I think it pretty much says it all.
mswas, if you cannot even accept that 2+2=4, how on earth do you function in everyday life??
That’s precisely it, Mr. Larsen (oh, and I forgot to welcome you, as well). mswas has defined things to suit his (her?) worldview, and fallen for the “all beliefs are equally valid” line of horsepoopie. As someone above pointed out, it’s the old Appeal to Ignorance fallacy… “You can’t prove that it’s NOT true, ergo it is!”
'Course, this particular brand of horsepoopie comes wrapped up in excessive amounts of windbaggery. Hey, mswas, before you complain that people haven’t responded to your whole post, why don’t you try responding to all of theirs? Especially when their posts are a tenth the length of yours?
I have never and will never deny that a person had an experience. The question is what they experienced.
As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I once knew a girl who believed that the singer Richard Marx (Captain Of Her Heart, etc) visited her each night to sing her to sleep. Neither her roommates nor any one else in the building saw Marx. His tour schedule, fan club information etc put him very far away. The girl claimed that Marx used a private aircraft and physically visited her. I and others claimed she was having elaborate delusions and halucinations.
Other posters have already mentioned that you seem confused as to the meaning of abstract.
I’d like to point out that you’re understanding of mathematics is fundamentally flawed. Yes 2+2=4 is only true if you accept the meaning of 2, 4, +, and =. But once you do accept the meanings, 2+2 will always equal 4.
I cannot prove the sun will rise tommorow. I can show that the odds are very high that it will. But, I can not provide absolute proof. OTOH, I can provide multiple absolute proofs that the square of the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Mathematics is the only place where obejctive and absolute truth can be found. Your insistence that nobody can prove to you that 2+2=4 demonstrates a lack of the basic comprehension of mathematics and of evidence and proof itself.
Hey, CFLarsen! Just read your article about what psychics could do with their tainted winnings from the Randi Challenge. (http://www.skepticreport.com/tools/getrichquick.htm) You’re going to fit in here REAL well! 
Thank you! (Read More SkepticReport.com!!! :D)
I agree with dropzone. CFLarsen, you are a true Doper. Talk about a new guy showing a lot of promise…
Thought for the day: Only at SDMB is this a compliment.
What’s the compliment, that he’s a “true Doper” or that he agrees with ME? 
CFLarsen: I do in fact accept mathematics in my every day life. However, I am under no delusion that it is anything other than a conceptual system applied to some ephemeral “objective” that we agree to by consensus.
Spoofe: If by ignoring parts of people’s posts I completely and totally changed what they said and argued with something completely other than what they were saying, as you have done, then I apologize to them.
I specifically said that I do not believe the workings of psychic phenomena are not able to be understood. I just said that I do not understand them, but I have experienced the effect of the phenomena. Therefore, I cannot prove to you that it works, but I believe that it does. I’ve never seen the Northern Lights, have no clue how they function, yet I believe they do exist.
I was using the term abstract to describe the purely conceptual. Mathematics is purely conceptual. It is NOT objective, it is merely the consentual system that we have all agreed comes CLOSEST to our mutual understanding OF the objective. It is a system of description, and not actually anything in and of itself. In otherwords it does not exist outside of conciousness. I do not think this invalidates it, I was merely pointing out that for you to prove something to me WITH it, requires that I accept the rules with which you’re trying to prove it. I do in fact accept them, but I can reject them to make my point.
When someone says they can PROVE that 2+2 = 4 they call you pedantic for making an argument saying that they can’t, however I think that this is implicitly part of this very argument. It is very important to understand that the only reason you CAN prove any such thing is because I agree to the rules of the system, which I really don’t have to. Now you can choose NOT to argue with me about it, and that’s fine, and you can even choose to say my method is invalid, however my method isn’t so much invalid, as it can be seen to be completely incompatible with yours.
I do not KNOW anything objectively. All of my experiences are completely and totally understood through the subjective. For instance the Sun is in the sky right now but if both of us looked out our windows, we’d be seeing a COMPLETELY different aspect of the object. Then our understanding would further be altered by the fact that you believe it’s a mass of plasma, and I think it’s Apollo riding across the sky in his chariot. (For some reason I feel the need to point out that I don’t ACTUALLY believe this, I am just using a colorful metaphor.)
If I told you that I had been to Disneyland when I was 11. There is NO WAY that I can prove it to you. I can describe the experience, and if I got close enough to your experience of Disneyland you might accept that I had been to Disneyland, but the possibility that I am just relating experiences that I’ve heard exists. Now, if you have not experienced Disneyland in ANY WAY SHAPE or FORM then the idea of convincing you that I’ve been to Disneyland is remarkably silly.
So, I do in fact understand basic math. I know this concept is difficult for dopers to wrap their minds around, but maybe just maybe you’ll concede that YOU were having trouble understanding ME, as opposed to the idea that I am having trouble understanding myself.
I may not be describing it eloquently, but the concept that I am discussing IS NOT that controversial. I’ve seen it conceded on this board MANY times that science is completely theoretical, and that the only way to prove it is by using systems that are agreed upon.
Erek
I’m quoting this bit because mswas has used it in every post so far. I already addressed it, but maybe I can be more concise: maybe you can’t objective prove that you were at Disneyland, mswas. But if you can demonstrate convincingly that it’s not impossible - show me souvenirs, pictures of yourself there that appear genuine, describe things that I know are there, have people who can corroborate your story, and show that you weren’t obviously someplace else - then it would be reasonable for me to believe your story. It’s the most logical interpretation of the data.
You’re saying I can’t prove you were there because I didn’t see you there, and that even if I had seen you there, it wouldn’t matter because I can’t objectively whatever whatever whatever because all our realities are different or something.
If all of science and experience is invalid, why is YOUR perception that you have psychic experiences and that these people are for real valid? That’s just inconsistent.
If you claim that the moon is made of green cheese, despite what you say, that is NOT equally true as the statement that the moon is made of rock. That just denies common sense and basic reality. Sorry, the world DOES exist outside of your perceptions. That’s just solipsism on your part. Look at the lengths you have go to in the effort to make your case: we have to accept that every theory is equally true because we can’t know anything at all. Just for starters. Seems like a lot of effort compared to the theory CFLarsen and others are putting forth.
I’m gonna go shave. Where’s Occam’s Razor when you need it?
This is the biggest load of hooey that I’ve ever read. There is nothing abstract about an apple; it is a real, physical, tangible, concrete thing.
If I put an apple in a bowl, the bowl contains one apple. If I then put another apple in the bowl, the bowl now contains two apples. There’s nothing abstract about that. The labels that we put on them - the words “one” and “two” - might be human inventions, but the objects and their number have a physicality that exists with or without humans.
If a squirrel gets a nut and takes it back to his nest, he’s got one nut. If he goes out and gets another one and brings that back to his nest, he’s got two nuts. If he then goes out and brings back two more nuts, he’s got four nuts. The squirrel knows, at some level, that it’s got four nuts, even though it has no concept or arithmetic. Two plus two equals four, and if you truly believe that that’s an “abstract concept”, then you’re nuts.
If that’s your level of believe, then you can believe nothing, you can prove nothing, you can talk about nothing; you’re in the old saw about “How do I know that I’m not a disembodied brain being fed an artificial reality?” and any further discussion about anything is just pointless.
Indeed, unless you’re content to interact with the world on the level of a dog or cat, you must accept certain meanings. You’re posts are in English. While it is likely we disagree on the meanings of certain words, it is still more likely that we agree on the overwhelming majority. You use an argument about apples and bowls. You have just shown that you accept the meaning of these terms. Why then do you reject mathematics? How is 2 different from apple? If you truly believe that mathematics is meaningless and arbitrary, why are you speaking English? Shouldn’t you be conversing in a language entirely of your own creation? One whose words and their meanings is defined entirely by you?
This is the biggest load of hooey that I’ve ever read. There is nothing abstract about an apple; it is a real, physical, tangible, concrete thing.
If I put an apple in a bowl, the bowl contains one apple. If I then put another apple in the bowl, the bowl now contains two apples. There’s nothing abstract about that. The labels that we put on them - the words “one” and “two” - might be human inventions, but the objects and their number have a physicality that exists with or without humans.
If a squirrel gets a nut and takes it back to his nest, he’s got one nut. If he goes out and gets another one and brings that back to his nest, he’s got two nuts. If he then goes out and brings back two more nuts, he’s got four nuts. The squirrel knows, at some level, that it’s got four nuts, even though it has no concept or arithmetic. Two plus two equals four, and if you truly believe that that’s an “abstract concept”, then you’re nuts.
If that’s your level of believe, then you can believe nothing, you can prove nothing, you can talk about nothing; you’re in the old saw about “How do I know that I’m not a disembodied brain being fed an artificial reality?” and any further discussion about anything is just pointless.
I take it you think it’s a bunch of hooey, Road
mswas wrote:
Yeah, that’s about the size of it.
He knows he’s got four nuts because he walks funny.
Oh, I forgot a few things:
mswas, you say that people have ignored the point of your post. I disagree, but you’ve also ignored most of the responses. I asked you two questions in my first reply to you - ‘how do you know who is a real psychic and who is not?’ and ‘what was that stuff about marketing proving that we operate on some unconscious level?’
you have missed the glaringly obvious solution to this…ask John Edward!
Marley: Yeah, I meant to repsond to your posts, and your post was actually what I had in mind when I saw what Spoofe said about me not responding to everyone.
The truth of hte matter is I use other people’s computers to post. So I have a limited amount of time to post, and a limited amount of time to put thought into my posts. (Waits for the trolls to get that one
Ok, my point was not that people ignored points htat I have made, that’s fine. My problem is that they selectively ignore things that I said, changing the meaning of what I am saying entirely.
For instance the post about apples being objective. I never said that apples were subjective, I said the application of the term “apple” is subjective, and anything else that we understand about it’s properties is also subjective.
Market research shows (no cite sorry) that people tend to react in large groups. Obviously these people don’t get together and decide that they are going to all buy a Corrolla. They just do. Some factors of communication are applied to their conciousness on a level that is not interpersonal interaction in the way that a group getting together and DECIDING to all buy a Corrolla is.
I don’t know if someone is a “real” psychic or not. I only know who I have been able to accomplish feats that we are calling “psychic”.
Again, as I said before, I don’t believe that psychic abilities have no explanation. I think that cold reading is one example of it. Phermones are another, I have LOTS and LOTS of theories as to why it works, but I’m not going to go into it, because well I’m not a scientist and I don’t claim to be. I figured I’d join this argument and offer a view opposite what the status quo was, and as I expected I got flamed. I never claimed that I would PROVE anything, just offered my personal experience on the subject.
Marley:
I’m not competing
However, I do feel that the tenor of this conversation is more on the line of competing than it is toward actual understanding. In the fight against ignorance you have to be careful not to elevate knowledge above understanding.
I feel for the most part that people aren’t trying too hard to understand my point of view. Perhaps this was a Pit thread disguised as a GD thread. Where everyone just wanted a chance to bash those silly new agers.
I hear things like “If you want people to talk to you, or listen to you, then…” this presupposes that people DON’T listen to me when I talk about this. Actually I talk about this subject A LOT and people usually listen to me some agree with me, some don’t.
DocCathode
I agree with this completely. This is why I DO accept certain meanings. However, I am completely aware that it is acceptance. I accept the system of Mathematics, in fact I find it quite elegant and beautiful. What I’ve been trying to get at is that people apply too much to their “acceptance” and try and pass off their subjective as objective. That’s my issue.
I never ONCE said that nothing is objective, just that conciousness is at the level of the SUBJECTIVE, and that any human interaction is ALL subjective. For us to communicate we have to accept that we have common terms and that we are understanding those common terms to apply to the same things.
My Disneyland example works well. Someone said they would believe it “If…” well, I can’t supply an answer to ANY of his ifs. However, I would imagine that if I just came up to any one of you at a dopefest and talked about going to Disneyland, I seriously doubt ANY of you would question that I had in fact been to Disneyland, even though I have NO WAY to prove it. Unless…I were able to relate to you shared experiences that you had of Disneyland or that a friend of yours whom you trusted related. In otherwords, if we had a common definition for what Disneyland and the experience of being at Disneyland means.
Going back to the mathematical example. We ACCEPT that mathematics is the best system to describe the objective. It’s conceptually sound, and it’s rules are rigid enough to apply a certain level of form, while flexible enough to make allowances for infinite variation. Now, the issue I have here is that we must AGREE that mathematics is sound in this way, to have any meaningful discourse, as many have pointed out. In fact they feel that communicating with me is futile if I do not accept these things, which I do, so they can allay their fears for I shall not desert them!
How this applies to psychic phenomena? Well if you have no point of reference, and you believe the psychic phenomena purely do not exist, and that it’s impossible for two people to communicate telepathically, then there is no possible way for me to prove it to you. You have denied the very system with which I would use to describe it, just like me denying the validity of mathematics. I can have no real meaningful discourse on psychic phenomena with you, for any way that I would use to prove it you believe cannot possibly happen. Much that was said about me, not accepting mathematics is how I feel about discussing psychic phenomena with any of you.
My ex-girlfriend and I communicated in ways that many of you would view as not even being English. So much of our communication was non-verbal that it’s even hard for me to explain to you what we talked about. However, we did have communication, we communicated very deeply, more deeply than with anyone I’ve ever known, but you believe that it’s not possible for it to have happened, because I have no way to prove it to you. You can explain it away as body language, phermones, cold reading, whatever you like. If you come up with a plausible explanation for it, that does not change the nature of the experience, it only changes how we choose to discuss the experience.
Hmm part of my post got cut off.
I wanted to post the definition for the word “Ineffable” but you’re welcome to look it up yourself.
I have seen people communicate in so many varied ways, some of which I was completely unaware of until the day I woke up and realized that people were communicating in that way. So I don’t presume ever to say that people are not communicating in a way that they claim that they are.
Yes, there are charlatans. These charlatans play tricks on people looking for hope. I won’t comment on how I feel about the charlatans because I’m not getting into subjective morality.
Erek