That’s true, but the point was that, just because you can “hack” the brain into thinking you are experiencing some sensation, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things out there (external to your body) that give you the same sensation.
i.e. it doesn’t mean that all such sensations are internally generated.
Illogical and unreasonable ? I’m the one who wants evidence; your the one who wants to believe with none. Faith by definition is not rational.
Besides, have I called you evil or called for your punishment/death ? If you think I’m much like a fundamentalist, you’re wearing rose colored glasses.
Because lying is more probable than your mysticism. We have a huge amount of evidence for the existence of liars, none for supernatural powers. The same of course applies to hallucinations, self delusion and simple mistakes . I am simply not going to take hearsay evidence that something that violates the known laws of physics exists. Logically, the burden of proof is on you, not me.
No, there is no reason for anyone. Give me proof. Not subjective testimonials, but scientifically verified proof. Scientific information on the brain is incomplete, but it still exists. Mysticism on the other hand has no such evidence at all. People have been trying to prove such things as the soul and God and afterlife exist for thousands of hears, and have always failed. Intelligent people may believe in such things, but that’s because they want to believe. That’s why evidence is what matters, not the evidence-free claims of someone who happens to be smart.
Once again, you are the one claiming something exists, not me. You are claiming something exists that violates known physical laws with no hard facts to back you up. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; where is it ?
But that was only one possible alternative natural explanation to compare to the spuernatural one: there are a whole host of others, any one of which removes the anecdote from the realm of scientific revolution and returns it to the mundane.
Again, let us compare exactly what the boy said into a tape recorder before any prior knowledge could have been intimated to him by someone else, and assess as rigorously as we can how vague or specific that description really was. To simply allow such anecdotes to stand as evidence unchallenged is a little like handing out blank lottery tickets which people could fill in after the result and claim the prize.
Polerius: Yes, both are experiences, with differences only in the mechanical origin of the photon emission and neurochemical action potential initiation. My question was whether “spiritual” experiences can be solely due to physical mechanisms, regardless of whether the neurons are stimulated by a carbon device with blonde hair or a silicon device with blonde pixels.
Yes, but how does that make it more probable? Is it more probable because it’s things we’re already familar with? Is it automatically more likely to be something we already know about than something we only suspect? If so, why?
I see that we cannot just accept these anecdotes as proof. That is why these things are being examined to try and determine their nature. If unexplained knowledge is claimed then we can examine the cases as much as possible. If a high percentage of that so called unexplained knowledge is explained then that would increase the probability that it is all explainable. If not, it still wouldn’t be proof positive but at least data worth consideration. I understand weighing the credibility of the evidence, but I don’t see why all datum except that gathered by recognized scientists should be completely dismissed. Isn’t it the volume of non scientific evidence that even prompts a study?
I find Dr. Moody to be a serious, highly intelligent , non delusional , and honest. {so far} Why should I throw out the information he’s spent years gathering and give it no consideration?
Because that is all he is. He doesn’t actually have any hard evidence, and without hard evidence, it is unreasonable to believe in things, beyond a cetain scale. Sure, so that need not stop you from believeing it, but it does mean that he can not call his postion
I believe that he is serious and highly intelligent. We have no way of telling whether he is non-delusional and/or honest. The point is, though, that none of this has any bearing on the fact that what he does is collect stories from people that agree with his viewpoint. I could do that. You could do that. That fact that he has collected many stories does not make them any more true, though. Reality is not a popularity contest…
Would you like examples? Dandy.
Here you claimed that the term supernatural didn’t mean, “unexplained at this time” {which I showed to be false} and that those who believed in the supernatural stopped looking for further scientific input, {which I also showed to be incorrect} I find this type of sweeping generlization to be illogical and unreasonable.
That led you to this illogical gem.
in a later post you qualified this by saying that spiritual seeking can’t lead to objective fact. Perhaps it was your wording that made it seem like another sweeping generalization. Later you incorrectly claimed once again, that those who believe in the supernatural aren’t open to realistic input.
Oh and this one.
bolded section. Easily shown to be nonsense which you refused to acknowledge.
Being fair, you did attempt to qualify this one later as well, so perhaps it is just your haste that brings out the illogical in you. It is illogical and inreasonable none the less.
BTW Faith is not illogical. It is a necessity. We all operate on some form of faith. We must.
Like a fundamentalist in this sense only, You have your own set of beliefs and you can’t seem to understand that reasonable intelligent people have valid reasons for believeing differently than you.
Nobody is asking you to. Since I am not trying to prove anything to you I assume no such burden.
I have a big problem with this. The fact that so many people do believe shows this is obviously wrong without some qualifiers. I assume you mean there is no reason that can be objectively verified by all people. I wouldn’t disagree. What I would disagree with would be statement that only those objectively verifiable reasons are valid. A subjective spiritual experience can be a valid reason for that individual to believe.
Nothing is required unless my goal is to convince you that my beliefs are the correct ones. I have no such goal.
I agree that sheer numbers don’t equate to truth. I make a judgement call that based on the nature of his responses he is non delusional and honest. Further investigation might change my mind.
What exactly do you think his vewpoint is? What did he say in the interview that you find objectionable?
You seem to think he contrived his belief and then went out looking for anyone who would agree. It seems to me that he was exposed to the NDE phenomenon and had enough reasons to continue his investigations. He isn’t trying to establish any spiritual beliefs with his research that I can see. He is reporting the results of his studies. He doesn’t present his research as a scientific.
Seems like you didn’t finish your post.
I don’t agree with the statement I bolded. I think we can believe in things based on subjective evidence {in fact we all do don’t we} and it is perfectly reasonable.
Yet again, this is the essence of Ockham’s Razor: it is generally useful to stick with one kind of explanation if it really does explain, rather than jump for the outlandish or revolutionary option. Yes, the accused could have been framed by his long lost identical twin, but on balance it is more likely that he did actually commit the crime he was filmed committing. Yes, the UFO could be an alien spacecraft, but on balance it’s more likely to be the blimp known to be flying in that area. Yes, it could be a ghost of Henry VIII opening those doors, but on balance a guy dressed up is more likely. Again, deliberating on the nature of NDE’s is no different to doing the same for ghosts, UFO’s or unlikely conspiracies in this respect.
But, ultimately, you’re quite right that there is no inherent reason to discount the identical twin, alien spacecraft or genuine Tudor phantom. Our brains are biological computers receiving input, and our beliefs and opinions are the “outputs” of that computation. No given output is automatically correct.
It is not completely dismissed: I and any rational skeptic still assigns a non-zero probability to it being a genuinely supernatural phenomenon - tiny, perhaps, but still not zero. And these anecdotes do indeed prompt studies: heck, people like Susan Blackmore have dedicated their entire careers to studying them. Unfortunately, no significant departure from chance has been observed except in experiments which later revealed serious flaws.
Like I say, I don’t give him no consideration, and I don’t think he’s particularly dishonest (indeed, I don;t think outright dishonesty plays anywhere near as much a part in NDE anecdotes as in other paranormal phenomena). Nor is he literally “delusional” from a mental health perspective. I simply feel that those precious few “impossible information” ancedotes contain a mistake somewhere in the Chinese-whispered telling, such that they can actually be explained by vivid, life-changing dreams.
That makes sense. I appreciate your explaination. It has helped clarify OR for me.
Even though I count myself a believer I try to remain honest about the things we know vs the things that remain mysteries. When I use terms like God or Spirit, or supernatural they are merely attempts at discussing the mystery without clinging to rigid concepts. “Unexplained at this time” There are areas where science only has theories based on pretty sketchy information. It has occured to me that if if I accept a spiritual reality then it is entirely possible even probable that a spiritual reality will nver be proved or disproved by science rooted in the physical. So we are left to choose what we believe.
I see. I decided long ago that spirituality and religion that didn’t transform you as a person was pretty shallow and perfuntory. For me that’s the reason these explorations should continue is precisely those life changing experiences whatever their source.