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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
 Posted - 08/27/2008 : 23:39:54 [Permalink]
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"The mission of the Skeptic Friends Network is to promote skepticism, critical thinking, science and logic as the best methods for evaluating all claims of fact, and we invite active participation by our members to create a skeptical community with a wide variety of viewpoints and expertise".
What are facts? They are merely consensus based conclusions based on our limited mental capabilities and the reliance upon the limited scientific tools we create to measure such mundane things. These so-called facts are based partly on common sense so they can be accepted and believed by the majority and based partly on the superior authority of the experts who tell us they have special access to specialized tools, areas of study, societies and foundations etc.
Facts should never be confused with truth, however - facts are just a convenient way to describe a reality in a way that makes sense to our limited mental capabilities and corresponds to a reality that authority figures want to sell us to fit in with their agendas. We can never know what truth is without direct experience of it without the need to depend upon unreliable sensory input, external measuring instruments and authority figures.
This means that facts can actually be and nearly always are manipulated and used to back up certain commonly held viewpoints that may have no actual validity.
Fact - Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. True or false? No way of knowing. We have instruments that can see into space but what limitations are they operating under?
Could there be a larger planet beyond the detection of our scientific instruments and senses? There is also the time factor - we are not dealing with universal truth if everything is subject to change and even destruction. Everything we believe in and take comfort in depends on too many ever changing variables.
In the book/movie 1984 a tortured man is invited to tell his torturer how many fingers he is holding up. What is the right answer - what his senses tell him or compliance to an overriding authority that he is compelled to obey? Truth in the end becomes what we are told.
That is rather unfortunate.
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2008 : 23:42:00 [Permalink]
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"The mission of the Skeptic Friends Network is to promote skepticism, critical thinking, science and logic as the best methods for evaluating all claims of fact, and we invite active participation by our members to create a skeptical community with a wide variety of viewpoints and expertise".
"The mission of the Skeptic Friends Network is to promote skepticism, critical thinking, science and logic as the best methods for evaluating all claims of fact, and we invite active participation by our members to create a skeptical community with a wide variety of viewpoints and expertise".
What are facts? They are merely consensus based conclusions based on our limited mental capabilities and the reliance upon the limited scientific tools we create to measure such mundane things. These so-called facts are based partly on common sense so they can be accepted and believed by the majority and based partly on the superior authority of the experts who tell us they have special access to specialized tools, areas of study, societies and foundations etc.
Facts should never be confused with truth, however - facts are just a convenient way to describe a reality in a way that makes sense to our limited mental capabilities and corresponds to a reality that authority figures want to sell us to fit in with their agendas. We can never know what truth is without direct experience of it without the need to depend upon unreliable sensory input, external measuring instruments and authority figures.
This means that facts can actually be and nearly always are manipulated and used to back up certain commonly held viewpoints that may have no actual validity.
Fact - Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. True or false? No way of knowing. We have instruments that can see into space but what limitations are they operating under?
Could there be a larger planet beyond the detection of our scientific instruments and senses? There is also the time factor - we are not dealing with universal truth if everything is subject to change and even destruction. Everything we believe in and take comfort in depends on too many ever changing variables.
In the book/movie 1984 a tortured man is invited to tell his torturer how many fingers he is holding up. What is the right answer - what his senses tell him or compliance to an overriding authority that he is compelled to obey? Truth in the end becomes what we are told.
That is rather unfortunate.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 00:25:48 [Permalink]
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Gary 7.1.....
Hey Gary, you're talking to a bunch of pretty down-to earth, ordinary folks who have a common proclivity to question nonsense and pretty quickly label it as such.
What the hell are you trying to say, why are you trying to say it, and whom are you addressing? Most of your words are utter verbal incoherence - enunciated noise without sensible referents. No intelligent person could comprehend more than a hint of meaning in what you have said.
We are intelligent people. Speak to us in sensible, coherent sentences. State your beliefs. offer your point of view, unusual as it may be, in simple, declarative sentences. You will receive response in kind.Fact - Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. True or false? No way of knowing. We have instruments that can see into space but what limitations are they operating under?
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"Planet", "solar system", "largest", have long been defined in universally agreed-upon terms. You differ. Please substantiate your reasoning. You sound like a crackpot, but if you are not, demonstrate that fact with evidence , not endless neo-Socratic questioning.
Otherwise, go find an Internet collection of fractured pottery like yourself and hold forth there! |
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 00:58:59 [Permalink]
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I think I'm saying that skeptics are supporting a system in which subtle, yet very oppressive mind control operates keeping the human consciousness operating on a very basic and constricted level.
Facts become lies, because they haven't been derived by means of higher levels of consciousness.
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 01:13:23 [Permalink]
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It is the skeptics who cannot provide anything - NOT ONE THING to give support to their points of view and not me. I am just expressing the opinion that higher states of consciousness exist and can be utilized to experience higher truths that can exist independent of the externally imposed restrictions of proof, believability and logic.
If you think you can prove me wrong then go ahead.
If you don't understand my argument, I suggest you don't join in the debate or else you might become an annoying obstacle to any sensible discussion of a very serious topic which is the central theme of the forums here.
If you are saying you don't like free speech and free thought then state this clearly please and give your reasons. |
| Edited by - Gary 7.1 on 08/28/2008 01:14:32 |
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 01:19:59 [Permalink]
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| If we cannot question things then how will we ever evolve? |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 08/28/2008 : 03:49:37 [Permalink]
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Hi Gary(s). Don't know how I missed this thread, as I don't recall being in hospital back in July, '07. Anyhow:
Originally posted by Gary 7.1
If we cannot question things then how will we ever evolve?
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What exactly, do you think a skeptic does? We question everything that has no empirical evidence to support it, and that covers a lot of territory.
Re: dowsing for land mines; A few optimists undoubtably have tried it over the decades (likely with predictable results) but it was not done in Vietnam with any official sanction. While I admit that my part there was a minute one, I never heard of any dowser being stupid enough to try it.
Dowsing has been demonstrated in double-blind tests not to work, and not only once. Dowsers have been tested many times and their results have never been any better than Blind Hog (even a blind hog'll find an acorn now & again). But the really sad part is that even when presented with unqualified failure, they persist in the belief. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Randi's no longer bothering to test dowsers.
That is not to say that dowsers are not successful, no. Some of them certainly are. But these operate in places where the aquifers are fairly close to the land's surface and they can't miss -- they could dig the well anywhere on the property. I've known a couple in northern VT. There are even dowsing festivals where vendors sell various divining devices and everybody dowses furiously, listens to music, drinks bellywash, and generally has a lot of fun. And that is the only positive result any dowser, other than the above mentioned, ever achieved.
It's easy to accept the metaphysical. It's rather like a belief in God, isn't it; you can't prove it's existence nor can I disprove it. But I'd advise that as soon as some divine, psychic, preacher, crypto-freak, corpse-channeler, or New Age woo-woo greets you, put your pocketbook in your boot and your wristwatch in your mouth before you shake his hand, and leave them there until you're confident that he's not after 'em. It's a tough & slippery, ol' world, bro.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 04:29:39 [Permalink]
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What if in the double blind tests the users were not sufficiently competent to use their dowsing instruments - does that disprove dowsing?
The dowsers may had years of dowsing experience behind them, but did they engage in other activities to sensitize their dowsing skills?
Were they even aware of the need to do so?
The double blind tests actually prove nothing and yet something makes you believe they did. You are a victim of thought control - you have been bamboozled and even failed in your role of skeptic, because you did not apply your skepticism to the validity of the test data.
What does a skeptic of a skeptic do? He questions the ability of skeptics to think and act without prejudice and freedom from programmed thought patterns and responses. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26031 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 04:47:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gary 7.1
My problem lies with mind control issues. True scientific exploration requires full investigation of new things by all means available.
Yes, even training the mind to reach higher states of consciousness and producing specific information from the perspective of these higher states.
Everything is created by mind - matter cannot be observed without the observer changing it in some way.
Mind consists of different levels of consciousness and can never be restricted by logical argument or stifled by lack of proof under so-called laboratory conditions.
Nor the insistence that words must always convey the same meanings that others in authority have set out for us. |
My translation of the above: "I reserve the right to make stuff up, and I demand that other people take my made-up stuff seriously."
You also wrote:| These so-called facts are based partly on common sense so they can be accepted and believed by the majority and based partly on the superior authority of the experts who tell us they have special access to specialized tools, areas of study, societies and foundations etc. |
Yes, Gary, you're a rebel underdog fighting a totalitarian authority.
You also wrote:| I think I'm saying that skeptics are supporting a system in which subtle, yet very oppressive mind control operates keeping the human consciousness operating on a very basic and constricted level. |
We get it, Gary. You dream that you're a rebel, but you're a rebel without a clue. Why? You've made it impossible to "debate" or "discuss" anything with you because you insist on being able to change the meanings of words at will.
If I am allowed the same freedom with meaning and logic that you demand for yourself, Gary, then because purple hazy hotdogs frolic gloriously among the even-tempered turtlesdoves, it is obvious that you, Gary, are wrong but you're so mind-controlled that you will never know it, and any response from you will be nothing less than a verification of that metaphysical truth. I suggest you read this article, Gary, if you're not afraid of reality.
You also wrote:| What does a skeptic of a skeptic do? He questions the ability of skeptics to think and act without prejudice and freedom from programmed thought patterns and responses. |
I question your ability to do that, Gary. Must make me a skeptic of a skeptic of a skeptic. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 05:01:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gary 7.1
What if in the double blind tests the users were not sufficiently competent to use their dowsing instruments - does that disprove dowsing?
The dowsers may had years of dowsing experience behind them, but did they engage in other activities to sensitize their dowsing skills?
Were they even aware of the need to do so?
The double blind tests actually prove nothing and yet something makes you believe they did. You are a victim of thought control - you have been bamboozled and even failed in your role of skeptic, because you did not apply your skepticism to the validity of the test data.
What does a skeptic of a skeptic do? He questions the ability of skeptics to think and act without prejudice and freedom from programmed thought patterns and responses.
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Now that is nothing more than apologetics, and not very good apologetics at that. Do you know what a double-blind test is and how it's done?
Please inform me as to what "activities" a dowser might do (or avoid) to "enhance" his alledged skills. Trade his rods for a forked, willow twig, mayhap? Willow is the old, traditional dowsing rod due to that tree's affinity for water. And I remind; there have been literally hundreds of these tests -- you'd think that someone would have aced one by now. It's yet to happen. Ain't gonna happen in any honest test.
Re: the bolded paragraph: Going argumentum ad hominem is the surest sign of a losing argument. I strongly reccommend that you don't use it here, but leave it for the politicians.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 08/28/2008 05:03:32 |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 06:36:53 [Permalink]
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| How big is that hole in your head Gary? |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13481 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 08:16:15 [Permalink]
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Gary:
What if in the double blind tests the users were not sufficiently competent to use their dowsing instruments - does that disprove dowsing?
The dowsers may had years of dowsing experience behind them, but did they engage in other activities to sensitize their dowsing skills?
Were they even aware of the need to do so? |
It should be pointed out to Gary that the protocols of any scientific test for dowsing were agreed upon by the dowser. And the dowser had the right to reject or alter the test if he felt that what was proposed would not produce positive results. Great latitude is given to the dowsers in the test designs. That is for the obvious reason that the dowser should not have the excuse of accepting a test unfairly weighted against testing his claimed skills. So far, under agreed protocols, all testers have not done better than chance, and often worse.
Because the dowser must agree to the protocols, often helping to design them, any charge that the tests are unfair is just whining. Most dowsers have been very gracious at the time of their failures.
There is also the perception by folks like Gary that the skeptics want the dowser to fail. That is not true. What skeptics seek is empirical evidence that the claim has validity. Many, like myself, would welcome a positive result of a paranormal claim.
How cool would that be?
But Gary can't go there. To admit that the tests have been fair and that so far have ended in failure would blow his perception of us as evildoers standing in the way of progress as he sees it. He has no choice because, unlike us, he is armed with a certainty that makes correction impossible. He is stuck and closed-minded. He is blind to the fact that the very tests that he deplores are an example of our open-mindedness. He doesn't get that we have a willingness to be wrong if that is where the evidence takes us.
We only doubt. Doubt is the motivator of inquiry. Gary is unencumbered with doubt and is therefore unmovable, unreasonable and trapped. Trapped because Gary can only accept evidence that confirms his beliefs. And if the evidence doesn't confirm his beliefs he will yell foul or torture the evidence until it fits.
It's sad, really...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 08:32:33 [Permalink]
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Dowsing has long been something of an interest to me. I once thought I could do it, but couldn't. I've told the tale on these hallowed boards a couple of times; that of how I refuted myself. It‘s tedious enough that I‘ll not bother with it again, at least not now. The linked article only covers dowsers going back a few thousand years, but I believe that, in one form or another, the practice dates back to the dawn of sapience.
Dowsing is no more than an attempt to glean information from supernatural sources. Anything from the casting of bones to stirring about in the entrails of whatever the shaman/dowser has managed to club over the head and drag home is a form of dowsing. Hell, attempting to decipher the gibberish of Michael d' Notradame and casting the Tarot can be considered dowsing as well. And dowsers past and present have milked it like a cow with an eight-titted udder.
This is not to say that they are all a pack of thieves & flim-flammers, you understand. Virtually all of the dowsers I've met, and there have been quite a few (I used to occasionally go to afore-mentioned festivals -- they really are a lot of fun!), sincerely believe that they have the “gift.” And I've met only a couple that charged for the service. In fact, I consider them to be some of the more honest paranormal practitioners extant.
Here's a trick you can pull on unwary friends of grandchildren; make up a set of witch'n rods, or cut a twig and show them how to hold it, and take them out to a place where there is a water pipe running underground from a pump house to the main house, or the urban, possibly indoor version of that, and ask them to see if they can find it -- this is exactly the thing that convinced me that I could do it, until I gave it some thought. So, they take the rods/twig in hand, and they will find that pipe exactly almost every time. This leads to great juvenile excitement, until you explain that pipes are mostly laid in straight lines and they knew the beginning & the end of it going in, making the rest of it painfully obvious. From there, it's all ideomotor effect (leading to a tedious explanation of that, which is why I don‘t do it very often. Also, the friends of my grands are no longer unwary where I am concerned). 
A dowser at work, from Pierre le Brun, Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses, (Jean-Frederic Bernard, 1733–1736).
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:01:10 [Permalink]
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Please give me some examples of what double-blind tests are capable of proving and more importantly what things have they ever manged to prove? |
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Gary 7.1
Skeptic Friend
51 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:19:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Gary:
What if in the double blind tests the users were not sufficiently competent to use their dowsing instruments - does that disprove dowsing?
The dowsers may had years of dowsing experience behind them, but did they engage in other activities to sensitize their dowsing skills?
Were they even aware of the need to do so? |
It should be pointed out to Gary that the protocols of any scientific test for dowsing were agreed upon by the dowser. And the dowser had the right to reject or alter the test if he felt that what was proposed would not produce positive results. Great latitude is given to the dowsers in the test designs. That is for the obvious reason that the dowser should not have the excuse of accepting a test unfairly weighted against testing his claimed skills. So far, under agreed protocols, all testers have not done better than chance, and often worse.
Because the dowser must agree to the protocols, often helping to design them, any charge that the tests are unfair is just whining. Most dowsers have been very gracious at the time of their failures.
There is also the perception by folks like Gary that the skeptics want the dowser to fail. That is not true. What skeptics seek is empirical evidence that the claim has validity. Many, like myself, would welcome a positive result of a paranormal claim.
How cool would that be?
But Gary can't go there. To admit that the tests have been fair and that so far have ended in failure would blow his perception of us as evildoers standing in the way of progress as he sees it. He has no choice because, unlike us, he is armed with a certainty that makes correction impossible. He is stuck and closed-minded. He is blind to the fact that the very tests that he deplores are an example of our open-mindedness. He doesn't get that we have a willingness to be wrong if that is where the evidence takes us.
We only doubt. Doubt is the motivator of inquiry. Gary is unencumbered with doubt and is therefore unmovable, unreasonable and trapped. Trapped because Gary can only accept evidence that confirms his beliefs. And if the evidence doesn't confirm his beliefs he will yell foul or torture the evidence until it fits.
It's sad, really...
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Any experienced dowser knows that any scientific testing of dowsing would come out negative. Dowsing is a form of communication with the higher consciousness. Pendulums often give false positives and negatives, but this, is an important part of the communication process and there are reasons for it. Under laboratory conditions these false positives cannot be categorized and assessed properly.
More importantly people are offering a million dollars to anyone capable of demonstrating psychic powers under strict laboratory conditions. It's obvious it can never be done. So why all the horsing around and play acting?
It doesn't mean that psychic stuff is just imagination, though. It's just something that lies beyond limited human comprehension and beyond the limited measuring parameters of the tools that our limited intelligence can design and manufacture.
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| Edited by - Gary 7.1 on 08/28/2008 09:25:43 |
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Shirley Maclaine & Kevin Ryerson
