Pseudoskepticism and logic

I've been reading this conversation between you, Modulous, and RAZD with interest. I'd like to jump back in on a few points if you don't mind.

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People do have experiences where they experience the same things in a different way. That's basically the physicalist hypothesis. The god hypothesis would be where the person is experiencing something different.

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Could you explain what you mean by this? In particular, how is the God hypothesis "experiencing something different"?I wonder if we can clarify this equation that you both have been discussing. In Message 393 you defined x as:

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. . . an integer. I defined it as 'the number of possible unfalsifiable and unverifiable hypotheses that can explain any given phenomena that is sometimes attributed to 'god'.' If you want the given phenomena to be 'religious or spiritual experience' then that's fine. What number do you think x is?

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RAZD replied in Message 430:

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My personal opinion? That x = y + b is one possibility, where y is variable and b is constant.

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There was no further clarification in that particular message, but in Message 457 by RAZD:

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every x = y + b where b is a constant element of the spiritual or religious experiences.

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It seems to me that, using these terms, x and b are the same thing. I'm a bit hazy as to what y is -- a variable that represents what, exactly?I'd like to propose a new equation. Let x=reality or truth. Let a=any permutation of a theistic hypothesis, be it Zeus or the IPU -- all these things that, individually, Modulous says have a very small likelihood of being the correct "x." Let b=the common elements of all theistic hypotheses, i.e. in RAZD's, analogy, the chlorophyll making all the leaves green.I believe what RAZD and I are saying is that while the probability of x=a being true is low, the probability of x=b is much higher. I hope RAZD will let me know if I've summarised this incorrectly. Visually, the latter would look something like this:x= The question of course remains as to whether b is a genuine experience of the divine, or whether it's due to things that others here have mentioned such as wishful thinking or various kinds of brain activity -- or both. I think this would be a discussion for a separate thread though. Such a discussion could posit the probabilities of these explanations, which would in turn give us more evidence to ultimately say where on the agnostic spectrum the logical position ought to lie.

Hi RAZD,Thanks for the heads up. I dropped out of the thread a while back because I'd had enough -- it was a long one -- and it seems to me that there's a fundamental difference of views here that isn't going to be resolved. You can make your point so many times, and then people will listen or they won't.The very basic point here is that negative claims require evidence just like positive claims do. I believe I can understand the "not likely because there's no evidence for its existence" argument but this closes a person's mind to a number of possibilities. I don't believe that anyone has shown "absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence" to be wrong, so there should always be healthy room for doubt before one becomes too certain that they understand how reality works.