Vienna

Wow. Interesting thread. I've just read it all and my head is swimming. Perhaps I can pitch in my two cents.

If I understand correctly, rw, you're trying to point out that if there exists an experience which I know to be true, yet cannot provide evidence for, then the possibility of a theist being accurate when he claims to hear the voice of god cannot be denied.

The known truth you've chosen as your example is the "inner voice". (Sorry if this sounds like I'm going over previous stuff, but I just want to clear everything up and make sure we're on the same page.)

So, really the issue is: if there is a lack of evidence for my "inner voice", even though I KNOW it exists, then I cannot claim that the theist is wrong when he claims god speaks to him.

So, it's an analogy. But is the analogy appropriate? As a few people have already pointed out, some experiences are subjective and some are objective. The "inner voice" is a subjective experience and probably has no undeniable evidence. (Although, Vork has touched on something that might make it more scientifically verifiable.)

I don't think I can prove to you that my "inner voice" exists. But the thing is: it doesn't exist to you. It only exists to me. Outside of my brain, it has no existence. It is entirely reliant on my subjectivity. If I don't exercise my "inner voice" it literally isn't there.

God, on the other hand, ought to be an objective experience. He ought to exist outside of the theist's mind. Otherwise, he is just a "voice" that a theist hears and he doesn't do anything. No creating. No smiting. No loving. So, fine, if that's all the theist claims, go right ahead.

But if the theist claims that god created the world or at least has some participation in it, then that's a different story. That makes god an objective truth. And that requires objective evidence.

So, I guess I'm trying to say that I feel I am perfectly rational to expect evidence for an objective god, even though I can't provide undeniable evidence for my subjective "inner voice".

excreationist

I think rainbow walking is talking about speech-type imagination vs. visual-spatial and other types imagination. He is claiming that he and others are incapable of speech-type imagination. He is trying to find evidence that such a type of imagination exists.
I don't think it is a variation of proving the world exists at all... surely everyone would have some experience that the world exists to some degree (even it is only an illusion)... but he is saying that he (and others) have had no experience of "the inner voice" *at all*.
I guess there could be strong correlations between certain brain activity and reports of the person imagining auditory/speech type things - but rainbow walking is saying that all of the people who report those experiences are simply lying - he is saying no such experience exists. Maybe it's like a person who claims to love someone, though they are in fact actually lying.

excreationist

rainbow walking:
Do you think people in general are lying about the experience they claim to have? Or are they deluded? If they are strongly deluded and are not lying, then that delusion seems real to them, doesn't it? So then the experience of a kind of speech in their head seems real for them doesn't it?

Phanes

Sorry I'm late in replying; I've been busy. I'll have to keep this post short too.

rainbow walking, you keep telling me to address the issue directly, but you never answer the points I do bring up. I'm trying to demonstrate that there is a real difference in the level of evidence both required of and demanded by a purely mental experience vs. some external/physical experience.

How do you answer the believer example? Bob the fideist deist? All we have to go on about Bob's beliefs is what Bob actually reports; you can't look to his actions to determine them. I still think we are forced to conclude that Bob believes in God by faith if he says he does.


Here's another example that also occurred to me, real this time. I looked around a while for it, and found this passage from a book:

Should we doubt the physician felt pain because he did not act like it? Not all mental processes can be verified by examining outside behavior. Sometimes we are forced to believe personal testimony.


On an unrelated note, the same book goes on to talk about a puzzle suggested by Daniel Dennet: suppose someone gave you curare and an amnesiac before surgery. Would you feel pain? During the operating you wouldn't say "ouch" or move around. Afterwords, you wouldn't report any pain either. Was the pain still there? Would you be prepared to undergo a surgery with only those two drugs?

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that there is no mathematical proof you'll ever find to show that x person has y mental process(whether it's a thought process involving words or a sensation like pain). And the second you start relying on empirical evidence (acting hurt, or tired, or whatever), you've nearly betrayed your own position - in order to know how people act when they feel hurt (unless you take yourself as the ultimate authority and use weak analogy), you have to believe them all the other times they say they're hurt and double over or look ill. You have to find some original standard by which to judge how people should act when they are in pain, and that means believing them when they say they are in pain, and noting their behavior.


excreationist, I think I see what you're getting at, and you're right: I don't usually think in fonts or paragraphs or the shapes of letters, or really much of anything visually associated with a word. I expect I was taking the idea of "hearing" too literally earlier. I wonder if things are different for those deaf from birth?

Incidentally, I think you are right about imagination too.

rainbow walking

I inadvertantly posted these responses in the wrong thread so I'm reposting them where they belong and hope one of the moderators can delete the ones in the wrong thread.



Only three million comrades? Are you saying that the rest of the world's population have been indoctrinated into believing that they have a "voice" in their heads? I don't remember being brainwashed into my belief - or rather *actual experience*.

I’m not really sure how they came upon their “inner voice”. For the purposes of this challenges I’m just responding to their claim of thinking in this fashion.

Anyway, in my last post I talked about an experiment involving an illiterate person, a drum and the Lord's Prayer.

Here are my questions - which you forgot to answer...
Would an illiterate person be able to do that task?

Yes

If so, what would be going through their head while they're doing it?


Don’t know…that’s what I’m hoping you can establish with evidence and facts.

They would only know of the spoken form of the words and not the written form...
Would they explicitly know in their thoughts what part of the thing (the Lord's Prayer, etc) they are up to? Or would they have no idea, then suddenly sense that it was time to say "stop!" ?

Again, I couldn’t say. I know me and my three million comrades, many of whom are illiterate, would accomplish the memorization and recitation using our process of “feelings”. No inner voice would be involved. That’s why we’re highly skeptical of your claim and seek evidence of its veracity.

rainbow walking

I inadvertantly posted this reply in under the wrong topic so I'm re-posting here in the hopes a moderator will delete it from the wrong thread in which it was initially posted.

You missunderstood. The irrationality I was refering to was not that of holding the oponents claims to be false because it lacked evidence, but that of thinking you could prove your own claim by simply pointing out that you were hearing voices.

I agree, but how is this different if you can’t offer me anything more than your claim to think with an “inner voice”?

Perhaps if the person was completely insane and the nature of his claim was consistent with his mental desease. But, you never mentioned that.

But we don’t normally consider a theist completely insane based solely on his claim to believe a god exists. Such an example as this isn’t analogous to this challenge. The charge doesn’t revolve around a person’s sanity as much as their rationality.

That completely depends on his conclution, if he reads things into his observations that does not logically follow from them then I may call him irrational.

Agreed, but for the practical purposes of this challenge I’m not saddling you with any extraneous claims. Just the basic one of demonstrating the veracity of a claim that you think with an inner voice.
Thanks for an interesting topic, I hope you reply.

You’re welcome and I shall.

rainbow walking

inadvertantly posted this under the wrong topic, so I'm reposting now in the right place in the hopes that a moderator can delete the one I posted under the wrong topic later.





But, that's the difference. The "standards" are different depending on the claim.

The standards involved in substantiating an empirical claim are the same across the board. You devise experiments to expose the phenomenon to critical examination and then develop conclusions as to its nature, source and impact. You present evidence to support your claim.
Very seldom can a certain "amount" of evidence (in this case the person saying so) merit the same probability in 2 seperate claims. And if they were to merit the same probability I would be wrong and inconsistent in my approach if I were to suddenly lower my standards.

Well, submit your evidence and let’s discuss the degree of its probability.

They would remain the same, and I would admit that I cannot prove my point to you no more than you could prove yours to me.

Ah…then you concede that you experience a phenomenon that you know to be true but cannot prove?

But I wouldn't start believing your claim all of a sudden, unless I had heard the same voice that led you to your conclution.

Of course not, and I wouldn’t expect you to. But I would expect you to consider the ramifications of your concession when you challenge my claim on the basis of lack of empirical evidence. In this regard our respective claims stand on equal, but shaky, ground.

To correctly prove a point to another person, that person must have the evidence available also.
Although in this example I could perhaps take your word for it regarding hearing the voice, but I would not accept your conclution.
Well, in this case, its you who have the burden of proof, since I’ve made no other claim than that you should prove to me that your acclaimed experience is genuine.



Not really. If I were to accept your claim, then I would also have to accept your conclution. That the voice you hear is one of a god.

Wait a minute now. You seem to be operating under a misconception or creating a straw man, since I’ve made no reciprocal claim of hearing the voice of god. All I am doing is using that example analogous to your own claim. Not trying to build a case for the existence of a god.

But the most reasonable thing for me to do is disregarding your conclution and base my own on the actual observations you made. This is ofcourse, if I were to trust you in your claim at all.
As I stated before, I cannot hear the voice you claim to hear.

Now I’m a bit confused here. Are you referring to the voice of god or that “inner voice” I’ve challenged you to prove exists? If it’s the latter and you are telling me you have not had this experience then you are essentially on my side in this exercise.

[quote] rw: Whether the actual object, (the internal voice, god etc.), is believed to originate "in here" or "out there" is also irrelevent to this exercise.



That seems abit strange to me. You are asking me for my approach on such a claim, yet you tend to censor my response by calling it irrelavent.
Oh, I apologize if you feel I’m attempting to censor your efforts. It’s just that you, and others, continue to drift in this direction which, IMO, is irrelevant to the challenge. Since I’ve already designed the challenge with some built in assumptions, one of them being this “inner voice” originates within the mind, I saw no reason to address this point any further.



On the same basis as you can deny me having a voice talking in my head. For you to make a positive claim, you must have the evidence available to you aswell.

I agree. Now, if a universal experiential phenomenon occurs that everyone attests to having experienced, and no one can prove the veracity of their attestation, on what level does this put them in relation to theists who make a similar claim, similar in regards to their inability to prove its veracity?

Lacking such, and not trusting the person making the claim I would say that "no" is the only reasonable answer. Ofcourse that can be false, the theist might be hearing voices and they might be the voice of god.

Then you realize and concede the conundrum of appealing to empirical evidentiary rules of proof in certain situations?

Because we can only define reality from our own observations (subjectively) anything lacking evidence, observations or probability must be said to not exist.
Then you are saying the “inner voice” process of thinking doesn’t exist?



Are you talking about the origin of the voice?
Well, one of the origins is our head, if we want to trace it backwards and name even more origins then we would need some evidence to do so. As there is no absolute named source for it until we indeed discover it. We could ofcourse name the creation of the universe as one probable cause, but then the question arises when the voice became a "voice". And if it even could be classified as a voice.

Well now, wait a minute. Above you said that any acclaimed experience that doesn’t meet evidentiary standards, for all practical purposes, doesn’t exist. Is it now your desire to drop this foolish claim of thinking with an “inner voice” and join us who are highly skeptical of such claims?

TO be continued...

excreationist

rainbow walking:
What about this experiment then?
(I wrote this to Phanes on page 1)
But let's say they were completely illiterate so they didn't know what letters looked like, but they knew the abc song. They knew that the last letter in the alphabet song was Z. They knew it ended with "W, X, Y, and Z"... after they've mapped Z, Y, X, and W to numbers they'd go back another part of the song... maybe "T, U, V", then further back if necessary.

For me, it would take quite a long time to do that mental task - and I've got the advantage of being able to visualize the entire alphabet like this: "ABCDEFG....XYZ"

So anyway, would an illiterate person be able to do that task? You said for the last experiment the illiterate person would just rely on "feelings". Would the person take a long time to come up with a definite answer - like how it takes me quite a long time (it would take me about 30-60 seconds - assuming I didn't already know the answer). Couldn't they give the answer really quickly since only feelings are involved?

Also, I'm able to do this problem 2 ways - I can (alledgely) start from the start of the alphabet with A=1, B=2, C=3, etc, or I can work backwards with Z=26, Y=25, etc. Can the illiterate person who relies on their "feelings" choose between which way they are going to do the problem? If so, wouldn't that involve them explicitly thinking about the problem and the alphabet? And the only form they know of the alphabet is a spoken one - not any visual one. So would they imagine a spoken alphabet?

Koyaanisqatsi

You should have just emailed me! Did you enjoy your orange alert visit?

Well, first of all, I don't condemn the theist's experiential claim in the slightest. If someone tells me they've experienced something I'm almost always fascinated to hear all about it.

But I'm sure you'll agree, it's a far cry from saying, "I experienced something and I have no evidence to back it up," and "You must believe what I experienced was real or you will burn in an eternal lake of fire and damnation."

A hair splitter, me...

Secondly, whether or not it can be said to be "hypocritical" in your given is still irrelevant to whether or not a theist has met their claim.

Even if it were demonstrated to be "hypocritical," that doesn't alleviate the theist's burden in the slightest. Indeed, demonstrating the hypocritical aspect has no bearing at all on the burden of proof of either claim, nor does it, as I mentioned before, alleviate anyone's burden no matter how hypocritical the comparison may be.

Perhaps, I guess, sure, but that still has no relevance to either claim's burden being met (or not met).

If I can't prove my internal voice "exists," (whatever that means), that has no relevance all to a theist being unable to prove their own claim.

It just means both claims have not been proven. There are many unproved claims. This fact, however, doesn't mean anything at all in regard to either the theist's claim or the fact that the theist has not met his or her burden of proof.

Very true. As I said before, I don't have any problem with somebody stating they experienced anything at all. What someone experiences is merely anecdotal.

When, however, they claim that their experience proves a certain god exists and that I must accept their experience as proof of said existence, and, further, that if I don't I will be punished, well, then, you see the problem.

Not in the slightest. Belief in the factual existence of a mythological creature is even more irrational if that belief is solely based upon personal experience, since the whole purpose of the scientific method (to phrase a coin) is to provide a means to corroborate and/or confirm one's personal experience in as rational a manner as possible; i.e., outside of one's own personal experience.

Personal experience (in the manner I assume we're discussing) is notoriously flawed and riven with any number of quantifiable variables (was the person on drugs? was the person suffering from some form of mental disorder? was the person sexually abused as a child, causing possibly trauma-related fantasies? was the person brainwashed into a cult and envisioned cult oriented symbologies? etc., etc., etc.).

Indeed, the reason we humans came up with the scientific method (for one example) was almost entirely due to the inherently unreliable quality of "personal experience" as it relates to anything beyond merely anecdotal evidence, yes?

It may be "equally irrational" to make such claims, but that does not mean that the claims are equally irrational. Careful... You're Devil's Equivocating.

Again, it is entirely irrelevant what other claims are or are not.

A claim's burden is either met or it is not. Nothing "weakens" that.

Now who is splitting hairs? It does "deflect somewhat the ramifications?" How? The theist claims that a god exists. What is the evidence for this claim?

Nothing deflected there.

Nor is anything "deflated," since it isn't that a theist is irrational because his claim can't be empirically verified; it is that the claim cannot be empirically verified, therefore believing it is true absent such verification is irrational.

The "irrational" quality is believing something to be true (aka, accepting something to be true) absent, as you put it, empirical verification of that claim.

Let's break it down to see which parts are which.

Nothing relevant so far, other than a declaration of a personal experience.

And it goes from there.

As I have just demonstrated, the parameters are not equal in any but the most trivial semantics respects and that only because of equivocation.

It is therefore only trivially analogous, regardless of the fact that analogy, as we both know, is irrelevant to any burden.

That is an irrelevant observation. It makes no difference to the burden of a claim that there exist other similar (or dissimilar) claims whose burdens have also not been met.

Each claim is an island. Where's Amos?

It may very well be, but, again, that is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the theist has met their burden.

Perhaps, but, again, irrelevant.

Then they are merely conceding that they have no evidence to support their claim and therfore, affirming their continued belief to be irrational.

I don't care if anyone recognizes their claims are irrational. I applaud it.

It's when they claim they are rational and proceed to act on that claim that I start looking their way.

You're equivocating again. God is alleged to be a factual being that exists independently of the one experiencing it. For your "analogy" to be truly analogous, you would have to change your internal voice question to be, "Can somebody else hear my internal voice?" So, you're incorrect about the "WHERE" part.

It is of no importance whatsoever to anybody whether Joe Sixpack thinks he's experienced God (whatever that means), or shouldn't anyway, beyond, of course, a question of Joe's mental state.

I experienced a watching a house turn into a lion's head. Does that mean the house (that exists "out there;" i.e., WHERE) factually turned into a lion's head?

No. So my relating my experience is one thing. My proclaiming that because I experienced it, the house did, in fact, turn into a lion's head, however, is another matter entirely, yes? To prove that claim, one would have to abondon my personal experience and instead turn to the house itself to see if there is any evidence of structural damage; hair; nose; whiskers; etc., etc., etc.

I think you may be forgetting that a claim's burden is to other people; people who did not personally experience what it is the claimant declares, yes? The purpose of verification is that it be independent in order for other people to assent (or dissent) to the claim, correct?

Again, if any theist wants to sit in their homes and think in their heads whatever it is they want to think, I have no problem with that at all.

Act on those thoughts in a demonstrably detrimental manner to others, however, and, well, here we are.

Why? If that were indeed the case, all that would demonstrate is that you've discovered yet another claim that cannot be adequately supported.

How does demonstrating two separate, yet, in your words, "similar" claims cannot be adequately supported do anything other than further confirm that the theist claim cannot be adequately supported?

It seems as if you're trying to imply, "Since neither claim A nor claim B can be adequately supported, claim A is proved."

See any irony here?

That's ok. In my personal experience, I can. Now, would you like me to provide external verification for that personal experience?

But, in so doing, you are changing the nature of my burden, since you are now merely asking me to speculate on something we both know I have no direct empirical evidence for, nor could, so, no problem. We can speculate all night long, but don't ask me for empirical evidence to support it once it has been granted by both of us that I have none.

And please don't point out that there are atheists who do just that, since what other people do or do not do is, again, entirely irrelevant to the nature of the claim and its subsequent burden.

If someone, for example, falls prey to such semantics as we've been discussing, and does not know how to extricate themselves from said trap, that doesn't mean that the theist's burden has been met or that the burden has been alleviated, yes?

And failed

Agreed, with the note that I meant theists who post here. I should have been more specific and you're right; it is part and parcel to their inculcation.

Well, so, for that matter is breathing, but, again, it doesn't change the fact that one unmet claim has no relevance to another unmet claim (or, to be more specific, I should say, the claim of "I have an internal voice" has no relevance to the claim "God exists"), other in the most trivial manner (i.e., they are both unproved claims).

Well, since my internal voice is precisely that (my internal voice), there is no evidence I need to provide. The burden is an irrelevant one, since inherent in the claim is the fact that it does not exist "out there."

Again, the purpose of such things as gathering empirical evidence is to establish as best as possible the "out thereness" of a claim. If a theist never claims that their god exists "out there," then they too will not have to meet any similar burden.

There are degrees of claims, just as there are degrees of evidence necessary to affirm those claims. For me to claim I have an internal voice that only I can hear, is a trivial claim. For me to claim that I have an internal voice that anyone can hear if they just believe strong enough, however, is a different quality of claim, yes? Or, at the very least, a different claim.

Again, each claim is an island, brother. Amen.

Claiming to have an internal voice is a trivial claim, since it does not effect you (or others; hopefully ). But if I were to claim that you could hear my internal voice if only you believed in me, well, then we've got a ball game.

In other words, if I can't provide evidence in support of a claim that I make, this somehow discredits my observation that the theist has not met their own burden? Do tell?

Once again, I fear you're falling prey, oh Devil's Advocate, to the fallacy of Not A, Not B, therefore A.

Or the like...I'll leave it to Clutch. I've learned my lesson...sort of.

I have and will. Though you seem to be implying there is some sort of relevant charicater issue here.

It is not hypocritical in the slightest to point out that a theist has not met their burden of proof. It's their claim. They still have the burden of proof regardless of whether or not there exist other claims with unmet burdens and regardless of whether or not I, personally, do not have the ability to meet any of my own alleged claims.

The two simply have nothing to do with each other, in anything beyond the most trivial of matters (i.e., they are both unmet claims).

Again, that line of reasoning only confirms that the theist claim is unmet and nothing more, so, by all means argue it; it will only strengthen the atheist observation.

Ok. What is the evidence for your belief? :P

And well you should. We of the inner voice should always be watched.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? How is that analogous to the claims we've been comparing?

Again, what's irrational about the theist belief structure is that it is based upon accepting something to be true. Period. No proof. Indeed, to seek proof is anathema. You must believe it to be true on faith (at least in some quarters).

But let's grant you're not going this deep and still you'd have to explain to me how a theist's claim "God exists" is somehow equivalent to "prove to me that your method of thinking is viable and just as valid as mine."

That's about eighteen other kettles of fish with far too many non-sequiturs to address.

Why don't we keep this strictly analogous. You would have to ask me to prove to you that you can hear my internal voice, too, for this to be at all analogous to the theist claim.

How did we get to "ruling the world?" Where has it ever been demonstrated in human history that a claim of an internal voice has driven people to desires to rule the world, other than by theists, of course?

Sorry, couldn't resist, but you see my point. The theist claim "God exists" has indeed been used, IMO, exclusively to rule the world; you just have to root out the right cult leaders who made it all up.

Theli

And ofcourse, something that Koy might have already mentioned, there's a big difference between saying "I heard a voice in my head" and "god spoke to me through a voice in my head". As the latter is a way more specific claim. If the theist has no way of proving that the voice he heard actually was the one of god (after ofcourse proving the existing of god) I would call his conclution irrational. He has read too much into that single observation. A conclution needs evidence for all it's claims to be considered correct, and the only claim he has evidence for (if we believe him) is hearing a voice in his head.

Off topic, I still reject the idea of me hearing a voice in my head while I think.