The Soul

[torridon]

How does the beep of a light meter or any such thing prove to a blind man that light exists? It has to be on faith. Most blind people take it on faith and on the fact that their family and people they trust say so.

I think you are going nuclear on the faith thing; I'd agree we cannot eliminate trust completely but on the other hand all faith is not blind faith, there are degrees of exposure to the risk inherent in trust and we mitigate these risks using principles such as intersubjective consensus and Okham's razor. We are all participants in a world of limited knowledge

[SteveH]

How can a light meter or any other instrument prove to a born blind person that light exists?!   He has no idea why the meter is beeping or moving or whatever. Why should he believe that it is because of some mysterious and strange thingy called light that exist everywhere?!  He can do that only on blind faith.

Suppose there is a village full of blind people who have never seen anything for generations. They will live normally as though light does not exist. Their lives will be tailored around their capabilities. If one of them happens to visit another village with normal people he will relate tales of people who have supernatural abilities and strange visions of the world.  The other blind people could be in awe of such new people or they could treat them as charlatans and liars.

If suddenly one of the blind people himself sees some flashes of light that the others don't see, they will treat him either as a delusional believer or as a superior prophet.

Even today we take many things on blind faith.... in scientists.....(both because of their authority and because lots of scientists together agree). Most astronomical  details are taken on faith. Most people have no background in science and maths and no access to  telescopes. We rely only on scientists.  Dark energy, Dark Matter, the big bang, Singularity....are all taken on faith. We have no idea if these things actually exist or maybe even prove to be wrong in course of time.

Therefore  faith is either blind based on what others say.....or faith can be based on ones own intermittent experiences of subtle phenomena.

If they are scientifically advanced, your blind race would know about electromagnetic radiation, and if the operation of the eye was explained to them, they would understand how images could be formed and transmitted to the brain by focussing radiation within a restricted wavelength spectrum. They would also, presumably, have non-functioning eyes, which would make understanding easier.

[Sriram]

I think you are going nuclear on the faith thing; I'd agree we cannot eliminate trust completely but on the other hand all faith is not blind faith, there are degrees of exposure to the risk inherent in trust and we mitigate these risks using principles such as intersubjective consensus and Okham's razor. We are all participants in a world of limited knowledge

To understand what I am saying you would have to imagine a world of blind people with maybe a few people having flashes of sight. 

Nevertheless, my point is to say that if we don't have certain faculties we cannot experience even those things that are all around us. So, sensory inputs are not entirely reliable in terms of objective reality and everything cannot be exhibited in objective terms for all to see.   Certain things we just need to experience personally.

These personal experiences are not always clear cut and can be very subtle. You know something is there but you are not sure. This is what I mean by faith.

Take even our own Unconscious mind for example. The Unconscious mind can influence us in many ways which we may realize in a subtle way but we will not be able to put our finger on it. Therefore having faith that there is something that is influencing our decisions is not wrong.

[Gordon]

Have to say that I don't like the term 'faith' when it is used as a synonym for 'trust' still seems, to me anyway, to be too vague to be me be meaningful. I recall a previous Christian member here, Alien I think, advanced the line that having 'faith' in a religious sense was akin to having 'trust' in the pilot of the plane you're about to board - and the two aren't the same.

I'd say that 'justified confidence' is the key point - I can see how you could have justified confidence in the competence of the pilot but I fail to see how you could have 'justified confidence' in ancient anecdotal accounts of miracles that have uncertain provenance, since the risks of these accounts involving bias, mistakes or lies are clear risks - whereas you can check that the pilot is suitably experienced and qualified.

[Roses]

We know pilots exist and trust they will fly the plane in a competent manner, we have no such evidence that god exists.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

To understand what I am saying you would have to imagine a world of blind people with maybe a few people having flashes of sight.

Leaving aside for now the stupidities baked in here (why would blind people be any less capable of conceptualising light than you are of conceptualising X-rays?), the attempted analogy is ass-backwards in any case. For it to work you'd have to start with some "light-ists" who had no idea what they meant by "light" and no means to demonstrate such a thing either to others or to themselves. Then you'd need some phlogiston-ists, some scotch mist-ists etc whose own faith beliefs were equally unqualified. Then you'd line them up in front of your blind people (or in front of any other audience possessed of functioning intellects) to assert their respective faith beliefs.

Would the audience be right to reject them all even if, just as a matter of dumb luck, one of them just happened to be correct?

Of course they would.

I'll leave you to work out why.     

[Anchorman]

I am not saying that people experience light because of faith. I am saying that, as in the case of blind people,  objective truth is not always as obvious as we like to think.  It depends on our faculties and capability. What is obvious to some may be very difficult for some others to know.

What is obvious to some cannot even be communicated or made known to the others. The blind people would need to take the existence of light only on blind faith. 

About faith being subtle knowledge, it works as though some of the blind people can see some flashes  of light now and then but have no clear idea of it.   They then have to take the word of the normal people and build on their own experiences to have some idea of what light is. In this case, they actually know that something exists but that they are unable to experience completely.  This is true faith!    This leads to a yearning to know more and to experience more.
 

"nmal people"?
Are you trying to say that those of us who are blind are not 'normal'?
Do you have a concept of waht 'blindnes' is?
When you are in a hole, stop digging.

[Sriram]

Have to say that I don't like the term 'faith' when it is used as a synonym for 'trust' still seems, to me anyway, to be too vague to be me be meaningful. I recall a previous Christian member here, Alien I think, advanced the line that having 'faith' in a religious sense was akin to having 'trust' in the pilot of the plane you're about to board - and the two aren't the same.

I'd say that 'justified confidence' is the key point - I can see how you could have justified confidence in the competence of the pilot but I fail to see how you could have 'justified confidence' in ancient anecdotal accounts of miracles that have uncertain provenance, since the risks of these accounts involving bias, mistakes or lies are clear risks - whereas you can check that the pilot is suitably experienced and qualified.

I  am not talking about God at all.   I am talking about subtle forces, influences and patterns in our lives that are not discernible by the senses. Do such influences exist? Yes...they do. Do I understand what they are and how they work? No!   

[Enki]

To understand what I am saying you would have to imagine a world of blind people with maybe a few people having flashes of sight. 

Nevertheless, my point is to say that if we don't have certain faculties we cannot experience even those things that are all around us. So, sensory inputs are not entirely reliable in terms of objective reality and everything cannot be exhibited in objective terms for all to see.   Certain things we just need to experience personally.

These personal experiences are not always clear cut and can be very subtle. You know something is there but you are not sure. This is what I mean by faith.

Take even our own Unconscious mind for example. The Unconscious mind can influence us in many ways which we may realize in a subtle way but we will not be able to put our finger on it. Therefore having faith that there is something that is influencing our decisions is not wrong.

If I were to follow your rather distasteful analogy, then I assume I would be one of your few amongst the blind people you talk about who have had flashes of light. Such personal experiences, as you say, 'are not always clear cut and can be very subtle.' However, for me, these 'flashes of light' give me a strong indication that nothing, I repeat, nothing, is there.
So, am I to think that in a world of 'blind' people who think that some universal consciousness is prevalent in the universe, I have the necessary insights to show that  there is no such thing? Should I have faith in my own insights without any further justification?

No. I suggest that I would be in error in accepting my 'insight' as pointing to some sort of objective truth about reality. One reason for doing so would be the realization that many other people have insights, too, some of which are at complete odds to my own. The only way to judge such things would be to collate evidence by as an objective a method as possible surely.

[Sriram]

Sriram,

Leaving aside for now the stupidities baked in here (why would blind people be any less capable of conceptualising light than you are of conceptualising X-rays?), the attempted analogy is ass-backwards in any case. For it to work you'd have to start with some "light-ists" who had no idea what they meant by "light" and no means to demonstrate such a thing either to others or to themselves. Then you'd need some phlogiston-ists, some scotch mist-ists etc whose own faith beliefs were equally unqualified. Then you'd line them up in front of your blind people (or in front of any other audience possessed of functioning intellects) to assert their respective faith beliefs.

Would the audience be right to reject them all even if, just as a matter of dumb luck, one of them just happened to be correct?

Of course they would.

I'll leave you to work out why.     

Blind people can conceptualize light only after they have heard of it, trust the people who are claiming its existence and then get a possible description and understanding of it.  All that requires faith. Taking a stubborn and skeptical blind man...you will not be able to convince him of the existence of light. 

We accept X-rays because we have had x-rays taken, we trust scientists and we understand the idea of EM radiation.  Before Roentgen no one would have believed in such a radiation...though obviously x rays did exist even then.

[Roses]

"nmal people"?
Are you trying to say that those of us who are blind are not 'normal'?
Do you have a concept of waht 'blindnes' is?
When you are in a hole, stop digging.

As you don't appear to be an alien from outer space, Anchorman, you are the same as the rest of us, a human, your blindness doesn't make you any less so. What is normal, for heaven's sake? I treat you like any other poster. I would never pity you, anymore than I would pity my husband, to do is demeaning and wrong. I wouldn't thank anyone for pitying me because I am a senile old bat. One thing about this forum is I can guarantee people will tell me exactly what they think of me.

[Sriram]

If I were to follow your rather distasteful analogy, then I assume I would be one of your few amongst the blind people you talk about who have had flashes of light. Such personal experiences, as you say, 'are not always clear cut and can be very subtle.' However, for me, these 'flashes of light' give me a strong indication that nothing, I repeat, nothing, is there.
So, am I to think that in a world of 'blind' people who think that some universal consciousness is prevalent in the universe, I have the necessary insights to show that  there is no such thing? Should I have faith in my own insights without any further justification?

No. I suggest that I would be in error in accepting my 'insight' as pointing to some sort of objective truth about reality. One reason for doing so would be the realization that many other people have insights, too, some of which are at complete odds to my own. The only way to judge such things would be to collate evidence by as an objective a method as possible surely.

Yes....it is possible that people could have different interpretations. That is why we have different ideas and images of God and other such entities. 

But that doesn't alter the fact that many such influences and patterns do exist in our lives which we are unable to understand or get any rational inputs about.

[Gordon]

I  am not talking about God at all.   I am talking about subtle forces, influences and patterns in our lives that are not discernible by the senses. Do such influences exist? Yes...they do. Do I understand what they are and how they work? No!   

If these subtle forces are not discernible, as you say, then it is hard to see how you could have justified confidence in them being in any sense real: that you are predisposed to them being real might just be you, and you could be wrong.

[Sriram]

If these subtle forces are not discernible, as you say, then it is hard to see how you could have justified confidence in them being in any sense real: that you are predisposed to them being real might just be you, and you could be wrong.

Not so.  I have already mentioned that our unconscious mind has a major influence on our lives.  It takes decisions even before our conscious mind is aware of it. It affects cures through the placebo effect. It is awake even when we are asleep (somnambulism).  It knows and remembers things that the conscious mind is not aware of.  It is said to be like the hidden 90% of an iceberg while the conscious mind is only about 10%. 

And yet we know next to nothing about the unconscious mind.  Jung has even proposed a collective unconscious.

That is a good start for unknown influences in our lives.

[SteveH]

"nmal people"?
Are you trying to say that those of us who are blind are not 'normal'?
Do you have a concept of waht 'blindnes' is?
When you are in a hole, stop digging.

Blindness, deafness, paralysis etc. are not normal, and I think we should stop pussyfooting around and pretending that they are. The blind, the deaf, and the paralysed are fully human, and should be treated as such, but that's not the same thing.

[Roses]

Blindness, deafness, paralysis etc. are not normal, and I think we should stop pussyfooting around and pretending that they are. The blind, the deaf, and the paralysed are fully human, and should be treated as such, but that's not the same thing.

Define normal? Is it normal to wish to clock up so many miles on a bicycle when one is in one's late 60s? Most  people have something about us, which could be considered abnormal, like writing with your left hand, as I do. It is our quirks, disabilities etc, which make us human.

[torridon]

Not so.  I have already mentioned that our unconscious mind has a major influence on our lives.  It takes decisions even before our conscious mind is aware of it. It affects cures through the placebo effect. It is awake even when we are asleep (somnambulism).  It knows and remembers things that the conscious mind is not aware of.  It is said to be like the hidden 90% of an iceberg while the conscious mind is only about 10%. 

And yet we know next to nothing about the unconscious mind.  Jung has even proposed a collective unconscious.

That is a good start for unknown influences in our lives.

I think that is rather overplaying the mysteriousness of unconscious mind.  It is not as if it is something inscrutable or external to us shaping our behaviours in mysterious ways.  Think of it as being like the parts of a running computer system that are not currently present in fast memory.  All the other stuff that is not needed right now is still part of us, ready to be called into memory as and when needed.

[SteveH]

Define normal? Is it normal to wish to clock up so many miles on a bicycle when one is in one's late 60s? Most  people have something about us, which could be considered abnormal, like writing with your left hand, as I do. It is our quirks, disabilities etc, which make us human.

As one leftie to another, I quite agree.

[Roses]

As one leftie to another, I quite agree.

I don't think I would describe myself as a leftie, more of a centerist. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Blind people can conceptualize light only after they have heard of it, trust the people who are claiming its existence and then get a possible description and understanding of it.  All that requires faith. Taking a stubborn and skeptical blind man...you will not be able to convince him of the existence of light. 

We accept X-rays because we have had x-rays taken, we trust scientists and we understand the idea of EM radiation.  Before Roentgen no one would have believed in such a radiation...though obviously x rays did exist even then.

Now try reading what I actually said. If blind people received assertions about light on the same basis that that theists make claims about their gods, then they would be right to reject the claim.

See if you can work out why.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram.

I am talking about subtle forces, influences and patterns in our lives that are not discernible by the senses. Do such influences exist? Yes...they do. Do I understand what they are and how they work? No! 

If they are "not discernible by our sense" as you put it, how do you know that they exist? 

[Sriram]

Sriram.

If they are "not discernible by our sense" as you put it, how do you know that they exist?

Blue....this could go on forever....! 

Its simply about objective evidence versus subjective experience. My point is simply that objective evidence is not always possible because ultimately everything is experienced subjectively....(like light).  If people lack certain faculties they will not be able to experience certain things however real those may be.  They will have to go with faith and trust.   If people are stubborn enough they could keep denying phenomena simply because they cannot experience it.

Cheers.

Sriram 

[Sriram]

I think that is rather overplaying the mysteriousness of unconscious mind.  It is not as if it is something inscrutable or external to us shaping our behaviours in mysterious ways.  Think of it as being like the parts of a running computer system that are not currently present in fast memory.  All the other stuff that is not needed right now is still part of us, ready to be called into memory as and when needed.

No...I think you are avoiding the obvious simply because it takes you out of your comfort zone.

The unconscious mind is far  more complex and important than you are willing to admit. You really must come out of the old school science mindset.... 

**************

“The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.
“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”

David Eagleman, Neuroscientist.

**************

Taking into account different findings on Consciousness such as...

Freud on the power of the Unconscious, Jung on the collective unconscious,  the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM,  Wheeler on Participatory Anthropic Principle, Chalmers on Panpsychism, Toroni on Integrated Information theory, Eagleman on the Unconscious mind.....and many others....

the idea of the unconscious mind having a dramatic influence on us and the world around us seems to be gaining ground.  It is not just a store room of repressed memories.  It is much much more...and is probably running our lives and the world. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Have to say that I don't like the term 'faith' when it is used as a synonym for 'trust' still seems, to me anyway, to be too vague to be me be meaningful. I recall a previous Christian member here, Alien I think, advanced the line that having 'faith' in a religious sense was akin to having 'trust' in the pilot of the plane you're about to board - and the two aren't the same.

I'd say that 'justified confidence' is the key point - I can see how you could have justified confidence in the competence of the pilot but I fail to see how you could have 'justified confidence' in ancient anecdotal accounts of miracles that have uncertain provenance, since the risks of these accounts involving bias, mistakes or lies are clear risks - whereas you can check that the pilot is suitably experienced and qualified.

I think the religion you are attempting to describe here is Christianity which is not primarily assent of miracles. The lack of belief in miracles is a cover, diversion and excuse for the real objection which is we do not like being the subject of Jesus teaching on the need for salvation.

[torridon]

Its simply about objective evidence versus subjective experience. My point is simply that objective evidence is not always possible because ultimately everything is experienced subjectively....(like light).  If people lack certain faculties they will not be able to experience certain things however real those may be.  They will have to go with faith and trust.   If people are stubborn enough they could keep denying phenomena simply because they cannot experience it.

Cheers.

Sriram

Who are all these stubborn people ?  Nobody can 'experience' x-rays personally, but I've yet to hear of accident victims refusing to have their suspected fractures x-rayed because they stubbornly refuse to believe in them.