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@John: Why would a drop in air temperature be evidence of a distant persons death? Why is that information?
Temperature is relative, put one hand in hot water and the other in cold, and after a few moments put both in room temperature water. The one in hot water will feel it cold, and vice versa.
If their brains are the ones picking up on this information, it could affect the areas which receive information about outside temperature. So the air doesn't drop in temperature, their perception of it does. The opposite of hot flashes.
Your personal sensations from touching objects might be subjective, but temperature is not.
Right, so my point stands.
I'll never understand you Breezy. You say that temperature is relative. I tell you it isn't. You agree with me, then claim your previous statement stands. Your previous statement contradicts with what you just agreed with.
Because there's only one word for temperature. It's not like amplitude and loudness, where amplitude is a physical property, and loudness a psychological one. I explained the distinction sufficiently well. I even gave the example that the temperature of the air remains the same, but the perceived temperature might not.
So I agree with you that the measurable temperature is not relative, but my claim still stands, because that's not what I was describing. I would have said put a thermometer in water instead of your hand, if that was the case.
You probably didn't read till the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDbMEdLiCs
If you think physical properties are subjective; that might help explain how you believe in your imaginary friend (god).
No, if you think physical properties don't need to be filtered and interpreted by the brain, that might explain why you think I'm saying anything controversial.
I'm just correcting the factually incorrect thing you said about temperature; it wasn't controversial, it's just plain wrong. I'm not interested in discussing the subjective feeling of hot and cold (which I don't think is controversial either).
Exactly, so until you are interested in that discussion, your comment doesn't apply. Its correct, but inapplicable.
"This is why I think skepticism is dumb. People are calling this nonsense, for no other reason than because they think its nonsense. I think its nonsense too, but I'm also not going to dismiss it as if it weren't happening, or it was a scam, I'm going to try to understand it."
>>Great, what have you managed to deduce for us dullards who are too dumb to leap to conclusions that dreams must have a meaning and therefore confirm the supernatural?
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"My personal opinion about stories like this, is that the brain is picking up tiny bits of information, "
My personal opinion is that you have just made up some shocking flimflam without a shred of evidence to support it, but apparently I'm just too dumb to see what apparently you can pluck out of thin air.
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"We've all had that feeling before. Not everything we experience reaches our conscious awareness, the brain is working in the background too. It may choose to simply present that information directly into consciousness, or may present that information as a feeling or emotion, and in this case, it might take apart that information while we sleep and dream. We are social beings, the death of someone gets communicated socially, and we can definitely sense the difference. That information travels."
>>Or maybe we dream things and they have no significance, and since we dream about real things that happen all the time it is laughably absurd to attach significance when they continue to happen after we have dreamed them.
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"Ironically enough Big George, that's what your "bulls**t detector" is. Just your emotions, telling you something is off, its the same intuition that the lady is having. Something is wrong, they can feel it."
>>So you're saying his bullshit detector was every bit as valid as those dreams then? Or are you just offering another of your handy opinions that you present with such a show of gravitas?
@John 6IX
" This is why I think skepticism is dumb. People are calling this nonsense, for no other reason than because they think its nonsense."
No John. We're asking for evidence so we can evaluate the claim, not dismissing it out of hand. What age is she? If she's elderly, it's reasonable to assume people she knows are dropping of the twig at a rapid rate. If she's claiming she feels strangers "pass", hell! she could claim a vision dream every damn night! Where's the record of her misses as well as her hits? Where's the record of the time and date she had the dreams? What are the details of the dreams - how do they prove it was about the death and discorporation of a specific individual? Chimp3 would accept a record in a notebook or on a scrap of paper, I wouldn't: too easy to write about the dream after being notified of the death. .
To get an idea of what we're asking for, check out this link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge
And I'm curious. What does temperature have to do with discorporation?
Fucking BULLSHIT! I don't believe a word of it, not a word!
@ John 6IX Breezy: Ironically enough Big George, that's what your "bulls**t detector" is. Just your emotions.
I take your point John, and were we discussing anyone elses "bulls**t detector" I would be in complete agreement. However, my
"bulls**t detector" is completely emotionless. It's taken years of hard work to make it 100% immune to them.
Meanwhile, mykcob4's detector seems to have has gone off the scale !!
@ Big George
Not at all. Someone is going to have to prove such outrageous claims.
I could say everytime my dog gets sick a distant family member dies. Now how are you going to prove me wrong? The fact is it isn't up to you to prove me wrong. Russian Tank has done this shit over and over. He claims to be an atheist but periodically he makes some sort of supernatural claim with no evidence but his personal testimony.
Ok let's even entertain that. Let's say every time your dog got sick a family member died and it was scientically tested and proven. Would that demonstrate souls? Im not talking psychic thoughts im saying the second a person died your dog got sick. Would that prove souls?
@Russian Tank : When a distant person dies, why would a dog get sick?
Russian-Tank
You always do this. It has been your goal since you have been here to prove souls. There is no evidence of a soul whatsoever. I have no idea why you listed yourself as an atheist. You are superstitious and nonsensical.
My dog story was just that a story. You can't test nor prove such a thing.
If someone dies everytime my dog gets sick is normal. How many people die every day? It stands to reason that when my dog gets sick someone will have died. Attributing my dog getting sick as some sort of detection of that fact is ridiculous. Your mother story is on par with my dog story. I made up the dog story just as I am sure you made up your mother story.
"Ok let's even entertain that. Let's say every time your dog got sick a family member died and it was scientically tested and proven. Would that demonstrate souls? Im not talking psychic thoughts im saying the second a person died your dog got sick. Would that prove souls?"
Of course it wouldn't, what on earth in your scenario demonstrates evidence for your conclusion?
Guys, I don't expect you to believe me, I wouldn't believe it either if I just heard it, but I'm asking if it turns out that one day the ability I mentioned or even ESP of any kind is ever proven, what would that mean? Would it be wiser to assume that demonstrates souls and an afterlife, or would it be smarter to say we do not know what it means, but it doesn't prove souls?
"...I'm asking if it turns out that one day the ability I mentioned or even ESP of any kind is ever proven..."
That's a very big if, RT. That's a river deep, mountain high IF, isn't it?
You're asking us:
Is x true?
If x is proven to be true?
So x is true?
Poor little argument! Listen to its screams! FUBAR!
RT: Is Myk's statement true? Do you make these posts and hypotheticals for some underlying motive? Because it seems to me based on the way you phrased the question and the way you are doggedly pursuing your idea of "souls" that you have an ulterior motive.
I'm getting a bit sick of the "If we can only get the atheists to think, THEN they'll see the TRUTH!" meme.
I'm going to say this once, so pay attention: atheists ARE atheists BECAUSE WE THINK! A lot. To dogdamn much some days. Jong I have a headache.
The chances of your mother connecting these experiences after the fact is a lot more likely than any precognition. Your brain is a master at pattern recognition, so it finds a pattern and intuits connections that aren't there. Souls are a supernatural claim about which science can say nothing, therefore, since my view of the world is rational and empirically driven, I don't have any comment about souls at all. Other than to say, I don't think their existence likely.
Oh and Breezy? Skepticism is the only sane way to approach the world: test every claim. Otherwise, you just end up believing in every dude with holey wrists that happens by.
Lol skepticism is not a sane way to approach the world. It is just as bad as blind belief. It is blind doubt. It is disbelieving a claim without reason. You can't be skeptical of claims which are already proven false. You can only be skeptical of claims you have no information about.
Take a look at what type of claims you're skeptical about. They're normally those you already think are false, and probably not those you think are true.
Okay, John I actually get what you are saying here. Skepticism can be blind. The approach of "I don't know and won't believe it until it is proven is better. That being said, we must not predict what we come across and have a preconceived idea of a conclusion.
I've said this many times. You have a great mind. I don't agree with your faith but I admire your mind. If only the other theists could use their minds as well as you and stop preaching, well, who knows, I might stop cursing!
"Lol skepticism is not a sane way to approach the world."
>>I'm sceptical about your claim.
"You can't be skeptical of claims which are already proven false. You can only be skeptical of claims you have no information about."
And you think we should start believing things we have "no information for"? I'm sceptical again.
----------------------
"Take a look at what type of claims you're skeptical about. They're normally those you already think are false, and probably not those you think are true."
It's hardly a surprise is it, since claims I believe have compelling evidence to support them that is commensurate to the claim, and I disbelieve and am therefore sceptical about claims precisely because there is no evidence to support them. The main difference between us is not that I am sceptical, but that I apply it objectively to all claims, whereas you favour your religious beliefs in an obviously subjective way.
"And you think we should start believing things we have 'no information for'?"
------------------
>> If I thought that, I would have stated that. But given that I claimed skepticism was just as bad as blind belief, I'm left puzzled at how your brain concluded that I therefore want people to believe things blindly.
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***
>>
----------------------------
To be skeptical only means you don't take a claim at face value. You disbelieve claims that seem improbable until you get evidence in support of the claim. It isn't blind disbelief at all. Why do you even think that?
Skepticism is the opposite of gullibility, not the opposite of belief. A skeptical approach to life means you take new claims on a progression:
1. I learn of a claim new to me (Ex. Iceland is not, in fact, covered in ice)
2. I investigate the claim to see if there is support for it
3. I choose to believe or disbelieve the claim based on the evidence or lack thereof
4. Should evidence later be discovered/disproven I adjust my beliefs accordingly
It's simply using the scientific method to interpret the world. By what rationale do you question the sanity of such an approach?
I agree with those four points, but that isn't what people do. They hear a new claim. They see how it holds up to their worldview. If it doesn't, they become skeptical (they don't believe it). Then they walk away, proud of their intellectual rigor.
You are right that it is the opposite of gullibility, but the opposite is not inquisitiveness but incredulity. I'm not a skeptic, and notice I was the only one in the thread not jumping to conclusions, giving the OP the benefit of the doubt, seeking to understand, almost defending it at times, despite such claims going completely against my worldview. If there is anything worth being skeptical about, is my own understanding and my own skepticism.
Investigate a claim, and using the scientific method are not the same as skepticism. Evident by the fact that people are skeptical first, and investigate second, rather than investigating first, and then reaching a conclusion.
I think it's possible you are interpreting the word skeptical in light of your experience with those you perceive as closed-minded.
The definition of skeptical (according to google) is: not easily convinced; having doubts or reservations.
Again, simply the opposite of gullible. Perhaps that's where the confusion is coming from.
At any rate, I agree with you that blind belief and blind disbelief are two sides of the same blind coin. Both intellectually useless positions.
I think I just stand at a vantage point where I can see how biased people's "skepticism" can be.
Notice your google definition. Doubts and reservations are useless if there is evidence available. Which means you can only be skeptical when you don't know the truth about something. If you don't know the truth, why start out biased against the claim? Nothing good can come of it.
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