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RE: Indoctrination - 12/11/2012 2:32:45 PM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML
quote:

That you even imagine yourself capable of considering the research with an open mind is laughable. Your comments demonstrate a degree of misrepresentation and prejudgment that borders on religious fervor.

I laid out a case for why the evidence sucks. What you presented is based upon anecdote and specious verifications. Why are you unable to respond except in an ad hominem manner?


Because you've already shot down the anecdotes and specious verifications.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 12:26:30 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

inventing god or gods to fill the gaps in our knowledge doesn't seem a very intelligent thing to do...

Vincent went off on "souls," and you're introducing a "god or gods," but my post said nothing about either.

Just sayin.

K.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 12:27:45 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: crazyml

No, poppet, I was doing it as kind of joke, but you surprised me by getting sniffy.

Apparently, then, we both missed what passes for each other's sense of humor!

K.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 12:40:36 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

inventing god or gods to fill the gaps in our knowledge doesn't seem a very intelligent thing to do...

Vincent went off on "souls," and you're introducing a "god or gods," but my post said nothing about either.

Just sayin.

K.


OK Inventing the supranatural doesn't seem very inteligent way to fill the gaps in our knowledge.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 12:43:34 AM   
crazyml


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: crazyml

No, poppet, I was doing it as kind of joke, but you surprised me by getting sniffy.

Apparently, then, we both missed what passes for each other's sense of humor!

K.


Ah!

Oops.


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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 1:35:22 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The soul in my analogy? I never said anything about "the soul". I don't even know what the hell you mean by "the soul," but when you descend into these crazy religious rants I feel highly motivated not to ask.

In #538 you equated supraphysical reality with religious experience:

"And this is where we come up against belief in the existence of some kind of supraphysical reality. People who have had religious experiences, which they almost uniformly describe as being more real even than that train,"

Now you dodge and weave the connection.

Anyone who has been following this thread knows that the position I've been arguing is that we believe the world to be real on the evidence of experience, that we cannot absolutely prove the existence of an objective reality independent of consciousness, that we cannot absolutely prove that anything we experience has any reality independent of consciousness.

And this is where we come up against belief in the existence of some kind of supraphysical reality. People who have had religious experiences, which they almost uniformly describe as being more real even than that train, or people who have actually personally experienced finding themselves outside their body, cannot simply be dismissed as believing in something "without the evidence of experience."

Of course, that's presenting the full quote in context.

Now, you were saying?

K.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 2:26:55 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

OK Inventing the supranatural doesn't seem very inteligent way to fill the gaps in our knowledge.

Inventing it, no. But believing that there is some other reality that underlies or penetrates the one we normally experience, a reality that does not obey physical laws, on the evidence of one's personal experience is another matter.

Sure, we can misinterpret our experience. But given the long record of such experiences by people everywhere, it's getting a trifle priestish at this point to continue to ridicule the notion and dismiss investigating on the grounds that the violations of physical laws involved are sufficient cause to conclude that any such interpretations are false.

The fact that words like "souls" and "gods" have come to feature in some of the posts troubles me. Allowing an anti-religious bias to keep us from looking into such matters is unlikely to help us fill the gaps in our knowledge either.

K.

< Message edited by Kirata -- 12/12/2012 2:53:32 AM >

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 2:35:36 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The soul in my analogy? I never said anything about "the soul". I don't even know what the hell you mean by "the soul," but when you descend into these crazy religious rants I feel highly motivated not to ask.

In #538 you equated supraphysical reality with religious experience:

"And this is where we come up against belief in the existence of some kind of supraphysical reality. People who have had religious experiences, which they almost uniformly describe as being more real even than that train,"

Now you dodge and weave the connection.

Anyone who has been following this thread knows that the position I've been arguing is that we believe the world to be real on the evidence of experience, that we cannot absolutely prove the existence of an objective reality independent of consciousness, that we cannot absolutely prove that anything we experience has any reality independent of consciousness.

And this is where we come up against belief in the existence of some kind of supraphysical reality. People who have had religious experiences, which they almost uniformly describe as being more real even than that train, or people who have actually personally experienced finding themselves outside their body, cannot simply be dismissed as believing in something "without the evidence of experience."

Of course, that's presenting the full quote in context.

Now, you were saying?

K.


Surely the problem here is labelling something we can't explain as supraphysical or supernatural or whatever. That implies something is beyond our knowledge or explanation. Such labeling is just filling the gaps in our knowledge and extending our ignorance, not our knowledge.

A friend of mine once had an out of body experience when he was in a bad car crash and he could describe what the firemen and para-medics were doing when he was trapped in the car but when he tried to communicate with them the experience ended. We can apply all sorts of explanations to this but I don't think labelling it supraphysical is an explanation, it's papering over our ignorance.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 3:40:43 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I don't think labelling it supraphysical is an explanation, it's papering over our ignorance.

Well hang on, I don't think labelling something supraphysical "explains" anything either. It's just a category for something that follows different laws. The idea that our universe may be embedded in or interpenetrated by a higher-order reality is hardly alien to theoretical physics.

K.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 6:10:53 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad
We have precisely zero evidence about reality. We have evidence about our own experiences. And it's practical to assume those hold water in some way, even though they really don't.


It's of course possible to construct a conspiracy theory to get in the way of whatever knowledge one finds inconvenient.

For instance if one doesn't like our evidence about mars they could construct a conspiracy theory about how martian space unicorns have set up a giant tv in front of mars so we can't see what's really going on there and they intercept everything we send there and rewire it to send back false data.

Now there isn't any evidence for space-unicorn-paranoidism so I just roll my eyes. When it's not about discrediting reality for Jesus does anybody actually disagree with me? Anybody think it's valid to say, we have precisely zero evidence about Mars and to go on from there to claim that since there's no evidence either way space-unicorn-paranoidism is credible?

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 9:25:52 AM   
vincentML


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

quote:

The soul in my analogy? I never said anything about "the soul". I don't even know what the hell you mean by "the soul," but when you descend into these crazy religious rants I feel highly motivated not to ask.

In #538 you equated supraphysical reality with religious experience:

"And this is where we come up against belief in the existence of some kind of supraphysical reality. People who have had religious experiences, which they almost uniformly describe as being more real even than that train,"

Now you dodge and weave the connection.

Anyone who has been following this thread knows that the position I've been arguing is that we believe the world to be real on the evidence of experience, that we cannot absolutely prove the existence of an objective reality independent of consciousness, that we cannot absolutely prove that anything we experience has any reality independent of consciousness.

And this is where we come up against belief in the existence of some kind of supraphysical reality. People who have had religious experiences, which they almost uniformly describe as being more real even than that train, or people who have actually personally experienced finding themselves outside their body, cannot simply be dismissed as believing in something "without the evidence of experience."

Of course, that's presenting the full quote in context.

Now, you were saying?

K.

"We cannot prove the existence ot objective reality independent of consciousness" is self-evident. What else do we have to work with other than consciousness? Why would you think it needs arguing?

We cannot dismiss the claims of NDE experiences but we can evaluate them upon a scale of reliability. Like alien abduction claims their reports are simply anecdotes that have a very low value for reliability. These are claims of belief without evidence other than subjective experience, i.e. a form of Faith.

It seems to me you lay out the self-evident premise of consciousness-perceived reality to support the validity of reported personal experiences, asking us to accept implicitly at least that therefore there is a basis for a possible supraphysical reality. I see your effort as an exercise in false logic. Neither B nor C follow from A. The error is that B fails completely because it consists merely of a collection of stories that self-verify.

Perhaps you can find another road to the supraphysical??



< Message edited by vincentML -- 12/12/2012 9:37:39 AM >

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 9:35:54 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

We cannot dismiss the claims of NDE experiences but we can evaluate them... their reports are simply anecdotes... claims of belief without evidence other than subjective experience

There are cases where that simply is not true, so you are reasoning from a false premise.

quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

I see your effort as an exercise in false logic.

See above.

K.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 11:06:25 AM   
GotSteel


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML
For the second part, out of body delusion has been induced by brain probes. So, not really very unique.

It is known exactly which part of the brain requires stimulation to produce a religious experience. The fact that relgious experience can be induced, sort of proves your point, without objective evidence to the contrary, religious experience can be put down to an hallucigenic experience.

I've tried to have this conversation a number of times and in one case never managed to get past the name calling. I've been trying to think how to explain my objection to a theist in a way they would actually understand. I usually get accused of denying the existence of these experiences. I reply that I don't deny their existence, I simply don't think they're evidence of an external cause. That hasn't ever seemed to work because I usually just get accused of denying the existence of these experiences again or in a specific case with insults and rage.

Here's the thing, back in antiquity this conversation would have consisted of the theist accusing me of denying the existence of experiences like love and rage. Now we hopefully all get that those internal mental feelings we experience aren't actually proof of gods like Venus and Aries. We all really tend to get that right up until the feeling in question is tranquility, then suddenly that feeling is somehow supposed to be completely different and constitute clear proof of Yahweh.


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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 11:48:48 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

Here's the thing, back in antiquity this conversation would have consisted of the theist accusing me of denying the existence of experiences like love and rage. Now we hopefully all get that those internal mental feelings we experience aren't actually proof of gods like Venus and Aries. We all really tend to get that right up until the feeling in question is tranquility, then suddenly that feeling is somehow supposed to be completely different and constitute clear proof of Yahweh.




Back in antiquity you would have been stoned to death for denying god. We aren't actually denying people's experiences, we are just questioning the interpretation of experiences. They are wishful thinking, prefering superstition because its nice and cosy, we are saying without evidence of external intervention or stimulus, these experiences are probably nothing to do with anything supraphysical outside the person, which is an uncomfortable thought. Ultimately we are alone, trapped in our own consciousness. The only way we can test the world external to ourselves and the reliability of our perception of it, is through measuring and creating experiments we can replicate. It is beyond me that people use hi technology everyday and still question the scientific method in understanding the physicial world byond ourselves. The denial of science is purely down a person's need for a god or some other comforting supernatural phenomenon.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 12:53:40 PM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
It is beyond me that people use hi technology everyday and still question the scientific method in understanding the physicial world beyond ourselves.

I don't question the scientific method in understanding the physicial world beyond ourselves. But what about whatever is beyond our universe, and how that interacts with our universe, with us, and how we and all living organisms interact with it? What scientific method can possibly cause us to understand these things?

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
The denial of science is purely down a person's need for a god or some other comforting supernatural phenomenon.

Well, I do not deny science, nor do I have need for a god, nor for some other comforting supernatural phenomenon.

Yet I do know that the pagan gods did and do exist. And I do know that the Divine 'exists' 'outside' our universe.

< Message edited by Rule -- 12/12/2012 12:54:04 PM >

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"You are sweet, kind, and ever so smart, Rule. You ALWAYS stretch my mind and make me think further than I might have on my own" - Duskypearls

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 1:27:26 PM   
IgorsHand


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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 1:30:09 PM   
vincentML


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

We cannot dismiss the claims of NDE experiences but we can evaluate them... their reports are simply anecdotes... claims of belief without evidence other than subjective experience

There are cases where that simply is not true, so you are reasoning from a false premise.

K.

I would appreciate some examples of NDE experiences that came with evidence beyond the reports provided by the 'subjects.' Maybe my premise is false. Thank you.

< Message edited by vincentML -- 12/12/2012 1:43:52 PM >

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 1:33:19 PM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: IgorsHand
You don't know, you believe. If you knew, you would be able to produce evidence or point to evidence. You might have faith in what you believe but it's not knowledge.

I do not believe anything. I either know or do not know. In this case I know.

_____________________________

"I tend to pay attention when Rule speaks" - Aswad

"You are sweet, kind, and ever so smart, Rule. You ALWAYS stretch my mind and make me think further than I might have on my own" - Duskypearls

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 1:40:27 PM   
vincentML


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I don't think labelling it supraphysical is an explanation, it's papering over our ignorance.

Well hang on, I don't think labelling something supraphysical "explains" anything either. It's just a category for something that follows different laws. The idea that our universe may be embedded in or interpenetrated by a higher-order reality is hardly alien to theoretical physics.

K.

You are quite right, I think. On this we agree. There are a number of theories of multiverse and parallel universes explained in the Wiki article cited below. And there are two criticisms of note that offer varying degrees of caution:

One by Paul Davis:

For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there are an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith.

— Paul Davies, A Brief History of the Multiverse

And one by George Ellis:

As skeptical as I am, I think the contemplation of the multiverse is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the nature of science and on the ultimate nature of existence: why we are here… In looking at this concept, we need an open mind, though not too open. It is a delicate path to tread. Parallel universes may or may not exist; the case is unproved. We are going to have to live with that uncertainty. Nothing is wrong with scientifically based philosophical speculation, which is what multiverse proposals are. But we should name it for what it is.

— George Ellis, Scientific American, Does the Multiverse Really Exist?

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


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RE: Indoctrination - 12/12/2012 1:48:29 PM   
vincentML


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quote:

Ultimately we are alone, trapped in our own consciousness.

meat:
As someone with a very active and restless internal dialogue I find this statement incredibly interesting and . . . . haunting

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