Is My Hypothesis Valid???

subjective evidence, as in the case of "a number" of witnesses, is better than Random Guessing by a rung or 2 - which aint much. but it's not setting on the ground. i did not say it got you to the level of randomly guessing.or are you saying that it only gets you to that level (which is no level above ground at all, but setting on the ground as it is)?

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- xongsmith

So what?Does a single policeman's testimony that he has seen a mermaid suggest to you that mermaids actually exist?Seriously what is the evidential difference between the two claims?

Message 44Address the specific example.If subjective evidence is in itself indeed valid then it should be valid regardless of any interpretation of objective evidence.The example seeks to remove any such possibility of interpretation of objective evidence.Is the witness able to give any evidence that is more reliable than guessing or not?Be specific.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

well, i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that this will not be enough to convict. that would be an implausible link.are you implying that Plausibility is a function of Objective Evidence?in other words, if we had additional expert witnesses describe how, in the past, they correllated the witness' feelings of euphoria 100% to the defendant's acts of murder - never an exception, then the testimony might be admissable. probably still not enough to convict.fortunately this isnt a problem in my example of a number of reliable witnesses.

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- xongsmith

Are you claiming that independent corroboration of the subjective interpretation of objective reality implies a greater degree of objectivity?If so I would agree. If you can cite any such examples I would be both delighted and interested to hear of them.If you cannot cite any such examples I would suggest that it is because truly "subjective evidence" is as useful in a courtroom situation of law as a chocalate teapot.

that is your job, not mine. it's your witness on Msg 44.subjectivity(S) is independent of plausibility(P).you keep on saying P = kS. or maybe P = f(S). i dunnogooglesplats, euphoria convulsions, chocolate teapots, IPUs...these are attempts by you to link implausibility with this mysterious "wholly subjective" evidence.subjective evidence can be very plausible. it can also be very implausible.and, in the past, objective evidence can appear as totally implausible, like what do you mean the earth goes around the sun?perhaps it's this term "subjective interpretation of objective evidence" versus the mysterious "wholly subjective evidence". at either end of the spectrum and all along it, the testimony is subjective, is it not? why are you so preoccupied with a particular extremity of a range? do you think RAZD is? i'm curious.

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- xongsmith

If you are simply unable to differentiate "wholly subjective evidence" from "the subjective interpretation of evidence" no matter how hard I try to give you examples that seperate the two...Then why should I even think that "subjective evidence" (as opposed to the subjective interpretation of objective evidence) even exists?If you agree that in the absence of any objective evidence whatsoever a conclusion is no more reliable than guessing then we agree. After all how can an interpretation of nothing logically be anything but a random guess?If you do not agree to this then it is your task to show that "wholly subjective evidence" is superior to just guessing.In which case you need to help me define an example that allows the seperation, rather than the convenient conflation, of the two concepts.Over to you. Yes. IF RAZD accepts that "subjective evidence" and the "subjecetive intepretation of objectiv evidence" are one and the same thing then we both agree that where something is completely objectively unevidenced the conclusion is as reliable as blind guessing.If gods etc. are only able to be evidenced "subjectively" then such conclusions are no more reliable than blind guesses. Thus atheism is indisputably justified.If however we are going to go down the route of objectively evidenced gods then all the flaws of creationsim will apply and we can set off down that merry path.As things stand RAZD seems very very reluctant to tell us what "subjective evidence" means. 2 threads and nearly 4 months down the line and still we are no clearer as to what is and is not included.Are dreams subjective evidence? You tell me. Because RAZD seems very reluctant to say.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hello Staggler, nice for you to straggle back.
You witness in your thought experiment is no witness. It is impossible for him to be a witness if he has no means to witness anything. Yes I am sure your gloating by now at your cleverness.I agree, you can not have a witness without the means to witness.
And yes if you wish to negate such a thing as subjective evidence with the statement that it is invalid without any objective evidence to cooberate it. Again I agree.But that is where we differ in opinion. Nothing more. I think that subjective evidence is used all the time. Albeit not the best means to gather information but we do seek out others opinions and subjective statements and feelings and emotions all the time to give light to our objective world.

it's not that i'm unable! i have a whole spectrum of subjective evidence. from well-respected studious expert interpretations of objective evidence that is not present at the time to wild guesses from drunks or whatever.what do you mean by "wholly subjective evidence"? is it the stuff of dreams? for me it could be like the left end of a line segment starting at 0 and going up to 1.0. probably it is not a closed interval, in that 0 and 1 are not in the set. maybe 1.0 is the pure objective evidence that we also never quite have. now consider the line segment to be the base of a square and that the height is plausibility from 0 to 1. maybe 1 is certainty and 0 is nonexistable. since evidence in the form of testimony could come from anywhere in the square, shouldnt this vertical axis be the axis along which the admissability of evidence should be measured?

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- xongsmith

"Wholly subjective evidence" means anything where any sort of empirical knowledge, past or present, is irrelevant. Where any possibility of the "subjective interpretation of objective evidence" is not a factor.Any situation where the objective evidence alone cannot result in anything better than a guess. The prediction of lottery numbers for example. Message 44 gives you the best example of this I can imagine.Is the witness testimony any better than guessing? Or not?If you can think of a better example then I am all ears. But I suspect that you will, as RAZD has relentlessly done, choose to use examples with some element of subjective "evidence" that can be easily conflated or confused with some sort of empirical experience.I don't know what the fuck "wholly subjective evidence" is because those who advocate such things are determined to remain suspiciously vague on the matter.Dreams? Visions? Drug induced hallicuinations? All have been used and cited by different cultures in history as "subjective evidence" but if you are asking me what RAZD or anyone else here who advocates "subjective evidence" includes or discludes as a matter of opinion then you are asking the wrong person. Despite numerous attempts at asking they won't tell me.Why don't you ask yourself and those other advocates of subjective evidence what is and is not included as "subjective evidence" and then get back to me if you actually get any sense out of anyone?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Straggler writes:If someone is in a coma. And then awakens years later with knowlege of events that occured in the room or around them.If a Doctor asks his patient, "Tell me about how you feel" And bases his treatment on these statements.A man has a dream about a snake eating itself. The next day he is inspired to write out the molecular shape of benzene.The problem with trying to desribe the subjective is that the moment you do it becomes objective. Bahhhwahawwah!!

I'll try to keep this brief Straggler, Nope.As I've said many a time, you misunderstand my argument. I am not interested in dreams and unconscious experiences, I am interested in experiences that occur while conscious and aware.RAZD Concedes (does this even the score?)
If it helps the situation any (and I come to despair of every enlightening you on what my argument entails) I will concede that anything that occurs wholly within the mind - such as dreams or the experiences of your bewilderingly bizarre example of a person incapable of sensation - I will concede that these kind of "experiences" do not constitute evidence of any kind of interest to me. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.I would think that should have been clear by now, but obviously this false impression is causing a sever lack of communication of ideas and meaning, so let's eliminate it from the discussion pro and con eh? And you accuse me of semantic wiggling? Do you think such postulation about the evidence is absent from the general process of theory formulation? Perhaps the theory of Natural Selection just fell in Darwin's lap eh? Tell me again: why was the fudge factor introduced? for fun and giggles? But I am not talking about ghosts, rather I am wondering about the validity of conscious and aware subjective experience. Do you agree or disagree that this process applied to any initial concept will also seek to maximize the objective component and minimize the subjective component?Once again you are begging the question by saying in effectDo you agree or disagree that X plus science involves science? Anomalies that were well known at the time. Consider how effective the theory would be if it failed to explain this anomaly. If you mean a shift to reliance more on theory than on experimental fact and testing, then I would agree that this applies to theoretical physics (perhaps why it is called theoretical eh?), but I don't see that paradigm shift in other sciences. Curiously, I also don't see it as necessarily a valid approach - ask Cavediver.Can you tell me how this differs from the approach of Aristotle? Do you really think it is scientific to do away with testing and experiments? (does this explain your frequent conflation of science with your equation?). Except that I just don't think that this is possible. If it helps, as noted above (RAZD Concedes) we can separate dreams and other unconscious experiences from the experiences of a conscious and aware observer.Deal?Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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The Straggler dodge Not really, because I know what a "son" is, but I don't know what a "googlesplat" is. Thus, for me, there is definition lacking from one that exists in the other.As noted many many many times previously the readiness of a person to accept the claim of another person does not rely on the validity of the claim (which cannot be known except by the claimant), but on the relative amount of similar experience by the second person.Thus "son" is evidenced not only by your claim, but by my personal experience with something similar called a "son," while the "googlesplat" is only evidenced by your claim. That makes it something unusual for me.For someone who has a googlesplat, and who also loves their googlesplat, your claim is just as evidenced\believable, as unremarkable, as your claim of loving your son.This doesn't mean your claim of loving your googlesplat is an invalid claim, nor does it mean that this claim could not be investigated scientifically.This is the same issue as Rahvin's lion in the forest, where lions are known to exist, and forests are known to exist, but it is not normal for lions to be in forests, so there is something that is not usual about the claim.The problem, as we have seen with the many examples of (conscious) subjective evidence, is not that there are many common (if not mundane) similar experiences that almost everybody shares (like sons), where we can't get excited about if someone claims to have such an experience, no, the problem comes in where the claim presents something unusual. When someone claims something unusual, like being on a flying island there are questions raised.Why is the lion in the forest?
Why is the island flying?
Does a dinosaur live in Loch Ness?To me, these questions are worth investigating, rather than dismissing as just subjective evidence.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : unremarkable

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Nitpick, Straggler, I read the book, then saw the movie.Curiously, this is just my point -- Nash was unable to tell if the vision was a part of reality or a hallucination. Without being there at the same time and observing the same scene, I would be unable to judge which was which either.So if a person has a conscious subjective experience, alone, and unable to validate it in any way, how would you know if it was a "subjective experience of an objective reality" or a "wholly subjective experience" eh? I can't see any way to distinguish one from the other.If the experience is common and mundane, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, because my experience makes it common and mundane, and therefore unremarkable.But if it is unusual?Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Perhaps it is sinking in slowly Straggler. Entirely probable. False. The belief doesn't need support. If anything, it's the other way around: my belief makes similar subjective evidence more acceptable.Remember the discussion of UFO experiences: don't you think that anyone who has had such an experience is more likely to believe in the validity of other such experiences?The acceptance of subjective evidence is related to your past experiences and whether you have had similar experiences.For instance I could say "You've dropped your scobbs" or that your "creebled" your googlesplat - you likely won't understand what I mean, but Xongsmith will.Enjoy.(hi bro)

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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