CarlinKnew
Well-Known Member
A huge scientific discovery like that would've gotten some publicity. Religious believers would be using it as evidence in every debate on the existence of god. I've searched and as far as I can tell it doesn't exist.
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Is there solid, verifiable proof that there is a god?
- Thread starter slave2six
- Start date
A huge scientific discovery like that would've gotten some publicity. Religious believers would be using it as evidence in every debate on the existence of god. I've searched and as far as I can tell it doesn't exist.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
It did get publicity. There were articles in Newsweek, Time, other news outlets, and Wiki. There have been pop science books published on the subject, one of which I have recommended to you. But that's not what you asked for.
Also, what makes it so huge? It's a fledgling science, and a highly specialized subset of neurology, a field which is generally not well understood.
As for your assertion that all religious believers would be using it: why? Many would be opposed to it on theological or philosophical grounds, and that's only if they'd heard about it in the first place.
Also, what makes it so huge? It's a fledgling science, and a highly specialized subset of neurology, a field which is generally not well understood.
As for your assertion that all religious believers would be using it: why? Many would be opposed to it on theological or philosophical grounds, and that's only if they'd heard about it in the first place.
McBell
Unbound
And here you just killed your own argument.
CarlinKnew
Well-Known Member
The pop science books got publicity. I mean if such a publication existed in a reputable scientific journal, this publication would've gotten publicity and someone would've found it by now.
"Mystical experiences are not hallucinations" is pretty straightforward, I think most people can understand that claim. And that is a big claim. It would be a revolutionary discovery.
Nonetheless someone would've used it in a debate by now, and cited his source. I keep up with religious debates and I've never heard of it.
So, until this claim is in a reputable scientific journal, there is no reason whatsoever to take it seriously.
Jeremiah
Well-Known Member
"must an experience be intersubjectively verifiable in a laboratory to be an experience"
Well no. An experience is an experience is an experience, whether it is real or not. But being intersubjectively verifiable definitely helps add to the credibility of it's actuality.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
Kinda. One person's personal experience is another person's hearsay. I think it's valid to place low value on hearsay.
Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that mystical experiences are any more based on something external than hallucination.
Edit: also, I should point out that you're begging the question in your description. Roughly speaking, hallucination is the term for any sensory perception that's not based on external stimuli. Its meaning isn't limited to false sensory perceptions that follow some set neurological pattern. If mystical experiences aren't based on external stimuli, then they're hallucinations; if they follow some neurological pattern that's distinct from other hallucinations, then we'd have two distinct categories of hallucinations. When you describe mystical experiences as not hallucinations, you imply certain factual or value claims that you haven't supported yet, IMO.
Depending on how they structured their studies, one worry of mine would be that they engaged some form of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.
Edit: and it's not so much a matter of honesty as of rigor in their methods.
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Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Granted, but there's quite a difference between "hearsay" and "no evidence at all."
My point is there's no evidence either way.
I wasn't speaking "roughly," though, which invalidates your criticism.
I'm not familiar with that one.
Seemed to me CarlinKnew was implying that someone was a liar, I just couldn't tell who.
McBell
Unbound
Your kiding right?
Here is one:
linwood
Well-Known Member
"Didn`t like" can also be read as "couldn`t verify" in this context.
I apologize for this interruption, y`all can continue with your god-botherin` now.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
I'd buy that from you, but not from slave2six.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So are you of the opinion that that video of an electron is not real?
Additionally, are you of the opinion that the pictures you posted are not real?
If you're answers are not the same, then the reason they are not shows why your response is faulty.
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Anti-thesisofreason
Explorer
Some days I believe I do and other days the results are questionable.
Exactly.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So that's a "no" then.
How do we know that wasn't a fake?
Besides, what part of that blue vortex was the electron? Was the vortex itself the electron, or part of the swirls around it?
"No" would have been too easy an answer, so I was more specific.
The shortest answer is a "Not at the moment."