Don’t ask me, I’m only halfway there. Congratulations.
I don’t agree that “there is only one kind of knowledge, and no meaningful distinction can be upheld”.
That seems to me to be far too broad. I may be accurate using the right definitions, but it’s akin to saying that only one type of ‘thing’ exists. Using a broad enough definition it is true, but it’s so broad and vague as to render any discussion of things meaningless and requires the dissection of the noun. I believe the same problem exists with your definition of ‘knowledge’. And since we are discussing knowledge we do require a dissection of the noun.
You can know that sock puppets elicit in me a certain physiological response. That is factual knowledge. I hope we agree on that.
I can also know that sock puppets frighten me a lot. That is far less factual. Fear is a subjective experience. Even assuming that you could analyse the hormonal and neurological responses that are associated with sock puppets in my brain, you could never know what I am feeling. You would never have knowledge of how sock much fear sock puppets instil. This knowledge could only be known by me. Nonetheless I do know it, just as much as you know that sock puppets cause a rise in my heart rate. This is emotional knowledge. There is no factual basis for it.
Then I can know that sock puppets are going to harm me. Yes I can know that with as much conviction as you can know that you have two legs. I do not believe that sock puppets can harm me. I do not predict that sock puppets are going to harm me. I know they are going to harm me. This is intuitive knowledge. This is not only not factual, it is demonstrably counterfactual. Nonetheless I know it to be true.
So how can all these types of knowledge all be factual? How do you contend that there is no meaningful distinction between the knowledge that my blood pressure soars when I see a sock puppet, and the knowledge that sock puppets are going to harm me?
I can see a very clear and meaningful distinction between those two pieces of knowledge.
I never noticed this before. I feel that, for the sake of aiding in the understanding of others, it might not be a bad idea to reply to it anyway, as late as this is in the discussion:
Yep.
Yes there is. It’s subjective, so I can’t have knowledge of it (I believe I can to a rather great extent, but let’s not muddy the waters further), but you can. It’s based on empirical evidence (every time you’ve been exposed to a sock puppet, you’ve been frightened); it’s factual knowledge.
And yet it is false. This is non-knowledge, it flies in the face of the facts, and is properly described as a belief.
There is a distinction in that the latter isn’t knowledge, it’s a belief.
I disagree. Again, I think you are casting too wide a net around ‘factual’ to make the term meaningful. Simply being based on empirical knowledge does not make something factual. I can base a belief in a flat Earth on empirical evidence. Does that make such knowledge factual in your eyes?
Are you saying that all knowledge based on empirical evidence is factual?
I may be totally wrong here, but you seem to be working up to a True Scotsman.
You: All knowledge is based on facts.
Me: This piece of knowledge is clearly not based on facts.
You: That isn’t knowledge precisely because it isn’t based on facts, and all knowledge is of course based on fact.
Is there any more basis to your assertion than that?
Here you are specifically defining knowledge to preclude those things which demonstrably fail to meet your beliefs. You are altering the definitions to meet your position rather than the other way around. The word knowledge as defined in any dictionary allows my irrational beliefs to be knowledge. People use the word knowledge in everyday speech in a manner that allows my irrational beliefs to be knowledge.
If you wish to contend that something which flies in the face of the facts cannot be knowledge then I will have to ask you to provide some sort of support for that belief beyond the assertion itself. Simply asserting that my knowledge that sock puppets will harm me is not knowledge does not make it so.
I know that sock puppets will harm me as much as you know anything. By what standard do you claim that I do not know it?
This one is kind of a gray area. You can know things by experiencing them with your senses. You can know that you’re looking at a computer monitor because you are using your senses to do so, and because you can veriry by running any sort of test you can imagine.
Emotional states are a bit different. The emotional state itself is not knowledge. The knowledge is in knowing that you are experiencing a specific emotional state. Unlike the physiological response, the emotional state can only be experienced by you, so external verification is not needed, and thus your experiencing the emotional state is sufficient to state that you “know” that you are afraid. It is still factual knowledge, it is just limited in scope, and thus limited in the verification needed to declare it “knowledge”.
When comparing this to something like eyesight, it’s similiar to saying “I know that I see a monitor with words on it”. That requires no extra proof, since your sight is one of your senses. It’s when you attempt to extend what you observe into the surrounding environment that more evidence becomes necessary. Going from “I see a monitor” to “There is a monitor” raises the bar. After all, it could be an optical illusion (although something as mundane as this will usually be taken at face value as knowledge).
No, you do not. You very strongly believe that sock puppets are going to harm you. You can believe that with as much conviction as you know that I have two legs.
This is the problem with extrapolating internal mental states into knowledge of the physical universe. After all, I would hope that you would rationally know that the sock puppets are not going to harm you, based on your knowledge of what sock puppets are, and the belief that the person controlling them means you know harm. You cannot know that the sock puppets both will and will not harm you, because knowledge does not stand up to contradiction. If two things that you “know” are at odds with one another, then one of them must be false, and thus no longer qualifies as knowledge. That particular bit of discarded knowledge, if you are unable to dispose of it completely, becomes a belief. Thus, once you become aware of the fact that the sock puppets are not going to harm you, you can no longer “know” that they are going to harm you; You can simply have a strong belief.
I will restate for emphasis that you do not know it to be true. You know that you very strongly believe it is true. Strong belief is not the same thing as knowledge.
There is a distinction. You have knowledge of your physiologocal response, and you also know that the response is triggered by an irrational belief. Note that there is no such thing as irrational knowledge. Knowledge is, by its nature, rational. Knowledge can, of course, be flawed – or the entities about which you possess knowledge can be irrational – but knowledge cannot be reached through irrational means.
So you are saying that knowing that I am afraid is sufficient to state that I “know” that you are afraid?
Aside from being circular, isn’t it rather an oxymoron? It is factual because no facts are required?
Agreed, but that isn’t what’s in under discussion at the moment. I’m not trying to say there is a monitor thee, just that I know there is a monitor there.
Who said anything about rational? Human beings are not rational. Let’s assume for a second that I don’t rationally know that sock puppets are going to hurt me for whatever reason. That being the case your argument that I can no longer “know” that they are going to harm me disintegrates. I do “know” that they are gong to harm me. And that knowledge remains as counterfactual as ever.
I understand your argument ** Joe Random**. However it hinges entirely on me knowing rationally that sock puppets won’t hurt me, and that is not the case.
I will repeat what I said to ** Priceguy**. You seem to be working up to a True Scotsman.
You: All knowledge is based on facts.
Me: This piece of knowledge is clearly not based on facts.
You: That isn’t knowledge precisely because it isn’t based on facts. It must be a belief because all knowledge is of course based on fact, and that isn’t based on fact.
Is there any more basis to your assertion than that?
If you wish to contend that something which flies in the face of the facts cannot be knowledge then I will have to ask you to provide some sort of support for that belief beyond the assertion itself. Simply asserting that my knowledge that sock puppets will harm me is not knowledge does not make it so.
Care to support that blanket assertion? What makes you believe that I “know that the response is triggered by an irrational belief”? No such facts are in evidence, nor have you presented any reasoning by which may conclude to conclude that such is the case. This is pure assertion on your part.
This simply an argument form assertion. You are asserting that all knowledge I factual and supporting it with your assertion that knowledge is rational and cannot be reached by irrational means.
You can’t support your assertion with more assertions.
IMO, this is the most reliable way to garner knowledge about the universe.
As far as knowledge goes, emotions are useful for self-discovery and for anthropology maybe, but useless for eliciting any objective knowledge about the physical universe outside of humankind.
There are many reasons I find experiences of a “higher power” to be unreliable. First, such experiences can be duplicated both with drugs and with magnetic fields, suggesting that the “experience” is simply an artifact of the brain. Second, humans are notorious for believing all sorts of things that aren’t true, so belief in and of itself is not a reliable method for determining the objective truth of the matter. Third, descriptions of these types of experiences are almost always vague (or happen only in dreams); it’s rather uncommon for people to literally hear or see God; it’s almost always either a “feeling” or some sort of coincidental event that the person attributes to God. Fourth, and most importantly, personal feelings are never an accurate way to know anything objectively.
Certainly knowledge can be obtained through reason, although it’s more convincing if backed up by empirical observation. IIRC, that’s how Einstein came up with his theory of relativity - by pure thought. But it’s important to notice that it was later proven physically.
Belief and knowledge are 2 seperate things. Belief that precedes knowledge is not objective. But belief can follow objective knowledge.
Blake:
But the non-Earth-centered model makes more sense, so Occam’s Razor tells us to choose it. The soul model of consciousness does not make more sense. In fact, it makes no sense at all. It’s not even defined, and there’s not a lick of objective evidence to support it. How do you justify choosing it over the physical (brain) explanation of consciousness?
Until counter-evidence is prevented, yes. If you choose to ignore evidence that the Earth is round, then it’s a belief of yours that the Earth is flat. As long as all available evidence points to the Earth being flat, then it’s knowledge. Knowledge can be false, as has been shown time and time again throughout history.
Let me think… yep. What else could it be? Please note that empirical evidence isn’t always enough; for example I have never seen Arnold Schwarzenegger, although I have vivid memories of him wearing a leather jacket and wielding a mini-gun. I have to use my faculties of reason to realise that these memories are not in fact of Schwarzenegger himself, but of a visual representation of Schwarzenegger.
Then, what distinguishes nonfactual knowledge from belief? If nothing, what distinguishes belief from knowledge? If nothing, what’s the point of having the word “knowledge” at all?
If that is the case I think we should change the definition, because the word has lost its meaning. If irrational beliefs are knowledge, there’s no point in using the word any more. For what it’s worth, here’s dictionary.com’s definition, taken from the American Heritage Dictionary:
- The state or fact of knowing.
- Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study.
- The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.
- Learning; erudition: teachers of great knowledge.
- Specific information about something.
- Carnal knowledge.
Definition 1 is not the sense of the word that I’ve been using; When I’ve said “knowledge” in this thread I’ve meant the actual bits and pieces of information that make up knowledge, not the state or fact of knowing. Definitions 4 and 6 also strike me as irrelevant.
Definition 2, then. Key words “experience” and “study”. Sounds factual to me.
Definition 3. Key words “perceived”, “discovered” and “learned”. Also sounds factual to me.
Definition 5. Key words “information”. Also sounds factual to me.
By this definition, I cannot fit an irrational belief into the word “knowledge”.
That should be “presented”, obviously. I did preview, I swear.
And Einstein didn’t fashion it out of whole cloth either, he had a millennia-long tradition of science to work with. Without that as a basis, he would never had come up with relativity.
Ok, so to use a recent example.
I know that trees don’t produce oxygen based on empirical evidence. According to you that is factual knowledge.
Person X knows that trees do produce oxygen, also based on empirical evidence. According to you that is factual knowledge.
So according to you both these contradictory statements are factual knowledge?
It seems to me that your usage of ‘factual knowledge’ is just as interchangeable with ‘beliefs’ as anyone else’s.
Are these rhetorical questions?
The whole point of this part of the debate is to point out that knowledge can be based on things other than fact. If you believe that this renders the word ‘knowledge’ useless then so be it. Cease using the word. However you will still need to concede that ** fessie** and I were quite correct in our assertion that knowledge comes in a multitude of forms, and not all are factual.
If you wish to debate the further implications of the arbitrary line between belief and knowledge then I will be happy to do so, but let’s settle this point first.
In response to your comments on the definitions the American Heritage Dictionary presented.
How so? I think that you had best clarify what definition of ‘factual’ you wish to use. I can think of circumstances in which experiences have not been factual. I can also think of circumstances in which things studied have not been factual. I have personally learned and discovered many things that were not factual, and I am certain that at this very moment I possess information that is not factual.
The only way I can see any validity in your above comments is if you are using the broadest definition of ‘fact’, as in ‘anything I think is true’.
If this isn’t the case then I can easily experience things on a hallucination which are not fact. I can learn things that are blatantly not factual in any number of ways, and I can gain information about anything that is not factual in either of these ways and oh so many others.
Now if you are using the broadest definition you have a bigger problem. You are talking bout ‘factual knowledge’. Knowledge that is based on facts. Knowledge that is based on things I believe are true.
Of course by this definition all knowledge is indeed factual knowledge, but only for the reasons I pointed out in my second post, and with all the incumbent problems. It’s so broad and so all inclusive that it renders the term useless in any discussion of knowledge. By this definition ** fessie**’s knowledge of the soul is factual simply because it is based on things she believes to be true. Jack Chick’s view of the afterlife is factual because it is based on things he believes to be true.
The definition is broad enough to support your assertion that all knowledge is factual. Unfortunately it simultaneously destroys your argument that my knowledge of a sock puppet’s intent to harm me is a belief, and forces you to concede that sock puppets intent to harm me is a fact.
You really do need to clarify what we mean by fact so we can move this one way or the other.
I want to make sure that I express this correctly, so this is going to get VERY long. Especially considering the main theme seems to be the very philosophical, “what is knowledge?” Please bear with me. After all, It took me quite a while to compose, so the least you could do is read it, right? 
First of all, let me clarify something. Shouldn’t the above read:
“So you are saying that knowing that I am afraid is sufficient to state that I “know” that I am afraid?”
My take on this is that everything that we “know” must be based first on observation of some kind. Everyone knows, by default, what their senses tell them. You know that you see words on a computer monitor. I know that I can feel the keys of my keyboard depress as I type. A schizophrenic knows that he hears voices telling him that the government is reading his thoughts via satellite. From this point, we have to decide how to interpret the input from our senses.
This is where external verification is normally required. You can reach out and touch the monitor you’re looking at, play with the brightness and contrast controls, and possible hear the noise it generates at the upper end of the auditory spectrum. You have enough supporting evidence to conclude that, not only do you know that you see a monitor, you know that there is a monitor. The same applies to my knowledge of the existance of my keyboard.
The interesting part is the schizophrenic. Let’s assume for the moment that the schizophrenic’s mind works completely normally except for the voices. The schizophrenic will surely come to realize that no one else seems to hear the voices, and that he is not wearing any earphones or any other type of localized speakers. From this point, he can choose to believe that the voice is real. However, since there is no supporting evidence for the voice other than his own observation, the only thing that he can actually know is that he hears a voice, not whether or not the voice actually exists outside of his mind.
So, this leads us to your question of “It is factual because no facts are required?” My answer is that there are facts. The observation itself is a fact. Observation is all that is required to know that you have made an observation. In your example, feeling fear is an observation of your emotional state, and thus that is all that is required to know that you are feeling feer (i.e. afraid).
Is there really any difference? I suppose that the monitor could be there and you not know it. Or you could be thoroughly fooled by a complex optical illusion, and thus know something that is false.
I suppose that the best answer is that knowledge is based on observation, logical extrapolation from those observations, and logical extrapolation from priorly aquired knowledge. To claim that something exists in the “real world”, you require more corroberating evidence for that thing’s existance, either through more numerous or detailed observations, or through more rigerous logic.
And of course, the more out of line with your current knowledge something is, the more evidence is needed, and adjustment to, or abandonment of, prior knowledge may be required.
I still don’t quite buy that. You are claiming knowledge of something that exists externally to yourself. Therefore, more evidence is required than simply your emotional state of fear. Although one simple observation may be enough for knowledge of real world things that are normal and expected (you can simply see a car while driving and know that the car exists), anything that goes against what you already know requires more than one observation.
In this case, you one observation (fear of sock puppets) is not enough to “know” that the sock puppets are going to harm you, since that goes against the greater amount of evidence of sock puppets not harming people, and not being capable of harming people (please note that I’ll revisit this issue in a minute).
I realize that knowledge isn’t something that is easy to define. The reason that I don’t see this as being a True Scotsman argument is that I am attempting to set up what knowledge is, based on some assumed axioms:
[ul][li]Knowledge is information that is obtained from observation, and which correlates well with both other observations and with previous knowledge[/li]
[li]An observation that contradicts prior observations or existing knowledge is either incorrect, or causes the observations and knowledge which it contradicts to be incorrect[/ul][/li]
I’ve never studied any philosophy related to the Nature of Truth or anything like that, so perhaps there’s a better way of setting up my axioms. However, if you accept those axioms (and I believe that they are perfectly reasonable) then it makes no sense to say something like “This piece of knowledge clearly contradicts other knowledge” (I had to reword your statement to better fit the axioms), since it contradicts the definition of knowledge.
I hope that you can see how this would avoid the True Scotsman fallacy.
And neither does calling your belief that the sock puppets will harm you knowledge actually make it knowledge.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to support the assertion that “something which flies in the face of the facts cannot be knowledge”. Actually, I believe that statement to be somewhat unusable, since I have not defined what a “fact” might be. Even so, I believe that the nature of knowledge is so fundamental that it can’t really be proven any more than 1+1=2 can be proven. It just has to be accepted as an axiom.
Well, I was operating under the assumption that you could deduce from your knowledge of what sock puppets actually are (just pieces of cloth on someone’s hands) that you would come to the conclusion that your belief was irrational.
However (remember that I said I’d get back to the sock puppets), this presents a useful oppurtunity. Imagine that every time you have been exposed to sock puppets, they have harmed you. Further suppose that this has happened a great many times. In that case, it would be perfecty reasonable for you to come to the conclusion that sock puppets will harm you. I will readilly agree that, in this case, you will, in fact, know that the sock puppets will harm you.
Of course, I still haven’t touched on the relationship between “knowledge” and “fact”, and I don’t know if I feel like tackling that right now. Suffice it to say, I firmly believe that knowledge and fact do not always agree.
That’s why I made my assertions into axioms. They need not be supported in that case. They need only be accepted or rejected by someone. Personally, I think the axioms I proposed are quite reasonable. If you wish to suggest an alternative that makes more sense — such as your multiple-types-of-knowledge assertion (which was, I might add, as equally unsupported as my assertions) — then you may do so. It’s up to the people wanting to use the axioms to decide which ones make more sense.
Whew that took a while. I hope that you better understand where I’m coming from now. And actually, it helped me solidify my own understanding of my position by writing it out.
But Occam’s razor is just a belief in itself. Your decision to use it is not logically supportable in and of itself. You only use it because experience has taught us that on the balance of probabilities it is correct. Indeed such a statement is found within the concept itself.
Your use of it here is not logically supportable.
I acknowledge your point, However Occam’s razor is not an argument, simply a statement of why you believe as you do.
It does to me and apparently to most of the world’s population.
You are simply asserting that it is nonsensical, not demonstrating it.
Thee have probably been more works published on the soul than any other subject in the history of thew world. It is defined in any number of ways.
Of course there is. Millions of people worldwide, form cultures that have lost contact millennia ago and that have no other common beliefs will all provide evidence for it.
That is a false dichotomy and to the best of my knowledge a strawman. Does any religion actually claim that the consciousness of the physical body lies anywhere other than the brain except under unusual circumstances?
Yep. One of them is false, the other true. Person X was made aware of further empirical evidence of which he was previously unaware, discarded his old knowledge and has now incorporated the new knowledge. Belief, by contrast, tends to be impervious to evidence.
I don’t see how.
You’ll have to give me examples, I’m afraid. These non-factual experiences, what were they experiences of? These non-factuals objects of study, what were they? What non-factual information do you possess?
Blake, you seem to enjoy discussing semantics. I don’t. If you wish to debate the purely semantic distinction between “belief” and “knowledge”, open a thread regarding that.
This thread is a debate on the existence of the soul. I maintain that there is no reason to believe in the existence of the soul and that no evidence exists to point to the existence of the soul. Whenever I use the word “knowledge” in this thread, kindly mentally insert the word “factual” before it.
Such as? These cultures also all have gods explaining their local phenomena. Thunder gods, war gods, wind gods, fertility gods… is that evidence? “Big people” (giants) and “little people” (pixies etc) are also told of all over the globe. Does that mean they exist?
lekatt’s religion does. Not that I know what religion lekatt is.
D’oh!
And now it’s turtles all the way down. You’ve gone from ‘Experiencing the emotional state is factual because no facts are required’ to ‘ Experiencing the emotional state is factual because we know it is a fact that you observed that emotional state, and we know that it is a fact that you observed that emotional state because observation itself is a fact. ”.
Aren’t we right back where we started? We still have absolutely no facts aside form the very one we are trying to establish the veracity of?
Again, you are apparently constructing a Scotsman. What you have just said appears is nothing more than a rather longwinded version of ‘All knowledge is factual”, isn’t it?
You seem to be attempting to construct an argument that all knowledge is factual form the position that all knowledge si based on observation and logic: ie fact.
Not at all. I can claim that the I have a unicorn living in my fishbowl if I wish to. I may do this at any time absent of corroborating evidence for that unicorn’s existence.
[quote]
You are claiming knowledge of something that exists externally to yourself. Therefore, more evidence is required than simply your emotional state of fear.
[/quote
This is a circular argument. You are apparently attempting to argue that all knowledge is factual, based on an assertion that I can not know something without ‘more evidence’. Or to put it another way your argument is that all knowledge is factual, based on an assertion that I can not know something without facts.
You haven’t really moved forwards here. All you have done is restate your initial position. But if you are going to claim that I can’t not know something without facts, I will need to see something more than a repetition of the assertion that this is so.
Umm, isn’t this just a fancy way of saying that knowledge is based on facts? If so then you’re right, It’s not a Scotsman, it’s a circular argument.
I fail to accept this axiom outright. Knowledge can be obtained from any number of sources. For millennia people obtained knowledge from priests and shamans with no observation at all. Knowledge was passed down generation to generation. I myself have knowledge of the Big Bang based on absolutely no observation at all.
Your axiom just doesn’t mesh with the real world, aside from the fact that it is asserting the very point your argument I trying to establish.
No, but if it meets all the criteria for the definition of knowledge, then that does make it knowledge. Can yo show me a definition of knowledge which it does not meet?
No, it was supported by examples of various types of knowledge. In actual fact my argument only requires two types of knowledge: factual and non-factual. I have supported my assertion with an example of non-factual knowledge that meets all the criteria for knowledge, yet which is counter factual. If it is knowledge (which it must be if it meets all the criteria), and it is counterfactual, then how much more support can I provide?
If I said that not all dogs had 4 legs, and provided an example of an animal that met all the criteria of a dog and that had 3 legs, would you also call that assertion unsupported?
I do understand where you are coming form. The problem I see is that you seem to be working with a definition of ‘knowledge’ that is synonymous with ‘scientific knowledge’. I will happily work with any definition of generic ‘knowledge; that you can find in any dictionary. But scientific knowledge is factually based by definition. As such starting form such a position is pointless.
priceguy.
I reject that altogether. People change their beliefs all the time based on evidence. Are you suggesting that person X knew that trees produced oxygen, but didn’t believe that trees produced oxygen?
If you are saying this then please explain what it is based on.
If you are not saying this then please explain how every change in knowledge isn’t also a change in belief?
Let me put it this way then.
Given that two people may have factual knowledge of two mutually contradictory premises simultaneously, and given that factual knowledge can change without the production of more facts within the human knowledge base as a whole…
In what way does your usage of ‘factual knowledge’ differ form your usage of ‘’belief’? In what way is ths differentiation distinct from the differentiation that might be found between the distionary definitions?
** Priceguy** I will happily give you further examples of non-factual experiences, but first you will of course need to comply with my request best clarify what definition of ‘factual’ you wish to use.
You maintain that there is no reason to believe in the existence of the soul and that no evidence exists to point to the existence of the soul based on circular reasoning and a flawed understanding of what constitutes belief. Your entire position seems to be based on your totally unsupportable belief that all knowledge is factual. A belief based on logical fallacies, circular reasoning and flawed understanding of knowledge.
I will happily insert the word factual before your use of the word knowledge, and your position that there is only one type of knowledge will still be wrong.
The very existence of such a widespread belief in the soul is evidence in itself.
Evidence of what?
I shouldn’t think so. However it does mean that you would by lying if you claimed that there was no evidence of little people.
OK, I stand corrected and withdraw the strawman statement. I stand by the observation that your statement was a false dichotomy.
Out of interest, where does lekatt believe the consciousness lies in the physical body? Have you got a reference?
No. This mysterious person X, whoever that was, both knew and believed it. Based on a change in knowledge, he changed his beliefs. You’re right in that my last sentence there was a bit rash. Belief not based on factual knowledge tends to be impervious to evidence.
My usage of “factual knowledge” differs from my usage of “belief” in that factual knowledge is based on empirical evidence and reason, whereas belief isn’t necessarily so.
I’m getting really tired of the semantics, but try “based on empirical facts and the use of Occam’s Razor”.
Not at all. In fact, they have very little to do with each other. The latter is a semantic argument which I would be happy to see moved to another thread. The former is my position, which is this: so far, I haven’t seen a definition of “soul” according to which there is any evidence that a soul exists. If you define “soul” as “personality”, then yes, the soul exists. If you define it as “mind”, then yes, I suppose it exists. If you define it, as fessie did, as dependent upon the existence of a higher power, then I maintain that there is no evidence pointing to it.
I violently disagree. First of all, evidence of what? If of the existence of the soul, then there is enormous amounts of evidence of thunder gods as well. Do you agree with that?
I don’t see anecdotal evidence as evidence. I think most scientifically minded people will back me up here.
It wasn’t my statement, actually.
I read, not one week ago, on this board, that lekatt claims the brain has “nothing to do with thinking”. Minutes after posting that I started searching the board for this quote, and then lekatt’s website, and I just cannot for the life of me find it. I’ll have to withdraw the statement until someone jumps in with a link.
Guys? Please? lekatt?
So your usage of ‘factual knowledge’ is in fact just as interchangeable with ‘beliefs’ as anyone else’s.
I’m confused. Is this meant to be your definition of factual? If so then any conversation within a dream is a non-factual experience.
Then I will provide one: The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
Evidence for existence of same already provided.
And I have already pointed out to you that the fact that every culture on Erath believes in or until recently believed I such a soul is evidence of it existence.
Or is your definition of evidence as convoluted as your definition of knowledge? To pre-empt any more argument based on your use of non-standard definitions, can we agree that evidence is “A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment”?
Yes. Such widespread belief is clearly a thing helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment concerning the existence of thunder gods.
Care to explain that statement further? You don’t see a anecdotal evidence as being evidence? This doesn’t make any sense no matter how I spin it.
Have you heard of the duck test? If it looks like evidence and it quacks like evidence and it’s even called evidence, then why for the love of Mike isn’t it evidence?
Fortunately it doesn’t matter what you see. In GD you need to be able o back it up. Since anecdotal evidence meets all the criteria of evidence it is evidence until you produce some logical argument or supporting documentation to prove otherwise.
On that basis alone we can say that any claim that there is no evidence for the existence of a soul is wrong.
PMSL.
You don’t need to withdraw the statement. Experience has taught me that somebody, somewhere believes absolutely anything conceivable, and most of the things that aren’t. I just hadn’t met this one is all.