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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,414
Loc: Under the C
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Quote:
desert father said: Can a True Believer splain me why they believe their "experience" is real and accurate even though the evidence says it probably isn't?
he asked that so i was trying to give an explanation as to why humans trust their own experience....because that's the only truth they have to hold onto.
Some 10,000 people who saw The Phoenix Lights swore by their own experience that they were seeing other-worldy UFOs. Turned out to be military flares.
100 years ago some 10,000 people in Portugal swore they saw The Virgin Mary when they witnessed some atmospheric disturbance. There was no woman in the sky. Nor could anyone tell what this non-woman's name was; nor the state of her hymen.
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Edited by OrgoneConclusion (04/17/11 05:57 PM)
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,372
Loc: SF Bay Area
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: Cannashroom]
#14307908 - 04/17/11 05:52 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Cannashroom said:
Quote:
Poid said:
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Cannashroom said: You experience it, but it is not a result of your senses.
To experience something is the same thing as sensing it.
When you experience happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, etc, is that a result of the senses? Are you sensing these emotions? No, you just feel them as a result of your consciousness.
Feeling and sensing are the same thing--what is this, pre-preschool shit?
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Simms
Fuckwit


Registered: 11/17/08
Posts: 1,109
Loc: Somewhere in Europe
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: Diploid]
#14307936 - 04/17/11 05:57 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: The top and the bottom of the gray area in this pic are exactly the same shade of gray:

Now click here to see the gray area cropped and masked so the parts of the image that mislead your visual neurology are missing.
This effect happens because the human visual system has a built in unsharp mask to improve detail in human sight. Most of the time it helps us, but sometimes it misleads us.
This is one reason eyewitnesses are known to be extremely unreliable. Lawyers and judges are trained to treat eyewitnesses in court carefully to minimize the known problems with eyewitness testimony. These biases have been demonstrated by a hundred years of psychological experiments.
So why is it that, despite the unreliability of "experience", so many people put so much stock in their mystical experiences?
Can a True Believer splain me why they believe their "experience" is real and accurate even though the evidence says it probably isn't?
Randis debunking arena is also an experience. 
What if our whole mind is distorting reality for the sake of making simpler thought processes?
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Edited by Simms (04/17/11 05:58 PM)
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xFrockx


Registered: 09/17/06
Posts: 10,455
Loc: Northeast
Last seen: 12 days, 16 hours
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: Simms]
#14308410 - 04/17/11 07:34 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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"Can a True Believer splain me why they believe their "experience" is real and accurate even though the evidence says it probably isn't? "
Experience is what it is. What we take from it is what we take from it. Experience comes from the exact process(es?) of reality that science studies and tries to grasp. In that sense, it is completely real, and everything about it is completely natural. That doesn't mean that people are infallible.
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the bizzle
the joke that no one spoke


Registered: 04/14/09
Posts: 11,870
Loc: :seriousbusiness:
Last seen: 10 years, 11 months
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable *DELETED* [Re: xFrockx]
#14308626 - 04/17/11 08:18 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Post deleted by the bizzleReason for deletion: meh
-------------------- MY HAIR IS A BIRD YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
  
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,372
Loc: SF Bay Area
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: the bizzle]
#14308699 - 04/17/11 08:32 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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NetDiver
Wandering Mindfuck


Registered: 08/24/09
Posts: 6,024
Loc: Everywhere and Nowhere
Last seen: 1 year, 6 months
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: the bizzle]
#14308700 - 04/17/11 08:33 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Experience is only an unreliable indicator of what you might experience in the future.
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: NetDiver]
#14308723 - 04/17/11 08:37 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Samurai Drifter said: Experience is only an unreliable indicator of what you might experience in the future.
Exactly. How do you verify an experience? You try to experience the same thing in a different way. The more perspectives from which you can experience something, the more you can verify it. In the picture Diploid posted, how you verify that the two boxes have the same shade of grey? You might block out all the other stuff, or you might open it in Photoshop and use the color picking tool. These are all experiences.
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile


Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
Last seen: 11 years, 12 days
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: Silversoul]
#14310752 - 04/18/11 07:47 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Silversoul said:
Quote:
Samurai Drifter said: Experience is only an unreliable indicator of what you might experience in the future.
Exactly. How do you verify an experience? You try to experience the same thing in a different way. The more perspectives from which you can experience something, the more you can verify it. In the picture Diploid posted, how you verify that the two boxes have the same shade of grey? You might block out all the other stuff, or you might open it in Photoshop and use the color picking tool. These are all experiences.
actually they looked the same to me... and still do.
However, when I tried to work out what the illusion was all about, and read the post again, and looked at the picture some more, the top grey area started to look darker.
What does this mean? if anything?
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johnm214


Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: Cannashroom]
#14311938 - 04/18/11 01:10 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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There's an awful lot of claims being made about "experience" and its nature, but very little in the wway of clarity and philosophical justification for whatever the particular claims are.
How 'experience' is different from any thing else, how conclusions which are claimed to be based upon experience are special/ particularly reliable/accurate/whatever, how conclusions of the nature, qualities of an experience are particularly worthwhile/accurate/whatever... none of these things seem to be philosophically, logically, explained.
Can we stop with the bare claims here? Its obvious that people do not accept the things that are being stated and do not understand them, and if it wasn't despite the questions, let my post serve as evidence of such now.
What are the claims people have made in this thread based on? Is this magic-forum garbage or is there a justification for the claims that could be shared?
Quote:
Cannashroom said:
Quote:
Poid said:
Quote:
Cannashroom said: You experience it, but it is not a result of your senses.
To experience something is the same thing as sensing it.
When you experience happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, etc, is that a result of the senses? Are you sensing these emotions? No, you just feel them as a result of your consciousness.
Please justify your claims.
Your claims seem to be pretty fairly contrary to the definitions of the word "sense", so I'm wondering what you are exactly saying? What is the nature and term for the system that allows you to recieve information from your environment other than your senses?
What is the term and nature of the manner in which you are affected by emotion but through your senses? What is the justification you have in claiming the sensory system is dispartate from whatever it is your claiming exists as a seperate entity and has such charecteristics as you allege above?
Please back up the rest of the claims you've made as well. I don't believe you've provided any reason to believe any of it.
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NetDiver
Wandering Mindfuck


Registered: 08/24/09
Posts: 6,024
Loc: Everywhere and Nowhere
Last seen: 1 year, 6 months
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: johnm214]
#14312305 - 04/18/11 02:04 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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johnm214 said: How 'experience' is different from any thing else, how conclusions which are claimed to be based upon experience are special/ particularly reliable/accurate/whatever, how conclusions of the nature, qualities of an experience are particularly worthwhile/accurate/whatever... none of these things seem to be philosophically, logically, explained.
The qualities of experience, as such, precede language, so our ability to define them logically is limited. By "experience" I refer to qualia, or the mode of perceptual filtering that allows one thing to be distinguished from another (i.e. how do I know I'm looking at blue rather than red? They just look different, I can't really explain how). Qualia are, of course, associated with brain states- I would say, of course, they are brain states- but we can talk about the phenomenal differences between experiences without referencing the physiological portions.
Quote:
Can we stop with the bare claims here? Its obvious that people do not accept the things that are being stated and do not understand them, and if it wasn't despite the questions, let my post serve as evidence of such now.
What are the claims people have made in this thread based on? Is this magic-forum garbage or is there a justification for the claims that could be shared?
My justification for my earlier claim (i.e. experience is only an unreliable indicator of what you will experience in the future) is as follows:
Experiences are not right or wrong by themselves. Say, for instance, I think that I've seen a ghost (experience A). I saw what I saw, the various phenomenal qualities (colors, sights, sounds, etc) are what constitute experience A. They are neither correct, nor incorrect. Then, my interpretations of the experience follow (i.e. "I saw a ghost," or "there's probably a rational explanation.") But, really, those interpretations are experiences themselves, with their own phenomenal content. So experience A triggers experiences B and C, which are interpretations.
If B is correct, then I can possibly expect to see more ghosts in the future. Suddenly my whole world-view (of the experiences I can expect to have at future time) is changed, because I believe in ghosts. If I walk into a dark house, I might experience fear out of anticipation of seeing a ghost, because I believe they exist as a result of experience A (and the subsequent interpretation experience B).
But, of course, there may have been another explanation for what I saw. Say I discover a bunch of smoke and mirrors that conjured up the image of a ghost- this, again, is a qualitative experience, with its own phenomenal content (i.e. the sights of the mirror and smoke machines, etc). Now, that doesn't change the phenomenal content of Experience A- it doesn't change the experience I had before. It only changes my interpretation of the event, and my expectations of what I can experience in the future.
Therefore, it wasn't that experience A was unreliable in and of itself, in any way- it was my interpretation that influenced my world-view, in a way that gave me unreliable expectations for the future (i.e. if I enter a dark house I might see a ghost because ghosts exist).
The conclusion of this would be that if you make no judgements about your experiences, it is impossible to be deceived. Experience is not unreliable, it's your interpretations of experiences that give you inaccurate assumptions about the future. If no interpretations are made, no assumptions are made, and therefore they can not be incorrect.
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Cannashroom
Smoke two Joints



Registered: 10/25/07
Posts: 2,141
Loc: Everywhere
Last seen: 6 years, 10 months
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Re: Why "Experience" Is Unreliable [Re: johnm214]
#14312885 - 04/18/11 03:28 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
johnm214 said: There's an awful lot of claims being made about "experience" and its nature, but very little in the wway of clarity and philosophical justification for whatever the particular claims are.
How 'experience' is different from any thing else, how conclusions which are claimed to be based upon experience are special/ particularly reliable/accurate/whatever, how conclusions of the nature, qualities of an experience are particularly worthwhile/accurate/whatever... none of these things seem to be philosophically, logically, explained.
Can we stop with the bare claims here? Its obvious that people do not accept the things that are being stated and do not understand them, and if it wasn't despite the questions, let my post serve as evidence of such now.
What are the claims people have made in this thread based on? Is this magic-forum garbage or is there a justification for the claims that could be shared?
Quote:
Cannashroom said:
Quote:
Poid said:
Quote:
Cannashroom said: You experience it, but it is not a result of your senses.
To experience something is the same thing as sensing it.
When you experience happiness, sadness, anger, guilt, etc, is that a result of the senses? Are you sensing these emotions? No, you just feel them as a result of your consciousness.
Please justify your claims.
Your claims seem to be pretty fairly contrary to the definitions of the word "sense", so I'm wondering what you are exactly saying? What is the nature and term for the system that allows you to recieve information from your environment other than your senses?
What is the term and nature of the manner in which you are affected by emotion but through your senses? What is the justification you have in claiming the sensory system is dispartate from whatever it is your claiming exists as a seperate entity and has such charecteristics as you allege above?
Please back up the rest of the claims you've made as well. I don't believe you've provided any reason to believe any of it.
When you read a book, and there is a great passage which gives you a response from your autonomic nervous system ("shivers" coming from a dopamine rush) is that a result of your sight? If someone read it aloud does it become a result of your hearing? If by braille is touch? Yes, our emotion comes from the interpretation of physical reality, but as with the literature example, this comes from an interaction with your consciousness and mental constructs more so than the purely physical stimuli of the words/sounds/braille. If you were to not understand them, these same stimuli would be meaningless. The emotion is the result of the interaction between the senses and consciousness. Your experience is the interaction between consciousness and the environment via the senses.
Now, the point I was trying to make, is that in a state such as ego death, you have a complete disconnect from your senses. Your experience becomes completely separated from the what we see as physical reality. So in these states the "experience" is not a result of senses and consciousness together, but just your consciousness experiencing itself without the distraction of the physical world. Without the constant nagging of the here and now, your brain is free to explore its own reaches, and oh how good does that liberation feel.
I never said that these experiences are infallible or some shit. I was merely pointing out that the mystical experience seems (for me at least) to not be a result of interpreting physical stimuli around you, but something more connected to the consciousness itself. And, from this point of view, I would say that trying to validate these experiences is useless when we understand so little of how they are arising. So, either you accept your experience or you don't. We don't really have any way to validate the subjective experiences between people.
-------------------- "A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." Albert Einstein
Edited by Cannashroom (04/18/11 03:29 PM)
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