Thief
Rogue Theologian
just posted elsewhere.....
given the scheme of things around Him
His speech would be like walking on water
always thought it might have been a metaphor not scripted well
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How to prove?
- Thread starter Spirit of Light
- Start date
given the scheme of things around Him
His speech would be like walking on water
always thought it might have been a metaphor not scripted well
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
We can at least discuss shared experience, and develop a clear understanding of what each of us mean by "thought." We both experience this abstract thing and can relate definitions and our understanding of the thing and its methods.
This is nowhere near the same as religious experience... where people from different religious backgrounds experience completely different "spiritual" feelings, and attempting to relay such experiences to someone who has NONE of those feelings is nearly impossible. For example, if you feel God or spirit at any moment, you differ from me as I have never felt anything like that. And if you have felt a specific deity or entity, then you differ from anyone who experienced a different deity or entity. The results are inconclusive, inconsistent, whereas we all have "thoughts" and have them everyday 24/7.
To deny that thoughts exist is a complete contradiction... because you have to have a thought in the first place in order to even contemplate denial!
God doesn't get such an easy proof. Nowhere near.
Different sound sources produce sounds at different frequencies and energy levels, for analogy, and a consistent, predictive theory can be applied to all. "Levels of wisdom" can be taken into account as a spectrum of a single phenomenon.
dingdao
The eternal Tao cannot be told - Tao Te Ching
I have seen brain waves denoting states of consciousness. Picking up stimuli is easy enough, as is stimulating muscles. The various emotions have different characteristics on an ecg. We could also show these results in animals.
What I want to see is the proof behind the ability to formulate the above response.
Amanaki, this may take a while.
Back to my earlier point, though:No harm doneas long we can accept each others minor lapes its all going to be fine
If someone wants to demonstrate what they "know" to others, then I think if would usually be a matter of three questions the person can ask themselves:
- do I really know it?
- How do I know it? What justifications do I have?
- How can I demonstrate to others that those justifications are real?
As an example, your OP talked about demonstrating that you "know" that can "see [the spiritual realm] without physical eyes." Well, what would it take to demonstrate this, either to yourself or others?
To see how, consider how a physical sense could be demonstrated. Imagine that you were the only person in the world who could hear sound. How could you demonstrate this to others who can't hear?
- first you could start with a theory of what sound is: rapid changes in air pressure. Presumably, these people would already have accepted that air exists and can vary in pressure, so you're off to a good start.
- you could then establish a correlation between what's in the environment and what you can hear. You could tell the experimenters how you can tell the difference between a tree rustling and water running, and between the steps of an adult vs. The steps of a child.
- the testers could, well, test that you really can distinguish between different things using sound. They could blindfold you and place you near different sound-producing objects to confirm you can tell them apart.
- while all this is happening, the testers could independently verify that something real is happening. Even though they can't hear the sounds, they could measure them with instruments and see a correlation between what you say you hear and their readings.
I would expect that a new sense could be demonstrated in a similar way. A deaf person might not be able to hear sound, but they can see readings on a sound meter. A blind person might not be able to see light, but they can feel the difference on their skin between being in the sun and being in the shade.
For phenomena that actually exist, there are always ways to measure or detect them that don't involve experiencing them directly.
dingdao
The eternal Tao cannot be told - Tao Te Ching
200 years ago the definition of atheist was much different: Someone who does not believe like I do.
There is a philosophical school that states that this is a common dream. No one has been able to dissuade them yet.
I am asking for proof that mankind has not been deluded since the concept of inner reflection started.
I realize that experiencing GOD accidentally (NDE) or intentionally (Samadhi), though hard, is much easier then bringing science to the point where we can find out what is actually going on.
IMO No one has their "facts" straight.
Building on the idea of shared experience: if two people both claim to see the same "spiritual realm" but their descriptions of that realm don't correspond at all, then even without being able to see that realm myself, I can conclude that the two people aren't seeing the same thing.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Why would I want to prove this? To my mind the vast majority of mankind has been deluded since the concept of inner reflection started. Because from within they somehow came to conclusions about things far outside of even the realm of existence they found themselves occupying. They very early on began asserting that they knew about things that they could not observe, demonstrate or reproduce.
Mri scanner can detect thought, or at least the parts of the brain activated by thoughts
Here is one study: Beyond bananas: 'Mind reading' technology decodes complex thoughts
There is still a long way to go, of course, but we are beginning to be able to read minds by looking at what the brain is doing.
What if it’s something like this and they’re just describing it differently? I imagine it’s even harder when you have little to which to compare it. Cultural experience could explain the differences in description when people are trying to explain something difficult to describe.
Regardless of whether the person saw a duck or a rabbit, if you showed them that drawing, both would say "yes, that's what I saw." That would be correspondence.
And it isn't prudent to rely on a single data point anyway.
Do you think that they are “seeing” the same thing. Like I understand that you believe people experience different things based on their own understanding, but do you think the underlying thing remains constant?
Do you think physical reality works that way?
How do you know that’s not happening?
We don’t have an objective rabbit/duck picture that both we and they can see. We can only go by the way they describe it. The mere fact that they describe it differently isn’t evidence that “they aren’t seeing the same thing”.
dingdao
The eternal Tao cannot be told - Tao Te Ching
OK, you can observe.
Even in your contrived example, if you asked the two people to draw what they saw, the drawings would be very similar.
Out of curiosity: what tests would you use to confirm that two people both experienced the same thing, visited the same place, met the same person, etc.?
HonestJoe
Well-Known Member
Whether it’s “physical” is irrelevant (and lots of physical things can’t be seen while some visible things aren’t really physical). The standard procedure would be observation, hypothesis, evidence and conclusion. I don’t believe you’ve moved beyond observation yet. Establishing a coherent hypothesis is the usual sticking point with this kind of thing.
I think the best objective evidence comes from a study of the so-called paranormal. Things happen that don't fit in the physical-realm only worldview.
PureX
Veteran Member
It's a sad conundrum, really. Someone convinces themselves that something is bogus without ever understanding what it was they are rejecting. But once rejected, they will never understand it, because they will never have a reason to try. And they don't even know what possible benefits they have denied themselves, because they've never experienced them, and now they cannot.
But to answer your question, 'no'. I don't believe it's possible to prove a reality, or aspect of reality, to someone that has already determined to be unreal.
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