Would anyone else like to speculate on the peanut gallery on how my views on a painting could possibly provide evidence for the existence of non-imaginary SBs?
Alternatively you could post wht Guernica means to you, task me with tying it in to the topic (easily done) and move forward based on real answers rather than speculation.
[qs]It would be easy for you to do it by example. ... [/q]
Curiously, that would be me speculating about what you would say, and I would prefer the answer come from you.
... For example: "If bluegenes says "x", that's positive evidence for the fairies, but if bluegenes says why "y", that's positive evidence for the elves."
But neither is the case, and that is because this is you speculating about what my argument involves rather than actually paying attention.
Think about it. As there's nothing I could say that could possibly make any difference to either the existential state of SBs or the evidential state of SBs, you can easily fill in the gap and go on to step two. ...
Curiously I don't expect what you have to say about Guernica to have anything to do with SBs.
You haven't presented an argument to pay attention to.
Your failure in understanding my arguments from the first post on is why we are talking about Guernica.
That you have dismissed my posts because of your attitudes is part of the problem with this so far non-debate.
So can you respond to the question: what are your thought about Guernica, what does it mean to you?
The challenge is accepted, let the equivocation and evasion begin.
Note also, from the OP -- just a reminder -- for the record, this is what the topic is about:
quote:
If anyone does not agree that this is a strong theory, ...
Calling it a "strong theory" doesn't make it so. What you have is wishful thinking and confirmation bias coupled to the logical fallacy of Affirming the Consequent.
... and support the theory with plenty of evidence.
Which you certainly need to do, having just just made a positive (and rather extraordinary) claim ...
Of course my participation will only involve showing the errors and poor logic in your argument/s, and I bear absolutely no burden to substantiate my personal position/s in this proposed debate: the sole focus would be on your attempt/s to show objective empirical evidence ...
It is not about me - nor about supernatural beings per se - it is about you substantiating your extraordinary claim, a thing which you have thus far substantially failed to demonstrate, with real objective empirical evidence.
Someone with a strong argument, backed up by "plenty of" actual objective empirical evidence, does not need to evade, dodge and play the shuck and jive game.
So ... stop equivocating on the topic ... stop evading my posts ... and answer the question: what does Guernica mean to you?
196 posts and bluegenes still doesn't know what this thread is about???
Hi bluegenes
Which extraordinary claim? As you can't find one single non-imaginary supernatural being, on what grounds do you claim that my theory is an extraordinary claim?
Not for me to provide evidence. Your extraordinary claim is that all supernatural beings are imaginary and that you have "plenty of" evidence that this is so ... objective evidence ... scientific evidence ... : where is it?
Give me a list of the extant non-imaginary supernatural beings whose presence I'm dodging. Where have you found them?
Again, it is not for me to provide you with such list, that is your job, to list supernatural beings and then show objective evidence that they are purely fictional.
That you should already have such list in order to have gone from conjecture to scientific hypothesis (to say nothing about having a scientific theory) is also your problem.
Try google on gods. Pick one and demonstrate that it is purely imaginary. Remember you claimed to have plenty of evidence ...
It is your claim, not any I've made, that is the subject of the debate. Somehow you seem to have failed to grasp this simple fact.
Now I can help you understand part of your problem in greater depth -- understanding the argument against you -- if you answer the question:
Re: 196 posts and bluegenes still doesn't know what this thread is about???
Hi bluegenes
All the gods in fantasy fiction. There are thousands. Now, your turn to demonstrate that there's one non-imaginary one, otherwise you should take back your unsupported "extraordinary claim" claim immediately.
Which all necessarily start out as fantasy, just like your made up silly caricatures, and thus could never be construed to be an actual supernatural being by a rational person.
This is typical of your poor and invalid logic on this thread, where you seem blind to the faults (due to confirmation bias?).
Claiming that intentional fantasy is actually (gasp!) fantasy proves nothing.
Your job is to show that A is B, not that B is B.
Bad logic is not objective evidence of any supernatural beings being imaginary.
We've been over this before, so now you're repeating failed arguments and apparently don't understand that they are invalid. Sad.
Do all the detective fiction stories then mean that all detectives are imaginary? Of course not. Do they mean that the detectives in the stories are real? Of course not. And yet real detectives do exist ... thus we KNOW that your logic is fatally FLAWED with this argument.
See the post where I told you what it currently means to me.
Which post was that? Perhaps you could just repeat it ... again ... for the peanut gallery ...
Re: 200 posts, and where is the objective empirical evidence???
Hi bluegenes,
Again this has already been covered, and you could just review it.
We could hypothesise that all detectives are figments of the human imagination on the basis of detective fiction, but as we can easily find exceptions, the hypothesis is easily falsified.
Again, confirmation bias is alive and well, and living in your posts. The detectives in the novels are still fiction.
This shows that people can write fiction about any topic, some that exist and some that don't, and they can equally write about things that actually occur and things that don't occur (or haven't yet occurred). This is not a surprise, and it has already been stipulated that people do have imagination.
The problem is that you are still starting with fiction and you can't have anything but fiction as a result.
You are still starting from the wrong end of the stick -- you need to start with supernatural beings and then show they are fictions.
... You are applying what would be fallacies in deductive reasoning to inductive scientific theorizing, where they don't apply. ...
Correction: hypothesis. To get to theory you have to provide some valid instances where you hypothesis is valid, and preferably have those instances verified by independent sources.
You have yet to provide empicial objective evidence of a single supernatural being being originally due to imagination.
btw -- for the onlookers, it is not my job to provide any proof or demonstration of supernatural beings in any way, but bluegenes' - he is the one claiming to be able to show they are based on imagination.
One also wonders why they don't encourage you to answer the Guernica question and resolve this issue ...
What, in your opinion, is the meaning of Guernica?
There have been some interesting speculations, but you won't really know until there is an answer.
Re: 200+ posts, and the supernaturalist won't reason. Guess that means no theory.
Hi bluegenes.
That the supernatural won't reason with you is your problem -- you made the hypothetical conjecture and called it a theory. You don't have the evidence to call it a theory, so you need to go find some representation of a supernatural being (or two) and show that those supernatural beings are purely fictional. That you find this difficult to understand, let alone do, seems to be your biggest problem in getting beyond the hypothetical stage, and perhaps indicates that your hypothesis is untestable, and therefore not a scientific theory by any stretch of imagination.
It is not my job to supply them (or a list of names) for you, just to note that you have not accomplished it. It appears that you have not even attempted to start doing it.
This thread is about you substantiating your claims (a) that all supernatural beings are fictional - by demonstrating one or more cases (not yet done), and (b) that you have "plenty of evidence" to support your claim - a claim we can now assume is totally false, as 200 posts have passed with NO evidence being presented that qualifies as objective empirical evidence of a single supernatural being (not something you have made up nor something fictional from the start, like fantasy novels) being entirely fictional.
We start with supernatural beings, and observe that human invention is their only known source ...
There you go assuming your conclusion in your premise. Bad logic once again.
Curiously, you do not know that humans are the only known source. That is what you are supposed to demonstrate rather than assume, in order to get from your conjectural hypothesis to a theory.
Ah, paintings. We have an old painting hanging on the living room wall. ...
Is that all Guernica means to you -- a painting hanging on a wall?
... But I assume the composition is the product of human invention, ...
Which makes your painting -- and your rambling about it -- irrelevant to the point I want to make -- we know that Guernica was painted by Pablo Picasso.
But you wouldn't be able to establish that the turtle is the "worst example", would you?
Well, I suppose you could argue that most of your subjective "evidence" from fantasies are your worst so far ...
Certainly it would be in that category, but try me and see.
As for Guernica, I already told you what I'm currently thinking about it in Message 194
bluegenes on what he thinks of Guernica writes:
Currently, and in the context that it's been presented, my first thought is that I wish naive supernaturalists would not use human art works in attempts to reinforce their beliefs and flatter their desires.
That's not your opinion of Guernica, it is your opinion of the value of your opinion to the argument in debate here.
Nothing but another dodge and equivocation. Again. Like someone with a very weak argument does to avoid getting into the issue.
I'm happy to discuss paintings in relation to the topic. Let's start with cave paintings. We find them, and attribute them to our ancestors, although we cannot actually prove that that's their source.
We could use cave paintings, but even though I agree that the origin is most likely human, we don't know the precise author\painter/s or the precise inspiration ... things we do know with Guernica: we know Pablo Picasso painted it and what it represents. The question is what you think about it, how you feel about it, how it impressed you.
I've seen it live, up front and personal, and found it very moving, and that was many years ago.
And why is the claim that all supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination an extraordinary claim when we can't find a single example of a non-imaginary supernatural being? ...
You claim to be able to demonstrate that they are imagination, not just to be able to form an opinion that they are, based on a lack of acceptable (to you) evidence and your personal biases that you want others to accept without question.
Yet you haven't even proposed a methodology, nor a proper test of supernatural presence, to demonstrate this, nor provided evidence of any such demonstration. This means you cannot have a proper theoretical basis, and have just a hypothetical conjecture at this point, not a theory.
We've been over this several times already, and these facts should be seeping in by this time. If you feel frustrated that you can't get me to agree that just your opinions don't impress me as objective evidence, then maybe you should start thinking of changing your opinions ... to something more with a objective basis ... that's the next stage in resolving cognitive dissonance.
Your problem is that you are not talking to a "naive supernaturalist" -- no matter how much you pretend to yourself that you have the mental high ground. This constant attempt to minimize my position by attacking me personally is just another symptom of cognitive dissonance ... an attempt to minimize my argument by the ad hominem logical fallacy.
That's always what I think about the painting when it's presented here, and you asked me for my thoughts.
So you're like a cold fish with no emotional response to the painting at all? That's what I'm getting here from what you say.
It is you who is avoiding the issue by avoiding the fact that you cannot establish a source of supernatural beings other than human invention. If you can't do this, you should retract the assertion that "all supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination" is an extraordinary claim.
We've been over this before as well. This is just more evasion and equivocation on your part,
This is the pseudoskeptic approach again, the you prove me wrong and you prove you're right attitude that you think means you need to do nothing to support your silly conjectural concept other than make up stuff that is ridiculous parodies.
If YOU made the assertion and you cannot support it, then YOU should retract it. If YOU cannot find ways to test supernatural presence, to ensure an absence, rather than just assume one, then it is technically a NON-TESTABLE hypothesis at best, and you should retract your statement that it is a "strong theory" (a ridiculous claim from the start, because that is not something that YOU decide, that's hubris man, pure hubris).
Try to understand logical predictions. My theory predicts that there cannot be a way of detecting non-imaginary supernatural beings. If we can't establish that there is one, that is something that supports rather than weakens the theory.
No, it means it is technically non-testable then, and cannot be a scientific theory. Try to understand the reason that you need to be able to test for this in order to be properly scientific is because of the subject you chose, not the method of hypothesis formation. Do we need to go over Ben Franklin and the kites again?
And once again, we have been over this detection issue before as well, there are many many many instances of people who claim to have supernatural experiences, and if you cannot falsify those experiences by being able to test for actual supernatural presences and not finding it, then you cannot just blithely claim that there is NO evidence, only that evidence cannot be confirmed with the equipment available or techniques available at this time -- ie that your hypothesis is NON-TESTABLE at this time. Again, this is because of the subject you chose, not the method of hypothesis formation. It is the subject that defeats you.
And it is certainly NOT enough to get from hypothesis to theory.
But there's a thread on which you're learning (hopefully) what CD is. I'll give it a bump.
Perhaps you will, but from what I've seen here, with continued repetitious reposting of old twice or thrice refuted arguments, I doubt it.
Now, Do you have any emotional feelings when you look at Guernica? Yes No?
If yes, what are they?
This should be a simple thing to answer, I don't really care what your response is, just that there is one that you will share, and I ask this question to help you understand my argument/s regarding symbolic and spiritual language, it is not some kind of trick.
You seem to have some kind of massive block here, and I just don't understand why you mount so much resistance to a simple question, without it having to do with your whole approach to this debate.
From Cognitive Dissonance and Cultural Beliefs, Message 66: 1. How does one lower the importance of one of the discordant factors? c. avoiding situations where dissonant information is likely to be encountered ...
Should we add "g. ignoring or not answering questions that lead to potential dissonance"?
Or is it something simple but embarrassing, such as never having seen the picture and you don't want to admit it?
Enjoy
ps -- nobody in gallery is close to why the Guernica question, sorry.
Re: peanut crunchers ... a big cog is loose in the bluegenes dissonance bubble
Correction, bluegenes,
Catholic Scientist writes:
bluegenes writes:
My theory predicts that there cannot be a way of detecting non-imaginary supernatural beings.
Then it isn't capable of being proven wrong.
Predicts, not proves. Logically, it does predict that.
Your theory hypothetical conjecture then predicts that it is not a falsifiable scientific hypothesis.
If it predicts that you cannot show whether they are there or not, then you cannot show whether they are imaginary or not. It's that simple.
All you can do is assume, and, curiously, your assumptions are not objective empirical evidence (no matter how many you have) -- it is you just begging the question (as has been said before, many times).
Again, I say, it is because you have chosen supernatural beings as the subject of your concept that you need to be able to detect them, or your hypothetical conjecture is not testable.
We can detect pictures and count (measure, observe) and hypothesize about them; we can detect fiction novels and count (measure, observe) and hypothesize about them; you can detect electricity and measure it in clouds and lightening, even though we cannot directly see electricity, and we can hypothesize about it; but if you cannot detect the subject of your concept in any way, you cannot count or measure whether it is present or not, then your concept is necessarily not a testable scientific hypothesis ... to say nothing of a theory ... and the only strength from it is the odor coming from confirmation bias and wishful thinking.
Just because your hypothetical conjecture is compatible with an apparent absence of supernatural beings, does not mean it is sufficient to form a scientific hypothesis that is testable.
What's amusing is that you know this (so one of you is wrong):
If we found ourselves in a world in which magic seemed to operate freely and there were no rules, that's perfectly compatible with the hypothesis. If we found ourselves in a world which seemed to operate very consistently on predictable laws, but we identified the occasional miracle that broke those laws, that's perfectly compatible with the hypothesis. And if we found ourselves in a world that appeared to have set physical principles that were never to our knowledge broken, that's perfectly consistent with the hypothesis.
So, that general I.D. hypothesis makes no predictions concerning principles (or miracles), which was what I was trying to explain to GDR. A prediction would be necessary to the hypothesis, not just compatible.
A compatible prediction is not sufficient to form a scientific hypothesis, it must be necessary to it -- your own words -- it must be able to distinguish one state from the other ... ie - you must be able to distinguish whether or not supernatural beings actually exist in order to theorize whether they are imaginary or not.
All you have is a concept with a compatible prediction, not something necessary to it.
And once again, I say, it is because you have chosen supernatural beings as the subject of your concept that you have this problem.
Now, your hypothetical conjecture is perfectly good as a philosophical hypothesis, but it is not correct to consider it a scientific one.
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