Telephone telepathy

[aggle-rithm]

I should equally generalize that being skeptical its more confortable because you have the feeling of walking the right path, as well as being confortable with the idea that you will have no post morten responsibility over your mundane actions, even if you happen to be the most evil and grotesquely violent and destructive creature of all. So, hey what are we waiting for? Lets phuck up the world, harvest for money, piss on each other, fight, kill, defile, compete on success and wealthy accumulation, destroy our enemies, destroy our oppositors, bring them hell and bombs, it will all come to an end and then we will never be conscious again, we will vanish forever and forget about what we lived here. So, come on, lets bring it all on. BANG! BOOM!

What about skepticism would make anyone think this was a good idea? I, for one, believe in living for the here and now. I am not particularly materialistic (in the sense of putting great importance in owning material possessions), and I have no desire to urinate on others, much less kill and defile them. It could be there are skeptics would enjoy a life like that (although I doubt it), but not me. This is not because of expectation of reward or punishment in some hypothetical afterlife, it just isn't in my nature. In fact, it's not in the nature of most people, regardless of their beliefs.

Oooohhhhoho ho ho so certain. Where is your doubting, skeptic one???

Scepticism isn't about doubting everything. It's about doubting things for which there is no evidence and are unlikely to be true.

So you do possess the knowledge of reality as a whole?

This is an example of what I mean by a straw man. I'm sure you realize this by now.

So tell me the secret behind the quantum measuring problem. Show me the solution for the quantum uncertainty. Show me the solution for the mind-body problem as well. Would it not be wishful thinking being sure of udnerstanding reality based on the few and doubtly consistent things we could conclude about nature and life?? And as it seems, everybody embraces reality, everybody lives reality, skeptics doubt, believers assume and are sure about things, varying greatly from believer to believer.

Skeptics accept provisionally the things that are likely to be true, based on the application of critical thinking to evidence. They are willing to learn that they are incorrect, with sufficiently convincing evidence. Again, they doubt only things that are not likely to be true.

You, being sure you are understanding reality, rather than doubting it for considering about the possibility of being tricked by your elusive mind, possibly being more a believer than a skeptic person.

I am ALWAYS open to the possibility that my mind is tricking me. It has happened before, it will probably happen again.

That is what skepticism is for. It gives us a way to corroborate what we think is going on by testing assumptions and seeing for ourselves if they are likely to be true.

The exact proccess in which you capt , interpret and traces the relationship between externally acquired information with your mind/brain is still impossible to be explained and demonstrated using your only current strong convictions and unquestionable scientific method.

Skepticism makes no claim that everything is explainable. There's a lot of things I don't understand. Some of them I could learn if I wanted to, others are so complex (like the mind/brain problem) that no one has the answer. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that we may never have the answer. It would be pretty cool if we did, but hey, life goes on.

So what to do? Do wait, do not get any dangerous delusional road towards the occult nonsense. Doubt, but do not doubt anything, just doubt what do not conflicts with what you are sure and convinced about.

If I encounter strong evidence that something I am sure and certain about is wrong, then I will change my mind. See how it works? Skeptics have belief systems just like believers do, but with two differences: 1) The beliefs are mostly based on evidence, and 2) the beliefs are flexible and negotiable. If beliefs collide with reality, we change our beliefs, rather than deny reality.

Use with unquestionable certainty, your incompletely developed scientific tool. Do interpret reality according to what your mind thinks and intelectualize about what was acquired by your severely limited 5 senses that you experience on your day to day waking state of consciousness. There are many other known states of consciousness but doubt them all, doubt them all even without experiencing them. Do believe in who says not to trust these states over your waking state of mind. Why? Because they are saying you can only really "experience" things with your elusive mind while you´re awake. Do it all, but do not call yourself a skeptic.

I doubt even things I do experience. I have experienced sleep paralysis, for instance, and I recognize that it is very similar to what UFO abductees describe. I also know that what I experienced was entirely in my mind. How do I know? First of all, I have read about sleep disturbances like this, and so I am familiar with how they work and why. Second, what I found when I woke up was not consistent with what I experienced. Since what I experience in a waking state is much more reliable than what I experience in a dream state, it's pretty easy to determine which is more likely to be "real".

In a similar vein: Since the laws of nature are extremely reliable and make astonishingly accurate predictions, it is a no-brainer to conclude that a claim that violates these laws is not likely to be of any substance.

Have you ever done a crossword puzzle? Have you ever entered a word in, say, 5 Down, that you are certain is correct, but then find that, in order for it to be correct, five other entries which you are sure about are certainly wrong?

When a skeptic encounters such a problem, he will accept the fact that his solution for 5 Down is most likely wrong, not the other five. To do otherwise would be to simply accept defeat and leave the crossword unfinished.

 

[ReFLeX]

Ah, now that you are close to understanding that i was not saying that skepticism beats paranormal on the sales, you are showing your own oppinions on the subject, which is fairly acceptable and welcome. I did not know how you could object so much about my original states such as:

-"skepticism has its own comercial targets."
Now you realize that perhaps you or other people here are potential targets for "skepticism"´s business, for there is a chance you have already purchased any of the books of the best known skeptics.

-"skepticism has its own business": i,e , book commerce, and it is profitable as long as the authors benefits from the money that comes from who acquire their books, like you or any other self-proclaimed skeptic person in this board.

Ok, so what was your point in originally saying that, then? I seem to have lost it.

So, it make me conclude that you did not understand me too well before, I could not undestand it before reading your above statements. Even thinking this objection was nonsensical i tried to explain you why i happen to think this way.

As my argument being week or not, if simply put this way without further explanations, is just you oppinion.

I cannot find very much in your posts that is not just your opinion, such as:

I think i stated that is hard to tell, and i bet you cannot tell also, when skeptics are being really skeptical on something or they are being biased towards their materialistic convictions, specially because there is business and 1 million dolar involved. It also may involve their reputation, intelectual integrity and pride.

And plus, the fact that apparently many of the best known , trusted and respected skeptics obviously shows bias sometimes, may imply that this "skepticism" that they are trying to "sell" is not the one of the core definition, i,.e , the state of doubting and not being sure of things that are incomplete and has shown inconsistent as we investigate more and more about it. I´m not here to charge Randi but to call up some sense over the definition of "being skeptic". It would appear to me be way more tenable calling this materialism and not skepticism, because materialism not necessarily implies truth, specially because it does not embrace quantum physics and mind for instance. Many materialists do apply skepticism to SOME EXTENT, but there are some things that they assume as being true because they are willing to. Why not implemented the state of doubt over materialism also? If you happen to disagree with that, and if you want, just let me know why.

Bias is unavoidable. However, you are making hasty generalizations about skepticism and materialism. Both are simply ideas which commonly exist without the other. You exhibit common misconceptions about skeptics, and don't appear to appreciate the diverse understanding of materialism in the skeptic or academic community. Materialism isn't even highly important to skepticism, it is simply that rationalists often gravitate towards it as the most naturalistic explanation. Materialism does not emphasize truth any more than other good theories. It does embrace quantum physics as far as I know, while it simply rejects the concept of mind/body dualism. So what? Skeptics may take any number of positions on all of these concepts. And, by the way, there most certainly is a state of doubt over materialism. What gave you the idea that there wasn't?

 

[chran]

As for Altea, Type her name on JREF search system. See what you´ve got! Randi promising in 2001 to debunk Rosemary´s charlatanism on Larry King show " on next week". And he never did it. He never even mentioned her name again. What if we make a clock like that one he made for sylvia brown. I think the ammount of days would be much greater. fun fun fun...

He never did it? He never did it?

How about reading the commentary from the next week? Have you ever tried that?

http://www.randi.org/jr/06-15-01.html

The segment starts: "On the 5th of this month, I was on the Larry King Live TV show [...]"

Here's the transcript of the Larry King Show:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0106/05/lkl.00.html

 

[aggle-rithm]

If you want to continue giving me your points after you work, I´ll wait to answer you about them all.

Done... see above.