DeLurking

First we should define "chair" and place it in context

phil

True, love and hate are perceptions of the mind, but aren't sight, sound etc. too? The normal 5 senses of taste, touch etc. are direct perceptions while things like love, hate etc. are derived from experiences recieved from the five senses.

However, it is still the mind that percieves whether something is hot or loud etc. and it is still the mind that percieves love, hate etc.

How would you prove love, hate etc. existed if you did not consider the perception of the mind a valid 'sense'?

For those that insist on being silly, how about the Argument from Making People Sound Stupid?

I can make an absurd statement that makes you sound stupid.

Therefore, I am right.

Come on, if I was trying to prove God exists, I would be providing evidence instead of absurd statements like "Since I can concieve of God, he exists". The purpose of this thread is to show what kinds of evidence would be acceptable.

-phil

Mageth

Here's your OP:

I propose a challange.

Most of you are sitting in a chair at your computer. Give undeniable proof that your chair exists, without a shadow of a doubt.

If you can't prove your chair exists, how are you supposed to prove or disprove that God exists or doesn't exist?

Where in there did you indicate such a purpose for this thread? You were getting on about chairs!

And if your OP wasn't an attempt at an "Argument from Making People Sound Stupid", why title the thread with the inflammatory "Analyze This!"?

phil

True, I didn't state outright the purpose of the thread, it was kind of undercover. Also, to be honest, I've seen some people demand impossible (undeniable) evidence before, so I wanted to show them they shouldn't demand from others what they don't demand for themselves.

The title of the thread "Analyze This!" just sounded cool, so that's what I named it. I didn't mean for it to be inflamatory.

Anyway, I hoped to show that personal experience is valid evidence for proof of existence. I can see, touch, taste (eww!) the chair, therefore it exists.

Some people have denied personal experience as valid. How can they believe in the scientific method then?

In discussing the EoG we cannot require undeniable proof, but rather a body of evidence that points to the existence of God. Too many times people have posited the existence of God and people have said "prove it."

The truth is we cannot prove the existence of anything, but only collect evidence that points to existence. We cannot prove that gravity exists, yet every experiment involving (what we call) gravity points to its existence. To prove something conclusively would take an infinite amount of exeperiments, each one varying the variables.

Since people with finite existence cannot perform infinite experiments, they must settle for gathering enough information to point towards a 'proof'.

Finding a proof is like finding a limit. For example, finding the limit as x aproaches 2 of the function x^2. We know the answer is 4, but our 'proof' is the body of evidence that provides a trend. This trend shows us that when x is 2, y will most likely be 4.

In this thread, I am not trying to prove or disprove the EoG, but rather trying to 'prove' what evidence is acceptable to point towards the EoG or the non-EoG.

-phil

Hedshaker

I think I get it

If the chair exists, God MUST exist too. Obvious really.

I'm convinced See you in church


Not


btw. Hi

pariah

But couldn't the same argument be made for a God?

the scientific method is documented and can be repeated. anecdotal evidence cannot be tested like science can.

NonHomogenized

Personal experience isn't valid evidence, though. There's a very simple reason why: personal experience isn't objective. I cannot look at your experience, to see the same thing you did.

Easily; the scientific method doesn't presume that personal experience is objective; rather the opposite, it requires evidence which can be reproduced by anyone with the desire, and access to the needed materials.

As I said, personal experience is not objective. However, when anyone who wants to, can experience the same thing in the same conditions (ie, touching my chair, or tasting it, smelling it, seeing it, or, I suppose, hearing it), we consider this to be objective.

When people say "prove" here, they generally mean "prove beyond a reasonable doubt", not "prove absolutely". As a number of scientists (and scientists-in-training, such as myself) reside here, many are aware of the difficulties involved in dealing with absolutes.

Again, proof need not mean absolute proof, and, save the theists who ask for absolute proof that there is no god, you will rarely, if ever, see someone require absolute proof of anything. Usually, people will ask either for proof (as in, beyond a reasonable doubt), or they will ask for evidence (objective evidence, of course).

Darth Dane

Personal experience isn't valid evidence, though. There's a very simple reason why: personal experience isn't objective. I cannot look at your experience, to see the same thing you did.


I went walking and saw a horse.


Now I tell you here that I saw a horse.


You will most likely believe me, mainly I guess because you have also seen a horse...before listening to me.

My personal experience, cannot be validated, but you indirectly validate it, because it fits with what you know is possible to see in the world. And so you believe my words, you don't need my eyes.

If I say I saw an angel, then we enter the twillight zone, as you may not believe in "angels" or other religious stuff.
I still say I saw it, based on my sensory apparatus, but you don't believe because your reality perception doesn't include "angels" as being "real".


If it is by definition impossible to see what I have seen, with my eyes, then how can I ever convince you that this world even exist outside your mind?
You can be a wannabe buddhist and say "it is all illusion anyways". But it doesn't really help our situation.


Take the horse again.
I am talking to a friend, and suddenly a horse races by very fast right between us.
From my friends side it looks like the horse is black, but from my side it is white. We know it is the same horse yet what we see is two opposing perceptions.
Unless the horse comes again, from the other side, I cannot know how it looks on the other side, and when it comes I can't even be sure it is the same horse as before.

The trouble of course comes when one DEMANDS that the others adhere to the side of things they are looking from, and perhaps even be violent to show the might of the side tehy are looking from.
Accept that some sees the horse as black and some as white, both of you can ride the same horse anyways.

The horse doesn't change while we discuss, it is a horse.






DD - Love & Laugther

Jobar

That's a classic line of reasoning, Darth, and well presented. Let's change it a bit, to make it more applicable to the forum topic.

Let's say that we have multiple observers on both sides of the horse.

After the horse 'runs by' they discuss what they observed.

All the observers on one side see nothing. They all agree that no horse ran by.

The observers on the other side all agree that yes, there *was* a horse which ran by- but when they compare their observations, some say it was a white horse, some black, some brown, some gray- in fact no two of them can agree on what precisely they saw, except that it was a horse.

Now, let's further say that we know all people are prone to lies, practical jokes, hallucinations, and hypnosis. That some may be convinced that they actually saw something when they saw nothing, or vice versa.

Now. You walk up to this crowd discussing the horse (or non-horse) and listen to all the stories. What do you believe?

Stephen T-B

It is the case that none of us can prove anything exists.
You might all be part of an hallucination I had after eating a fly agaric mushroom.
My whole life, everything I think I have experienced in it including chairs, divans, parenting children, eating Blue Auvergne cheese and the pleasure I get from seeing a tightly-encased comely bosom, may be part of this same quite brief episode.
There is no way of telling. I can’t even know for sure that I’m not dead.

Does that help?