Announcement

Collapse

Philosophy 201 Guidelines

Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less

The Stare...

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    Why do you think that every phenomenon is subject to scientific investigation? Why is science the last word?
    It might not be, but in this case we'd have no way independently of finding it out. If you have faith in this phenomenon seer, then by all means believe it. I'm not going to stop you. But if you're talking to others about it, we have the right to ask questions.

    My first question is "Can we verify it?" And that means putting up controlled tests. And in those tests it just so happens that it cannot be verified.

    We know humans are very good at fooling themselves. So I have to way to plausibility you're proposing, that this phenomenon is real, even without having any plausible mechanism of happening, second that it is real but it is so construed as to perfect avoid scientific testing.

    The former I could accept, as long as we could verify it. That would be quite a surprising find. That's what the whole field of parapsychology was about back when scientists were testing if there was something to these claims. And I'm always open for such things to be discovered. I'd love to see it happen. You only introduced these explanandums, after Rogue and I mentioned that these things had been tested, and the tests were negative. That's a really bad sign seer, its a bit like patching up a bad theory with new things that are themselves untested. Each one makes it more and more implausible.

    So I don't think the phenomenon says anything about humans having psychic connection. It does say something about how we perceive the world. That seems a much simpler explanation.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
      It can. They would have people be stared at at various times and see if they felt anything (you know, the reason why you would turn around) and found no correlation whatsoever.
      And if a study claimed that there was no immaterial soul you would believe it? But again, you are adding an extra dynamic - the testing itself may be adding an influence not found in the wild, so to speak.
      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by seer View Post
        And if a study claimed that there was no immaterial soul you would believe it?
        Not sure how you'd scientifically test for the existence of the soul. Whether we have a soul or not I think belongs to a discussion of philosophy and theory of mind, and what is necessary so that we can have experiences, or that our thoughts can be real be about things, etc...

        However if it turned out that thomistic hylemorphic dualism, or cartesian dualism, or property dualism had naturalistic commitments about how the natural world ought to work that we could test for, and we did those tests, and they weren't consistent with us having immaterial souls? Then we wouldn't have them, and I'd become a physicalist.

        Though I highly doubt we'd ever be in such a situation.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by seer View Post
          And if a study claimed that there was no immaterial soul you would believe it? But again, you are adding an extra dynamic - the testing itself may be adding an influence not found in the wild, so to speak.
          I'd say that is very different since there is no way to test for that. People being able to sense being stared at... Even Middle School kids could design a test for it.

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
            I'd say that is very different since there is no way to test for that. People being able to sense being stared at... Even Middle School kids could design a test for it.
            How do you know that it is an ability that most people have, or if it is a phenomenon that only presents itself at particular times under particular conditions?
            Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by seer View Post
              How do you know that it is an ability that most people have, or if it is a phenomenon that only presents itself at particular times under particular conditions?
              Well, depending on how narrow you make those conditions in principle it could still be tested for, it would just be rare and increasingly difficult to show that it was a real phenomenon and not merely just chance and human bias.

              The question is why you'd think all the special circumstances has to be there?

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                The question is why you'd think all the special circumstances has to be there?
                I don't know, perhaps the mind has to be in a certain mode or thinking or non-thinking pattern...
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                Comment


                • #23
                  Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                  Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                  sigpic
                  I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                    I remember back when I was little watching a Lassie movie, and the dog was looking at the boy in school through a window. After a while furrowed his brow and looked outside, having felt her watching him.

                    I think we've all felt something like that.



                    It is a strange phenomenon. However when its tested in double-blinded controlled experiments, there's nothing to find. This means that whatever evidence we have, it indicates that there's no effect.

                    Its not a matter of the science being a mean old judge seer. Its just that if you actually test it, this is what we find. I choose to base my beliefs on scientific evidence.

                    That still leaves us with the phenomenon. Just because we can't actually cause someone else to feel that someone is watching them, at a higher degree than chance, doesn't mean that there's no a social phenomenon. Why do we perceive this thing that you describe?

                    I personally think its a bit of the gamblers fallacy. We tend to remember the hits, and never the misses. That can leave someone with the false impression that they can make people sense that they're being looked at.
                    Or the parameters aren't well enough understood to properly design the experiment.

                    There are a lot of things we are only just beginning to understand - it's best not to utterly dismiss something not well understood on the basis of a few experiments - that can come back to bite. It's also perfectly okay to be satisfied with the results and go find other toys to play with.

                    'Science' has a bad habit of telling people what they know - and occasionally finding out that experience is more than an inconvenience to be dismissed when it conflicts with your results. We ended up with the gorilla and a few other critters that way. Not to mention the thing with eggs...
                    "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                    "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                    My Personal Blog

                    My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                    Quill Sword

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                      Well, depending on how narrow you make those conditions in principle it could still be tested for, it would just be rare and increasingly difficult to show that it was a real phenomenon and not merely just chance and human bias.

                      The question is why you'd think all the special circumstances has to be there?



                      Not really a fair question, Leo - Seer's point should have been covered in the methodology either as how it was taken into account or why it was not.

                      I don't actually accept the existence of ESP - but I've seen some of the studies refuting it and the methodology on some was horrid - Venkman's has more merit than one of the things I read. Little wonder that proponents take the science with a large grain of salt.
                      "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                      "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                      My Personal Blog

                      My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                      Quill Sword

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by seer View Post
                        How do you know that it is an ability that most people have, or if it is a phenomenon that only presents itself at particular times under particular conditions?
                        I just passed an ad’ for the nut nut’s nut and thought of you. How spooky is that?
                        “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                        “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                        “not all there” - you know who you are

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                          I just passed an ad’ for the nut nut’s nut and thought of you. How spooky is that?
                          I'm staring at you right now FF - can you sense it?
                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            I suspect what is happening is a reaction to subliminal observations.

                            When I was in college in San Francisco long ago I spotted someone tailing me in the crowded streets of the city.. I later decided it was the FBI. My room mate was the grandson of some Jews who had left Russia to live in the USA. My room mate had visited a Russian book store a day or two earlier. That afternoon I say a car parked across the street from our apartment with two men parked in it. Nothing odd about that except when they saw me looking at them they drove away and a little later parked a ways up the hill from us, still across the street. Am I super observant or did something I picked up on without realizing it give them away?
                            Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post
                              I suspect what is happening is a reaction to subliminal observations.

                              When I was in college in San Francisco long ago I spotted someone tailing me in the crowded streets of the city.. I later decided it was the FBI. My room mate was the grandson of some Jews who had left Russia to live in the USA. My room mate had visited a Russian book store a day or two earlier. That afternoon I say a car parked across the street from our apartment with two men parked in it. Nothing odd about that except when they saw me looking at them they drove away and a little later parked a ways up the hill from us, still across the street. Am I super observant or did something I picked up on without realizing it give them away?
                              You were using your spidey sense...
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                While you can argue that more and better tests are needed before anything can be said conclusively the incontrovertible fact remains that all studies that have looked into it have found nothing.

                                I'll also note that the many times that someone turns around and there is nobody looking their way -- or even anyone behind them at all -- tends to get forgotten and the time that someone was looking at them (or merely in their direction) tends to get remembered. A similar phenomena has been repeatedly documented wrt those who claim to be psychic and rattle of a list of things asking if they mean anything and the subject forgets about the half dozen or more misses and focuses on the one hit (study cold reading for how this works)

                                I'm always still in trouble again

                                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by shunyadragon, 03-01-2024, 09:40 AM
                                160 responses
                                508 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post JimL
                                by JimL
                                 
                                Started by seer, 02-15-2024, 11:24 AM
                                88 responses
                                354 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Started by Diogenes, 01-22-2024, 07:37 PM
                                21 responses
                                133 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Working...
                                X