CFLarsen said:
I was talking about discovering the truth behind the reality of paranormal phenomena. How will your study help you finding out about levitation?
The whole field of paranormal phenomena is rooted in the issues covered by cognitive science, psychology and metaphysics. It is no use just singling out individual phenomena and trying to "debunk" them. That will not lead you to the truth about paranormal phenomena. Trying to understand these issues without an understanding of the philosophical issues which underpin them is a complete waste of time.
I am learning more and more each day, but I have to admit that I don't understand why people want to take a back seat to this.
I am not really "taking a back seat". When I initially encountered this stuff what I wanted more than anything was
more rationalists on board. Rather like yourself, it was clear to me that the field was populated largely by people trying to make money or people who were just plain crazy. When I first began to understand what had been incorrect about my previous views, and when I first began to experience the phenomena, all I wanted was to get more rationalists alongside me so I did not have to walk through looked like very swampy ground all on my own. I had failed to understand the significance of what was happening to me. Trying to get others to follow me was NOT what I was supposed to be doing. Instead, it was neccesary for me to walk the swamp on my own, to find my own answers, to find my own path to the truth. Now I believe that this is always the way it must be. It is NO USE trying to force other people to follow. They must choose that path
for themselves. I am not "taking a back seat". I am waiting for you to catch up.
Not really. I don't consider philosophy a science, and the benefits are not all that obvious.
No, they are not obvious. That does not mean they are not there. You think philosophy is irrelevant? If they stopped teaching it, you would change your mind.
Philosophy seems more like an intellectual and semantical game.
That is
part of philosophy, and in incredibly important part. You see, all of us are tricked by our own use of language. Only by analysing very carefully our own use of language do we begin to understand how our views about the nature of reality and life are shaped by the way we construct our arguments. Without the semantic analysis of philosophy, we remain prisoners of "semantic spooks".
That would contradict what we know now: These phenomena are harnessed even today, without any explanations whatsoever. Dowsers find water, psychics talk to dead people, even find missing children, astrologers predict the future, and healers cure cancer. I'd call that "harnessing these phenomena".
The trouble is that the people who are making money out of these supposed powers aren't usually harnessing the phenomena at all. They are leeches. They deserve to be exposed as such. REAL paranormal phenomena are not there to be made money out of. They serve a very different purpose, as both myself and Luci have repeatedly tried to explain. I dislike the Uri Gellers of this world even more than you do. All they do is make a mockery of the whole field and continually re-inforce the beliefs of people like you that all parapsychology is worthless. They serve nobody but themselves.
Actually, I don't think so. And I find it downright scary that you seem to think that your experiences were real - nothing will persuade you otherwise.
You think
that is downright scary? How friggin' scary do you think it would be if you are wrong, and the phenomena are real? Just how scary would that be, CFLarsen? Can't you see how much more scary the REALITY would be than the destruction of a mere fantasy? Can you imagine what you would feel like if your own skepticism was blown to pieces by experiencing phenomena that you previously could never even begun to imagine existed? It is a whole different league. It makes you feel very small very quickly indeed.
I do think that you are terrified of having your fantasies destroyed, and your post just verified that. You have apparently reached a point of no return: Nothing can change your mind, you will continue believe.
I have indeed passed a rubicon. There can be no going back from where I am, and that is a characteristic others in my position will identify with. Luci talked about "the ultimate form of personal responsibility". She was not wrong. This is not a game.
Oh? Are you that much of a hands-on expert on how hallucinogens works? Is it possible - somewhere, somehow - that what you experienced were a hallucination?
No, that is what I am saying. In my younger years I have experienced the whole gamut of hallucinogens, up to and including DMT. It is not possible that what I was experiencing was a hallucination, because many times I tried to deny it was happening, just as a person on a bad acid trip repeats to themselves "This is only a trip, it is not real". The trouble was that it
was real, and the harder I tried to run away from it the more powerful became the effects. In the end, I was
forced to accept that what I was experiencing was real, because that was the only way to escape the existential situation I found myself in. That is why I cannot return to where I came from. I didn't know it at the time, but I bought a one-way ticket.
Then give examples that are not.
We have already been through this. If I give you an example of something which is not actually illogical, you will simply ask me for proof the it exists, which is not the same as it not being illogical. You don't want examples of logically coherent paranormal phenomena. You wan't examples of logically coherent paranormal phenomena you can also apply scientific testing to.
Exactly how are you going to find those answers?
By learning as much as I can about ALL the related disciplines and trying to make sense of the
whole picture. Science forms part of this picture, but never the totality.
Then show us!
Oh, please! All we need is one piece of evidence! Why is that so hard to provide?
Then, where is it? Can we see it? You are not holding back, so why don't you just shove it in our faces and be done with it?
Sometimes I wonder if I am talking to myself here.
I have gone to great lengths to explain why
you can't see it. To me it feels like you keep trying to drag the debate back to where you are comfortable with your understanding, instead of trying to understand what the other side are trying to explain to you. I think you want a target to shoot down with tools you know how to use. I don't think you are interested in developing a more holistic understanding of the deeper issues that are relevant.
That's where you are wrong. Skeptics seek actively evidence of paranormal phenomena. Does that indicate a fear of being wrong? I don't think so.
I did not actually say "fear of being wrong". You do not fear being wrong because you are completely confident that you are right. I said that in order to accept that you were wrong would imply a complete reversal of your belief system, and it is true, isn't it?
Perhaps you could - since you are so interested in cognitive sciences and philosophy - explain a bit about why skeptics would do such a self-destructive thing?
Because according to their own way of understanding this, what they are doing does not risk any self-destruction. Because of the whole way you approach the issue it is pre-determined that you will never find what you are supposedly looking for.
You are not looking for paranormal phenomena at all. You are trying to demonstrate to people that no such phenomena exist. Some honesty please? So long as you retain the same belief system and do not look to critically at the flaws in that belief system, you are not at risk of having your belief system destoyed. As destruction of belief systems, sometimes it is a neccesary process, because sometimes you need to take a few steps back in order to be able to go forwards. There must be a fire in order for there to be a phoenix. Indeed I believe the current discussion concerns the original meaning behind that myth, and many other familiar myths which share the same theme.
It all comes down to evidence. Bias or not bias, it's all about evidence.
That is your opinion. I would personally say that there is no subsitute for direct personal experience. That, for me, was the only evidence which was good enough.
Hey, can I see just one piece of evidence in just one small part of the field?
You have. You used Occams Razor to discard it on the grounds that experimental error was far more likely than it being genuine evidence of PSI. Beyond that sort of level of evidence science is not going to go any time soon.
No, you got it upside down: There are claims, but no evidence. Despite of lack of evidence, people still believe in it.
And some of those people believe it because it actually happened to them. This eventuality seems to be completely missing from your assessment of the possible truths of this situation - you have eliminated it as a 0% chance. You simply don't believe it, so you don't believe it is possible that some of the people who make these claims are actually telling the truth. But that does not mean that you are correct, so you cannot claim that people believe it because of lack of evidence. You want to know why people study philosophy? It is precisely so they do not keep making the same mistakes in their reasoning over and over again. They have to deconstruct their own thinking and realise that some of their initial assumptions are driving their way through their whole analysis of a situation and coming out the other end looking like a conclusion when they are in fact built into the thought process from start to finish. People study philosophy so that their belief system is stripped down to its component parts and rebuilt again without so many defects in it.
That is why people study philosophy, and that it is why it matters.
