/x/ BTFO

[Anonymous No.10957094]

>Option 0: Paranormal phenomena are not part of the world of physical phenomena at all; they do exist, but they come from a "spiritual world".

>- This is an option I added in response to some reactions I received on the previous version of this little essay. There still exist people who think that parts of our world simply disconnect from everything that we have been able to sort out and investigate systematically, and which we discovered to obey physical laws with staggering precision. My friendly advice to such people is to immediately throw away their mobile phones, television sets, automobiles and medicines since these were built on the assumption that laws of nature never fail. Please go back to the Stone Age, where you belong.

>Option 1: There is a physical effect not yet recognized by physicists, allowing information to be transmitted in novel ways.

>- What kind of effect could this possibly be? It has to be so weak that it went unnoticed in all physics experiments. These experiments are tremendously more sensitive than brain tissue and the like. Deviations from the Standard Model can only be expected in extremely high-energy particles or extremely weak interaction phenomena. The first cannot be emitted by brain tissue, the latter cannot be detected by brain cells. But there are many other reasons why this option can never work. The purported signal(s) should not only be able to move backward in time, over unlimited distances, from dead bodies, etc., but also carry information in a form that brains can encode and decode without any practice (unlike the ordinary senses). All these features are completely uncharacteristic for all physical phenomena, so it will be extremely difficult to keep this option up.

(1/3)

[Anonymous No.10957098]

>>10957094
>Option 2: All reported events are due to chance coincidences.
>- One gets the impression that this is too improbable to be true. It is not as improbable as the first option though.

>Option 3: People who make claims for the paranormal are liars and charlatans.
>- This option is often adhered to by the extreme skeptics. No doubt, there will be liars and charlatans among the reporters, but this does not explain why the claims are so frequent, and one has the impression that the claims are generally made by honest people. Although this option is more difficult to exclude than the previous ones, it is still not quite satisfactory.

>Option 4: We are dealing with a delicate psychological phenomenon; people "want to" believe these things so badly that these are mistaken for the truth.
>- According to this option, we are dealing here with a purely psychological effect. The purported observations of paranormal signals were imagined but not real. Signals received from loved ones who have mysteriously disappeared, are wanted so badly that people really believe they received them. Even though this may sound like an improbable explanation to you, it is definitely more probable than the preceeding options given. But it brings me to a related option:

(2/3)

[Anonymous No.10957101]

>>10957098

>Option 5: People can be tricked by their own brain.
>- Imagine a computer memory. It should be easy for any programmer to falsify the date of a file in it, and date it backwards in time. From then on, the computer will treat the file as if it was put there at this earlier date. If compared with later events, the file could appear to be a `paranormal signal'. Our brain could make the same mistake. If somebody tells you: "today something happened that I dreamt about in all detail last week", then how do you really know that the dream took place last week? Your memory has a `date label' attached to each memorised event. It is well-known that these date labels can be inaccurate. It is not against any law of physics to suspect that heavy emotional disturbances can cause our brain to antedate its memories.

(3/3)

[Anonymous No.10957109]

>>10957098
Option4 pl0x. I like living like a medieval ignoramus afraid of teh spooky woods and the witches performing spells n shit son. Happy mother fucking halloween /b/ros

[Anonymous No.10957180]

't bumpft

[Anonymous No.10958366]

bump

[Anonymous No.10959837]

mas bumpos

[Anonymous No.10960176]

>>10957094
>being an empiricist

[Anonymous No.10960178]

>>10960176
check which board you are on

[Anonymous No.10960228]

>>10960178
A board full of brainlets?

[Anonymous No.10960231]

>>10960176
Is this a troll? Rationalism is so stupid that I have difficulty believing you’re serious.

[Anonymous No.10960234]

>>10960231
Empircally prove that only empircal data is valid

[Anonymous No.10960235]

>>10960234
it just werks
QED

[Anonymous No.10960238]

>>10960235
How can you know? Can you demonstrate that it works using only the senses?

[Anonymous No.10960240]

>>10960234
It has practical application. Done.

[Anonymous No.10960242]

>>10960240
Is only practically applicable information true?

[Anonymous No.10960245]

>>10960242
Irrelevant. It has practical application.

Invent penicillin with your imagination.

[Anonymous No.10960246]

>>10960238
you are probably posting from a computer and looking at an LCD screen. and they just werk. right?

you can thank physics for that. or else go back to the stone age like 't Hooft said in OP pic

[Anonymous No.10960251]

>>10960246
*OP greentext not "OP pic"

[Anonymous No.10960253]

>>10960245
It's not irrelevant. It's the subject of the conversation. You're saying something is true only if it is practically applicable. What's the practical application of the sky being blue?

[Anonymous No.10960260]

>>10960246
Strawman
Prove empiricism using only empiricism.
I'll just answer for you, since you refuse: you cant.
Hence, empiricism is not the only valid means of acquiring knowledge. In fact, the main principles of science, the verification and negation principles, cant even be affirmed by their own standards and must resorting to some kind of rationalism

[Anonymous No.10960262]

>>10960253
>It's not irrelevant. It's the subject of the conversation

Wrong. You said “valid”, not “true”.

>You're saying something is true only if it is practically applicable.

Wrong. I’m saying empirical data is practically applicable so it is valid. It provides consistent, useful results that can be used to model reality and predict the behavior of the things within it.

[Anonymous No.10960268]

>>10960253
nice strawman. that's not what he's saying. something is true only if it is empirically verified. something is incontrovertibly true if it goes beyond the context in which it was proposed to predict new things like new applications.

the sky is blue has to do with rayleigh scattering. rayleigh scattering comes from classical E+M. classical E+M leads to lots of great things that it wasn't originally intended for, like electric generators and EMP weapons and special relativity.

anyhow, i am sure you will apply your community college degree in philosophy to keep arguing semantics. but please admit that your computer and monitor are thanks to physics. ok?

[Anonymous No.10960271]

>>10960262
>that only empircal data is valid
>that only
I never said it's invalid. I said it's not the only valid method of acquiring information

[Anonymous No.10960272]

>>10960260
No one here said that empiricism is the only valid means of achieving knowledge.

You are lying, or confused, and I used empiricism to achieve that knowledge.

[Anonymous No.10960273]

>>10960260
IT
JUST
WERKS

QED

otherwise throw away your computer and monitor

[Anonymous No.10960276]

>>10960268
>the sky is blue has to do with rayleigh scattering. rayleigh scattering comes from classical E+M. classical E+M leads to lots of great things that it wasn't originally intended for, like electric generators and EMP weapons and special relativity.
None of that demonstrates how the sky being blue is applicable. You've only applied Rayleigh scattering.

[Anonymous No.10960280]

>>10960271
You can acquire information based off prior experience without making further observations but that’s not “rationalism”.

[Anonymous No.10960281]

>>10960276
sweaty, your "argument" is pathetic. cope harder

[Anonymous No.10960286]

>>10960268
>something is true only if it is empirically verified.
This statement cannot be empircally verified. End of argument

[Anonymous No.10960296]

>>10960286
IT JUST WERKS
end of argument

[Anonymous No.10960302]

>>10960296
That's not an argument
The empiricist standard refutes itself

[Anonymous No.10960314]

>>10960302
it is an argument. empiricism is "if it werks it werks" and empirically derived facts werk.

douchebag philosophers who never made it past Descartes are completely useless

[Anonymous No.10960320]

>>10960314
That's just a tautology

[Anonymous No.10960333]

>>10960320
Saying something is a tautology is saying it’s true you moron

Empirical observation is useful, very useful.
Give one example of rationalism ever being useful.

[Anonymous No.10960336]

>>10960333
Rationalism gave you the verification principle

[Anonymous No.10960339]

>>10960320
it is, if you ignore the fact that things that work actually work, you know like your gas pedal makes the car move forward, or you clicking internet explorer actually opens an internet explorer window.

if you divorce yourself from facts like those, then sure, it seems like a logical trick, but with science, you should realize that the things you interact with in life, like cars, computers, food, TVs, faucets, lights, HVAC systems, etc. etc. all are empirical/scientific things. and if you think that is just "tautology" then you need a reality check.

[Anonymous No.10960359]

>>10960339
>muh technics
Cope answer. How does a car refute Rationalism?

[Anonymous No.10960365]

>>10960336
I don’t believe in the verification principle so I don’t know where you’re going with this anymore.

[Anonymous No.10960371]

>>10960359
i am not trying to refute rationalism. i'm just trying to get you to realize that from a practical standpoint, the empirical mindset is massively successful and has provided you with all the stuff you rely on in your life. it works. OTOH rationalism a la Descartes has led to nothing but philosopher circle-jerking, so i tend to treat it on a similar status as alchemy, flogiston, or "gender studies"

[Anonymous No.10960386]

>>10960371
Total skepticsm isnt the only thing to come out of philosophy. Concepts like justice and all forms of government have their roots in philosophy. The justice system and ethics is useful, and empiricism is entirely useless in the establishment of such a field

[Anonymous No.10960398]

>>10960386
okay, normative things are allowed to be based on non-empirical things. fine. i like democracy. but positive statements exist, and in that case empirical science wins

[Anonymous No.10960403]

>>10960398
I'll meet you halfway
How do you feel about metaphysics generally?

[Anonymous No.10960408]

>>10960403
metaphysics is a philosophical exercise one can indulge in to clarify one’s scientific (empirical) beliefs. it has equal probability to the scientist to lead them to good ideas as leading them to bad ideas. for einstein, it basically neutered him scientifically after 1925. so my feelings are that one should not be lured into philosophy

[Anonymous No.10960413]

>>10960231
>Rationalism is so stupid
Why?

[Anonymous No.10960414]

>>10960408
Do you think there's some questions about reality that can't be addressed by the scientific method?

[Anonymous No.10960427]

>>10960414
sure. what is "good" and what is "right" are not scientific. that's basically a value judgement that can't be answered scientifically.

i don't think these questions are meaningless though. it's just that i definitely remove my "scientist" hat before trying to speak about them, since a good scientist should have nothing to say about them

[Anonymous No.10960439]

>>10960427
PS: by "right" i don't mean "correct". i mean something more along the lines of "righteous" or "just".

objective correctness does indeed exist

[Anonymous No.10960589]

>>10960427
I was reading something today about the difference in ontology and epistemology. Ontology being the study of what is there, what exists, while epistemology is only observing what it is like. The criticism of empiricism is that it takes the epistemology without the ontology. Would you accept the criticism that empiricism is only good for describing what existence is like rather than what existence actually is?

[Anonymous No.10960634]

>>10960386
>Morality is from philosophy

No, it’s just brain chemicals. It’s 100% intuitive without brainwashing

[Anonymous No.10960672]

>>10960634
All perception is brain chemicals. That doesnt mean all perceived reality is nothing more than brain chemicals

[Anonymous No.10960695]

>>10960672
Morality confirmed empirical