Absence of Evidence..............

Past experience is empirical

bluegenes writes:So, if I've understood you, there is a tiny bit of evidence for the proposition that 157 Djinns created the universe as soon as someone makes that suggestion. But I think that such propositions are on the Russell's teapot in space level. So that, if not zero, virtual zero chance has to be given them.

Percy writes:There's a part of this that is just nomenclature.

Empirical evidence is that which is reproduced in a study, right? You seem to confuse objective evidence with empirical evidence, and yep, nearly everyone marries someone with no empirical evidence.They have objective evidence as a filter, but even there, the deciding factor is subjective evidence for the most part. In other words, they limit the candidates via objective evidence and pick based on subjective feeling.

Define "personal empirical experience" please. Personal experience is not empirical data unless and until it is subjected to empirical verification under certain standards.

straggler, you are missing the point. Just because someone hasn't yet thought of a way of detecting the soul doesn't mean there isn't a means of doing so.

But the article awhile back published in the Lancet offers evidence for the soul or mind existing apart from the body. That alone proves you are wrong, as they offered testimony of out of body experience where brain wave function was too low to record events in the room, and yet people remembering things that occured after their heart stopped as evidence.

I am sure as time goes by some will come up with other technigues to try to verify the existence of the soul.

I have no doubt techniques to try and verify the existence of the soul will be found. What I do doubt is that there will be any valid independently verifiable evidence for such a thing.

However the great thing about science and empirical investigation in general is that no matter what one thinks the truth of reality will get you in the end.

Where an eye witness claims to have seen something take place, for example, that is a personal empirical experience.

Studies into personal auras do not make personal auras empirical.
Empirical means observable. Directly or indirectly observable but objectively verifiable either way.

Also Greyson2 writes in his discussion: “No one physiological or psychological model by itself explains all the common features of NDE. The paradoxical occurrence of heightened, lucid awareness and logical thought processes during a period of impaired cerebral perfusion raises particular perplexing questions for our current understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain function. A clear sensorium and complex perceptual processes during a period of apparent clinical death challenge the concept that consciousness is localized exclusively in the brain.” And Parnia and Fenwick3 write in their discussion: “The data suggest that the NDE arises during unconsciousness. This is a surprising conclusion, because when the brain is so dysfunctional that the patient is deeply comatose, the cerebral structures, which underpin subjective experience and memory, must be severely impaired. Complex experiences such as are reported in the NDE should not arise or be retained in memory. Such patients would be expected to have no subjective experience [as was the case in the vast majority of patients who survive cardiac arrest in the three published prospective studies1-3] or at best a confusional state if some brain function is retained. Even if the unconscious brain is flooded by neurotransmitters this should not produce clear, lucid remembered experiences, as those cerebral modules, which generate conscious experience, are impaired by cerebral anoxia. The fact that in a cardiac arrest loss of cortical function precedes the rapid loss of brainstem activity lends further support to this view. An alternative explanation would be that the observed experiences arise during the loss of, or on regaining consciousness. The transition from consciousness to unconsciousness is rapid, with the EEG showing changes within a few seconds, and appearing immediate to the subject. Experiences which occur during the recovery of consciousness are confusional, which these were not”. In fact, memory is a very sensitive indicator of brain injury and the length of amnesia before and after unconsciousness is an indicator of the severity of the injury. Therefore, events that occur just prior to or just after loss of consciousness would not be expected to be recalled. And as stated before, in our study1 patients with loss of memory induced by lengthy CPR reported significantly fewer NDE. Good short-term memory seems to be essential for remembering NDE.

randman writes:Also, why should we only accept that which is empirically verifiable? If I or anyone has an experience with God, or angels or whatever, why should that belief be rejected simply because people lack the technology to experimentally verify it?

So before producing the study, are you admitting then that the existence of the soul is potentially empirically verifiable?

Seems to me you are advocating a fallacy by ignoring the limits of current technology and so insist, regardless of one's own personal verification of something, that all should pretend it isn't there because, you know, we can't empirically verify it?

Also, why should we only accept that which is empirically verifiable? If I or anyone has an experience with God, or angels or whatever, why should that belief be rejected simply because people lack the technology to experimentally verify it?

Also, why should we only accept that which is empirically verifiable?

Can you empirically verify the right person to marry? Even if theoritically possible, does anyone really do that?