Posted: Nov 19, 2019 5:16 pm
Spearthrower wrote:
Ok, so are you going to answer them?ORZIL wrote:mediumship proves that spirits interact with matter.
No, obviously not as that begs the question. Mediumship is the alleged practice of communing with spirits, ergo it is itself predicated on the existence of spirits and can no further be considered 'proof' than simply asserting that spirits exist.
I am not sure how to communicate some of these things to you unless your English is very good, but your argument is fallacious - it's 'begging the question, or in Latin petitio principii - or assuming the very point you seek to establish.
Also I think it's important we make a clear distinction here. Proof is not relevant to claims or arguments unless it's in a court of law, or in math or formal logic. With respect to epistemology (how we can know things) or ontology (what things exist) you cannot appeal to 'proof', you can only show 'evidence'.
Evidence will make me change my mind. Only evidence will make me change my mind. You will note that my questions above already targeted in on evidence, so let's be clear: evidence, as you will know sharing a Latin language, has the same stem word as 'evident' or clearly, obviously, unarguably there. So even if I can't see something, if it gives off heat that I can measure, then there's something there. If I can't see something, but I can weigh it and it consistently shows the same weight, then there is something there. Obviously, being able to see something is usually sufficient, but of course, we do need to be clear that what we're seeing isn't merely an illusion.
So, something vital to the ensuing discussion is that you realize and appreciate that you asserting something at me is not going to convince me. You can save your time right now as I will not accept any assertion as establishing knowledge or existence. You will need to give me the means to empirically verify your claim for myself. This is not an arduous requirement given that your claim is predicated on you possessing knowledge, and therefore you must have some means to validate your belief, so that belief should be equally amenable to me.ORZIL wrote:In this debate I can learn a lot about skepticism.
It's not a hard principle - it boils down to: how do you know that?
If you can tell me how you know that, and I can go and perform the same methods and also acquire the same knowledge, then I will be obliged to grant your claim validity.ORZIL wrote:I can abandon these beliefs.
I would suggest you do so as they almost certainly do not exist independently of other beliefs, and this belief goes onto inform you of other things, so if this belief is false - which I think it must be given all we know of the universe - then it is misleading you.ORZIL wrote:It's going to be a long debate.
I am not so sure it will be a long debate, although it might be a long exchange. My experience suggests that the debate portion will cease fairly quickly. Happy to be shown wrong though.
ORZIL wrote:Are you willing to learn things you don't know yet?
There would be much point in learning things I already do know, would there?
@Spearthrower:
the important you. was not hostile against me, despite my belief.
The subject has not been studied, because they have declared it in advance to be a pseudo-science. You cannot have any evidence if you never study the subject. To say there is no evidence in an absence of study is an appeal to ignorance.
This is called abductive inference. It is a weak form of inference where one only finds what one is looking for.