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Originally Posted by filtherton
I wasn't saying that there "wasn't really anything to believe in." I'm not sure where you've gotten this idea. Perhaps if you go and reread the things I've wrote without this little nugget of misinformation clouding your thoughts you might get a better grasp of what I've been talking about.
To be more clear about myself-- I'm a math guy who went engineering, but probably should have stayed math. I unconsciously attempt to fit the ideas I come across into the framework of mathematical proofs. I very loosely believe in everything, but I only act on beliefs when I think the evidence is sufficient to support those beliefs.
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I wasn't saying that you were saying that there "wasn't really anything to believe in." I was saying that you couldn't have believed in your own post because there wasn't anything in your post to believe in. The reason I thought that is because your post is a tautology and thus had no meaning for you to believe. That accusation of disingenuity was regarding that one particular post...
I'm very similar to you. I studied math and then went into computer programming. I've had to learn to be more colloquial with my terms and my framework in order to effectively speak to people on web forums...
Even my approach to belief is similar to yours except that I disbelieve everything and only act on belief when I think the evidence supports the action. My notion of support depends on many things and isn't all that strict. For instance, I'm willing to believe you had cereal for breakfast 'cause there's no consequence to believing that. However, I'm not going to hate an entire category of people because some church tells me I should until they can give me some seriously compelling reason...
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See above, you've misread me. It's not something that really offends me anymore-- Jesus pushers used to offend me too-- I've gotten a thicker skin about things.
I do think that it's silly when folks confuse the inability to prove something for evidence that that something doesn't exist. I think that it is even sillier that many of these same people, people who seem to think that they are the sole arbiters of what constitutes "sufficient evidence," would frequently be so inept at using evidence to support their positions.
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I think you're unfairly harsh on people you think "are sole arbiters of what constitutes 'sufficient evidence.'" I don't think having a strong opinion and wanting to convince other people of your point of view is well characterized as being a sole arbiter of evidence. If you have a position and you think you can support it then do so! That's why we're on web forums and on this forum in particular...
I think I understand your sentiment about proof. Is the idea analogous to not believing in
black holes because we can't prove they exist?
I think it's silly when people think that a lack of evidence for something doesn't say anything that it's lack of existence. It clearly does and we rely on this all the time. It's a harder argument to make than existence but it can and has been made and to good effect!
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No. No one has theorized in a scientific sense. That's what we're talking about, right? Science? For someone who presents himself as such a student of the scientific method, you could stand to nail the terminology a bit better. Perhaps folks have assumed ghosts as a possible explanation, but even then, they haven't hypothesized in a scientific sense. With respect to science, a hypothesis is testable-- has anyone in here proposed a testing scheme for paranormal activity? My apologies if someone has.
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Actually, I was using "theory" in the colloquial sense, hence the use of the verb form "theorize," since I'm pretty sure this has no specific scientific meaning (although, frankly, the scientific meaning of "theory" isn't all that different from the colloquial one).
Also, when I spoke about "people here," I meant the people here in this thread. I wasn't speaking about people in general...
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The fact that a particular presumption appears testable means that it's okay to just assume that it's true? Well shit. That makes everything so much simpler. How about this: I believe that ghosts exist, and that if they do exists, that their existence will manifest itself clearly to all of humanity within the next ten years. Boom. That "hypothesis" is testable-- we'll just wait ten years.
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I was merely describing what it is that people do. I made no judgment as to whether it was "okay" or not, whatever that means in this context...
You may believe anything you like but there's no fun in stating your belief on a web forum (particularly this one!) without a good argument to back it up!
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What you seem to be saying is something along the lines of "Unverifiable statements aren't useful to someone who is primarily concerned with verifiable statements." This is a tautology. Thanks for the wikipedia link.
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While your brief summary is a tautology, my post said a great deal more than that which made it not tautological. I was clarifying my use of the term "useful" and "worthy."
Again, this summary is disingenuous and is what causes me to guess at ulterior motives for you. Why do you keep doing this? What's so hard about being honest in your arguments?
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I'm just saying, you wouldn't want to do that in your peer reviewed paper on the species of dinosaur you just discovered. See below for and examples of the possible pitfalls of wikipedia use.
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Good thing I'm not writing a "peer reviewed paper," in the manner that you meant it...
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I know it was a tautology. That was the point: that sometimes there is no deeper meaning; it is important to not draw false conclusions.
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It was a metaphor for the statement you were trying to make?
You could have just said that but you didn't. It looked like you were saying that evidence of things don't relate to things. In relation to your interpretation above, it looked like you were saying there can be no deeper meaning...
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Here's the problem with linking to wikipedia: You read what I wrote, thought to yourself "A-hah!! He used a tautology!! I'm going to look that up on wikipedia and see what sort of ammo I can find." Then you went to wikipedia and saw that it said that tautologies add no meaning and thought "A-ha!! I'll show that filtherton. His tautology clearly added no meaning." But you were wrong.
That tautology doesn't exist in a vacuum. It was brought into existence as a response to a fallacious implication made by someone else. This gives the tautology meaning. See this example:
Person A: "The average daily temperature last winter was below historical average daily temperatures. This means that global climate change is not occuring."
Person B: "Actually, it isn't necessarily that simple. The best that we can say is that the fact that the average daily temperature last winter was below historical average daily temperatures just means that the fact that the average daily temperature last winter was below historical average daily temperatures."
Person A: "Oh, you're right. Sometimes I allow my personal beliefs to get in the way of my ability to infer proper conclusions from data."
Short version: if you're going to use wikipedia, don't just do the mental equivalent of ye olde cut and paste.
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You deeply mischaracterize my use of wikipedia (which is really my use of links, it just so happens that wikipedia is often the most useful thing to link to).
You know that I can't possibly be using wikipedia as a source of argument or "ammo" as you've described it. What ammo did I use from the page on
luminiferous ether? That's clearly not what I'm doing with these links.
Do you care to tell me what
actually offends you about my use of links?
Also, setting aside that person B in your example didn't say anything grammatically coherent, he didn't really say anything. I mean, person A was pretty easily won over. Person B might as well have said "Actually, it isn't necessarily that simple." and person A could've have responded the same way. The tautology didn't help beyond filling empty space with noise...
I agree that sentences don't exist in a vacuum but that's a poor example...
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I just have a hard time believing that you're here "to discuss issues honestly in an attempt to reach a mutual understanding."
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C'mon, you can do better than that. All you did was say "just" and then repeated your assertion...
---------- Post added at 05:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
Proving the non-physical is an exercise in futility.
We cannot prove the existence of numbers, but we use them in mathematics.
We cannot prove the existence of space, but we measure it.
We cannot prove the existence of time, but we keep track of it.
We cannot prove the existence of ghosts, but perhaps some of us make that bridge between non-physical entities and sensory perception.
There are countless connections between the physical and non-physical. It is all around us. We all experience it every day.
Perfection does not exist; it is a concept, but that doesn't stop some of us from perceiving it.
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No, actually, it's an exercise in semantics.
For example, numbers used to be an adjective, in that you can have two horses or three cows. Amazingly enough, we actually found patterns in these descriptions. In certain ways, having three cows was similar to having three pigs. We also found relationships between variations of these descriptions, like being able to break five cows into two groups of five or five groups of two. Eventually, we abstracted out the notion of having a number of objects into simply having numbers; turning these adjectives into nouns. My example may have been a bit overkill but I thought it was really interesting and wanted to share it.
My actual point is that numbers are definitional. They're an idea and ideas exist despite not being physical. Really, physicality as a requirement for existence is stupid. We might as well be debating whether
energy exists or not...
The idea of ghosts exist. Phenomena that people call ghosts surely exist in that I'm not willing to believe that all these people are lying. Do ghosts, themselves, as we conceptualize them exist? I don't think so...
---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:18 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Strange Famous
This is a big thread and I wish Id noticed it before as its a subject Im very interested in.
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Are you sure? Aren't you the guy who thought fiction is real?
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All I will say for now is to question - what do we call proof?
Millions of people have reported and honestly believed that they have experienced what we call "ghosts"
I would guess - without looking it up - that less than 100 people have reported that they have walked on the moon.
And yet the moon landing are scientific fact, and ghosts are superstition - or at least so says "science"
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Ah, this is actually a good question. Of course the notion of proof is subjective. What's enough to convince one person isn't necessarily enough to convince another. However, you wanted to know what makes one scientific and another superstition...
I'm not sure where to start so I guess I'll start with the moon landings. Now, the moon landings are historical events so I wouldn't call them scientific claims anymore than I would describe the shooting of JFK as scientific but I think I know what you mean so I'll run with it...
Barring the idea that the moon landings have been faked (which is obviously possible but I find highly unlikely), it's a shared experience witnessed by many people. There is lingering physical and detailed evidence that it happened. Finally, there's nothing impossible about it. It conforms with everything else we know.
Ghosts, on the other hand, are not shared experiences. They're very personal and subjective. They're ambiguous and vary greatly; so much so that you can't even say that people are experiencing the same thing, never mind whether they're seeing ghosts. There's never any lingering evidence. Finally, the idea doesn't even make any sense. As far as we know, such things can't exist. They don't conform to what we know about reality and I don't even think (someone who knows more may correct me) they conform to any orthodox theology...
There's a stark difference between the two!