Religious scientists... an example of 'Doublethink'

Agreed.

There is a dominant human behavior to claim the existence of anomolous objective phenomena that does not exsit. There are ALOT of such claims so befor researching a phenomena, a judgment call has to be made as to whether that phenomena is a product of reality or human imagination. This is where our present understanding of human behavior comes in.

I agree. The process of science fortunately keeps that behavior in check. Theism on the other hand has no such mechanism.

From Wikipedia:

"Sprites were first photographed on July 6, 1989, by scientists from the University of Minnesota and named after the mischievous sprite (air spirit) Ariel in Shakespeare's "The Tempest". "

Prior to pilots claiming the existence of sprites and elves (yes elves) those two words were exclusively defined as mythical life forms. If pilots really did give those phenomena their names then somone hearing their claims probably thought mythical creatures... i.e. a poor choice of words on their part for being taken seriously. Lets say for example that I encountered a new ground electrical phenomena and I claimed 'Unicorns' exist. See the problem?

 

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I think more offen that not with anomalous events youre useally dealing with something that exists, although yes its easy for the 'something' to be misinterpreted.
For instance a great deal of theism is actually derived from extra-sensory states of mind/OBE's, of course you can argue that these experiences could infact be a product of the mind and nothing more.
But the point is, i think its actually quite rare for humans to simply invent things out of thin air, it happens sure, but most of the time it actually correlates to something that exists either externally or internally.

Thats the one.

The piolets were just reporting arial phenomena, from what i understand the term was coined once they were accepted/verified.
The only reason i really brought it up was to illustrate that its easy to dismiss anomalous phenomena as hallucinations when they lie outside of scientific thought.
When people do this theyre essentially reacting against the idea of science being incomplete - that there might be things that lie outside of it.
This is why piolets with 30+ years of experience were ignored and had their judgment dimissed, nothing to do with terminology

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Its not so much of an argument as that's what it is.

I disagree how rare raw imaginary invention is ('God' is a great example) and I think there are some combinations missed:

1) external claim is born of imagination (false)

2) external claim is born of internal experience (false)
3) external claim is born of internal experience and imagination (false)

4) external claim is born of external experience (true)
5) external claim is born of external experience and imagination (partial truth)

The process of science ultimatly validates 4), can extract the truth from 5), and rejects 1) - 3) at a glance.

I would question whom was dismissing the pilots claims of new arial phenomena as hallucination. It was well known that storms produce electrical activity so the new arial phenomena isn't exactly 'fantastic'.

I am not sure that wording works out. If the phenomena hadn't been validated it didn't place it ouside of science (it's just a process). It simply placed it outside of existing knowledge and ultimately it was verified with evidence.

Well again, I would have to ask who was doing the dismissing. If it was scientists themselves then its a good thing that science keeps that behavior in check.

 

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Well God is perfect example of something based in internal experience.
The multi-limbed gods of hinduism are derived from the hallucinogenic experience, as are the gods of many shamanic societies.
The western non-dual monistic god can be closely correlated with the sense of 'oneness' derived from meditation and other induced states of mind.
Again, this isnt really the same as outright invention, its an interpretation of experience.

I see where youre going, but again i think youre missing the point possibly.
So we dont get off track, the point im making is when we dont have a clear idea of what externally exists or can exist, we have no way (alot of the time) of telling the difference between and internal and external experience.
With this in mind one has to be careful of making rash claims such as 'this is a hallucination' (see sprites).
Of course this could be the case in some instances, but it could just as easily be something external!

I think at the time the general consensus from scientists at large was 'electrical storms dont travel upwards'.

'outside of existing knowledge' works just as well yes.

 

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant the 'notion' of 'God' (not specific ones today). Go back farther than mainstream religions and you find people putting eyes, eyebrows, and a mouth on the Sun, Moon, reality, etc. and calling the result 'God'.

We do have a good idea of what concepts humans find attractive and how they tend to process information (emotionally with anthropomorphization). We also know that an internal experience cannot be recorded on video, cannot be seen by others, and violates consistency, persistency, and non-contradiction when examined.

So, I think we have a pretty reasonable set of criteria to distinguish between internal and external experience.

I think we have to do a better job of supporting external claims with external evidence.

It unfortunately doesn't answer whom was doing the dismissing (or why). I can think of reasons how inadequicies in employee feedback processes could result in 'get some sleep, you were hallucinating' responses.

 

Oh sure, there are methods of gauging the external from the internal.
The point im making is though, lets not rush in and claim we know what's going without yet having anything close to a complete model of how the universe works. Id put that to both theists and scientists alike.
Nothing wrong with deduction and speculation, but of course both of those things are entirely different from knowing.
As i said there comes a point where you can easily fall into the trap believing your chosen method of probing reality (religion/science) is a complete construct in which everything should be currently explainable.
This may or may not apply to you personally atall, it's just a general point im making about human fallibility.

Well it was a pretty well known phenomena from what i understand - the kind of thing youd get in books delving into unexplained mysteries and such, pretty well documented.
So its incredibly unlikely that there wouldnt have been a trickle effect to scientists working on understanding atmospheric conditions.
The same brush off has been used many times though in science for events that lie outside of current understanding - see st.elmo's fire/fireballs.
Its been a typical trend to denounce these sort of things as out-right hallucinations, and certainly not confined to the sprites phenomenon.
Makes you wonder if wed actually accept any of these arial phenomena as even possibly being real, if we didnt have the technology (cameras/video cameras).
Im guessing the generally consensus would be to assume that witnesses were either lying or had over-active imaginations.

 

Oh sure, there are methods of guaging the external from the internal.
The point im making is though - lets not rush in and claim we know what's going without yet having anything close to a complete model of how the universe works. Id put that to both theists and scientists alike.
Nothing wrong with deduction and speculation, but of course both of those things are entirely different from knowing.
As i said there comes a point where you can easily fall into the trap believing your chosen method of probing reality (religion/science) is a complete construct in which everything should be currently explainable.
This may or may not apply to you personally atall, it's just a general point im making about human fallibility.

Well it was a pretty well known phenomena from what i understand - the kind of thing youd get in books delving into unexplained mysteries and such, pretty well documented.
So its incredibly unlikely that there wouldnt have been a trickle effect to scientists working on understanding atmospheric conditions.
The same brush off has been used many times though in science for events that lie outside of current understanding - see st.elmo's fire/fireballs.
Its been a typical trend to denounce these sort of things as out-right hallucinations, and certainly not confined to the sprites phenomenon.
Makes you wonder if wed actually accept any of these arial phenomena as even possibly being real, if we didnt have the technology (cameras/video cameras) to capture them.
Im guessing the generally consensus would be to assume that witnesses were either lying or had over-active imaginations.

 

For science it really doesn't matter as the process will keep human behaviors in check and resulting knowledge can act as a razor for guaging the external from the internal with reasonable accuracy (as we've seen with Werewolves, Vampires, Souls, Fairies, etc.).

Theists on the other hand allready claim to know it all. 'God' did it. The Xian 'God' did it all 6000 years ago yet reality disagrees (which is really the ultimate authority on what is true).

I agree and at the same time lets not discard what we do know to protect internal experience from being exposed for what it is.

That's an interesting thought because science probes against reality and religion probes against scripture.

It sounds like two factors are acting in such scenarios. The dismissers may not have had a clear understanding (or desire) of how to guage objective from subjective and human testimony isn't generally trusted. In the case of arial phenomena, reality ultimately verified the claim. No harm done and no foul.

 

hmm think we're going round in cirlces abit - again my point is for every theist who knows it all, you can find a comparible science buff who knows it all as well - neither of them have any reason to claim so!
Yes the system of science (may) ultimately sort out the truth from the nonsense, but that doesnt doesnt mean people wont stop supporting nonsense for quite a long time.

I dont believe ive suggested we do, although in any case - yes that wouldnt be a particularly valid way to probe reality.

Well, the point is sometimes human testimony 'is' to be trusted, therefore out-right dismissal should be rationally replaced with consideration of reported phenomena imo.

 

I agree and the point I was making is that for science it simply doesn't matter. It is agnostic to the human psychology wielding it. Theism however is not the same as it is protective of the human psychology wielding it.

Human testimony is a slippery slope which is often not true. I disagree with taking the risk of trusting it as it is much more viable to not accept it as either true or false in the absence of evidence... of course if there are compelling reasons (ex. behavior parallels of people prone to fantasy, delusion, and misinterpretation) then probabilisitcally the claim should not even be given a second thought (putting the onus of evidence completely on the claimer).

 

Basically as far as science is concerned subjective experience does not exist at all because there is no objective way of proving that it does.

 

Not sure where you got that from. Subjective experience is quite self evident to anyone who is conscious.

 

Exactly, it is self-evident. But it is absolutely impossible to prove objectively. The only way people know that consciousness exists is because of direct experience. However, it is impossilbe to show through science though that the phenomenon of consciousness actually exists. See where this is going?

 

Well not quite. Self-evident = objectively proven. Conscious behavior can also be observed.

 

Absolutely not. Consiousness is self-evident but it is impossible to provide third-person (objective) proof of it.

 

To provide evidence from one person to another requires conscioussness on both sides. The event of people providing evidence to people is a proof of consciousness in itself.

 

No it isn't.

 

Grover is right, alas its one of the biggest obstacles in science/philosophy - measuring/accurately quantifying subjective experience.
As i said earlier, the only way i can see round this is via 'inhabiting' anothers subjectivity.
If this is possible sometime in the future i think it would be a complete paradigm shift. Youd be looking at something way beyond science.

 

When something is self-evident, it is reality saying "this is". If reality isn't good enough for ya' then you have a problem that I do not share my dear boy.

 

Crunchy, three things.
1) When you are saying something is self-evident what you are saying is that you know something by direct experience for which no further proof can be provided. You know you have consciousness but you can not prove to another human that you really are conscious and not really a very sophisticated computer.
2) When people have an NDE they say it was self-evident that they were conscious after death. Since we currently have no way of measuring consciousness we can not simply dismiss these experiences based upon the fact that no objective evidence can be provided to prove their existence or non-existence since we all know that we are conscious but can provide no third person evidence of that fact. Mere appearances do not prove one is conscious. Take people in a persistent vegatative state for example...some people viewing the person will swear they are consciously responding to stimuli. Other people will say they are really a zombie and merely appear to be conscious. There is currently no way to know objectivey if someone is conscious or not.
3) Science basically does not work when it comes to subjective experience. This does not mean subjective experience does not exist (since we all know it does). It merely means that science doesn't work with the phenomenon pertaining to subjective experience. Therefore dismissing all first-person claims based upon the abscence of objective (third-person) evidence is nonsense. And therefore, much to the chagrin of scientific fundamentalists, it leaves open the possibility of phenomenon which has traditionally been ascribed to the sphere of "spiritual."