People claiming "personal" surety of gods existance.

roosh

Morbert wrote: »

But you have still not established that the experience of A implies the existence of A. We have only established the rather trivial statement: The experience of A implies the existence of the experience of A, as well as its equally trivial contrapositive (If the experience of A does not exist, then there is no experience of A).

The experience of A implies the existence of the experience of A, however, without the existence of A, there could be no experience of A.

If there is experience of A, then A exists.

Nemi

mangaroosh wrote: »

The issue of course is that information is not knowledge, although information can be known. Knowledge is experiential.

I think this is OK if what you mean is human knowledge - or, put another way, all the stuff we are ever likely to know. But, if I can put words in their mouths, I'd expect theists to be open to their being lots more knowledge possessed by their deity. In other words, human experience may (and probably is) just a subset of all possible experience.

Its just that human experience is, at the end of the day, all the experience that matters.

mangaroosh wrote: »

that is what we need to clarify, what reality is it, that you think exists? The issue could be that we are thinking of reality in an incorrect manner. We could be thinking of it in terms of the physical universe we see around us, but the further science delves, the more we realise that what we see, is not necessarily the way things are.

My assumption - which is arbitrary - is that there is a reality that continues to exists, regardless of me. I can utterly accept that there are features, like colour, that really depend on the equipment at the disposal of the viewer. I can get (to the extent I understand) that time is subjective, and the time that you are experiencing is subtly different to mine.

Cutting to the chase, I don't expect philosophy to be able to answer everything. There has to be some starting point. Or, looking at it the other way, as Wittgenstein said, at some point the inquiry has to stop.

Nemi

mangaroosh wrote: »

If there is experience of A, then A exists.

I think the problem here is one of equivocation. The A that is experienced is not automaticallly the same as the A that exists.

It may be the only A we can know. But that's a different matter. Plus, human knowledge is not fixed. We know more about A now than we did in the past.

mangaroosh

mangaroosh wrote: »

If there is experience of A, then A exists.

You're not going down the ontological argument route are you ;s

Morbert

mangaroosh wrote: »

The experience of A implies the existence of the experience of A, however, without the existence of A, there could be no experience of A.

If there is experience of A, then A exists.

So we have

P: The experience of A
P': The existence of the experience of A
Q: The existence of A

We both agree that P → P', and that ~P' → ~P. These are trivial and hardly worth mentioning. The real interesting conjecture is P → Q. I have parsed your last message into three statements.

P (We experience A)
P → P' (The experience of A implies the existence of the experience of A)
~Q → ~P (No existence of A implies no experience of A)

While I accept lines 1 and 2, line 3 is simply the contrapositive of what I am asking you to show. Note how it does not follow from line 1 and 2.

I, on the otherhand, am merely claiming P', which follows from lines 1 and 2.

I know it seems like ivory tower intellectual masturbation, but I'm just demonstrating how important it is to be able to recognise what is an assumption, and to be able to strip it away.

I know it's a bold claim, and offensive to many philosophers out there, but philosophy has been solved. The solution is called nihilism.

Memnoch

mangaroosh wrote: »

The experience of A implies the existence of the experience of A, however, without the existence of A, there could be no experience of A.

If there is experience of A, then A exists.

Again, you seem to ignore the experience of the existence of the experience of Scihizophrenia.

Things don't need to exist for people to perceive them. The human brain is perfectly capable of generating sensation without external stimuli.

Zombrex

mangaroosh wrote: »

what is the source of all experience?

There is no single source of all experience, so I'm not following the question

mangaroosh wrote: »

the nature of matter may not be relevant, however the nature of reality is.

Not really.

Again the engine of a car is immaterial to whether the car is or is not travelling at 50mph. It is interesting to find out what engine it is, and how it works, but it doesn't change the 50mph.

mangaroosh wrote: »

While the word God may [roughly] mean the above, it is also a concept, developed and applied to something, as are the concepts "creator" and "deity". These concepts can have particular connotations, and give rise to certain mis-perceptions as to what they mean, or could mean, and therefore concepts that are explained using them, are equally subject to misperception.

Great. None of that is relevant to my point.

God has a flexible but still roughly defined definition that does not fit as a description of all experience if what was traditionally described as "God" turns out to not involve a creator deity at all.

Having a stroke and due to blood flow sparking different hallucinatory parts of the brain, believing that someone in your head is telling you are the new Jesus is not "God", even if the person initially believes that is what it is.

No one, knowing what had happened, would continue to describe the experience as "God". They would say he had a stroke.

mangaroosh wrote: »

This is the difference between what we think God is supposed to mean, and what God actually means.

"God" is a word in the English language.

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote: »

But the point is that it would be some what foolish to dismiss something simply because you have not experienced it yourself, as it could simply be that your experience is limited.

I agree. That same principal can be applied elsewhere too. Just because science hasn't written a white paper on it, just because it hasn't been scientifically observed etc. Again, these things can add weight to your personal experience or lack thereof.

No actually it doesn't, that is the point.

Your post seems to be saying that if you have a mild revelation (ie you think you hear a voice) you would be cautious of that but if it was some sort of dramatic revelation, like Paul's, you would be more likely to accept that as genuine.

Well like in the Thor case, he was left with a magic Hammer etc. Now no-one else seen the the Odin sighting (or whatever it was), however, he was left with the effect of this (A magic hammer etc) The vision itself though, was a personal experience. Paul was also left with an effect, which was a message and blindness. He followed the message and his sight was restored. The vision however was personal.

Now you cabn by all means keep the opinion that such an experience would not convince you, but I would be of the opinion, that you cannot say.

We know the human brain can produce experiences and memories of fantastical events. It would be very foolish to accept something fantastical happened to you simply because you think it did.

I agree.

In fact the more dramatic, the more fantastical, the less likely I would be to accept my personal assessment and the more likely I would be to look for external verification.

Again, I agree. In fact, that is my position on 'visions' etc. However, external verification may simply be an effect of the vision/experience, like Odins hammer, Pauls message blindness and healing etc.

Yes but you seem to presenting a distorted view of why he writes other peoples testimony off.

From all of his writing on science and personal revelation I have no reason to see that he dismisses them simply because he himself has not experienced the same thing, or that he would accept them if he did experience them himself.

My point was not that he didn't experience it. Its that he's never experienced it, and he has no evidence to suggest that such things are genuine.

Yes there is, it is arrogant to assume you are good at telling the difference between reality and a trick of the mind or memory, or determining purely on your own what has happened to you with no external evidence or reference points, particularly when we are surrounded by examples of people being easily tricked into believe some extra-ordinary things.

I still wouldn't call it arrogant, but I agree that we must verify such experienes before we can say 'It was God' or whatever.

Depends on what you mean by automatically dismissive.

We know that people have delusions that often stretch to quite fantastical views of reality, such as believing they were in alien space ships, or in the clouds talking to Jesus.

Again, as far as I can tell from a biblical perspective, God does not leave people with vague details. If he pays you such a visit, it seems that something tangiable is usually left. From my POV, as a believer, I don't accept the 'Jesus spoke to me last night at the end of my bed' stories.

We also know that there is no evidence apart for the recounting of personal experiences for any of these supernatural things that people claim to have experienced.

Just wondering in regards to homosexuality, and this is nothing to do with rights and wrongs or views on etc, but why do you except as true, homosexuals that say 'we were born this way'?

So why exactly would you not be severely skeptical to the point of dismissive of a supernatural claim a person puts forward with no support other than their own personal assessment of what they think happened to them?

I would be severely sceptical. I've said it from the start, that such things are useless from an external perspective.

If my laser measuring device got the measurements wrong hundreds of times I would throw it away because it is defective. I would no longer trust it as a device for accurate measurement. I wouldn't independently measure each measurement on the off chance it actually got the distance right. The human brain should not be trusted in these regards. It has been shown to be bad at this sort of thing more times than we can count.

I would not be so dismissive of the human mind, but I can certainly see your point.

Zombrex

mangaroosh wrote: »

God is experienced when the voice is quietened, and there is no self.

You have no idea if that is true or not, you are just guessing, which is rather pointless.

Again you are confusing the difference between the phenomena and the explanation of the phenomena. "God is experienced" is the explanation of the phenomena, what you think or have guessed explains what you experience.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

I agree. That same principal can be applied elsewhere too. Just because science hasn't written a white paper on it, just because it hasn't been scientifically observed etc.

That is a reason to be highly skeptical though of any claims of explanation. Again humans are very bad at figuring out what has happened based on personal assessment alone, particularly when dealing with phenomena we don't understand. Magicians and tricksters have made a career out of exploiting that.

JimiTime wrote: »

Well like in the Thor case, he was left with a magic Hammer etc. Now no-one else seen the the Odin sighting (or whatever it was), however, he was left with the effect of this (A magic hammer etc) The vision itself though, was a personal experience. Paul was also left with an effect, which was a message and blindness. He followed the message and his sight was restored. The vision however was personal.

The effect of what though? It is a fallacy to support a claim based on the claimed outcome.

The only reason to think that Paul's blindness (assuming he was blind) was caused by what he claimed happened is because that was Paul's claim. You see the problem.

If the same thing happened to me I would want to know was my blindness caused by this experience. It would be very foolish to assume it was, particularly when there is a strong link between hallucinatory experiences and blindness due to them both being linked to things like strokes.

JimiTime wrote: »

Now you cabn by all means keep the opinion that such an experience would not convince you, but I would be of the opinion, that you cannot say.

I'm pretty sure I can say because I can see right now the logical flaws in such thinking. And I've no reason to doubt I would still see the logical flaws in such thinking after they happened.

Unless God is going to diminish my critical thinking ability, I would still say it would not convince me in the slightest.

And based on Dawkins writing I would be very doubtful it would convince him either.

JimiTime wrote: »

Again, I agree. In fact, that is my position on 'visions' etc. However, external verification may simply be an effect of the vision/experience, like Odins hammer, Pauls message blindness and healing etc.

Those aren't external "verification" in any meaningful sense of the word.

They don't verify the claimed experience, they only verify, for example, that Paul was blind.

Paul could come up with any explanation for his blindness (he thinks he was abducted by aliens who fired lasers into his eyes), the fact that he is blind does not verify those claims in the slightest.

JimiTime wrote: »

My point was not that he didn't experience it. Its that he's never experienced it, and he has no evidence to suggest that such things are genuine.

Dawkins like many skeptics and critical thinkers, would not base his evidence on what he has or has not personally experienced.

There are many examples of atheists and skeptics who have had what could be classified as deeply religious experiences but who have not accepted at face value what they think the experienced nor what particular religions have told them they experienced, and have dug deeper using scientific and critical thinking.

JimiTime wrote: »

I still wouldn't call it arrogant, but I agree that we must verify such experienes before we can say 'It was God' or whatever.

Fair enough.

JimiTime wrote: »

Again, as far as I can tell from a biblical perspective, God does not leave people with vague details. If he pays you such a visit, it seems that something tangiable is usually left.

But that is simply after the fact. It is straight out of Life of Brian "A shoe! The shoe is a sign"

Anything becomes confirmation if anything can be confirmation. Again humans are particularly bad or good (depending on how you look at it) at assigning patterns to unrelated things.

JimiTime wrote: »

From my POV, as a believer, I don't accept the 'Jesus spoke to me last night at the end of my bed' stories.

Would you accept Jesus spoke to me at the end of my bed told me I would have a headache and then I woke up the next day with a headache?

Or Jesus told me I would win some money on the horses and then a week later I won some money?

JimiTime wrote: »

Just wondering in regards to homosexuality, and this is nothing to do with rights and wrongs or views on etc, but why do you except as true, homosexuals that say 'we were born this way'?

I don't accept it as true.

Homosexuals have no idea if they are or are not born that way, they aren't in a position to tell. Current scientific evidence suggests that it is a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental factors.

JimiTime wrote: »

I would not be so dismissive of the human mind, but I can certainly see your point.

Why not? Are you sure that is not simply because you want what you believe based on personal assessment to be true? Or do you have more concrete reasons to have more trust in human assessment?

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote: »

The effect of what though? It is a fallacy to support a claim based on the claimed outcome.

The only reason to think that Paul's blindness (assuming he was blind) was caused by what he claimed happened is because that was Paul's claim. You see the problem.

First of all, (and for the sake of discussion lets assume it happened) Paul, or Saul as he was then, had an 'experience'. He was a persecuter of Christians and could see, then this 'thing' happened and he was blind. Now he said that Jesus appeared to him and among other things said to go to see a guy he did not know named Ananias in a location he was not going to. So he goes to this guy who claims he also had a revelation to meet Paul, and this guy heals him of his blindness.

So this incident was alot more than someone going blind, though that is the only part of the story you focussed on.

Now, no-one else saw the vision of Jesus, only Paul. All the events proceeding from this claim added weight to the claim.

Now it is at this point I will raise the following. Scepticism in these matters is both wise and healthy IMO. However, what you seem to be advocating is a door that swings in the complete opposite direction. Over scepticism. You so don't trust yourself, that even in light of all the things of the vision happening etc, you won't believe that the vision was real. That to me, is where our agreement on scepticism parts.

If the same thing happened to me I would want to know was my blindness caused by this experience. It would be very foolish to assume it was, particularly when there is a strong link between hallucinatory experiences and blindness due to them both being linked to things like strokes.

Again, you merely picked out one element of the story.

I'm pretty sure I can say because I can see right now the logical flaws in such thinking. And I've no reason to doubt I would still see the logical flaws in such thinking after they happened.

If what happened to Paul, happened to you, I would very much doubt the above.

Unless God is going to diminish my critical thinking ability, I would still say it would not convince me in the slightest.

Well, I would say you are fool unto yourself in that case, with much to much misplaced faith.

Paul could come up with any explanation for his blindness (he thinks he was abducted by aliens who fired lasers into his eyes), the fact that he is blind does not verify those claims in the slightest.

Indeed, but you ignore the rest of the story.

Would you accept Jesus spoke to me at the end of my bed told me I would have a headache and then I woke up the next day with a headache?

No. As I said though, I think you missed the rest of the story.

I don't accept it as true.

Homosexuals have no idea if they are or are not born that way, they aren't in a position to tell. Current scientific evidence suggests that it is a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental factors.

My apologies, I seem to recall you arguing that homosexuals were born homosexual. If I've misrepresented you, my apologies.

Why not? Are you sure that is not simply because you want what you believe based on personal assessment to be true?

I am the the authority on what I accept and don't. Many factors go in to such things. One factor is knowing that the mind can play tricks etc, which is why I question and remain sceptical about a great many things. However, I'm not and will never be sceptical to fault, which is what I think you are advocating.

roosh

Morbert wrote: »

So we have

P: The experience of A
P': The existence of the experience of A
Q: The existence of A

We both agree that P → P', and that ~P' → ~P. These are trivial and hardly worth mentioning. The real interesting conjecture is P → Q. I have parsed your last message into three statements.

P (We experience A)
P → P' (The experience of A implies the existence of the experience of A)
~Q → ~P (No existence of A implies no experience of A)

While I accept lines 1 and 2, line 3 is simply the contrapositive of what I am asking you to show. Note how it does not follow from line 1 and 2.

I, on the otherhand, am merely claiming P', which follows from lines 1 and 2.

I know it seems like ivory tower intellectual masturbation, but I'm just demonstrating how important it is to be able to recognise what is an assumption, and to be able to strip it away.

I know it's a bold claim, and offensive to many philosophers out there, but philosophy has been solved. The solution is called nihilism.

Experience of A, implies the existene of A

How can there exist an experience of A, if A does not exist?

robindch

mangaroosh wrote: »

How can there exist an experience of A, if A does not exist?

LSD.

liamw

mangaroosh wrote: »

Experience of A, implies the existene of A

How can there exist an experience of A, if A does not exist?

It depends what you mean by 'exist'. Indeed I could have an experience of a pink unicorn appearing in front of me, but it doesn't mean the pink unicorn exists. It means that a biochemical reaction has taken place (exists) in my brain that would emulate a pink unicorn, as if my sensory inputs had percieved it. The pink unicorn may or may not exist as an entity outside of my perception.

roosh

Nemi wrote: »

I think this is OK if what you mean is human knowledge - or, put another way, all the stuff we are ever likely to know. But, if I can put words in their mouths, I'd expect theists to be open to their being lots more knowledge possessed by their deity. In other words, human experience may (and probably is) just a subset of all possible experience.


Its just that human experience is, at the end of the day, all the experience that matters.My assumption - which is arbitrary - is that there is a reality that continues to exists, regardless of me. I can utterly accept that there are features, like colour, that really depend on the equipment at the disposal of the viewer. I can get (to the extent I understand) that time is subjective, and the time that you are experiencing is subtly different to mine.

There is an issue that lies in the inherent assumption about the existence of Human beings, and therefore what is meant by "human knowledge".

The issue is, that what we perceive ourselves as, is not necessarily what we are, so the concept of human knowledge could be somewhat misleading. Even our own individual concept of our "self" i.e. who we are as individuals, is in many cases a huge misperception.

We cannot say at present, what the exact nature of our physical existence is. We perceive ourselves as Humans, but if we pretend, for a second, that M theory is correct, then what we are is not individuals, but rather just a floating membrane perceiving itself subjectively. So the idea of knowledge i.e. what is and can be known, changes dramatically.

Of course, we will continue to live in this relative reality, but our ideas about knowledge and other things will change.

Pretending that M theory is correct, the question then becomes what is the nature of this floating 'brane? As everything in our universe would simply be a perception of this 'brane, then everything in the universe is this 'brane, that would make the 'brane omnipresent. The nature of knowledge would dictate whether or not it is omnipotent, and by virtue of the fact that all the power that exists in the universe is from, or of, this 'brane, then would be omniscient.

If we consider then that we are part of this floating membrane, and our human "incarnation" is simply a subjective perception, and does not have any intrinsic existene, then when "we" die, "we" would lose this subjective perception, and perhaps return to our true nature.

Nemi wrote: »

Cutting to the chase, I don't expect philosophy to be able to answer everything. There has to be some starting point. Or, looking at it the other way, as Wittgenstein said, at some point the inquiry has to stop.

Indeed, philosophy might not answer anything, but it can help to change the way we look at things, to correct some of our misperceptions, challenge our assumptions and break down some of the concepts throgh which we view the world. It can also be used to intepret the meaning of what we do discover scientifically.

Also, the inquiry does indeed stop, and we continue to live in our relative universe, obviously when statements are made that may perhaps be inaccruat, the inquiry may begin again. It also stops with spiritual practice, in particular [some kinds of] meditation, where the emphasis is on being, and experience, as opposed to conceptualisation and inquiry.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

First of all, (and for the sake of discussion lets assume it happened) Paul, or Saul as he was then, had an 'experience'. He was a persecuter of Christians and could see, then this 'thing' happened and he was blind. Now he said that Jesus appeared to him and among other things said to go to see a guy he did not know named Ananias in a location he was not going to. So he goes to this guy who claims he also had a revelation to meet Paul, and this guy heals him of his blindness.

So this incident was alot more than someone going blind, though that is the only part of the story you focussed on.

I agree that this add more weight than simply the revelation itself, but equally I would want to understand more about what is happening to me that Paul apparently did.

We should also remember that this is effectively Paul's memory of what happened to him. If it was me looking back I would want more verification other than my own memory that these things are correct particular if they are describing fantastical events.

For example, it is not entirely unreasonable to suggest that if Paul was having some sort of physical or mental episode, that his memory of sequences and events would not be that trust worthy.

Did his memory of the vision telling him to go to Ananias really happen before he did this, or did he go to this man by chance and then retroactively and subconsciously place this into his memory. Did Ananias really have a vision to find Paul, or was this simply how Paul remembered it.

This would not be uncommon in times of stress, so it would fit with the idea that he was having some sort of mental break. For example, historians have had a lot of trouble piecing together accounts of holocaust victims because the memories of the survivors are all over the place. Taken at face value they describe order of events and places in sequences that could not have happened.

Does Paul care that he is remembering things correctly, or is he more interested that his memory of events fit a particular narrative of selection and purpose. People tend not to have visions and religious experiences where they are told they are insignificant and of no importance. People tend to have visions and experiences where they come out of it feeling special and privileged. God may have been choosing Paul, but he may also have been, if even subconsciously, choosing himself.

JimiTime wrote: »

Now it is at this point I will raise the following. Scepticism in these matters is both wise and healthy IMO. However, what you seem to be advocating is a door that swings in the complete opposite direction. Over scepticism. You so don't trust yourself, that even in light of all the things of the vision happening etc, you won't believe that the vision was real. That to me, is where our agreement on scepticism parts.

That is fair enough and is probably why you are religious and accept things at face value that I wouldn't.

But the overall point getting back to Dawkins is that myself and other atheists/skeptics here and as far as I can tell Dawkins, aren't like you.

So it would be foolish to apply your standards as to what you would or wouldn't accept to Dawkins and suggest that if Dawkins had experienced the same thing he would believe too.

JimiTime wrote: »

Again, you merely picked out one element of the story.

I can pick one element of the story or view them all together. The point remains the same, you are dealing with Paul's assessment of the events at the time or his assessment of his memory of the events. What actually happened and what was real and what wasn't is know verifiable to us.

JimiTime wrote: »

If what happened to Paul, happened to you, I would very much doubt the above.

Well we would have to agree to disagree.

I'm sorry you can't understand it, but I assure you it is true.

JimiTime wrote: »

Indeed, but you ignore the rest of the story.

I didn't ignore it. I focused on a particular part to make the point.

JimiTime wrote: »

My apologies, I seem to recall you arguing that homosexuals were born homosexual. If I've misrepresented you, my apologies.

If I did it wasn't because one of them told me they were.

JimiTime wrote: »

I am the the authority on what I accept and don't. Many factors go in to such things. One factor is knowing that the mind can play tricks etc, which is why I question and remain sceptical about a great many things. However, I'm not and will never be sceptical to fault, which is what I think you are advocating.

That is up to you. I don't know do you accept certain things because you wish them to be true, or because you do not understand alternatives, or some other reason.

The point is not everyone is like that, and as such you cannot make the claim that Dawkins or myself would accept things based on personal experience or memory, or that the reason they don't accept these things is simply because they haven't experienced them personally.

I fully appreciate these are not your standards, but they are mine and from all this reading they are Dawkins. If you believe they are overly skeptical fair enough, though I think they serve us pretty well considering there is one theory of electromagnaticsm and about 50,000 religions in the world

roosh

Nemi wrote: »

I think the problem here is one of equivocation. The A that is experienced is not automaticallly the same as the A that exists.

It may be the only A we can know. But that's a different matter. Plus, human knowledge is not fixed. We know more about A now than we did in the past.

The labelling of A is dependent on its being experienced.

The experience is what gives rise to the labelling, that is there is an experience first, and whatever is experienced, is then labelled as A.

The "other" A, would be labelled B, when and if it is experienced, in an attempt to distinguish between the experience.

Of course, where there is more than one experiencer, the same experience can be labelled differently. That is, what we call A, another culture may call B, or indeed they may choose to call it anything. That does not however mean that A and B are different things, rather they are the same thing labelled differently.

This could perhaps explain, the many different names that exist for God.

Zombrex

mangaroosh wrote: »

The labelling of A is dependent on its being experienced.

The experience is what gives rise to the labelling, that is there is an experience first, and whatever is experienced, is then labelled as A.

The "other" A, would be labelled B, when and if it is experienced, in an attempt to distinguish between the experience.

Of course, where there is more than one experiencer, the same experience can be labelled differently. That is, what we call A, another culture may call B, or indeed they may choose to call it anything. That does not however mean that A and B are different things, rather they are the same thing labelled differently.

This could perhaps explain, the many different names that exist for God.

Ok, lets try and clarify something for a sec.

Do you accept that "God" could (and probably is) a trick of the mind. And if you do would you consider to call this trick of the mind "God", like say the term deja vue?

Do do you think that if a creator deity doesn't exist, and what people have been experiencing is just brain chemistry, that using the term "God" to describe this is a mis-use of the term?

Memnoch

What I find severely instructive is that despite all the clever language and endless philosophising, mangroosh continues to ignore the oft repeated and very basic issue of the fact that experience of something can happen very easily without that thing existing in any way shape or form.

And since this seems to be a central pillar in his argument (i.e. experience proves existence), his unshakable silence on the issue suggests a dishonesty of discussion.

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote: »

I agree that this add more weight than simply the revelation itself, but equally I would want to understand more about what is happening to me that Paul apparently did.

We should also remember that this is effectively Paul's memory of what happened to him. If it was me looking back I would want more verification other than my own memory that these things are correct particular if they are describing fantastical events.

For example, it is not entirely unreasonable to suggest that if Paul was having some sort of physical or mental episode, that his memory of sequences and events would not be that trust worthy.

Did his memory of the vision telling him to go to Ananias really happen before he did this, or did he go to this man by chance and then retroactively and subconsciously place this into his memory. Did Ananias really have a vision to find Paul, or was this simply how Paul remembered it.

This would not be uncommon in times of stress, so it would fit with the idea that he was having some sort of mental break. For example, historians have had a lot of trouble piecing together accounts of holocaust victims because the memories of the survivors are all over the place. Taken at face value they describe order of events and places in sequences that could not have happened.

Does Paul care that he is remembering things correctly, or is he more interested that his memory of events fit a particular narrative of selection and purpose. People tend not to have visions and religious experiences where they are told they are insignificant and of no importance. People tend to have visions and experiences where they come out of it feeling special and privileged. God may have been choosing Paul, but he may also have been, if even subconsciously, choosing himself.

Ok, well the above moves the goalposts to examining the story events. It leaves the converation worthless. In order to stay on point, we must for sake of arguement, not start talking about how 'maybe it didn't happen in that way etc'. The assumption is that the events happened as they happened, and whether or not we can trust that if these events happened, can Paul assume that it was in fact Jesus he met on the road to Damascus. If we start picking apart the story, and questioning its authenticity thats a completely different topic. thats why it didn't matter to me if it was Thor we talked about. The topic has nothing to do with the story being true.

That is fair enough and is probably why you are religious and accept things at face value that I wouldn't.

LOL. After all this, you think I accept things at face value? Tut tut.

But the overall point getting back to Dawkins is that myself and other atheists/skeptics here and as far as I can tell Dawkins, aren't like you.

Indeed you aren't, I'm much more clevererererer:)

So it would be foolish to apply your standards as to what you would or wouldn't accept to Dawkins and suggest that if Dawkins had experienced the same thing he would believe too.

I didn't. I suggested, that you simply don't know what you'd do, or what he'd do.

I can pick one element of the story or view them all together. The point remains the same,

It certainly doesn't. Paul claiming he saw a vision and going blind, full stop can be explained as falling off a horse, looking directly at the sun etc etc. However, add to that a vivid message. going to see a man you never heard of on a street you never were, who was also expecting you, and that man removing your blindness, is quite different from simply picking out the blind bit. I am astounded you miss that. Now if these things happened as told, then that ads a considerable weight to Pauls story that he did in fact see the vision he claimed.

you are dealing with Paul's assessment of the events at the time or his assessment of his memory of the events. What actually happened and what was real and what wasn't is know verifiable to us.

Again, you've flipped over to discussing the authenticity of the story. Thats nothing to do with what we are discussing. We could be talking about Thor or anything else, as the authenticity of the example is nothing to do with the topic at hand, as I've stipulated from the start.

robindch

Memnoch wrote: »

What I find severely instructive is that despite all the clever language and endless philosophising [...]

Not philosophy, but sophistry, a form of argument which uses and abuses the flexibility of language and, specifically, conflates the separate levels of meaning behind the word "is", to "prove" whatever point the proponent is arguing for.

Morbert

mangaroosh wrote: »

Experience of A, implies the existene of A

How can there exist an experience of A, if A does not exist?

It's quite simply a matter of the "experience of A" existing, but not "A existing". If you were able to establish a contradiction between these two things, then you would be getting somewhere. However, no such contradiction has been established.

[edit]

Perhaps this illustration will help: Consider two scenarios. The first scenario consists of a man falling. The second scenario consists of a man unknowingly strapped to a computer simulating falling.

In both scenarios, the experience is identical. But even though the experience is identical, the other things that exist are not identical. The experience cannot be used to infer the existence of anything other than that experience.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

Ok, well the above moves the goalposts to examining the story events. It leaves the converation worthless. In order to stay on point, we must for sake of arguement, not start talking about how 'maybe it didn't happen in that way etc'. The assumption is that the events happened as they happened, and whether or not we can trust that if these events happened, can Paul assume that it was in fact Jesus he met on the road to Damascus.
If we start picking apart the story, and questioning its authenticity thats a completely different topic.

No it isn't. Paul can't assume things happened the way he remembered them happening, that is the point.

The facts are at some point Paul wrote this story down. This story is based on Paul's memory of events. The issue is whether Paul can assess these events accurately and whether Dawkins or myself would come to the same conclusion Paul did had we experienced a similar thing.

You are assuming that what Paul claimed happened to him is what happened to him. That assumption is the whole issue.

There is no difference between assuming Paul is correct when he says he had a vision of Jesus or assuming Paul is correct when he says he went blind, or assuming that he is correct when he says he went to Damascus and could see again.

JimiTime wrote: »

thats why it didn't matter to me if it was Thor we talked about. The topic has nothing to do with the story being true.

It is to do with whether or not Paul can accurately determine on his own if the story is true.

JimiTime wrote: »

LOL. After all this, you think I accept things at face value? Tut tut.

I think you accept some things certainly on face value. You seem to accept that Paul was blind and when to Damascus and met Ananias and Ananias has also received a vision and cured Paul's blindness.

You seem to think these are external confirmation for Paul that his vision was not a trick of the mind. But what if these things themselves were a trick of Paul's memory? How did Paul verify that later when he came to write it down?

JimiTime wrote: »

I didn't. I suggested, that you simply don't know what you'd do, or what he'd do.

I don't know for certain what he would do, but again I have a pretty good idea and you aren't convincing me otherwise.

Again there are different standards for when we accept things. You can think that it is too skeptical, but that doesn't change that he most likely would not accept.

I'm pretty sure the first thing Dawkins would want is someone else to verify that Ananias had actually had a similar vision to him around the same time and investigate this in detail.

JimiTime wrote: »

It certainly doesn't. Paul claiming he saw a vision and going blind, full stop can be explained as falling off a horse, looking directly at the sun etc etc. However, add to that a vivid message. going to see a man you never heard of on a street you never were, who was also expecting you, and that man removing your blindness, is quite different from simply picking out the blind bit.

It is if that happened as describe by who ever wrote Acts.

Being skeptical is not about refusing point blank to accept something happened, it is about requiring certain standards to be met.

I agree that if another man in another village had the same vision at exactly the same time as Paul that spoke similar stuff that is very significant.

The question though is how do we, or Paul, know that actually happened? How did Paul verify that, even if just to himself?

You seem to think that it was confirmed for Paul because he thinks it happened. But sure the vision of Jesus happened as far as Paul is concerned.

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote: »

I think you accept some things certainly on face value. You seem to accept that Paul was blind and when to Damascus and met Ananias and Ananias has also received a vision and cured Paul's blindness.

Ok Wicknight, take a breath. I can absolutely assure you that you completely miss the point. This discussion is nothing to do with Paul. As I said and repeated, we can change the story to Thor, I just happened to use the Paul story as an example. The truth of the story, or whether you or I accept it as true or not IS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING BEING DISCUSSED. It is merely an example of, 'IF this IS what happened, then what?' Replace the Paul story with Hansel and Gretel, Thor, Isis, Ra, little red riding hood, goldilocks. I happened to use a story I was familiar with, thats the only reason Paul is in this discussion at all. I am not asking you to accept the story as true. In fact, lets say its a fairy story to make the point I was making. Ok? Paul is a fairy story. Now, lets PRETEND what is described by Paul actually happened. So the events occurred. The point needs you to assume the role of Paul, NOT an onlooker. You must transplant yourself into the story as Paul. No arguements about Pauls recollection etc, for that is ABSOLUTELY NEVER BEEN ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY POINT I'VE EVER MADE IN THIS THREAD.

You are Paul, you've just seen a vision (Or think you have) You recieved a vivid message to go to a street you didn't know and meet a man you never heard of. You are then blind after this 'vision'. So you decide, with the message remembered to go to this place. It exists. You then meet the guy who the vision said would be there. This guy then heals your blindness with a word.

Do you still say, That vision was a hallucination?

roosh

bluewolf wrote: »

You're not going down the ontological argument route are you ;s

I'm not entirely sure to be honest

roosh

Memnoch wrote: »

Again, you seem to ignore the experience of the existence of the experience of Scihizophrenia.

Things don't need to exist for people to perceive them. The human brain is perfectly capable of generating sensation without external stimuli.

this is an issue of conceptualisation, or rather accurate conceptualisation.

when we say that the experiene of A, implies the existence of A, A is undefined.

As you mention, A could refer to Scihizophrenia, so the experience of Scihizophrenia would imply its existence.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

Ok Wicknight, take a breath. I can absolutely assure you that you completely miss the point. This discussion is nothing to do with Paul. As I said and repeated, we can change the story to Thor, I just happened to use the Paul story as an example. The truth of the story, or whether you or I accept it as true or not IS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING BEING DISCUSSED. It is merely an example of, 'IF this IS what happened, then what?' Replace the Paul story with Hansel and Gretel, Thor, Isis, Ra, little red riding hood, goldilocks. I happened to use a story I was familiar with, thats the only reason Paul is in this discussion at all. I am not asking you to accept the story as true. In fact, lets say its a fairy story to make the point I was making. Ok? Paul is a fairy story. Now, lets PRETEND what is described by Paul actually happened. So the events occurred. The point needs you to assume the role of Paul, NOT an onlooker. You must transplant yourself into the story as Paul. No arguements about Pauls recollection etc, for that is ABSOLUTELY NEVER BEEN ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY POINT I'VE EVER MADE IN THIS THREAD.

You are Paul, you've just seen a vision (Or think you have) You recieved a vivid message to go to a street you didn't know and meet a man you never heard of. You are then blind after this 'vision'. So you decide, with the message remembered to go to this place. It exists. You then meet the guy who the vision said would be there. This guy then heals your blindness with a word.

Do you still say, That vision was a hallucination?

Ok, you are asking me to assume that what happened to Paul after the vision certainly happened as described, and that I guess some how me as Paul has scientifically verified that this happened to a high degree of accuracy and independently of my own personal assessment so I am confident saying that id certainly happened.

Then I would certainly think that there was some unexplained phenomena taking place that goes beyond simply my internal brain, since that is basically what we have established.

But the question is some what pointless.

You are basically asking if we assume the vision is not a hallucination, that God is speaking to people, and that in the hypothetical I managed to prove to myself that it wasn't a hallucination, would I continue to believe it was an hallucination?

No, of course not.

We have stepped far beyond personal assessment though, so it becomes irrelevant to your original point.

I'm not quite sure what you want me to say, or what you think I was saying.

Memnoch

mangaroosh wrote: »

this is an issue of conceptualisation, or rather accurate conceptualisation.

when we say that the experiene of A, implies the existence of A, A is undefined.

As you mention, A could refer to Scihizophrenia, so the experience of Scihizophrenia would imply its existence.

In summary the "personal experience" of god is indistinguishable from mental illness for all intents and purposes?

roosh

Wicknight wrote: »

There is no single source of all experience, so I'm not following the question

Apologies, what I am referring to is, what is commonly known as the "Hard problem of consciousness".

wikipedia wrote:

The term hard problem of consciousness refers to the difficult problem of explaining why we have qualitative phenomenal experiences. In considerations by David Chalmers[1], this is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify a mechanism that can perform the function. That is, their proposed solutions, regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomena. Chalmers claims that the problem of experience is distinct from this set, and he assumes that the problem of experience will "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained"

While Chalmers has no real right to assume, that the "hard problem" will remain, there is equally n right to assume that it will be resolved, so consciousness, or conscious experience is, by definition, supernatural, as are all experiences.

Wicknight wrote: »

Not really.

Again the engine of a car is immaterial to whether the car is or is not travelling at 50mph. It is interesting to find out what engine it is, and how it works, but it doesn't change the 50mph.

The issue is that saying that chemical reactions in the brain are responsible, is to confuse cause and effect. The chemical reactions in the brain are not reality, they are our perception of it, so it is not necessarily chemical reactions that cuase the expereince, rather, they are the visual representation of what happens when there is an experience.

Of course it is useful to work, using this relative appearance of reality, in fact is pretty much unavoidable, however, when we speak of the existence of something we are concerned, not with the appearance of reality, but with the true nature of it.

Wicknight wrote: »

Great. None of that is relevant to my point.

God has a flexible but still roughly defined definition that does not fit as a description of all experience if what was traditionally described as "God" turns out to not involve a creator deity at all.

Good, so there is a point. I'm not sure which one you are trying to make here. If you clarify, I can try and reply

Wicknight wrote: »

Having a stroke and due to blood flow sparking different hallucinatory parts of the brain, believing that someone in your head is telling you are the new Jesus is not "God", even if the person initially believes that is what it is.

No one, knowing what had happened, would continue to describe the experience as "God". They would say he had a stroke.

Again, the point is not clear, there appears to be an assumption that anyone who experiences God, has had a stroke, now this is presumably not the point that is being made, but if it could be clarified, then it can be replied to.

Wicknight wrote: »

"God" is a word in the English language.

agreed

JimiTime

JimiTime wrote: »

You are Paul, you've just seen a vision (Or think you have) You recieved a vivid message to go to a street you didn't know and meet a man you never heard of. You are then blind after this 'vision'. So you decide, with the message remembered to go to this place. It exists. You then meet the guy who the vision said would be there. This guy then heals your blindness with a word.

Do you still say, That vision was a hallucination?

I could say I hit my head, suffered temporary or hysterical blindness and had a hallucination, yes. Maybe I heard of this man and the information got stuck in my subconscious.
Any number of things could have happened at all, even assuming any of it did happen.

Zombrex

mangaroosh wrote: »

While Chalmers has no real right to assume, that the "hard problem" will remain, there is equally n right to assume that it will be resolved, so consciousness, or conscious experience is, by definition, supernatural, as are all experiences.

No they aren't. Unexplained does not mean supernatural. There is no property of consciousness that cannot be explained within natural laws, particularly now that we have discovered quantum mechanics.

That doesn't mean we have explained it, but to be supernatural requires that an explanation must lie outside of possible natural explanations. Which consciousness doesn't.

mangaroosh wrote: »

The issue is that saying that chemical reactions in the brain are responsible, is to confuse cause and effect. The chemical reactions in the brain are not reality, they are our perception of it, so it is not necessarily chemical reactions that cuase the expereince, rather, they are the visual representation of what happens when there is an experience.

There is no reason to suppose that. You can't prove that isn't the case, but doesn't mean it is.

Just because we might be brains in jars doesn't mean we are. You seem to be confusing that.

mangaroosh wrote: »

Of course it is useful to work, using this relative appearance of reality, in fact is pretty much unavoidable, however, when we speak of the existence of something we are concerned, not with the appearance of reality, but with the true nature of it.

No we aren't. We are talking about how it appears to be. Again if something is actually different but this is undetectable to us then this becomes irrelevant.

Whether it is blue fluff or red fluff died blue is irrelevant. It appears to us to be blue fluff. Anything else is just speculation.

Again just because it might be different isn't a reason to put forward that it is. Saying that the appearance of reality is different to the true nature of reality is as unsupported as claiming that the appearance of reality is the true nature of reality.

mangaroosh wrote: »

Good, so there is a point. I'm not sure which one you are trying to make here. If you clarify, I can try and reply

The point is that the word "God" in the English language does not encompass all experiences that someone may mistakenly believe is God.

If you have a stroke, fall to the ground and see a bright light that you claim to be the face of God, when it is established that you have had a stroke and the light you saw was electrical firings on the inside of the eye, continuing to call this "God" is pointless and goes against the English definition of the word.

Saying that this is just another aspect of God, and God encompasses all of this, is stupid. It is not God, it is electrical firings in the eye caused by a stroke.

The nature of reality being uncertain doesn't make "God" any more the correct term to use her either

roosh

Wicknight wrote: »

You have no idea if that is true or not, you are just guessing, which is rather pointless.

It is not necessarily a guess, rather an attempted clarification, based in the context of spirituality. An "educated" guess perhaps.

Wicknight wrote: »

Again you are confusing the difference between the phenomena and the explanation of the phenomena. "God is experienced" is the explanation of the phenomena, what you think or have guessed explains what you experience.

We are making the same point, but obviously with a different understanding. "God is experienced", is indeed the explanation of the "phenomenon", or perhaps more pointedly, the experience. It is the conceptualisation of the experience.

The nature of the "phenomenon", or the nature of the experience, is what leads to it's classification as God, as oppsed to something else. The phenomenon or the experience itself, does not necessarily involve perceiving something that isn't there, in the sense of a visualisation.

Zombrex

mangaroosh wrote: »

It is not necessarily a guess, rather an attempted clarification, based in the context of spirituality. An "educated" guess perhaps.

Spirituality are human guesses as to what may or may not be happening, guesses that have never show any accuracy.

mangaroosh wrote: »

We are making the same point, but obviously with a different understanding. "God is experienced", is indeed the explanation of the "phenomenon", or perhaps more pointedly, the experience. It is the conceptualisation of the experience.

The nature of the "phenomenon", or the nature of the experience, is what leads to it's classification as God, as oppsed to something else. The phenomenon or the experience itself, does not necessarily involve perceiving something that isn't there, in the sense of a visualisation.

But it can do and in all likelihood is a perception of something that isn't there, ie a trick of the mind.

roosh

robindch wrote: »

LSD.

Indeed, how can the experience of LSD exist, without LSD?

roosh

liamw wrote: »

It depends what you mean by 'exist'. Indeed I could have an experience of a pink unicorn appearing in front of me, but it doesn't mean the pink unicorn exists. It means that a biochemical reaction has taken place (exists) in my brain that would emulate a pink unicorn, as if my sensory inputs had percieved it. The pink unicorn may or may not exist as an entity outside of my perception.

fully agreed.

This is where the issue of conceptualising, something which is inherently non-conceptual.

If we say, that we experience a pink unicorn appearing in front of us, this implicitly implies the existence of a pink unicorn external to ourselves. This would be our conceptualisation of the experience, which itself could be inaccurate.

The experience itself, may have been something slightly different, which, if we were more aware at the time, and took our time about trying to describe the experience, we may describe it more accurately. We may simply say that we experienced a pink unicorn, or we had an hallucination.

So the experience itself may exist, but it depends on how it is conceptualised, that is, it depends on what we say exists.

roosh

Wicknight wrote: »

Ok, lets try and clarify something for a sec.

Do you accept that "God" could (and probably is) a trick of the mind. And if you do would you consider to call this trick of the mind "God", like say the term deja vue?

Do do you think that if a creator deity doesn't exist, and what people have been experiencing is just brain chemistry, that using the term "God" to describe this is a mis-use of the term?

I wouldn't accept that God is a trick of the mind. It may perhaps be more accurately described, in relative terms i.e. in terms of our relative experience of the universe, as a state of being.

To [again] borrow a scientific theory for the sake of analogy.

If we pretend that M theory is correct (for the sake of analogy), then what we perceive as the human body, is simply our relative perception of what we actually are in "reality", that is we are not human beings, rather human beings are the relative manifestation of this 'brane.

Now, we can, and indeed have, for most of our life-time, perceived ourselves as being separate individuals, with our own separate identities, and existence. This however, is an incorrect perception of who/what we are. This carries with it certain corresponding brain activity.

However, it could be possible to correct our misperception of ourselves, and experience ourselves, not as the individuals that we think we are, but rather experience the being of this floating membrane. This in itself would carry with it the corresponding brain activity.

Of course, we would continue to live and experience our relative universe, but with an underlying awareness of our true nature. The neuro-plastic nature of the brain would meant that the neural pathways in the brain would change to reflect this.

roosh

Memnoch wrote: »

What I find severely instructive is that despite all the clever language and endless philosophising, mangroosh continues to ignore the oft repeated and very basic issue of the fact that experience of something can happen very easily without that thing existing in any way shape or form.

And since this seems to be a central pillar in his argument (i.e. experience proves existence), his unshakable silence on the issue suggests a dishonesty of discussion.

This has been addressed whenever it has been raised.

If something does not exist, then it cannot be experienced.

The issue lies in the conceptualisation of the experience, as the description of an experience, is not the experience itself.

While this may sound like fancy langauge and philosophising, but it remains true.

JimiTime

Firstly, I was expecting a 'no, I think you have it wrong' post back from you. Thank you for shattering my preconceptions.:)

Wicknight wrote: »

Ok, you are asking me to assume that what happened to Paul after the vision certainly happened as described,

Yes.

and that I guess some how me as Paul has scientifically verified that this happened to a high degree of accuracy

No, nothing to do with scientific assessment. Just that the events happened.

and independently of my own personal assessment so I am confident saying that it certainly happened.

The vision IS your personal assessment. No-one else saw it but you. The effects is what others seen as well as yourself. Thats the point I'm making. You have something tangiable as a result of this vision, but the vision itself was only seen by you, like the Paul incident.

Then I would certainly think that there was some unexplained phenomena taking place that goes beyond simply my internal brain, since that is basically what we have established.

Grand.

But the question is some what pointless.

You are basically asking if we assume the vision is not a hallucination, that God is speaking to people, and that in the hypothetical I managed to prove to myself that it wasn't a hallucination, would I continue to believe it was an hallucination?

No, of course not.

As I said, you are the authority on the vision, its the effects of said vision that evidence its reality.

We have stepped far beyond personal assessment though, so it becomes irrelevant to your original point.

My point has never been one of accepting 'visions' etc at face value. It has been about something more than 'i had a feeling' etc. Dawkins, if he truly believes that there is no supernatural realm, is justifiably dismissive of such claims. Due to his personal experiences, and lack thereof, there is nothing to suggest to him that such visions are anything other than lies or mind tricks.

I'm not quite sure what you want me to say, or what you think I was saying.

It seemed to me, that you were saying that even if you had tangiable effects (and convincing ones at that not wishy washy ones) from such an experience, you would write off the experience as a trick of the mind.

Aaaannnyway....

Memnoch

mangaroosh wrote: »

This has been addressed whenever it has been raised.

If something does not exist, then it cannot be experienced.

The issue lies in the conceptualisation of the experience, as the description of an experience, is not the experience itself.

While this may sound like fancy langauge and philosophising, but it remains true.

Except that you are trying to draw conclusions that you claim are supported by your arguments when they are not.

You've stated and implied that if the "experience of god," exists then therefore 'god,' exists.

But even by your OWN arguments (which I consider vastly inferior to the scientific method when it comes to determining any degree of truth in a matter) the only thing the experience of god can show exists is the "experience."

The CAUSE of that experience could be "God," but EQUALLY it could be mental illness, stupidity, dishonesty, or just plain old wishful thinking.

As I said, the 'experience of god,' is indistinguishable from Mental illness for all intents and purposes.

The fact that you try and dress all of this up in over-complicated language, detracts from your argument, and it doesn't really impress me (or most posters here I would gather).

You're trying to take something very simple and make it sound needlessly complicated and convluted. You seem to be hoping that if you make the maze complex enough, we will accept that the piece of rotting cheese at the centre is actually chocolate cake. (or as robindech put it, sophistry)

roosh

Morbert wrote: »

It's quite simply a matter of the "experience of A" existing, but not "A existing". If you were able to establish a contradiction between these two things, then you would be getting somewhere. However, no such contradiction has been established.

[edit]

Perhaps this illustration will help: Consider two scenarios. The first scenario consists of a man falling. The second scenario consists of a man unknowingly strapped to a computer simulating falling.

In both scenarios, the experience is identical. But even though the experience is identical, the other things that exist are not identical. The experience cannot be used to infer the existence of anything other than that experience.

the simple answer, in the absolute terms we were discussing, would be that both experiences would be labelled differently i.e. one as A, and one as B.

very interesting conundrum, which takes us right back into the "vat", or the Matrix if you will, and the central issue of the conceptualisation of the experience.

In both cases, the man would presumably use language to communicate, otherwise there could be no classification of the experience as "falling".

The nature of this language would be dependent on his experiences, and how he has learned the language. If he learned the language in the "outside" world, and was then unknowingly plugged into the matrix, he would still be using the language that he used in the "outside" world.

The man would have the experience, which we would know is the computer simulation, but he would not. The issue however is that the man does not need to conceptualise the experience. Let's pretent that the man in this case, is a realised Buddhist monk. There is the experience, but it is not labelled. He knows the experience, but does not judge it as falling, he just rests in an awareness of the experience.

The issue then arises with how he attempts to communicate the experience. If we presume that he is approached by a computer generated character, who asks him about the experience. The context within which he meets the person will, to a degree, affect how he describes the experience. If the computer generated character approaches him and asks him what he experienced, communication will ensue, to extrapolate what exactly the computer generated character is referring to. This will establish the "language" in the aritficial world.

Presumably the language will be the same, otherwise the monk could not communicate. The monk may tell the CGI character, that he "fell". That is, he would use the word fall, to refer to what he had experienced, without necessarily believing in the intrinsic nature of the experience, as he could be operating on the buddhist principle of treating all "dharma's" as dream like, or have an experiential understanding of the true nature of the self, and reality.

With regard to the communication that would have been established in the artifical world, the term "fall" would now apply to both the computer simulated experience, and the real experience - either rightly or wrongly.

He could of course be released from the matrix, again without knowing, and be confronted by another person. Again, the communication that ensues would lead to the Monk conceptualising his experience. He would again, use the language that he is familiar with to refer to the experience. He would use the word fall, to refer to what he had experienced, without necessarily believing in the intrinsic nature of the experience.

That is, he doesn't need to believe in the intrinsic existence of the concepts he uses, but rather attempts to apply concepts to his experience, for the purpose of communication, through the medium of the language that has been established, and that he is familiar with.


However, we would know what his experience is, and he would have experienced a computer simulated experience of falling, and the computer generated experience of falling could not exist without the existence of the computer simulator.


Upon being made aware of the fact that he was in a computer simulator, the monk may choose a different label, by which to describe his experience in future.

Morbert

mangaroosh wrote: »

the simple answer, in the absolute terms we were discussing, would be that both experiences would be labelled differently i.e. one as A, and one as B.

very interesting conundrum, which takes us right back into the "vat", or the Matrix if you will, and the central issue of the conceptualisation of the experience.

In both cases, the man would presumably use language to communicate, otherwise there could be no classification of the experience as "falling".

The nature of this language would be dependent on his experiences, and how he has learned the language. If he learned the language in the "outside" world, and was then unknowingly plugged into the matrix, he would still be using the language that he used in the "outside" world.

The man would have the experience,which we would know is the computer simulation, but he would not. The issue however is that the man does not need to conceptualise the experience. Let's pretent that the man in this case, is a realised Buddhist monk. There is the experience, but it is not labelled. He knows the experience, but does not judge it as falling, he just rests in an awareness of the experience.

The issue then arises with how he attempts to communicate the experience. If we presume that he is approached by a computer generated character, who asks him about the experience. The context within which he meets the person will, to a degree, affect how he describes the experience. If the computer generated character approaches him and asks him what he experienced, communication will ensue, to extrapolate what exactly the computer generated character is referring to. This will establish the "language" in the aritficial world.

Presumably the language will be the same, otherwise the monk could not communicate. The monk may tell the CGI character, that he "fell". That is, he would use the word fall, to refer to what he had experienced, without necessarily believing in the intrinsic nature of the experience, as he could be operating on the buddhist principle of treating all "dharma's" as dream like, or have an experiential understanding of the true nature of the self, and reality.

With regard to the communication that would have been established in the artifical world, the term "fall" would now apply to both the computer simulated experience, and the real experience - either rightly or wrongly.

He could of course be released from the matrix, again without knowing, and be confronted by another person. Again, the communication that ensues would lead to the Monk conceptualising his experience. He would again, use the language that he is familiar with to refer to the experience. He would use the word fall, to refer to what he had experienced, without necessarily believing in the intrinsic nature of the experience.

That is, he doesn't need to believe in the intrinsic existence of the concepts he uses, but rather attempts to apply concepts to his experience, for the purpose of communication, through the medium of the language that has been established, and that he is familiar with.

However, we would know what his experience is, and he would have experienced a computer simulated experience of falling, and the computer generated experience of falling could not exist without the existence of the computer simulator.

Upon being made aware of the fact that he was in a computer simulator, the monk may choose a different label, by which to describe his experience in future.

I agree with some of this, (where we differ significantly are the bits in bold). But while the raw, undefined experience may be associated with different things (a computer simulation in one scenario, and actually falling in another) it is the same in both scenarios nonetheless. It is this 'decoupling' of the experience from things that is the key.

So let's modify one of the scenarios. Let's subtract the computer that is simulating falling so that one scenario consist of a man experiencing falling (whether or not he has defined/conceptualised it as such yet), who is actually falling, and the other consist of a man with an identical experience, who is neither falling nor attached to a computer. The latter certainly doesn't seem very physical, but it is still logically consistent if we strip away any assumptions about the physical/chemical brain, and the assumption that experiences emerge from interactions between an 'experiencer' and an 'experienced'. We have arrived at solipsism. Then, if we wanted to strip away solipsist assumptions, we could subtract the man/monk from the scenario, and have only the experience of falling/sensation of falling, a scenario which, again, is logically consistent. From there, it's a short hop to nihilism by admitting that the existence of this sensation must be assumed i.e. It must be accepted as an axiom, and cannot be proven from any necessry truths.

liamw

mangaroosh wrote: »

fully agreed.

This is where the issue of conceptualising, something which is inherently non-conceptual.

If we say, that we experience a pink unicorn appearing in front of us, this implicitly implies the existence of a pink unicorn external to ourselves. This would be our conceptualisation of the experience, which itself could be inaccurate.

The experience itself, may have been something slightly different, which, if we were more aware at the time, and took our time about trying to describe the experience, we may describe it more accurately. We may simply say that we experienced a pink unicorn, or we had an hallucination.

So the experience itself may exist, but it depends on how it is conceptualised, that is, it depends on what we say exists. .

Right so we agree that if someone has a 'personal experience' with God, it does not imply that God actually exists?

Nemi

mangaroosh wrote: »

There is an issue that lies in the inherent assumption about the existence of Human beings, and therefore what is meant by "human knowledge".

Absolutely. But bear in mind, that's an arbitrary assumption I'm willing to make. I've arbitrarily decided that there is no percentage in me taking the existence of others to be doubtful.

mangaroosh wrote: »

The labelling of A is dependent on its being experienced.

The experience is what gives rise to the labelling, that is there is an experience first, and whatever is experienced, is then labelled as A.

The "other" A, would be labelled B, when and if it is experienced, in an attempt to distinguish between the experience.

That's fine when we're talking about an abstract "A". But you're actually hiding the equivocation I'm talking about there.

Talk about it as God. There's the concept of God, all-powerful creator and so forth. And there's the spiritual experience of God (which, I must admit, has eluded me, but which I'm totally willing to accept others feel).

The spiritual experience might support someone's belief in the all-powerful creator. But they are not the same thing. I think this is lost a bit in your "experience of A = A" statements. (And, no, I don't think the point is addressed by saying the concept is part of the experience. That, I feel, is also not addressing the point).

roosh

Memnoch wrote: »

In summary the "personal experience" of god is indistinguishable from mental illness for all intents and purposes?

that would depend on the claims that are made, surely?

roosh

Wicknight wrote: »

No they aren't. Unexplained does not mean supernatural. There is no property of consciousness that cannot be explained within natural laws, particularly now that we have discovered quantum mechanics.

That doesn't mean we have explained it, but to be supernatural requires that an explanation must lie outside of possible natural explanations. Which consciousness doesn't.

The source of consciousness, or the big bang for that matter, have not yet been discovered. This means, that at present consciousness and the big bang, are "attributable to some source beyong scientific understanding". This makes them, according to the dictionary definition, "supernatural".

If we take the definition "explanation lies outself of possible natural explanations", and apply it to consciousness and the big bang. The explanation for [the origin of] both has not yet been found.

To say, that not only will an explanation be found, but that it will lie inside of possible natural explanations, is to make two assumptions, although the latter is so broad it probably doesn't matter.

We cannot however, assume that the source of either will ever be found, because of course, they may not.

Wicknight wrote: »

There is no reason to suppose that. You can't prove that isn't the case, but doesn't mean it is.

Just because we might be brains in jars doesn't mean we are. You seem to be confusing that.

Whether we are brains in a vat or not, the statement holds true, because Quantum Mechanics has shown us, that what we perceive as our relative universe, is an illusion. It is our subjective perception of the Quantum world.

Wicknight wrote: »

No we aren't. We are talking about how it appears to be. Again if something is actually different but this is undetectable to us then this becomes irrelevant.

Whether it is blue fluff or red fluff died blue is irrelevant. It appears to us to be blue fluff. Anything else is just speculation.

When we are talking about the existence of something, it generally has to do with the nature of reality, as reality is the state of things as they actually exist.

If we talk about the existence of blue fluff, then red fluff appearing blue is very relevant, because red fluff appearing blue, means that we cannot say that blue fluff exists.

Science is not so much concerned with how things look, it is more concerned with how things actually are, and how they actually work.

Wicknight wrote: »

Again just because it might be different isn't a reason to put forward that it is. Saying that the appearance of reality is different to the true nature of reality is as unsupported as claiming that the appearance of reality is the true nature of reality.

Scientific enquiry has shown us, that how we perceive the "external" world, is not the reality of how things are. It is just a perception.

Wicknight wrote: »

The point is that the word "God" in the English language does not encompass all experiences that someone may mistakenly believe is God.

If you have a stroke, fall to the ground and see a bright light that you claim to be the face of God, when it is established that you have had a stroke and the light you saw was electrical firings on the inside of the eye, continuing to call this "God" is pointless and goes against the English definition of the word.

Saying that this is just another aspect of God, and God encompasses all of this, is stupid. It is not God, it is electrical firings in the eye caused by a stroke.

The nature of reality being uncertain doesn't make "God" any more the correct term to use her either

We agree in principle on the idea, that the word "God" does not encompass every experience that someone has, and thinks is God.

The issue is, that not everyone who has claimed to have experienced God, has had a stroke, or is certifiably insane.

roosh

Wicknight wrote: »

Spirituality are human guesses as to what may or may not be happening, guesses that have never show any accuracy.

Just so there is no confusion, there is a big difference between Spiritualism and Spirituality.

Just as with science, there are different spiritual[ity] "theories", and just as with science, there are quite a few non-mainstream "theories" that may have less credibility.

Buddhism would be one of the more credible spiritual[ity] "theories", and some of it's "guesses" are being supported by scientific research.

Wicknight wrote: »

But it can do and in all likelihood is a perception of something that isn't there, ie a trick of the mind.

I wouldn't be so sure that it does, but if it does, then it is probably "a trick of the mind". It is down to the individual how they interpret that then. If they get caught up in the visualisation, and ignore the rest of the overall experience, or if they believe that the visualisation was real, then they are probably guilty of misinterpreting the experience.

Just as you may not believe everything that you see in your dreams, you can know that they are just dreams, sometimes even when you are in them. If you believe that your dreams are real, then you would be guilty of misinterpretation.

robindch

mangaroosh wrote: »

robindch wrote:

mangaroosh wrote: »

How can there exist an experience of A, if A does not exist?

LSD.

Indeed, how can the experience of LSD exist, without LSD?

robindch wrote: »

[...] sophistry, a form of argument which uses and abuses the flexibility of language and, specifically, conflates the separate levels of meaning behind the word "is", to "prove" whatever point the proponent is arguing for.

I rest my case.

roosh

Memnoch wrote: »

Except that you are trying to draw conclusions that you claim are supported by your arguments when they are not.

You've stated and implied that if the "experience of god," exists then therefore 'god,' exists.

But even by your OWN arguments (which I consider vastly inferior to the scientific method when it comes to determining any degree of truth in a matter) the only thing the experience of god can show exists is the "experience."

I have been at pains to point out, that we are trying to use conceptual logic and apply it to something which is essentially non-conceptual.

Purely based on logic, if we assume that there is an experience of God (or A), then the preposition (the word) of, implies the relationship between experience and God.

If there is no God, there is no relationship between experience and God.

The word of implies the existence of something which can be experienced, i.e. the existence of something that can be related to.

That of course is a matter of logic, on the basis of a statement or a conceptualisation. An experience and its description are separate. In so far as the experience can be described as "an experience of God", then it follows logically that God exists.


However, there may not be an experience of God at all. The discussion has been based on the assumption, of an experience of God.

Memnoch wrote: »

The CAUSE of that experience could be "God," but EQUALLY it could be mental illness, stupidity, dishonesty, or just plain old wishful thinking.

As I said, the 'experience of god,' is indistinguishable from Mental illness for all intents and purposes.

That is a major assumption about what the experience is. Of course, all of these could lead to someone claiming an experience of God, that does not meant that they are correctly describing their experience. They could be incorrectly labelling their experience, according to their interpretation of what they think God is.

God, albeit an english word, is derived from a spiritual concept. Therefore an understanding of spirituality would be [more than] helpful, when interpreting the concept.

The fact that you try and dress all of this up in over-complicated language, detracts from your argument, and it doesn't really impress me (or most posters here I would gather).

Memnoch wrote: »

You're trying to take something very simple and make it sound needlessly complicated and convluted. You seem to be hoping that if you make the maze complex enough, we will accept that the piece of rotting cheese at the centre is actually chocolate cake. (or as robindech put it, sophistry)

There is no maze. The initial response to the OPs question, regarding personal experience, was to show that personal experience is the only way in which anything can be known.

The rest has been the result of answering replies to that original post. I have merely been following the maze!

robindch

mangaroosh wrote: »

An experience and its description are separate.

In so far as the experience can be described as "an experience of God", then it follows logically that God exists.

Interesting to see you flatly contradict yourself within the space of one sentence!

roosh

liamw wrote: »

Right so we agree that if someone has a 'personal experience' with God, it does not imply that God actually exists?

The conclusion that should be drawn is, that if someone says that they have had a personal experience with God, it does not imply that God exists, as the person could misinterpret their experience.

That is not to say, that someone cannot experience what is referred to as God.

An understanding of the concept is required, before it can, with any degree of accuracy, be applied to the experience.