined. Not only for my own thoughts, but clearly defined in such a way as to describe it in objective terms that can be shown to other people. The basic separation is easy to objectively show, the detailed and exact lines in the sand always prove to be more difficult. That has always seemed to escape me, but I'll keep trying

To both RAZD and CS (sorry about not sending you an email notification, CS):I think it's time we clear up specifically what sort of situation we're talking about.Each different experience depends on 2 main factors for deciding how much effort should be exerted in order to come to a reasonable conclusion:1. Familiarity Factor
This can range from the extremely familiar (friends, family, house, car... pretty much everything in day-to-day life) to the extremely new and/or "never observed."
Extremely familiar experiences require small to sometimes even no effort to reach a reasonable conclusion of their existence. Likely, the effort for concluding their existence has already been done by ourselves at somepoint, or at least by others who we trust because we have validated those people ourselves already.
Extremely new experinces (including those which have no currently validated observations) should reasonably expect a much greater amount of effort from our part in order to conclude whether or not they exist.2. Importance Factor
This can range from the extremely unimportant (every-day things for which we subjectively have little interest in) to the extremely important (our personal existence and that of our loved ones and such things).
Extremely unimportant consequences should not reasonably expect much effort in deciding their existence. Basically, we just don't care.
Extremely important consequences should expect much more effort when we are expected to judge related experiences. We should take the utmost care in verifying reality as well as possible when the consequences are grave.Which lead to: Time Factor
Obviously, if we are in a panic situation, we are going to make more assumptions than we normally would when trying to ascertain the existence of an experience.
The familiarity factor and importance factor can also impact our decision to spend more or less time on researching the validity of any specific experience.Both RAZD's and CS's latest posts to me seem to be focusing on the very familiar, extremely unimportant experiences. I think we can all agree that such things do not require much attention since they are simultaneously very likely real (familiar) and extremely boring (unimportant).I'm under the impression that this discussion is largely underway because of a general desire to explore the possibility of the existence for a deity (God, or otherwise).
It's fairly obvious to me that the existence for a deity is extremely unfamiliar to everyone on the planet since absolutely no observations have ever been verified.
It also seems to me that the existence for a deity is extremely important. Many people have devoted their entire lives (and possibly gambled their afterlife as well) to such deities.Am I mistaken? Are we really talking about mundane experiences like empty rooms and things that go bump in the night? I certainly agree that such things hardly require any effort at all to attempt verification. But I fail to see the relevance if we are, indeed, leading towards the possible existence of deities. Such experiences are diametrically oppossed. On one side we have the extremly familiar and unimportant. The other side is extremely new and life-changing. I do not understand how any amount of effort deemed "reasonable" for basic, every-day life experiences can in any way transfer into anything resembling "reasonable effort" for an experience that could (if true) provide the basis for a paradigm shift for the entire planet.If you would like to confirm that this latest round of questions and comments concerning every-day experience has nothing to do with eventually comparing to deity-related experiences, then I will go back and answer the questions as honestly as I can (even though I find the idea as boring and unimportant as the consequences around such experiences). However, given that we are talking about this on the EvC message board, and that these discussions have been sprouted from such threads as those concering IPUs and Gods... I find it difficult to see the relevence between these questions and comments and exploring the existence of a deity.

Pretty much, yeah. Sometimes I just like to see if I can write things out to greater detail. It does tend to make my posts long and likely tedious to read, however... I would say we have 2 basic choices:1. In keeping rational and as-objective-as-possible, IF we agree that what I've described is logical and largely free-of-error, then it would seem only prudent to begin further investigation. If the further investigation comes up empty-handed, it seems like we can confidently say we were mistaken.Empty-handed investigation is a difficult issue.
A) Is it empty-handed just because our technology isn't advanced enough or we can't figure out exactly what or where or how to test for the experience?
B) Is it empty-handed just because we were, actually, mistaken?Option A can never be ruled out specifically, it's the same problem preventing us from reaching absolute reality. And option B may be impossible to verify in itself. This proves for an extremely difficult pursuit of "the answer" before we even know the next experience we want to investigate. But, what exactly is the point of further objective investigation if we're not going to accept one of the possible answers? The fact that salesmen bank on our human nature to not let-go of option A is another human-weakness we should be fully aware of. That's why I recommend a reasonable walk through figuring out the Familiarity Factor and Importance Factor. Then we can work out a reasonable time/effort factor and proceed with reason and rationality on our side.The iffy side is deciding when enough is enough. What if I reach the end of my Time Factor and haven't got an answer? Do I accept I was likely mistaken? Or simply re-work my Familiarity and Importance factors to give myself more time? When does "searching for reality" become "a waste of time"? I'm not sure if I have an answer for that since even my "reasonable" system of Familiarity and Importance factors are based on totally subjective concepts. I'm just glad I'm not the one who feels that verifying ghosts is uber-important 2. I suppose we could just start believing it was true. But I don't see how this can be seen as reasonable. Especially if my descriptions in the previous posts are generally accurate. All human mistakes are "obviously real to you" until we are aware that they are mistakes. This doesn't mean that the experience in dispute must be a mistake. But it should give us a very large dose of reasonable doubt. I would agree. However, "being mistaken" (likely for an as-yet unknown reason) isn't the same as "being crazy." I certainly do not think it would be crazy or flawed to think that I was somehow mistaken. At least not until further investigation can be made. If the experience can be duplicated... then that only adds to validation. If the experience cannot be duplicated, the confidence that I was mistaken would increase greatly. It sucks, but it's really not hard for humans to be mistaken, it's an unappealing, inherent trait that we cannot ignore when searching for reality. Ghosts work the same for me, if it makes you feel better Then it's time to remember our inherent human flaws of easily being mistaken, and go through the system. Decide on your Familiarity Factor, decide on your Importance Factor, then figure out your Time Factor and investigate further. Perhaps you will find something. Perhaps not. If not, I do suggest that accepting an "I was mistaken" answer will free up your time for pursuing things that we do actually know are validated within our reality. But such a thing may be for all of us to decide on our own. This is the same issue as before on this forum. One man's "reasonable doubt" is another's "reason for passion". Since "reasonable" is itself subjective... trying to find a detailed, objective answer (as I'm trying to do) may be futile. I don't think of it so much as "discrediting them all as imaginary" as "not having an infinite amount of time to spend on things that I have highly reasonable confidence in for them being imaginary." After all, there certainly are some very important thing to spend time on that we do know are validated in reality (like loving our friends and family).

Yes, exactly. Different situations can certainly call for different ways of deciding the Familiarity and Importance factors. In fact, once something has been identified as indeed being a subjective experience, objectivity can be ignored to allow for things as simple as "having fun". Like... I don't actually believe in astrology, but I do still read my horroscope every now and then just to see how cute it is. And I certainly look up my Japanese-animal-year on the paper-place-setting whenever I go to the local Japanese restaurant for a meal. I just understand that they are subjective, not objective, and have fun with them.Once you're in the lab (I'm guessing here...) you're also "working for someone else" as well. In which case, ethically, I'm sure you do your work at whatever standards you've signed up to enforce, even if your personal standards happen to agree when doing scientific things.Don't let my big fancy descriptions of Familiary and Importance add any sense of rigour that isn't actually there, though. I mean, with everyday-type stuff I don't actually think up some sort of factor... it's not even worth that time. Even with important things, I've never actually set a time/date for "enough is enough." I generally just figure those out for the best in how they feel. However, I do feel that the entire human race looking for evidence for ghosts/gods/supernatural and not being able to find anything for the history of man's existence is... enough. Perhaps.
But I'm going to re-state this as "I (Stile) have more self-confidence so I'm more okay with being wrong than you are." Seriously, though... I'm at a loss with how to judge such a thing. We'd have to specifically state exactly what sort of experience we're talking about, exactly what sort of past experiences we each have and exactly what sort of goals we have as well. Such a comparison seems rather involved for such a medium as an internet debate forum. What aspects are those? What do you gain or acheive from these aspects that you think I'm missing?

I thought I did explain why I had that impression. Yes, here it is, near the bottom of message 209: Message 209Or are you wondering why I think God is unfamiliar to us? I thought was rather obvious... because no two people seem to agree on what God is. Or why I think it's important? I suppose I consider my existence (this life or any other... if such a thing is possible) to be important. Oh, well that's much simpler.Lots of people don't use any methodology at all. They just get by with their day-to-day lives using whatever their senses tell them. They make mistakes, but most are rather unimportant to them, or they are rationalized away.So, you need to decide. Do you want to "just get by?" If so, then feel free to use whatever methodology you'd like. This works perfectly well for day-to-day life.Or, do you "really want to know if certain things exist or not?" If this closer inspection is what you're after, why settle for anything less than the scientific method? Why do you want to know what's 2nd best, if the goal is to find out as well as we possibly can? No. I'm just saying I find it tedious to talk about things I find unimportant when I don't understand the focus of the discussion. Perhaps such things are an important topic, but I haven't heard a reason for why it should be yet. Every factor I explained is different for different people. They were subjective factors based on subjective feelings. However, this doesn't remove the fact that they can provide a rough guideline for reasonability (also subjective). I don't believe anyone is advocating this position of *no possibility* or *absolutely false*. I've cleary stated that we cannot ever know absolute reality. Therefore we are left with "no reasonable possibility."The phrase "reasonably believe it was *absolutely false*" is an oxymoron. It's not possible. All we can do is believe that is was reasonably false. After such a decision is made, and if it indeed is reasonable... why should any more time be wasted on the effort unless new evidence surfaces? Those passionate enough to continue searching are welcome to, just as anyone is welcome to search for new evidence of any known-imaginary thing. They just aren't respected if they continue to claim they *know it's real* when there is no reasonable basis. But nobody ruled out "possibilities" they've only ruled out "reasonable possibilities." It's also quite likely they've dropped the word "reasonable" because it gets cumbersome to keep repeating all the time. Especially when it's all there is to work with anyway. The assumptions of absolute reality are known and respected, but it's not worth the time for the general population to consider things that are beyond reasonable possibility. Otherwise, we'd never get anywhere. We'd still be searching for Apollo who drags the sun with his chariot because we cannot disprove this possibility absolutely.Yes, "reasonable" is a very subjective term which is extremely difficult to strictly clarify so that everyone is happy. However, it is unreasonable in the extreme to allow our known impossibility to understand absolute reality get in the way of progressing forward in a reasonable fashion.If we cannot let go of ideas that we're only clinging to because we cannot absolutely show they are incorrect, we'll never move forward. We'll remain, ever searching for the invisible Apollo and his fire-proof chariot.Perhaps, in order to make sure we move forward AND don't ever miss anything, it's good that we have people who tend to favour each alternative?

I suppose the next question is... should it? If the tools are not available for you to know something is real to our highest ability, shouldn't you have less confidence when judging?
I certainly understand that for more every-day things you may not care as much. But, if it is something that makes you want to care if it really is part of reality or not... why not use the best method available for discovering such? And, if we can't use the best method, shouldn't we then acknowlege that and therefore lower our confidence? I've seen plenty of pictures and videos of lights and sounds out there. And many people claim that they are, indeed, ghosts. But I've never seen any picture or video that is of an actual ghost. I know lights and sounds exist, why must a ghost be behind their creation? Why not the things we do know exist that make lights and sounds? Of course we have something. The problem is knowing whether or not that something should be attributed to ghosts or other things. What I'm saying is that we have nothing where it can't be explained by something else that is not a ghost.We also have tons of books and records where people claim the earth is flat. That's certainly not "nothing" either. But, we do have nothing that says the earth is flat that isn't explained by the earth being round.It's not enought to just have "something" that "someone says" is a ghost. Even if it's lots. There has to be something that cannot be explained by any other known thing. Otherwise, we don't have a new, existing thing (ghosts) we just still have all the things we already know exist. I was talking about your claim that you have more confidence in your ability to tell fantasy from reality that I do. Maybe we have the same amount of confidence, but I word the way I express such differently than you do. How can we possibly compare something as subjective as "confidence?" It's like comparing that you like chocolate ice-cream better than I do. You're saying you like chocolate, I'm saying I have no problem with vanilla... how can we take that to mean you like chocolate better than me? Fair enough, but I'm not missing any of this crap Well, any of the crap that we know is real.
I have a good spiritual side of existing, and I'm always learning more about myself on the inside.About identifying how I can let my soul lead me, or communing with god or ghosts... I'm not sure, because I doubt they exist.But, if you rephrase into something that we know exists... like not being afraid of the unknown... or having a sense of personal security... or having a kind of self-confidence when you don't even have reason for it... I have all these things, I just don't attribute them to souls or gods or ghosts.

Some things just may not be possible for us to know. Perhaps due to limits on technology, or limits on our imaginations for how to properly test the experience.This doesn't mean we should give up on science and move on to some easier (and known to be less reliable) method just because we "want to know." At this point, we need to simply acknowledge that we're unable to validate the experience to any acceptable degree. That is, if it really is important. If it's actually not that important, the "acceptable degree" of validation becomes much lower... like most other every-day type things.
However, the following flow of methodology is extremely dishonest:-having an experience
-judging the experience as 'very important' to know if it's as real as anything else we know about or not
-applying the scientific method and finding out there's not enough information to come to a valid conclusion, therefore, we are left with a current answer of 'likely does not exist' until further information can be discovered
-re-judging the experience as 'less important' so that we are reasonably justified in using a less-reliable method for exploring if the experience was real or not
-coming to an answer that the experience is, indeed, likely real (according to the lesser standards of the less reliable method)
-re-claiming that the experience is, actually, 'very important' and that now it has a much higher chance of being real just because the less reliable methods says so... even though no new information was discovered at allDo you see how dishonest such a run-around is? This is the problem I think is being discussed here. A claim that the scientific method can't be used in all areas, then a claim that using a 2nd-best method is good-enough, then a claim that the experience actually does have more of a hold on reality even when no new information was added.It doesn't make sense. It's poor logic at best, and dishonest at worst.The sliding scale (or "feet above sea level" in my picture.. doesn't really matter) of confidence in something being real is only valid within a single method of exploring different experiences. If you change methods.. then you also change the entire sliding scale you're using as well. If two experiences have 50% and 90% (say) confidence levels using the scientific method, they could both possibly have 95% confidence levels using a less-reliable method. As long as no new information is added, this 95% value using another less-reliable method doesn't change the fact that one is likely only 50% valid, and the other is likely only 90% valid. Of course. I fully admitted that "reasonable" is a subjective term. And I fully admitted that I based my decision upon subjective factors of Importance and Familiarity. This is forced upon us since we are unable to obtain objective data of absolute reality. However, if you cannot find faulty logic in my subjective method.. then what's the actual issue? Is the only point against my stance really just a "but I want to have an answer, and I want it now" whine when it may simply be currently impossible? I don't understand what reasonable basis exists for accepting lower standards than those of the best available for exploring the possibility of existence for something that's important. It may very well be that we can't figure it out yet... that's something we just have to accept, that doesn't give us "reasonable right" to jump onto any known-to-be-very-unreliable alternative system.The only thing that gives us reasonable right to use a known-to-be-less-reliable system is if we deem the question less important. Again, I agree. And, again, I must state that it is only illogical to dismiss concepts in the absolute sense. And, again, I must repeat that I do not advocate such a position, and I can't remember anyone here actually doing so. It is, however, not illogical to reasonably dismiss concepts when we have already investigated all available information and came up with nothing until more information is discovered. If we didn't reasonably dismiss such experiences, we'ed still be trying to find Apollo and his extremely small chariot that's just out of our detection limit. Progress must be made, time available is not infinite, and reasonable dismissals must occur. Me too. However, questions on whether or not we should be questioning ourselves whenever we walk into an empty room when we already understand the low-importance and high-familiarity of such an experience are very tedious.Edited by Stile, : Why do I find an error proof-reading the already-submitted message, but it escapes me before submission? It's not fair.

Hello, and I'd just like to say I'm glad with how our discussion is remaining mostly-civil and meaningful. And I'd like to take this time to apologize for passively-aggresively-insinuating that you may be "whining." My messages originally tend to have many such tongue-in-cheek responses, but I try to remove them when the discussion is very interesting/important to me. It seems I missed removing that particular one, and I should have been more respectful. No, there is more left than this. We actually have two different situations:1. We know there's a limit on our technology, or we can see validated information that can only be explained by a new experience but currently lack the imagination to formulate a proper test.
-Things that fall into this category are things like dark matter and energy. The answer results (as you suggest) in more of a 50/50 "I don't know" and possibly the addition of a personal opinion/hunch.2. We cannot identify a limit on our technology, although one may possibly exist (something we'll never know), and there is zero validated information that can only be explained by a new experience, although it may also possibly exist (and, again, we may never know).
-Things that fall into this category are blazingly, searingly similar to each and every other "known imaginary" thing. This should raise huge red-flags for reasonable doubt. Examples would be things like ghosts and deities. Here, the answer should not be a 50/50 "I don't know" type, it should be more along the lines of reasonable dismissal of the experience, along with the always-present "anything is possible" caveat that exists simply because we cannot verify absolute reality.
-This type of reasonable dismissal of the experience should be maintained until new information can be found and we can reasonably move the experience into more of a 50/50 "I don't know" type conclusion.
-This does not mean that any and all searching for additional information should be halted. It just means we should not continue the search for new information with any meaningful portion of our resources. As in your bird-example, only a minor few continue to search for the bird that's likely not there. Such a search is reasonable to continue with minimal resources, as long as the low level of confidence in ever finding any additional information is acknowledged.
-However, to consider that such a situation is worthy of getting any sizeable group of bird-watchers to comb the area is... obviously a bit unreasonable. This is the exact scenario where we begin our initial investigation for additional information. Right now, the question is in the 50/50 "I don't know" area. After the initial investigation, if no new information is found, the experience moves into the "reasonable dismissal" area. If the investigation proves positive, then (obviously) investigation would continue to grow... as it does with things like dark matter and energy. No. You seem to be holding onto one, big 50/50 "I don't know" area, when such a non-scaled thing is unreasonable. Certain ideas should be reasonably dismissed. Those are the ones where no new infomation can be found to point us in any direction of an actual new experience. Exactly. The Loch Ness monster (new experience) may have simply been miss-classified. Perhaps the original sighting was not a new experience at all, but simply already-known experiences that were accidentally marked as a new experience. Therefore, we move the new experience (Loch Ness monster) into the "reasonable to dismiss" category, definitely not the 50/50 "I don't know" category. And we're reasonably justified to allow minimal resources to continue searching for new information of a possible new experience. But, currently, the confidence level of an actual new experience existing in Loch Ness is extremely low. This remark makes me think we agree more than we disagree, but we're using different terminology that's creating confusion.I would have phrased your above passage like this:"And this is okay, as long as one realizes that there is low-confidence in finding additional information. I see it as casting a wider net to find additional information, not a necessarily lesser standard of investigation."Although the two can be read to be identical, I find that the words "opinion" and "answers" can be very easily abused by those with alternative motives to manipulate the popular vote and take advantage of the naivety of others. So, if you mean something along the lines of my re-phrasing, then my only gripe is one of clarity and precision. Such things can easily point to a personal issue within myself more than anything else. However, if you mean to attach some more weight to those words than my re-phrasing would suggest... then I will continue to explain why I think I'm right and you're wrong.