Reason vs Hume

Christian Has NO RESPONSE When I Explain Miracle Testimony
Paulogia Live, 16 Oct. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1D9j_ETYl0

1:01 always going to be more likely is a very strong claim, which (given the amount of testimonial evidence) is likely to lead to very absurd consequences, so, I'm not taking Hume's word for it.

"But Hume's a standard go to philosopher!"

Yeah, in "our" culture, and that is one of its problems.

For one thing, if you don't actually establish atheism as a fact first you cannot prove a prejudice like non-existence of events to which God did it would be the obvious immediate go to of anyone, or non rationality of God did it about some aspect of ordinary (and therefore undoubted) experience.

But also, eyewitness testimony has some regular limits both on the deviation of errors from actual facts and the probability of lying.

For some stories, which Hume simply ignored, Hume's prejudice is staggering unreason.

1:47 Someone lying would certainly all cases and all topics together be a higher percentage than the specific topic (true or lied about) miracles.

But when one breaks down how people lie ... that is another matter.

2:58 Have you heard of compound probabilities?

More than a one in a hundred billion chance someone is hallucinating? Sure.

More than a one in a hundred billion chance eleven people hallucinate the same thing, during same occasions (one of them absent from one of them) during the same period of time? No.

More than a one in a hundred billion chance that someone lies about a miracle? Sure.

More than a one in a hundred billion chance someone lies successfully to people certain to know the real facts contradicting this lie? No.

More than a one in a hundred billion chance eleven people conspire to lie? Sure.

More than a one in a hundred billion chance they do so and keep it up while risking death for the loyalty the (known) lie implies? No.

3:55 A deity actively intervening.

We have night and day.

The straight forward view is, we don't move, sun and moon and stars move daily (full circle every 24 h, 24 h 55, 23 h 55).

Gravitationally, we could not be the centre of gravity (though Sungenis has argued we could be the centre of a gyroscopic vortex).

People aren't big enough for turning sun and moon around us.

Unconscious processes which could be much bigger than man cannot account for some complex movements like retrogrades, or the movements known as "parallax" and "aberration" is they are not what Heliocentrics claim they are, if they are not optic illusions.

Only something both much bigger than we and fully conscious could perform Geocentrism in the universe.

Irrelevant Noob

Wouldn't that wholly depend on if "geocentrism" even is an accurate model of reality?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

It is not just a model, @irrelevant_noob .

It's our prima facie view of it.

Irrelevant Noob

@irrelevant_noob

@hglundahl so your prima facie view of taking a plane to another country would mean the plane is stationary and the earth is moving vertically and backwards underneath it, right?

Hans Georg Lundahl

Sorry, @irrelevant_noob ...

Anyone's prima facie view (a k a visual impression) at take off and landing is that things outside the plane move. That's what it looks like. High up in the air, it's different, partly since the things are so far that things don't quite seem to move, partly because the landscape features are below, and experience of walking impmediately adjusts it to "I'm moving" insofar as movement is apparent at all.

Now, whether for a train or for a plane ride, we all have very good reason in experience to discount the prima facie view as an optical illusion known as parallax. I don't have to trust a PhD scientist to know what a journey is.

However, with Heliocentrism, the arguments can be broken down to some very shabby ones:

• equivocating on the possibility of parallax to argue the parallax is a fact (what you are trying to do)
• arguing on masses, gravity and inertia as if already knowing there were no God or angels to interfere with that (every natural law can be interfered with, doesn't cancel it) that Earth would gravitationally orbit Sun rather than the reverse
• ignoring that the many body problem nearly necessitates a God anyway
• appealing to the "equivalent" but contradictory view of aliens
• appealing to the superior knowledge of people with degrees.

None of that is necessary to know a car ride is a car ride or a train ride is a train ride.

Irrelevant Noob

@hglundahl So you agree, "Anyone's view (visual impression) is that things outside the plane/train move." Exactly the same as "The straight forward view is, we don't move, sun and moon and stars move daily"...

(Not sure about the «experience of walking [immediately] adjusts it to "I'm moving"» — the visual impression is always there that everything else is moving. We have merely trained ourselves to sometimes recognize the relativity of the FoR.)

We all have very good reason to discount the prima facie view as an optical illusion — but it's not parallax. It's seeing other planes/trains move about while we're outside them, seemingly stationary. And that's exactly what we see with planets.

• wait, what equivocation on (the possibility of) parallax are you talking about? It is a fact, stars do change their formations from summer to winter and back...
• well, would there be any reason to involve "God or angels" (or leprechauns, or unicorns) interfering? Occam's razor helps us put off unneeded hypotheses until they're actually apparent;
• WTF you on about that the many body problem nearly necessitates a God anyway?! 🤦‍♂
• aliens are contradictory? Wut?!? o.O
• well people with degrees do objectively have superior knowledge, but i fail to see who's appealing to that...

Hans Georg Lundahl

Look here, @irrelevant_noob, the basic meaning of "parallax" isn't the Bessel phenomenon, it's the impression of seeing trees move because it's really the car that moves.

"We all have very good reason to discount the prima facie view as an optical illusion — but it's not parallax."

It actually is parallax, it's just that it isn't the "annual parallax of star X" or the Bessel phenomenon.

"It's seeing other planes/trains move about while we're outside them, seemingly stationary."

It's more important and more immediate seeing the trees and houses NOT move.

The corresponding thing would know that stars don't move, so the Bessel phenomenon has to be a parallax (hence its normal name).

Before one can apply any lesson from other cars or trains to the one one is sitting in, one needs to know the one one's sitting in is the same kind of thing.

With cars and trains this can always be done bc one steps into one from the outside. Exit this possibility for Earth. Euler and others tried to pretend Moon and Jupiter similarily inhabited (and Kepler started the trend), we have found no intelligent stargazing life anywhere. So, we do NOT know Earth, teeming with life, part of which is intelligent and gazes as stars is the same thing.

• "It is a fact, stars do change their formations from summer to winter and back..." I explain the "parallax" as not such, but a proper movement performed by angels
  
  
• "Occam's razor helps us put off unneeded hypotheses until they're actually apparent;" — That would preclude particle physics as well. Angels performing "parallaxes" and retrogrades are unneeded if you allow these to be parallactic, but these being parallactic is unneeded if you allow them to be performed by angels
  
  
• "WTF you on about that the many body problem" — It basically does.
  
  
• "aliens are contradictory? Wut?!? o.O" — Yeah, I know a thing or two about how Kepler and Euler persuaded people of Heliocentrism.
  
  
• "well people with degrees do objectively have superior knowledge,"
  
  On average they have superior quantities of true or false knowledge about a given subject. They do not automatically have superior judgement on which knowledge really is such and which is false ...
  
  "but i fail to see who's appealing to that..."
  
  I was not talking of the present situation only, I was talking in general after 20 years of experience of this debate.

Irrelevant Noob

@hglundahl no idea where Bessel comes into this, but parallax is merely the apparent movement of nearer objects against a farther background landscape, when it is the observer that moves.

Oh cute, so you explain away such movements by an undetectable type of agent that you call angels? Then lightning is angels fighting or playing around, isn't it?

Hans Georg Lundahl

You explain away the movements observed by Bradlay and Bessel, @irrelevant_noob . You explain them away by appealing to Earth's undetectable movement, and you explain that undetectable movement away by appealing to (in this context) undetectable agents called "mass" "inertia" and "gravity" ....

That lightnings are electricity was pretty well proven by Benjamin Franklin. What he forgot to prove was that angels and in the context of lightnings perhaps especially demons aren't at least as good as he at manipulating electricity. Why does the lightning strike precisely there, when the cloud is in that position, not five minutes earlier when it was somewhere eles or five minutes later when it would have been somewhere else? I put that down to angelic or more probably demonic activity.

Debate under someone else's comment:

karl dehaut

@karldehaut

I taught philosophy. In one of my classes on knowledge I carried out a little experiment. I asked an older student to interrupt class and give me an envelope. I continued the class for 15 minutes. Then I asked my students to report what they saw on a sheet of paper. The next class I showed the huge differences in the testimonies. The student's descriptions were contradictory, many got the envelope wrong, some spoke of packages, others of paper, or even that it was money... Let's not talk about the student's description... Simply after 15 minutes of witnessing a scene, none of the testimonies were identical. It was an innocuous scene, so for a miracle😏

Living Pterodactyl Immurement therefore SQUAWK Nny

@AnnoyingNewsletters

Tony Morris, now former JW leader, gave a speech about how JWs can go to college, just don't take Philosophy 1 and 2.

Just how flimsy is your religion that it can't stand up to gen ed courses?

karl dehaut

@AnnoyingNewsletters Why am I not surprised😆

The Black Swan

@theblackswan2373

Exactly

Tony Clifford

@tonyclif1

@karldehaut your experiment is perfect evidence for the likely inaccuracies of ANYTHING bible related, let alone miracles - your example is an event, described after only 15 minutes later. Imagine trying to write about it, ascribing the actual words you used, 3 decades later, like the bible does.

992ras

@992ras

That’s not really magic or miracle that calls into question reality and perceived reality. A test of magic, miracles or luck would to use mathematics not philosophy. Easily take 10 students call out 5 numbers at random . those five will stand while the rest are out than at random call out 2 more numbers they stand the rest out then call out one more number that persons in reality will think they are lucky when it is the principal of probabilities not luck,magic, or miracles. It’s basically Schrödinger Cat theory which does bring in reality with probability that cat with poison in closed box can be perceived as a live or dead. Like Bernard Shaw said reality doesn’t exist because there no such thing as one reality for everything. So at that point even philosophy can be questioned if it actually exist because philosophy is belief in morality and a reality of that belief in that philosophical morality. The principle of probability is the 50/50 your number is called and will increase or decrease depending upon causality of probability

Hans Georg Lundahl

Did every testimony agree it was a sheet of paper?

Did everyone agree it had an envelope around it first?

None claimed it was a vinyl disc?

Can some contradictions have been planted to make a point?

Graham Martin

@grahamers

Could you clarify? You don't supply many details, here. I would love t reproduce.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Yeah @grahamers ... wouldn't it be exciting if you could get one to say it was a paper and another to say it was a knife and a third to say it was a glass of water?

For my part, if you could do that, I'd suspect you had planted those descriptions.

I think eye witness testimony is more reliable than you give it credit for.

The Cross Examiner

@thecrossexaminer6665

@hglundahl Lawyer, here. Any trial lawyer will tell you that eyewitness testimony is the absolute weakest testimony court hear. Study after study show that eyewitnesses are much worse than juries and judges realize.

vinnymarchegiano

@vinnymarchegiano

A demonstration of human ignorance.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Is that so, @vinnymarchegiano ?

Limited, if so.

The divergent views all involved paper in some form.

vinnymarchegiano

@vinnymarchegiano

@hglundahl Fools believe unfalsified claims that can not be demonstrated. Divergence is BS unless you can demonstrate your method. I bet you like to use this word to be perceived as intelligent?

@hglundahl What is your method fallacy boy?

Hans Georg Lundahl

I am using the exact experiment here reported, @vinnymarchegiano .

Some believed the paper or the envelope it was in was a package but that is also paper. Some spoke of money, presumably meaning paper money and not coins.

N O T even one seems to have spoken of a glass of water or of a pen or anything, the object is definitely close enough to what it was reported as.

It was also only shown.

Had it been brought to its normal use (like reading from a paper already written on, or writing on a paper not yet written on) the witness reports would have been less divergent, since the use of the object would have taken away the ambiguity.

Similarily, a story is less likely to be distorted than an object within the story.

vinnymarchegiano

@vinnymarchegiano

@hglundahl dem

karl dehaut

@grahamers First of all, my apologies for my late response. My course focused on defining knowledge. So I started with “the senses deceive us” (Plato, Descartes, Locke, Russell). Before class, I asked a student in a higher level class to interrupt class by knocking on the door and give me an envelope. He enters class after 15 minutes of lessons. I chose a thin student. I made him wear a red scarf. I gave him a large yellow/brown envelope. The student comes in, tells me that he must give me the letter and that it is important. I thank him, he or she is leaving. I open the envelope and look inside without taking anything out (a white sheet inside), I put the envelope next to the class notes and resume the class. 15 minutes pass, there are about 15 left before the end of the class. There, I ask six students to write down on a sheet of paper what they saw. I also announce that the most precise and detailed report will receive good appreciation. Please note that students are not allowed to chat with each other. The red scarf, it can be a sweater, pants adds to the difficulty because their brain will focus on that. I collect the copies and the next day I discuss the testimonies. I conducted this experiment every 3 years. You don't have to repeat it every year, the students talk to each other😄

Graham Martin

@grahamers

@karldehaut Thank you very much!

karl dehaut

@grahamers If you've questions, please don't hesitate to aak.

ray A.p.l.

@raya.p.l5919

❤Jermaine Jackson power
Warning it is intense. Will last 3 days.

rimmersbryggeri

@rimmersbryggeri

Eye whitness testimony is largely useles without corroboration. People make mistakes as to wether the the suspect is black or white tall or short and even wether they left by vehicle or on foot. Assuming there was a miraculous event eye whitnesses will be even less reliable. As you say 15 minutes is enough to garble the results. Even AIG who should be well read on Genesis seem to be shady about how many of each animal "were on the ark". Gen 7:2 onward. There are also other problems there that they seem to miss or ignore.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@karldehaut "Before class, I asked a student in a higher level class to interrupt class by knocking on the door and give me an envelope."

In other words, his intervention is sth the class is expecting unimportant for them.

"The student comes in, tells me that he must give me the letter and that it is important."
"I thank him, he or she is leaving. I open the envelope and look inside without taking anything out (a white sheet inside), I put the envelope next to the class notes and resume the class."

The class will assume it means important to you, unimportant to them. The short term memory is less likely to make it to the long term memory.

Confer witnessing a miracle, which would involve witnessing one of the most exciting things you have ever seen.

"He enters class after 15 minutes of lessons."
"15 minutes pass, there are about 15 left before the end of the class."

In other words, the memory has had time to fade and blur before it's brought to attention as important.

"I chose a thin student. I made him wear a red scarf. I gave him a large yellow/brown envelope."
"The red scarf, it can be a sweater, pants adds to the difficulty because their brain will focus on that."

That's deliberately setting up for confusing, which God would hardly do when giving people occasion to witness a miracle. ALTERNATIVELY, if no true miracle were there, there are tens of thousand other things that a blurred memory is more likely to produce than the false memory of precisely a miracle.

"I also announce that the most precise and detailed report will receive good appreciation. Please note that students are not allowed to chat with each other. I collect the copies and the next day I discuss the testimonies."

This is admittedly a circumstance calculated (for once) to make your experiment more reliable.

"There, I ask six students to write down on a sheet of paper what they saw. ... I conducted this experiment every 3 years. You don't have to repeat it every year, the students talk to each other"

But this isn't. With only six students every three years, you have room to conspire with at least one or two of them to make a wildly aberrant statement.

On top of that, chosing six rather than the whole class is likely to slur over how the responses fall into certain classes.

karl dehaut

@hglundahl I just reread, sorry I had a typo for the number six. Now I was talking about visual testimony. My goal was not to talk about miracles. Then, I remind you of the incredible number of individuals sentenced to heavy sentences based solely on testimony. Much of this is due to long-term memory, not to mention the intensity of the experience. In other words, the testimony of a phenomenon in science, in law, in the social sciences teaches more things about the witness than the description, the understanding of the phenomenon experienced by the witness. Testimony without the support of physical evidence proves one thing: the accuracy of the testimony must always be doubted. I will not talk about false testimonies or people who believe they are doing the right thing by testifying to events that they later reconstruct.Furthermore, memory is not very reliable data, all memory is a mental construction.

Kain

@kain7759

@hglundahl Sorry but no, if you check the different books of the bible you would see that not only this is exaclty how things are (the are not concording about what they say it happened, only to the conclusion) but they seems like subsequent books and revisions of the same story, made to cover eachother holes and to make it more appealing to the new "top of the food chain". Every single report of a miracle lack anything that could give it any resemblance to something that could happen and every report about them is different in every iteration of every different book.

Andrzej Sawicki

@andrzejsawicki3770

Eyewitness misidentification is a consistent and outsized contributor to wrongful convictions. Nationally, 69% of DNA exonerations have involved eyewitness misidentification, making it the leading contributing cause of these wrongful convictions.

Hans Georg Lundahl

You are mainly a sloppy reader, @kain7759 .

Very few miracles (apart from some 20 in the synoptics) are repeated from book to book, and those that are don't contradict.

"Every single report of a miracle lack anything that could give it any resemblance to something that could happen"

According to your world view. You are also a sloppy philosopher.

Hans Georg Lundahl

OK, @andrzejsawicki3770 what precise circumstance?

"Eyewitness misidentification is a consistent and outsized contributor to wrongful convictions."

That would be strangers mis-identifying strangers. Not like Jairus mis-identifying his own daughter when seeing her alive again.

You are speaking of a very marginal part of eyewitness testimony.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@karldehaut "Much of this is due to long-term memory, not to mention the intensity of the experience."

Yeah, exactly — the exact kind of factors which would favour accuracy about a miracle.

"Testimony without the support of physical evidence"

The Gospels we have are not that. They are enquiries based on testimony nearly always supported by physical evidence, like a leper having normal skin again. A known one.