Evidence!

[torridon]

Floo's experience is not a belief. It is a real experience of a chronically skeptical person. So...why is that experience not evidence of some extraordinary (not supernatural) phenomenon?!

Why doesn't she and all of you take it as something intriguing instead of dismissing it as 'mind over matter' ...'self limiting condition'...whatever?  That is the programmed mindset I am talking about.

What you call chronically skeptical I would see as a mental discipline borrowed from the ethos of science. Science made progress by learning to eliminate the subjective. In testing new drugs we found it not good enough to have clinical trials, we had to have blind trials, and that wasn't good enough, so we had to have double blind trials, and even triple blind trials. This would have seemed bizarre to early researchers, but it is a real lesson that we have had to learn, it exposed the degree to which our minds are absolutely infested with hopes and fears and predispositions and prejudices and biases and illusions and the way to get to any objective truth is to eliminate the subjective and the human as far as possible. Those of us who are 'chronically sceptical' are those who value the lessons of science and try to adopt that level of discipline generally. Thataway lies safer ground and greater clarity of understanding.

[Maeght]

Floo's experience is not a belief. It is a real experience of a chronically skeptical person. So...why is that experience not evidence of some extraordinary (not supernatural) phenomenon?!

Why doesn't she and all of you take it as something intriguing instead of dismissing it as 'mind over matter' ...'self limiting condition'...whatever?  That is the programmed mindset I am talking about.

I'm not familiar with Floo's posts on this but if someone, for example, reports a cure due to this or that then there is inherent in that a belief that it was this or that which caused the cure. There is also the inherent belief that they were cured. This is what I refer to when I talk of people's experiences/beliefs. Such a statement is not a statement of fact but an interpretation of something based on beliefs.

[Sriram]

Floo's experience is not a belief. It is a real experience of a chronically skeptical person. So...why is that experience not evidence of some extraordinary (not supernatural) phenomenon?!

Why doesn't she and all of you take it as something intriguing instead of dismissing it as 'mind over matter' ...'self limiting condition'...whatever?  That is the programmed mindset I am talking about.

What you call chronically skeptical I would see as a mental discipline borrowed from the ethos of science. Science made progress by learning to eliminate the subjective. In testing new drugs we found it not good enough to have clinical trials, we had to have blind trials, and that wasn't good enough, so we had to have double blind trials, and even triple blind trials. This would have seemed bizarre to early researchers, but it is a real lesson that we have had to learn, it exposed the degree to which our minds are absolutely infested with hopes and fears and predispositions and prejudices and biases and illusions and the way to get to any objective truth is to eliminate the subjective and the human as far as possible. Those of us who are 'chronically sceptical' are those who value the lessons of science and try to adopt that level of discipline generally. Thataway lies safer ground and greater clarity of understanding.

Yeah..yeah. I can understand the need for double blind tests etc.  But that's not the point at all.

Chronic skepticism can close the doors to genuine experiences and genuine knowledge....as it seems to have done in the case of Floo. 

Some more willingness to experience the phenomenon...some more 'experiments' with other cases of illness...little bit of reading up and discussion with other people who might know.  That is what I would have expected from a person who truly seeks knowledge.

Not a stiff closing up with.....'well...whatever......looks like one of those mind over matter stuff....how quaint... I want nothing more to do with it anyway'. 

Shows more fear and resistance than willingness to learn and understand.   That is the problem with making skepticism a habit....as many of you seem to have done.

[Shaker]

Thus spake R& E's Woomeister General.

[torridon]

What you call chronically skeptical I would see as a mental discipline borrowed from the ethos of science. Science made progress by learning to eliminate the subjective. In testing new drugs we found it not good enough to have clinical trials, we had to have blind trials, and that wasn't good enough, so we had to have double blind trials, and even triple blind trials. This would have seemed bizarre to early researchers, but it is a real lesson that we have had to learn, it exposed the degree to which our minds are absolutely infested with hopes and fears and predispositions and prejudices and biases and illusions and the way to get to any objective truth is to eliminate the subjective and the human as far as possible. Those of us who are 'chronically sceptical' are those who value the lessons of science and try to adopt that level of discipline generally. Thataway lies safer ground and greater clarity of understanding.

Yeah..yeah. I can understand the need for double blind tests etc.  But that's not the point at all.

Chronic skepticism can close the doors to genuine experiences and genuine knowledge....as it seems to have done in the case of Floo. 

Some more willingness to experience the phenomenon...some more 'experiments' with other cases of illness...little bit of reading up and discussion with other people who might know.  That is what I would have expected from a person who truly seeks knowledge.

Not a stiff closing up with.....'well...whatever......looks like one of those mind over matter stuff....how quaint... I want nothing more to do with it anyway'. 

Shows more fear and resistance than willingness to learn and understand.   That is the problem with making skepticism a habit....as many of you seem to have done.

I see the knowledge base we have amassed through research as something of inestimable value, it's something of value to all humankind, and it is worth defending against the ingress of woo. It is like a tiny island in an ocean of woo. I use mainstream science as my personal firewall against the ingress of woo, that's my rough and ready rule of thumb, and you may be right, by overvaluing scepticism I might run the risk of not learning from something on the fringes, but on the other hand I would run the risk of contamination and infection if I lower my firewall.  I know many who have taken a 'step of faith' into some or other belief system and ended up seemingly blissfully intoxicated by it, apparently embracing all manner of contradictory, incoherent and unevidenced positions, but seemingly oblivious to how distanced they have become from reality.  I wouldn't want to end up like that, so I stick to mainstream science as my benchmark and firewall.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What you call chronically skeptical I would see as a mental discipline borrowed from the ethos of science. Science made progress by learning to eliminate the subjective. In testing new drugs we found it not good enough to have clinical trials, we had to have blind trials, and that wasn't good enough, so we had to have double blind trials, and even triple blind trials. This would have seemed bizarre to early researchers, but it is a real lesson that we have had to learn, it exposed the degree to which our minds are absolutely infested with hopes and fears and predispositions and prejudices and biases and illusions and the way to get to any objective truth is to eliminate the subjective and the human as far as possible. Those of us who are 'chronically sceptical' are those who value the lessons of science and try to adopt that level of discipline generally. Thataway lies safer ground and greater clarity of understanding.

Yeah..yeah. I can understand the need for double blind tests etc.  But that's not the point at all.

Chronic skepticism can close the doors to genuine experiences and genuine knowledge....as it seems to have done in the case of Floo. 

Some more willingness to experience the phenomenon...some more 'experiments' with other cases of illness...little bit of reading up and discussion with other people who might know.  That is what I would have expected from a person who truly seeks knowledge.

Not a stiff closing up with.....'well...whatever......looks like one of those mind over matter stuff....how quaint... I want nothing more to do with it anyway'. 

Shows more fear and resistance than willingness to learn and understand.   That is the problem with making skepticism a habit....as many of you seem to have done.

I see the knowledge base we have amassed through research as something of inestimable value, it's something of value to all humankind, and it is worth defending against the ingress of woo. It is like a tiny island in an ocean of woo. I use mainstream science as my personal firewall against the ingress of woo, that's my rough and ready rule of thumb, and you may be right, by overvaluing scepticism I might run the risk of not learning from something on the fringes, but on the other hand I would run the risk of contamination and infection if I lower my firewall.  I know many who have taken a 'step of faith' into some or other belief system and ended up seemingly blissfully intoxicated by it, apparently embracing all manner of contradictory, incoherent and unevidenced positions, but seemingly oblivious to how distanced they have become from reality.  I wouldn't want to end up like that, so I stick to mainstream science as my benchmark and firewall.

But is it ALL of value? I love old facts but are they and should they be of value to everybody. Isn't that intellectual totalitarianism.
Why shouldn't we value things that aren't amassed through research. Things like art, talent, creativity etc.

The only contradictory,incoherent and unevidenced positions we need to guard against are when the non material is confused with the material and visa versa and i'm afraid the present generation of antitheists is replete with people who do that.

[Sassy]

Hi everyone,

This 'evidence' thing is a little dicey.  It depends on ones mindset.

We all tend to analyse based on certain 'programs (software)' that are more or less fixed in our minds.....maybe due to genetics, epigenetics, upbringing...all put together. (These programs can also be called memes).

There is a 'believer program', an 'atheist program'...and so on in our minds.  Each of these programs will perform certain specific functions and types of analysis on the data that we feed in.

A program meant to add up all data will only add them all up. It cannot do anything else. A program designed to work out the sq root will only do that on all data fed in. It cannot do anything else.  (to give some very simple examples).

A person who is functioning with the 'believer program' will analyse all data through that program and will therefore come up with certain conclusions on that basis. A person functioning with the 'atheist program' will come up with a very different analysis based on the same data. 

Its not the data that makes the difference but the programming that we use.

Therefore 'evidence' is only how we perceive information. If we want to perceive it as evidence for something...we can... depending on how the mind works.

So....insisting on 'evidence' for God will not work if the wrong 'software' is being used.  Asking for more and more data & information will not help because the program will continue to perform the same functions and produce the same answers again and again.

If the mindset is changed.... even with very rudimentary data.... a very different analysis and result can be arrived at. Its about perception.....not entirely about information. 

Just some thoughts.

Cheers.

Sriram

Humans have free will the freedom to put what they like into their brain and make a choice...
Seems your thoughts were not instinct but from your own personal choices made. Then you decided the above based on what you had already decided...

I think you need to go back to the drawing board on this one...

[torridon]

I see the knowledge base we have amassed through research as something of inestimable value, it's something of value to all humankind, and it is worth defending against the ingress of woo. It is like a tiny island in an ocean of woo. I use mainstream science as my personal firewall against the ingress of woo, that's my rough and ready rule of thumb, and you may be right, by overvaluing scepticism I might run the risk of not learning from something on the fringes, but on the other hand I would run the risk of contamination and infection if I lower my firewall.  I know many who have taken a 'step of faith' into some or other belief system and ended up seemingly blissfully intoxicated by it, apparently embracing all manner of contradictory, incoherent and unevidenced positions, but seemingly oblivious to how distanced they have become from reality.  I wouldn't want to end up like that, so I stick to mainstream science as my benchmark and firewall.

But is it ALL of value? I love old facts but are they and should they be of value to everybody. Isn't that intellectual totalitarianism.
Why shouldn't we value things that aren't amassed through research. Things like art, talent, creativity etc.

The only contradictory,incoherent and unevidenced positions we need to guard against are when the non material is confused with the material and visa versa and i'm afraid the present generation of antitheists is replete with people who do that.

I can enjoy music and arts like everyone and of course they make no claim to be 'true' so they are purely a matter of taste. It is people who make grand truth claims that are closer to being 'totalitarian' because 'true' implies true for everyone else not just the maker of the claim.  My response, boiled down, is not in my name, you don't speak for me, my instinct is to value the safer ground of what we have learned from research over and above the ideas of sages and shamans over the years.  When 'God' is the leading theory in cosmology, or when we have some observational evidence for 'souls' then I will sit up and take notice.