Is My Hypothesis Valid???

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.

Thanks Perdition, And it's been one unusable distinction after another, a distinction that works to some degree in some cases, but not all.If you have one experience, is it repeatable? How can you know? Message 225
Well, Definition 2 (depending upon experience or observation alone) leaves him wide open to exactly the kind of situations I have been discussing; Definition 1 (derived from or guided by experience) would mean he'd have to agree that a unique single observation made one time by an aware and conscious person can be a basis for forming a reasonable hypothesis based on the experience to test; And definition 3 (verifiable by experience or experiment) would confirm that a testable hypothesis based on the unique single observation made one time by an aware and conscious person makes it empirical, even if the test has not been carried out, as it still has the ability of being verified.In this sense any unique single observation made one time by an aware and conscious person can be empirical: other people can verify that a rock on mars looks like a face. That doesn't turn the rock into a face, it just means that it really looks like a face. The same would hold for seeing faces in clouds with friends, or seeing shapes in the mist. You can cover almost any experience by an aware and conscious person in the same way.In the end the distinctions Straggler struggles to make are pointless:Take any experience made by a person, and derive a logical hypothesis based on it, then test that hypothesis for validity, and you will either end up with:

1. validated experience,
2. invalidated experience, or
3. a null result (no further evidence either way)

And the validated ones, no matter what their original basis was, would be evidence of reality. And part of everyone's world view is that their beliefs are logically consistent and rational, this gives you confidence in your opinion.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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Hi Stile, So it's just a general impression that you somehow have from several threads, even though there is no real discussion of gods in them and in at least one there was an almost continuous effort to keep it out? Fascinating how the mind works eh? Nope, just wondering why you thought it was (previously) part of the discussion. In any event Catholic Scientist seems to have taken it on full bore, so anyone who wants to discuss it, can carry on with him. I'd say that is all of us some of the time. I don't have time when driving to make scientific validation checks on my senses, so I accept what I see and hear and feel as evidence of what is really happening around me, no further evidence needed. So far this has resulted in survival for me and my passengers, with only a couple of minor dents to show as validation. Because it may not be testable or falsifiable. Take the assumption of life existing on other planets around stars so distant that it is impractical to even think of testing this hypothesis. Often it comes down to what is important to you personally, what you want to know.When science doesn't answer the question, then what is your alternative? Suddenly it is no longer 2nd best, because what was 1st best doesn't work anymore. This wouldn't make such methodology equal to science when doing science, it would just be the best available to the situation. Yes, and what is reasonable to you can be strikingly different from what is reasonable to me. People searching for an Ivory Billed Woodpecker for over 50 years did so because it was reasonable for them, however it was likely unreasonable to many.Thus when you say "Therefore we are left with "no reasonable possibility"" what you are really saying is that you personally think there is no reasonable possibility based on your view of reality. And yet it is still illogical to dismiss concepts that you cannot show are incorrect. Does the Ivory Billed Woodpecker live? (yes) Do newly discovered large mammals live in Vietnam? (yes) Does Sasquatch live? (I don't know). Curiously, I find the topic of how we understand reality through our senses and inside our minds quite fascinating.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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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.

Hi RAZD, sorry for the late reply. Hope you don't mind continuing where we left off. You've misunderstood. I agree that there is just one reality, I also agree that individual perceptions of reality play a role in how individuals see reality. But my point was that that individual perception of reality can differ from the one reality that we all agree on. In this sense there is a reality for each individual experiencing it based on the things you explained. No, not at all. Absolutly, but how do we find the contradictions if it's not by involving the third-person perspective? Well this gets tricky, because the "sensations" are locked inside the brain, therefore these known "sensations" can be referenced in dreams as well. There are many cases of individual testimonies of having "tasted" something, or "smelled" something, in a dream. Was that "something" realy there, or was it imagined? - In the case of a dream you can say "it was imagined", but curiously, in an awakened state it can also be said to be imagined, since we use the same methods to gain a sense of "whats there" in both states.In fact, our sensory inputs don't really do much in the way of verfiication. It's all repetition, even when you are in an awakened state.Have you heard of change blindness? - Not be confused with inattentional blindness.

quote:

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A crucial difference [with change blindness] is that successful change detection in the presence of a visual disruption requires a comparison of one image to another one held in memory. Consequently, change blindness can occur due to a failure to store the information in the first place or to a failure to compare the relevant information from the current scene to the representation (hence models of visual short term memory may be important for understanding the phenomenon). In contrast, inattentional blindness reflects the failure to detect an unexpected stimulus that is fully visible in a single display — it does not require a comparison to memory.

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Due to this type of phenomenon we can see how fallacious first-person perception can be and we must invoke the third-person perspective for validation. - (The best method of "thrid-person perspective" is the scientific method). I would say, and I refer you to the works of Dan Dennett here as well, that the only way is through third-person point of view. You must place yourself as the subject in question, and see if you've overlooked something. The fact is that many people are just wrong about the results of their own introspection because people can't prevent themselves from theorizing when they "think" they are observing.Would you not agree that we must have some form of rigorous testing? Perception, at the individual level, has no bearing, IMO, on reality, unless we have third person confirmation. And if you can't do that, then you would have to be suspicious of the insights that you thought you had. Er...OK, I can agree with that.To the question of which one is faulty though, how would you suggest approaching that?For instance, 1 billion people agree on it being one way and 1 billion agree on it being another way, how do you deal with that?More to the issue though, I would say that there is nothing in our current understanding of reality that has this huge of a difference, without bringing in God to the equation, which you would like to leave out. Is there anything about reality that you feel has such a huge discrepancy, between to huge populations of people, that is not grounded in religious beliefs? This is not an accurate description of the history of science, though.Experiences from a first-person point of view have to be verified. You use subjects, and figure out some way to get what you've discovered from the first-person point of view to manifest itself for neutral observers from the third-person point of view. Again, if you can't do this, then you have to be suspicious what you thought you discovered. Right, but we don't live in RAZD's mind, we experience our own subjective reality, so maybe I never have this "unexpected experience" and nothing about reality ever seems out of wack.Something curious is understandable, but first-person curiosity can be third-person knowledge, therefore we must bring what we discover to the thrid-person point of view for justification. Agreed. I understand what you're saying now.But I'll add this:IF the experience raises the possibility - ("a possibility that is based on, focused, directed by, an experience, as opposed to random guessing, or the throwing of turtle bones")THEN it follows that the lack of confirmation should raise suspicion as to what was introspectively determined about the experience.Wouldn't you agree?- Oni

Thanks onifre, Definitely. The longer one goes without confirmation the more doubt should exist. Fifty years of looking for an Ivory Billed Woodpecker must have seemed pretty daunting near the end. One of my favorite quips is that one never notices something bad by it's absence. It's hard to notice that you don't notice something you don't like anymore because it is gone now. The way I see it is that the only highly reliable method we have is true scientific investigation, the point is that the experiences in question can be a cause to investigate further, to test for validation. But science cannot be applied to every experience for practical as well as ephemeral reasons.Failing the ability to apply a scientific evaluation, we generally fall back on commonality of experiences, a less formal methodology, but one that works well when there are many experiences and people are in general agreement. This makes driving and many day to day interactions possible. With uncertainty, with accepting that you could be wrong, with allowing people with different opinions to have the same uncertainty and ability to be wrong. Here one would almost have to be "agnostic" on the question if two opposing viewpoints were equal, or at least some "I don't know, but I think ..." qualification on each side.However I don't think there is a topic that would have such a divide, rather there are more likely to be more than two basic opinions when there is uncertainty. Even here I don't see whole groups having identical worldviews, or even two people. I think there are as many opinions as there are people, as you can have people ostensibly from the same religious background argue on different sides of issues like gay marriage and abortion and other "touchstone" issues, but let's not drag down that rabbit-hole here. One can just as easily use politics, with liberal vs conservative views.Perhaps when you get to such issues it is more an agglomeration of many many individual opinions, rather than a single unifying thread, so it becomes increasingly difficult to find similar opinions on each element.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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Hi Stile, Which leaves us with "I don't know" or "I don't know, but my personal opinion is ..." But it's not a matter of giving up, it's a matter of looking at other views. If it really is a totally isolated experience that nobody else has shared, even some sort of similar experience, then I would think there would be zero commonality of experience or common viewpoint about it. But you have fabricated this sandtrap scenario to support your opinion rather than what can logically be derived. If we agree that such an experience can suggest a possibility of reality (or of illusion) then the scenario should be more like:

• having an experience
• judging that it is unusual, unexpected, remarkable
• applying the scientific method
• finding validation, or invalidation, or determining that there is insufficient information to form a conclusive result at this time, so
• we are left with the default position of "I don't know" (or "I don't know, but my opinion is ...")
• looking to see if there are similar experiences
• using those to refine or redirect the scientific investigation
• applying the scientific method
• finding validation, or invalidation, or that there still insufficient information, and
• we are left with the default position of "I don't know" (or "I don't know, but my opinion is ...")

The investigation part still uses the scientific methodology, it is only the hypothesis formation stage that are subject to a less controlled level of evidence and that is more open to alternate concepts. Would you not agree that this avoids your sandtrap? We can conclude that either Apollo and his chariot do not exist or they are significantly different from the original conceptualization that the original conceptualization does not exist. Same with the Lock Ness monster: we can conclude that a plesiosaur was not living in the loch, but the original sighting may have been of something that actually occurred but was not well understood, and media hype created the monster. and

we are left with the default position of "I don't know" (or "I don't know, but my personal opinion is ...")

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And this is okay, as long as one realizes that it really is just an opinion. I see it as casting a wider net to find answers, not a necessarily lesser standard of investigation. As I keep telling Straggler, if your looking for well-built cars, and you restrict yourself to only looking at red cars, then the only well-built cars you will find will be red - not because only red cars are well built, but because you are only looking at red cars. You will necessarily miss all the yellow green and blue well-built cars.

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The purpose of investigating evidence is to determine what it says about reality - this is what science does.

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The question is not how best to do science, but how restrictive is your definition of evidence for the evidence that you use to base your scientific investigation.

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Enjoy.

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Why do I find an error proof-reading the already-submitted message, but it escapes me before submission? It's not fair.

Yeah, I have that problem too.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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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.

I suppose my issue is along the lines of "looking for the new experience of the Loch Ness Monster."What's wrong with "just looking?"
Declaring looking for the Loch Ness Monster, or looking for "ghosts," or looking for "a deity" (of any kind)... seems to me that one has already lost the healthy dose of objectivity/unbiasedness that should be attached with honest exploration.I don't have a problem with looking.
I have a problem with labelling "looking for a new experience" as "looking for xxx" when there is no validated information to suggest "xxx."Indeed, if it is a new experience, how could we possibly know it was, specifically, xxx?It's this level of unreasonably based confidence that I find to be inherently detrimental to honest exploration. This is what I'm arguing against, and this is what I (perhaps mistakenly?) picked up on from your posts that initiated my replying to you.I fully acknowledge that it is a small issue. But really, given both our posting histories, it's unlikely we'd be opposed on anything large. Perhaps the subjective weight I give to this small issue is larger than should be respected. But I feel it is important, and that's why I'm posting in this thread.If you have a similar distaste for such specifics, then (as I said in the previous post) we likely agree more than we disagree. Of course, if you're okay with such a thing, then I will continue to defend the honour of honest exploration (followed by trumpets blaring and thundering applause from the crowd, I step off the podium).

I don't equate "looking" for a specific species of bird as having "experienced" something that you introspectively determined was (X).Could you explain? The experience itself can't be, I agree, but what you introspectively determined about the experience, can be.For example, if you determined it was the "Lockness Monster", we could search for it to verify your claim.Science is the only thing we could apply to your claim, not to the experience, but just to your introspective conclusions. I honestly can't see any claim that can't be scienctifically evaluated. In fact, even claims that were said to be beyond science, like the idea of atoms 200 years ago, have been proven by science. Yes, but if both claims were wrong, then an independent, thrid-party evaluation would be the only way of making the final determination. Neither sides introspective determination of their individual experiences can be held as evidence for reality, in my opinion. Agreed.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Hi Onifre, It's an example of looking for validation, where the chances were low to nonexistent. Is it different from looking for lochnessnessie? Well, actually all that can be tested is what is related about the experience, and one may not always relate all their suspicions, or one may not understand what happened at all and be unaware of certain phenomena. The problem here is that we may be looking for someone else's impressions of what the original experience was. It seems to me that the original reports (iirc) were not really like a pliesiosaur and also not that distinct. IE - could it have been a small waterspout? I've experienced one of those, out on the Gulf of Mexico while sailing - it turned our boat 180 degrees and dowsed us completely before it disappeared, and it looked like a big snake rising out of the water. Exactly. We may just not get results from some such inquiries based on what we know now about reality. Ah, so we send it out for arbitration and try to reach a compromise? This may help focus further investigation, but I still think the tool of investigation is the scientific method. This doesn't necessarily mean that we would call the approach science -- if you think about it, the many mundane everyday experiences are like repeated experiments that keep validating the results, we just don't document, tabulate, and publish the results.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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Hi Stile, No problem - I have the same issues, and it is difficult to qualm those tendencies. Personally I think the dark stuffs fall in your category 2: What you really have is evidence that the current theories of the universe behavior do not explain the observations, including rotation of galaxies faster than is predicted. One of the hypothesis to explain this is dark matter, but as yet there is no evidence of dark stuffs existing outside of this hypothesis. But there can be unvalidated information that is not invalidated, and thus can have a possibility of future validation. New discoveries are like this. This sounds suspiciously like justification for ignoring things where you have already made up your mind that certain things are "known imaginary" things.Examples I can think of (rather than the highly emotive supernatural categories) would be the existence of sasquatch and yeti like animals, or the experience of alien visitations. Well, curiously, I read this as "I don't know, but my personal opinion is that they don't exist" response, where your "reasonable dismissal" is the voiced opinion on the topic. Perhaps it is just that my emphasis is on the unanswered uncertainty, and yours is on leaving and moving on to something else.Certainly if one had an experience of seemingly seeing sasquatch, yeti or aliens, one would be more disposed to think the experience was validated by other similar experiences, and would have higher expectations of eventually being validated by new information. Hmmm, perhaps you underestimate the tenacity of birder's when it comes to seeing a rare bird ... You could also have an alternative explanation, that it could be a small water-spout, like a dust-devil over water. These are fairly rare events, but not unknown (I've witnessed one), or similar phenomenon. This is an entirely different explanation of the experience rather than a new experience. Well that is one of the problems in these debates. I think this is also true of the difference between Straggler's position and mine. How about we compromise on:I'll agree with you on "answers" but your "low-confidence in finding additional information" is still your opinion on the value of further investigation, while others may have a different opinion. They can't have a different opinion if there really exists overall low confidence in finding additional information. Message 235But this issue is that there is an unvalidated experience, so rather than "looking for a new experience" it is more looking for a repeated experience, looking for additional information, looking for validation of an existing experience. Which is why I think it is more an issue of emphasis in how I think of these issues than on any real difference in approach. At worst it means I am a little more open to consider bizarre experiences before running low on confidence.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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Hi RAZD, No, not at all.But then we would have to establish before hand that we are talking about something objective that was observed, at some point, or in the case of some evolved organism, known to possibily exist due to pre-existing objective evidence, right? Agreed. I understand. It could very well have been a waterspout that looks like a pliesiosaurs, or, maybe even a pliesiosaurs that looks like a waterspout, as long as some kind of objective stimuli was involved I think the subjective interpretation can be anything that makes one happy. In some cases people don't even want validation and are happy accepting their interpretation.The phenomenon of consciousness and of subjectively experiencing reality doesn't get questioned when some kind of objective stimuli is involved (ie. water spouts that are confused for pliesiosaurs, or vise versa). I think subjective experienced get questioned when there are no objective stimuli and yet the person sticks to their subjective experience as being evidence of something existing in reality. At least that's at the point that I question it. Well, at the very least a third-party can validate that they saw something, too.Let's use the nessy example.You claim it was nessy that you saw, I don't believe you, but then *he who must not be mentioned* can say, at the very least, that he saw something, too. So now we at least have proof of something, then the scientific method can be applied, if necessary.So I agree that the SM is the best tool of investigation, but let's not short change our eyes and ears, which can validate the original claim. Once we've validated an objective stimuli (ie. water spouts or pliesiosaurs), the rest is what we define as "science" - investigating using the scientific method.Likewise, if you claimed to see nessy, and I didn't believe you. When I then turn to the third-party and ask if he saw something, if they say, no, it will then raise my suspicion of your original claim. In some cases disqualifying it completely. In fact, I would say that in most cases, if you can't get a third-peson confirmation when 2 people are there to witness it, your claim is disqualified. I would say a continuation of investigating in this area requires "faith", and by definition this would not be science.So we need validation of some objective stimuli before we can call the endeavor "science", right? Well, I don't think we need to as long as we are dealing with objective reality. But, if I personally had an inner experience that said there was something around the corner that was going to harm me, I would seek validation. As long as the experiences don't violate what you refered to as the "mundane" I think there is no need for valdation. It's when it doesn't that it raises suspicion.- Oni

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That's exactly what I was talking about. An already existing experience (such as a 'small water-spout') may have been miss-classified as a new experience (sea monster). I have no problems with such a statement. But, we already acknowledge that we cannot know if there "really exists" overall low confidence in finding additional information. Such a thing would require absolute knoweldge of truth and reality. Therefore, the "low-confidence" comes from our best-known method for measuring such things. That's all.There has to be some method in place to allow us to consider that something may indeed just be imaginary. Otherwise we'll forever remain chasing Apollo and his increasingly-difficult-to-find chariot. Since we must have some method, using the best-known available simply seems honest. Actually, my point with all the Apollo-talk is that, at worst, it means you could be inhibiting progress by allowing your limited resources to be taken up by things that we'll never be able to serperate from the imagination.I do agree that there is some sort of strange, difficult to identify arena of thoughts that may seem-imaginary-but-just-need-more-testing-and-actually-are-real or may seem-imaginary-and-seem-to-just-need-more-testing-but-actually-are-imaginary. On one hand we could be missing things that are actually real. On the other hand we could be wasting our limited time and resources. We can either use our "personal opinions" to decide how we treat these areas, or we can use our "best-known" method.