Hi Phage0070, (sorry Percy, length is inevitable ...)
Sure, but that is because both methods are functionally equivalent in that case.
Which would cover some 99% of instances, yes? Certainly an overwhelming majority.
The distinction is how you deal with experiences contrary to what you expected from reality. Your opinion appears to be that one should modify their perception of that experience to fit their concept of reality; my position is that you should modify your perception of reality to fit the new experience.
You have misunderstood me then. For one, I am not talking about what people should do, but rather about what people in fact do. For example. don't you find that it is curious that you still say this, even though I have already explained otherwise? Is not your first impression - and your subjective opinion formed from that first impression - making you reluctant to accept that it was not correct, even though you now have evidence to that effect, evidence that contradicts your first reply? If you are not re-evaluating your opinion when given new evidence, then is not your position questionable at best?
Certainly, but this comes from changing your world view so that it does not conflict with the known evidence, not changing your perception of known evidence to fit your world view.
Obviously it is not as simple as that. First off, it is fairly evident that subjective interpretation of evidence does occur during the initial experience. Different eye witnesses remember different things, not because they saw different things, but because they interpret the event differently.
Second, your previous world view is ALSO based on evidence, evidence that is already in conformity with your world view - you wouldn't change your perception of that evidence would you? To be consistent then, you need to change your world view in a way that is consistent (a) with the old evidence, and then (b) with the new evidence. This is why denial is usually the (easier) reaction to new evidence that contradicts significant belief, on any individuals part, about what constitutes reality.
This is why the worldview concept is useful, as it separates the 'understanding of everything a person has experienced' from the actual experiences. Evidence doesn't change, but our understanding of that evidence can change. This is how cognitive dissonance is properly reduced. Gravity has not changed, including all of our many mundane experiences with the effects of gravity, but our understanding of how it works has changed yes? Certainly worldviews can be wrong, based on poor evidence and weak logic.
I don't see how what you believe about reality has any bearing on if the experience is true or not.
Because it is formed from your past experiences, and it is how you piece all the evidence and experiences you have had, into a coherent whole to explain how reality works, and how you can live within that matrix, what you can expect.
Consistency is great and all, but you cannot claim that ignoring conflicting evidence is the proper way of dealing with cognitive dissonance.
And I haven't said that it is an effective way of dealing with cognitive dissonance, just that denial is the easiest way to deal with it. Curiously, I have found that people tend to take the easy path when confronted with options.
This appears analogous to sticking your head in the sand and claiming that it solves the problem.
Oh, indeed it does. And you can actually see this behavior on many of these threads, particularly with YEC types that arrive fresh from indoctrination seminaries or home schools of questionable merit. And you also see it with people like arrogantape and sexual dimorphism.
Denying it is one thing, submitting to it is another. Thinking logically is not part of human nature and yet it is a valuable and important discipline. We learn things that are not part of our inherent nature because they are worthwhile, so stating that people naturally think in a flawed manner is not a reason to continue doing so.
Agreed, but stating that people naturally think in a flawed manner is a reflection of the reality of how people think. If people were as logical and skeptical and investigated every claim for truth beforehand, then many many advertising people, politicians and conmen would be out of work.
I think it stems from a small group of people willing to lie and misrepresent events to others "for their own good", which is then perpetuated by well-meaning people blinded by confirmation bias and goaded on by others with a vested interest in maintaining a moral and financial claim in their lives.
That would explain some of the religious viewpoints, but not all. In particular it applies more to established religions.
No, hence the invention of "Faith" which does not require the application of evidence. Faith is confirmation bias drawn to its most extreme.
Which is also why it is also pointless to try to argue about faith with logic and evidence - it doesn't apply, so all you can conclude is that logic and evidence don't apply, which is the definition of faith.
No it isn't. The thread began asking "Is my hypothesis valid?" It did not ask "Is my hypothesis popular?" or "Is my hypothesis intuitive?" Logical validity is an idea which does not depend on the natural preference of humans to think in an emotional and disorganized manner, rejecting concepts that are difficult to think about or contrary to their upbringing.
And the foundational element for forming the "typical" hypothesis was evidence. This makes the nature of evidence part of the equation. We also have (Message 146): "This thread is about the nature of evidence" so the nature of evidence and how it is perceived by people is part of the equation, now if not originally.
Conformity with others is certainly never going to trump direct experience, and if the "others" are unable to provide any evidence then if their views differ from what I perceive then they are extremely suspect. Peer pressure is not valid evidence if that is what you are implying.
So you would agree then, that someone who - awake and aware and through their senses - perceives a unique experience, an unexpected experience, an unusual experience, a remarkable experience, is justified in believing in the validity of this experience over the pressure of others to believe that it is an hallucination?
Now, can we take it as established that the normal way of determining the validity of world views and perceptions of reality is dubious, to be treated with skeptic tentativity at best, the question then becomes how can we increase confidence in evidence and reduce tentativity?
Which would cover some 99% of instances, yes? Certainly an overwhelming majority.
Not really. Since the methods differ in how new experiences are handled, and we have already established that people don't come with inherent knowledge, then unless they changed their method at some point they should be quite different. The 99% figure would only be accurate if they were somehow duplicates in world view despite having fundamental differences in how they build said world view from observations.
RAZD writes:
Second, your previous world view is ALSO based on evidence, evidence that is already in conformity with your world view - you wouldn't change your perception of that evidence would you? To be consistent then, you need to change your world view in a way that is consistent (a) with the old evidence, and then (b) with the new evidence. This is why denial is usually the (easier) reaction to new evidence that contradicts significant belief, on any individuals part, about what constitutes reality.
Why wouldn't I change my perception of those previous observations? If the new observations made it appear prudent then that would be the reasonable thing to do. For instance, suppose I observe a magician as a child who has never seen anything like it before. "Woo, he is doing magic!" Then I learn how sleight of hand works and I modify my perception of those events; I wasn't looking at magic as it appeared, I was looking at a performance.
Also, sometimes conformity isn't practical. Assuming that two observations must be reconcilable isn't something that you can decree across the board. For instance, prior to the invention of the airplane people did not fly. Observing someone flying for the first time would be contrary to a wealth of previous experience that isn't inherently false. You don't have to reject either one; sometimes things just change.
RAZD writes:
Evidence doesn't change, but our understanding of that evidence can change.
Exactly. This is why I find it strange that you have reversed the priority I would think is self-evident when investigating unexpected observations. Given that our understanding of evidence can change, presumably to become more accurate, if unexpected results appear then we would start by suspecting our internal expectations are flawed instead of telling ourselves that we didn't really see what we thought we saw.
RAZD writes:
Because it is formed from your past experiences, and it is how you piece all the evidence and experiences you have had, into a coherent whole to explain how reality works, and how you can live within that matrix, what you can expect.
I can see how your beliefs about reality can be more or less correct due to the wealth of experience they have to draw on, but strength of belief has nothing at all to do with the veracity of the evidence. It does not matter how hard you believe that it is true, it does not make it true.
RAZD writes:
So you would agree then, that someone who - awake and aware and through their senses - perceives a unique experience, an unexpected experience, an unusual experience, a remarkable experience, is justified in believing in the validity of this experience over the pressure of others to believe that it is an hallucination?
I would say that they should proceed with cautious optimism. If on the other hand they discover that they were not sound of mind or body and cannot find any evidence to support their observation, they should seriously question the truthfulness of their observation.
This is obviously the way it not only should be, but actually is in the world. Otherwise we would require a majority of our social group to experience a new observation simultaneously in order to accept it.
RAZD writes:
...the question then becomes how can we increase confidence in evidence and reduce tentativity?
We call this "Science". It seems to be working out fairly well.
I see that you conveniently ignored my prior post. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you somehow missed it rather than assume that you are simply unable to answer the question. Let us not forget that the entire validity of your entire philosophy rests on this question, the very nature of the evidence that your whole "Perceptions of Reality" thesis includes or discludes.
I will pose the question again: (further failure to answer will be taken as an admission of an inability to answer).
RAZD writes:
So you would agree then, that someone who - awake and aware and through their senses - perceives a unique experience, an unexpected experience, an unusual experience, a remarkable experience, is justified in believing in the validity of this experience over the pressure of others to believe that it is an hallucination?
I noted the careful wording. RAZ regarding these experiences that you are suggesting that we should accept as evidence:
1) Are these experiences empirical?
2) If they are not empirical experiences: Then why are such experiences denied to our empirically challenged insensate witness? See Message 145
3) If they are empirical experiences: Then how can they possibly be evidence for anything that is not itself empirically detectable?
If your entire "top down" methodology (Descartes is rapidly buidling up the RPMs with every Venn diagram you draw and every post you write) results in inherently contradictory conclusions regarding the very nature of evidence itself then your entire philosophy is in fact refuted. We can go through this in detail once the contradiction at hand has been sufficiently dealt with.
Which is it? Is your evidence ultimately empirical? Or ultimately not empirical? Be specific. Be precise. Be non-ambiguous.
I put it to you that you are attempting to sneak in some form of non-empirical evidence under the cover of vagueness. So prove me wrong.
This is obviously the way it not only should be, but actually is in the world. Otherwise we would require a majority of our social group to experience a new observation simultaneously in order to accept it.
"simultaneously" can be roughly at the same time, like repeating a science experiment to confirm or not confirm the result. take the cold fusion experiment that was attempted around the globe with spotty and mostly unsuccessful results.
so, in fact, requiring a majority of your social group to experience it is what happens.
"simultaneously" can be roughly at the same time, like repeating a science experiment to confirm or not confirm the result.
I disagree. Each experiment is a unique event and would have to be observed by a majority in the community, otherwise if the results were contrary to general expectations then the weight of popular opinion would tell the observers that they should ignore that observation. Remember that we are talking about an individual person's method of interpreting their own experiences, not some sort of scientific hive-mind.
More plainly, the scientists that performed the initial cold fusion experiment may have genuinely thought they observed cold fusion. They did not accept popular opinion and proclaimed the success of their experiments. Other scientists individually, or in groups small enough to be functionally individual when compared to the whole of the scientific community, went away to attempt to reproduce their results. Had they succeeded then we trust that they would also have gone against popular opinion and proclaimed their experiences as true, and the scientific community would have accepted the claims as peer-reviewed and verified. This does *not* require 50% of the scientific community to go out and perform the test.
On the other hand, they could not reproduce the observations that were claimed. In fact neither could the original observers, which lead to them withdrawing their claims. They had done the reasonable thing and proceeded with cautious optimism (although a little short in the caution department, there are always outliers) *but* when they later discovered that they were not sound of "body" (their experimental methods were flawed, leading to their "senses" not sensing what they thought it did) and could not provide any evidence to support their observation they questioned the truthfulness of their observation.
If scientists did not follow this method in general then discoveries would never be made. If they did as RAZD suggests then every time a scientist observed something contrary to conventional wisdom they would struggle and cavort to conform their understanding of that observation to that conventional wisdom. There isn't any provision in there for modifying the world view; RAZD appears to be claiming that experience equals truth, independent of reality!
The salient benefit of science is that it is a framework to determine the truth of experiences. The scientific method does not require majority rule to conclude an experience is true, and provides very powerful methods of determining when misleading experiences are in fact false. There is no claim that this method is foolproof but it is logically sound compared to the proposed alternative.
I disagree. Each experiment is a unique event and would have to be observed by a majority in the community, otherwise if the results were contrary to general expectations then the weight of popular opinion would tell the observers that they should ignore that observation. Remember that we are talking about an individual person's method of interpreting their own experiences, not some sort of scientific hive-mind.
each attempt to reproduce the experiment is, infact, usually NOT observed by a majority of the community. it's usually done in a lab somewhere with steenkin badges for access. the social group in this case is the peer group of 6 or 7 or whatever scientists trying to do the experiment. if they all get the same result, then the next step is to publish and gradually the acceptance of the new phenomenon works it's way into the world-view of the scientists. there is a trust that the peer group will independently confirm or reject the results in an honest way. but if no one else gets the result, then the result is discarded. so cold fusion was discarded. or if they all observe the light bending around the sun in the amount predicted, then the result is accepted.
If scientists did not follow this method in general then discoveries would never be made. If they did as RAZD suggests then every time a scientist observed something contrary to conventional wisdom they would struggle and cavort to conform their understanding of that observation to that conventional wisdom. There isn't any provision in there for modifying the world view; RAZD appears to be claiming that experience equals truth, independent of reality!
you dont have RAZD's position at all. reality is very much integral to forming his world-view. his world-view is continually being changed. in the beginning it undergoes huge changes. as you get older, the changes become refinements. now, if you believe in the scientific method, and a new phenomenon, confirmed by the peer group, comes up that requires a major change to the existing scientific theories describing reality, then what is happening in the world-view is at most a small tweak in the overall principles. the world-view is that the scientific method is the best, for this social group (of which it appears you & i are part). we are not going to throw it out to make the previous accepted system of equations still work and ignore the new phenomenon. we're gonna tweak the equations or replace them with new ones which do a better job of accounting for everything we have observed to date, plus this new guy. this is because there is an even bigger overseeing concept that we cannot abandon, and that is the superiority of the scientific method over alternate methods.
The salient benefit of science is that it is a framework to determine the truth of experiences. The scientific method does not require majority rule to conclude an experience is true, and provides very powerful methods of determining when misleading experiences are in fact false. There is no claim that this method is foolproof but it is logically sound compared to the proposed alternative.
the scientific method requires peer review for new results. these peers are accepted representatives for the scientific majority. which proposed alternative were you referring to?
each attempt to reproduce the experiment is, infact, usually NOT observed by a majority of the community. it's usually done in a lab somewhere with steenkin badges for access. the social group in this case is the peer group of 6 or 7 or whatever scientists trying to do the experiment.
That small group of scientists may be very social, but they are not the complete social group through which evidence is distributed. The scientific community distributes evidence without the vast majority of them ever being involved in the experimentation of a specific phenomenon; they do not require a majority of scientists to empirically experience an experiment in order to accept it.
xongsmith writes:
now, if you believe in the scientific method, and a new phenomenon, confirmed by the peer group, comes up that requires a major change to the existing scientific theories describing reality, then what is happening in the world-view is at most a small tweak in the overall principles. ... this is because there is an even bigger overseeing concept that we cannot abandon, and that is the superiority of the scientific method over alternate methods.
If this is indeed RAZD's point then I may have been confused by a statement that is at its heart rather vapid. If what he meant was that we should modify new evidence contrary to our world view in a way that is consistent to our beliefs, namely by *not* modifying that new evidence and instead altering our beliefs, then I agree with that concept. I suspect that is not what he intended to say though, because that means his statement conveyed almost no information whatsoever; what other way would you handle new information other than the way you handle new information?
xongsmith writes:
the scientific method requires peer review for new results. these peers are accepted representatives for the scientific majority. which proposed alternative were you referring to?
Those peers are not special representatives though; there is no group of elect scientists that vouch for large swaths of the scientific community and accept or deny experiences by proxy. The scientific community rather has rules about reproducing claims independently and once several independent sources can confirm those observations it is accepted or denied by each scientist independently. The trust is such in the system itself to have independent studies, and this means any scientist can participate in verifying claims without approval of the scientific community at large. The peer-review process is a system of determining the truth of claims through controlled vouching, not some sort of science-republic.
Whatever RAZD says, whatever examples he says are irrelevant, whatever confusing and ambiguous terminology he uses:
What RAZD is seeking to do is to assume all seemingly real experiences as indicators of truths about reality and then working backwards to work out what forms of evidence are required to support such a view.
This is in direct contrast to modern philosophical and scientific thinking which seeks to determine what can be known, what can be evidenced, and then works upwards to determine what sort of experiences can be deemed as evidenced and what sorts of evidence are more or less reliable.
Any "top down" approach to evidence and knowledge, from creationism to the "Tao of Physics", will inevitably ultimately lead to contradictory conclusions about the very nature of evidence itself. As has RAZD's Message 145.
At this stage in the proceedings I am starting to think that nobody has been more fooled by RAZD's impressively colourful flawed notions than RAZD himself.
So the thousands of perceptions of reality you make every day are mostly entirely new experiences?
The 99% figure would only be accurate if they were somehow duplicates in world view despite having fundamental differences in how they build said world view from observations.
No, the 99% figure would apply to every mundane, everyday, unremarkable experience where we perceive reality through our senses and find there is no conflict with the millions of mundane, everyday, unremarkable experiences we have already accumulated.
Why wouldn't I change my perception of those previous observations?
Um, because that contradicts you previous position?
Certainly, but this comes from changing your world view so that it does not conflict with the known evidence, not changing your perception of known evidence to fit your world view.
All one need do is reverse the order of experiences perceived and you have argued that you will change your perception of the experience. This is why the worldview needs to conform with both old and new evidence. Included in that conformity is how we understand the evidence already perceived as well as how we understand the new evidence just perceived into a coherent picture of reality.
Perhaps we need to clarify what we mean by perception:
So we have two parts: perception1 - sensing, and perception2 - understanding. So, for the vast majority of mundane, everyday, unremarkable experiences, we come, we see, we concur.
If the new observations made it appear prudent then that would be the reasonable thing to do. For instance, suppose I observe a magician as a child who has never seen anything like it before. "Woo, he is doing magic!" Then I learn how sleight of hand works and I modify my perception of those events; I wasn't looking at magic as it appeared, I was looking at a performance.
But you have not changed what you saw, only your understanding of what you saw. Your observations are still valid observations of the performance, that it was something that really occurred, yes? You are ending up with a world view that explains both the old and the new experience/sensing of reality, and you have reached conformity.
Also, sometimes conformity isn't practical. Assuming that two observations must be reconcilable isn't something that you can decree across the board. For instance, prior to the invention of the airplane people did not fly. Observing someone flying for the first time would be contrary to a wealth of previous experience that isn't inherently false. You don't have to reject either one; sometimes things just change.
But they are reconcilable now yes? Agreed, the first time something is experienced it is unusual, abnormal, remarkable, different from the thousands of mundane, everyday, unremarkable experiences we normally experience every day, and the mind will interpret the new evidence in a way that is in conformity with its understanding of reality or it will reject the new evidence until further confirmation is found.
Exactly. This is why I find it strange that you have reversed the priority I would think is self-evident when investigating unexpected observations. Given that our understanding of evidence can change, presumably to become more accurate, if unexpected results appear then we would start by suspecting our internal expectations are flawed instead of telling ourselves that we didn't really see what we thought we saw.
I don't think there is a "priority" in the way perceptions of reality are processed to determine conformity with a world view, rather the response depends on how convinced one is of certain worldview beliefs one has reached through their experiences. If you are strongly convinced of a certain belief about reality, then any contradiction of it will be treated with suspicion and disbelief. If you are not strongly convinced you may find yourself uttering the most valuable words in science: "that's strange ..."... and proceed to find out where that evidence takes you. Thus it is possible for the same person to react in different ways to different evidence.
I can see how your beliefs about reality can be more or less correct due to the wealth of experience they have to draw on, but strength of belief has nothing at all to do with the veracity of the evidence. It does not matter how hard you believe that it is true, it does not make it true.
I can see how your understanding of reality can be more or less correct due to the wealth of experience they have to draw on, but the strength of your understanding of reality has nothing at all to do with the veracity of evidence. It does not matter how convinced you are of your understanding of reality is true, it doesn't make it true.
Agreed, it is just the best explanation of reality that we have.
I would say that they should proceed with cautious optimism. If on the other hand they discover that they were not sound of mind or body and cannot find any evidence to support their observation, they should seriously question the truthfulness of their observation.
Or if they find evidence that contradict that one experience they can find reason to reject the non-conforming experience
This is obviously the way it not only should be, but actually is in the world. Otherwise we would require a majority of our social group to experience a new observation simultaneously in order to accept it.
So when we come into contact with people that disagree with us, we should abandon our position and adopt theirs? Or do we try to reconcile the different opinions, and find a basis for conformity?
We call this "Science". It seems to be working out fairly well.
Where we (a) actually apply science to the experience in question and (b) complete all the steps for at least one cycle of the scientific method, including testing of predictions and completion of falsification tests.
But as you noted, the initial topic is about the validity of a hypothesis before the scientific method is involved, and would also include hypothesis formed on the basis of evidence whether they were ever tested by the scientific method or not.
The rest of the question is how valid can such an hypothesis can be even when it is not possible to complete the scientific method.
Um, because that contradicts you previous position?
Perception as in understanding, not perception as in sensing. I will try to use observation and interpretation, etc. in the future.
My view is that memories are in essence stored interpretations, not strictly stored observations. Our minds leave out the particulars of an observation and we are left with a general interpretation of the event. Perhaps a person with perfect recall functions differently.
RAZD writes:
Agreed, the first time something is experienced it is unusual, abnormal, remarkable, different from the thousands of mundane, everyday, unremarkable experiences we normally experience every day, and the mind will interpret the new evidence in a way that is in conformity with its understanding of reality or it will reject the new evidence until further confirmation is found.
It will be interpret in a way that is conforming with an understanding of reality, but not necessarily the understanding of reality you had before the observation. The point is that an observation that is presumed to be accurate and yet is also contrary to your world view necessitates the alteration of the world view, not rejection in favor of conformity.
RAZD writes:
But you have not changed what you saw, only your understanding of what you saw. Your observations are still valid observations of the performance, that it was something that really occurred, yes? You are ending up with a world view that explains both the old and the new experience/sensing of reality, and you have reached conformity.
Exactly. Notice the distinction; the new observation's interpretation is based as accurately as possible on the observation, and the world view is altered to conform to said observation's interpretation. This is contrary to your suggestion of altering the interpretation of the observation to match the world view in preference to matching the initial observation.
RAZD writes:
I don't think there is a "priority" in the way perceptions of reality are processed to determine conformity with a world view, rather the response depends on how convinced one is of certain worldview beliefs one has reached through their experiences. If you are strongly convinced of a certain belief about reality, then any contradiction of it will be treated with suspicion and disbelief. If you are not strongly convinced you may find yourself uttering the most valuable words in science: "that's strange ..."... and proceed to find out where that evidence takes you. Thus it is possible for the same person to react in different ways to different evidence.
That may be a common mistake people make, but confirmation bias is something to be avoided if possible. The truthfulness of an observation should be verified independently of how strong their usual interpretations are in support or opposition of the observation.
RAZD writes:
So when we come into contact with people that disagree with us, we should abandon our position and adopt theirs? Or do we try to reconcile the different opinions, and find a basis for conformity?
On the first point, of course not. Their opinion has no merit whatsoever unless they can provide corroborating evidence. On the second point, we don't attempt to reconcile different unevidenced opinions. We can attempt to reconcile different observations, but opinions are not comparable on any meaningful or productive level.
But as you noted, the initial topic is about the validity of a hypothesis before the scientific method is involved, and would also include hypothesis formed on the basis of evidence whether they were ever tested by the scientific method or not.
The evidential derivation of hypotheses is indeed the topic. But is this "evidence" that you advocate ultimately empirical or not empirical? Why can you not answer this simple, straightforward and indisputably relevant question without your head imploding in a blizzard of MSPaint and tedious dictionary definitions?
I know you have a lot invested in your little pet "Perceptions of Reality" philosophy (your website, your alias name etc. etc.) but if it is all ultimately founded on a contradiction with regard to the very nature of evidence itself then the entire thing falls flat on it's self congratulatory arse. Can you confront the contradiction laid bare for all to see Message 145? Can you tell us what sort of experiences you are including as "evidence" as (re)asked here Message 168?
RAZD writes:
The rest of the question is how valid can such an hypothesis can be even when it is not possible to complete the scientific method.
On what evidence are you basing your hypothesis? Is your evidence ultimately empirical? Or ultimately not empirical? Be specific. Be precise. Be non-ambiguous. I put it to you that you are attempting to sneak in some form of non-empirical evidence under the cover of vagueness. So prove me wrong.
You are in the last gasp saloon RAZ. Whether you acknowledge it or not. Your entire philosophy is founded on now debunked contradictory nonsense. I know it. And now you know it too. The only question that remains is whether or not you have the intellectual integrity to actually confront these contradictions or not.
Re: Perceptions of Reality, groundwork first, some examples
Hi Phage0070
I'm going to go a little long on this, to try to be as specific as possible and reduce the misconceptions I see in your and other posts. Please bear with me, and don't feel like you need to answer every detail.
now, if you believe in the scientific method, and a new phenomenon, confirmed by the peer group, comes up that requires a major change to the existing scientific theories describing reality, then what is happening in the world-view is at most a small tweak in the overall principles. ... this is because there is an even bigger overseeing concept that we cannot abandon, and that is the superiority of the scientific method over alternate methods.
If this is indeed RAZD's point then I may have been confused by a statement that is at its heart rather vapid. If what he meant was that we should modify new evidence contrary to our world view in a way that is consistent to our beliefs, namely by *not* modifying that new evidence and instead altering our beliefs, then I agree with that concept. I suspect that is not what he intended to say though, because that means his statement conveyed almost no information whatsoever; what other way would you handle new information other than the way you handle new information?
I'd say xongsmith has it right. It was a simple, and to me mundane, observation, and perhaps this is why I was so surprised when you took such a vehement attitude in your initial response.
quote:We start with the obvious: all experiences of the external world are perceived through our senses, and our mind tries to understand the experiences in a way that is consistent with what we believe is reality. Each person is an island of experience and understanding, as no one person can share their actual subjective experience of reality with another person.
The purpose was not to start a controversy, but to build a baseline, a foundation of understanding on which to pursue the topic of what evidence is.
Perception as in understanding, not perception as in sensing. I will try to use observation and interpretation, etc. in the future.
It is always helpful to be clear in what you mean. Sometimes one needs to be very specific ("careful with their wording") to prevent people from misinterpreting what you mean. I apologize for any misunderstanding from failure to be clear in my meaning.
My view is that memories are in essence stored interpretations, not strictly stored observations. Our minds leave out the particulars of an observation and we are left with a general interpretation of the event. Perhaps a person with perfect recall functions differently.
And studies show that what you think you see right now is also a stored interpretation rather than a strict observation, it is just "fresh" so it seems more immediate. However I think that unique experiences or first time experiences are held more than ones that are overwritten by frequent similar observations. I'll wager you remember distinct details of your first magic show, but not so much for later magic shows.
Let me give some personal experiences as examples.
Today I went cycling with some friends, we cycled down to the Audobon Center and went out the boardwalk to the beach. After some time passed, to quiet things down, several birds appeared. Song sparrows, mallard ducks, grackles, ring-billed seagulls, common cormorants, etc. Fairly common stuff, and not unexpected as migration season has past. We also heard what I identified as a red-bellied sapsucker drumming on a resonant tree (using it as a mating call). Later we saw a red-bellied sapsucker from ~20 away off another section of the boardwalk. On the way back I stopped for a bit, and a yellow warbler perched in a tree near me, and I was the only one who saw the warbler. Is this experience any less valid that the ones that were shared?
Curiously, I can remember the first yellow warbler that I identified, in Mississippi, over 20 years ago, and I have a picture in my mind of the bush at the side of the house, and several of the warblers perched roughly together in this and other nearby bushes. This memory is a clear picture of this event, and includes some subtle differences from the bird seen today.
I have similar "picture" memories of many first bird sightings, and can recall them as I flip through my bird book. Some of these are unique for me experiences in that they represent single sightings by me, and sightings when nobody else was involved. The ruby-crowned kinglet, that I saw in the "Indian Mounds" state park outside Anderson, Indiana, is one such experience.
Now birds where I cannot remember first sightings involve what I would call mundane, everyday, unremarkable sightings: robins, bluejays,cardinals, etc. - birds that I saw and came to know their identities while I was still a child, and long before I became a birder. The memories of the first sightings have been so over-written by almost daily observations of similar birds (if not the same ones from day to day), that the beginning is obscure, and what develops is an "archetype" model against which new sightings are measured.
But each "new" (to me) bird is experienced as new information, it is not in conformity with mundane, everyday, unremarkable sightings, and so my world view is altered slightly by their presence. The change is not significant, as I fully expect to be able to experience birds common to North America, but it is different from the perception of the everyday, unremarkable sightings.
Some of the new bird sightings involved a preliminary glimpse of something that did not match "birds I have seen and know" and in some instances involved something potentially remarkable. Sometimes I was able to track the bird down and form a more complete observation of size, coloration, behavior and proportions, observations that I could compare with a field guide to identify the species. Sometimes not. Yes, in those instances further study was done because the sighting was not complete enough to fit into my understanding of reality on it's own.
quote:We start with the obvious: all experiences of the external world are perceived through our senses, and our mind tries to understand the experiences in a way that is consistent with what we believe is reality. Each person is an island of experience and understanding, as no one person can share their actual subjective experience of reality with another person.
So in each instance I fit the new sightings into my understanding of reality in a way that is consistent with what I believe about reality. The first stage is to try to make the new sighting fit into the pattern for species I've already seen, as my expectation is low for sighting new birds, especially when I have a "life-list" of about 300 species and certainly a list that includes the most commonly seen species in the areas I inhabit. When that fails, then I try to accumulate sufficient observation to identify the bird in the field guide and confirm it as a "new" (for me) sighting, but one that is (expected to be) normal to north america. Then there are those where I have to leave it as "I don't know" because the information is not complete enough.
Exactly. Notice the distinction; the new observation's interpretation is based as accurately as possible on the observation, and the world view is altered to conform to said observation's interpretation.
Except that the evidence of past observation is not altered either, it may be interpreted in a different way, but the observations are still likely to be retained. The new interpretation of evidence includes the past observations into a conforming understanding of reality. For instance, I would be highly surprised to find new evidence that would change my "archetype" view of robins, color, behavior, song, nesting habits, mating habits, ecologies, migrations and feeding. I would not claim to be a biological expert on robins, just that the amount of experience I have that would need to be altered to fit new experience makes it unlikely, and thus I would be more likely to interpret anything different as something that is not normal for robins than to revise my understanding of robins. The new understanding would have to provide for both past understandings of robins, AND the new evidence. to be in conformity with reality.
That may be a common mistake people make, but confirmation bias is something to be avoided if possible. The truthfulness of an observation should be verified independently of how strong their usual interpretations are in support or opposition of the observation.
Curiously, I would not consider any of the above experiences to involve confirmation bias. Some may have involved cognitive dissonance to differing degrees, but fitting these "new" experiences into my worldview did not involve interpreting evidence in order to make it match "birds already seen and known" as that would be more like interpreting the yellow warbler to be a female goldfinch. a bird seen in mundane, everyday, unremarkable and profuse sightings around backyard feeders in this area.
This is contrary to your suggestion of altering the interpretation of the observation to match the world view in preference to matching the initial observation.
That wasn't my suggestion, but your interpretation. Here is the statement again:
quote:We start with the obvious: all experiences of the external world are perceived through our senses, and our mind tries to understand the experiences in a way that is consistent with what we believe is reality. Each person is an island of experience and understanding, as no one person can share their actual subjective experience of reality with another person.
Now I've also seen a flock of wild Budgerigars, and these are birds that are native to australia, not to north america, so seeing them means something unusual has occurred. In this instance I was able to find evidence of "Budgies" escaping from being kept as pets and surviving in the south through the winter.
So, can we agree that the foundation of determining what is evidence of reality is:
All experiences of the external world are perceived through our senses.
Our mind tries to understand the experiences in a way that is consistent with what we believe is reality.
That understanding includes the new experience\observation and past experiences\observations, and how they all fit into a coherent whole so that this understanding explains the experiences\observations.
The attempt to understand the evidence starts immediately with experience.
Each person is an island of experience and understanding, as no one person can share their actual subjective experience of reality with another person, and all we can share are understandings or interpretations of the experience.
"Perceptions of RAZDeality": A Top Down Template for Failure
To Anyone Mad Enough To Care: RAZD refuses to state whether or not the evidence he is ultimately advocating is empirical or not Message 168. RAZD is also simply and blatantly unable to refute the accusation that his entire philosophy is derived from an inherent contradiction as to the specific nature of evidence. A contradiction laid bare for all to see here Message 145.
This contradiction is an inevitable product of any philosophy that seeks to start with what is known (or more accurately believed) and then works backwards to determine the nature of evidence. Thus RAZD is able to unequivocably claim that he only considers empirical evidence as valid whilst simultaneously deeming empirically unknowable concepts as being evidenced. Try getting your head around that one....
To RAZD: You appear to have now entered the denial stage. You have given up the argument in favour of saving face in the debate. You are now wilfully refusing to confront the exposed contradictions in your position. Your evasion tactics may fool some, although I would suggest few who are familiar with the wider debate, but regardless of this there can be no excuse for knowingly ignoring such inherent flaws in your own position. I consider your act of denial to be both self deceiving and intellectually dishonest. But ultimately others can judge that for themselves.
The fact is that you never actually wanted to debate. Rather you just seek to use others as foils to showcase your pet projects. When you are presenting concrete evidence this approach works well for you. In fact there is probably nobody better here at such analysis. But in such cases the established evidence is on your side and you are ultimately presenting the confirmed concrete conclusions of others. However when it comes to the more philosophical questions this same approach becomes a significant impediment to progress. In the last few months how many times have I and others (most notably Rahvin and Modulus) implored you to consider various examples which you have continually dismissed as "irrelevant" or "off topic" entirely on the basis of these examples not being compliant with your preconceived "world view" of the topic under discussion?
Add to this a truly tedious reliance on dictionary definitions at the expense of conceptual validity because, I would suggest, you are more adept at working from certainties than considering genuine ambiguities of position, and we have a recipe for highly charged but exceptionally static debate. I have attempted to break through these barriers of statiticity by pointedly refusing to let you dictate the topic in the way that you intend. I make no apologies for this. If you have found this process frustrating I would suggest that it has far more to do with your inability to cope with your deeply held beliefs and opinions being stubbornly and unremittingly challenged, than it has to do with the particular manner in which this has taken place. But.........
Ultimately none of your antics have been able to disguise the fact that your entire personal philosophy, Perceptions of Reality as you have dubbed it, is a travesty of intellectual self deception and inherently contradictory confirmation bias.
There is a generic template for such delusional endeavours and your "Perceptions of Reality" argument (diagrams and all) fits the mould perfectly. Your flawed philosophy shares floor-space with everything from creationism to crystal energy auras and the pseudo scientific babblings of books like the "Tao of Physics". The generic template for such flawed notions takes the following form:
The advocate of the specific form of mysticism in question will seek to justify some form of "self evident" truth by taking a "top down" approach to evidence. Rather than starting with what can be known, what can be evidenced and how confident we can be in such knowledge, these self blinded individuals will instead take what is self evidently true to them as their starting point and then work backwards to derive the forms of evidence required to support their own preconceived notions. Essentially taking a deeply held belief through a process of self validation that, unsurprisingly, ends up with the result of the belief being validated. All too often this will take the form of the "evidence" in question seeking to gain validity by means of comparison and conflation with the proven methods and evidences of empirical investigation. Namely science. Thus Eastern mysticisms are miraculously "evidenced" by modern physics, astrology becomes a method of fortune telling justified by means of mathematically studying patterns in the placement of randomly distributed hot gaseous bodies, geology somehow supports a flood 10,000 years ago and empirical-like experiences of non-empirical entities bewilderingly become evidence for the actual existence of non-empirical entities.
Essentially all examples of this generic "top down" template will seek to conflate the subjective "reason" for belief with the objective evidence upon which scientific knowledge is derived. This ultimately amounts to nothing more than superimposing a preconceived world view onto the questions of what is and is not evidenced and what is and is not evidence. This in turn amounts to nothing more than the amplified self conviction that what is believed is in fact evidenced. Circularity and confirmation bias run riot.
The problem with such philosophies is that when they are laid bare, when they are stripped of their confusing terminology, when their conflation of concepts are exposed, when they are subjected to relentless and remorseless ("irrelevant") questioning, they all share one thing in common. They are either derived from a form of evidence that is non-empirical and thus inherently unjustifiable or they result in contradictions as to what is actually evidenced and what is not. Hence RAZ you find yourself exposed to the inherent flaw in your whole argument. Namely that you only accept the apparently empirical as evidenced whilst also believing that the inherently non-empirical can be evidenced. A contradiction laid bare for all to see here Message 145
So with regard to your "conjectures" on the philosophy and nature of reality, conjectures that have obviously inspired you to make the most of MSPaint and which you are obviously very proud of and keen to exhibit.......... Well if your whole view of what is and is not evidence is at root internally contradictory then I would suggest that your "Perceptions of Reality" conclusions are ultimately founded on a logical inconsistency. Thus I deem your entire thesis to be inherently flawed and demonstrably invalid. But if you still want to go ahead and analyse the rest of your little pet philosophy, dodgy diagrams and all, with me I am up for the game. However if you don't want to experience the cognitive dissonance of having your pet theory dismantled piece by piece and bit by bit in public by the relentless, remorseless and merciless asking of "irrelevant" questions, if you don’t want your pseudo-intellectual self congratulatory delusional bullshit exposed for the sham that it is - Then I suggest that you quit while you are behind.
So RAZD - If something that is entirely non-empirical in nature cannot in itself be evidenced then your whole pet theory of Perceptions of Reality as derived from your ambiguous and contradictory notion of subjective evidence comes crashing down around your ears.
Thus THE question remains: Can something that is inherently empirically unknowable be objectively evidenced in any way at all?
Or is it just a case of ongoing self deception - RAZD: Refuted Argument. Zero Difference?
A number of times, now, I have tried to correct the impressions of one person in particular about my position. It has proven hopeless.
This person is not stupid, in a general sense and the cause cannot be ignorance of my position, as I have posted it several times.
This leaves me with few options to explain this behavior:
Malicious: willfully lying about what I've said and intentionally misrepresenting my position as something else.
Delusional: he fully believes that he understands my position, and no amount of evidence or protest to the contrary will convince him otherwise - he is absolutely convinced that he knows my position better than I do, and thus my corrections can safely be ignored.
Willful Ignorance: see delusional.
Selective stupidity: he has some mental block that prevents him from understanding what I am saying ... see delusional.
My lack of clarity: it is possible that I haven't explained in a clear and distinct way as possible.
Somehow, I don't think my lack of clarity is the answer either, seeing as I have attempted to be as clear and concise as possible about my position.
We have seen this person pursue his conviction about the "correctness" of his opinion/s to the absolute ridiculous position of finally proving that a person how has no sensation of the world around him cannot be a witness in a trial. Thus he proved that a person completely unable to sense reality in any way could not provide evidence of reality. Bravo. Well done. He proved a tautology. In the mean time, all the other examples, in between the beginning argument on the use of subjective evidence in court and this absurd final ending, demonstrated that he was completely incapable of ruling out the use of subjective evidence in court as necessarily being of no value in reaching decisions, he was completely and totally unable to show that subjective evidence was de facto not representative of reality. He proved his own position to be unreasonable, and so was hoist on his own petard.
Earlier he played word games with "subjective interpretation of objective evidence" as opposed to "wholly subjective evidence" - and then it was shown that one cannot always tell where one leaves of and the other begins. Sure you can tell in some instances, such as the poor senseless witness above, but again it does not apply to all instances, and thus is a pointless distinction once you have left behind all experiences that don't involve conscious and aware people perceiving reality through their senses. Seeing as my position has always been about experiences that involve conscious and aware people perceiving reality through their senses, the distinction is worthless, pointless, and ultimately irrelevant to the issue of the value of subjective experiences of conscious and aware people perceiving reality through their senses.
Now we have a new word game, trying to use "empirical" to differentiate between types of experiences that conscious and aware people perceive through their senses:
I noted the careful wording. RAZ regarding these experiences that you are suggesting that we should accept as evidence: 1) Are these experiences empirical? 2) If they are not empirical experiences: Then why are such experiences denied to our empirically challenged witness? See Evidenced? Or not? (Message 145) 3) If they are empirical experiences: Then how can they possibly be evidence for anything that is not itself empirically detectable?
Which, curiously also does NOT involve any of my argument.
Now I ask, are experiences that involve conscious and aware people perceiving reality through their senses, are not these not the way empirical observations are made? Cannot any such experience in theory be repeated and verified? Are singular and unique experiences necessarily NOT "empirical" if they have not yet been repeated? Or is this just another pointless distinction to drag the discussion down another rabbit-hole while avoiding the issue of the value of experiences that involve conscious and aware people perceiving reality through their senses in determining the reality around us.
The latest misrepresentation is to claim that I am arguing from the top down. This is absurd. Discussing how people observe and sense the reality around them, how this becomes our (individual) understanding of reality by the process of accumulation of experiences and the interpretations we develop to explain these experiences in a coherent whole, if this process is not starting from the bottom, then I am baffled as to what a bottom could be.
So RAZD - If something that is entirely non-empirical in nature cannot in itself be evidenced then your whole pet theory of Perceptions of Reality as derived from your ambiguous and contradictory notion of subjective evidence comes crashing down around your ears.
The problem is that this statement does not in any way come even close to what my position is and has been. It has not one iota of ant frass to do with my position of perceptions of reality.
My position is, and has been, that if a (conscious, aware) person has an experience (perceived through their senses) that does not fit in with their understanding of reality (their worldview), that this is evidence that something outside their understanding of reality (worldview) could possibly be true in reality.
It could be something as mundane as a new bird that I've never seen before, or something as exciting as something that nobody has recorded before, something like what was proposed before (see Message 141), in an attempt to correct the misrepresentations of this individual:
quote:Try this:
Person B, alone, has an unusual experience, one that is indistinguishable between an experience of empirical reality, and one that is imaginary. (that's what I am talking about - not your straw man).
Let's say that it's a remote mountainous jungle forest area, and that person B has been hiking all day before sitting down for a rest.
Person B thinks\believes that this experience is of a horse sized animal with some bold stripes and a single curved horn.
Has he found a new species? has he found the mythological unicorn? or is he day-dreaming? He doesn't know. We don't know. YOU don't know. We can make educated guesses, but we can't know for sure. Without being able to know for sure in ALL cases, the distinction is ultimately pointless.
My position is, and has been, that if a (conscious, aware) person has an experience (perceived through their senses) that does not fit in with their understanding of reality (their worldview), that this is evidence that something outside their understanding of reality (worldview) could possibly be true in reality.
Thus THE question remains: Can something that is inherently empirically unknowable be objectively evidenced in any way at all?
Which, not surprisingly, has nothing at all to do with my argument.
My last option, seeing as I cannot seem to make this person understand my position, is to ignore the antagonistic diatribes, the petty rants, the high dungeon attitude, and continue to discuss the topic without him.
For the casual reader, if you come upon a statement that purports to tell you what my position is, and it is not from me, I suggest you disregard it (I would expect this for anyone). Someone who has no clue about my position is more likely to be correct than this person has been.
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