Belief scale poll

[UndercoverElephant]

Please answer the poll honestly.

Dawkins came about with a belief scale, but it was about his rather simplistic notion of God. I'm a 100% non-believer in that God and it is not what this poll is about. This poll is about the more mystical, eastern forms of religion. Perhaps I should just say I am refering to forms of spirituality which claim the existence of some form of causality not believed in by determinists - the belief that there is some truth at the core of religion even though the intelligent, anthropomorphised God of mainstream western theism does not exist.

[Blackadder]

I don't see a poll

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't see a poll

You were too quick. I was still typing in the options.

[Dorfl]

Wouldn't the poll be clearer if the choices spanned intervals of probability?

Now there is no option for 50% < p < 99%, for example.

[Blackadder]

I am not sure what the subject is of this believe. If it is the Judaic God I am 100% sure, if it is some god in any form it's >99% sure

[UndercoverElephant]

I am not sure what the subject is of this believe. If it is the Judaic God I am 100% sure, if it is some god in any form it's >99% sure

I'm not really talking about "God" at all - or at least not what that word means to most westerners. I'm talking about the sort of things believed in by Buddhists and the more philosophical end of Hinduism, plus some new-agey western stuff of the sort suggested by people like Paul Davies. The existence of karma, for example, has little to do with any form of "God".

[UndercoverElephant]

I could also ask the many people who are voting for >99% certainty it is false the following question:

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?

[Blackadder]

I could also ask the many people who are voting for >99% certainty it is false the following question:

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?

Having an experience like Paul, Mohammed or Buddha claimed to have had.

[Apathia]

I'm not really talking about "God" at all - or at least not what that word means to most westerners. I'm talking about the sort of things believed in by Buddhists and the more philosophical end of Hinduism, plus some new-agey western stuff of the sort suggested by people like Paul Davies. The existence of karma, for example, has little to do with any form of "God".

That's painting with a pretty broad brush, too broad for me to say much of except that the barn does have a side.

I am very certain that the mystical traditions of diverse religious traditions find a common ground, but not in an objective, doctrinal vein. The place of sharing is subjective, regarding our attitude and relationship to reality.

For example, one religious tradition might insist upon the metaphysical Free Will, while another chalks it up as illusory. But the mystics of both traditions will find a common ground in their sense of Liberation and Integration.

The "certain" pertains to objective content, to veracity of information.
The mystic vision is primarily about being.

some form of causality not believed in by determinists

I think this is what your wanting to assert.
But I'll have to comment on that later, as I've got to run to work, and this requires a nuanced statement as opposed to twitter.

[Nogbad]

I could also ask the many people who are voting for >99% certainty it is false the following question:

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?

I'll sort my wish list out and get back to you.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Sorry. I've read the thread twice now and still don't know what I am supposed to be voting about. Belief in what?

:confused:

[Bikewer]

Dawkins discusses probability or likelyhood, which would include other "models" of god as well. Seems to me that his notions jive well with my own; the thinking person cannot entirely dismiss the notion of causation, as any being or entity potent enough would naturally be able to hide from us if it wished to.
However, the likelyhood of this seems to me to be just a tick above what Isaac Asimov used to call "vanishingly small". One would be justified in dismissing it entirely unless some evidence were forthcoming.

As to the evidence... Very difficult. Following Clarke's dictum that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic... Things that might appear as miracles to us might simply be advanced technology. At what point would an advanced technology be worthy of "worship"?
Having a profound psychological experience would not sway me (or so I would maintain) knowing what I know of human psychology.

[Lord Emsworth]

The general vagueness and the "causality not believed in by determinists" nets you a 100% No. Pity there was no option for more than 100%.

[porch]

Sorry. I've read the thread twice now and still don't know what I am supposed to be voting about. Belief in what?

:confused:



I was pretty stumped on how to vote, myself. I'm >99 certain that there's not going to ever be a satisfactory definition of "it" presented in this thread. If there isn't, I might as well vote 100% NO right now. If a definition does stumble out, I'm still pretty sure my answer will be 100% NO. But I can't know for certain, since I don't know what the question might be, even though it will probably remain a non-question. I wandered in the darkness for a few moments until I was struck by the epiphany: On Planet X, porches worship yhwh. My netizen duty done, democracy continues unimpeded.

[porch]

I'm not really talking about "God" at all - or at least not what that word means to most westerners. I'm talking about the sort of things believed in by Buddhists and the more philosophical end of Hinduism, plus some new-agey western stuff of the sort suggested by people like Paul Davies.

For some reason, I find this extremely condescending. Maybe it's because I'm a "westerner" with only a little bit of education about Religions of the World, but I don't find it difficult at all to conceive of a great number of improbable Ultimate Realities. Please define what it is you're talking about instead of saying, "No, it's not what I think you're thinking."


The existence of karma


Yeah, right. :rolleyes:

[megaresp]

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?
Evidence that some particular concept actually exists/occurs.

You mentioned karma, which has an inherent problem when it comes to evidence. Like most religious notions, it occurs in a way that makes it difficult to subject to rigorous testing. In the case of karma, because it occurs over multiple lifetimes.

Karma also carries the stench of an idea dreamed up by folk with a vested interest in having the lower classes feel better about their lot in life (dangling the hope of future reward in return for behaving oneself).

[Apathia]

"Karma," I'll take that as my stepstone.

If reality were so cooperative as to conform to the expectations of Classical Deterministic Causality, I could give anything like that a 100% dismissal.
Reality is a stranger place than our human conceptions. (And again strange when it accomodates them!)

But I'm more inclined to think karma (beyond the obvious that people who are jerks more often get jerked) is a dramatic fiction.
Life provides many instances of satisfactory and ironic comeuppance, but sometimes it also seems that "no good deed goes unpunished."
We are the playwrites who shape our experiences into something stage worthy.

What would move me to give metaphysical weight to "synchronicity?"
I confess that if I were hit with a barrage of cooincidences just too meaningful and connected to seem accidental (As U.E. says he was), I'd, at least privately, think something more than accident was afoot.

[godless dave]

I could also ask the many people who are voting for >99% certainty it is false the following question:

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?

Empirical evidence.

[yy2bggggs]

I'm voting abstain. I don't quite see what the question is. (Mentioning what the question is again won't help... I'm not sure what that means).

[Greyman]

>.99% false

As mentioned above, most of the eastern notions (Tao, Karma, etc.) are human constructs meant to placate lower classes, intentionally or not.

Any concept of the nature that you are where/what you are because the universe says so, whether made to control by an elite class (scribs, priests, etc.) or pened by the poor directly, was formulated to make people feel better about the muck they're wallowing in.

The only reason I can't say 100% basically amounts to being uncomfortable declaring the nonexistance of unprovable concepts.

[paximperium]

I would have put down 100% false if it was specific to YHWH but since it is so vague I went with the 99% number.

[shawmutt]

I...think...this is about the Eastern mythical beliefs such as chi energy and other such nonsense used to fuel most of the sCAM industry. If it is, my vote is 100% no, no such thing exists.

[UndercoverElephant]

Sorry. I've read the thread twice now and still don't know what I am supposed to be voting about. Belief in what?

:confused:

Spiritual beliefs like karma or synchronicity.

[UndercoverElephant]

For some reason, I find this extremely condescending. Maybe it's because I'm a "westerner" with only a little bit of education about Religions of the World, but I don't find it difficult at all to conceive of a great number of improbable Ultimate Realities. Please define what it is you're talking about instead of saying, "No, it's not what I think you're thinking."

I'm talking about the central metaphysical claims made by mystics and some of the basic claims made by mystical forms of religion.

It is easy to find reasons to disbelieve in the existence of the mainstream western God. I'm talking about stuff which isn't so easily rejected on scientific or philosophical grounds but isn't supported by any scientific evidence either.

[UndercoverElephant]

I...think...this is about the Eastern mythical beliefs such as chi energy and other such nonsense used to fuel most of the sCAM industry. If it is, my vote is 100% no, no such thing exists.

OK...I think the poll question was flawed because there is such a diverse set of beliefs that I might be talking about and it isn't even clear what some of those beliefs are really about. I don't know what "chi energy" is supposed to be.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What would move me to give metaphysical weight to "synchronicity?"
I confess that if I were hit with a barrage of cooincidences just too meaningful and connected to seem accidental (As U.E. says he was), I'd, at least privately, think something more than accident was afoot.
And you would then do the probability calculation, right? :D

Of course you wouldn't, because it would be impossible to do.

~~ Paul

[wexer9]

I voted 100%. These kinds of things just don't make sense, and don't have any kind of evidence supporting them. How the hell is the Universe, a non-thinking, non-remembering non-entity supposed to make good or bad things happen to you depending on what you've done? That kind of thing requires intent - something an amoral, uncaring Universe certainly doesn't have.

In short, invisible pink universe-creating fairies are more likely.

[Limbo]

I voted 100%. These kinds of things just don't make sense, and don't have any kind of evidence supporting them. How the hell is the Universe, a non-thinking, non-remembering non-entity supposed to make good or bad things happen to you depending on what you've done? That kind of thing requires intent - something an amoral, uncaring Universe certainly doesn't have.

In short, invisible pink universe-creating fairies are more likely.


I don't understand how people can be 100% sure about something that doesn't make sense to them. Isn't a slightly more agnostic position called for in that case?

[gentlehorse]

Spiritual beliefs like karma or synchronicity.

Karma: I don't see any reason to believe that we live more than once, so that doesn't leave a lot of room for belief in karma. I do, however, believe that those who swat wasp nests get stung more often than those who don't.

Synchronicity: I go with coincidence where unrelated events occur in an unlikely manner, though I can understand why some might be tempted to assign meaning in such cases. If I were to experience a barrage of coincidences just too meaningful and connected to seem accidental (to borrow from Apathia), I would give serious consideration to seeing a medical doctor (no offense intended, as I hope you know). A glitch in the old wetware, a chemical imbalance, or what have you, might explain the brain's attempt to assign meaning where, in fact, there is none.

[Apathia]

And you would then do the probability calculation, right? :D

Of course you wouldn't, because it would be impossible to do.

~~ Paul

Yes, Paul, it would be impossible from the get go, even if I had the mathematical skill.

Typically human, I'd be more into the narrative of it than the math, science, or even the philosophy.

[quixotecoyote]

I don't understand how people can be 100% sure about something that doesn't make sense to them. Isn't a slightly more agnostic position called for in that case?

I've been pondering this for awhile and decided to vote 100% no because of that. If the existence of something presupposes an actual logical incoherency or contradiction, it cannot exist at least in the terms described.

It's quite possible to define gods into existence, but I don't think you've done that here.

[Limbo]

I've been pondering this for awhile and decided to vote 100% no because of that. If the existence of something presupposes an actual logical incoherency or contradiction, it cannot exist at least in the terms described.

It's quite possible to define gods into existence, but I don't think you've done that here.


Hmm. So if something doesn't make sense to you, you conclude that you are 100% sure it doesn't exist?

[quixotecoyote]

Hmm. So if something doesn't make sense to you, you conclude that you are 100% sure it doesn't exist?

That appears to bear a passing resemblance to what I said if you squint a bit into the funhouse mirror.

[Limbo]

That appears to bear a passing resemblance to what I said if you squint a bit into the funhouse mirror.


It sounds a little like your saying that if something doesn't make sense to quixotecoyote, then it can't make sense period, and therefore doesn't exist.

[quixotecoyote]

It sounds a little like your saying that if something doesn't make sense to quixotecoyote, then it can't make sense period, and therefore doesn't exist.

A bit like that I suppose.

It sounds much more similar to saying that when the definition of a concept is logically incoherent or contradictory, then the concept cannot exist as defined.

It may have something to do with the second being what I actually said.

[Lord Emsworth]

I don't understand how people can be 100% sure about something that doesn't make sense to them. Isn't a slightly more agnostic position called for in that case?

Such an "agnostic position" needs to be earned. In any case, it should be fairly though to give an 'honest' *possible* to a proposition that is either incoherent or meaningless (to you). And while merely saying something is easy, actually doing it is something else.

[PixyMisa]

I could also ask the many people who are voting for >99% certainty it is false the following question:

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?
Two things:

1. A coherent operational definition
2. Evidence

[PixyMisa]

I don't understand how people can be 100% sure about something that doesn't make sense to them. Isn't a slightly more agnostic position called for in that case?
Absolutely not.

If you can't provide a logically coherent definition of something, it is logically impossible for that thing to exist.

[UndercoverElephant]

Two things:

1. A coherent operational definition
2. Evidence

What does "evidence" mean, precisely? I already asked for a reason for you to change your mind. Clearly that would require "evidence" of some sort. But what would you allow to qualify as "evidence" and what would not qualify?

[linusrichard]

This poll is not clear enough.

I believe in "some form of causality not believed in by determinists." I don't believe in "the more mystical, eastern forms of religion." What to do?

[UndercoverElephant]

This poll is not clear enough.

I believe in "some form of causality not believed in by determinists." I don't believe in "the more mystical, eastern forms of religion." What to do?

What sort of causality not believed in by determinists do you believe in?

[linusrichard]

What sort of causality not believed in by determinists do you believe in?

Free will.

[yy2bggggs]

Free will.
What is free will? And is this different from the compatibilist notion of free will? (I just want a definition--the word tends to mean different things to different people... I don't intend to hijack this thread with a FW discussion.)

Regardless, I believe in quantum mechanics. If anything counts as "some form of causality not believed in by determinists", QM has to.

[linusrichard]

What is free will?
It's just the ability to make a decision - to choose one thing over another. The idea that when you appear to make a choice, it isn't just one more in a long chain of dominos, but that the choice actually comes from your will in a meaningful sense.
And is this different from the compatibilist notion of free will?
Yes.
(I just want a definition--the word tends to mean different things to different people... I don't intend to hijack this thread with a FW discussion.)
Cool.
Regardless, I believe in quantum mechanics. If anything counts as "some form of causality not believed in by determinists", QM has to.
Are you sure determinists don't believe in QM?

[Jeff Corey]

When it comes to "forms of spirituality which claim the existence of some form of causality not believed in by determinists" I voted "not at all" because "spirituality" is "the state of being immaterial" and "some form of causality not believed in by determinists" is meaningless. Or, in other words, "Immaterial meaninglessness..

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It's just the ability to make a decision - to choose one thing over another. The idea that when you appear to make a choice, it isn't just one more in a long chain of dominos, but that the choice actually comes from your will in a meaningful sense.
Can you explain how this choice is made in a way that is not just a combination of predetermined and random processes?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Regardless, I believe in quantum mechanics. If anything counts as "some form of causality not believed in by determinists", QM has to.
You know, someone who likes to use the word should define determinist.

~~ Paul

[linusrichard]

Can you explain how this choice is made in a way that is not just a combination of predetermined and random processes?

~~ Paul

Nope.

[Bluefire]

What does "evidence" mean, precisely? I already asked for a reason for you to change your mind. Clearly that would require "evidence" of some sort. But what would you allow to qualify as "evidence" and what would not qualify?

That would depend on the specific thing to believe in. Since your question is so vague it is impossible to know what its effect would be, and therefore what evidence would suffice.

One can device tests for specific notions of "chi", or for gods that can be counted on to intervene in specific situations. We cannot specify a list of measured phenomena that would be sufficient as evidence for a big question mark.

[Soapy Sam]

Are we being asked to say if we believe in the existence of karma or if we believe in belief in the existence of karma?

[UndercoverElephant]

Are we being asked to say if we believe in the existence of karma or if we believe in belief in the existence of karma?

The latter isn't an interesting question. Clearly some people believe in karma.

[UndercoverElephant]

That would depend on the specific thing to believe in. Since your question is so vague it is impossible to know what its effect would be, and therefore what evidence would suffice.

One can device tests for specific notions of "chi", or for gods that can be counted on to intervene in specific situations. We cannot specify a list of measured phenomena that would be sufficient as evidence for a big question mark.

Yeah, the poll is no good because there's too many non-theological spiritual beliefs it could be refering to it. Sorry....

[UndercoverElephant]

You know, someone who likes to use the word should define determinist.

~~ Paul

A determinist is a person who believes all future events are totally determined by the past state of the system. Or rather they believe that the current state is completely determined by the past and that the future is completely determined by the present. Indeterminists believe that this is not the case, either because some events are partially dependent on things which are completely random (not determined at all) or because they believe some events are partially dependent on some sort of non-physical, non-temporal causality such as free will or the will of God.

[yy2bggggs]

It's just the ability to make a decision - to choose one thing over another. The idea that when you appear to make a choice, it isn't just one more in a long chain of dominos, but that the choice actually comes from your will in a meaningful sense.
Compatibilists would agree with everything above except for "it isn't just one more in a long chain of dominos".
Are you sure determinists don't believe in QM?
Quite the opposite. I'm sure there are determinists who believe in QM (see this table (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics#Comparison)). As you can see in the same table, though, there are quite a number of interpretations of QM that are not deterministic, and all of those are certainly a "form of causality not believed in by determinists".

But I'm also a compatibilist, with the quirk that I believe the term "free will" should be discarded.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Nope.
Give this man the Honest Libertarian Free Willie award!

Thank you.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

A determinist is a person who believes all future events are totally determined by the past state of the system. Or rather they believe that the current state is completely determined by the past and that the future is completely determined by the present. Indeterminists believe that this is not the case, either because some events are partially dependent on things which are completely random (not determined at all) or because they believe some events are partially dependent on some sort of non-physical, non-temporal causality such as free will or the will of God.
Anyone here a determinist?

Helloooo?

~~ Paul

[Ron_Tomkins]

I don't believe in polls

[LarianLeQuella]

Spiritual beliefs like karma or synchronicity.

The fact that I had to go to post #23 to just to find out what the bloody question is pissed me off... And even then the post itself isn't quite clear.

[Apathia]

The fact that I had to go to post #23 to just to find out what the bloody question is pissed me off... And even then the post itself isn't quite clear.

Sad you had to go up 23 flights, when I got it on the ninth. :)

This morning I was thinking of Asian cultures where "karma" is the same sort of linguistic convention as the Western good luck/bad luck.

There's no science that can determine if one is having a "run of good luck," or (attributed to Aldous Huxley) "As luck would have it, Providence intervened."

"Are you feeling lucky?"

But this attribution to luck, that rolls off the tongue of even skeptics, has no metaphysical sense or structure.

Of course Undercover Elephant means something metaphysical with "Syncronicity" or "Karma."
That's a metaphysical matter, because Science expects regularity and repeatablity in a relational structure.

Of course the Scientific response is, "if the event or grouping of events doesn't exhibit a regularity in structure, it is merely anomaly without significance."

U.E.'s reply to that is, "Yes," these events are not scientifically sgnificant but subjective-personally significant."

I write stories in which, after I'm done, I find "synchronicities" in the elements and events of which I was not aware in the writing. These are usually cooly significant.

So as far as I go with this as a metaphysical minimalist, is that we all write our own stories and often place ourselves in circumstances that are meaningful to our themes without conscious intention. We also notice and use whatever events are significant to our story line and discard others.

So far in my life, I haven't had a series of events that I would be inclined to intepret as the "gods" "screwing" with me, so to speak.

[UndercoverElephant]

Sad you had to go up 23 flights, when I got it on the ninth. :)

This morning I was thinking of Asian cultures where "karma" is the same sort of linguistic convention as the Western good luck/bad luck.

There's no science that can determine if one is having a "run of good luck," or (attributed to Aldous Huxley) "As luck would have it, Providence intervened."

"Are you feeling lucky?"

But this attribution to luck, that rolls off the tongue of even skeptics, has no metaphysical sense or structure.

Of course Undercover Elephant means something metaphysical with "Syncronicity" or "Karma."
That's a metaphysical matter, because Science expects regularity and repeatablity in a relational structure.

Of course the Scientific response is, "if the event or grouping of events doesn't exhibit a regularity in structure, it is merely anomaly without significance."

U.E.'s reply to that is, "Yes," these events are not scientifically sgnificant but subjective-personally significant."

I write stories in which, after I'm done, I find "synchronicities" in the elements and events of which I was not aware in the writing. These are usually cooly significant.

So as far as I go with this as a metaphysical minimalist, is that we all write our own stories and often place ourselves in circumstances that are meaningful to our themes without conscious intention. We also notice and use whatever events are significant to our story line and discard others.

So far in my life, I haven't had a series of events that I would be inclined to intepret as the "gods" "screwing" with me, so to speak.

Thanks. You explained it better than I did.

[Soapy Sam]

The latter isn't an interesting question. Clearly some people believe in karma.

You think the former is?

[The Nimble Pianist]

I don't know enough about the topic, so I clicked "I don't know".

I do have a question though:

Can this "Buddhist-like, Hindu-like, philosophic, new-age" belief (as defined by UE) tell us anything about reality? Can it make any predictions?

If not, I couldn't care less whether its true or not; I'd say it's completely useless.

[shawmutt]

Nothing says "karma" like post hoc reasoning.

And by chi energy I'm referring to the supposed energy that guides much of Eastern philosophic belief, "Eastern" sCAM, and the Star Wars series. Some spell it Qi, but mostly out of pretentiousness.

As an aside, I've always been a bit peeved by the whole Eastern vs. Western labels when dealing with medicine. As if the West is incapable of coming up with its own woo woo and the East can't possibly invent science-based medicine. Anyway...

[RandFan]

... I am refering to forms of spirituality which claim the existence of some form of causality not believed in by determinists - the belief that there is some truth at the core of religion even though the intelligent, anthropomorphised God of mainstream western theism does not exist.Whatever the hell that is.

Even with this vague amorphous mysterious "truth" I'd say it's extremely unlikely. Particularly given the advancements in neuroscience and our ability to explain why we believe in gods in the first place.

Why We Believe in Gods - Dr. Andy Thomson - American Atheists (http://richarddawkins.net/article,3779,Why-We-Believe-in-Gods---Dr-Andy-Thomson---American-Atheists-09,Andy-Thomson)

1iMmvu9eMrg

That gap for god is shrinking almost daily.

ETA: I know I've been coming off as hostile to you UCE and I appologize for that. I just don't think much of such vague notions that don't tell us anything. A "truth" that is at the heart of all religion is likely just evolutionary psychology with a healthy mix of greed, fear, dependancy and many other human emotions.

[Robin]

A determinist is a person who believes all future events are totally determined by the past state of the system. Or rather they believe that the current state is completely determined by the past and that the future is completely determined by the present. Indeterminists believe that this is not the case, either because some events are partially dependent on things which are completely random (not determined at all) or because they believe some events are partially dependent on some sort of non-physical, non-temporal causality such as free will or the will of God.
How can you have a completely non-temporal free will? The concept implies that an intention precedes action in some way, which implies some sort of time or meta-time.

If you lose the assumption of time you have also got to ditch the concept of will, free or otherwise.

In general this summary misses out people that think that causality might not be a meaningfule concept at all

[Robin]

It's just the ability to make a decision - to choose one thing over another. The idea that when you appear to make a choice, it isn't just one more in a long chain of dominos, but that the choice actually comes from your will in a meaningful sense.
But say you have two possible choices A and B, and using your free will you chose B, would that mean that there was no reason you didn't choose A instead?

Or does it mean there is a reason?

[linusrichard]

But say you have two possible choices A and B, and using your free will you chose B, would that mean that there was no reason you didn't choose A instead?
No, there could be a reason.

Or does it mean there is a reason?
I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case.

[Piscivore]

Spiritual beliefs like karma or synchronicity.

It seems then what you're asking is if we believe exceptions to traditional, physics based causality are possible, is that it?

[Robin]

But say you have two possible choices A and B, and using your free will you chose B, would that mean that there was no reason you didn't choose A instead?
No, there could be a reason.
Or does it mean there is a reason? I'm not sure if that's necessarily the case.
But if there were no reason, then it would be arbitrary, right?

So either there was a reason why B was chosen over A, or else the choice of B was arbitrary.

[Robin]

It seems then what you're asking is if we believe exceptions to traditional, physics based causality are possible, is that it?
It is not clear to me that if there were such a thing as karma or synchronicity that they would be exceptions to physics.

Karma, for example, is conceived as a chain of proportional cause and effect.

[linusrichard]

But if there were no reason, then it would be arbitrary, right?

So either there was a reason why B was chosen over A, or else the choice of B was arbitrary.

I'm not sure, but that sounds okay.

[UndercoverElephant]

It seems then what you're asking is if we believe exceptions to traditional, physics based causality are possible, is that it?

Not sure they are "exceptions". They don't contradict normal causality, they just aren't explained by it either.

[PixyMisa]

Not sure they are "exceptions". They don't contradict normal causality, they just aren't explained by it either.
How does that work? It either follows the rules of causality, or it doesn't.

[UndercoverElephant]

How does that work? It either follows the rules of causality, or it doesn't.

The "rules of causality" do not include the causal "rules" of quantum mechanics. Normal pre-QM physical causality is not probabilistic. E=MC2 and F=ma are clear rules: either something follows them to the letter, or it breaches them. The same does not apply to QM because of its probabilistic nature. In other words, all the science behind QM can tell us is the probability of a certain outcome being observed in the future. It is possible that a series of quantum outcomes can happen which are highly improbable. This does not breach any rules of causality, but QM cannot offer us an explanation as to why the series of improbable events occured. From a scientific POV all we can say is "some improbable stuff happened for no reason we can identify." It does not follow that there actually isn't any reason. It is possible that there is a reason which can't be scientifically identified.

So...it is possible that something can happen that is not an exception/breach of the laws of physics, yet is also not physically explainable as anything more than improbable random outcomes. This view is represented by the "hidden variable" interpretations of QM. The hidden variables are not knowable from the POV of science - that is why they are "hidden". In effect it is the claim that QM is an incomplete account of reality/causality. Being incomplete is not the same as being wrong. Therefore it is possible for something to "follow the rules" of QM and yet not be completely explained by those rules.

[yy2bggggs]

So...it is possible that something can happen that is not an exception/breach of the laws of physics, yet is also not physically explainable as anything more than improbable random outcomes.
Uhm... not if it happens with greater probability than specified by QM.
This view is represented by the "hidden variable" interpretations of QM.
That's not what hidden variable theory means.
The hidden variables are not knowable from the POV of science - that is why they are "hidden".
That's not what hidden variable means either.

QM doesn't merely allow for other theories to explain something more fundamental--it constrains them. The constraints are such that entire classes of theories can be ruled out--for example, anything decisively (pun intended) "non-"deterministic cannot creep into waveform collapse (e.g., anything having to do with a decision, or some directed "force"--because if QM predicts a probability P, the probability must be P). And anything local is just wrong, period.

[Marduk]

I could also ask the many people who are voting for >99% certainty it is false the following question:

Given that you are actually allowing a slight possibility that it is true, what exactly would it take to convince you? What would it take to turn a <1% probability of truth into a 50/50 or a probably/definately true?

YHWH appearing at the Hague charged with genocide springs instantly to mind, the bible currently a book of faith would then stand as a confession, if I were the prosecutor my first question would be "do you stand by an earlier assertion that this is your testament"
hed have to say yes, or theres going to be a lot of dissapointed fundies out there
:D

[Piscivore]

Not sure they are "exceptions". They don't contradict normal causality, they just aren't explained by it either.

Synchronicity at least is explicitly acausal.

[UndercoverElephant]

Synchronicity at least is explicitly acausal.

But not in such a way as it actually contradicts physics.

[UndercoverElephant]

YHWH appearing at the Hague charged with genocide springs instantly to mind, the bible currently a book of faith would then stand as a confession, if I were the prosecutor my first question would be "do you stand by an earlier assertion that this is your testament"
hed have to say yes, or theres going to be a lot of dissapointed fundies out there
:D

I was explicitly NOT refering to YHWH for reasons very like these. YHWH is an anthropomorphised version of God. There's good reasons to believe such a thing doesn't exist, simply because this being is supposed to be perfect but also has human-like characteristics like "merciful" and "just". Unfortunately it is not possible to be perfectly merciful and perfectly just at the same time, which is why we end up with logical absurdities like the merciful "God of Love" sending people to eternal torment in hell and the perfect engineer who designs biological beings with major defects.

[UndercoverElephant]

Uhm... not if it happens with greater probability than specified by QM.


That test could only be applied to events which consistently and repeatably happen to whoever tries to find them. Supernatural causality is, by definition, inconsistent and non-repeatable. In other words, it may be the case that it only happens with a greater probability than specified by QM to specific individuals and specific times, making it scientifically untestable.


That's not what hidden variable theory means.


Yes it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory


Historically, in physics, hidden variable theories were espoused by a minority of physicists who argued that the statistical nature of quantum mechanics indicated that quantum mechanics is "incomplete".

[Marduk]

I was explicitly NOT refering to YHWH for reasons very like these. YHWH is an anthropomorphised version of God. There's good reasons to believe such a thing doesn't exist, simply because this being is supposed to be perfect but also has human-like characteristics like "merciful" and "just". Unfortunately it is not possible to be perfectly merciful and perfectly just at the same time, which is why we end up with logical absurdities like the merciful "God of Love" sending people to eternal torment in hell and the perfect engineer who designs biological beings with major defects.

you asked for opinions on eastern gods, YHWH is a deity conceived in the ancient near east, why doesn't he count ?
I didn't say Jehova, he is the anthropomorphised version of YHWH, judaic religion actually states that YHWH should not be worshipped anthopomorphetically (is that a word)
:D

[UndercoverElephant]

you asked for opinions on eastern gods, YHWH is a deity conceived in the ancient near east, why doesn't he count ?

I didn't say Jehova, he is the anthropomorphised version of YHWH, judaic religion actually states that YHWH should not be worshipped anthopomorphetically (is that a word)
:D

If it's a word then I've never heard it before.

I thought "Jehova" was just a pronouncable version of "YHVH". If this being is not anthropomorphised then It can't end up being charged with war crimes, can It?

[Marduk]

If it's a word then I've never heard it before.

I thought "Jehova" was just a pronouncable version of "YHVH".
Yahweh is the pronounceable version of YHWH
Jehova is the english translation so serves as the name of God in the western world

If this being is not anthropomorphised then It can't end up being charged with war crimes, can It?
Touche, which is why of course this is the only way I would believe it, when the impossible becomes possible all bets are off
:D

[Beerina]

We can be 100% certain its false because there is no such thing as a "most powerful god in theory".

The Beerina theorm: A god is an infinite bag of abilities (any infinite abilities degenerate into an infinite [sub]list of finite abilities). There is no greatest infinite set (see transfinite numbers.) Therefore there is no theoretically "most powerful god". There can always be another. It's turtles all the way up.

[SusanB-M1]

Are we being asked to say if we believe in the existence of karma or if we believe in belief in the existence of karma?
I read Jeff Corey's post through three times and was considering showing my ignorance by asking for a simpler version, but yours is understandable! I don't know the answer though!

[yy2bggggs]

That test could only be applied to events which consistently and repeatably happen to whoever tries to find them.
Incorrect. Events merely need to probabilistically affect something that can be measured. Furthermore, Quantum Mechanics would have to be flat out wrong in order for you to explain said things by a HVT (which would make it not properly an HVT of QM at all). Where it concerns quantum mechanics, you're dealing with something that is pure probability1--even a non-local HVT cannot be the sort of thing you're trying to make it.
Supernatural causality is, by definition, inconsistent and non-repeatable.
I blatantly disagree. Causality is, by definition, directed. Supernatural, if it means anything, refers to something that is beyond the realm of nature. As I can easily think of a supernatural, causal, consistent, repeatable phenomenon (let's say, every time I yell "Badabee!", an inanimate object in the room sprouts legs, starts dancing, and sings a nursery rhyme--I at least would consider this phenomenon supernatural, and would know a nice source of a million bucks if I could demonstrate it), it trivially follows that supernatural causality cannot by definition be inconsistent and non-repeatable. "Beyond the realm of science" isn't a definitive property of the supernatural so much as it is an excuse for the supernatural.

Methinks you're simply begging the question.
In other words, it may be the case that it only happens with a greater probability than specified by QM to specific individuals and specific times, making it scientifically untestable.
By specific individuals, you wouldn't happen to be referring to classes of individuals that are even probabilistically more likely to be found in certain well selected samples, would you? (For example, were I to search for people who were devoted Eastern mystics, would I get more of said people than I would if I picked random attendees at the next TAM?)

If so, I must blatantly disagree again. This most definitely would make it measurable. If I can get a sample of people that said phenomenon are more likely to occur to "at specific times", then I simply select that group as a sample, and a less-likely-to-occur-to group as a control. If there's a principle that is so pragmatically significant that it is worthy of some sort of description at all and has a name tied to it, then there's certainly enough "specific times" for me to measure said phenomenon if I wait long enough.

The thing is, it actually is logically possible that there would be supernaturally causal events that are so inconsistent and non-repeatable that they cannot be measured. However, I think you're failing to appreciate just what it takes for something to be that inconsistent and non-repeatable. I guarantee you, if it's at all noticeable, much less if it gave rise to a concept and someone gave a name to the general principle of some particular spiritual phenomenon, it's measurable.

Yes it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory
No it isn't. Maybe you're failing to appreciate the basic problem that HVT's are trying to solve. See double slit experiment.

There's an entirely different way to compute these probabilities when multiple possibilities are present, and they result in adding2 all of the possibilities together. The strangeness of QM is that this cumulative sum of all of the possibilities looks entirely different from what is expected when you simply incorporate the possibilities logically--in other words, if you assume that a particle is either this way or that, your assumption can be proven wrong. In other words, particles are not "either" this way or that--they are, ontologically "confused" between the possibilities.

For example, the canonical problematic part of the double slit experiment is that, if you cover up either slit, there are places on the screen where a particle would hit, that it would never appear in if both slits were open.

HVT's are meant to explain that. That is what they are. And entire classes of HVT's can simply be ruled out as impossible--for example, any HVT that is "local"--i.e., has normal objects that don't do silly things like time travel into the past.

But you are saying this:
So...it is possible that something can happen that is not an exception/breach of the laws of physics, yet is also not physically explainable as anything more than improbable random outcomes. This view is represented by the "hidden variable" interpretations of QM.
That's incorrect. See above. It's not merely that you don't know what state the particle is in--the particle is literally not in a specific state. Furthermore, it's not merely that it's not in a specific state--they have to play the quantum mechanics game with all of the other possible states, and the QM game dictates that there should be a specific distribution of probabilities among all possible states according to very specific rules. This is not the sort of thing you're trying to use HVT's for here, nor is it even close to a description of what HVT's are (they are meant to explain why QM has these rules--not provide excuses for ways other things besides what QM dictates can happen).

You also say:
The hidden variables are not knowable from the POV of science - that is why they are "hidden".
That's not true either. It is known that there cannot be a local HVT. There is absolutely nothing that says that a non-local HVT is not knowable from the POV of science.

You seem to be making this up as you go along.

1Actually, not even that. You're dealing instead with complex square roots of probability. But this is just a general idea.
2The word "add" is being used metaphorically here and throughout.

[Robin]

I am interested. Can anybody here define what causality is? Or at least what "cause" means?

[yy2bggggs]

I am interested. Can anybody here define what causality is? Or at least what "cause" means?
Well, per the dictionary:
causality
We're using sense 1, though not exactly like the example.

cause
We might be using sense 1. Or perhaps sense 8a or 8b. Or possibly sense 6.

[Robin]

Well, per the dictionary:
causality
We're using sense 1, though not exactly like the example.

cause
We might be using sense 1. Or perhaps sense 8a or 8b. Or possibly sense 6.
So to boil this down, causality basically refers to a relationship between things and events, or between events and other events.

[Jorghnassen]

I really don't know what this poll is about. And I refuse to put a probability on an ill-defined concept.

[yy2bggggs]

I really don't know what this poll is about. And I refuse to put a probability on an ill-defined concept.
It's quite simple. The question is, what percentage in units of whole beliefs reflects the level of your belief that the things that the people to the east of you believe, and not the sensible things, but the things at the very core of the things that the people to the east of you started to believe before the people to the west of you believed it which are nonsense, hold true, ignoring the fact that this question makes a claim that in itself may be something you don't believe to be true?

I voted the same as you.

[UndercoverElephant]

Incorrect. Events merely need to probabilistically affect something that can be measured.


Right. And can you measure synchronicity? What about karma?


Furthermore, Quantum Mechanics would have to be flat out wrong in order for you to explain said things by a HVT (which would make it not properly an HVT of QM at all). Where it concerns quantum mechanics, you're dealing with something that is pure probability1--even a non-local HVT cannot be the sort of thing you're trying to make it.


Well, all I can say is that several people who know more about QM than I do have listened to my views and told me that the position I defend is only compatible with a sort of HVT, related to Bohm's. I'm do not have a degree in physics. My area of degree-level scientific expertise is evolution and cognitive science.


I blatantly disagree. Causality is, by definition, directed. Supernatural, if it means anything, refers to something that is beyond the realm of nature. As I can easily think of a supernatural, causal, consistent, repeatable phenomenon (let's say, every time I yell "Badabee!", an inanimate object in the room sprouts legs, starts dancing, and sings a nursery rhyme--I at least would consider this phenomenon supernatural, and would know a nice source of a million bucks if I could demonstrate it), it trivially follows that supernatural causality cannot by definition be inconsistent and non-repeatable. "Beyond the realm of science" isn't a definitive property of the supernatural so much as it is an excuse for the supernatural.


That's a boring, useless definition of "supernatural", because nobody believes in it.

By "supernatural" I am refering to some sort of effect which either has a cause external to the physical universe, or where the connection between cause and effect is necessarily hidden. That includes everything from karma, synchronicity and free will at one end of the scale to the will of an intelligent designer God or dimension-shifting alien reptilians at the other.


By specific individuals, you wouldn't happen to be referring to classes of individuals that are even probabilistically more likely to be found in certain well selected samples, would you? (For example, were I to search for people who were devoted Eastern mystics, would I get more of said people than I would if I picked random attendees at the next TAM?)


I would personally say that people's belief system acts as a template, or a language, through which these effects manifest. In other words, they do not happen to skeptics. The usual response to this is "ah, convenient, that." My response to that response is that it just happens to be the way it is. I was a skeptic for 33 years and nothing supernatural ever happened to me during that time - at least not that I was aware of. Plus, if you look at the available parapsychological/occult literature you will find that many of the people who claim such phenomena exist agree with this statement about beliefs affecting the phenomena. I am fully aware that this makes the problem of confirmation bias worse. There's nothing I can do about that.


If so, I must blatantly disagree again. This most definitely would make it measurable. If I can get a sample of people that said phenomenon are more likely to occur to "at specific times", then I simply select that group as a sample, and a less-likely-to-occur-to group as a control.


You can't know when it is going to occur. When I was experiencing a lot of this stuff I was not in control of it. I can't make it happen at will. And even if I could, you still couldn't test it because it depends on too many subjective judgements.


If there's a principle that is so pragmatically significant that it is worthy of some sort of description at all and has a name tied to it, then there's certainly enough "specific times" for me to measure said phenomenon if I wait long enough.


I can think of no way of measuring what I'm talking about. I wouldn't even know where to start.


The thing is, it actually is logically possible that there would be supernaturally causal events that are so inconsistent and non-repeatable that they cannot be measured. However, I think you're failing to appreciate just what it takes for something to be that inconsistent and non-repeatable.


I don't think so. I am telling you unequivocally that there is no way on earth you could have "measured" what happened to me or tried to recreate it under laboratory conditions. I'd even go so far as to say that anybody who thinks these phenomena can be measured doesn't know what they are talking about. People who apply for Randi's prize are idiots.


I guarantee you, if it's at all noticeable, much less if it gave rise to a concept and someone gave a name to the general principle of some particular spiritual phenomenon, it's measurable.


I guarantee you it's not. Nobody notices it apart from the person it is happening to.



No it isn't. Maybe you're failing to appreciate the basic problem that HVT's are trying to solve. See double slit experiment.

There's an entirely different way to compute these probabilities when multiple possibilities are present, and they result in adding2 all of the possibilities together. The strangeness of QM is that this cumulative sum of all of the possibilities looks entirely different from what is expected when you simply incorporate the possibilities logically--in other words, if you assume that a particle is either this way or that, your assumption can be proven wrong. In other words, particles are not "either" this way or that--they are, ontologically "confused" between the possibilities.


I know that. They are in an indeterminate state until "observed", whatever that means.



For example, the canonical problematic part of the double slit experiment is that, if you cover up either slit, there are places on the screen where a particle would hit, that it would never appear in if both slits were open.

HVT's are meant to explain that. That is what they are. And entire classes of HVT's can simply be ruled out as impossible--for example, any HVT that is "local"--i.e., has normal objects that don't do silly things like time travel into the past.


Do you believe macroscopic retrocausality is impossible? Or just highly unlikely?


But you are saying this:

That's incorrect. See above. It's not merely that you don't know what state the particle is in--the particle is literally not in a specific state. Furthermore, it's not merely that it's not in a specific state--they have to play the quantum mechanics game with all of the other possible states, and the QM game dictates that there should be a specific distribution of probabilities among all possible states according to very specific rules. This is not the sort of thing you're trying to use HVT's for here, nor is it even close to a description of what HVT's are (they are meant to explain why QM has these rules--not provide excuses for ways other things besides what QM dictates can happen).


I'm not trying to use HVTs to explain anything. I realise that HVTs were not invented in order to explain the sort of things I'm saying happened. All I am saying is that I have been told by other people that my position is only compatible with some sort of HVT.

[tsig]

I voted 100%. These kinds of things just don't make sense, and don't have any kind of evidence supporting them. How the hell is the Universe, a non-thinking, non-remembering non-entity supposed to make good or bad things happen to you depending on what you've done? That kind of thing requires intent - something an amoral, uncaring Universe certainly doesn't have.

In short, invisible pink universe-creating fairies are more likely.

Gods always need people to make 'em real. The Christians admit it because they say god wants our love.

[tsig]

I don't understand how people can be 100% sure about something that doesn't make sense to them. Isn't a slightly more agnostic position called for in that case?

it makes perfect sense to me.

Gods only exist in the mind of man.

[yy2bggggs]

Right. And can you measure synchronicity? What about karma?
Assuming they are actual phenomena--yes.
By "supernatural" I am refering to some sort of effect which either has a cause external to the physical universe,
If C is the cause, and E is the effect, then what's relevant is whether or not, without seeing the effect, we can meaningfully identify C's with error (that is, we might mess up, but we can do better than random, to such a degree that it stands out as not noise), and whether or not we can meaningfully identify the effects E, not knowing the cause, with error (same criteria--we may mess up, but we can do better than random, to such a degree that it stands out as not noise).

If you're specifically wanting to in principle rule out that something can be measured, you are necessarily ruling out the conditions spelled forth above. That sort of throws the baby out with the bathwater. Even if a non-ordinary version of karma were true, in order to be even remotely useful, I would have to at a minimum know what sort of things would promote good karma if I wanted good things to happen to me, and would have to have at least some foggy notion of what "good things" mean in this context to know if I want them to happen to me.
or where the connection between cause and effect is necessarily hidden.
If the connection between cause and effect behind some general principle is hidden, you would neither be able to identify that the general principle exists at all, nor make use of it.
That includes everything from karma, synchronicity and free will at one end of the scale to the will of an intelligent designer God or dimension-shifting alien reptilians at the other.
Agreed. I'm not trying to place said things in the universe. They don't have to be in the universe. But "karma" is repeatable--that's why you can give it a name. "Synchronicity" is repeatable as well, in direct proportion to the degree that it means anything at all--that's the very essence of the accusation that it would be distinguishable from chance (which it implicity is).
I would personally say that people's belief system acts as a template, or a language, through which these effects manifest. In other words, they do not happen to skeptics.
But it does not matter! Even that is a dependent variable. That's exactly what I was implying with the statement above. In fact, a random sample of skeptics at a skeptic convention of a sort is even better than a control group. Said sample could be compared either to believers, or quite simply to a random sampling of the population in general. That it does not happen to skeptics is not in the least relevant.

But you know what's even more interesting?

...that you admit that you cannot help that this happens to put you in a situation of being culpable to confirmation bias... and... yet... your explanation of skeptics not seeing these things is that it does not happen to them. Why? Why can't it be, say, that the problem with skeptics is confirmation bias?
You can't know when it is going to occur.You don't have to. It merely needs to affect the probability. If it can't, that's exactly equivalent to say that it was only chance. That is exactly what it means for it to be only chance.
I can think of no way of measuring what I'm talking about. I wouldn't even know where to start.
A nice place to start would be communicating what you're talking about a bit more precisely.
I don't think so. I am telling you unequivocally that there is no way on earth you could have "measured" what happened to me or tried to recreate it under laboratory conditions.
Was this related to a general guiding principle in Eastern mysticism? Regardless, it's less than worthless for you to mention said things, because I'm not only not privy to the things you're talking about, I'm being informationally isolated from it.

This guy explains the problem I'm point out fairly well:NPqerbz8KDc
I know that. They are in an indeterminate state until "observed", whatever that means.
The salient point here is what an HVT actually is--that is, what it would give you here.
Do you believe macroscopic retrocausality is impossible? Or just highly unlikely?
That's not exactly the point. The point is that even with retrocausal explanations of QM (that is, with HVT's that are, in fact, HVT's), QM still says what it says, and a HVT will still be a certain kind of creature. For karma, though, we need something where, for example, if I do some good stuff, some good stuff will happen to me later. Retrocausal HVT's are not the sort of thing you need to explain how this can be true in some sense other than the ordinary you-scratch-my-back sense.

[PixyMisa]

Right. And can you measure synchronicity? What about karma?
If they have an objective effect, we can measure them.

If they don't have an objective effect, they don't exist. They're just something you made up.

Well, all I can say is that several people who know more about QM than I do have listened to my views and told me that the position I defend is only compatible with a sort of HVT, related to Bohm's.Not sure what that means. Some of Bohm's ideas - the concept of local hidden variables, as mentioned earlier - have been proven wrong. Otherwise it's just and interpretation, and doesn't make predictions any different from the plain old maths of QM.

That's a boring, useless definition of "supernatural", because nobody believes in it.Really?

By "supernatural" I am refering to some sort of effect which either has a cause external to the physical universe, or where the connection between cause and effect is necessarily hidden.That's the same definition.

That includes everything from karma, synchronicity and free will at one end of the scale to the will of an intelligent designer God or dimension-shifting alien reptilians at the other.One of these things is different to the others.

I would personally say that people's belief system acts as a template, or a language, through which these effects manifest.Then there is no such effect.

In other words, they do not happen to skeptics.Then they do not happen.

The usual response to this is "ah, convenient, that."That's the only rational response.

My response to that response is that it just happens to be the way it is.And that is an abandonment of rationality.

I was a skeptic for 33 years and nothing supernatural ever happened to me during that time - at least not that I was aware of. Plus, if you look at the available parapsychological/occult literature you will find that many of the people who claim such phenomena exist agree with this statement about beliefs affecting the phenomena.And - curiously - the same people can provide no evidence whatsoever to support these claims.

I am fully aware that this makes the problem of confirmation bias worse.No. The problem is confirmation bias from the beginning.

There's nothing I can do about that.Of course there is. Eliminate subjective bias.

You can't know when it is going to occur. When I was experiencing a lot of this stuff I was not in control of it. I can't make it happen at will. And even if I could, you still couldn't test it because it depends on too many subjective judgements.If it has any objective effect at all, it can be tested.

If it doesn't, it does not exist. It's something you made up. An illusion, a delusion, a fairy tale.

I can think of no way of measuring what I'm talking about. I wouldn't even know where to start.You haven't even said what you are talking about. Indeed, you refuse to say what you are talking about. There's a problem there.

I don't think so. I am telling you unequivocally that there is no way on earth you could have "measured" what happened to me or tried to recreate it under laboratory conditions.If something happened, you are wrong.

If you are right, then nothing happened.

I'd even go so far as to say that anybody who thinks these phenomena can be measured doesn't know what they are talking about.What phenomena?

People who apply for Randi's prize are idiots.Granted, but beside the point.

I guarantee you it's not. Nobody notices it apart from the person it is happening to.So it doesn't actually do anything? Anything at all?

Then it doesn't exist.

I'm not trying to use HVTs to explain anything. I realise that HVTs were not invented in order to explain the sort of things I'm saying happened. All I am saying is that I have been told by other people that my position is only compatible with some sort of HVT.They lied.

[UndercoverElephant]

If C is the cause, and E is the effect, then what's relevant is whether or not, without seeing the effect, we can meaningfully identify C's with error (that is, we might mess up, but we can do better than random, to such a degree that it stands out as not noise), and whether or not we can meaningfully identify the effects E, not knowing the cause, with error (same criteria--we may mess up, but we can do better than random, to such a degree that it stands out as not noise).


I already have a problem with this because of the use of "we". You are assuming that either these things can in principle be identified by everybody, or they can't be identified by anybody at all. Apart from that I agree with it. Where I differ from you is that I think that in some cases the identification can only be made by the individual concerned.


If you're specifically wanting to in principle rule out that something can be measured, you are necessarily ruling out the conditions spelled forth above. That sort of throws the baby out with the bathwater. Even if a non-ordinary version of karma were true, in order to be even remotely useful, I would have to at a minimum know what sort of things would promote good karma if I wanted good things to happen to me, and would have to have at least some foggy notion of what "good things" mean in this context to know if I want them to happen to me.


Yes, although "wanting good things to happen to me" is a bit unhelpful because it emphasises the carrot-and-stick side of karma (like heaven and hell but before you die as well as after if you believe in reincarnated souls). I'm suggesting this stuff happens because it happens, rather than trying to modify people's behaviour with a carrot-and-stick approach or to "use" the mechanism in order to improve my own situation. But regardless of all that, it still looks like we require some sort of objective measure of what "good" means, and that is a big ask, especially considering that there are forms of Hinduism and other eastern religions (taoism) which accept karma while at the same time denying there is any such thing as absolute good or bad. "Good" or "bad" therefore has to be determined at least to some extent by the belief system of the person in question. What matters is what you honestly believe is good or bad. Which is not as crazy as it sounds when you think of what we mean by "conscience". Many of the people who do "bad" things know perfectly well that what they are doing is wrong, but do it anyway. That is bad karma. Those people who do things which are bad, especially very bad, but genuinely don't realise they are bad, we categorise as "criminally insane" and lock up permanently in a secure psychiatric hospital. I don't believe these people are affected by karma in the same way. Their fate is determined by normal causality. I believe that if I do anything I know/believe to be ethically wrong, that I will be negatively affecting my own future "luck".


If the connection between cause and effect behind some general principle is hidden, you would neither be able to identify that the general principle exists at all, nor make use of it.


You might be able to identify it if the effects were particularly pronounced in specific situations. Mostly there is too much "noise" to be able to see it. It's hidden partly because it's usually swamped by noise and partly because it is subject-dependent, not because it is theoretically invisible.


Agreed. I'm not trying to place said things in the universe. They don't have to be in the universe. But "karma" is repeatable--that's why you can give it a name. "Synchronicity" is repeatable as well, in direct proportion to the degree that it means anything at all--that's the very essence of the accusation that it would be distinguishable from chance (which it implicity is).


But it's not. Synchronicity depends on exactly where you are in your life. You are never in the same place twice. The first synchronicity in a specific situation changes the game so that subsequent situations can never be a repeat of the first.



But it does not matter! Even that is a dependent variable. That's exactly what I was implying with the statement above. In fact, a random sample of skeptics at a skeptic convention of a sort is even better than a control group. Said sample could be compared either to believers, or quite simply to a random sampling of the population in general. That it does not happen to skeptics is not in the least relevant.

But you know what's even more interesting?

...that you admit that you cannot help that this happens to put you in a situation of being culpable to confirmation bias... and... yet... your explanation of skeptics not seeing these things is that it does not happen to them. Why? Why can't it be, say, that the problem with skeptics is confirmation bias?

You don't have to. It merely needs to affect the probability. If it can't, that's exactly equivalent to say that it was only chance. That is exactly what it means for it to be only chance.

A nice place to start would be communicating what you're talking about a bit more precisely.

Was this related to a general guiding principle in Eastern mysticism? Regardless, it's less than worthless for you to mention said things, because I'm not only not privy to the things you're talking about, I'm being informationally isolated from it.

This guy explains the problem I'm point out fairly well:NPqerbz8KDc


I understand all this. I was an outspoken, materialistic, atheistic skeptic from the age of about 10, at which point I point blank refused to be taken to church anymore on the grounds it was load of old nonsense, until I was in my early 30s. I was the original "science and skepticism" moderator when the secular web forum was first set up over ten years ago. I have three science A-levels. My all-time hero is David Attenborough. I know exactly the problems caused by confirmation bias, lack of critical thinking when one's own belief system is challenged or any belief which is critically dependent on a subjective judgement where important aspects of one's own belief system are at stake. I continued to be aware of these problems throughout the period that followed my "conversion" (I am now 40). Indeed, had I let go of this way of thinking - had I just opened the floodgates and allowed in all of that stuff that I previously rejected and ceased to think critically about what was happening to me - then I'd probably have gone completely insane. I would have ended up like David Icke.

This page says it perfectly:

http://www.dailyafflictions.com/affliction7.html


You often hear about believers who have a crisis of faith, but what of the skeptics among us who have a crisis of doubt? For years we skeptics have decisively refuted the metaphysical claims of the great religions and scoffed at the pretensions of newfangled spiritual fashions. But then our doubt is suddenly shaken by an unbidden mystical experience. The power of this direct cognition of ultimate reality, beyond word or image, is undeniable. But does it prove the existence of God? If you remain skeptical you find yourself in a difficult state. You now seriously doubt your doubt and yet have no abiding faith to replace it. How do you proceed? You can no longer be atheistic because you've communed with the divine. You can't be religious because the existence of God is still in question; what's more, religious representations of God now get in the way of your direct mystical experience. Nor can you be agnostic because you're far from neutral on the subject. You must become a skeptical mystic. As you cut your own singular path to the great whatever, you must now treat your own experiences with the relentless skepticism you once reserved for the claims of others.

I am One with a God I do not believe in.



So there you have it - I am an example of something most skeptics here think is impossible. I'm a person with a broad and deep understanding of science, a long history of thinking like a scientific, materialistic, atheistic skeptic, an understanding of confirmation bias and the perils of believing things without scientific support, yet I also believe in various sorts of causality which, as shown by the outcome of this poll, most skeptics are almost or completely certain do not exist, and I believe it because I believe I have experienced the effects of these forms of causality directly and that I was able to identify them because my own life-path led me to a situation where those effects became very extreme indeed. They drowned out the noise.



That's not exactly the point. The point is that even with retrocausal explanations of QM (that is, with HVT's that are, in fact, HVT's), QM still says what it says, and a HVT will still be a certain kind of creature. For karma, though, we need something where, for example, if I do some good stuff, some good stuff will happen to me later. Retrocausal HVT's are not the sort of thing you need to explain how this can be true in some sense other than the ordinary you-scratch-my-back sense.

Well, it's closer to the point than maybe I've made clear. When I talk of things like karma and synchronicity then retrocausality is in fact crucial. Both these things, and free will and various other things I believe in, are all manifested via retrocausality. It's the basic phenomena without which those things couldn't exist, because there would be no "mechanism" available. You might say that the synchronicity is "set up" retrocausally. I should also make it crystal clear at this point that this is not an attempt to make a scientific or philosophical argument. These are religious beliefs. They are personal to me. I am well aware that I have no means of justifying why I think somebody else should share them. I am only explaining them to you so you have a better handle on what it is I am actually talking about, not because I'm trying to convince you to believe what I believe.

[yy2bggggs]

I already have a problem with this because of the use of "we". ... ... ... ...
You already have a problem because you're interpreting me from the outset according to your preconceptions.

we Sense 3, or sense 4.
You are assuming that either these things can in principle be identified by everybody, or they can't be identified by anybody at all.
You're overinterpreting. Your lack of ability to correctly describe what I mean when you rebut me should raise major suspicions about your ability to have key insights into immeasurable phenomenon.
Where I differ from you is that I think that in some cases the identification can only be made by the individual concerned.
Watch how this works. There should be more people among the non-skeptical population who regard finding a 20 dollar bill in the street as good than there are people among the non-skeptical population who regard losing their wallet as good. I'm very likely not wrong about this, but even if I were, this alone is a perfectly testable correlation.
Yes, although "wanting good things to happen to me" is a bit unhelpful because it emphasises the carrot-and-stick side of karma (like heaven and hell but before you die as well as after if you believe in reincarnated souls).
Again you're missing the point. Let me be very specific. Forget the aspect of wanting to exploit karma, and let's just cut straight to the chase. The thing we want to do is to figure out if your version of karma is real. We want to figure out if things like helping old ladies load their groceries (not specifically that, just things like that) really does lead to things like finding 20 dollars on the ground (not specifically that, just things like that).

What I'm talking about is related to measurability. My entire post is about measurability.
But regardless of all that, it still looks like we require some sort of objective measure of what "good" means, and that is a big ask,
It's nowhere near the "big ask" you're making it out to be. To objectively measure what good is, all I have to do is simply come up with some method that's better than random. In fact, I don't even have to come up with the determinations! A double blind test using firm believers to identify what kinds of things are good is perfectly adequate.

And if the firm believers can't identify said things, how do they even know it's happening?
especially considering that there are forms of Hinduism and other eastern religions (taoism) which accept karma while at the same time denying there is any such thing as absolute good or bad.
Again, doesn't matter. To measure it, all we need to do is find events that people would be probabilistically more likely to identify is good.
"Good" or "bad" therefore has to be determined at least to some extent by the belief system of the person in question.
Belief systems of persons are non-random.
I believe that if I do anything I know/believe to be ethically wrong, that I will be negatively affecting my own future "luck".
Then that would be measurable, by people other than you.
You might be able to identify it if the effects were particularly pronounced in specific situations.
Oh, sure. If the effects were particularly pronounced in specific situations, I can identify it. If they're not so pronounced in classes of situations, I can still identify it. You seem to be vastly misconceiving where the border lies.

The border lies here. If the effects show up, at all among the background noise, in not even remotely specific situations--but merely classes of situations which ever so slightly contain more "specific situations" than other classes of situations... then I can measure it.

This border lies far, far below anything you can personally identify.

For someone who claims they understood science for 3 decades, you sure do show tremendous underappreciation of the very basic powers of statistics and large numbers to reveal phenomenon.
Mostly there is too much "noise" to be able to see it.If there's too much noise to be able to see it, then how do you personally observe it?
It's hidden partly because it's usually swamped by noise and partly because it is subject-dependent, not because it is theoretically invisible.
If it's not theoretically invisible, it's measurable. You claimed it wasn't knowable from the POV of science--and that is what is being discussed. By "not because it is theoretically invisible", are you now trying to gracefully sweep that claim under the rug?

I understand all this. [testimonial "I switched sides" snipped]
(Yawn!)

The "I was once like you" line is not impressive--especially given that you don't even know what I am like.
So there you have it - I am an example of something most skeptics here think is impossible.
Red herring.
Well, it's closer to the point than maybe I've made clear. When I talk of things like karma and synchronicity then retrocausality is in fact crucial.
No. What's crucial in both karma and synchronicity is that you have A's and that you have B's, and the A's and B's are correlated more than they would be randomly. Retrocausality has nothing to do with this, and has nothing to do with measurability. It does not even explain how A's and B's can be "immeasurably" correlated and still be correlated.

Let's be clear. We're talking about the ability to correlate fuzzy yet meaningful classes of A's and B's more than what can be accounted for by randomness. Not only is retrocausality not critical for this--there isn't even a theory by which retrocausality can produce said effects.

And you're clearly demonstrating that you do not, in fact, understand.

You're making claims about karma. I believe in karma--it's just that the kind of karma I believe in is quite ordinary. If I do lots of good things, lots of good things will happen to me. Why? Merely because people tend to reciprocate.

And, likewise, I believe in coincidence (and precisely that--coincidence). I can notice two somehow meaningful things happening in correlation. The only reason I don't call it synchronicity is because, well, were I to say that synchronicity were nothing more than chance, that's entirely equivalent to saying that the phenomenon doesn't exist.

You're making claims beyond mere karma and the mere "coincidental version" of synchronicity (i.e., coincidence). You're claiming that it's beyond chance--that's a correlation. And correlations are measurable, irrespective of the underlying mechanism.

[Apathia]

You often hear about believers who have a crisis of faith, but what of the skeptics among us who have a crisis of doubt? For years we skeptics have decisively refuted the metaphysical claims of the great religions and scoffed at the pretensions of newfangled spiritual fashions. But then our doubt is suddenly shaken by an unbidden mystical experience. The power of this direct cognition of ultimate reality, beyond word or image, is undeniable. But does it prove the existence of God? If you remain skeptical you find yourself in a difficult state. You now seriously doubt your doubt and yet have no abiding faith to replace it. How do you proceed? You can no longer be atheistic because you've communed with the divine. You can't be religious because the existence of God is still in question; what's more, religious representations of God now get in the way of your direct mystical experience. Nor can you be agnostic because you're far from neutral on the subject. You must become a skeptical mystic. As you cut your own singular path to the great whatever, you must now treat your own experiences with the relentless skepticism you once reserved for the claims of others.

I am One with a God I do not believe in.

I continue on this quest myself. It's one that doesn't have permenent answers, unless you stop the journey and retire to a some dogmatic religious stance (including beliefs some skeptics do not admit having in the same breath as insisting upon them.)

I've experienced what I have no objection to calling the "Divine," but I can't package that in Theism or Deism. It seems to me that the Divine is not some object or being I'm encountering "out there" but how I'm open to a transcendence that is immennant in all my experiences rather than some being or realm outside them.

So I don't posit a supernatural realm to contain the Divine. Basically, I don't see it something that can be cordoned off to a special department outside natural reality.

The Divine is a quality of relationship I bring in my encounters and interactions.
Pixy Misa, for example, can be an object of scientific discourse. (Though I doubt you'll get a grant for this.) But Pixy is also sacred. I can see Pixy as Subject.

Belz is more than a "meat machine" to me.

Naturally my first mystical inclination was to objectify persons as metaphysical souls or spirits.
But my quest to find that transcendent realm found just an empty place holder.
Then the "satori" of it was that I realized the emptiness was my own projection in expectaion of there being Something.
Now all is sacred to me in fullness.

But again, that is how I have proceeded in the journey (and a very poor discription of it). When it comes to spirituality (in this sense), idolatry begins when the Tao becomes an intellectual object.
It's natural to want closure in the "spiritual" aspect of our lives, but the nature of "spirtuality' is openess.
(And please be aware here that I'm not talking about dismissing scientific discourse for some other source of objective knowledge or having the so called "open mind" that results in your brains falling out. I'm talking about being, not objective knowledge.)

Onward!

[UndercoverElephant]

(Yawn!)

The "I was once like you" line is not impressive--especially given that you don't even know what I am like.


I'm off to the pub and will answer the whole post later. But I wanted to comment on this.

I doubt anything I say is going to "impress" most of the skeptics around here, but let me assure you that whether or not you find it impressive, what I told you is true. The vast majority of people who believe in paranormal phenomena don't understand things like confirmation bias and generally have a poor knowledge of science in general. Whether you believe it or not, I really was a hardcore atheistic, skeptical activist for many years. I was also Richard Dawkins forum admin for 18 months after my "conversion." In other words even though I'm critical of Dawkins, I still managed to convince the person who set that board up that I was the most sensible choice of any of the people who turned up in the first month to be the one who was left in charge of it. Part of the reason was that although I was saying controversial things, every person who tried to lay into me like I was a fool, or claim I didn't understand Dawkins' position, ended up finding out quite rapidly that they were mistaken.

See you later.

[UndercoverElephant]

(Yawn!)


Let me give you the rest of the story. After 18 months in charge of Dawkins' board, I decided it was time to resign as forum admin so I could concentrate on attacking Dawkins' position without having to keep the gloves on because I was in charge of the board. The next 18 months saw a power struggle within the group left running the board between those who wanted to protect me and those who wanted me removed at any cost. After cranking up three times as many warnings as the rules I myself helped to draft allowed, the "get him out of here" crowd gained the ascendancy:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=63827


Perhaps like a lot of people, it was UE's time to go. This forum is beginning to take on its hardened form after its first few years in a molten state. So it's goodbye to the post-whores a while back and now a goodbye to the gadfly that was once a global mod. Perhaps this was the last stand in sceptic land for UE, a man that was once a materialist and then became something quite different. I remember tussling with him on the first day of the forum being up, a bunch of us having a go at him because he said he didn't need to read TGD, he already knew which points were probably made in the book. Despite our protestations, it was probably true.

I remember thinking how crazy a decision it was to make him a mod. His reign was controversial, an anti-materialist in charge of the Philosophy forum of all things. There was probably a time back then when I would've been quite happy to have seen him get banned. I even remember getting prepared for a formal debate with him that never happened. Why? Because I wanted to finish a few books before I was ready and by that time I had started to doubt materialism.

I think that he deserved to get banned for his behaviour, it was almost as if his behaviour was an implicit request for someone to make the final cut and set him adrift from a world and a mindset he used to be part of. I have to say that I'm gutted to see him go, this place will be more settled, a little duller without him. I hope I can get in contact with him in some way away from the forum, there were many things one could learn from the man and I have a feeling he still has more to give.

So, with respect to the mods, I just wanted to say thank you to UE for everything he's contributed to this forum. Everything's changing, but wasn't that what his avatar was all about?


http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e280/niallosullivan/2554_48.gif

EDIT: the reason I was finally banned? A rant about how most of the human race, especially women, are obsessed with the procreation of more human beings: "Babies! Babies! Babies! I want babies! Give me babies and help me raise them! I WANT BABIES. Overpopulation? Err... BABIES!" Sorry, but that's about the level their minds work at. Any offended women reading this? "

[yy2bggggs]

Chewbacca defense?

[Robin]

How does free will jell with retro-causality?

I would have thought that the possibility of retro-causality would make the likelihood of libertartian free will even more remote.

[PixyMisa]

The vast majority of people who believe in paranormal phenomena don't understand things like confirmation bias and generally have a poor knowledge of science in general.
So why is it that your own posts are nothing but an elaborate system of sophistry intended to defend your own confirmation bias?

[UndercoverElephant]

How does free will jell with retro-causality?


If will can influence the past, then it can influence the future. I can't see any other way we could have free will.

[UndercoverElephant]

Chewbacca defense?

No, merely a demonstration that when I said "I was once an atheistic skeptic" I really was telling the truth, not just making it up for dramatic effect. Anyone who doubts this only needs to read that thread from Dawkins' board.

[UndercoverElephant]

Watch how this works. There should be more people among the non-skeptical population who regard finding a 20 dollar bill in the street as good than there are people among the non-skeptical population who regard losing their wallet as good. I'm very likely not wrong about this, but even if I were, this alone is a perfectly testable correlation.


That's not what is meant by "good" or "bad" in terms of ethics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy


The naturalistic fallacy is often claimed to be a formal fallacy. It was described and named by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica. Moore stated that a naturalistic fallacy was committed whenever a philosopher attempts to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a definition of the term "good" in terms of one or more natural properties (such as "pleasant", "more evolved", "desired", etc.).

The naturalistic fallacy is related to, and often confused with, the is-ought problem (which comes from Hume's Treatise). As a result, the term is sometimes used loosely to describe arguments that claim to draw ethical conclusions from natural facts.

Alternatively, the phrase "naturalistic fallacy" is used to refer to the claim that what is natural is inherently good or right, and that what is unnatural is bad or wrong (see "Appeal to nature"). It is the converse of the moralistic fallacy, or that what is good or right is natural and inherent.


When I refered to "good" and "bad" in terms of karma, I was talking about ethics - what is right and wrong. Finding a ten pound note is neither good nor bad in this sense. Stealing a ten pound note is bad. Giving it to charity may or may not be good, depending on your ethical stance.


Again you're missing the point. Let me be very specific. Forget the aspect of wanting to exploit karma, and let's just cut straight to the chase. The thing we want to do is to figure out if your version of karma is real. We want to figure out if things like helping old ladies load their groceries (not specifically that, just things like that) really does lead to things like finding 20 dollars on the ground (not specifically that, just things like that).


How are you going to figure that out?


What I'm talking about is related to measurability. My entire post is about measurability.


I realise that. The problem is that some things, like artistic merit and ethical value, aren't measurable.


It's nowhere near the "big ask" you're making it out to be. To objectively measure what good is, all I have to do is simply come up with some method that's better than random. In fact, I don't even have to come up with the determinations! A double blind test using firm believers to identify what kinds of things are good is perfectly adequate.


No. Before you can come up with a method, first you have to define what you mean by "good", without committing the naturalistic fallacy.



Oh, sure. If the effects were particularly pronounced in specific situations, I can identify it. If they're not so pronounced in classes of situations, I can still identify it. You seem to be vastly misconceiving where the border lies.

The border lies here. If the effects show up, at all among the background noise, in not even remotely specific situations--but merely classes of situations which ever so slightly contain more "specific situations" than other classes of situations... then I can measure it.


Only if you know what it is you are measuring. You appear to believe you can measure what is ethically right or wrong. I don't agree.



For someone who claims they understood science for 3 decades, you sure do show tremendous underappreciation of the very basic powers of statistics and large numbers to reveal phenomenon.


No, I'm aware of that. I'm suggesting that not all phenomena can be measured in this way.


If there's too much noise to be able to see it, then how do you personally observe it?


When there's too much noise, you can't. Much of the time I simply have to say "I don't know what caused this to happen" because I don't have enough information to distinguish "it" from the noise.


If it's not theoretically invisible, it's measurable. You claimed it wasn't knowable from the POV of science--and that is what is being discussed. By "not because it is theoretically invisible", are you now trying to gracefully sweep that claim under the rug?


No. I am saying that certain things are inherently unmeasurable and I'm giving you the examples of aesthetic and ethical value. If we can't agree about the measurability of ethical and aesthetic value then we aren't going to agree about even trickier cases like synchronicity and karma.


No. What's crucial in both karma and synchronicity is that you have A's and that you have B's, and the A's and B's are correlated more than they would be randomly. Retrocausality has nothing to do with this, and has nothing to do with measurability. It does not even explain how A's and B's can be "immeasurably" correlated and still be correlated.

Let's be clear. We're talking about the ability to correlate fuzzy yet meaningful classes of A's and B's more than what can be accounted for by randomness. Not only is retrocausality not critical for this--there isn't even a theory by which retrocausality can produce said effects.

And you're clearly demonstrating that you do not, in fact, understand.

You're making claims about karma. I believe in karma--it's just that the kind of karma I believe in is quite ordinary. If I do lots of good things, lots of good things will happen to me. Why? Merely because people tend to reciprocate.

And, likewise, I believe in coincidence (and precisely that--coincidence). I can notice two somehow meaningful things happening in correlation. The only reason I don't call it synchronicity is because, well, were I to say that synchronicity were nothing more than chance, that's entirely equivalent to saying that the phenomenon doesn't exist.

You're making claims beyond mere karma and the mere "coincidental version" of synchronicity (i.e., coincidence). You're claiming that it's beyond chance--that's a correlation. And correlations are measurable, irrespective of the underlying mechanism.

OK, I'll have another go at explaining why they aren't measurable. We've already had the example of "studying pain". Science "studies pain" by asking people to report on a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain they are in. Science cannot actually verify how accurate these reports are. We can't use science to prove the person is lying when they say "8" even though they feel no pain. In this case we don't have any important philosophical or religious belief in question so we are usually happy to take the report as honest and accurate. But what if we asked them instead to rate how important in terms of their own spiritual development a particular synchronicity was, on a scale of 1 to 10? Would that be an acceptable thing to do? Or would the results be hopelessly entangled with the personal beliefs of both the subjects and the persons doing the testing?

[UndercoverElephant]

The thing we want to do is to figure out if your version of karma is real.

What I'm talking about is related to measurability. My entire post is about measurability.


Why is that the thing you (collectively) want to do? OK, so this is the JREF - and the central point of the existence of this organisation is to test the claims of certain people who say they have special powers and think they can win Randi's money. But it isn't as simple as that. There are all sorts of things that most people really wouldn't normally try to measure. You don't try to measure how brilliant a musical composition is, or how ethically justifiable it is to steal a ten pound note from a poor child in order to give it to an even poorer child. Trying to measure these things is silly.


The scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experiences in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that matters most to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, sweet and bitter, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.


I am saying that things like Karma and synchronicity lie firmly in the domain that Schroedinger is saying science can't tell us anything about. You are arguing that they must be "measurable" or else they are meaningless/non-existent. But why do you want to measure/test karma when you (probably) wouldn't try to measure art? I am guessing the answer is cultural - it is to do with the context of the western conflict between science and religion where there has been a long history of religiously-motivated people making claims which directly contradict the results of measurement-based science. It sort of assumes that any claim at all which is made by religion is either meaningless/irrelevant OR testable/measurable. But why, if a person is explicitly stating that the phenomena in question is NOT testable, not measurable and neither confirmable nor falsifiable by empirical science, should there be any need to test whether or not the claim is true? Why do you (collectively) want to scientifically test my religious claim? Why not just allow me to believe what I believe, for the subjective reasons I believe it, in the same way you would allow me to believe that Grease was the greatest ever film musical even if you happen to personally loathe that film? Ethics is a bit more complicated - you can't just allow people to believe that rape and murder are ethically justified, even if you can't use science to prove they are unethical. But we are talking about metaphysics. My metaphysical/religious beliefs aren't causing anybody any harm, are they? And if they cause no harm and are explicitly stated to be metaphysical/religious and NOT scientific, why is it so important to measure/test it? The implication is that there is something fundamentally undesirable or bad about people believing the sort of things I believe. I can understand why it is bad if a person believes it is OK to murder abortionists because the Pope says abortion is itself murder. I can understand why we can't have people taking other people's money in exchange for them contacting those people's dead relatives. I can understand why we can't have young earth theories taught in geology classes. All these things negatively effect other people in ways that make them, IMO, undesirable and/or unethical. But I do not believe that the same applies to any of the things I've said I believe in. I suspect the reason people see it as undesirable is simply that they believe that I'm wrong (they are skeptics after all) and that if I'm not challenged then I might influence other people into believing things which are wrong. If so, all I can say is that unlike in the examples I've given above, there is no way of conclusively showing that I am in fact wrong, either ethically or scientically. I believe certain things that most skeptics do not believe, but can't conclusively rule out. What is wrong with that?

[PixyMisa]

Why is that the thing you (collectively) want to do?
Because it is useful.

OK, so this is the JREF - and the central point of the existence of this organisation is to test the claims of certain people who say they have special powers and think they can win Randi's money.
Not the central point, but a central point, yes.

But it isn't as simple as that.
Oh?

There are all sorts of things that most people really wouldn't normally try to measure.
So?

You don't try to measure how brilliant a musical composition is
No, but you can.

or how ethically justifiable it is to steal a ten pound note from a poor child in order to give it to an even poorer child.
No, but you can.

Trying to measure these things is silly.
Justify this assertion, please.

I am saying that things like Karma and synchronicity lie firmly in the domain that Schroedinger is saying science can't tell us anything about.
Things that don't happen, yes.

You are arguing that they must be "measurable" or else they are meaningless/non-existent.
Yes.

But why do you want to measure/test karma when you (probably) wouldn't try to measure art?
If you were making absurd claims about art, we would measure the art.

I am guessing the answer is cultural - it is to do with the context of the western conflict between science and religion where there has been a long history of religiously-motivated people making claims which directly contradict the results of measurement-based science.
The centuries-long war between logic and unmitigated drivel. I suppose you could describe that as "cultural". Some cultures value facts and logic. Other cultures value illogic and nonsense. We call the latter type of culture "extinct".

It sort of assumes that any claim at all which is made by religion is either meaningless/irrelevant OR testable/measurable.
Precisely.

But why, if a person is explicitly stating that the phenomena in question is NOT testable, not measurable and neither confirmable nor falsifiable by empirical science, should there be any need to test whether or not the claim is true?
There isn't. In this case it is false or meaningless, depending on the exact claim in question.

Why do you (collectively) want to scientifically test my religious claim?
Why did you post it on a skeptics forum? Why would you expect anything else?

Why not just allow me to believe what I believe
That E in JREF stands for education. We are attempting to educate you.

for the subjective reasons I believe it
You refuse to even state those reasons, much less whatever it is you believe. You merely claim infallibility, which is in itself a logical fallacy.

in the same way you would allow me to believe that Grease was the greatest ever film musical even if you happen to personally loathe that film?
Self-strawmen, now?

Having noted that it's a rotten analogy, we'd argue about that too.

Ethics is a bit more complicated - you can't just allow people to believe that rape and murder are ethically justified, even if you can't use science to prove they are unethical.
We can use science to prove they are unethical - given appropriate definitions.

But we are talking about metaphysics.
Yes, and you've come to the right forum.

My metaphysical/religious beliefs aren't causing anybody any harm, are they?
Only you, for the most part.

And if they cause no harm and are explicitly stated to be metaphysical/religious and NOT scientific, why is it so important to measure/test it?
Because you are trying to have your cake and eat it.

You are claiming simultaneously that this experience of yours is purely subjective and tells us something about the world.

That's impossible.

If it tells us something about the world, it can be measured, tested.

If it doesn't, then it's not real, it's just something you made up.

The implication is that there is something fundamentally undesirable or bad about people believing the sort of things I believe.
Believing in nonsense reliably leads to harm - at least to yourself if not to others.

I can understand why it is bad if a person believes it is OK to murder abortionists because the Pope says abortion is itself murder.
Yes.

I can understand why we can't have people taking other people's money in exchange for them contacting those people's dead relatives.
Bingo.

But you've missed something here.

It's wrong for fraudulent psychics to take advantage of the deluded.

But if the deluded were not deluded in the first place, the frauds would not be able to take advantage of them.

I can understand why we can't have young earth theories taught in geology classes.
Because it's nonsense.

All these things negatively effect other people in ways that make them, IMO, undesirable and/or unethical.
All forms of nonsense are undesirable.

But I do not believe that the same applies to any of the things I've said I believe in.
They are nonsense.

Case closed.

I suspect the reason people see it as undesirable is simply that they believe that I'm wrong (they are skeptics after all) and that if I'm not challenged then I might influence other people into believing things which are wrong.
That's part of it, sure.

Also, it harms you.

Also, there's that ever-present E.

If so, all I can say is that unlike in the examples I've given above, there is no way of conclusively showing that I am in fact wrong, either ethically or scientically.
Again, you're wrong.

I believe certain things that most skeptics do not believe, but can't conclusively rule out.
Wrong.

What is wrong with that?
What is wrong is that you're wrong, and that is wrong.

[UndercoverElephant]

Also, it harms you.


Oh boy. You are a severe case, PixyMisa. You really are trying to "save" me from the evils of believing in karma.

Sorry...why/how exactly am I being harmed by this belief?

[PixyMisa]

Oh boy. You are a severe case, PixyMisa. You really are trying to "save" me from the evils of believing in karma.
Yes. Yes I am.

And trying to educate others using you as an example.

Sorry...why/how exactly am I being harmed by this belief?
A belief in karma, as with any nonsensical belief, distorts your world view. It makes you respond to things that don't happen, rather than to things that do. There is no possible way in which this is not harmful.

[Darat]

(UCE - I wasn't going to mention anything in this thread but since you have made it about yourself then I think this is entirely on-topic and relevant.)

...snip...

The "I was once like you" line is not impressive--especially given that you don't even know what I am like.

...snip...

Especially not when UCE has left out quite a bit of relevant information from his summary about where he was when he came to change his mind about how the world works:

...snip...


So there you have it - I am an example of something most skeptics here think is impossible. I'm a person with a broad and deep understanding of science, a long history of thinking like a scientific, materialistic, atheistic skeptic, an understanding of confirmation bias and the perils of believing things without scientific support, yet I also believe in various sorts of causality which, as shown by the outcome of this poll, most skeptics are almost or completely certain do not exist, and I believe it because I believe I have experienced the effects of these forms of causality directly and that I was able to identify them because my own life-path led me to a situation where those effects became very extreme indeed. They drowned out the noise.

...snip...

In your summary above you have missed out the information that you had a drug problem (non-prescription) and that you posted about how that effected you and that you also posted on this very Forum about persistent delusions that you were experiencing (indeed you use to claim that you came to believe in your form of synchronicity because of those delusions).

So your above passage should have been something more like:


...snip... I'm a person with a broad and deep understanding of science, a long history of thinking like a scientific, materialistic, atheistic skeptic, an understanding of confirmation bias and the perils of believing things without scientific support, and I am someone who has a history of drug abuse problems and have had episodes of long lasting delusions that lead to me believing in "synchronicity" which I posted about on this Forum, yet I also believe in various sorts of causality which, as shown by the outcome of this poll, most skeptics are almost or completely certain do not exist, and I believe it because I believe I have experienced the effects of these forms of causality directly and that I was able to identify them because my own life-path led me to a situation where those effects became very extreme indeed. They drowned out the noise.



You will undoubtedly (again) see my post as a personal attack however I see it as adding to the information Members can use to determine what credibility to give your personal testimony.

[UndercoverElephant]

You will undoubtedly (again) see my post as a personal attack...

Hmmm...I wonder why that is? Maybe it's because it's a character assassination?

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes. Yes I am.

And trying to educate others using you as an example.


A belief in karma, as with any nonsensical belief, distorts your world view. It makes you respond to things that don't happen, rather than to things that do. There is no possible way in which this is not harmful.

Well, that's pretty clear. The problem with it is, as I've repeatedly explained to you, you don't actually KNOW that what I believe is incorrect. You just think you do because your belief in it is so powerful and uncompromising. You show no hint of skepticism about the correctness of your own metaphysical/religious beliefs. You are only skeptical of other people's beliefs, and think your own beliefs are facts. So in effect you are exactly like a Christian who might come to a board like this to "save" you from the evils of atheism because he has got his BELIEF that the Jesus is the only way confused for a FACT. You are in no position to save or help me, because you don't actually know that I'm wrong, regardless of how sure you are.

[PixyMisa]

Well, that's pretty clear. The problem with it is, as I've repeatedly explained to you, you don't actually KNOW that what I believe is incorrect.
Yes I do.

You just think you do because your belief in it is so powerful and uncompromising.No, wrong. Not only is my belief neither powerful nor uncompromising, but it is absent entirely.

What I have is logic, and evidence. And that evidence is always subject to revision by new and better evidence.

And by logic and evidence, karma is baloney.

You show no hint of skepticism about the correctness of your own metaphysical/religious beliefs.I don't got none.

You are only skeptical of other people's beliefs, and think your own beliefs are facts.No. I am skeptical of other people's beliefs.

So in effect you are exactly like a Christian who might come to a board like this to "save" you from the evils of atheism because he has got his BELIEF that the Jesus is the only way confused for a FACT.No.

You are in no position to save or help me, because you don't actually know that I'm wrong, regardless of how sure you are.Karma does not exist. It's something you made up.

It is very very easy to show that I am wrong.

You need just two things:

An operational definition, and
Evidence.

Indeed, since you not only have neither, but claim that neither can even be provided, we need take things no further. I don't need evidence on my side. I don't need belief. Definitions and logic alone tell us you are wrong.

[PixyMisa]

Hmmm...I wonder why that is? Maybe it's because it's a character assassination?
You are claiming infallibility. Simple disagreement is character assassination.

[Darat]

Hmmm...I wonder why that is? Maybe it's because it's a character assassination?

No it is not UCE. I have not said you are a terrible person, I've not said you are dishonest etc. all I have brought to this thread is information that you posted. It was you that brought your personal testimony to this thread and then used that in your arguments. If you hadn't done that I wouldn't have added the information that you did not include in your testimony.

To try and illustrate this: consider if someone was trying to convince you that they were an honest person, they could tell you all the honest things they have done and you may be willing to trust what they say based on that. However wouldn't you think it was wrong of that person to not mention significant dishonest acts that they have also done?

If you want your personal testimony to mean something it needs to be "warts and all", not "pick 'n' mix".

[yy2bggggs]

UndercoverElephant:

You're full of non-sequiturs. Focus.

We are disagreeing about something. That thing we disagree about is the subject at hand. That thing we disagree about is what you're claiming HVT's allow. That thing we disagree about is what you're claiming is beyond the POV of science. That thing we're disagreeing about is whether or not these phenomena are measurable.

It appears I was, in fact, correct. You are using the Chewbacca defense.

Why is that the thing you (collectively) want to do?
Because we (you and I) are talking about that thing. Or at least we (you and I) were talking about it. It now appears that you (excluding me) want to talk about other things.
I am saying that things like Karma and synchronicity lie firmly in the domain that Schroedinger is saying science can't tell us anything about.
And I'm saying that this domain is something that you can't talk about. But you are talking about something, right? Is there a difference between karma and chance? Because if there isn't, we can stop right now.

In QM terms, a photomultiplier is a detector. In QM terms, you are a detector too. Usually people mix this up in the entirely opposite way due to confusion over the technical use of the term "observer"--it's interesting that you mix it up this way.
But why do you want to measure/test karma when you (probably) wouldn't try to measure art?
Again, first off, because that is what you are talking about. You brought up the subject of measurability. Second, why would you not want to measure art? Wal-Mart is definitely interested in the problem. They would love to be able to stock up properly on fast selling artwork.

Third, you're confusing two distinct concepts of measurable. What's needed to scientifically address that a phenomenon is real is simply probabilistic shifts--refer to my earlier post that presumably you agreed with (although you got hung up on the fact that I used a plural first person pronoun). The ability of things to fall into crisp, totally ordered sets that can be mapped onto real numbers is far beyond what is necessary.

So:
That's not what is meant by "good" or "bad" in terms of ethics.
Irrelevant. Aside from the fact that I'm talking about E's and you are talking about C's, what I'm talking about is merely illustrative. Your accusations of the naturalistic fallacy have nothing to do with what's intended here.

For example, you are stating that, before I can measure things, I must define "good" in terms that are not naturalistic. And yet, presumably, you agreed with my assessment earlier about what is necessary to show a relation. These are conflicting criteria. Here's why. What I stated earlier was merely that you had to be able to identify C's, meaningfully yet with error, and E's, meaningfully yet with error. This criteria is the fuzziest possible notion of categorization that it is possible to measure.

But what you are demanding I be able to do goes to the opposite direction to the extreme--you're saying that I need to define exactly what I mean by good, without using the naturalistic fallacy. In other words, you're now, although you actually conceded this point earlier (and are thus being inconsistent), calling forth a criteria where we can crisply identify both C's and E's, with little or no error.

If we can do the latter, we can measure it, sure. But we can also measure it if we can do the former.

We do not need the criteria of a good definition of good. We simply need a demonstration that there's something about the phenomenon that is real. We simply need some foggy notion of good that is not entirely made up. And I believe we have that.

But even if I'm wrong, that works against you.

ETA: Sorry, I missed one more relevant point to address:
How are you going to figure that out?
The goal is to show that C affects E. If it does, C is correlated to E more than random (a necessary condition for C to affect E; whether or not you believe it sufficient is irrelevant--what makes is measurable only requires that the correlation is established). This means that P(E|C)>P(E|~C).

You're citing problems identifying E's and C's. But that's not what I'm requiring. I can have problems identifying E's and C's. I can have lots of problems doing the same. I merely need, however, to be able to establish A's and B's that otherwise shouldn't be related, such that P(C|A)>P(C|~A) and P(E|B)>P(E|~B) (that is, the probability that I can identify a relevant cause is greater than chance, and the probability that I can identify a relevant effect is greater than chance). Given these conditions, if P(E|C)>P(E|~C), then P(B|A)>P(B|~A), and if that's true, I need only measure this. I do this empirically.

[plumjam]

(UCE - I wasn't going to mention anything in this thread but since you have made it about yourself then I think this is entirely on-topic and relevant.)



Especially not when UCE has left out quite a bit of relevant information from his summary about where he was when he came to change his mind about how the world works:



In your summary above you have missed out the information that you had a drug problem (non-prescription) and that you posted about how that effected you and that you also posted on this very Forum about persistent delusions that you were experiencing (indeed you use to claim that you came to believe in your form of synchronicity because of those delusions).

So your above passage should have been something more like:


...snip... I'm a person with a broad and deep understanding of science, a long history of thinking like a scientific, materialistic, atheistic skeptic, an understanding of confirmation bias and the perils of believing things without scientific support, and I am someone who has a history of drug abuse problems and have had episodes of long lasting delusions that lead to me believing in "synchronicity" which I posted about on this Forum, yet I also believe in various sorts of causality which, as shown by the outcome of this poll, most skeptics are almost or completely certain do not exist, and I believe it because I believe I have experienced the effects of these forms of causality directly and that I was able to identify them because my own life-path led me to a situation where those effects became very extreme indeed. They drowned out the noise.



You will undoubtedly (again) see my post as a personal attack however I see it as adding to the information Members can use to determine what credibility to give your personal testimony.

Pretty disgusting of you, Darat.

[UndercoverElephant]

Pretty disgusting of you, Darat.

He has a long history of doing exactly this, and being told exactly what you just told him. He doesn't address my arguments or make any attempt to understand my position, he just trawls the archives for quotes he can use as part of a character assassination attempt.

[plumjam]

He has a long history of doing exactly this, and being told exactly what you just told him. He doesn't address my arguments or make any attempt to understand my position, he just trawls the archives for quotes he can use as part of a character assassination attempt.

I suspect he knows that if he took you on in a proper discussion, involving reasoning, construction of arguments, and other critical thinking skills, that he'd be destroyed.
So all that's left is to scrape the very bottom of the ad hom barrel.

That he would enter a discussion, in which he had hitherto taken no part, in order to pull that kind of tactic, says a lot more about himself than any of the stuff he alluded to in your past might say about yourself, UE.

[yy2bggggs]

He doesn't address my arguments or make any attempt to understand my position,
Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.

I don't care whether Chewbacca is from Kashyyyk or Endor. Darat's clarification of Chewbacca's origins has just as little to do with the case as your presentation of the issue.

That it does not make sense does not mean I have to acquit.

[UndercoverElephant]

And I'm saying that this domain is something that you can't talk about.



Me personally, or anybody?


But you are talking about something, right? Is there a difference between karma and chance? Because if there isn't, we can stop right now.


Yes, there's a difference. Pure chance is something which has no cause. Karma is something which may look like it has no cause, but actually does have some sort of cause.


In QM terms, a photomultiplier is a detector. In QM terms, you are a detector too. Usually people mix this up in the entirely opposite way due to confusion over the technical use of the term "observer"--it's interesting that you mix it up this way.


Actually, all I said was that there are numerous different accounts of QM and the precise meaning of the term "observer" is not consistent across them.


Again, first off, because that is what you are talking about. You brought up the subject of measurability. Second, why would you not want to measure art? Wal-Mart is definitely interested in the problem. They would love to be able to stock up properly on fast selling artwork.


Fast-selling does not equate to aesthetic value, as demonstrated by the pop charts.

Why would I want to measure art? I wouldn't, but at least one person has already responded to my post by saying that he could see a situation where he wanted to do so.

Why would you want to measure karma? Yes, we were talking about it, but that was only because you (or somebody else) originally claimed that anything which has any noticeable effect on anything else can be measured. Aesthetic value has a noticeable effect, but that doesn't mean you can measure it.



Third, you're confusing two distinct concepts of measurable. What's needed to scientifically address that a phenomenon is real is simply probabilistic shifts...


I understand that. The problem is that in this case there is no reliable way to determine the probabilities. The process is like evaluating a work of art rather than evaluating the results of a scientific experiment.


For example, you are stating that, before I can measure things, I must define "good" in terms that are not naturalistic. And yet, presumably, you agreed with my assessment earlier about what is necessary to show a relation. These are conflicting criteria. Here's why. What I stated earlier was merely that you had to be able to identify C's, meaningfully yet with error, and E's, meaningfully yet with error. This criteria is the fuzziest possible notion of categorization that it is possible to measure.

But what you are demanding I be able to do goes to the opposite direction to the extreme--you're saying that I need to define exactly what I mean by good, without using the naturalistic fallacy. In other words, you're now, although you actually conceded this point earlier (and are thus being inconsistent), calling forth a criteria where we can crisply identify both C's and E's, with little or no error.


I've now re-read this three times and I still don't understand what the problem is. If you're going to be able to measure "goodness" then you have to have some sort of objective definition of "good". Otherwise you don't know what you are measuring. Yes, you also have to be able to identify causes and effects, even if the process is subjective and prone to error. What I don't understand is why this involves a contradiction. What exactly is the contradiction???


We do not need the criteria of a good definition of good. We simply need a demonstration that there's something about the phenomenon that is real. We simply need some foggy notion of good that is not entirely made up. And I believe we have that.


What if my foggy notion of goodness doesn't agree with your foggy notion? Sorry...I'm really trying to understand what you are saying, but I think I'm missing something important.


The goal is to show that C affects E. If it does, C is correlated to E more than random (a necessary condition for C to affect E; whether or not you believe it sufficient is irrelevant--what makes is measurable only requires that the correlation is established). This means that P(E|C)>P(E|~C).


What it E occurs prior to C in time? What if there is no way of showing that C is related to E which would satisfy a skeptic? What if there is no way of calculating the probabilities for the same reason as you can't perform calculations on art?


You're citing problems identifying E's and C's. But that's not what I'm requiring. I can have problems identifying E's and C's. I can have lots of problems doing the same. I merely need, however, to be able to establish A's and B's that otherwise shouldn't be related, such that P(C|A)>P(C|~A) and P(E|B)>P(E|~B) (that is, the probability that I can identify a relevant cause is greater than chance, and the probability that I can identify a relevant effect is greater than chance). Given these conditions, if P(E|C)>P(E|~C), then P(B|A)>P(B|~A), and if that's true, I need only measure this. I do this empirically.

OK, I think I'm closer to understanding you. The problem is not so much that we have no chance at all of identifying causes and effects. The problem is in the way we arrive at the probabilities we are expecting. The whole thing is tied up with a persons own belief system. In other words, for a skeptic to be able to understand why I am assigning a particular relevance or probability to a certain event or concept, they would actually have to understand my belief system - intimately and perfectly - and they have to understand all sorts of things about my own personal history - also intimately and perfectly. If they don't understand these things then they will almost certainly disagree with me about the probabilities. And the plain fact of the matter is that most of the skeptics, especially people like PixyMisa, who would be the harshest critics and the hardest to convince, do not understand my belief system - not even remotely. Instead, they have an interpretation of what I believe and why I believe it which is heavily influenced by their own beliefs and their own way of interpreting reality and humanity. They would calculate probabilites according to their version of what I believe and why, not mine.

[UndercoverElephant]

Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.


Well it isn't. The situation is not balanced. I understand his belief system very well. I know exactly what he thinks and why he thinks it. There's nothing I can learn from him about how to think like a skeptical, materialistic, scientistic atheist because I already know how to do that. He, on the other hand, really doesn't understand very much at all about what I actually believe, or why I believe it.

[zaphod2016]

I voted "I really don't know" because I find it impossible to use a percentage to express any particular degree of belief.

Some days, when everything goes my way, I wonder if, maybe, just maybe, there really is a God.

Other days, when everything goes against me, I know for sure there is a God- an angry, vengeful God, who has it out for me.

Joking aside, I have yet to see any evidence of God that is in any way convincing or replicable, however, it is impossible to prove a negative. My belief in God is equivalent to my belief in UFOs. Actually, I take that back- I've seen videos of UFOs.

[PixyMisa]

Fast-selling does not equate to aesthetic value, as demonstrated by the pop charts.
That doesn't address the point. Sales figures are a measure of art. Not the only one, arguably not a good one, but nonetheless a measuure.

Why would you want to measure karma? Yes, we were talking about it, but that was only because you (or somebody else) originally claimed that anything which has any noticeable effect on anything else can be measured.
I think several people have pointed that out to you, and it remains true.

Aesthetic value has a noticeable effect, but that doesn't mean you can measure it.
Yes, that's precisely what it means.

OK, I think I'm closer to understanding you. The problem is not so much that we have no chance at all of identifying causes and effects. The problem is in the way we arrive at the probabilities we are expecting. The whole thing is tied up with a persons own belief system. In other words, for a skeptic to be able to understand why I am assigning a particular relevance or probability to a certain event or concept, they would actually have to understand my belief system - intimately and perfectly - and they have to understand all sorts of things about my own personal history - also intimately and perfectly. If they don't understand these things then they will almost certainly disagree with me about the probabilities. And the plain fact of the matter is that most of the skeptics, especially people like PixyMisa, who would be the harshest critics and the hardest to convince, do not understand my belief system - not even remotely. Instead, they have an interpretation of what I believe and why I believe it which is heavily influenced by their own beliefs and their own way of interpreting reality and humanity. They would calculate probabilites according to their version of what I believe and why, not mine.
Every part of this is wrong in every possible way.

Your beliefs don't matter. They're simply irrelevant. It's mathematics.

[UndercoverElephant]

Your beliefs don't matter. They're simply irrelevant.

Thankyou for demonstrating the problem so clearly.

yy2bggggs,

In order to be able to agree on a measurent, we have to calculate the probability. My means of calculating the probability is dependent on my own belief system. I think that there are two constraints on how reality behaves: one is the laws of physics and the other is the belief system of the person in question. In other words, what I believe affects the way reality behaves for me, but not to the extent that if I can believe I can fly then I can actually fly. PixyMisa is quite certain that my beliefs don't matter - at all. Therefore it will be theoretically impossible to come to agreement on things like what matters and how much they matter, making it impossible to make any objective measurements of synchronicity or karma, even if they are real.

Geoff

[fuelair]

Of course, if real evidence is presented I would change - but I am 62 and no one has shown me any yet.

[PixyMisa]

Thankyou for demonstrating the problem so clearly.
So your beliefs now change the rules of mathematics?

Does this work only for you, or can anyone do this? 'Cause it could have come in handy during my multivariable calculus exam...

In order to be able to agree on a measurent, we have to calculate the probability.Wrong.

My means of calculating the probability is dependent on my own belief system.Then you're doing it wrong.

I think that there are two constraints on how reality behaves: one is the laws of physics and the other is the belief system of the person in question.To put it more succinctly: You think there are two constraints on reality: Reality itself and stuff you just made up.

In other words, what I believe affects the way reality behaves for me, but not to the extent that if I can believe I can fly then I can actually fly.Not to any extent. If you think otherwise, then show us. If you can't show us, it doesn't exist.

PixyMisa is quite certain that my beliefs don't matter - at all.Wrong. I am certain that your beliefs do not change the laws of logic or mathematics.

Therefore it will be theoretically impossible to come to agreement on things like what matters and how much they matter, making it impossible to make any objective measurements of synchronicity or karma, even if they are real.Completely wrong in every respect.

If karma is real, it can be measured. Your belief is irrelevant. Anything real can be measured.

[tsig]

I'm off to the pub and will answer the whole post later. But I wanted to comment on this.

I doubt anything I say is going to "impress" most of the skeptics around here, but let me assure you that whether or not you find it impressive, what I told you is true. The vast majority of people who believe in paranormal phenomena don't understand things like confirmation bias and generally have a poor knowledge of science in general. Whether you believe it or not, I really was a hardcore atheistic, skeptical activist for many years. I was also Richard Dawkins forum admin for 18 months after my "conversion." In other words even though I'm critical of Dawkins, I still managed to convince the person who set that board up that I was the most sensible choice of any of the people who turned up in the first month to be the one who was left in charge of it. Part of the reason was that although I was saying controversial things, every person who tried to lay into me like I was a fool, or claim I didn't understand Dawkins' position, ended up finding out quite rapidly that they were mistaken.

See you later.

You have put words on the screen so have I. Why should I give your words more truth than mine.

[tsig]

Let me give you the rest of the story. After 18 months in charge of Dawkins' board, I decided it was time to resign as forum admin so I could concentrate on attacking Dawkins' position without having to keep the gloves on because I was in charge of the board. The next 18 months saw a power struggle within the group left running the board between those who wanted to protect me and those who wanted me removed at any cost. After cranking up three times as many warnings as the rules I myself helped to draft allowed, the "get him out of here" crowd gained the ascendancy:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=63827



http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e280/niallosullivan/2554_48.gif

EDIT: the reason I was finally banned? A rant about how most of the human race, especially women, are obsessed with the procreation of more human beings: "Babies! Babies! Babies! I want babies! Give me babies and help me raise them! I WANT BABIES. Overpopulation? Err... BABIES!" Sorry, but that's about the level their minds work at. Any offended women reading this? "

Bragging about being banned on another forum doesn't give much cred.

[tsig]

Pretty disgusting of you, Darat.

Remarkable stupid of you PJ.

[UndercoverElephant]

You have put words on the screen so have I. Why should I give your words more truth than mine.

Do you mean "why should I trust you to tell the truth as you believe it?"?

If so, that is very much a personal judgement. I don't trust many people, personally.

[tsig]

He has a long history of doing exactly this, and being told exactly what you just told him. He doesn't address my arguments or make any attempt to understand my position, he just trawls the archives for quotes he can use as part of a character assassination attempt.

Martyr much??

[UndercoverElephant]

Remarkable stupid of you PJ.

Rather a good example of why I ended up getting banned from Dawkins board, but only after cranking up three times as many warning as any other banned person. I was regularly personally assaulted, just as I have been in this thread by Darat, an administrator of this board. As soon as I voluntarily resigned my post as forum admin, there was a power struggle between people who saw a Darat-like attack as unacceptable and those who were sufficiently annoyed/threatened by my posts to support them.

[tsig]

I suspect he knows that if he took you on in a proper discussion, involving reasoning, construction of arguments, and other critical thinking skills, that he'd be destroyed.
So all that's left is to scrape the very bottom of the ad hom barrel.

That he would enter a discussion, in which he had hitherto taken no part, in order to pull that kind of tactic, says a lot more about himself than any of the stuff he alluded to in your past might say about yourself, UE.

Just as your tactics tell us about you.

[plumjam]

You have put words on the screen so have I. Why should I give your words more truth than mine.

Bragging about being banned on another forum doesn't give much cred.

Remarkable stupid of you PJ.

Martyr much??

Just as your tactics tell us about you.

Tsig, if you're really interested in discussing things in any depth you'll need to break out of your never-more-than-one-line-per-post rule.
It means you're limited to somewhat accusatory statements, which are sometimes unclear; and you do not explain or attempt to justify what you're on about. Who knows, maybe that's your intent: to sling mud from the side while keeping well away from any actual discussion.
From your grammatical errors it looks like English is not your first language, so if you decide to actually take part we'll give you something of a break in that respect.

[YeahDude]

Not sure I like this poll. I 100% do not BELIEVE in a 'god' or afterlife, but also can't say that I KNOW there isn't a 'god'.

Editted to add:
I chose 100%, most honest answer I can give with the options.

[yy2bggggs]

Hmmm.... best to work through this backwards.
OK, I think I'm closer to understanding you. The problem is not so much that we have no chance at all of identifying causes and effects. The problem is in the way we arrive at the probabilities we are expecting.
Nope. We don't have to expect particular probabilities. The main problem is detecting whether a phenomenon is real in the first place. That's what we do first. And to do that, we measure it. And if the phenomenon is real, and we can notice it at all--we can measure it. Now, the phenomenon can be real, and can be something we can't measure--but then it would be the sort of thing we can't notice as well. But you're claiming to be able to notice it. In fact, you're claiming to have noticed it.
The whole thing is tied up with a persons own belief system.
Again, doesn't matter. Keep the above criteria in mind. If you're the only possible detector of a phenomenon, we can measure it. We use you as the instrument. We use double blind testing to make sure you don't slant according to confirmation bias. It can be set up--it can be done.

But again, you're not even talking about this. You're talking about something that happens to a lot of people--an entire group of believers. That's even better--it's easier to measure.
In other words, for a skeptic to be able to understand why I am assigning a particular relevance or probability to a certain event or concept, they would actually have to understand my belief system - intimately and perfectly - and they have to understand all sorts of things about my own personal history - also intimately and perfectly.
Nope. Probability can be measured empirically. You're calling for an a priori analysis. There's no need for such four letter words! Just measure the thing. Just stick a thermometer in it and see if the red thing go up. We don't need to figure out how high it's supposed to go up beforehand--that's what the thermometer is there for. We just stick the thermometer in and take a look.

Figuring out what the theory behind it is comes much, much later. We just want to measure it at all. We want the red stuff in the thermometer to move--we want to see it go down when we pull it out, and go up when we put it in.

If we can do that, it's not beyond the POV of science, which was what you originally claimed it had to be, even by definition, which I'm blatantly disagreeing with (come on... there's nothing in the definition of karma that states that it must be beyond the realm of science).
I've now re-read this three times and I still don't understand what the problem is. If you're going to be able to measure "goodness" then you have to have some sort of objective definition of "good".
If we want to figure out if "goodness" causes "good things" to tend to happen to you, we do not need a crisp measure for goodness. We simply need a meaningful concept of it. On the other hand, we need to be a bit cautious about meaning, due to our ability to mislead ourselves--an ability we all have and should be dealing with. A good criteria--an objective test, you can say--for something to be meaningful, is for it to stand out of the noise. That's all it has to do--stand out from noise. It can be a foggy vague notion--but if we can reliably and consistently do better at random at identifying something as foo, then we have a foo that's meaningful (and there are various tests to see if we can identify foo's at all).

That's a long way off from having an objective definition. But that's all we need to make the thermometer level go up--a foggy notion of something that is meaningful. That's it. If we have an objective definition, great! If we have a foggy notion, not so great--it's likely we could simply be fooling ourselves. But we have a foggy notion, and can identify entities better than random... good enough! Proceed to the next stage.

My illustration of finding 20 dollars versus losing your wallet was meant to convey this--I have, I believe, a better-than-average way to identify something that you would consider good. The particular thing you may not actually consider good, but I'd feel quite safe guessing that most people who believe in karma would consider this good (a good effect, mind you--a good thing to happen), and would not consider losing the wallet good. See the criteria above--this is a "B"--it is something where P(E|B)>P(E|~B). It's just an illustration, but I think you'd be hard pressed to disagree with the notion.
Otherwise you don't know what you are measuring.
Sure I do, with error. It would certainly be nice to objectively define these things first, but that's not required. I don't need to know when I have a C, or when I have an E. I just need an indicator--I need A's and B's. If it's simply ever so slightly more probable, but enough to notice, that C's are there when I have A's, and ever so slightly more probable, but enough to notice, that E's will make B's, and I can identify A's and B's, I can see the effects of C's causing E's. And if I can do that, and take a large number of samples, which I should be able to do if this thing is a general guiding principle happening to a lot of people, then I have my thermometer.
Yes, you also have to be able to identify causes and effects, even if the process is subjective and prone to error. What I don't understand is why this involves a contradiction. What exactly is the contradiction???
Because the statement you agreed to essentially stated that all you need is indicators, but you're now claiming I need something much more--a firm definition. Either indicators are sufficient, or they aren't. Are they sufficient or not? I claim they are.
Fast-selling does not equate to aesthetic value,
Doesn't matter. It correlates.

There's a general theme that seems to be emerging here--and that is, that I can measure, derive meaning from, find use for, and live with a great deal more uncertainty than you think I should be able to measure, derive meaning from, find use for, or live with. If your idea of a skeptic is someone who needs precise, crisp, definitions, or they cannot even begin to talk about a subject, much less measure something, then I'm not your skeptic. Which is fine, because even though I personally consider myself as counting as a skeptic, that's not quite my religion--my religion, rather, is critical thinking.

(From earlier):
I am saying that things like Karma and synchronicity lie firmly in the domain that Schroedinger is saying science can't tell us anything about.And I am saying that this domain is something you can't talk about.Me personally, or anybody?
You, personally. And anybody.

Allow me to reconnect this entire train of thought, because you're missing it. The particulars of the thing you're talking about--the specific sorts of things that cannot be described according to the laws of quantum mechanics--are the fundamental states that a system is in, before it resolves itself into a state. That is because, according to QM, the system does not even have such a state. If you claim that it does--if you had a HVT--more specifically, if your HVT were, say, karma--then it could be proven wrong. Either that, or QM is wrong.

Now there can actually be HVT's to QM. But they don't get you from the point A to the point B. They don't give you allowance for karma. They don't provide "hidden causalities" that "science cannot address" that are even remotely the sort of "hidden causalities" that karma is supposed to be. Even worse, HVT's of QM (which must be nonlocal) don't provide "hidden causalities beyond the POV of science"--there's nothing that says that we can't develop a more complete scientific theory than QM--in particular, nothing that forbids a legitimate HVT to actually be demonstrated somehow.

When you helped the lady load her groceries, a lot of "bleeding edge" gravity was at play (still looking forward to Higgs boson from Fermilab, or LHC), but for the most part, there were a lot of exchanges of photons--Quantum Electrodynamics was at work. Waveforms were collapsing all over the place, and statistically, they were averaging out to ordinary physics, which you even abbreviated yourself into a pragmatic qualitative physics that we tend to work with every day. There was no HVT necessary--you loaded her groceries.

When you found 20 bucks on the ground, nothing about Bohm's interpretation of QM had to come into play. Ordinary Copenhagen styled waveform collapse was perfectly sufficient--again, mostly QED is at work not only in your noticing that 20 laying there, but the poor sap who dropped the 20 there and walked away. Everything's already collapsed. The observable states are sitting there on the ground. It's resolved. And karma, presumably, has connected two dots together. By the time you see the 20 as a result of your helping the old lady--by the time you realized that karma was at work... the waveforms have already collapsed in that fashion. Any old scientist in a parking lot with a video camera could have seen you help the old lady. The same scientist, skeptic as he may be, could have seen you pick up the 20. Nothing here requires retrocausality, or requires immeasurability.

In noticing karma, you have measured karma, in a collapsed waveform state.

Now, either that had to have been a random result with a probability equal to the complex number corresponding to your fining the 20 multiplied by its complex conjugate (and thus, that probability had to be high, and thus, it's a result of ordinary QM--the same exact math that the Copenhagen interpretation uses)--or QM is simply wrong (because that's what QM demands). But even this is a mere detail. The important point here is that you are, in QM terms, an observer, just like a photomultiplier. If you can notice it, so can a scientist filming you.

ETA:

My official response to the forum politics aspect:
"Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense)

[Malerin]

Doesn't matter. It correlates.

There's a general theme that seems to be emerging here--and that is, that I can measure, derive meaning from, find use for, and live with a great deal more uncertainty than you think I should be able to measure, derive meaning from, find use for, or live with. If your idea of a skeptic is someone who needs precise, crisp, definitions, or they cannot even begin to talk about a subject, much less measure something, then I'm not your skeptic. Which is fine, because even though I personally consider myself as counting as a skeptic, that's not quite my religion--my religion, rather, is critical thinking.



If the price of a painting(s) correlates with how beatutiful or aestheitcally pleasing it is, then the price of a Bible should correlate with how "spiritual" or religiously comforting it is. For example, a Gutenberg Bible, which sells for millions, is obviously much more spiritual than any of the Bibles you can find here: http://www.christianbook.com/ , which go for about $20-30.

Oh, and we should all find this extremely beautiful and aesthetically pleasing: http://brian.heroesandvillains.ca/pollock2_r.jpg

It sold for about five million at an auction.

Next up for sale: The "goodness" of returning a lost wallet! :)

[UndercoverElephant]

Hmmm.... best to work through this backwards.


yy2bggggs,

First I'd like to say that I appreciate the effort you are putting into trying to understand what I'm saying. I wish more people were willing to do so. I think that part of the problem here is that I have been reluctant to go into too many specifics about exactly what I experienced. There are good reasons for this - when I've tried explaining it on this board in the past, it has tended to not lead to productive discussion and ends up derailing the thread instead. Also, much of it is very personal to me, as might be expected considering what we are talking about. But without these sorts of details I don't think we can progress in the discussion because you are, quite reasonably, thinking in terms of what "karma" would normally be defined as in a dictionary. What I am talking about closely-enough related to that normal definition to justify me using that word in normal circumstances, but my precise beliefs were formed primarily as a result of my own experiences, not third-party accounts of karma or any deep scientific understanding of the details of quantum mechanics. I know what happened to me. That is why I believe it happens, not because I started with quantum mechanics or religious scripture and tried to construct a system based on that.

I think this comment is important:


Allow me to reconnect this entire train of thought, because you're missing it. The particulars of the thing you're talking about--the specific sorts of things that cannot be described according to the laws of quantum mechanics--are the fundamental states that a system is in, before it resolves itself into a state. That is because, according to QM, the system does not even have such a state. If you claim that it does--if you had a HVT--more specifically, if your HVT were, say, karma--then it could be proven wrong. Either that, or QM is wrong.


All of what I've been talking about - karma, syncronicity, free will - are, I now believe, manifestations of a more fundamental underlying process. This process is retrocausality, and it is directly linked to what you are saying in the paragraph above. When this stuff started happening to me I was a skeptic. Or at least I had been a skeptic for a very long time and I was at that point more of a nihilist/agnostic - I still didn't believe in things like synchronicity. I got increasingly interested in various topics regarding philosophy, mysticism and the history of religion and the meaning of religious mythology. That's when I started noticing the strange co-incidences. However, at first I was in denial about them. I did not want to believe it was happening, partly because of my long years as a skeptic and partly because the percieved "meaning" of the co-incidences was not entirely to my liking - they were leading me towards beliefs I did not want to be led towards. So I tried to ignore it and told myself there was nothing actually going on except normal causality. However, the more I ignored it, the more potent and more frequent it became. Then one day something happened which was an order of magnitude more extreme than anything that had happened before and it was at that moment that it dawned on me what was going on: this phenomena involved co-ordinated macroscopic retrocausality. In effect, the present was affecting the past. The synchronicities were being set up retrocausally. Now, I'm no expert on quantum mechanics, but I know enough about it to realise there is likely to be a connection between what I experienced and what you've just said about QM. Unlike normal physics, QM seems to suggest that the system can be in an unresolved state. If that is so, then cannot it not also be true that in some sense the unobserved past is itself not in a resolved state?

I'd really like you to help me understand more accurately how the phenomena I know I have experienced is connected to QM. I am not open to negotiation on the question of whether or not it actually happened. I know damned well that it happened, regardless of the fact that I can prove it to nobody. But I am very much open to any information people can provide that will help me to understand what, if anything, my experiences of what appeared to be macroscopic retrocausality have to do with the retrocausality which turns up in quantum theory.


Nope. We don't have to expect particular probabilities. The main problem is detecting whether a phenomenon is real in the first place. That's what we do first. And to do that, we measure it. And if the phenomenon is real, and we can notice it at all--we can measure it. Now, the phenomenon can be real, and can be something we can't measure--but then it would be the sort of thing we can't notice as well. But you're claiming to be able to notice it. In fact, you're claiming to have noticed it.


I have noticed it in the past, yes. But as explained above, nearly all of the time it is very hard to distinguish it from random co-incidences. Even after the extreme event I described, I was not normally in a position where I could reliably tell one from the other. It was only because of the extreme cases that I am certain it happens at all. So we have a major problem "detecting" this phenomena. I am not in control of it, mostly it happens in a way that is hidden, including hidden from me, and I have no way of deliberately recreating the peak event and no wish to do so either. Once was more than enough for one lifetime, thankyou very much. Also, it cannot be used in any way. Any attempt to use it as a means to a practical rather than a religious end will either end in no result at all or a counterproductive result. This is the "dark path" taken by Aliester Crowley. The phenomena are directly connected with an individual person's own spiritual path. They cannot be "used" for anything else. They cannot be harnessed. And if the reason you are trying to make them occur is part of a test designed to satisfy skeptics, then they won't even happen. In other words, the very fact that you are trying to apply science to them ensures that the conditions are not correct for them to occur. Science is for practical application to the physical world, not for application to one's personal spiritual life. There can be no "science of mysticism". "Mysticology" is an oxymoron.


Again, doesn't matter. Keep the above criteria in mind. If you're the only possible detector of a phenomenon, we can measure it. We use you as the instrument. We use double blind testing to make sure you don't slant according to confirmation bias. It can be set up--it can be done.


You can't use me as an instrument. I'm a human being.


But again, you're not even talking about this. You're talking about something that happens to a lot of people--an entire group of believers. That's even better--it's easier to measure.


Well, now I hope you can see that why this isn't possible.

I think I'll let you respond to all that before trying to answer any more of your post.

[Limbo]

"Wilmer (1987, p. 171) gives an example of synchronicity as related by Arthur Koestler of the London Times in 1974: After landing the leading role in the movie The Girl from Petrovka, English actor Anthony Hopkins tried without success to find a copy of the book in London. Then one day as he was passing through Leicester Square he noticed a book lying discarded on a bench. It was The Girl from Petrovka. During the movie's filming Hopkins met the book's author, George Feifer, who mentioned in passing that he no longer had a copy of his own novel. Feifer said he had loaned his last copy to a friend who had lost it in London. Hopkins showed Feifer the book he had found. Feifer looked inside and discovered notes in his own handwriting. It was the same book.

Wilmer (1987, p. 169) also relates an example of coincidence as told by Jung:

A wife gives a man a new pipe for his birthday. He takes a walk and sits under a tree in a park. Sitting next to him is a man smoking the same kind of pipe. He tells the man his wife gave him his pipe for his birthday. The man says, "Mine did too." It turns out that they both have the same birthday. They introduce themselves. They have identical Christian names. This is not a synchronistic event because there is no simultaneous, inner-meaningful, subjective event."

Synchronicity, Causality, And Acausality (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_3_63/ai_60054223/)

[plumjam]

... Unlike normal physics, QM seems to suggest that the system can be in an unresolved state. If that is so, then cannot it not also be true that in some sense the unobserved past is itself not in a resolved state?

I think that's an absolutely fascinating point. Very thought-provoking. Thanks.

[PixyMisa]

All of what I've been talking about - karma, syncronicity, free will - are, I now believe, manifestations of a more fundamental underlying process.
First you have to show that they happen. Then you can discuss causes.

This process is retrocausality
Doesn't happen.

and it is directly linked to what you are saying in the paragraph above.
No it isn't. It's not linked to what yy2bggggs wrote at all.

When this stuff started happening to me I was a skeptic.
I doubt that.

Or at least I had been a skeptic for a very long time and I was at that point more of a nihilist/agnostic
Not a skeptic, then.

I still didn't believe in things like synchronicity.
Okay.

I got increasingly interested in various topics regarding philosophy, mysticism and the history of religion and the meaning of religious mythology. That's when I started noticing the strange co-incidences.
You could have saved yourself a lot of bother if you'd skipped philosophy, mysticism and religion and studied statistics and psychology instead. Particularly the Principle of Equivalent Oddmatches.

However, at first I was in denial about them. I did not want to believe it was happening, partly because of my long years as a skeptic and partly because the percieved "meaning" of the co-incidences was not entirely to my liking - they were leading me towards beliefs I did not want to be led towards.
You were assigning this meaning yourself.

So I tried to ignore it and told myself there was nothing actually going on except normal causality. However, the more I ignored it, the more potent and more frequent it became.
Raw statistical data and analysis methods used, please.

Then one day something happened which was an order of magnitude more extreme than anything that had happened before and it was at that moment that it dawned on me what was going on: this phenomena involved co-ordinated macroscopic retrocausality.
I see.

Something happened that you couldn't immediately explain, and you threw out everything the human race has ever learned.

Past history suggests that this is rarely fruitful.

In effect, the present was affecting the past.
No. You were making associations. Invalid ones.

The synchronicities were being set up retrocausally.
The associations were being assigned retrospectively.

Now, I'm no expert on quantum mechanics, but I know enough about it to realise there is likely to be a connection between what I experienced and what you've just said about QM.
No. No there isn't. There is no connection whatsoever.

Unlike normal physics, QM seems to suggest that the system can be in an unresolved state. If that is so, then cannot it not also be true that in some sense the unobserved past is itself not in a resolved state?
Well sure. Take a look at John Cramer's Transactional Interpretation. That's sort of how it works. If you're a photon.

But you're not a photon, so no. This is impossible for macro-scale events under any interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

I'd really like you to help me understand more accurately how the phenomena I know I have experienced is connected to QM.
Not at all.

That's the answer. Not at all.

I am not open to negotiation on the question of whether or not it actually happened.
Something happened.

The associations you have assigned to that something, however, are entirely spurious.

I know damned well that it happened, regardless of the fact that I can prove it to nobody. But I am very much open to any information people can provide that will help me to understand what, if anything, my experiences of what appeared to be macroscopic retrocausality have to do with the retrocausality which turns up in quantum theory.
None whatsoever.

The appearance of retrocausality is something you assigned to urelated events.

I have noticed it in the past, yes. But as explained above, nearly all of the time it is very hard to distinguish it from random co-incidences.
And for very good reason.

Even after the extreme event I described, I was not normally in a position where I could reliably tell one from the other.
Because...

It was only because of the extreme cases that I am certain it happens at all.
As I said, you need to study statistics and psychology, not philosophy, or mysticism, or religion.

Bizarre and improbable events happen all the time. The human brain is hardwired to seek patterns in events, because most events are part of patterns. The problem is, people are so good at this that in a complex world they constantly find patterns where there are none - it's called apophenia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia).

So we have a major problem "detecting" this phenomena.
No we don't.

The events are just events. We record the events, and apply normal statistical methods.

I am not in control of it, mostly it happens in a way that is hidden, including hidden from me, and I have no way of deliberately recreating the peak event and no wish to do so either. Once was more than enough for one lifetime, thankyou very much.
The events are just events. You assigned meaning and association to the events after the fact.

Also, it cannot be used in any way.
If it happens, it can be used.

Any attempt to use it as a means to a practical rather than a religious end will either end in no result at all or a counterproductive result.
Right. And you base this on what evidence, exactly?

This is the "dark path" taken by Aliester Crowley.
Y'know, I read Crowley back in my teens. You do realise he was making it all up?

The phenomena are directly connected with an individual person's own spiritual path.
I see.

So they're spiritual quantum mechanical hidden variable statistical anomolies, then?

They cannot be "used" for anything else.
If they exist, they can be measured. If they can be measured, they can be used.

They cannot be harnessed.
Then they are fiction.

And if the reason you are trying to make them occur is part of a test designed to satisfy skeptics, then they won't even happen.
Sure.

Of course, they don't happen under any circumstances.

In other words, the very fact that you are trying to apply science to them ensures that the conditions are not correct for them to occur.
Doesn't that make you stop and think, even for a moment?

Science is for practical application to the physical world, not for application to one's personal spiritual life.
If your spiritual life has any meaning at all, it can be studied by science.

There can be no "science of mysticism".
Sure there can. Sociology, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, biochemistry and pharmacology (for obvious reasons) all have relevant things to say about mysticism.

You can't use me as an instrument. I'm a human being.
Irrelevant. You can either detect these things, or you can't. If you can, we can use you to measure the effect.

Well, now I hope you can see that why this isn't possible.
Oh, we knew that already. We're just trying to explain it to you.

[yy2bggggs]

If the price of a painting(s) correlates with how beatutiful or aestheitcally pleasing it is, then the price of a Bible should correlate with how "spiritual" or religiously comforting it is.
No... the analogy would simply be that the price of a bible corresponds to how aesthetically pleasing it is.
For example, a Gutenberg Bible, which sells for millions, is obviously much more spiritual than any of the Bibles you can find here:
The Gutenberg Bible is a specific object. "Artwork" is a multitude of objects. Do you realize what a correlation is? From the wiki article:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Correlation_examples.png
See that thing under 0.4? That's a correlation.

Oh, and we should all find this extremely beautiful and aesthetically pleasing
No. FYI, not that it matters, but I find it aesthetically pleasing. Your Gutenberg Bible was a better example, but it still flunks, because I still find it more aesthetically pleasing than your run of the mill bibles (though I wouldn't say it sells for millions simply because it's pretty). Should you find something that sells for a lot of money that is not aesthetically pleasing, however, you still didn't prove there was no correlation.

To prove there's no correlation, you need to take a look at either everything that we pay money for, or a random sample of it.

See correlation.

Malerin: In general, you need to learn what these things mean before you start sticking your foot in your mouth when "debating" me.

[tsig]

I think that's an absolutely fascinating point. Very thought-provoking. Thanks.

OMG you made a single line post. Must be ignotant.

[Malerin]

No... the analogy would simply be that the price of a bible corresponds to how aesthetically pleasing it is.

The analogy shows that price has nothing to do with subjective evaluations of beauty. Van Gogh could hardly give away his paintings when he was alive.

The Gutenberg Bible is a specific object.

Not really. It's the name of a set that refers to any of the 180 or so Bibles printed by Gutenberg. If a museum brags that they have The Gutenberg Bible, such as The Ransom Center, they mean they have one of the Bibles Gutenberg made.

"The Gutenberg Bible at the Ransom Center

...

The Center's Bible was acquired in 1978 and is one of only five complete examples in the United States."

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/

If The Gutenberg Bible was a specific thing, only one museum could honestly boast of having it. Obviously, many museums claim to have The Gutenberg Bible. But that's a trivial point.




"Artwork" is a multitude of objects. Do you realize what a correlation is? From the wiki article:
(link, png) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Correlation_examples.png)
See that thing under 0.4? That's a correlation.

Then your point was trivial and not worth making. The standard definition:

Correlation: a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/correlation

is non-trivial, but false. If there was a correlation between aesthetics and price (or sales), then how would you explain:
Velvet paintings of Elvis
Pet Rocks
Plastic Flamingoes
Any article of clothing from the 70's
Ford Pintos
Thomas Kinkade

The price (or amount of sales) of an item, at best, would only tell you the amount of people who think the item is aesthetically pleasing. It would not be a measure of how pleasing (or beautiful) something is, which I think was UE's point: there are some things which cannot be measured in a laboratory or quantified by statistics. Ethics and beauty are two of them.


No. FYI, not that it matters, but I find it aesthetically pleasing.

I don't. Prove I'm wrong and you're right.

Your Gutenberg Bible was a better example, but it still flunks, because I still find it more aesthetically pleasing than your run of the mill bibles (though I wouldn't say it sells for millions simply because it's pretty).

I don't. It's old and worn-out looking. Yet it sells for millions...

Should you find something that sells for a lot of money that is not aesthetically pleasing, however, you still didn't prove there was no correlation.

It's impossible to do that because we would first need to agree on what is "aesthically pleasing" and what is not. Showing me a bunch of sales, or the price of a Jackson Pollack is not going to convince me it's beatiful. Do you really think you can change someone's mind about the beauty of soemthing by showing them statistics?

To prove there's no correlation, you need to take a look at either everything that we pay money for, or a random sample of it.

I know there's no correlation because millions of these were sold:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AqC9aIMJj_Q/R-bRQ1Eo6eI/AAAAAAAAAm8/sRgS-JhFUWc/s320/troll.jpg

See correlation.

See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/correlation

All kiding aside, the mistake you're making is in confusing the number of people who find something aesthetically pleasing (which can be quantified) with the subjective judgement of beauty itself (which can only be quantified by an individual, if they choose to rate something on a numeric scale). In other words, it's possible to prove that a lot of people like Abba, but it's impossible to make me like any Abba song by telling me that a lot of people like Abba, which is at the heart of UE's point, I believe (maybe I'm completely missing UE's point).

Malerin: In general, you need to learn what these things mean before you start sticking your foot in your mouth when "debating" me.

Ouch! Did you have to sleep on the couch last night?

[yy2bggggs]

I think I'll let you respond to all that before trying to answer any more of your post.
Unfortunately, it'd be a bit redundant. Take PixyMisa's post--remove his speculations of your not being a skeptic (just remove them--don't replace it with anything--I simply wouldn't have addressed it, mindfully so)... and, that's most of my response.

Thanks Pixy.

I'll add a few things.

But without these sorts of details I don't think we can progress in the discussion because you are, quite reasonably, thinking in terms of what "karma" would normally be defined as in a dictionary.
Not exactly. Without those, I'm faced with the same problems mentioned earlier in the video by QualiaSoup that I linked to. This is something you're privy to that you expect me to be moved to, but something I'm informationally isolated from. In other words, you have an unfair advantage of knowing the particulars about what you're talking about--nevertheless, that merely makes you more informed than me on the particulars, not necessarily adequately informed.

Given this, all I can address is the general principles, which I'm doing. My examples are not meant to use your concept of karma--they are meant as illustrations. I'm not actually even thinking in those terms--I'm thinking abstractly; I'm simply mapping these to some sort of concept somewhat related to the subject at hand. The terms I'm thinking in are merely "things that correlate in ways we can notice". I pick on karma because karma and synchronicity are a bit different, but karma is the thing that is further removed from the abstraction. But it doesn't much matter--because as soon as you have a cause C and an effect E, you'll wind up with a correlation. After you're done, everything's the same.

In other words, you start with "C causes E", and the very first step towards measurement is "C causes E implies C correlates with E". If C and E are swapped in time (something you mentioned earlier), you get to this same step along the way to measurability. If you're merely talking about the correlations themselves (such as synchronicity), you're simply at that step. Either way, the real start towards measurability is the correlation.

What you are claiming to notice, as anecdotal as it is, and as privy as it is to you and not to me, is merely something that establishes a correlation--in particular, you're claiming in some sense that there's something to the correlation, so to speak--that is, that the things correlate more than they should otherwise correlate.
I know what happened to me. That is why I believe it happens, not because I started with quantum mechanics or religious scripture and tried to construct a system based on that.
That's fine. But apophenia, which PixyMisa mentioned, is a very real phenomenon, and it's a perfect match. That's not to say that what you noticed can be explained by apophenia, but since apophenia is a real phenomenon, you have to account for it. I'm not convinced you did, but it will take a lot more than assurance that you did to convince me.

From a more abstract perspective, you probably do, in fact, need to convince me, because the general goal here is for you to support your conclusion that this thing you noticed is beyond the POV of science. That's the root of our disagreement.

Now for some comic relief:
See that thing under 0.4? That's a correlation.
Then your point was trivial and not worth making. The standard definition:
Correlation: a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone
...is what that thing under 0.4 is. Furthermore, it's what that number 0.4 is measuring. And measuring is what we're talking about.

And you're so cute when you're flustered.
ETA:
I'm curious. Why did you think I would be shocked that the painting in your image sold for so much money? Is it because you predicted that it was very likely I wouldn't think it aesthetically pleasing?

[plumjam]

Must be ignotant.
Priceless :D

[Malerin]

Unfortunately, it'd be a bit redundant. Take PixyMisa's post--remove his speculations of your not being a skeptic (just remove them--don't replace it with anything--I simply wouldn't have addressed it, mindfully so)... and, that's most of my response.

Thanks Pixy.

I'll add a few things.


Not exactly. Without those, I'm faced with the same problems mentioned earlier in the video by QualiaSoup that I linked to. This is something you're privy to that you expect me to be moved to, but something I'm informationally isolated from. In other words, you have an unfair advantage of knowing the particulars about what you're talking about--nevertheless, that merely makes you more informed than me on the particulars, not necessarily adequately informed.

Given this, all I can address is the general principles, which I'm doing. My examples are not meant to use your concept of karma--they are meant as illustrations. I'm not actually even thinking in those terms--I'm thinking abstractly; I'm simply mapping these to some sort of concept somewhat related to the subject at hand. The terms I'm thinking in are merely "things that correlate in ways we can notice". I pick on karma because karma and synchronicity are a bit different, but karma is the thing that is further removed from the abstraction. But it doesn't much matter--because as soon as you have a cause C and an effect E, you'll wind up with a correlation. After you're done, everything's the same.

In other words, you start with "C causes E", and the very first step towards measurement is "C causes E implies C correlates with E". If C and E are swapped in time (something you mentioned earlier), you get to this same step along the way to measurability. If you're merely talking about the correlations themselves (such as synchronicity), you're simply at that step. Either way, the real start towards measurability is the correlation.

What you are claiming to notice, as anecdotal as it is, and as privy as it is to you and not to me, is merely something that establishes a correlation--in particular, you're claiming in some sense that there's something to the correlation, so to speak--that is, that the things correlate more than they should otherwise correlate.

That's fine. But apophenia, which PixyMisa mentioned, is a very real phenomenon, and it's a perfect match. That's not to say that what you noticed can be explained by apophenia, but since apophenia is a real phenomenon, you have to account for it. I'm not convinced you did, but it will take a lot more than assurance that you did to convince me.

From a more abstract perspective, you probably do, in fact, need to convince me, because the general goal here is for you to support your conclusion that this thing you noticed is beyond the POV of science. That's the root of our disagreement.

Now for some comic relief:

...is what that thing under 0.4 is. Furthermore, it's what that number 0.4 is measuring. And measuring is what we're talking about.

And you're so cute when you're flustered.
ETA:
I'm curious. Why did you think I would be shocked that the painting in your image sold for so much money? Is it because you predicted that it was very likely I wouldn't think it aesthetically pleasing?

You're shocked at a $5 million painting? That's actually not a lot of money in the art world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings

And a Pollack is in the top spot, so if I wanted shock value, I would hardly have gone with a $5 million painting.

I brought it up to highlight the point that it's cost has no correlation with whether people find it beautiful or not. Whether you hate or admire Pollack's art, it will not matter at all how many paintings he sold or what he sold them for. I personally like tulips, irrespective of the fact that people once went literally crazy trying to acquire as many tulips as possible. Such is the nature of aesthetical judgement.

Or maybe you go with the majority on such matters and really admire the emperor's new clothes ;)

[UndercoverElephant]

Unfortunately, it'd be a bit redundant. Take PixyMisa's post--remove his speculations of your not being a skeptic (just remove them--don't replace it with anything--I simply wouldn't have addressed it, mindfully so)... and, that's most of my response.


Sorry, but I'm not playing that game. Please speak for yourself.



Not exactly. Without those, I'm faced with the same problems mentioned earlier in the video by QualiaSoup that I linked to. This is something you're privy to that you expect me to be moved to, but something I'm informationally isolated from.


NO I AM NOT. I do NOT expect you to "be moved to" the thing I'm privy to. I am telling you the exact opposite - that there is NO WAY for me to "move you" on this. At no point did I ever demand or expect that anybody else accepts and shares beliefs of mine which are based on something they are not privy to. That is why I am able to accuse PixyMisa of attempting to ram his belief system down my throat without being accused of hypocrisy. Unlike him, I am acutely aware of which of my beliefs are religious/personal/subjective and which are based on hard science or sound philosophy and can therefore be used to "move" people.


In other words, you have an unfair advantage of knowing the particulars about what you're talking about--nevertheless, that merely makes you more informed than me on the particulars, not necessarily adequately informed.

Given this, all I can address is the general principles, which I'm doing.


In which case we are talking past each other. We do not mean the same thing by "karma". The reason you think it is testable and I think it isn't is because we are talking about different things.


My examples are not meant to use your concept of karma--they are meant as illustrations. I'm not actually even thinking in those terms--I'm thinking abstractly; I'm simply mapping these to some sort of concept somewhat related to the subject at hand. The terms I'm thinking in are merely "things that correlate in ways we can notice". I pick on karma because karma and synchronicity are a bit different, but karma is the thing that is further removed from the abstraction. But it doesn't much matter--because as soon as you have a cause C and an effect E, you'll wind up with a correlation. After you're done, everything's the same.

In other words, you start with "C causes E", and the very first step towards measurement is "C causes E implies C correlates with E". If C and E are swapped in time (something you mentioned earlier), you get to this same step along the way to measurability. If you're merely talking about the correlations themselves (such as synchronicity), you're simply at that step. Either way, the real start towards measurability is the correlation.

What you are claiming to notice, as anecdotal as it is, and as privy as it is to you and not to me, is merely something that establishes a correlation--in particular, you're claiming in some sense that there's something to the correlation, so to speak--that is, that the things correlate more than they should otherwise correlate.

That's fine. But apophenia, which PixyMisa mentioned, is a very real phenomenon, and it's a perfect match. That's not to say that what you noticed can be explained by apophenia, but since apophenia is a real phenomenon, you have to account for it. I'm not convinced you did, but it will take a lot more than assurance that you did to convince me.


Nothing will convince you. How could it? They only thing that could possibly convince you would be it actually happening to you. Before it happened to me, nothing anyone could possibly have done or said would have been able to convince me that this stuff is real, for exactly the sort of reasons you are giving as to why you can't just take my word for it. If you just believed what I am telling you and incorporated into your belief system as a fact then you would be a fool. I've already told you that even after these things started happening to me I still refused to believe it. Why the hell should I expect to be able to convince a skeptic about something that I myself refused to believe it until it became so overwhelming that I no longer had any choice?


From a more abstract perspective, you probably do, in fact, need to convince me, because the general goal here is for you to support your conclusion that this thing you noticed is beyond the POV of science. That's the root of our disagreement.


Well I don't know how I can make it any clearer and the situation is not helped by the fact that you opted out of responding to the most relevant post I've made on the subject and somewhat bizarrely decided to let PixyMisa speak on your behalf.

THIS is why science can't touch this:


I have noticed it in the past, yes. But as explained above, nearly all of the time it is very hard to distinguish it from random co-incidences. Even after the extreme event I described, I was not normally in a position where I could reliably tell one from the other. It was only because of the extreme cases that I am certain it happens at all. So we have a major problem "detecting" this phenomena. I am not in control of it, mostly it happens in a way that is hidden, including hidden from me, and I have no way of deliberately recreating the peak event and no wish to do so either.

The phenomena are directly connected with an individual person's own spiritual path. They cannot be "used" for anything else. They cannot be harnessed. And if the reason you are trying to make them occur is part of a test designed to satisfy skeptics, then they won't even happen. In other words, the very fact that you are trying to apply science to them ensures that the conditions are not correct for them to occur.


There is no way to get around these problems. The phenomena I am talking about, if real, are beyond scientific testing, not least because the very fact that you are trying to use science to investigate them ensures that the correct conditions for their occurence will not occur. You are perfectly free to remain as skeptical as you like about the existence of these phenomena but the claim that science could theoretically investigate them is false.

[yy2bggggs]

You're shocked at a $5 million painting?
No.

[UndercoverElephant]

PixyMisa




First you have to show that they happen.


No I don't, because one of my central claims is that I CANNOT show that they happen.


Then you can discuss causes.


I can discuss whatever I like, thanks.

I'm going to respond to you in the same way you respond to me, just so you can see how idiotic it is:


Doesn't happen.


Does.

and it is directly linked to what you are saying in the paragraph above.
No it isn't. It's not linked to what yy2bggggs wrote at all.


Yes it is.


Quote:
When this stuff started happening to me I was a skeptic.
I doubt that.


You're wrong.


Quote:
Or at least I had been a skeptic for a very long time and I was at that point more of a nihilist/agnostic
Not a skeptic, then.


Yep, a skeptic, then.


You could have saved yourself a lot of bother if you'd skipped philosophy, mysticism and religion and studied statistics and psychology instead. Particularly the Principle of Equivalent Oddmatches.


YOU BELIEVE I could have saved...


Quote:
However, at first I was in denial about them. I did not want to believe it was happening, partly because of my long years as a skeptic and partly because the percieved "meaning" of the co-incidences was not entirely to my liking - they were leading me towards beliefs I did not want to be led towards.
You were assigning this meaning yourself.


YOU BELIEVE I was assigning...


Raw statistical data and analysis methods used, please.


You wouldn't be able understand either of them.



Something happened that you couldn't immediately explain, and you threw out everything the human race has ever learned.


No, mate. I did nothing of the sort. Nothing I believe, not one thing, involves throwing out ANYTHING the human race has actually learned.

What I threw out was some stuff that people like you incorrectly believe to be true. You think you "know" that I am wrong, because you "know" that these sorts of things don't happen. You don't actually know anything of the sort. The problem is that you are totally incapable of distinguishing between things you believe because there is hard science to support them and things you believe because of your metaphysical/religious stance. You then declare that your metaphysical/religious beliefs are objective facts that have been learned by humanity and this causes you to think that what I experienced caused me to "throw out everything ever learned by humanity".

What you are saying is stupid, PixyMisa. All you are doing is trying to impose your misplaced and unjustified certainty about your own belief system onto the entire human race. You are just like the people you most despise - the religious fundamentalists. You are a scientistic, materialistic fundamentalist and you have all of the dogma, arrogance and intolerance of that we expect from a fundamentalist. You are absolutely convinced that your current belief system is the correct one and you are equally convinced that the only way to solve the world's problems is if everyone is forced to agree with you. You think that trying to ram your belief system down my throat is an act of kindness.

Sorry, but I can't read any more of your drivel.

[yy2bggggs]

Sorry, but I'm not playing that game.
Sorry, but I'm not playing that game. PixyMisa spoke first. I was about to make many of the same points before reading his post, but he did quite a good job.

In fact, my first gut response was to not respond at all, but you particularly solicited a response, so I felt the need to point out that I thought that PixyMisa covered most of the important points. You have absolutely no right to make demands of me, however, and are simply being outright rude in doing so.
NO I AM NOT. I do NOT expect you to "be moved to" the thing I'm privy to.
You expect me to accept that you can notice something that is beyond the realm of science by your vague assurances that things like this happened to you.
I am telling you the exact opposite - that there is NO WAY for me to "move you" on this.
Why can't you point out that these things are happening to me?1

And as for what you're trying to do--you're talking to me. Why are you doing that? What is the purpose of your talking to me?
At no point did I ever demand or expect that anybody else accepts and shares beliefs of mine which are based on something they are not privy to.
Then what are you trying to convince me of, exactly?
Nothing will convince you. How could it?
It convinced you, and presumably, you were a skeptic.

FYI, it's particularly annoying that you get so upset that I let PixyMisa speak for me, and then paragraphs later you turn around and speak for me yourself. How do you know nothing will convince me?

This is sounding much more like a rationalization than a reasoned conclusion.
They only thing that could possibly convince you would be it actually happening to you.
Given that it presumably actually happened to you, and you were presumably a skeptic, then how am I flawed?
Before it happened to me, nothing anyone could possibly have done or said would have been able to convince me that this stuff is real,
Didn't you start to research what people "did or said"? Wasn't that your seed for starting to notice things?

As best as I can gather, you're trying sophistry. You actually want to use the fact that I'm not privy to the details of the experience as an argument. The problem is, your declarations of what is not possible leaves you in quite a conundrum--you are your own counterexample.
If you just believed what I am telling you and incorporated into your belief system as a fact then you would be a fool.Agreed. So, what key insights did these mystic authors supply you such that you started noticing these phenomena, and furthermore, started to do so in this condition?:2
I've already told you that even after these things started happening to me I still refused to believe it.
...
There is no way to get around these problems. The phenomena I am talking about, if real, are beyond scientific testing,
Precisely the opposite. If they are beyond scientific testing, they are not real. If they are nothing more than your own mind wringing blood from stones, they're an illusion. They have to be more than that to be real. They have to be more than simply things you are making up--more than your psychological ability to fool yourself.

1KEEP READING!!
2See?

[Limbo]

If they are beyond scientific testing, they are not real.


Ugh. I can't wait until scientism is a thing of the past. I'm sure future generations will get a kick out of studying websites like this. ("Is that what skeptics really thought?") I hope this website is preserved for them.

[paximperium]

Ugh. I can't wait until scientism is a thing of the past. I'm sure future generations will get a kick out of studying websites like this. Keep believing your fantasies. Science has developed more advancement for mankind than any other method ever developed. It's not going anywhere anytime soon unless someone develops something as useful or reliable.

Has your fantasies and paranormal nonsense done anything of worth beside give you the delusions of grandeur? Any example would be nice.

[yy2bggggs]

Ugh. I can't wait until scientism is a thing of the past.
The context calls for an interpretation different than you gave. My claim wasn't equivalent to scientism.

In particular, we're speaking of a particular subset of phenomena--that is, "guiding principles" that are noticeable.

ETA:
In context, the claim I'm making is that if something establishes a correlation significant enough for you to personally notice it, it is either a false correlation (that is, our own pattern matching capabilities on overdrive), or a real one. If the latter, it's within the realm of science to measure it. I refer you to the earlier posts.

[Limbo]

It's really sad when people are so deluded by scientism that they think an attack on scientism is an attack on science. All I can do is hope that the universe snaps them out of it somehow.

Keep believing your fantasies. Science has developed more advancement for mankind than any other method ever developed. It's not going anywhere anytime soon unless someone develops something as useful or reliable.

Has your fantasies and paranormal nonsense done anything of worth beside give you the delusions of grandeur? Any example would be nice.


Case in point.


Perspectives on Scientism, Religion, and Philosophy Provided by Parapsychology (http://jhp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/70)

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 2, 70-100 (1992)

Charles T. Tart

Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.

Modern views of neural functioning hypothesize that we live in a largely automatized simulation of reality rather than being in direct contact with the world. Scientism, a view that distorts the scientific process to make it compatible with a materialistic philosophy, is an important component controlling the modern world simulation process. Some of its psychologically deleterious effects are discussed in relation to a belief experiment for discovering these effects on a personal level. Scientism cannot be dismissed simply because it is dis-spiriting, however. The facts of science cannot be rejected out of hand.

Parapsychological research-thus plays a critical role in the transition from a modern to a postmodern view of human life; for, using the best kind of genuinely scientific method, its findings undermine scientism's claim to providing a total picture of life. In this way, parapsychological findings open us to serious consideration of a spiritual side to existence. The most solidly established parapsychological findings force us to consider a view of human beings that includes the possibility of Mind, without using the physical senses, sometimes reaching out directly, to touch other minds occasionally "perceiving" the state of the physical world and sometimes materially affecting it through volition alone, and sometimes foretelling a future that is materially unpredictable.

Other parapsychological findings, less solidly established but still demanding consideration, suggest a view of the nature of Mind that includes its ability to heal the body in a psychic fashion, to observe the world from a location other than where the physical body is located, and possibly to survive physical death in some form. (emphasis mine)

[paximperium]

It's really sad when people are so gripped by scientism that they think an attack on scientism is an attack on science. All I can do is hope that the universe snaps them out of it somehow.
It is really sad how woo-mongerer's who have accomplished nothing can be so smug when it is shown that their beliefs are about as useful as a schizophrenic's delusion.
So no example of even one actual benefit your fantasies have done for humanity? Anything? Even one?

Case in point. Case in point from Tart again? I can't wait.

Modern views of neural functioning hypothesize that we live in a largely automatized simulation of reality rather than being in direct contact with the world. Scientism, a view that distorts the scientific process to make it compatible with a materialistic philosophy, is an important component controlling the modern world simulation process. Some of its psychologically deleterious effects are discussed in relation to a belief experiment for discovering these effects on a personal level. Scientism cannot be dismissed simply because it is dis-spiriting, however. The facts of science cannot be rejected out of hand. I do enjoy his oblivious description of something he doesn't understand and his counter point based NOTHING to support this assertion. Bravo.

The Scientific Method is based on Methodological Naturalism. His ignorance is astounding.

Parapsychological research-thus plays a critical role in the transition from a modern to a postmodern view of human life;Uh, no. Parapsychology is a pseudo-science that is a waste of time and money.

for, using the best kind of genuinely scientific method, its findings undermine scientism's claim to providing a total picture of life. Amazing...wait it doesn't say anything except to assert things again. So his entire argument seems to "Only stuff that support my claims is true science."

In this way, parapsychological findings open us to serious consideration of a spiritual side to existence. What the hell is he even talking about? Sounds like pseudo-science gobbledy-gook again.

The most solidly established parapsychological findings force us to consider a view of human beings that includes the possibility of Mind, without using the physical senses, sometimes reaching out directly, to touch other minds occasionally "perceiving" the state of the physical world and sometimes materially affecting it through volition alone, and sometimes foretelling a future that is materially unpredictable. More assertions and nonsense. Yawn. Except for the simple fact that modern neuro-science contradict all of his unjustified fantastic assertions, he is doing a great job at making more assertions with nothing to support his nonsense.

Other parapsychological findings, less solidly established but still demanding consideration, suggest a view of the nature of Mind that includes its ability to heal the body in a psychic fashion, to observe the world from a location other than where the physical body is located, and possibly to survive physical death in some form. (emphasis mine)What a big pile of stupid. Wow, if Tart is the best that you can offer your movement is worst off than I'd imagine.

Man, if this the current "literature" and "research" parapsychology which seems to be composed of "make things up" and "sound pseudo-intelligent", attack scientific research based on denial and without one ounce of actual evidence to support the nonsense claimed. Parapsychology is truly sinking into the bottom of the septic system.

It will only be a matter of time when all universities dump these useless departments and "researchers".

[paximperium]

Basically woo-mongerers and anti-science folks seem to enjoy using "The evil scientist with their "scientism" is preventing science from seeing all the supermagical stuff that I can see." Those scientist are not using "real" science.

They claim it is arrogance/psychological blindness. They need to look at a mirror.

[UndercoverElephant]

You expect me to accept that you can notice something that is beyond the realm of science by your vague assurances that things like this happened to you.


No. I expect you to accept that it is possible simply on the grounds that you cannot give me a reason why it is impossible. My anecdotal reports of what happened to me are nothing more than that: anecdotes. Nobody is under any obligation to accept them as being true.


Why can't you point out that these things are happening to me?1


Because the extreme events which are unmistakable aren't happening to you.


And as for what you're trying to do--you're talking to me. Why are you doing that? What is the purpose of your talking to me?

Then what are you trying to convince me of, exactly?


I'm trying to convince you that it is possible that some forms of causality exist which are, by their very nature, impossible for science to investigate. It is a position that was defended by both Kant and Wittgenstein, but ignored (and probably unknown) to people like James Randi and Richard Dawkins who are responsible for influencing the beliefs of many people. I think Randi and Dawkins have made a series of inter-related philosophical mistakes and the reason I post on boards like this one is to try to explain those mistakes to anyone who might be interested in reading about it.


It convinced you, and presumably, you were a skeptic.


It convinced me eventually, yes. But it took an extreme example happening to me. You are asking to be convinced by far less extreme examples happening to other people. That's never going to happen.


FYI, it's particularly annoying that you get so upset that I let PixyMisa speak for me, and then paragraphs later you turn around and speak for me yourself. How do you know nothing will convince me?


Because until/unless it actually happens to you in a form extreme enough that you can't deny it, it will always seem more sensible to go on being skeptical. People don't just re-arrange the foundations of their belief system at the drop of a hat. For you to believe what I am saying is actually true, you would have to do a great deal of thinking and be prepared to question all sorts of assumptions that right now you have no intention or desire to question.


Given that it presumably actually happened to you, and you were presumably a skeptic, then how am I flawed?


You aren't "flawed". You just aren't currently involved in a search for philosophical or spiritual truth.


Didn't you start to research what people "did or said"? Wasn't that your seed for starting to notice things?


I was researching all sorts of things.


As best as I can gather, you're trying sophistry. You actually want to use the fact that I'm not privy to the details of the experience as an argument.


That's not sophistry if the argument happens to be about the possibility of science investigating the thing in question. If the thing in question is necessarily private, it logically follows that science can't investigate it.



The problem is, your declarations of what is not possible leaves you in quite a conundrum--you are your own counterexample.


No I'm not, because I'm not claiming that I know anything about spirituality via science.


Agreed. So, what key insights did these mystic authors supply you such that you started noticing these phenomena, and furthermore, started to do so in this condition?:

That question is like "Have you stopped beating your wife?" You assume in the question that the only reason I noticed these phenomena is because I read somebody-else's account of them beforehand.

My beliefs are very much my own, can't you tell? I've read all sorts material, from serious academic philosophy to books written by David Icke, but the only sorts of "woo" I believe in are directly related to my own experiences.


Precisely the opposite. If they are beyond scientific testing, they are not real.


Why? Why can't some form of causality exist which is beyond scientific testing? The two most influential philosophers in modern history (Kant and Wittgenstein) both believed it was possible that such forms of causality exist. Why is it that a bunch of scientistic skeptics, most of whom know next to nothing about the arguments and relevance of Kant and Wittgenstein, are so convinced that it is impossible?

This is the principle mistake made by Randi and Dawkins: they don't understand where the boundaries of science are because they don't understand the relevant bits of the history of philosophy. They think that science is defined and limited by scientists, not philosophers. They are wrong.

[UndercoverElephant]

Keep believing your fantasies. Science has developed more advancement for mankind than any other method ever developed. It's not going anywhere anytime soon unless someone develops something as useful or reliable.

Has your fantasies and paranormal nonsense done anything of worth beside give you the delusions of grandeur? Any example would be nice.

He said "scientism", not "science."

[UndercoverElephant]

Basically woo-mongerers and anti-science folks seem to enjoy using "The evil scientist with their "scientism" is preventing science from seeing all the supermagical stuff that I can see." Those scientist are not using "real" science.


Perhaps you shouldn't provide them with ammunition by behaving like a scientistic fundamentalist then?

Scientism is a real thing. It is the result of not thinking critically enough about the limitations of science and ending up trying to use science, or claiming science can theoretically be used for, things which it cannot in fact be used for. This doesn't just make communication with believers more difficult. It actually compromises genuine science.

[paximperium]

Why? Why can't some form of causality exist which is beyond scientific testing? If it cannot be tested it either does not exist or is completely irrelevant.

What criteria are you using to claim something exist or does not exist?

The two most influential philosophers in modern history (Kant and Wittgenstein) both believed it was possible that such forms of causality exist. Who cares? They are philosphers, not neuro-scientist, not physicists. They have as much insight into this as Bob the butcher.

Why is it that a bunch of scientistic skeptics, most of whom know next to nothing about the arguments and relevance of Kant and Wittgenstein, are so convinced that it is impossible? Again, so what? Why should anything they say have any relevance? If it is a good argument why don't you make an argument for it instead of "Prove me wrong."

This is the principle mistake made by Randi and Dawkins: they don't understand where the boundaries of science are because they don't understand the relevant bits of the history of philosophy. They think that science is defined and limited by scientists, not philosophers. They are wrong. Ahhh, the whole wonderful ""The evil scientist with their "scientism" is preventing science from seeing all the supermagical stuff that I can see." Those scientist are not using "real" science." Argument.

[paximperium]

Perhaps you shouldn't provide them with ammunition by behaving like a scientistic fundamentalist then? What is a scientistic fundamentalist?
Someone who uses the Scientific Method?

Scientism is a real thing. It is the result of not thinking critically enough about the limitations of science and ending up trying to use science, or claiming science can theoretically be used for, things which it cannot in fact be used for. This doesn't just make communication with believers more difficult. It actually compromises genuine science. That is nonsense. Science is a method. It is method based on reproducibility and falsifiability. Anything that cannot be tested or ever falsified is as possible as any self-contradictory, unfalsifiable claim. It is useless, worthless, unveriable and and has no relevance. A single unique contra-causal event may have happened but it has no relevance to anyone or any measure of truth if it happens once in a universal lifetime.

Is it possible that a supergod unicorn popped into your bedroom and gave you the secrets of the cosmos and then removed all evidence of its appearence. Using your useless epistemic philosophy, this claim is as "true" as any ground shattering anecdote you could claim.

[paximperium]

He said "scientism", not "science."Scientism is a term used by woo-mongerers to describe anyone who uses the Scientific Method who does not agree with their nonsense.

It's proper term would be Scientific Naturalism, the belief that anything that can be studied is natural and things that cannot be confirm, tested, falsified is supernatural. It is not static, it expands and changes. As new things are discovered using new tech and exploration science expands and accepts those changes. In essence as the Natural expands, the Supernatural shrinks.

[UndercoverElephant]

If it cannot be tested it either does not exist or is completely irrelevant.


You are just re-asserting the claim. I was asked for a justification of that claim, not a repeat of the unsupported claim.


What criteria are you using to claim something exist or does not exist?


It exists if it has any effect at all on the reality we directly experience.


Who cares? They are philosphers, not neuro-scientist, not physicists. They have as much insight into this as Bob the butcher.


You are proving my point. You have no idea how or why these people could be relevant. You think they have no insight into the very questions that they are rightly famous for providing answers to.


Again, so what? Why should anything they say have any relevance?


Why should anything Kant have said by relevant to this discussion?

Because the book he is most well-known for, which is probably the most important book about philosophy that has ever been written, is called "A Critique of Pure Reason" and the central purpose of the book is to defend the possibility of free will against materialistic determinism. It shows us the limits of metaphysics and also shows us the absolute limits of both pure reason and of empirical, scientific research.

Why should Wittgenstein have any relevance?

For a similar set of reasons.


If it is a good argument why don't you make an argument for it instead of "Prove me wrong."


My arguments are largely derived from Kant and Wittgenstein. I *AM* making their arguments, or close enough.


Ahhh, the whole wonderful ""The evil scientist with their "scientism" is preventing science from seeing all the supermagical stuff that I can see." Those scientist are not using "real" science." Argument.

If the scientists in question are calling something science which isn't actually science then they are harming science.

[UndercoverElephant]

Scientism is a term used by woo-mongerers to describe anyone who uses the Scientific Method who does not agree with their nonsense.

Total crap. It is used to describe anyone who tries to claim that the scientific method can be used to answer questions that it cannot in fact be used for - something which happens continually on this board.

[paximperium]

You are just re-asserting the claim. I was asked for a justification of that claim, not a repeat of the unsupported claim. Sorry, but I can't justify the non-existence of things that have no existence to begin with.

It exists if it has any effect at all on the reality we directly experience. So if you take LSD, the hallucinations exist?
Great, one of the post-modernist "If I experience it, it exist." nonsense.

You are proving my point. You have no idea how or why these people could be relevant. You think they have no insight into the very questions that they are rightly famous for providing answers to. Again. Why should they be relevant? Make a case instead of these silly assertions.

Because the book he is most well-known for, which is probably the most important book about philosophy that has ever been written, is called "A Critique of Pure Reason" and the central purpose of the book is to defend the possibility of free will against materialistic determinism. It shows us the limits of metaphysics and also shows us the absolute limits of both pure reason and of empirical, scientific research. So give me a reason to care about what he says.

Why should Wittgenstein have any relevance?

For a similar set of reasons. Ditto.

If the scientists in question are calling something science which isn't actually science then they are harming science.
Such as?

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Why can't some form of causality exist which is beyond scientific testing? The two most influential philosophers in modern history (Kant and Wittgenstein) both believed it was possible that such forms of causality exist.

Where do they say this? And what is meant by causality here?

[paximperium]

Total crap. It is used to describe anyone who tries to claim that the scientific method can be used to answer questions that it cannot in fact be used for - something which happens continually on this board. What questions can't be answered by science?

[UndercoverElephant]

What is a scientistic fundamentalist?
Someone who uses the Scientific Method?


No. Someone who tries to use the SM for something it can't be used for, or tries to argue that it could in principle be used for something it can't be used for. A classic example which comes up time and again on this board is the person who claims that science has proven that consciousness is a brain process. Science has done nothing of the sort. Another typical example is PixyMisa, who believes that a whole load of metaphysical stuff upon which is belief system is founded is supported by science when the truth is that it isn't supported by anything at all, let alone science.


That is nonsense. Science is a method. It is method based on reproducibility and falsifiability. Anything that cannot be tested or ever falsified is as possible as any self-contradictory, unfalsifiable claim.


THAT is nonsense. Do you seriously believe all unfalsifiable claims are contradictory? What a bizarre thing to believe!

Science has a genuine battle on its hands, especially in the United States, because of a bunch of anti-scientific religious extremists who make all manner of fallacious, deceitful and misleading fabrications about geology, evolutionary biology and various other things. If science is going to be successful in countering this threat then it must make sure it keeps its own hands clean: it MUST NOT make similar mistakes to the people who are causing the problem. If the scientists themselves don't understand where the boundary is between science, religion and philosophy then they are simply handing ammunition to the creationists: they are making the accusation that "science is just another belief system" true when in fact it should be false.

Science is powerful because of its limitations. Take away those limitations and it loses that power.

[UndercoverElephant]

What questions can't be answered by science?

All sorts of questions. Ethical questions, metaphysical questions, aesthetical questions...

[paximperium]

All sorts of questions. Ethical questions, metaphysical questions, aesthetical questions...
Maybe here is YOUR error.

Science can be used to answer what "is". It cannot be used to make value judgment; the "oughts". This is well known among scientific philosophy so it not use to do so. It can be used to help make the value judgment but it cannot be used to do so...yet.

Now when it comes to studying woo, it can definitely be used to do so.

[paximperium]

No. Someone who tries to use the SM for something it can't be used for, or tries to argue that it could in principle be used for something it can't be used for. A classic example which comes up time and again on this board is the person who claims that science has proven that consciousness is a brain process. Science has done nothing of the sort. True, science has just shown that consciousness(whatever pseudo-poorly defined version you want to use) requires a brain. Damage it, conciseness changes. Give meds, consciousness dissipates. So far the evidence shows that conciseness is nothing more than a byproduct of brain processes.

THAT is nonsense. Do you seriously believe all unfalsifiable claims are contradictory? What a bizarre thing to believe! True. Some are just undefined.

Science has a genuine battle on its hands, especially in the United States, because of a bunch of anti-scientific religious extremists who make all manner of fallacious, deceitful and misleading fabrications about geology, evolutionary biology and various other things. If science is going to be successful in countering this threat then it must make sure it keeps its own hands clean: it MUST NOT make similar mistakes to the people who are causing the problem. If the scientists themselves don't understand where the boundary is between science, religion and philosophy then they are simply handing ammunition to the creationists: they are making the accusation that "science is just another belief system" true when in fact it should be false. What nonsense. The lay people don't understand science. The Scientific Method is a method. Scientific (Methodological) Naturalism is a method. Scientific Naturalism IS A BELIEF. It is a philosophical position based on rationality and the scientific method. We should push this philosophy because it is superior in every way in making decisions based on reality to any other belief system out there.

Science is powerful because of its limitations. Take away those limitations and it loses that power. That does not make sense in the least.

[Limbo]

Now when it comes to studying woo, it can definitely be used to do so.


Can you give an example?

[UndercoverElephant]

Where do they say this? And what is meant by causality here?

Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason are designed to show the limits of applying pure reason to metaphysical questions. The shorter version he wrote when people didn't understand the CPR was called "A prolegomena to any future metaphysics which wants to be considered scientific". In demonstrating the limits of reason/metaphysics in this way, he also demonstrates the limits of science. If a combination of empirical science and rational metaphysics can't answer a certain question then empirical science certainly can't do so on its own. One such question is "is libertarian free will possible?" - (NOT "is it true?" - he can only offer an ethical argument for why we should actually believe it does exist.)

Wittgenstein alludes to it in various places in the Tractatus.


6.371 The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.

6.372 Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. And in fact both are right and both wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained.

6.373 The world is independent of my will.

6.374 Even if all that we wish for were to happen, still this would only be a favour granted by fate, so to speak: for there is no logical connexion between the will and the world, which would guarantee it, and the supposed physical connexion itself is surely not something that we could will.

6.375 Just as the only necessity that exists is logical necessity, so too the only impossibility that exists is logical impossibility.

6.3751 For example, the simultaneous presence of two colours at the same place in the visual field is impossible, in fact logically impossible, since it is ruled out by the logical structure of colour. Let us think how this contradiction appears in physics: more or less as follows--a particle cannot have two velocities at the same time; that is to say, it cannot be in two places at the same time; that is to say, particles that are in different places at the same time cannot be identical. (It is clear that the logical product of two elementary propositions can neither be a tautology nor a contradiction. The statement that a point in the visual field has two different colours at the same time is a contradiction.)

6.4 All propositions are of equal value.

6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists--and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world.

[snip]

6.43 If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts--not what can be expressed by means of language. In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole. The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.

6.431 So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.

6.4311 Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

6.4312 Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving for ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. (It is certainly not the solution of any problems of natural science that is required.)

6.432 How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.

6.4321 The facts all contribute only to setting the problem, not to its solution.

6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.

6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole--a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is mystical.

6.5 When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.

6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.

6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.

6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what constituted that sense?)

6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy -- and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the only strictly correct one.

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.


He is saying that true value can only come from an act of free will – an action of the metaphysical subject itself – however this could be possible. What gives it value is that it was an act of free will – that it somehow came from “outside”. Such actions cannot merely be part of the normal empirical flow of causality. Instead, they must "change the world into another world. "

[paximperium]

Can you give an example?
Name it. If it has ANY effect it can be studied or is your Dr. Tart just making things up and not doing any "science" at all?

[UndercoverElephant]

That does not make sense in the least.

Science is powerful because because of the way it always attempts to minimise subjective factors and because it places limits on what is admissable as reliable raw data about the world, etc... It is precisely because it works in this way that claims made with scientific authority have epistemic priviledge over claims which are not. If you remove these limits and ideals then you lose the epistemic priviledge. Science is very good at answering empirical questions, but the same things which make it good for this purpose make it unusable for certain other purposes.

[paximperium]

If a combination of empirical science and rational metaphysics can't answer a certain question then empirical science certainly can't do so on its own. I completely agree because the metaphysics part is often useless to begin with.

One such question is "is libertarian free will possible?" - (NOT "is it true?" - he can only offer an ethical argument for why we should actually believe it does exist.)So he believes it exist because he wants it to?


Wittgenstein alludes to it in various places in the Tractatus. Reading the first sentence alone shows that he has no idea that he is talking about.

The laws of nature are manmade abstract concepts created by man to explain and describe the cosmos. They have been shown to be wrong and often incomplete hence the continued journey to improve on it and to continually test it.

The problem of reading the example you provided is that he basing his entire argument from outdated knowledge from that age. It just makes his arguments rather quaint like Aristotle explanations of nature.

He is saying that true value can only come from an act of free will – an action of the metaphysical subject itself – however this could be possible. What gives it value is that it was an act of free will – that it somehow came from “outside”. Such actions cannot merely be part of the normal empirical flow of causality. Instead, they must "change the world into another world. " Which is an unjustified claim. Bravo.

[Limbo]

Name it. If it has ANY effect it can be studied or is your Dr. Tart just making things up and not doing any "science" at all?


Let me clarify my request. I was asking you if you can provide a specific example of science studying woo.

[paximperium]

Science is powerful because because of the way it always attempts to minimise subjective factors and because it places limits on what is admissable as reliable raw data about the world. It is precisely because it works in this way that claims made with scientific authority have epistemic priviledge over claims which are not. If you remove these limits and ideals then you lose the epistemic priviledge.
Again, you are mixing the scientific method and scientific naturalism as a philosophy. The Scientific Method is designed to minimize or control external confounding factors to the question being studied.

Scientific Naturalism as expounded by its proponents attempt to use the scientific method in daily life and in decision making. It's basic premise is that rationality and science is the best way to determine truth and often to aid in making decisions about reality.

[paximperium]

Let me clarify my request. I was asking you if you can provide a specific example of science studying woo.
The psychology of mass delusions would be one. The personality characteristics of people who believe in woo would be another.

How about telekinesis? Telepathy? Precognition? Astrology? Good old Big Footery? Studied and found to be complete and utter failures.

[Limbo]

How about telekinesis? Telepathy? Precognition? Astrology? Good old Big Footery? Studied and found to be complete and utter failures.


Link plz.

[UndercoverElephant]

So he believes it exist because he wants it to?


Not quite. He argues that we can never know for sure whether it exists or doesn't exist - all we can do is refute claims that it cannot possibly exist. He also argues that even though we cannot know it exists, we have ethical reasons for assuming that it does.


Reading the first sentence alone shows that he has no idea that he is talking about.


It's not quite that simple...


The problem of reading the example you provided is that he basing his entire argument from outdated knowledge from that age.

That is not the case. The argument is about philosophy, not science. It's primarily about logic, language and the limits of both of them.

[PixyMisa]

Unfortunately, it'd be a bit redundant. Take PixyMisa's post--remove his speculations of your not being a skeptic
The "I doubt that" was a Randi quote. I couldn't resist. :D

[paximperium]

Not quite. He argues that we can never know for sure whether it exists or doesn't exist - all we can do is refute claims that it cannot possibly exist. Congratulations. You understand science now. All the scientific method can ever do it falsify claims. It does not "prove things".

He also argues that even though we cannot know it exists, we have ethical reasons for assuming that it does. Well wishes does not make a claim true.

That is not the case. The argument is about philosophy, not science. It's primarily about logic, language and the limits of both of them.
I agree. Philosophy has many uses especially when it comes to logic, ethics and to epistemology. But I have a very low opinion of its relevance or worth in answering the "is" questions.

[PixyMisa]

Ugh. I can't wait until scientism is a thing of the past. I'm sure future generations will get a kick out of studying websites like this. ("Is that what skeptics really thought?") I hope this website is preserved for them.
You seem to have no grasp of what science is.

Science is simply the methodical testing of ideas against reality.

The only way for something not to be testable by science is for it not to be testable against reality. That means it's not real.

[paximperium]

Link plz.
Here is a primer. Knock yourself out.
http://www.skepdic.com/

[UndercoverElephant]

Congratulations. You understand science now. All the scientific method can ever do it falsify claims. It does not "prove things".


I understood science already, thanks. Kant's arguments are a-priori. They aren't science because they don't depend on an empirical observations.


Well wishes does not make a claim true.


Nobody is saying they do. I'm not defending the claim that free will DOES exist, because I have no means of doing so. I'm attacking the claim that it can't exist.


I agree. Philosophy has many uses especially when it comes to logic, ethics and to epistemology. But I have a very low opinion of its relevance or worth in answering the "is" questions.

It can't answer them. All it can do is expose inconsistencies in attempts to answer them.

[Limbo]

Here is a primer. Knock yourself out.
http://www.skepdic.com/


Are there any actual peer-reviewed scientific experiments there? If so, do me a favor and point them out.

[PixyMisa]

It's really sad when people are so deluded by scientism that they think an attack on scientism is an attack on science. All I can do is hope that the universe snaps them out of it somehow.
Scientism being, it appears, pointing out that you are talking nonsense?

Case in point.

[snip]

Parapsychological research-thus plays a critical role in the transition from a modern to a postmodern view of human life; for, using the best kind of genuinely scientific method, its findings undermine scientism's claim to providing a total picture of life. In this way, parapsychological findings open us to serious consideration of a spiritual side to existence. The most solidly established parapsychological findings force us to consider a view of human beings that includes the possibility of Mind, without using the physical senses, sometimes reaching out directly, to touch other minds occasionally "perceiving" the state of the physical world and sometimes materially affecting it through volition alone, and sometimes foretelling a future that is materially unpredictable.
Seventy years of scientific (and "scientific" as well) research into parapsychology and we have no evidence whatsoever that any such thing exists. Your argument fails.

Other parapsychological findings, less solidly established but still demanding consideration, suggest a view of the nature of Mind that includes its ability to heal the body in a psychic fashion, to observe the world from a location other than where the physical body is located, and possibly to survive physical death in some form. (emphasis mine)
Well, no.

[PixyMisa]

Is there any actual peer-reviewed science there? If so, do me a favor and point it out.
Yes.

Read the articles. Note the immense number of references and links. Follow the links.

[Limbo]

Yes.

Read the articles. Note the immense number of references and links. Follow the links.


I'm interested in what a skeptic considers an example of science studying woo in the lab. Please for fraks sake would you and/or paximperium give me a concrete example. Thanks in advance.

[PixyMisa]

I'm interested in what a skeptic considers an example of science studying woo in the lab. Please for fraks sake would you and/or paximperium give me a concrete example. Thanks in advance.
The article on acupuncture (http://www.skepdic.com/acupuncture.html) is as good a place to start as any.

[SezMe]

Pretty disgusting of you, Darat.
Pretty helpful of you, Darat.

Look, plumjam, one of the core elements of UE's posts in this thread is that something happened to him personally which he refuses to describe and which he places at the core of his newfound worldview. He won't go into it because he says it is just not available to us in any meanful way. That he himself states that he was subject to delusions and drug-induced mental states is hugely relevant then.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Science is powerful because of its limitations. Take away those limitations and it loses that power.

Correction: Take away those "limitations" and it's no longer science

It's interesting that you talk about "power" instead, as if that's what science was really after. Science is about understanding how things work. Not acquiring power

Everything that has a clear definition, also has clear "limitations"
The same applies to Religion: "Take away all the specific things that define it as a Religion, and it's no longer Religion"

[SezMe]

I got increasingly interested in various topics regarding philosophy, mysticism and the history of religion and the meaning of religious mythology. That's when I started noticing the strange co-incidences.

Did you ever explore this causality? You got interested in mysticism then started to notice strange things. Wow, what a coincidence.

However, at first I was in denial about them. I did not want to believe it was happening, partly because of my long years as a skeptic and partly because the percieved "meaning" of the co-incidences was not entirely to my liking - they were leading me towards beliefs I did not want to be led towards.

Notice the odd use of the passive tense here. He was being "lead" somewhere. Why not be more honest and say, "I was reaching conclusions I didn't like."?

However, the more I ignored it, the more potent and more frequent it became.

Another correlation that appears to be unexplored.


Then one day something happened which was an order of magnitude more extreme than anything that had happened before and it was at that moment that it dawned on me what was going on: this phenomena involved co-ordinated macroscopic retrocausality. In effect, the present was affecting the past. The synchronicities were being set up retrocausally.
If you reached that conclusion based on one event then you were no skeptic. What is "extreme" about the event. Since "order of magnitude" is a quantitative notion, how do you quantify levels of extremity? How did one event uniquely point to "co-ordinated macroscopic retrocausality" as the ONLY explanation?

[yy2bggggs]

No. I expect you to accept that it is possible simply on the grounds that you cannot give me a reason why it is impossible.
You fail to understand what science is. Plus you're insulting me all throughout your reply. It's a good thing I have thicker skin than you.
Because the extreme events which are unmistakable aren't happening to you.
How do you know, how would you know, and how can you know, that it's not happening to me?
I'm trying to convince you that it is possible that some forms of causality exist which are, by their very nature, impossible for science to investigate.
I'm trying to show you that this is not such a thing. You're writing me off too soon, and you're missing this point.

I'll concede that there are things beyond what science can address. That's not a problem for me in the slightest (I won't assert the same, but I wouldn't in the least be shocked). But there are also things that are not beyond science, that science can address. What we have here is a disagreement about whether or not a certain class of things belongs to the former kind, or the latter kind.

Your view of what science is, I just have to say, are outright flawed. I've given you, in pretty much a mathematical form, a general schema--a sort of mathematical overview of the sort of thing science can address. The issue is that that schema fits this situation, but you're claiming that it's impossible for science to address it, even in principle. That is what I'm disagreeing with--on both counts.

Your karmic principle, which you've yet to explain, necessarily does fit into this, if it's anywhere within the same ball park as common karma. The fact that you describe this as things that happened to you beyond your control strongly suggests that it is, in fact, something you observe about the world. It's the sort of thing that is, by nature, naturalistic. It's the sort of thing that falls into the realm of science.

You're specifically claiming that it is not. You're not only claiming, though, that it's possible that it's not--you're proclaiming that it's impossible for science to investigate it. You are the one making the strong claim, not me.
It is a position that was defended by both Kant and Wittgenstein, but ignored (and probably unknown) to people like James Randi and Richard Dawkins who are responsible for influencing the beliefs of many people.
How nice of Kant, Wittgenstein, Randi, and Dawkins.
It convinced me eventually, yes. But it took an extreme example happening to me. You are asking to be convinced by far less extreme examples happening to other people.
No. You are asking that I recognize it as possible because of assurances that it happened to you. And you're also conveying, I believe, a lack of understanding of what science is, and a lack of appreciation of the very real phenomenon of self deception. I'm not skeptical of you because I'm a skeptic. I'm skeptical of you because I'm a critical thinker.
Because until/unless it actually happens to you in a form extreme enough that you can't deny it, it will always seem more sensible to go on being skeptical. People don't just re-arrange the foundations of their belief system at the drop of a hat. For you to believe what I am saying is actually true, you would have to do a great deal of thinking and be prepared to question all sorts of assumptions that right now you have no intention or desire to question.
You're speaking for me again.
You aren't "flawed". You just aren't currently involved in a search for philosophical or spiritual truth.
How do you know I'm not? How can you know I'm not? Your credibitily drops like a stone when you make such accusations.

If I didn't know better, I would be forced to guess that you're possibly using psychological tactics to protect something that you want to believe. That's the only reason that pops into my mind why you would be able to make claims about what I'm not currently doing that you are not privy to. I'm open to other suggestions, but you're not acting like I would expect a wise guru to act.
I was researching all sorts of things.
Ah, all sorts of things. That sounds like what I'm researching.
That's not sophistry if the argument happens to be about the possibility of science investigating the thing in question.
I don't think it's about that.
If the thing in question is necessarily private, it logically follows that science can't investigate it.
No it doesn't. Subjective color theory, for example, is necessarily private, but science can, and is, investigating it.

Besides, I'm not even convinced that the phenomena you're talking about are private.

Do not overinterpret this, by the way. I'm not one to say that everything private can be investigated by science. But I know damned well that there are things that are private that can be, so I know the rule you proposed--that things that are "necessarily private" are beyond science--is a bogus rule.

Not coincidentally, subjective color theory happens to fall smack dab into the bucket of measurable things I've been talking about. I allege that your karma falls into the same category.
No I'm not, because I'm not claiming that I know anything about spirituality via science.Then how do you know your phenomena are real? How do you distinguish it from a miss?
That question is like "Have you stopped beating your wife?"You're referring to a leading question.
You assume in the question that the only reason I noticed these phenomena is because I read somebody-else's account of them beforehand.I am? That's news to me that I'm assuming said things, especially by that question. You seem to be assuming--and even stating outright--that I'm not searching for philosophical or spiritual truths.
My beliefs are very much my own, can't you tell?
That's a definite affirmative. In fact, by saying that I can tell, I feel I'm making an understatement.
I've read all sorts material,
Okay... Davide Icke... was he helpful for you?
Why? Why can't some form of causality exist which is beyond scientific testing?
Wrong question. This would be some form of causality, beyond scientific testing, that we can not only notice, but distinguish from our ability to simply fool ourselves into recognizing a false pattern.

Why can't there be one of those? Because we're that good at fooling ourselves.
This is the principle mistake made by Randi and Dawkins: they don't understand where the boundaries of science are because they don't understand the relevant bits of the history of philosophy.
I allege that you do not understand where the boundaries of science are.
They think that science is defined and limited by scientists, not philosophers. They are wrong.
Probably. But that's their problem. Your problem is that you are underestimating what science can address.

Do not mistake me for your average forum member here. I am cut from a different mold. The degree to which my beliefs are similar to theirs is simply coincidental. I am, however, quite intrigued at the similarities, and whereas I identify more with critical thinking than "skepticism" or any other particular ism, I've yet to find serious quarrel with them ("them" being the ones you're likely referring to, and mistakenly lumping me in with).

ETA:
Science is powerful because because of the way it always attempts to minimise subjective factors and because it places limits on what is admissable as reliable raw data about the world, etc...
This is a common misconception, but it's a misconception all the same. The general idea that science deals with objective things, and cannot address subjective things, is wrong. Science addresses measurable things, and humans lend measurability to many subjective phenomena. Consider psychology, for example.

Being subjective doesn't in itself make something beyond the realm of science.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason are designed to show the limits of applying pure reason to metaphysical questions. The shorter version he wrote when people didn't understand the CPR was called "A prolegomena to any future metaphysics which wants to be considered scientific". In demonstrating the limits of reason/metaphysics in this way, he also demonstrates the limits of science. If a combination of empirical science and rational metaphysics can't answer a certain question then empirical science certainly can't do so on its own. One such question is "is libertarian free will possible?" - (NOT "is it true?" - he can only offer an ethical argument for why we should actually believe it does exist.)

Wittgenstein alludes to it in various places in the Tractatus.



He is saying that true value can only come from an act of free will – an action of the metaphysical subject itself – however this could be possible. What gives it value is that it was an act of free will – that it somehow came from “outside”. Such actions cannot merely be part of the normal empirical flow of causality. Instead, they must "change the world into another world. "

UE,
This won't do. It won't begin to do. Here is what you said:


Originally Posted by UndercoverElephant
Why can't some form of causality exist which is beyond scientific testing? The two most influential philosophers in modern history (Kant and Wittgenstein) both believed it was possible that such forms of causality exist.


Here is what I asked you:
Where do they say this? And what is meant by causality here?

Of course, it doesn't matter a speck whether Kant and Wittgenstein are with you or against you. But even if it does matter, you haven't begun to explain what they have to say that supports you.

[PixyMisa]

Being subjective doesn't in itself make something beyond the realm of science.
Indeed. That's a specifically dualist claim.

Under any monism, there's only one sort of stuff. Either it's all within the realm of science, or none of it is.

And we know (by the grand meta-experiment) that some of it is - so all of it is.

Either that, or the Universe is not logically consistent.

[yy2bggggs]

Indeed. That's a specifically dualist claim.

Under any monism, there's only one sort of stuff.
I usually wouldn't even bother with this, but it may help UE understand that I'm not just a Randi clone, so...

I'm not, personally, a monist. I'm not a dualist either. (Think carefully before asking me if I'm a triplist or something).

ETA: And the issue isn't that I simply don't take sides--but rather, that I'm not entirely convinced that there are sides.

[PixyMisa]

No. Someone who tries to use the SM for something it can't be used for, or tries to argue that it could in principle be used for something it can't be used for. A classic example which comes up time and again on this board is the person who claims that science has proven that consciousness is a brain process.
Science has proven consciousness is a brain process.

Science has done nothing of the sort.
Really.

So the endless array of neurological, psychological, pharmacological, physiological, and biochemical evidence from literally thousands of years of experiments that tell us that mind is what brain does - and the complete absence of any contradictory evidence or coherent contrary theory - are what, chopped liver?

Another typical example is PixyMisa, who believes that a whole load of metaphysical stuff upon which is belief system is founded is supported by science when the truth is that it isn't supported by anything at all, let alone science.
I don't know whether this is supposed to be a strawman or simply an ad hominem, but what it isn't is any form of coherent argument.

THAT is nonsense. Do you seriously believe all unfalsifiable claims are contradictory? What a bizarre thing to believe!
He didn't say that.

Science has a genuine battle on its hands, especially in the United States, because of a bunch of anti-scientific religious extremists who make all manner of fallacious, deceitful and misleading fabrications about geology, evolutionary biology and various other things.
And simultaneously it's under attack from all sorts of new-agey and post-modernist types who have decided that the truth is whatever they want it to be, and that objective facts and logic are not to deny their wishful thinking.

If science is going to be successful in countering this threat then it must make sure it keeps its own hands clean: it MUST NOT make similar mistakes to the people who are causing the problem.
It doesn't.

If the scientists themselves don't understand where the boundary is between science, religion and philosophy then they are simply handing ammunition to the creationists: they are making the accusation that "science is just another belief system" true when in fact it should be false.
Wrong.

Instead, you are doing precisely what the creationists are doing: Trying to construct false boundaries to science so that it can't gore your ox, and to hell with everyone else's ox.

Science is powerful because of its limitations. Take away those limitations and it loses that power.
Wrong.

Science is powerful because it methodically tests claims against reality. The only claims outside the purview of science are those that have nothing to do with reality.

[UndercoverElephant]

Science has proven consciousness is a brain process.


No, Pixy, it hasn't. You do science no favours by repeatedly insisting it has done things which it can't possibly have done because they are theoretically impossible. You might just as well be telling us that science has proven that squares are really circles. I know you really, really believe it is true. That doesn't make it actually true.

[paximperium]

No, Pixy, it hasn't. You do science no favours by repeatedly insisting it has done things which it can't possibly have done because they are theoretically impossible. You might just as well be telling us that science has proven that squares are really circles. I know you really, really believe it is true. That doesn't make it actually true.
Define consciousness.

[UndercoverElephant]

Define consciousness.

The definition of consciousness is crucial. If we try to actually define it to mean something like "brain activity" then we are just sidestepping the problem by redefining the problematic word to mean something it doesn't usually mean. What we are actually talking about when we say "consciousness" is subjective experiences, and unlike any normal physical object, our conscious experiences are private to ourselves. So the only way we could define consciousness seems to be to make a private ostensive definition. In other words, we note the existence of our own subjective experiences and make an "internal association" between those experiences and the word "consciousness". We can then, via process of reasonable inferencing and the need to avoid solipsism, also conclude that other people are conscious in the same way and make a similar private definition of that word.

Private ostensive definitions are controversial things in their own right, because one of the central arguments in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is that they are impossible. This matter is further complicated by the fact that Wittgenstein makes two slightly different claims about them. At one point he claims that private ostensive definitions (or "private language") cannot be used publicly. At another point he claims that they can't be used privately either. Both claims are disputable, IMO.

Anyway...my answer to your question is that either you define it via a private ostensive definition, with reference to your own consciousness, or you can't define it at all. Either way, we end up with no usable scientific definition. Science needs the entities it investigates to have clear definitions which are reducible to statements about physical entities.

[UndercoverElephant]

PixyMisa


I don't know whether this is supposed to be a strawman or simply an ad hominem, but what it isn't is any form of coherent argument.


All it is is an accurate summary of your belief system. You have a whole bunch of beliefs, all of which you believe to the same degree of certainty. You are just likely to say "God DOES NOT exist" or "Materialism IS true" as "The Earth IS billions of years old." You do not distinguish between these beliefs as religious, philosophical or scientific. You think ALL of them have been proven by science. You appear to have no idea what the difference if between an empirical/scientific question/claim and a metaphysical/philosophical one.

As I have tried to explain to you over and over again, without you ever taking any real notice of me, the relevance of the difference between these classes of claim is whether or not you have the right to demand other people accept your beliefs. Scientific claims are sufficiently justified to give you the right to expect other people to accept them. Philosophical claims are sufficiently justified to give you the right to expect other people accept them provided they accept the premises of the philosophical argument which backs up the claim and provided that argument is logically valid. Religious claims can't be imposed on other people at all. Because you don't understand these distinctions, you get your philosophical and religious claims mixed up with your scientific claims and try to impose ALL of them on the rest of the world as if all of them had a scientific level of justification.

Understand the problem yet? No, didn't think so.

[PixyMisa]

No, Pixy, it hasn't.
Yes, UndercoverElephant, it has.

You do science no favours by repeatedly insisting it has done things which it can't possibly have done because they are theoretically impossible.
Theoretically impossible, eh?

Really.

So, please, what is this theory?

There is more evidence that consciousness is brain activity - and nothing more - than there is that water is wet. It's better established than even the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

You might just as well be telling us that science has proven that squares are really circles.
No. No, I don't think so.

I know you really, really believe it is true.
It's true. If you take a freshman psychology course, it's what they teach you in the very first lecture.

That doesn't make it actually true.
No. That doesn't make it true. It's the mountain range of evidence that makes it true.

[UndercoverElephant]

No. That doesn't make it true. It's the mountain range of evidence that makes it true.

A non-existent mountain range.

Please provide just ONE piece of scientific evidence to support the claim that consciousness is brain activity.

I am NOT asking for any of the following:

(a) Evidence that consciousness is dependent upon brain activity. I already agree with that, although not for scientific reasons. Your claim is stronger than "dependent upon."

(b) Any sort of abscence of evidence for anything. Abscence of scientific evidence is not the same as postive scientific support for a particular claim, especially if it is a metaphysical claim.

(c) Non-scientific justification of the claim. So no arguments like "mysticism doesn't work".

[PixyMisa]

The definition of consciousness is crucial. If we try to actually define it to mean something like "brain activity" then we are just sidestepping the problem by redefining the problematic word to mean something it doesn't usually mean. What we are actually talking about when we say "consciousness" is subjective experiences
Right.

and unlike any normal physical object, our conscious experiences are private to ourselves.
Kind of what "subjective" means, yeah.

So the only way we could define consciousness seems to be to make a private ostensive definition.
No. This is never true of anything.

In other words, we note the existence of our own subjective experiences and make an "internal association" between those experiences and the word "consciousness". We can then, via process of reasonable inferencing and the need to avoid solipsism, also conclude that other people are conscious in the same way and make a similar private definition of that word.
No.

You missed the other thread.

It's behaviour, and a lot of it is learned behaviour. And what isn't learned, is self-referential information processing. Descartes' cogito carries within it a definition of consciousness in straightforward informational terms: Thinking about oneself.

Private ostensive definitions are controversial things in their own right, because one of the central arguments in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is that they are impossible. This matter is further complicated by the fact that Wittgenstein makes two slightly different claims about them. At one point he claims that private ostensive definitions (or "private language") cannot be used publicly. At another point he claims that they can't be used privately either. Both claims are disputable, IMO.
Not impossible, merely useless.

Anyway...my answer to your question is that either you define it via a private ostensive definition, with reference to your own consciousness, or you can't define it at all.
Yeah, well, once again you're completely wrong. Consciousness is, just like everything else, merely a behaviour. In this case a generalised class of behaviour peculiar to information-processing systems - self-reference.

Either way, we end up with no usable scientific definition.
Wrong.

Science needs the entities it investigates to have clear definitions which are reducible to statements about physical entities.
Guess what? That's wrong too. This is the whole thing yy2bggggs was trying to explain to you.

All you need is some vague distinction, a way to distinguish A from B - consciousness from non-consciousness, in this example - with better than random chance. And you build from there.

Of course, we started out with more than that, and now we have vastly more. We know - as I mentioned earlier - that conscious awareness of decisions follows the actions predicated on those decisions. (And no, that's not retro-causality, it's just that consciousness is a feedback mechanism, not a causal agent.)

We can identify the neuron in a monkey's brain that fires when it's looking at hairy legs. We can stick you in an FMRI and get a digital readout of what it is you are looking at - good enough to read actual words.

We can make your consciousness go away. We can make you experience the presence of God - with magnetic fields, or electrical impulses, or pharmaceuticals. We can trace the activity of visual perception as the signals are routed through your brain. We can rewire you - with a simple visual cue - so that horizontal lines look green and vertical lines look red.

If you're interested in what we really know about the brain and the mind, listen to this MIT Introduction to Psychology lecture series (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Brain-and-Cognitive-Sciences/9-00Fall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm) by Jeremy Wolfe. It's simply brilliant.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yawn.

[tsig]

All sorts of questions. Ethical questions, metaphysical questions, aesthetical questions...

I apply reason to them all.

[PixyMisa]

All it is is an accurate summary of your belief system.
Not remotely.

You have a whole bunch of beliefs, all of which you believe to the same degree of certainty.
No.

You are just likely to say "God DOES NOT exist"
God doesn't exist. That's pretty straightforward.

or "Materialism IS true"
The truth of materialism is inherently unknowable. What is true is naturalism. And that means that either materialism or some operationally equivalent monism is true.

as "The Earth IS billions of years old."
The Earth is billions of years old.

You do not distinguish between these beliefs as religious, philosophical or scientific.
They're all scientific.

You think ALL of them have been proven by science.
Insofar as anything can be proven by science, yes. They're all up there with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

You appear to have no idea what the difference if between an empirical/scientific question/claim and a metaphysical/philosophical one.
No, that's you.

If it impinges on the real world, it's in the realm of science.

Science cannot speak as to the existence of a non-interfering Deist God, but by definition such a being does not exist. For any God that takes an active role in the world, science tells as that it does not exist.

Science cannot differentiate between materialism and other equivalent coherent monisms - doesn't regard the question as meaningful. But it can evaluate metaphysical naturalism, because that's merely a statement of behaviours, and those are definitely the subject of science. And guess what? Naturalism is true.

Oh, and yeah, the Earth is billions of years old. I suspect you knew that.

As I have tried to explain to you over and over again, without you ever taking any real notice of me, the relevance of the difference between these classes of claim is whether or not you have the right to demand other people accept your beliefs.
I have never made any such demand, and never will. That's just another fiction you have invented.

What I am saying is that the evidence all tells us you are wrong.

Scientific claims are sufficiently justified to give you the right to expect other people to accept them.
Right? Expect? Sorry, that doesn't enter into it.

If you don't accept established scientific fact - that, for example, jumping off an thousand-foot office building and landing on the street below; if you say instead (like one of this forum's more entertaining inhabitants) that "I would choose to bounce", you are simply wrong. And likely to come to harm...

Philosophical claims are sufficiently justified to give you the right to expect other people accept them provided they accept the premises of the philosophical argument which backs up the claim and provided that argument is logically valid.
Again, "right" and "expect" don't come into it. If the argument is logically sound and they don't accept it, they're simply wrong.

Religious claims can't be imposed on other people at all.
And yet, they are.

Because you don't understand these distinctions
Wrong.

you get your philosophical and religious claims mixed up with your scientific claims
Wrong.

and try to impose ALL of them on the rest of the world
Wrong.

as if all of them had a scientific level of justification.
They do.

Understand the problem yet? No, didn't think so.
Yes. You're wrong.

[PixyMisa]

A non-existent mountain range.

Please provide just ONE piece of scientific evidence to support the claim that consciousness is brain activity.
Simple: I can switch your consciousness off with a blow to the head. (Indeed, I have inadvertantly done this to myself on one occasion.)

I am NOT asking for any of the following:

(a) Evidence that consciousness is dependent upon brain activity. I already agree with that, although not for scientific reasons. Your claim is stronger than "dependent upon."Yes it is.

But you are supposing that consciousness is brain activity plus some unspecified other thing. You need to show that this other thing exists, and that it is necessary for consciousness, or else your position reduces immediately to mine.

(b) Any sort of abscence of evidence for anything.The complete absence of contrary evidence is part of it.

There is no evidence whatsoever for, for example, for telepathy, remote viewing, astral travel, psychic auras, clairvoyance, precognition, or reincarnation. All such claims have been shown to be baseless, and cannot be used in any attempt to counter the scientifically established facts about consciousness.

Abscence of scientific evidence is not the same as postive scientific support for a particular claim, especially if it is a metaphysical claim.Yes, I do understand that, thanks.

Of course, this isn't a metaphysical claim, so that part is irrelevant.

(c) Non-scientific justification of the claim. So no arguments like "mysticism doesn't work".Of what value would that be?

But just in case you didn't know, mysticism doesn't work.

[PixyMisa]

Yawn.
Darn boring inconvenient facts!

[yy2bggggs]

All you need is some vague distinction, a way to distinguish A from B - consciousness from non-consciousness, in this example - with better than random chance. And you build from there.
Not quite. Consciousness would either be indicated by A or B--let's say A (doesn't really matter, as correlation is a symmetric relationship--though I started with causation which is not usually interpreted as symmetric, it's the correlation that is measurable). Non-consciousness would simply be indicated by ~A. You then need another B to fit into what I'm talking about--something that potentially would correlate with consciousness.

[PixyMisa]

Not quite. Consciousness would be either be indicated by A or B--let's say A (doesn't really matter, as correlation is a symmetric relationship--though I started with causation which is not usually interpreted as symmetric, it's the correlation that is measurable). Non-consciousness would simply be indicated by ~A. You then need another B to fit into what I'm talking about--something that potentially would correlate with consciousness.
Yep, your terminology is clearer.

[UndercoverElephant]

PixyMisa

I asked you to provide ONE piece of scientific evidence which is part of this supposed "mountain of evidence" that supports the claim "consciousness is brain activity." As predicted, you could not do it.

In your land of delusions, you still believe the claim is true, even though you couldn't actually supply ANY evidence where you claim there is "mountains".

***** You are brainwashed *****

You THINK there is mountains of evidence scientific evidence to support your claim. There is NONE AT ALL. All there is scientific evidence to support other claims which you are not making and non-scientific arguments containing logical holes or unacceptable premises.

Are you brave enough to face the truth yet? Are you capable of admitting your belief system isn't faultless after all?

[UndercoverElephant]

Let me make this absolutely clear, so PM's memes don't get passed anywhere.

If I say there is mountains of scientific evidence to support theories like evolution or climate change or plate tectonics or that HIV causes AIDS then I mean exactly that. There is a large amount of crystal clear, scientifically-verified information which can be listed in support of these theories. PixyMisa is confidently giving people the impression that the claim that "consciousness is brain activity" is in the same category. He is not only wrong - he is completely and utterly wrong. Not one single piece of this supposed evidence exists and there is a very good reason for this: the whole issue of how material things are related to mental things is a metaphysical issue, not a scientific one.

Prediction: PixyMisa will respond to this post with something like: "Wrong! There's mountains of evidence! "

Who here on the side of the materialists has the courage to tell PM he has made a mistake? Or are you all as cowardly as he?

Don't you find it just a little bit odd that somebody is so insistently claiming there is "mountains" of evidence for something when none at all exists? Doesn't it just possibly suggest that that somebody is trying to hide from something? No, of course not. You're critical thinkers, aren't you? [i]You don't run away from inconvenient facts....

[yy2bggggs]

The whole issue of how material things are related to mental things is a metaphysical issue, not a scientific one.
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_2061349fdd27eb513a.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=16210)
Do you see how that's moving--in your mind? That's because a series of dark-lighter-light-darker triggers a false hit in the motion sensors in your visual cortex, resulting in a perceived motion along that direction. (FYI, that's an original image I just drew... so I know you've never seen it before--not to mention there's no copyright issues).

Who'd have thunk? A mental phenomenon that's addressable materially. Care for an explanation of why violet, which looks like red and blue mixed together, appears at the end of the spectrum? (In particular, why the thing at the end of the spectrum appears to be a mix of red and blue?)
Who here on the side of the materialists has the courage to tell PM he has made a mistake?I did. He reacted quite well, if you ask me. Then again, I'm not quite sure I'm on the side of materialists--except perhaps on this key issue.

ETA: If you're asking for help to make an argument that there could be phenomena science can't address, I could perhaps do that. It wouldn't help your case any, since the argument doesn't apply to karma or synchronicity.

[Malerin]

Simple: I can switch your consciousness off with a blow to the head. (Indeed, I have inadvertantly done this to myself on one occasion.)

That explains so much... JK

But you are supposing that consciousness is brain activity plus some unspecified other thing. You need to show that this other thing exists, and that it is necessary for consciousness, or else your position reduces immediately to mine.

Unspecified other thing? You mean experience? I'm pretty sure I experience things (and since I'm not a solipsist, I assume you also have experiences). For instance, when you stub your toe, you are not robotically aware that you have injured some part of your body. Stubbing your toe hurts. It feels bad. The experience is the "unspecified other thing". There is brain activity and then there is consciousness, our feelings of self-awareness, and experience in general. These may all be caused by brain activity, but that does not mean they are brain activity.

The logic of your position is that it is possible for a blind person to understand what seeing is just from studying the brain, function of the eyes, neurochemical activity, etc. Your claim is that after this blind person has learned every chemical/biological component involved in seeing, they would have the same understanding of what seeing is as a person who is not blind. That is where you run into trouble. You can study up on the process of sight all you want, but you'll always be lacking the most crucial element: the actual experience of seeing.

There is no evidence whatsoever for, for example, for telepathy, remote viewing, astral travel, psychic auras, clairvoyance, precognition, or reincarnation. All such claims have been shown to be baseless, and cannot be used in any attempt to counter the scientifically established facts about consciousness.

Anecdotal accounts are evidence. You may not believe anyone who claims to have done any of those things, but nevertheless, they are evidentiary claims.

Of course, this isn't a metaphysical claim, so that part is irrelevant.

All non-trivial claims (claims that aren't mathematically or logically true) are ontological. All ontological claims are metaphysical. Therefore, all non-trivial claims are metaphysical. For example, your claim that consciousness is brain activity is an ontological claim that there exist these things called brains, they are made up of neurons, the mind arises from it (or you might claim the mind is the brain), etc. You are asserting that reality is a certain way. If there are no such things as brains (if, for example, there is only mind and thought and everything is a projection of mind(s)), then your claim falls apart: brains are simply elements of an elaborate dream and their existence is dependent and caused by the mind, not the other way around.

Now then, since you are deep in metaphysical materialist waters, what is your evidence? Are you going to kick a rock?

But just in case you didn't know, mysticism doesn't work.

Unless physical reality is a creation of God's mind, in which case, it works quite well.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_2061349fdd27eb513a.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=16210)
Do you see how that's moving--in your mind?


Yeah, groovy....



That's because a series of dark-lighter-light-darker triggers a false hit in the motion sensors in your visual cortex, resulting in a perceived motion along that direction. (FYI, that's an original image I just drew... so I know you've never seen it before--not to mention there's no copyright issues).


I've seen similar optical illusions.


Who'd have thunk? A mental phenomenon that's addressable materially. Care for an explanation of why violet, which looks like red and blue mixed together, appears at the end of the spectrum? (In particular, why the thing at the end of the spectrum appears to be a mix of red and blue?)


I'm not sure I understand what point you are making. That the content of consciousness is critically dependent on neural, material things is not the issue. The issue is whether or not there is scientific evidence that consciousness IS a neural, material thing and/or whether or not a materialistic explanation will always leave something out.

Showing that consciousness is dependent on brain activity (which is not a solely scientific process but can be done) does not actually tell us what consciousness "is" or how it is connected to brain activity. A thing cannot be related or connected to itself. Either consciousness IS brain activity (no connection) or consciousness is dependent on (or connected/related to) brain activity, implying that the two are distinct. Which of course they are. It is a lot easier to answer the question "how do we distinguish between consciousness and brain activity?" than it is to answer the question "in what ways are consciousness and brain activity similar?" I must have explained this about five times now. Is there something lacking in the explanation or are people just forgetting it immediately after I post it?

[UndercoverElephant]

That explains so much... JK



Unspecified other thing? You mean experience? I'm pretty sure I experience things (and since I'm not a solipsist, I assume you also have experiences). For instance, when you stub your toe, you are not robotically aware that you have injured some part of your body. Stubbing your toe hurts. It feels bad. The experience is the "unspecified other thing". There is brain activity and then there is consciousness, our feelings of self-awareness, and experience in general. These may all be caused by brain activity, but that does not mean they are brain activity.


Not that hard an argument to follow, is it? :rolleyes:

[PixyMisa]

PixyMisa

I asked you to provide ONE piece of scientific evidence which is part of this supposed "mountain of evidence" that supports the claim "consciousness is brain activity." As predicted, you could not do it.
I did. Your prediction is false, and your reading skills are called into question.

In your land of delusions, you still believe the claim is true, even though you couldn't actually supply ANY evidence where you claim there is "mountains".
See above.

***** You are brainwashed *****See above.

You THINK there is mountains of evidence scientific evidence to support your claim.There are indeed mountains of evidence to support this, the unifying theory of modern psychology and neuroscience.

I provided one small, simple example as requested. Perhaps you could address that?

There is NONE AT ALL.Then perhaps you could address my point and show me why it suddenly doesn't exist?

All there is scientific evidence to support other claims which you are not making and non-scientific arguments containing logical holes or unacceptable premises.Sorry, I can't even parse that sentence.

Are you brave enough to face the truth yet?What I have already said is quite accurate, thanks. There is more evidence that mind is what brain does than there is for any other statement about the world.

Are you capable of admitting your belief system isn't faultless after all?What belief system?

[PixyMisa]

Let me make this absolutely clear, so PM's memes don't get passed anywhere.

If I say there is mountains of scientific evidence to support theories like evolution or climate change or plate tectonics or that HIV causes AIDS then I mean exactly that. There is a large amount of crystal clear, scientifically-verified information which can be listed in support of these theories.
Evolution, most certainly. Plate tectonics we can measure directly. HIV causing AIDS is beyond any reasonable doubt. Climate change is pretty solidly established, but not in the same category.

But there is vastly more evidence confirming that consciousness is brain activity than there is for all four of those examples put together. (Albeit partly because it's founded on biology, which is founded on evolutionary theory, so it subsumes all of that evidence.)

PixyMisa is confidently giving people the impression that the claim that "consciousness is brain activity" is in the same category.
No. In fact, I explicitly said that this is not true.

It is far more reliably confirmed than something like evolution, which is merely incontrovertibly true.

He is not only wrong - he is completely and utterly wrong. Not one single piece of this supposed evidence exists and there is a very good reason for this: the whole issue of how material things are related to mental things is a metaphysical issue, not a scientific one.
Wrong.

Prediction: PixyMisa will respond to this post with something like: "Wrong! There's mountains of evidence! "
Wrong again.

And, because you missed it the first time, I'll point it out again:

We know that consciousness is brain function because - among millions of other reasons - I can remove it from you by hitting you over the head.

Who here on the side of the materialists has the courage to tell PM he has made a mistake?
Every single one of them, I suspect.

Or are you all as cowardly as he?
Ah, the shotgun ad hominem.

Don't you find it just a little bit odd that somebody is so insistently claiming there is "mountains" of evidence for something when none at all exists?
You still haven't addressed my example. Or any of the other examples I've mentioned in passing. Or any of the other examples any of the other posters in this thread have mentioned.

Doesn't it just possibly suggest that that somebody is trying to hide from something?
Yes. Yes it does. But one might well be advised to first determine on whose foot is the shoe.

No, of course not. You're critical thinkers, aren't you? [I]You don't run away from inconvenient facts....
No. We don't.

[yy2bggggs]

I've seen similar optical illusions.
I'm sure you have. Professor Kitaoka's rotating snakes is a famed peripheral drift illusion among us internet denizens.
I'm not sure I understand what point you are making.
Likewise. This thread is about concepts from Eastern mysticism, and for a while you've been discussing karma and synchronicity. Now you've moved to consciousness. But you've also asserted that "necessarily private" phenomena are beyond the realm of science. Well, take a look. Percepts are necessarily private phenomena. Maybe you want to shoot for attention instead? (*evil-grin*)
That the content of consciousness is critically dependent on neural, material things is not the issue.
It seems your goal posts are moving.

That events of certain kinds are critically correlated with other events of certain kinds is the issue with karma and synchronicity. It's necessarily the issue. Without a correlation, you have no phenomenon.
The issue is whether or not there is scientific evidence that consciousness IS a neural, material thing and/or whether or not a materialistic explanation will always leave something out.
Of course it will. Science doesn't address certainty. But if there's any meaning at all behind the phrase "POV of science", it is in terms of what science can address, can help with, can point to, can rule out--etc.

Are there aspects of consciousness beyond the realm of science to address? Perhaps. But that doesn't make your as yet unexplained karma such an aspect. Your karma sounds exactly like the sort of think science can address.
Is there something lacking in the explanation or are people just forgetting it immediately after I post it?
Yes, there's something lacking. The thing that is lacking is how this helps your case with karma or synchronicity or, if you meant something else within the context of this thread, whatever other Eastern concept you're talking about (I'm afraid you wandered into Western philosophy, by the way).

FYI, on the issue of my admitting of the possibility that there could be causally related phenomenon beyond the ability of science to address... I've already contended it. But there's nothing I've said so far in this thread that this actually changes.

[UndercoverElephant]

I did. Your prediction is false, and your reading skills are called into question.


OH are they, Pixywixy?

Nope, they're just fine. You can't answer the question.

The question is: "Can you provide even one example of this supposed mountain of scientific evidence supporting the claim that consciousness is brain activity?"

You think you've answered? You haven't, Pixypoo. That's why you won't be able to answer it this third time I've asked you.


See above.

See above.


Above there is a claim that there is something wrong with my reading comprehension skills because I haven't been able to identify the answer to my question. There is nothing wrong with my reading ability. The problem is that you haven't actually answered the question.


There are indeed mountains of evidence to support this, the unifying theory of modern psychology and neuroscience.


SPECIFIC evidence please, not just general arm-waving.


I provided one small, simple example as requested. Perhaps you could address that?


No you didn't.


Then perhaps you could address my point and show me why it suddenly doesn't exist?


What point, Pixy? You haven't made one.


Sorry, I can't even parse that sentence.


All there is is scientific evidence to support other claims which you are not making and non-scientific arguments containing logical holes or unacceptable premises.

It means that instead of providing any examples of this supposed scientific evidence, all you can actually provide is scientifically-valid evidence which doesn't prove you claim is true or entirely non-scientific arguments and bald, unsupported assertions.


What I have already said is quite accurate, thanks. There is more evidence that mind is what brain does than there is for any other statement about the world.


Another generalised claim. I want THE ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, not just more unsupported assertions that loads of it exists. Is that too much to ask, Pixydixy?


What belief system?

The one that is riddled with holes.

[UndercoverElephant]

And, because you missed it the first time, I'll point it out again:

We know that consciousness is brain function because - among millions of other reasons - I can remove it from you by hitting you over the head.



Oh yes, I missed it. However, you've offered this several times before and it has been explained to you precisely what is wrong with it. Showing that consciousness disappears if a brain is damaged doesn't qualify as part of this supposed mountain of evidence for two reasons. First, it has nothing to do with science. We did not need science to learn that hitting people over the head "turned their lights out". This fact has been known to everyone who has ever been knocked unconscious, from the dawn of humanity. Second, even if it was scientific evidence, it still wouldn't be evidence of what you claim it is evidence of. It demonstrates that brains are necessary for consciousness, not that they are identical to or sufficient for it. Did you understand that or do you want me to explain it again using shorter words?

[RandFan]

No. I expect you to accept that it is possible simply on the grounds that you cannot give me a reason why it is impossible.Sure, but why should anyone take it seriously?

This is the principle mistake made by Randi and Dawkins: they don't understand where the boundaries of science are because they don't understand the relevant bits of the history of philosophy. They think that science is defined and limited by scientists, not philosophers. They are wrong.When you've got something concrete get back to us.

As long as a sack full of transcendent stuff is indistinguishable from an empty sack then it's all naval gazing. Fun but no reason to form beliefs around.

[PixyMisa]

That explains so much... JK
;)

Unspecified other thing? You mean experience? I don't know; he hasn't specified. But as far as I can tell, no.

I'm pretty sure I experience things (and since I'm not a solipsist, I assume you also have experiences).Yep.

For instance, when you stub your toe, you are not robotically aware that you have injured some part of your body.Well, you are, but there is certainly more to it than that.

Stubbing your toe hurts. It feels bad. The experience is the "unspecified other thing".I don't think so, not from what UndercoverElephant has said.

But if it is - whyever do you think that experience is anything but brain activity?

There is brain activity and then there is consciousness, our feelings of self-awareness, and experience in general. These may all be caused by brain activity, but that does not mean they are brain activity.Yes it does.

As I pointed out earlier, to say that consciousness is brain activity is to say that consciousness is caused by the brain. To say that consciousness is caused by brain activity is to say that consciousness is caused by is caused by the brain - grammatically nonsensical.

"Is caused by" and "activity" are fully generalised indirect layers. Having two of them is meaningless.

The logic of your position is that it is possible for a blind person to understand what seeing is just from studying the brain, function of the eyes, neurochemical activity, etc.In practice? No.

Your claim is that after this blind person has learned every chemical/biological component involved in seeing, they would have the same understanding of what seeing is as a person who is not blind. That's a restatement of Mary's Room.

If it were possible to understand everything physical about the process of seeing, withing actually ever having seen, then yes, you would of necessity understand seeing just as completely as a person who can see.

That is where you run into trouble. You can study up on the process of sight all you want, but you'll always be lacking the most crucial element: the actual experience of seeing.Nope. That's a bait-and-switch - or more formally, an unstated major premise a.k.a begging the question.

If seeing is a physical process, and you understand all there is to the physical process of seeing, that includes understanding the experience.

The Mary's Room argument only works if we assume that experience is non-physical. But if we assume that, the argument is redundant, because the point is to prove that experience is non-physical.

It's a really lousy argument all round.

Anecdotal accounts are evidence. You may not believe anyone who claims to have done any of those things, but nevertheless, they are evidentiary claims.They're evidence of something.

But if I say that - oh, let's say - that I'm wearing a green shirt, and you are standing right in front of me and can see plain as day that I'm wearing a red shirt, my claim that I'm wearing a green shirt is not evidence that I'm wearing a green shirt. It's evidence that I'm confused, lying, joking, posing some silly Zen riddle, colour blind, or suffering from blunt head trauma

All non-trivial claims (claims that aren't mathematically or logically true) are ontological. All ontological claims are metaphysical. Therefore, all non-trivial claims are metaphysical.Trivially.

For example, your claim that consciousness is brain activity is an ontological claim that there exist these things called brains, they are made up of neurons, the mind arises from it (or you might claim the mind is the brain), etc. You are asserting that reality is a certain way. If there are no such things as brains (if, for example, there is only mind and thought and everything is a projection of mind(s)), then your claim falls apart: brains are simply elements of an elaborate dream and their existence is dependent and caused by the mind, not the other way around.Yes, but none of that matters in the slightest, because there are brains.

Now then, since you are deep in metaphysical materialist waters, what is your evidence? Are you going to kick a rock?No, but something similar: I'm going to hit you over the head with it.

Unless physical reality is a creation of God's mind, in which case, it works quite well.No. I'm not making a metaphysical point, merely an observation: Mysticism does not work.

[UndercoverElephant]

Sure, but why should anyone take it seriously?


I suspect that anyone who has read and understood the works of people like Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel and Wittgenstein would take it seriously. I suspect that quite a few people who have an interest in gaining a better understanding of religion might take it seriously. Why should a confirmed skeptic with no abiding passion for philosophy take it seriously? I can't think of a reason.

[RandFan]

From another thread provided by Paul Hoff.

_MmpUWEW6Is

I think it is relevant here.

[UndercoverElephant]

;)

I don't know; he hasn't specified. But as far as I can tell, no.

I don't think so, not from what UndercoverElephant has said.


In terms of the missing thing from YOUR POV, yes, that's what is missing. You ask what else there is to consciousness but brain activity? The answer is ALL OF IT. Consciousness isn't even partly brain activity. It isn't brain activity at all. You appear to believe that if you repeat the mantra "consciousness is brain activity" enough times, it will magically become true.

[RandFan]

I suspect that anyone who has read and understood the works of people like Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel and Wittgenstein would take it seriously. I suspect that quite a few people who have an interest in gaining a better understanding of religion might take it seriously. Why should a confirmed skeptic with no abiding passion for philosophy take it seriously? I can't think of a reason.To be fair, I simply mean to live one's life as if there is some transcendant truth. As for religion it is far more likely that we will get a better understanding of religion through science.

Why We Believe in Gods (http://richarddawkins.net/article,3779,Why-We-Believe-in-Gods---Dr-Andy-Thomson---American-Atheists-09,Andy-Thomson)

Of course you have to accept that there are answer to be found via the scientific method.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which are wrong. --Richard Feynman.

[UndercoverElephant]

From another thread provided by Paul Hoff.

_MmpUWEW6Is

I think it is relevant here.

I agreed with nearly all of that. The only thing I'd disagree with is "I'm not 100% certain of anything" - or at least I'd qualify it by saying that within certain frameworks of understanding, there are things I am 100% certain of. I am 100% certain that within the framework of understanding of the physical sciences, mammals evolved from fish and 100% certain that Venus spins backwards. The reason I am certain is that I believe that scientific claims that are this integral to the whole network of scientific beliefs that they cannot later turn out to be wrong without causing a "cascade failure" which would wreck the whole of science - something which I simply do not believe is possible. I don't see all scientific claims as this certain, obviously. Just the ones which can't be wrong without causing massive contradictions with the whole of the rest of science.

[UndercoverElephant]

To be fair, I simply mean to live one's life as if there is some transcendant truth. As for religion it is far more likely that we will get a better understanding of religion through science.

Why We Believe in Gods (http://richarddawkins.net/article,3779,Why-We-Believe-in-Gods---Dr-Andy-Thomson---American-Atheists-09,Andy-Thomson)

Of course you have to accept that there are answer to be found via the scientific method.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which are wrong. --Richard Feynman.

Sure, but part of the reason you think that is because deep down you really don't believe that the sort of things I talk about could be real. Can you even imagine how differently you would feel if what I'm saying is true and it actually happened to you? Yes, it is interesting to live in doubt and have many questions. But for most skeptics, if they one day discovered that these phenomena were actually real then they would suddenly realise that the "interesting" scale can go up by another order of magnitude. An appropriate description might be "world-shattering." Imagine it - you spend twenty years believing that all this stuff is total bollocks then one day you discover that even though 90% of is bollocks, there is actually something real going on underneath which is the true root cause of these beliefs. Can you imagine it?

[paximperium]

Oh yes, I missed it. However, you've offered this several times before and it has been explained to you precisely what is wrong with it. Showing that consciousness disappears if a brain is damaged doesn't qualify as part of this supposed mountain of evidence for two reasons. First, it has nothing to do with science. We did not need science to learn that hitting people over the head "turned their lights out". This fact has been known to everyone who has ever been knocked unconscious, from the dawn of humanity. Second, even if it was scientific evidence, it still wouldn't be evidence of what you claim it is evidence of. It demonstrates that brains are necessary for consciousness, not that they are identical to or sufficient for it. Did you understand that or do you want me to explain it again using shorter words?
Wow, I've read such grand special pleading in sometime.

Let me speak slowly. Consciousness is dependent on brain function. If you damage, change, shut down brain function, you damage, change or shut down brain function.

What you are claiming is Brain+Something. You have never once define "Something", never once shown there is "something" and never once show that "something" is even relevant. You have in essence created a nice unfalsifiable and untestable little ghost in the machine or do you not understand Ocham's razor?

Congrats, you just defined consciousness as something that has the similar "existence" of something that does not exist.

[Kell]

As for religion it is far more likely that we will get a better understanding of religion through science.


Really? Better than what? Better than just, y'know, understanding it?

Why We Believe in Gods (http://richarddawkins.net/article,3779,Why-We-Believe-in-Gods---Dr-Andy-Thomson---American-Atheists-09,Andy-Thomson)

Yes, yes. I saw that vid when it was posted on dawkins.net. To me it looks like nothing more than a rambling concatenation of rather fatuous observations, while presented as some sort of early scientific definition of religion.
"Religious people gather in groups to reinforce their beliefs because gathering people who agree together in groups reinforces their beliefs." Stunningly insightful :rolleyes:

[paximperium]

In terms of the missing thing from YOUR POV, yes, that's what is missing. You ask what else there is to consciousness but brain activity? The answer is ALL OF IT. Consciousness isn't even partly brain activity. It isn't brain activity at all. You appear to believe that if you repeat the mantra "consciousness is brain activity" enough times, it will magically become true.
Wonderful, now you've made a positive claim. Prove it.

Consciousness requires brain activity. The opposite is not true. Hence your claim has been falsified repeatedly.

[RandFan]

I am 100% certain that within the framework of understanding of the physical sciences...This assumes that idealism can be disproved. I can't be 100% certain of anything. However, I can be certain to a point that to withold provisional consent would be perverse, or to quote Stephen J. Gould.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

[paximperium]

The reason I am certain is that I believe that scientific claims that are this integral to the whole network of scientific beliefs that they cannot later turn out to be wrong without causing a "cascade failure" which would wreck the whole of science - something which I simply do not believe is possible. I don't see all scientific claims as this certain, obviously. Just the ones which can't be wrong without causing massive contradictions with the whole of the rest of science.
You are wrong. A single isolated event would not change science much. There is a possibility that you could spontaneous change into gold or walk through a solid wall. However, the chance of that occurring would require several galactic lifetimes.

So science does not claim anything with 100% certainty because the rare to near impossible is accounted for.

[paximperium]

Can you even imagine how differently you would feel if what I'm saying is true and it actually happened to you? Yes, it is interesting to live in doubt and have many questions. But for most skeptics, if they one day discovered that these phenomena were actually real then they would suddenly realise that the "interesting" scale can go up by another order of magnitude. An appropriate description might be "world-shattering." How wrong you are. Many skeptics are more than willing to accept and change their opinion based on evidence. Skepticism does not equate with Denialism. What you have is a bigoted and stereotype of skeptics.

Personally if we found out that telepathy is true, it would be really cool and it would be exciting to study a new brain phenomena. If I discovered a that homeopathy was true, I'd use the damn stuff to save lives. I don;t see any such evidence, just people deluding themselves and playing semantic and philosophical games.

Imagine it - you spend twenty years believing that all this stuff is total bollocks then one day you discover that even though 90% of is bollocks, there is actually something real going on underneath which is the true root cause of these beliefs. Can you imagine it?Yes, it has happened before and will happen again. You have no understanding of skeptics. BTW: The Kraken is really cool. Nothing beats mythical giant squid.

Imagine the opposite. Can YOU imagine when you realize the crap you believe is actually crap?

[UndercoverElephant]

Wow, I've read such grand special pleading in sometime.


There's no special pleading. Please explain exactly what is wrong with the refutation of Pixy's claim.


Let me speak slowly. Consciousness is dependent on brain function. If you damage, change, shut down brain function, you damage, change or shut down brain function.


You meant "consciousness" as the end of that sentence, I presume. In which case, I'm not sure why you are speaking slowly, because I've already agreed that this statement is indeed almost certainly true. It is not the truth of this claim that is being disputed. What is being disputed is that this claim being true is admissable as scientific evidence to support the additional claim that "consciousness IS brain activity". The evidence is non-scientific and would be rejected by eliminative materialists as non-scientific "folk psychology" and it doesn't even show what it is supposed to show. That is not "special pleading."


What you are claiming is Brain+Something.


I'm claiming that no explanation which only involves brains is going to suffice, yes.


You have never once define "Something", never once shown there is "something" and never once show that "something" is even relevant.


The "something" is either consciousness, or something else which in combination with a brain produces consciousness. Why is that relevant? Errr...because we are having a discussion about how consciousness is related to brain activity? Mkay....?


You have in essence created a nice unfalsifiable and untestable little ghost in the machine or do you not understand Ocham's razor?


I do undeed understand the razor, including understanding when it cannot legitimately be used. Occam's razor is used to get rid of entities that are more complicated or more in number than required. It cannot be used to escape from logical problems and it cannot be used to remove consciousness.

[RandFan]

Better than what?

A better understanding than we had in the past.
A better understanding than we have now.
A better understanding than we will have in the near future.
(see my post above) Science isn't about perfect knowledge. It's about ever increasing our understanding. BTW, your question is easily answered if you look at the context of the post I was responding to. UCE made an assertion. If you have a problem with the assertion about understanding then I suggest you take it up with him.

Yes, yes. I saw that vid when it was posted on dawkins.net. To me it looks like nothing more than a rambling concatenation of rather fatuous observations, while presented as some sort of early scientific definition of religion.It looks to me that your observation is nothing more than confirmation bias.

"Religious people gather in groups to reinforce their beliefs because gathering people who agree together in groups reinforces their beliefs." Stunningly insightful This is all you gleaned from the video? Are you saying that the statement is entirely without merit or do you simply see it as tautological?

[PixyMisa]

In terms of the missing thing from YOUR POV, yes, that's what is missing.
Okay, fine. Whyever do you think that experience is anything other than brain activity, when we can (to again pick just one example) remove single specific memories from the brains of rats?

You ask what else there is to consciousness but brain activity? The answer is ALL OF IT.
That is not a meaningful answer to the question. It's either a grammatical error of some sort, or you answered a question I didn't ask.

Consciousness isn't even partly brain activity.
And yet, turning off brain activity turns off consciousness.

It isn't brain activity at all.
And yet...

You appear to believe that if you repeat the mantra "consciousness is brain activity" enough times, it will magically become true.
No. It is true. I hope that if I point out the flaws in your arguments enough times, you might actually notice.

And the mountain range of evidence is still there. I just gave you another example.

[RandFan]

Sure, but part of the reason you think that is because deep down you really don't believe that the sort of things I talk about could be real.You DON'T know what I believe deep down inside. I sold everything I had and went on a two year mission because deep down I believed it was real. I know what it means to believe in god and spiritual experience so don't tell me what I believe and don't believe.

I absolutely believe it is possible.

Can you even imagine how differently you would feel if what I'm saying is true and it actually happened to you?

If I woke tomorrow morning and saw winged fairies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy) flying all around my house and they conversed with me and we had tea and biscuits It would make me feel very different than what I'm feeling right now. If I ran next door and returned with my neighbor and the fairies were gone I'd still feel very different. I'd likely question the possibility that it was just a delusion and while the event was very significant to me, given that I could not prove that It had happened, I would have to be honest in my assessment that perhaps it didn't happen.

If my neighbor John came to me with a story that there were winged fairies in his house I would excitedly go with him to see them (my neighbor seems to me to be a very honest and sincere person). If the fairies weren't there I wouldn't bust his chops for it. I'd think he experienced something he thought was real and perhaps it was but IT WOULDN'T be reason for me to go on a quest the world over looking for fairies.

Can you imagine it?Damn straight but flights of fancy are not grounds for anything.

[UndercoverElephant]

Really? Better than what? Better than just, y'know, understanding it?

"Religious people gather in groups to reinforce their beliefs because gathering people who agree together in groups reinforces their beliefs." Stunningly insightful :rolleyes:

:D

[paximperium]

What is being disputed is that this claim being true is admissable as scientific evidence to support the additional claim that "consciousness IS brain activity". The evidence is non-scientific and would be rejected by eliminative materialists as non-sensical "folk psychology" and certain NOT science and it doesn't even show what it is supposed to show. That is not "special pleading."
A non-scientist speaking as if you understand how science or scientist would behave? Amazing.

No, what science has is a falsification that "consciousness" is something more than brain function. The reverse has not been shown true. Parsimony removes that extra "something" from the explanation.


I'm claiming that no explanation which only involves brains is going to suffice, yes. Prove it.


The "something" is either consciousness, or something else which in combination with a brain produces consciousness. Why is that relevant? Errr...because we are having a discussion about how consciousness is related to brain activity? Mkay....? No. You claim there is "something" without once showing there is "something" to begin with or that it is even required for conciousness therefore I have yet to see any relevance of your "something".

I do undeed understand the razor, including understanding when it cannot legitimately be used. Occam's razor is used to get rid of entities that are more complicated or more in number than required. It cannot be used to escape from logical problems and it cannot be used to remove consciousness. It has. It "get rid of entities that are more complicated or more in number than required."

Brain +something I can't define or even say it exist=Conciousness.

[PixyMisa]

Oh yes, I missed it. However, you've offered this several times before and it has been explained to you precisely what is wrong with it.
Well, no. No, nothing of the sort has been explained.

Showing that consciousness disappears if a brain is damaged doesn't qualify as part of this supposed mountain of evidence for two reasons. First, it has nothing to do with science.
Wrong!

We did not need science to learn that hitting people over the head "turned their lights out".
No, it's just an observation. You know, evidence. Precisely the thing you asked for.

This fact has been known to everyone who has ever been knocked unconscious, from the dawn of humanity.
Yes, thank you.

Now, why is it, if consciousness is not brain activity, that disrupting brain activity by such a simple means, switches consciousness off?

Second, even if it was scientific evidence
Which of course it is.

it still wouldn't be evidence of what you claim it is evidence of. It demonstrates that brains are necessary for consciousness, not that they are identical to or sufficient for it.
No-one ever said that brains are identical to consciousness, whatever that is supposed to mean.

However, consciousness is brain activity. Disrupt brain activity - poof! - consciousness gone. The unspecified other is nowhere to be found, only brain activity and consciousness. On. Off. On. Off. Sooner or later I'll run out of rocks, but I hope you'll grasp the point before then.

Did you understand that or do you want me to explain it again using shorter words?
I understood fine, though you can try shorter words if you think that will help. You'll still be wrong, though.

[Apathia]

Thanks Randfan.
I always enjoy Feynman's attitude.

Taking beliefs to seriously can be hazardous to your health.
But I do believe we are responsible for being aware of our beliefs and basic working assumptions.

That way we can acknowledge their strengths and weakness, and more importantly avoid intellectual hubris.

You never have a belief, especially when it is vigorously promoted, without an agenda.
The agenda isn't necessarily selfish, exploitive, or sinister. It's just that we humans naturally have reasons of the heart for preferring certain philosophical positions.

There's always occasion to ask,
Why do I feel this belief is important.
What do I feel I gain by this belief?
What do I fear I'll lose, if I don't hold this position.

I confess my philosophical, metaphysical, or even epistemological beliefs are very often a matter of policy. I'm not just mystic in bent, but I'm also pragmatic (an odd combination, I know.)
(I don't find a monolithic metaphysics in my mystical experiences.)
It comes to not only what fits my feelings of integration with reality, but also what serves to help me cope and affirms freedom and compassion.
In my case this comes to a secular version of Zen Buddhism with some Stoic attitude thrown in.

Questions of Philosophy aren't going away as long as we are Human.
And believing is one of those very Human activities.

Skeptics have beliefs too. Of all the people they should be the ones bringing their working beliefs or practical positions to awareness and be honest to say that their assumptions about reality are.

As Feynman, a skeptic should be able to live without absolute certainty about beliefs. It's the dogmatists who tell you you can have absolute knowledge about metaphysical matters, or even about the epistemological assumptions upon which the Scientific method rests.

Now if there's anyone here still insisting that he or she has no beliefs,

Wake up!