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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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X writes: Because I haven't seen yet any experiences that have been cited as positively supernatural by the major participants in this thread. All we have seen is ambiguous statements about "experiences". In three years on this same subject RAZ has yet to give a single example directly relevant to anything supernatural.
X writes: An unconfirmed observation would be a detection, no? But, because it is unconfirmed, it is not yet considered done in an empirical manner. Since when did "empirical" mean the same as "objectively verified"....? If someone claims to have seen Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster they are claiming an unverified empirical observation. If someone claims a "religious experience" then frankly it seems to entail whatever they subjectively consider to have been caused by some god or other. Absolutely anything can be cited. If I suddenly feel a wave of nausea and choose to attribute this to Digby the magic hamster who causes nausea in those whom he doesn't like then I have as much evidence for the existence of Digby as most seem to have for their chosen entity on the basis of these much cited "religious experiences". Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Chuck how are you differentiating between a supernatural experience and a non-supernatural experience?
Chuck writes: Here, we are talking about SN/religious experiences/explanations. OK. So how do I know if a particular experience is being caused by a supernatural entity then?
Chuck writes: I had dreams that were SN. For example: I have had dreams about all sorts of things. Including the sort of entities we discuss on this forum. Were these "supernatural experiences"?
Chuck writes: Sexual fantasy is us using our imaginations and what's deep down in our hearts. Our imagination.....? Chuck you pseudoskeptic you!!! How do you know they aren't being caused by Aphrodite?
Straggler writes: What basis is there to conclude that some subjective experiences are caused by supernatural entities whilst others aren't. How are you making the distinction? Chuck writes: Have you asked anyone? Repeatedly. Do you have an answer?
Straggler writes: Or are ALL subjective experiences potentially evidence of the supernatural? Chuck writes: Potentially yes. Certainly no. That's what subjective means. So whatever subjective experiences I have are subjective evidence of whatever I choose to believe caused that experience. Any experience is "evidence" of anything I choose. So not actually a form of evidence at all. Just an extension of belief dressed up as something more profound.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Chuck writes: The machine he was hooked up to represents the SN. The Matrix is in principle no more supernatural than Gears Of War Chuck writes: The mind is affected by the SN world AND the natural world. How do non-material things influence material brains or other aspects of the material world?
Chuck writes: If I was sceptical about buying a Ford and you had good experiences with Ford and I never owned one and only heard how bad they were and you told me different as you've owned one for the last 20 years and I said you are full of it which of us would be acting irrational and why? I've told you about my wonderful Ford but I can't demonstrate it's existence to anyone. Nobody has ever seen me drive it and there isn't even any evidence that I have actually driven this Ford anywhere. It isn't registered. I don't know what it looks like because it's invisible and I have a long history of inventing cars that demonstrably don't exist. This is the latest in a long line of such concepts. All the indications are that I genuinely believe in the existence of this thing but aside from my conviction there is absolutely no reason to think it is anything other than that which the past record of delusion suggests. If you told me I was "full of it" you should be shaken by the hand and commended you on your sensible approach.
Straggler writes: Why do you think RAZ won't give a straight answer to questions such as the following: If one has a waking 'vision' in the presence of others that none of those others can see does this qualify as the sort of "detectable but not in an empirical manner" evidence you are talking about or not? Chuck writes: Maybe because he's answered it 900 times already. Then you should be able to point me to one of them. Please do.
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Straggler begins his reply with:
If you can't give an example of something supernatural that can conceivably actually exist I don't really see how this can progress any further. You are playing atheism by definitions. Repeating your inability to accept my agnostic answer is not furthering your position. Continuing:
X writes: something new/unexpected/unimagined/unverbalized/undescribed with some kind of equally totally new/unexpected/unimagined/unverbalized/undescribed evidence with it that would convince me and I have no idea today/tonight what it might be, but I cannot rule it out. And why would that constitute "supernatural"? Because you had already narrowed down the field of possible replies to your question to be "supernatural". You are correct that many other things that would not be supernatural could be characterized this way - and in fact, that is what "learning something new everyday" means, isn't it? But you have already ruled the natural world out of bounds when you ask me to give you an example of something supernatural. This would be an overlapping Venn Diagram. More:
X writes: Is my Unexplainable, as noted for it's shorthand, equivalent to your Inexplicable? An interdicticon flies in here to remind us: My Unexplainable expands out to:
"not describable in a manner that shows how the phenomenon occurs that is acceptable to the scientific community"
continuing....
No. Your usage suggests a temporary state of affairs rather than an inherent property of something. Temporary? You mean the scientific community could change it's mind? Oh the horrors! To think that those young whippersnappers wanted to enact a Speed Limit (c) on the entire universe. The nerve of them. Don't they know Newton is Inviolate??? Just what do you mean by "inherent". Was the Sun going around the Earth an "inherent" property? Not as we see it now - but how would they have known at the time? Back then it was certainly considered an "inherent property". Gosh! - I hope you are not saying that, now, finally today, in the light of the best science we obviously have at last, that things are finally cool & all set - that now we Know all the Turtles all the way down.... Inherent???? Are you still stuck back in the sixties, in Plato's time? There is NOTHING inherent evidenced by objective observation. There are only observations that get interpreted and analyzed by the current scientific community's...(oh shit, here comes that pesky RAZD again)..."worldview". In fact!!! One might even conjecture that every inherent property of anything is only but a mere figment of human imagination. One might even go so far as to propose a theory.... Of course everything is in a temporary state of affairs. Everything changes, everything passes.- xongsmith, 5.7d
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Straggler asks:
X writes: An unconfirmed observation would be a detection, no? But, because it is unconfirmed, it is not yet considered done in an empirical manner. Since when did "empirical" mean the same as "objectively verified"....?
Ah - I see...stupid semantics again. I back off here. My understanding of empirical was different from the common, more vulgar meanings seen at, say, Dictionary.com. It was my understanding that "empirical" meant conducting the observation with equipment in a manner that could be reproduced, even if it was never actually later reproduced. Sorry - let me pull that one back. I think I was caught up in thinking that "empirical evidence" was "objectively verifiable", not necessarily "objectively verified", but that "detection" didn't need such a strength of evidence. Edited by xongsmith, : addendum- xongsmith, 5.7d
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Straggler writes: If you can't give an example of something supernatural that can conceivably actually exist I don't really see how this can progress any further. You are playing atheism by definitions. X writes: Repeating your inability to accept my agnostic answer is not furthering your position. Your "agnostic" answer? I am apparently (according to RAZ) an irrational, illogical pseudoskeptic because I consider concepts like Thor more likely to be human inventions than real entities. You however are unable to cite even a single supernatural entity which you can conceive of as actually existing. You even go so far as to suggest that your degree of certainty is in some cases equivalent to mathematical disproof. And yet you are the agnostic here......? Atheism by definition turns into agnosticism by assertion.
X writes: But you have already ruled the natural world out of bounds when you ask me to give you an example of something supernatural. That is kinda the idea of asking for an example of a supernatural entity that might conceivably exist.
X writes: Temporary? You mean the scientific community could change it's mind? I mean that the "scientific community" don't define what is or is not supernatural.
X writes: Before scientific study, the notion of the earth going around the sun is supernatural. No. The Earth going round the Sun is not, and never was, supernatural. If any experts labelled it as such they were simply wrong weren't they?
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
So what does RAZ mean by "detectable but not in an empirical manner"......?
Is he making the same mistake as you? Why don't you ask him?
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Straggler writes, astonishingly:
I mean that the "scientific community" don't define what is or is not supernatural. WTF!!! Who does? The Catholic Church? What higher authority are you insinuating would be in a position of authority to make such a ruling?? Edited by xongsmith, : sentence got chopped off into the aethernet...- xongsmith, 5.7d
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Straggler adds:
No. The Earth going round the Sun is not, and never was, supernatural. If any experts labelled it as such they were simply wrong weren't they? Shit - i fucked up - I meant the other way around...... Holy shit Batman! I fucked up again! First off, the AUTHORITY on what IS and IS NOT supernatural, when we are in the purview of evaluating a proposed scientific theory, is IN FACT none other than the scientific community. Who else would it be? Who would outrank the scientific community? If you think there is some higher authority, then you would have to give up your precious 6.0d rating for something closer to a 2.0d - even higher than RAZD's 3.0d. Before the evidence of the Earth going around the Sun was accepted, such a notion would go at odds with the reigning scientific community at the time and be equivalent to a supernatural concept. Yes they would have been wrong. But that is why science trumps everything else, because when they find something wrong, they change the scientific description of the phenomenon. The explanation is altered to match the objective repeatable empirical evidence. Remember:
That which is neither derived from nor subject to natural law and whch is thus inherently materially inexplcable. None of the geocentric body of scientific natural laws held in force at that time would allow for the derivation or subjugation of a heliocentric view - it would have been inexplicable. The Earth was the Firmament. It did not move! This was fundamentally self-evident to everyone, from King down to pauper. Let me ask you this: If, right now, evidence started pouring in that the Sun has started moving around the Earth - would you consider that a supernatural event? (Ignoring barycentric solar system corrections.) Edited by xongsmith, : Fix egregious mistake again.- xongsmith, 5.7d
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Nothing, I guess. It seems to be all about those "religious experiences".....
Probably did. EXCEPT that you have a lot of cheek to use a stupid, inexact colloquial definition that really doesn't work in the world of scientific investigated. Not on my agenda now.- xongsmith, 5.7d
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi PaulK
No, it's not a problem for me, at all. Certainly if you base your conclusions on your assumptions and opinions, and find that your conclusions conform to your assumptions and opinions, you would not see that there is a problem -- this is a process called confirmation bias. This does not mean that there is no problem.
By which you mean the fact that the alleged method of detecting supernatural beings is not detecting supernatural beings is not a good reason to conclude that it is not detecting supernatural beings because we don't have a way of detecting supernatural beings. I had to parse this run-on word salad this way to make sense of it: {that the alleged method of detecting supernatural beings is not detecting supernatural beings} {is not a good reason to conclude} {it is not detecting supernatural beings because we don't have a way of detecting supernatural beings.} If your {alleged method} - which relies on the assumption that you will somehow recognize a supernatural presence - fails to detect supernatural presence then either
Either result is possible, and one cannot be assumed to be true vs the other. Again, it is like Ben Franklin flying a kite in a storm, with the kite being hit by lightening, and now he just assumes that he will recognize if electricity is present? If he measures everything else and the measurements are all "naturally occurring" phenomena (light, heat, sound, etc) and nothing is not explained about the "naturally occurring" phenomena -- is he justified in assuming that electricity is not present? Now we look at what Ben Franklin had: to detect electricity he used a leyden jar and a spark:
quote: He had two independent tests for electricity:
He got positive test results from both tests. Your {alleged method of detecting supernatural beings} has not been tested or otherwise validated, so there is no reason to consider that it is actually able to detect supernatural presence.
The question we are discussing is not whether supernatural beings exist, but whether religious experiences are detections of supernatural beings, and how we might decide that issue. If we examine the mechanism and find that it is only detecting natural phenomena we can conclude that it is only detecting natural phenomena regardless of whether supernatural beings exist or not. True that the failure of your {alleged method of detecting supernatural beings} to detect supernatural presence does not invalidate the concept that supernatural beings exist, just that you have failed (for either reason cited above) to detect supernatural presence. You can only detect what you are trying to detect with methods known to work, and your explanations will only incorporate what you can detect and the results of those detections. Without a means to detect electricity Ben Franklin could not incorporate electricity into his results in a scientific explanation. This is the essence of xongsmiths "analema" issue. If you only test things with methods that only detect natural effects you will not detect anything but natural effects, and your scientific explanation will be necessarily bound by the natural results, it will NOT be able to include anything that is not detected and not tested for, not because it isn't there, but because it is not (properly) tested. It is like begging the question to think such testing will actually test for the absence of supernatural presence.
In other words it is the presence of evidence that is important, not mere logical possibility. Which supports my point. In other words you need to have evidence that your {alleged method of detecting supernatural beings} can actually detect supernatural presence, not mere assumption.
Neither is innuendo. Which, curiously, does not show that confirmation bias is not evident. I'll go futher:
Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance and ide fixes, are not the tools of an open-mind or an honest skeptic, and continued belief in the face of contradictory evidence is delusion. Would you agree that one should avoid these to reach a valid rational conclusion? Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : second link Edited by RAZD, : spark Edited by RAZD, : englishby our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I'm going to bookmark this response, Straggler.
quote: And yet, curiously, you fail to demonstrate any real tentativity - the words you bolded suggest otherwise. This post I think, defines the essential difference between our viewpoints: that you claim actual knowledge of something - before testing - that you cannot have knowledge of without testing (ie - that the laws of physics are actually true). This is why you are a "6" verging on "7" atheist (a logically invalid position, as previously noted) and a pseudoskeptic (claims not sufficiently supported by evidence, among other traits). Amusingly, claiming knowledge of results before testing is a trait of pseudoscience. While I, on the other hand, would talk about confidence in the continuation of previously tested and observed phenomena in the absence of reasons to think otherwise.
quote: All things being equal (a common phrase expressing tentativity, and the conditions where continuation could be expected) I would have confidence in the behavior of things in accordance with and in reaction to the forces acting on them in this instance (whatever those forces are) in a manner similar to previous tests involving those forces.
quote: As confident as we can be of any scientific conclusion: that as long as all the conditions under which any previous testing was done continue to apply, that the results will be similar to those previous tests. It is based on experience and the (untested) hypothetical conjecture of continuation, and that necessarily makes it hypothetical/conjecture/guess/opinion/belief until tested. Note that what we are discussing is a hypothetical event ...
quote: Yes, because you don't know until you test it.
quote: Another false dichotomy (the use of logical fallacies is also a trait of pseudoskepticism). You can have (tentative) confidence, in the absence of reasons to think otherwise, that as long as the conditions under which any previous testing was done continue to apply, that the results will continue to be similar to those previous tests. You can have degrees of confidence: the degree of confidence you can have depends on the degree to which phenomena have been previously tested - gravity being a highly tested phenomena. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : fixed html for Yoda voiceby our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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And yet, curiously, you fail to demonstrate any real tentativity - the words you bolded suggest otherwise. As someone that has read Straggler's epistemological stance, and understood it, I can assure you that in Straggler's epistemology knowledge is intrinisically tentative. That is, one can know something, but be wrong about it. From wikipedia
quote: That is what Straggler means when he says
quote:
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5
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quote: However, the case we are discussing is one where the evidence strongly favours one conclusion. That you might refuse to draw it based either on a principled but hopelessly impractical demand for absolute proof in everything or out of bias against that conclusion is hardly my problem. It would seem to be yours.
quote: The writing was intended to illustrate the confusion of your ideas. It seems to have been successful. Your problem however is in failing to consider the context. The alleged method of detecting supernatural entities is religious experiences, and it is more yours, than mine. And you might have noticed that that is the ONLY possible means of detecting supernatural beings that either of us has proposed. I am afraid that your obsession is leading you into error here.
quote: It is not like that at all. Again, we are not addressing the question of whether supernatural beings exist. We are addressing the question of whether the alleged method of detection (religious experiences) works or not. Now, obviously any proposed method of detection must distinguish between the presence and the absence of the thing it supposedly detects. If we find that it's behaviour is fully determined by other factors, we must conclude that it does not work. For instance if Jefferson chose a detector sensitive to sound, and the results it produced were entirely explained by the sound of the thunder, he could not claim that it was a detector of electricity just because electricity in the form of lightning just happened to be present.
quote: There is nothing curious about it. The mere observation that you resort to innuendo rather than valid criticisms is sufficient to make my point.
quote: Of course. I would further add that attempts to imply that an opponent is engaging in any of these - sometimes to the point of ignoring the actual point of discussion (as in your point which I answer at the top of this post) is hardly the tool of someone interested in honest discussion.
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
Welcome back, Modulous...
As someone that has read Straggler's epistemological stance, and understood it, I can assure you that in Straggler's epistemology knowledge is intrinsically tentative. What about his notion of "inherent"? In Message 1575 he says:
Your usage suggests a temporary state of affairs rather than an inherent property of something. What does he mean by "an inherent property of something"? It is an indication of some kind of underlying absolute that is 8 million light-years away from "tentative".- xongsmith, 5.7d
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