Peanut Gallery

Hi onifre, confirmation bias anyone? Correct.Without evidence it is an untested hypothesis.When an hypothesis is tested it is either invalidated or it provides objective empirical evidence that it is in fact true in those specific instances.ie you would have evidence similar to : the IPU has been shown to be a product of human imagination because of evidence XYZ, documenting it being produced by human imagination. This of course, in proper scientific process, would be published in a scientific peer reviewdjournal.With no such evidence produced it is still an untested hypothesis. But I have shown you why this is irrelevant: an event that was not directly imagined nor directly experienced, where (a) you cannot distinguish one from the other and (b) can only make inferences from evidence. Was the Yucatan meteor a natural event or the fist of god/s? You infer a natural event.For you to be able to narrow it down to only human imagination you need to eliminate the other possibilities, not just assume that they do not exist: that is assuming the consequent, a logical fallacy and a sign of confirmation bias.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : eglsh

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Hi xongsmith, Exactly.Can you call it a theory when it has produced no objective empirical data?Can you call it a theory when it has been shown to be less accurate than weather forecasts?Would you call an hypothesis that is right only half the time strong or weak?What about when it is less than half the time?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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I'm still not getting this....There's this supernatural guy named Jesus, I'm sure you're aware of him, so did you imagine him or did you experience him?

By source, bluegenes means 'point of origin of concept' not 'point where one can gain information about a concept'. The source or sources of the idea itself, not the source of our information surrounding the idea. That's probably where the confusion lies.One might say it is the primary source, rather than secondary or tertiary sources is essentially what bluegenes' is talking about.

It's not this fucking hard fellas.Am I the orignial source of the Jesus story? No. Of course I heard about it. That is logical, but not my point at all.Who ever the fuck originally created the Jesus story (for sake of argument, lets say the 4 dudes that wrote the gospels) they either made that shit up, or, actually experienced Jesus in the real. There are no other possiblities. It's so fucking simple that I'm suprised that we can't move past it. It's not even my main point.- Oni

What evidence RAZD? The human imagination can imagine supernatural beings.There is also the claim that it can experience supernatural beings.The first is a fact; we already know it can do that. The second is not a fact; we don't know if it actually can experience the supernatural PLUS we don't know if the supernatural actually exists to be experienced.The imagination remains the only KNOWN source. You gave me the Yucatan example, which was a poor example because you can see the hole and know something happened. Why? Because if you couldn't SEE it in the real and now, then no one would have known there was anything to investigate.So it is directly experienced, as in, we can see it. I didn't. You and I narrowed it down to either human imagination or human experience - remember, we are discussing supernatural beings.I eliminate the experience because it is untestable, and unknowable. So we remain with only one KNOWN source: the imagination.- Oni

Thanks, Mod, for saying it a lot better than I did. It IS the primary source that we're all talking about.- Oni

That's ok, I can provide the post and quote. Message 773

quote:

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Now you may say that it comes down to some person somewhere imagining or experiencing the supernatural, then I would say that this would a reasonable conclusion

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There could be a billion sources if you're just talking about communicating an event from person to person. But the original source of the event, can only have imagined it or really experienced it. There is no other way around those two. Well yeah, but so what? I'm not saying thy didn't experience it, in fact, I include the experience.What I''m saying is, we can't know for sure what they actually experienced. Plus, we don't even have evidence FOR the supernatural, so we don't even know if there is something there to experience. We got shit for evidence.So, the imagination remains the only KNOWN source, because it is the only one, for now, that we know for sure can do it. Save the drama, xong, even though it was funny .It is a fact the the human imagination can imagine, right?Is it a fact that humans can experience the supernatural? No, not yet.Is it a fact that there is something supernatural to even experience? No, not yet.So where is the original source getting the info from?- Oni

And Modulous has also concurred.But just a moment....Suppose your 4 dudes had met this really nice ordinary real guy who was also wise in his ways, and they told another 16 dudes at length about him, perhaps just misstating the details so slightly they weren't aware they were doing that. Then those 16 dudes told another 64 dudes and dudettes the story but couldn't remember it exactly, so they may have glossed over some portions, embellished others and then those 64 dudes and dudettes told 256 other dudes and dudettes. And so on.By the time it gets written down on Dead Sea scrolls and in bibles, the supernatural aspects of Jesus have crept in without a conscious effort of any one person. Were any of these aspects experienced by the original 4 dudes? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know. Did Jesus himself make any of his story up? Was he mentally delusional about the facts of his own life but able to convince the original 4 dudes? Were any of the people who passed the story on through the ages delusional? Were any of these aspects figments of human imagination? Most likely, but which ones? We do not know. So the original source of the Jesus' supernaturalness is still not scientifically known and therefore isn't yet ready to be tested by bluegenes theory.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Thank you. He does seem to couch it in a conditional way and you snipped off an unimportant "but" clause.However, let's move on.
Again, thanks.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

This is how I see the situation:Fact: There are many SB (supernatural being) concepts that people discuss. However their existance (imagined by some human being or actually real) is unknown and sometimes unknowable. For example -> The Christian God or The IPU.
Fact: There is no evidence for any of these SB concepts being real.
Fact: It is possible for humans to invent SB concepts through the use of their imagination.Hypothesis: "All supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination"Experiment: I create an SB using my imagination. His name is Felix. Whenever I say his name, gravity always reverses and things fall up instead of down. I said his name. Reality was unaffected, no gravity reversal occured.
Conclusion: The SB I created is a figment of my human imagination.This kind of experiment can be done over and over again by many different people all over the world to provide a lot of evidence that supernatural beings can be figments of the human imagination.But, of course, what about any other sources?Well, if we look at the history of mankind, people have been looking for the real, actual source of SBs for as long as we have existed. We have looked at fire, lightning, the sun, the solar system, the beginning of the universe. We have asked laymen, engineers, scientists, religious leaders, business men, hippies, philosophers and all other manner of people. No one has any evidence to show any other source for SB concepts than the human imagination. All these searchers all over the world have recently been connected to each other via technology like the internet. Still no progress towards any real sources other than the human imagination.
That makes a lot of evidence as well.Therefore:
Strong Theory: "All supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination" And this evidence is similar, is it not?The god Felix has been shown to be a product of human imagination because gravity does not reverse when I say his name. Felix was also documented as being produced by Stile's imagination.
(I'm afraid the peer-reviewed journal article will have to wait for processing time)I do not think you can state that such a thing must be known for any particular SBs (like the IPU in particular) because it is an acknowledged fact that many SB concepts have an unknown origin. The point is that of all the SBs where we do have a known origin; that origin is always, throughout recorded human history, 100% of the time, never anything else but the human imagination. And that is the basis for the Hypothesis becoming a Strong Theory.To recap the Evidence:
1. All the infinite SBs that can be created by anyone's human imagination and tested against reality.
2. All of recorded human history where no other possible origin for SB concepts is known.
3. All of recorded human history where previously unknown-origin SB concepts have been tested and shown to not be real.For falsification: That is:
-it could have been falsified when we looked at the sun for Apollo. But it wasn't, we just learned about the sun.
-it could have been falsified when we looked at storms for Thor. But it wasn't, we just learned about storms.
-it could have been falsified when I said "Felix". But it wasn't, I was just disappointed.
-it will be falsified if the rapture occurs
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-it predicted that Apollo would not be at the sun.
-it predicted that Thor would not be behind the storms.
-it predicted that nothing would happen when I said "Felix".
-it predicts that the rapture will never occur.
-it predicts that no one will ever have evidence for a known SB concept.I don't understand how anyone can't reasonably acknowledge the following in a scientific sense:Strong Theory: "All supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination"If I lived my life on an island that only had blue birds, wouldn't you say that I could develop a very strong scientific theory that all birds are blue? I certainly would. If not, please explain why such a theory (given such a setting) would not be scientific, or strong?No one is saying that this Strong Theory is proof positive of reality. No scientific theory takes that stance. It's just a way of phrasing the currently known evidence.

Not to be dishonest though. I cut it off there because his "but" clause is something I also agree with. I can't decipher which is which either.So I only go with the known source, for know, until a better method of deciphering is available. But I remain open to the possibility.- Oni

Right, so there remains only to possibilities: these dudes made it up, or they actually did experience a person named Jesus that did all of those things. That has nothing to do with bluegenes' theory. The source of the Jesus story was 4 dudes, who either imagined him or actually experienced him.Now, if Jesus claims to be supernatural, then lets investigate that. Was he actually a supernatural being? I thought he was a human on earth and that God, his dad, was the supernatural being. However, that is the topic for another thread.- OniEdited by onifre, : edit post

Hi onifre, In other words you just assume your conclusion is true.Thanks for once again demonstrating that such arguments are based on logical fallacies, not on evidence.This is not the way science works, and not the way theories are supported in science.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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No, I will happily accept the veracity of any experience claimed, if there was a way to do that. But there just isn't. That is not my fault, what do you want me to do about it?If there are two possible sources, and one is untestable, then what are we left with?- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.