I’m not trying to be mean, but you knew this forum was an English language based one before you joined. You joined anyway in order to have a “debate’ which, according to you, is unlikely to happen due to your trouble with the language. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

ORZIL wrote:
what is your opinion about Rationalism?
Is scientific skepticism against Rationalism?

Well, we have to be clear first as the word can mean different things.

In Philosophy, rationalism is the position that reason is the source and test of knowledge.

More generally, rationalism would mean that belief and opinions should be grounded on knowledge rather than, say, tradition, or conviction, or emotions.

The former I can't quite accept because I am more of an empiricist - the proof of the pudding is in the pudding itself. Our reason is all we've got, and it's vital to employ it, but it can also produce the wrong answers. We also need to remember that it is our reason which tells us that our reason is sound - you'll find no end of people who are absolutely convinced that they're right about everything (illusory superiority) - according to their reason - but from other peoples' perspective, their reasoning is not sound. As such, we need a better arbiter of what's true than just our thoughts or capacity to think through things. For that I would say that empirical evidence and observation is superior.

But that's only within the remit of deciding on what's true, what exists, what is manifest in the universe. I am happy to defer to emotional reasoning where it's warranted. I don't need to reason out why I find a particular scene beautiful, or why I value honesty, or what taste appeals to me - these aren't relevant to reason, they are just to be enjoyed or inspired by.

The second definition, though, I think is vital... and I think it's a component sorely missing in much of humanity. I think it needs to be instilled from a young age through critical thinking exercises. People are far too easily exploited and misled when they deny knowledge in favour of their opinions which they mistake as fact. In worst case scenarios, it can result in the very worst behaviors of humanity - absolute certainty is a very dangerous thing for us ground apes. Reasoning grounded on knowledge tends to produce the opposite result: the more we know, the more complex things are, and the less we can pretend to sufficient understanding to maintain the self-delusion of certainty.

Fallible wrote:I’m not trying to be mean, but you knew this forum was an English language based one before you joined. You joined anyway in order to have a “debate’ which, according to you, is unlikely to happen due to your trouble with the language. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

I want to know how skeptical thinking works.
What Does Invisible Pink Unicorn Mean?

A faint whiff of hosiery.

ORZIL wrote:I want to know how skeptical thinking works.

One way it works is by being skeptical that you are not lying in the above statement. That's because...

ORZIL wrote:What Does Invisible Pink Unicorn Mean?

... is something you could look up for yourself on the internet, the use of which you seem to have a rudimentary understanding. You could even read about it in Spanish. Don't thank me too profusely just yet. Although my remarks might resemble an attempt to assist you, that is not what my primary aim is.

ORZIL wrote:
I want to know how skeptical thinking works.

I've given you examples above.

Do you have any questions about what I've written, or would you like to challenge anything?

ORZIL wrote:

Fallible wrote:I’m not trying to be mean, but you knew this forum was an English language based one before you joined. You joined anyway in order to have a “debate’ which, according to you, is unlikely to happen due to your trouble with the language. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

I want to know how skeptical thinking works.

So in order to do that, you start with a claim about what ghosts are, retreat to a PM with one member, ask him to read 2 whole books about spiritism and make no post which is longer than 4 sentences. Sounds legit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism

In philosophy, skepticism can refer to:

a mode of inquiry that emphasizes critical scrutiny, caution, and intellectual rigor;
a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing;
a set of claims about the limitations of human knowledge and the proper response to such limitations.

And that's pretty well all you need to know. Hold belief in proportion to evidence. Avoid bias. Avoid overconfidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

The IPU is used to argue that supernatural beliefs are arbitrary by, for example, replacing the word God in any theistic statement with Invisible Pink Unicorn.[3] The mutually exclusive attributes of pinkness and invisibility, coupled with the inability to disprove the IPU's existence, satirize properties that some theists attribute to a theistic deity.[4]

Fallible wrote:

ORZIL wrote:

Fallible wrote:I’m not trying to be mean, but you knew this forum was an English language based one before you joined. You joined anyway in order to have a “debate’ which, according to you, is unlikely to happen due to your trouble with the language. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

I want to know how skeptical thinking works.

So in order to do that, you start with a claim about what ghosts are, retreat to a PM with one member, ask him to read 2 whole books about spiritism and make no post which is longer than 4 sentences. Sounds legit.

This video refutes this belief in ghosts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUIjDncKZbM

I don't know what I expected from that video, but it wasn't that.

I don't see much connection with the post it's a reply to, but I do like Sean Carroll.

ORZIL wrote:

Fallible wrote:

ORZIL wrote:

Fallible wrote:I’m not trying to be mean, but you knew this forum was an English language based one before you joined. You joined anyway in order to have a “debate’ which, according to you, is unlikely to happen due to your trouble with the language. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

I want to know how skeptical thinking works.

So in order to do that, you start with a claim about what ghosts are, retreat to a PM with one member, ask him to read 2 whole books about spiritism and make no post which is longer than 4 sentences. Sounds legit.

This video refutes this belief in ghosts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUIjDncKZbM

Ok...and? So what?

Scot Dutchy wrote:Is this a serious thread?

supposedly, I don't know that Orzil character, but the thread starts to feel like the one about evolution with JJ as the woo pusher.

Spearthrower wrote:

ORZIL wrote:
in the Spirits' Book
from page 23 to page 30
item 3 to item 5 of the introduction.

Aha, finally... thank you!

ORZIL wrote:I don't know the english language
I use a translator who misses the word.

Ok, I understand. I will try to be direct in meaning and not use idiomatic language or expressions.

I'll start addressing these items in the next post to keep this clear.

The book of Spirits? seriously? you intend to find in that book evidence of anything beyond the fact that allan kardec was a glib liear and that bored bourgeois will believe anything?

ORZIL wrote:
This video refutes this belief in ghosts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUIjDncKZbM

Ok, so the video's core points are:

1) The mind is the brain.

2) The brain is made of atoms.

3) We know how atoms work.

4) There is no way for "you" to persist after death.


So do you accept those points?

Or do you challenge any of them?

My personal favorite thing about these ghost hunters is to watch them scurry about with all manners of test and measurement equipment. All the while having no fucking idea what they are measuring or how that thing being measured correlates in any way to ghosts.

It’s just kids playing with toys.


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The_Metatron wrote:My personal favorite thing about these ghost hunters is to watch them scurry about with all manners of test and measurement equipment. All the while having no fucking idea what they are measuring or how that thing being measured correlates in any way to ghosts.

It’s just kids playing with toys.

I always want to know why it's just special humans that have special souls that can go on and be soul things in the after-death, and if it's not just humans that have souls, why don't we see ant ghosts all the fucking time? There must have been many orders of magnitude more ants that lived and died than humans, yet it's always a girl in a old fashioned dress, or a stern man in a bowler hat that are reported... never ghost ants!

Now that’s just wrong. There are also monks and nuns.

Its claimed a ghost bear haunts the Tower of London. Just saying.

You know,I think we are all overlooking Gef the talking mongoose from Cashen’s Gap.

Well, yes. Obviously.

And how could we forget Wortfish's Warp Drive Enabled Psychic Ghost cat?