Elvis666
Muse
CONNIE SONNE, Dowser
- Thread starter chran
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The above quote and your failure to answer questions put to you shows pretty clearly that you're not paying any attention to what I've been saying or are deliberately ignoring my points. I have already answered your inquiries on the matter. I'll explain it one more time as simply as possible.
Human language lacks precision. Everything we say is loaded with implied qualifiers, including this statement. Had I intended to make the statement absolute, I would have added the word "absolutely" at the beginning and probably added phrases like "without a doubt" somewhere. I would have also added further clarifications regarding computer and mathematical language. But I didn't because I'm not writing a formal position statement or a peer reviewed article.
You have not presented any evidence that the above is not how the real world operates. You have no presented no evidence that anyone intends the statement in question to be absolute whereas I have clearly shown that when people want to make an absolute statement, they go through extra effort to make it so. Implied qualifiers are the norm.
Why do we do this? Who knows? Probably because life would be exceedingly tedious if we started every statement with "to the best of my knowledge" and added "of course, should further evidence come to light I will change my position." If we explicitly noted all of the other qualifiers, it would take ten minutes just to explain to someone that we ran out of copier paper.
If I wanted to, I could go through some of your posts on the forums and accuse you of making absolute statements and point out all the implied qualifiers you didn't explicitly enumerate. But I won't.
We're talking about how people actually communicate in real life. We are very much in disagreement on this. There is a general right and wrong about what people mean. BillJoe has yet to cite any examples where simple statements are meant to be absolute. By contrast I have given numerous examples of how people use specific terms when they want to make an absolute statement and how they do not list off a series of qualifiers to indicate that their statement is not absolute. I have offered reasonable explanations as to why I believe this is so.
I have no doubt that people sometimes make simple statements meaning them to be absolute, but for the most part that's not their intention. The only way to know for sure is to ask them. That question has been asked, and people here have clarified that the statement in question is not absolute. It has been explained why this is so.
Repeating, "Yeh, but it's still absolute" is not really an argument. Well, except for maybe on the Internet because so many people get off on taking one casual statement and insisting it means something despite numerous clarifications to the contrary.
fromdownunder
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2006
- Messages
- 6,721
Let's take this:
"Connie has no paranormal power".
This is pretty absolute, and totally accurate as lack of verifiable evidence of her claimed "powrs" to date indicates. But reading between the lines, and being as pedantic as possible, what I really mean is that (well, I don't but we want to be completely accurate and not deny Connie her day in court).
At (Venue, time and date), it appears to me at least that Connie failed to demonstrate to the satisfaction of (name people in crowd) one of the (particular powers she claims to have). Or perhaps the spirits temporarilly withdrew this power, or that Randi's henchmen somehow cheated on the test, or that she really passed it, but mass hypnosis, including all those who watched it on a stream, caused everybody including Connie to forget that she actually passed, or that Randi's supernatural power is stronger than Connies, so it is entirely possible that at any other time and place Connie could demonstrate this or any other supernatural power that she claims to have.
Phew! At least the second statement is more complete!
Which one is more easy to communicate, understand and means more in "the real world"? Why should I need to add disclaimers to what I actually think happened? And I am certain that I left out stuff that needs to be added in the interest of complete accuracy. Mybe she failed because the room was at the wrong temperature....
Enough, sometimes really is enough in the real world.
Norm
"Connie has no paranormal power".
This is pretty absolute, and totally accurate as lack of verifiable evidence of her claimed "powrs" to date indicates. But reading between the lines, and being as pedantic as possible, what I really mean is that (well, I don't but we want to be completely accurate and not deny Connie her day in court).
At (Venue, time and date), it appears to me at least that Connie failed to demonstrate to the satisfaction of (name people in crowd) one of the (particular powers she claims to have). Or perhaps the spirits temporarilly withdrew this power, or that Randi's henchmen somehow cheated on the test, or that she really passed it, but mass hypnosis, including all those who watched it on a stream, caused everybody including Connie to forget that she actually passed, or that Randi's supernatural power is stronger than Connies, so it is entirely possible that at any other time and place Connie could demonstrate this or any other supernatural power that she claims to have.
Phew! At least the second statement is more complete!
Which one is more easy to communicate, understand and means more in "the real world"? Why should I need to add disclaimers to what I actually think happened? And I am certain that I left out stuff that needs to be added in the interest of complete accuracy. Mybe she failed because the room was at the wrong temperature....
Enough, sometimes really is enough in the real world.
Norm
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I say stuff like "there is no more reason to think Connie has paranormal abilities than there is reason to think that you do"...or..."than there is reason to think that looking cross-eyed at my son will remove the dirt from his clothes". The advantage of an absolute statement should be obvious - it's short and to the point and unless someone wants to be a dick about it, everyone knows what you mean.
Why? Does it mean that rabbits are suddenly in the habbit of appearing and disappearing out of hats, when they weren't before?
Similarly if you conclude now that "there are no paranormal phenomena" on the basis that no examples have yet been observed and that it is implausible, you could be proven wrong in the long run.
You mean you've been proven wrong already?
You think I'm joking, but this is a critical point. If you are sincere about your argument, then we are already all wrong. We already have evidence of paranormal abilities in the form of entanglement. We already have evidence of God in the form of Gravity. If you think that it is reasonable (and it most definitely is not) to consider as yet unobserved and unknown forces discovered in the future which bear a passing resemblance to descriptions of things we currently find untenable to serve as examples of us being wrong when making statements about current claims, then our discovery of entanglement nullifies every rational statement made in the past about God, the Cottingly fairies, and spoon benders.
Again, how on earth could my statements even remotely be used to refer to something about which we know nothing?
You didn't like my first example without explaining why, so why should I offer up a second example just to get the same treatment.
Oops. I'll look this thread over again when I get a chance.
Why so specific in this case?
Linda
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I haven't had the time I'd hoped to have by now to refresh my memory on the aether and the Michelson-Morley experiment. You may be right that, at the time the experiment was conducted, the aether was thought to be carried around by objects (such as the Earth) as they move through space and that the purpose of the expeiment was to detect this movement. The experiment showed this was not the case. However the implication of the experiment was that the aether - defined, in this case, as the absolute reference frame against which all motion is measured - was also refuted. There is no absolute reference frame: The experiment showed that light moves at the same speed irrespective of the movement of the frame from which it is measured. Light moves at the same speed in the direction of the Earth's revolution around the sun as in the direction purpendicular to this motion.
Edit: If I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected.
regards,
BillyJoe
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Which questions?
I didn't think I'd missed anything, but if you can point them out...
I haven't ignored your points and I have clearly demonstrated my understanding of what you have been saying, for example, by accepting your point about using shorthand language in general discourse. My point, however, is that, notwithstanding the demands of social discourse, it still an absolute statement that therefore lacks scientific rigour.
Yes, you have. You have accepted, more or less, that such statement lacks scientific rigour.
You can correct me if I'm wrong but that is my understanding of what you have said.
But I would like to add that Linda's point, if I understand her correctly, is not quite the same as yours.
Yes, I use them all the time. Well, perhaps not ALL the time.
regards,
BillyJoe
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I think you are correct as far as UY and BJ are concerned, but I'm not sure that you have quite got Linda's point.
No, we are in agreement here.
Well, there is, at the very least, a reluctance by many to do this, or an expressed annoyance at having to do so.
Linda, in contradistinction, refuses to do this.
Do you understand that? And do you understand why?
regards,
BillyJoe
Yes, it's accurate to date.
But, in the world of science, we would say: "To date, Connie has not shown that she has paranormal powers".
And, in the world of science, do you agree with the above?
Or do you agree with Linda that the second statement CANNOT mean anything OTHER than the first statement?
regards,
BillyJoe
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I don't know, maybe I haven't said it explicitly enough that I agree with this.
But I am interested in what we can say from a strict scientific point of view, because I got the distinct impression that you think it is no different.
I was referring to the generic statement.
There was a time in the past when, if you had been alive, you would have been happy to voice the generic statement believing it to be absolutely true. Am I wrong?
I thought you were joking.
I don't see entanglemnent as a paranoramal ability. First of all, there is no "ability" there. It just happens. Secondly it can be predicted to happen in every single case. It is not an anomaly and hence "paranormal" is not a consideration either.
Again, gravity is not anomalous. It is predictable. Is god predictable?
I'm still not quite getting this.
Can I ask you, which of the following statements you find acceptable, in a strict scientific sense:
"Connie cannot dowse for cards"
"Connie has no paranormal powers"
"There are no paranormal powers"
Because the thing that is proposed to exist is proposed to be absolute. You merely need to show that it is not absolute (in the case of the M-M experiment, not present here and now) to refute it.
regards,
BillyJoe
I think that you are correct that my point is slightly different. It's not just a matter of accepting the use of sloppy language (which we all agree can be okay), but a matter of looking at the circumstances. If we only say that something exists when observation suggests the need for that entity, then when observation shows us that there is no need for that entity (or no observation shows a need), we dismiss the idea of the entity.
If we talked rationally about existance under some other set of circumstances, then the above wouldn't apply. But is it not the case that Connie based her claims of paranormal abilities on a set of observations that we are able to recognize do not make that entity necessary?
Linda
From a strictly scientific point of view it would have been nonsensical to say that virtual elementary particles pop in and out of existence, 150 years ago. At that time, there weren't any observations or theories which would suggest this as we didn't even know about what we now think of as elementary particles. It would be an nonsensical as any of the other nonsensical claims that I mentioned. Of course, within that morass of nonsensical claims, there may be a few that turn out to have merit, but there's no way to make this distinction a priori. So we need to get rid of the idea that when we make statements about something from a strict scientific point of view, we are not including nonsensical claims. We are only including specific claims.
Connie's claim was a specific claim. Paranormal claims are specific claims.
I would have been happy to voice the generic statement then and now. Because the generic statement I would have made in the past would still be true now. Because I clearly would not be talking about elementary particles when making that statement.
You can't have it both ways. Either you are including statements that at the time are nonsensical, but later are shown to be true, in your consideration of what "does not exist" is meant to cover, or you are only including specific claims. Statements about entanglement would have been nonsensical a hundred years ago. And it certainly fits the description of a paranormal ability. And, like most of what we are investigating nowadays, it cannot be demonstrated in every single case. In fact, we never notice it except under very specific circumstances.
There is no reason to think that God isn't as predictable as gravity. You have to remember that gravity appeared unpredictable. We had 10's of thousands of years of human existence before we even discovered that the movement of the heavenly bodies was predictable. How is that not anomalous?
All of them are acceptable if you are willing to disregard nonsensical statements.
Maybe we simply proposed the wrong characteristics?
Linda
In the world of science - or any other sane world - I don't think that you would say that 'To date Mr. X hasn't shown that he is Napoleon.'
From the Danish newspaper Bornholms Tidende, July 25, 2009:
"I 1998 blev hun pensioneret fra Politiet, hvor hun havde arbejdet,
mest som gadebetjent, i Glostrup, på Bornholm og i Aalborg.
Hun forlod styrken på grund af en arbejdsskade, efter at hun under tjeneste
var blevet truet med en kniv. Det gav sår på sjælen som ikke ville hele, og
Connie Sonne måtte opgive sit arbejde."
In my translation:
"In 1998 she was pensioned off from the police where she had been working,
mainly as a constable on the beat, in Glostrup, on Bornholm and in Aalborg.
She left the police force due to an on-the-job injury after she had been threatened
with a knife while on duty. This incident inflicted wounds in her soul, wounds
that would not heal, and Connie Sonne had to give up her job."
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Nothing else can be accessed on the internet right now, but the snippet is from a fairly long interview in which most of her ideas are mentioned – but not the JREF test. You have to consider that July is agurketid in Denmark (= ’cucumber time’, i.e. when newspaper journalists are left with stories about the peasant growing the largest cucumber, = the silly season). The snippet is from the introduction, which I consider a decent way of indicating that what follows should be taken with a grain of salt.
Online you’ll find (cached) these letters from Connie Sonne to Bornholms Tidende:
Ytringsfrihed eller hvad? Thursday, October 2, 2008. (Freedom of Speech or What?)
Plantesamlere i det skjulte! Wednesday, November 5, 2008. (Clandestine Plant Collectors!)
I think that you’ll get the gist of them if you run them through a Google translation.
I would like to point out again that Connie Sonne does not appear to be making any money telling her stories, nor does she have a following of worshippers who consider her a guru.
She appears to be all alone in the world with nobody else sharing her particular delusions, and the damage that she does with her stories about Madeleine is probably not intended.
I never saw the point of her test at TAM.
Online you’ll find (cached) these letters from Connie Sonne to Bornholms Tidende:
Ytringsfrihed eller hvad? Thursday, October 2, 2008. (Freedom of Speech or What?)
Plantesamlere i det skjulte! Wednesday, November 5, 2008. (Clandestine Plant Collectors!)
I think that you’ll get the gist of them if you run them through a Google translation.
I would like to point out again that Connie Sonne does not appear to be making any money telling her stories, nor does she have a following of worshippers who consider her a guru.
She appears to be all alone in the world with nobody else sharing her particular delusions, and the damage that she does with her stories about Madeleine is probably not intended.
I never saw the point of her test at TAM.
And I suppose my point is that "looking at the circumstances" does not allow you to make absolute statements, because you may not be assessing these circumstances completely accurately.
...for the time being.
Who knows whether further observations will eventually show us that we do, in fact, have a need of this entity.
You are saying that Connie claims of paranormal ability could be entirely explained by visual cuing etc. First of all, how can you be absolutely sure that this is the case. Her failure in ther test, suggests this was the case, but we can't know that absolutely. There may be other reasons for failing the test. She may have ability over and above any visual cuing that may have occurred in the conditions under which she determied that she had the ability. Remember, I'm merely trying to rule out being absolutely certain here.
Secondly, the test cannot have ruled out any of her other claimed abilities.
Why not?
Why is "there is no evidence for re-incarnation" not a legitimate scientific conclusion?
How is "there is no re-incarnation" a legitimate scientific conclusion?
Show me the evidence where you have ruled it out absolutely.
Because "Is there no reincarnation?" is not even a legitimate scientific question but only magical, wishful thinking.
Seriously testing the question in science (by R. Wisemann, for instance?) is not a result of a scientific need to know but, possibly, of the educational interest in 'curing' the incredibly many people who believe in (this particular kind of) nonsense - as if a mistaken concept of science is what makes them believe.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1241267#post1241267
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1246642#post1246642
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1246648#post1246648
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1247687#post1247687
"There is no reincarnation!" is a legitimate conclusion. It just isn't a Popperian falsificationist and thus pseudo-scientific one!
"Connie Sonne is delusional!" was a legitimate conclusion even before the test at TAM. The test added absolutely nothing, and as I correctly 'predicted', it sure as hell did nothing to change anybody's ideas about CS or the rest of the world.