Repeated Personal Experiences = Evidence?

[scalyblue]

Haha, your need to corner concepts and apply a thick paste of self indulged thought is cute.

You know, you should tell people that English isn't your first language, it would make them more forgiving when you write incoherent drivel like this.

It's sad to see someone so convoluted that they can't even trust their own eyes and mind until a panel of other people say it's ok to.

Argumentum ad hominem. Next?

 

[Niocan]

Argumentum ad hominem. Next?

Incorrect, it's the exact point of the thread.

You won't believe in something until a group of other people say it's ok. It's called disempowerment if you view yourself as nothing...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It's sad to see someone so convoluted that they can't even trust their own eyes and mind until a panel of other people say it's ok to.

Argumentum ad hominem. Next?

Not just that... he's also spitting on the scientific method, and attacking the foundations of rationality.

 

[Durakken]

When in actuality it is clearly this:

Someone presents a claim
Others raise objections of the veracity of the claim, ask questions and makes research suggestions.
The original someone ignores or handwaves the objections by applying further claims, and finds reasons to reject the suggestions.
ex: --> I have scary dreams that (appear to) predict the future. But I will not start a journal to verify this because they are scary dreams, and my fragile emotions cannot withstand the trauma recalling them. Therefore, you must all except my special pleading, or I shall declare you close-minded.
The others continue to restate their same objections and questions, which continue to be non-answered, until the thread goes on for pages and pages, accomplishing nothing.

No. You are clearly mistaken

I have said it can not be the case that what you are saying fits what I am saying because this this and this.

What you are calling "hand waving" is me explaining why it is that I don't have a dream journal or some other type of evidence for you to look at. You are in fact asking me why I have not changed the past to a more favorable present where I can give evidence and that is just idiotic. Not to mention, even if I did present you with such a thing you wouldn't accept, or at least I would hope you wouldn't, as it's not evidence of the event happening nor does it throw out the possibility that I just made it up recently.

I have covered every thing that you have presented and explained how it wouldn't work in the given situation. You have simply repeated yourself afterwords.

So what we are left with is a conversation that resembles this...

I have the answer to the universe! 42!
It's not 42 because it's 38
It can't be 38 because the first number must be even.
It's 38!
It can't be 38 because i know both multiples must be even... I'm willing to accept it could be 84, but not 38.
It's 38!
38 is wrong because if it were 38 then 69 must be true and 69 we both agree it is not.
It's 38!
42 works with all the equations given.
Do you have the paper?
What paper?
The paper that disproves it's 38.
Why would I have a paper disproving it's 38?
If you had that paper I would say It might be 40.
It works with 42. Why would it be 40?
Because it's not 42, it's 38.
I wish it was 69...

 

[Niocan]

Durakken there's a psychological wall they put up when something is interfering with their world view. As rational as you state things they'll nitpick until you give into their view.

Wait I think I know this mindset...

 

[jrparri]

What you are calling "hand waving" is me explaining why it is that I don't have a dream journal or some other type of evidence for you to look at.

What you call "explaining why you won't start a dream journal etc" is what I call hand waving, yes.

You are in fact asking me why I have not changed the past to a more favorable present where I can give evidence and that is just idiotic.

Don't be deliberately obtuse - clearly I am insisting that you start a journal, not that you magically already have one.

"Hey I (appear to) have dreams that predict the future. How can I know for sure? "

"You could start by using a dream journal... that will help you keep track of actual hits and misses, thereby removing the fallibility of memory from the equation."

"Good idea, I'll do that!"

... see how easy?

Not to mention, even if I did present you with such a thing you wouldn't accept, or at least I would hope you wouldn't, as it's not evidence of the event happening nor does it throw out the possibility that I just made it up recently.

You're not wrong about that.. one journal wouldn't prove it to me, but that wasn't the issue. This was about personal experience for personal evidence, yes? Anyway, if you had this journal (with maybe some witnesses or other means to demonstrate that you didn't write things down after the fact) this would be grounds for further study. Let someone else keep the journal, email the entries on a daily basis. Continue the experiment with increasingly tightening controls.

To simply say "Nahhh, I don't wanna " is perfectly acceptable (I wouldn't do it either). But you have to then write off the experiences as a fluke, or else you're being intellectually dishonest with yourself.

 

[borrofburi]

I'm more of a person who would rather play in my delusion than show that they are real or not.

Ok fine, but don't post here asking for validation then.

 

[jrparri]

This feels futile, but for some reason I really want to get you to understand this:

I have the answer to the universe! 42!
I doubt it's that simple. How do you know?
42 works with all the equations given.
What equations?
The equations that had in my head one time.
Can you... write down the equations?
No, I'm afraid of remembering them .. on paper.
So then... why should we believe you?
I never asked for you to believe me! And you are wrong to demand proof. But it's true.....
You can't just keep saying "it's true", while reject solutions to demonstrate that it's true!
Why are you still asking for proof?? ... but it's true.
*Gahhhh!*
::conversational circle ensues::

 

[Durakken]

You're not wrong about that.. one journal wouldn't prove it to me, but that wasn't the issue. This was about personal experience for personal evidence, yes? Anyway, if you had this journal (with maybe some witnesses or other means to demonstrate that you didn't write things down after the fact) this would be grounds for further study. Let someone else keep the journal, email the entries on a daily basis. Continue the experiment with increasingly tightening controls.

To simply say "Nahhh, I don't wanna " is perfectly acceptable (I wouldn't do it either). But you have to then write off the experiences as a fluke, or else you're being intellectually dishonest with yourself.

That's still not evidence of what i am talking about because it is still filtering through me. I could make up anything at any time I wish. Save for doing things that we don't have the ability to do yet there is no way that i can give evidence that what I am saying is what is actually happening. I've already covered that.


And as I have already stated I'm willing to accept that it is some combination of things, but I have also stated it is not what you guys are claiming it is because of the reasons given.

We both don't think it is me predicting the future through some sort of supernatural thing.
You think it is deja vu despite me telling you that it doesn't fit into that for various reasons.

 

[borrofburi]

I don't remember anyone else in the class nor much else about that particular class room. This was roughly 6 /7 years ago and the dream was 2-3 years before the event occurred.

This one is the one i remember best in terms of overall, but since I would have had to have seen it from my perspective only key things would be important to me at the point so anyone could have "predicted" any of the things in that at any point.
...
So for the first one we could attribute it to a generalized dream, matching an event that caused a de javu mode in my brain that placed details where it was generalized, but then I have to remind you this was years ago and was probably more to it...

As far as the rememberance of this I have to point out that I have a relatively good memory ... with a an active imagination

The most likely option (repeated to you numerous times) is that your memory is faulty, appealing to an event that you 'remember' from 6-7 years ago is not going to cut it - your memory is precisely what is being questioned.

The vividness of these memories is no justification for your belief. UFO abductees have clear memories of their experiences and can reveal amazing detail about the aliens, their ship, and what medical procedures they were subjected to. Although these memories have crystal clarity they are not real. Everybody has found at one time or another that something they 'remembered' had not actually happened or that the event occurred differently from the way they remembered.

And, duuuuude, the explanation given doesn't explain it due to the problems I point out.

You can question my memory all you want

What problems did you point out? That you're very certain your memory is accurate, because you remember your memory is accurate?

How do you know that you're not combining the 'favorable' aspects of a dozen dreams about being in a classroom, picking and choosing which parts match and which parts didn't?

How do you know that your memory is even correct? What do you have to rely on, your memory? You can't find out if a lamp is broken if you aren't sure that the light bulb isn't also burned out, one of those variables needs to be removed.

Now if you have nothing more to say than "your memory is faulty" and "it's deja vu" move along. You've been heard and rejected fairly and honestly.

Actually no, you haven't fairly or honestly rejected that your memory has flaws, you have yet to give a piece of tangible evidence, which is the only thing that can be counted as evidence that what you remember is reality, every piece of "evidence" that "proves" it's not a memory problem goes "I remember when..", and is, at best, circular reasoning.

It's not about hounding someone, it's about verifying that what you remember happening is the same as what actually happened.
...
I simpler explanation would be that you have fragmented memories from one or more dreams, that you may have mixed up, or mis-remembered. You said there was a 2-3 year gap between the dream and the event, and memories only get more distant and inaccurate over time. Have you ever seen a scene in a film, that you thought was particularly gruesome, and then seen the film at a later date and found that it was no where near as bad as you remember, even if you could picture the scene in your head before the re-watching?

How do you know that your memory is infallible in this matter? Have you been able to establish that? How do you know that your brain isn't seeking to make connections where there aren't any, and fabricating the memories after the fact to justify your thought process? You refuse to document your dreams, so that's a big strike one.

These are the questions you should be asking yourself. You already assume that you know the truth and you are trying to prove or disprove it, that's the first thing that you have to discard. Unless it is something provable and replicable, it is just a distortion of your perception, because your perception is very easy to distort, it's biased and imperfect.

You think your perception can be trusted?

You are in fact asking me why I have not changed the past to a more favorable present where I can give evidence and that is just idiotic.

Don't be deliberately obtuse - clearly I am insisting that you start a journal, not that you magically already have one.

"Hey I (appear to) have dreams that predict the future. How can I know for sure? "

"You could start by using a dream journal... that will help you keep track of actual hits and misses, thereby removing the fallibility of memory from the equation."

"Good idea, I'll do that!"

... see how easy?

(I would say a dream journal can also significantly remove the fallibility of perception as well, even if not completely)

We are precisely calling into question your memory, your response *can not* be "I have a good memory, that's how I know my memory is good", so good in fact that you think you accurately know you remember an even 6 years ago with a memory 3 years prior to that. *Everything* you have said about memory justifies alien encounters and false memories in other people, it's their same arguments, the only difference is that they apply it to aliens and you apply it to predicting the future.

Certainty that your memory is accurate does not make it so. (I should also note that every place where we have said memory, we are also questioning your perception as well, because we all know our perception is flawed, just as we know our memories are flawed)

 

[Durakken]

Congratulations on quote mining.

 

[borrofburi]

Congratulations on quote mining.

Congratulations on not addressing the point. We are precisely questioning your memory and your perception (albeit no harder than we question our own (or at least, I question my own)), something you merely dismiss. If you really *have* dealt with this somehow, please, copy paste whatever it was that i missed.

 

[Aught3]

Quote mining? You realise that simply quoting someone is not the equivalent of quote mining right? Borrofburi has actually done the opposite of quote mining by posting long tracts of text to keep the context intact. The impression I get from the quotes is an accurate representation of everyone's arguments, if you think there is a distortion of your position point it out.

I think Durakken has been pretty well addressed so I want to ask another question. Why do people continue to trust their own perceptions and memories even though we know how easy it is to be mislead by them? On small matters I don't think we have an option, we can't be continuously validating our own mundane experiences with everyone else. But surely when the matter becomes more important the first thing we should do is start to check with other people. I doesn't matter too much if your outfit for the day clashes horribly (or some other trivial matter) but when you start making larger claims such as: I can predict the future, colloidal silver is good medicine, UFOs exist, etc one should attempt to get some external confirmation of their own beliefs.

 

[Durakken]

For what you are saying to actually happen the following had to have occurred.

In the middle of a class about a subject I remember while doing something like drawing I suddenly started day dreaming which I have never done where the dream is exactly the same as what is happening in reality and at the same time as this is happening I simultaneously dream (in a day dream where i am still apparently still conscious) that I dreamed about this attaching a death event at the end that happened before I knew anyone in the class room, school, or even the general mile area, and not to mention the class room itself and school's general features... all while dreaming of talking with someone about that dream while still maintaining consciousness and then placing them in a timeline that just doesn't make sense to do if I am trying to make this all make sense and still being able to draw and listen to the lecture going on.

Do you see how improbable that actually is? Even if you assume something like that did happen it wouldn't make sense for me to make up that it happened years before because the whole point of attributing deja vu and faulty memory is to explain why someone makes up something so that it makes more sense to them. If I am doing what you say I'm doing it is more likely that I would remember having the dream a lot closer to the event than it would be that I would have a dream further back in time.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I think Durakken has been pretty well addressed so I want to ask another question. Why do people continue to trust their own perceptions and memories even though we know how easy it is to be mislead by them? On small matters I don't think we have an option, we can't be continuously validating our own mundane experiences with everyone else. But surely when the matter becomes more important the first thing we should do is start to check with other people. I doesn't matter too much if your outfit for the day clashes horribly (or some other trivial matter) but when you start making larger claims such as: I can predict the future, colloidal silver is good medicine, UFOs exist, etc one should attempt to get some external confirmation of their own beliefs.

Well, they only trust their own perception and memories, and those of other people, when they confirm their previously established viewpoints... and often for purely emotional reasons. For instance, your examples come with a serious amount of bizarre ego-feeding claims of special knowledge, knowledge above that of doctors and scientists and other people who ACTUALLY know things. When those people make claims, they are really making TWO claims. The first is whatever nonsense they believe, and the second claim is that their feelings and perceptions and memories and ego are all superior to evidence and reason and logic and science. The extreme arrogance of their position is as interesting as any of the specific crackpottery of their positions.

 

[Niocan]

Well, they only trust their own perception and memories, and those of other people, when they confirm their previously established viewpoints... and often for purely emotional reasons. For instance, your examples come with a serious amount of bizarre ego-feeding claims of special knowledge, knowledge above that of doctors and scientists and other people who ACTUALLY know things. When those people make claims, they are really making TWO claims. The first is whatever nonsense they believe, and the second claim is that their feelings and perceptions and memories and ego are all superior to evidence and reason and logic and science. The extreme arrogance of their position is as interesting as any of the specific crackpottery of their positions.

It's interesting that you view ascension into a system as the equivalent of gained wisdom. You might have a thing or two to learn in This book.

Additionally, these concepts are held true by their merits and to find a link between them and our known knowledge is being regarded as quakary. I laugh at your attempt to discredit research

 

[scalyblue]

Illich was many things, a researcher was not one of them. Invoking him in this discussion is rather irrelevant, don't you think? Maybe we should have just referred OP to his local learning web. No way we could possibly advance our society any further than 1970's tech/culture without adopting his ideas, after all ^.x

 

[ExeFBM]

In the middle of a class about a subject I remember while doing something like drawing I suddenly started day dreaming which I have never done where the dream is exactly the same as what is happening in reality and at the same time as this is happening I simultaneously dream (in a day dream where i am still apparently still conscious) that I dreamed about this attaching a death event at the end that happened before I knew anyone in the class room, school, or even the general mile area, and not to mention the class room itself and school's general features... all while dreaming of talking with someone about that dream while still maintaining consciousness and then placing them in a timeline that just doesn't make sense to do if I am trying to make this all make sense and still being able to draw and listen to the lecture going on.

I have no clue where you got such a convoluted explanation for what people in this thread were suggesting. Here's a far simpler and more plausible version of what COULD have happened.

At one point in time you had a dream about a generic classroom, and someone died.

You told someone about this dream.

2-3 years later you are in a classroom, and experience a deja vu. Your brain ties the deja vu, to a half remembered dream, and fills in some blanks.

We've established that many people write deja vu's off as dreams, your situation was just similar enough to a previous dream, that your mind equated them and made them identical.

 

[Marcus]

It's very, very easy to misinterpret your own memory.

I recall reading something about a woman who was burgled whilst she was at home and later identified her burglar. The man, however, had a cast iron alibi - he was on live TV at the time of the burglary (he wasn't well known, he was just a member of the public). Why did the woman identify him as the burglar? She was watching the broadcast when the break-in occurred and recognised the man as someone she saw at the time.

Of course, I may have remembered some of the details of this anecdote incorrectly, but the fact remains that memory is far from infallible.

 

[Baranduin]

Well, I've not finished to read this thread, but I see people is already speaking about memory reconstruction and so, so I don't think I can add much more. However, i've posted my opinion here (It was shorter to read!).