J Neil Schulman
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Posts posted by J Neil Schulman
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George H. Smith asked me to attempt to negate my experience the same way he challenged his own arguments in Atheism: The Case Against God.
My book, I Met God -- God Without Religion, Scripture, or Faith documents that that I have attempted to negate my experiences of a real encounter with God.
And here is my bottom line, even today: nothing I experienced can not be explained by conventional means. Nor have I ever claimed otherwise.
Why, then, do I persist in asserting the reality of the experience? Why don't I simply admit that I experienced a temporary break with reality and that my experience was fantasy cooked up by an imaginative brain that was stressed by dehydration and ketosis?
Here's why:
[video deleted]
FYI: My ultimate experience was February 18, 1997. Contact was released in July 1997, so it could not have influenced my experience.
You conveniently left out some relevant background details. Humans had previously received transmissions from a distant planet that gave a detailed blueprint for a mechanism beyond current technological knowledge. At the very least this gave considerable credibility to the experience related by Foster's character. Moreover, as I recall, at the end of the movie there is reference to a suppressed static-filled video tape that corresponds to the length of time reported by Foster's character.
If, in contrast, Foster's character had claimed to have been transported to another planet via a dream or by purely psychic means, and without any independent evidence that intelligent life exists on another planet, then her account would not have been credible. Lastly, keep in mind that her experience could be replicated by others in the same machine that she used. If, say, 100 people used the same machine but got negative results, then this would cast very serious doubts on her story.
So I tell you what, Neil: Have God send you some blueprints for a highly sophisticated device hitherto unknown to humans, and I will take your report more seriously.
Ghs
Perfect example of how you drop context.
James Woods' character in Contact, Michael Kitz, puts forward a perfectly plausible alternative explanation that the message and blueprints were all an expensive scheme to defraud the world, conducted by the eccentric billionaire S.R. Hadden. Kitz makes a perfect George H. Smith argument that nothing extraordinary happened. Ellie Arroway is left with no evidence to present that her experience was anything but subjective. She doesn't have access to the 18 hours of blank static anymore than I have access to anything that can prove my experience was real.
And I don't believe you. If I sent you the blueprints for the Interociter (a movie device stolen from the novel and movie This Island Earth) you'd find some reason to negate them as anything extraordinary.
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I just had a late night thought and posting it here will be my last of the night. I think. :-)
I've been referring to supercognition as if it's an ability I regularly possess. But I've also said frequently enough in this discussion that it's something I have little ability to initiate at will, and only small amounts of control over.
George H. Smith has written that I must have a big ego for suggesting that God found me worth communicating with. But wouldn't my ego be larger if I claimed to have the ability to use my "supercognition" to communicate with God at will?
As it stands, I regard the communication as being handled from the other end. I wasn't in control of the process. I didn't initiate it; I didn't control the conditions during it; I didn't end it. So I suppose at least one "offer of proof" I can put forward is that Someone with vastly greater control over his powers of cognition and communication was making that experience happen for me. What I experienced was superior to any ability I'd ever had in my life to accomplish, before or since.
That's one reason I think it really was God.
You need to get your story straight. You have repeatedly urged others to replicate your "experiment," so they too can talk to God. But you here make it crystal clear that you didn't run any kind of experiment at all. You were not in control of the process, you did not initiate it, and you cannot replicate your experience on demand, even under the same conditions. Everything was "handled from the other end."
You have also summoned your inability to replicate your experience as an "offer of proof" for the authenticity of that experience. I don't think I have the patience to deal with this absurd claim, at least not now. Suffice it to say (as I indicated in my last post) that this conveniently renders your claims unverifiable in principle. If you were able to chat with God on demand, I could give you some questions to ask him about my personal life that only I know about; and if you, via God, were able to answer even a few such questions, you would have me convinced me that something extraordinary is going on, at the very least. But as things stand now, you can always say that you gave God a ring but that no one answered.
My comment about your big ego was made in the context of your rejection of similar mystical claims by others whose reports do not conform "in every detail" to your own. You said that God has talked to you and perhaps one other person in the history of humankind. "Big ego" cannot do justice to a person who really believes this. The sense of self-importance implied by such a claim is positively messianic, as is your claim (in the intro to your book) that your experience would "change the world."
Btw, how is that "change the world" thingy working out for you? Did God tell you that you were destined to change the world, or did you infer this from the fact that God views you one of the most important people -- and perhaps as the most important person -- in history?
Then there is your claim to possess "supercognition" -- which would make you a Superman of the intellect, so to speak, if a Superman in training who has not yet mastered his super-powers.
Big ego? You? Perish the thought!
Ghs
I prayed for proof. I then experienced what I regard as proof. Your arguments are consistently to drop context, misinterpret my statements by either adding elements I don't assert or leaving out elements I do, and to take specific answers to specific questions and generalize them to the point of absurdity.
And I'm the one weak on epistemology?
No, sir.
You're far more interested in winning an argument than possibly learning anything that doesn't already reify your worldview.
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George H. Smith asked me to attempt to negate my experience the same way he challenged his own arguments in Atheism: The Case Against God.
My book, I Met God -- God Without Religion, Scripture, or Faith documents that that I have attempted to negate my experiences of a real encounter with God.
And here is my bottom line, even today: nothing I experienced can not be explained by conventional means. Nor have I ever claimed otherwise.
Why, then, do I persist in asserting the reality of the experience? Why don't I simply admit that I experienced a temporary break with reality and that my experience was fantasy cooked up by an imaginative brain that was stressed by dehydration and ketosis?
Here's why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FbSPXC4btU
FYI: My ultimate experience was February 18, 1997. Contact was released in July 1997, so it could not have influenced my experience.
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There is no epistemological basis to reject that something can exist merely because one can't conceive an experiment to falsify it.
The burden of proof remains with the person suggesting it exists.
That is sound epistemology and science.
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Astronomers Find First Evidence Of Other Universes
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I just had a late night thought and posting it here will be my last of the night. I think. :-)
I've been referring to supercognition as if it's an ability I regularly possess. But I've also said frequently enough in this discussion that it's something I have little ability to initiate at will, and only small amounts of control over.
George H. Smith has written that I must have a big ego for suggesting that God found me worth communicating with. But wouldn't my ego be larger if I claimed to have the ability to use my "supercognition" to communicate with God at will?
As it stands, I regard the communication as being handled from the other end. I wasn't in control of the process. I didn't initiate it; I didn't control the conditions during it; I didn't end it. So I suppose at least one "offer of proof" I can put forward is that Someone with vastly greater control over his powers of cognition and communication was making that experience happen for me. What I experienced was superior to any ability I'd ever had in my life to accomplish, before or since.
That's one reason I think it really was God.
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Cosmic rays are real phenomena, but not within the visual spectrum. So if someone "saw" them and described them as an additional "color," it would not be a color anyone could place on a color wheel or ever assign a pantone number.
Yes; cosmic rays are not composed of photons.
Remember, you wrote: "Okay, George, mix colors that represent the color "cosmic ray."
Why did you write that, when you know cosmic rays are not even part of the electromagnetic spectrum?
George was the one who said any additional "color" could be conventionally "mixed." Using something real that has now been detected but which is not made of photons was in fact my challenge to his analogy. If someone "saw" gravitic waves or cosmic rays as a "color" that would be a paranormal perception of something real. Since it would be a superior ability above the known bell curve of sight, one might not even be wrong in tagging such a perceptual ability supernatural. Saying it's only relatively recently that such a perception can be validated as something real is the point of my using this analogy, since I'm suggesting that other paranormal perceptions are precisely equivalent: a rarely mastered above-the-bell-curve ability to perceive something real; a supercognitive sense.
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Then, some scientist decides to test these people by projecting infrared and ultraviolet frequencies onto a screen and seeing if there is any correlation with the extra colors they claim to see. The results of these tests are uniformly negative. These people are again dismissed as cranks, mystics, and religious outcasts.
For what possible reason would such people be stigmatized in this manner? Again, they are merely claiming to see a variant of something (i.e., color) that all sighted people can perceive. Their claim is no more inherently improbable than, say, than the visual experiences of people with dyslexia.
So you're perfectly fine with people who say they see "auras" around people? You're not ready to dismiss them as nuts?
The assumption that their "internal" experiences have no external cause can only be tested when science reaches the point to know what to test for and design tests that can measure what they're looking for.
I submit paranormal phenomena can only be measured once we know what they are and how they work. The failure to be able to initiate these abilities on demand under laboratory conditions tells us only that much of the time they are not under the conscious control of the test subjects. But then again, neither are the content of dreams, and who denies that dreams are real -- and common -- phenomena?
This is the kind of "argument for all occasions" that one commonly finds with mystics and people who claim to possess paranormal powers. It can be applied to virtually any claim, no matter how fantastic and absurd. A person who claims to see dancing fairies at twilight, or who claims to be in telepathic communication with beings on another planet (as Geller does), or who claims to be the reincarnation of Napoleon, or who claims to be able to inhabit the bodies of other people, and so on without end, can make exactly the same argument that you do, viz, that science has not yet advanced to the point where their claims can be fairly tested, and it would therefore be sheer dogmatism to dismiss such claims.
This argument is worthless, and it shouldn't be too difficult for you to figure out why, given your claim to have read extensively in the field of epistemology. Even a modest knowledge of Rand's epistemology would be sufficient in this case.
Parapsychology is not yet a rigorous science with established standards and practices. It is polluted with superstition, dementia, and fraud. The worst of it is the lack of epistemological rigor by many of its proponents and practitioners.
I have been trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, but it's an ongoing process. To paraphrase Ayn Rand on another subject, "It's earlier than you think."
But dismissing an entire field of study as unworthy of any rational person because of its worst cases is not good epistemology, good science, or good manners.
Lastly, to say that dreams are "real" is not to say that dreams are anything more than a subjective experience. Of course, this does not mean that external factors do not play a role; anyone who has fallen asleep with the television on has probably noticed how a program can weave its way into a dream.
Ghs
Dreams cease to be merely a subjective experience when during what is commonly called a dream one is able to locate oneself by using landmarks and signs and upon awakening validate that these are in a real place that one has never visited nor seen. I know, I know. How can one prove that one didn't see it as a child, or on TV, or in a photo and didn't remember?
I expect you will never cease to regard me as gullible for taking such validations as proving my "dreams" as sometimes a perception of something externally real, and you'll always find any other explanation than OBE/astral projection as a lesser hypothesis.
There are degrees of skepticism I simply can't overcome.
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If an unknown external element is mystical, then I guess predicting orbits by positing as yet unseen planets never found any.
Do you refer to the orbit of Uranus and the (at one time) unseen orbital body Neptune? If so, you have the process of inquiry and scientific history badly garbled. What a shock that is . . .
No, I understand it quite well.
Perhaps, but what you wrote was rather unclear: "Predicting orbits by positing as yet unseen planets." Observing perturbed orbits led to predictions of as yet unseen planets, which planets were confirmed by observation.
Astronomers using the Hubble telescope are today finding planets around other stars the same way.Well, no. Exoplanet discovery is different. Astronomers use Doppler spectroscopy, photometric transit or microlensing. Not the same thing, dude. Look it up.
"Predicting orbits by positing as yet unseen planets."
Yes. They predicted a theoretical planetary body in an orbit then looked along the orbit they predicted and found it.
Astronomers using the Hubble telescope are today finding planets around other stars the same way.Well, no. Exoplanet discovery is different. Astronomers use Doppler spectroscopy, photometric transit or microlensing. Not the same thing, dude. Look it up.
*sigh* It's close enough for jazz. They're using better technology to do the same thing: looking where theoretical calculations predict -- and yes, I have read accounts of finding new planets orbiting other stars because of the gravitational effects on already-known planets in that system. Please don't make me Google this.
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Have them mix some paint until they arrive at the combination that correlates with what they see. There is nothing inherently problematic about what these people perceive. Some people are color blind, deaf people typically have more acute hearing than sighted people, sounds cause some people to experience colors, and trained radiologists can see things on a xray that others cannot.
Okay, George, mix colors that represent the color "cosmic ray."
I know nothing about a color called "cosmic ray." Find someone who does and have him mix the paint.
Yes, dogs hear into the ultrasonic, but if someone not suffering from inner ear problems is hearing sounds not heard by anyone else in the room, including dogs, either they have a paranormal sense or they're delusional.
As a matter of fact, let's go with that. How do you know that anyone claiming to be suffering from tinnitus isn't delusional?
The term "delusional" pertains to false beliefs or opinions, especially to those which are held despite evidence to the contrary. A raw sensation, such as pain or a sound, cannot be delusional per se. A person who believes he hears a ringing in his ears really does experience this sensation. The relevant question is whether the cause of this sensation is physical or psychosomatic.
But suppose this person believes he is hearing chimes in heaven or a fire alarm in hell. Most people would regard these beliefs as delusional, but probably not you. After all, scientists have not developed tests that can determine whether or not is possible to hear chimes in heaven or fire alarms in hell, so who are we to dismiss such beliefs outright?
I suggest that you devote more than a few seconds of thought to your examples and analogies. Your journeys into philosophy are more like hit and run raids.
Ghs
I know nothing about a color called "cosmic ray." Find someone who does and have him mix the paint.
Cosmic rays are real phenomena, but not within the visual spectrum. So if someone "saw" them and described them as an additional "color," it would not be a color anyone could place on a color wheel or ever assign a pantone number. But go back before cosmic rays could be detected in a lab, and someone who said they existed and he knew that because he'd seen them would be called by you a mystic, a crank, a charlatan, or if you were feeling generous, merely unable to satisfy your epistemological standards of evidence.
The term "delusional" pertains to false beliefs or opinions, especially to those which are held despite evidence to the contrary.
But you have no evidence to the contrary, George; the best you can muster is to say you haven't experienced it, yourself, and don't know of anyone else you regard as reliable who has. Am I expected to negate my own experience merely because it's not conventional? Am I to make my assertion of it dependent on the agreement of others? Think of what Ayn said about the sort of person who would deny his own hard-won knowledge because others didn't see it.
Would you respect a person claiming to be an atheist who had an experience like mine but denied it merely to get in good with you?
But suppose this person believes he is hearing chimes in heaven or a fire alarm in hell. Most people would regard these beliefs as delusional, but probably not you. After all, scientists have not developed tests that can determine whether or not is possible to hear chimes in heaven or fire alarms in hell, so who are we to dismiss such beliefs outright?
I would endeavor to keep an open mind. I might not succeed. I have expressed doubt about Neale Donald Walsch's claims in Conversations with God because the personality of God as he writes his dialogue does not correspond with the fellow I chatted up. Still, if I met Neale Donald Walsch I would try hard not to call him names.
I suggest that you devote more than a few seconds of thought to your examples and analogies. Your journeys into philosophy are more like hit and run raids.
Please. My "accident report" is book-length.
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If an unknown external element is mystical, then I guess predicting orbits by positing as yet unseen planets never found any.
Do you refer to the orbit of Uranus and the (at one time) unseen orbital body Neptune? If so, you have the process of inquiry and scientific history badly garbled. What a shock that is . . .
No, I understand it quite well. Perturbations in the orbit of Uranus suggested that there was a so-far undetected planet whose gravity was causing the perturbations. Using this model of an "unseen celestial body" an orbit was hypothesized for a theoretical planet and predictions were hypothesized of where it might be. Then astronomers looked until they found something that satisfied their theoretical projections. They found Neptune.
Pluto was discovered the same way, by hypothesizing perturbations in the orbit of Neptune meant there was still another unseen planet. Clyde Tombaugh didn't have more than a high-school education when he looked through a telescope and saw it.
Astronomers using the Hubble telescope are today finding planets around other stars the same way.
Now, gravitational force is still not well understood. There are multiple theories to explain it, none definitively negating the others. Predominance of one theory over another waxes and wanes as cosmological models change. But scientists are able to use what they know of gravitational forces to make calculations and predictions, and this they have a pretty good handle on.
When Galileo did this, he was called before a theological court and censured for not accepting current doctrine. It took until Pope John-Paul the Second, hundreds of years later, and years after men had walked on the moon, for the Church to admit their mistake.
I submit as a proposition to the readers of this forum that parapsychology is today about where astronomy was in the time of Galileo -- unorthodox. Every laboratory test of psychic abilities has relied on one assumption: that such abilities are well-controllable by the test subjects during conventional states of consciousness. James Randi's challenge relies on this premise, and perhaps he's right to use it against stage performers who claim this ability but either wildly exaggerate their degree of control and accurate perception or have no paranormal abilities and are simple frauds. I think it's the former; George H. Smith thinks it's the latter. Either way, the assumption of conscious control dictates one set of laboratory protocols. Negating this assumption does not negate the possibility that psychic abilities are real and even frequent, but are often unrepeatable under laboratory conditions because the test subjects can't manifest them on demand with any degree of accuracy.
I take this position, myself, because my own experience is of very limited control. Most of my own paranormal experiences occurred unpredictably and mostly out of my control. I would make a poor laboratory test subject for psychic events I have experienced frequently enough to regard as real but can't control anywhere near well enough to reproduce on demand.
If anyone knows how to design experimental protocols to solve this problem, please speak up.
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"If I was studying [fish schooling] I'd be looking for subtle means of communication either among the fish or in reaction to some as-yet unidentified external trigger."
Where's the mysticism in that?
Well, young Neil, it so happens that fish schooling has been explained without reference to 'subtle means of communication.'
If an unknown external element is mystical, then I guess predicting orbits by positing as yet unseen planets never found any.Do you refer to the orbit of Uranus and the (at one time) unseen orbital body Neptune? If so, you have the process of inquiry and scientific history badly garbled. What a shock that is . . .
I must now invoke the Law Of Pixies to explain this know-nothing attitude. I illustrate the Law Of Pixies with this chilling video courtesy of your fellow investigator . . . I double-dare you to explain this freaky exhibition.
Well, young Neil, it so happens that fish schooling has been explained without reference to 'subtle means of communication.'
The paper's author, Mr. Olson, isn't dogmatic about it the way you are. He writes, "This paper looks at the experimental observations of both individual fish behavior and the schooling behavior that arises within larger populations. The broad features of theoretical models which try to simulate schooling in fish are discussed. The current state of both simulation and observation are assessed, and future research goals are suggested. ... The fact that the forces governing fish behavior are internal to the fish make the problem of emergent fish schooling, in some respects, a much more difficult problem than emergence in physics. The complication arises because the rules governing fish behavior are much less well understood and are potentially much more complex than the simple forces that lead to emergence in physics. ... The current state of experimental/observational efforts to understand fish schools is still rather limited. While advances are being made in measurements in the wild and improved tracking of fish in the laboratory, many difficulties remain. It is still a major difficulty to accurately track fish position for a large number of fish over a large amount of time. Detailed tracking of the velocities of individuals within large dense schools is still impossible. Observations in the wild, though progressing, are still very limited. ... The theoretical aspect of fish schooling has been approached primarily with simulations. ... While both observation and simulation have made great progress in recent years, there are still hurdles to overcome. ... Ultimately the understanding of fish schooling is set to grow by leaps and bounds as new technologies are put to use in both experimental and computational efforts. It will be fascinating to see how these new developments confirm or overturn current theories."
Now that's how a scientist approaches questions. Mr. Olson would not start throwing around the word "preposterous" if someone else discovered that external factors such as unheretofore discovered sensory detection of potential predators were a major factor in schooling.
But, for you, no. There's a theory which provides one plausible explanation which even an expert in the subject considers promising but not definitive ... and you throw it at me as a settled dogma.
Feh.
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Neil: "Do not accept my account on faith."
No one is doubting your account.
I'm doubting it. I think the whole thing is probably a stunt to get attention, most likely with the goal of getting someone other than himself interested in publishing his work.
J
There is no doubt in my mind that Neil's account is sincere. To perpetrate a fraud of this magnitude is not in his nature. Moreover, if Neil had wished to concoct a story out of thin air, he could have come up with a much more convincing story than we find in his book. Lastly, if money and publicity were Neil's motives, he would have been foolish not to have "experienced" the God of traditional Christianity. He could probably have made a decent amount of money for a book, not to mention a lecture tour for Christian audiences. As things stand now, however, Neil's story is so eccentric that Christians and other conventional religionists will find it no more convincing than atheists do. Indeed, many will be repulsed by Neil's idea of God in a way that atheists are not.
I have sometimes wondered what would happen if I converted to Christianity, wrote a book criticizing ATCAG, went on the Christian lecture circuit, debated atheists, etc. I would doubtless do a lot better financially than I am doing now.
In 1984, on the tenth anniversary of the publication of ATCAG, I gave a talk in LA, which was very well attended, in which I criticized my own book. I talked about things I thought were incorrect or overstated, and how I would rebut some of its arguments if I were a Christian theologian. I have even posted some of these criticisms online.
This proved to be an interesting experiment, one that Neil may want to try with regard to his book. I would wager that I am far more introspective and self-critical about my defense of atheism than Neil is about his defense of theism. Except for my early years, I have never had the kind of emotional attachment to atheism that Neil has to theism. On the contrary, I would be quite pleased to learn that God exists, provided he is not the fire and brimstone God of traditional Christianity, and I would welcome some kind of pleasant, stress free afterlife. Schopenhauer once observed that if atheism could promise an afterlife but theism could not, most people would convert to atheism without giving it a second thought. He was probably right.
Ghs
George thank you for the kind words.
I would wager that I am far more introspective and self-critical about my defense of atheism than Neil is about his defense of theism.
I'll take that wager ... after a good night's sleep.
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If I was the skeptic James Randi is, I'd start the J. Neil Schulman Education Foundation, and solicit a million dollars to be placed into a trust account and paid to the first person who can prove to me that there is such a real condition as tinnitus.
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If I'm correctly drawing inference from the epistemological tenets of George H. Smith, any time a scientist looks for an explanation for a so-far unseen or undetected phenomenon but the existence of which is postulated because of unexplained phenomena, the scientists are mere mystics chasing dreams.
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Suppose there was a history of people who claimed to see extra colors that others could not see. They're dismissed as mystics by materialists and as blasphemers by dogmatic religionists.
Have them mix some paint until they arrive at the combination that correlates with what they see. There is nothing inherently problematic about what these people perceive. Some people are color blind, deaf people typically have more acute hearing than sighted people, sounds cause some people to experience colors, and trained radiologists can see things on a xray that others cannot.
In short, your example is merely a case of variations in a sensory faulty that all sighted people possess. Moreover, we have seen different colors ourselves, so we know what the people in your example mean when they speak of seeing an unusual color. There is a vast difference between the claim to see an unusual color and the claim to see God.
Then, some scientist decides to test these people by projecting infrared and ultraviolet frequencies onto a screen and seeing if there is any correlation with the extra colors they claim to see. The results of these tests are uniformly negative. These people are again dismissed as cranks, mystics, and religious outcasts.
For what possible reason would such people be stigmatized in this manner? Again, they are merely claiming to see a variant of something (i.e., color) that all sighted people can perceive. Their claim is no more inherently improbable than, say, than the visual experiences of people with dyslexia.
The assumption that their "internal" experiences have no external cause can only be tested when science reaches the point to know what to test for and design tests that can measure what they're looking for.
I submit paranormal phenomena can only be measured once we know what they are and how they work. The failure to be able to initiate these abilities on demand under laboratory conditions tells us only that much of the time they are not under the conscious control of the test subjects. But then again, neither are the content of dreams, and who denies that dreams are real -- and common -- phenomena?
This is the kind of "argument for all occasions" that one commonly finds with mystics and people who claim to possess paranormal powers. It can be applied to virtually any claim, no matter how fantastic and absurd. A person who claims to see dancing fairies at twilight, or who claims to be in telepathic communication with beings on another planet (as Geller does), or who claims to be the reincarnation of Napoleon, or who claims to be able to inhabit the bodies of other people, and so on without end, can make exactly the same argument that you do, viz, that science has not yet advanced to the point where their claims can be fairly tested, and it would therefore be sheer dogmatism to dismiss such claims.
This argument is worthless, and it shouldn't be too difficult for you to figure out why, given your claim to have read extensively in the field of epistemology. Even a modest knowledge of Rand's epistemology would be sufficient in this case.
Lastly, to say that dreams are "real" is not to say that dreams are anything more than a subjective experience. Of course, this does not mean that external factors do not play a role; anyone who has fallen asleep with the television on has probably noticed how a program can weave its way into a dream.
Ghs
Have them mix some paint until they arrive at the combination that correlates with what they see. There is nothing inherently problematic about what these people perceive. Some people are color blind, deaf people typically have more acute hearing than sighted people, sounds cause some people to experience colors, and trained radiologists can see things on a xray that others cannot.
Okay, George, mix colors that represent the color "cosmic ray."
Yes, dogs hear into the ultrasonic, but if someone not suffering from inner ear problems is hearing sounds not heard by anyone else in the room, including dogs, either they have a paranormal sense or they're delusional.
As a matter of fact, let's go with that. How do you know that anyone claiming to be suffering from tinnitus isn't delusional?
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Are you familiar with emergent systems and schooling behavior in fish?
That's quite a bit of hand-waving in an attempt to explain the cause of a phenomenon when the cause is not immediately apparent.
If I was studying this I'd be looking for subtle means of communication either among the fish or in reaction to some as-yet unidentified external trigger.
Not hand-waving at all. The behavioral rules were identified to be quite simple and were simulated: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100916121320.htm
Very strange line of inquiry from Neil. You asked if he was familiar with fish schooling. He dodges the question and ignores the reference ('hand waving') and then suggests that the best way to proceed is to disregard all previous inquiry and leap immediately into the spirit world.
That stance boggles my mind. It appears that Neil is predisposed to a mystical explanation of any intriguing phenomena, without taking the time to even glance over more prosaic explanations.
Mike: Are you familiar with the science of crossing the road, which attempts to explain how people get from one side of the road to the other without being mashed like sardines? Much of the work concentrates on vision, sound and 'pedestrian signalling' infrastructure. Basically, the behaviour is an emergent property of Look Both Ways and/or wait for a 'safe crossing' light.
Neil: A lot of hand-waving nonsense. I would start with psychic emanations from the eleventh dimension and stir in multiple continua that we aren't able to measure yet.
Mike: Um, why would you posit invisible mystical possibilities rather than respond to the empirical work first?
Neil: You are a fucking dogmatic asshole.
"If I was studying this I'd be looking for subtle means of communication either among the fish or in reaction to some as-yet unidentified external trigger."
Where's the mysticism in that? Is everything not obvious and hard to figure out mystical? If an unknown external element is mystical, then I guess predicting orbits by positing as yet unseen planets never found any.
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BC wrote: "There is a basic epistemological problem here. There is no clear way for an uninvolved party to distinguish between a genuine encounter with the Almighty (assuming there is an Almighty) and a psychic dysfunction."
This is true only if it is possible for an Almighty to exist. If the posited Almighty clearly cannot exist, it is easy enough to distinguish between the genuine encounters with the Almighty and an experience of a different character. Only a theist or agnostic can regard Neil's interpretation of his experience as possibly correct.
And that is the most important part of why I believe I have something to teach atheists, regardless of whether they regard my experience as real. I represent God as a being that does meet the definition of God (eternal consciousness, creator of the specific "universe" or continuum which we exist in, willful creator of all other consciousness beings) yet whose nature is not unknowable, does not violate the axioms of Existence, Non-Contradiction, and Identity (not "omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent") and the concept of which is not negated by any incontrovertible facts.
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Here is the alternative as I see it:
1) I experienced something externally real.
2) I did not experience something externally real.
Okay. How about this . . .
1.) Neil experienced something externally real2.) Neil did not experience something externally real (he had apsychotic break with reality).3.) Neil did not experience something externally real (he did not have apsychotic break with reality)I am asking you to consider that the ketosis/paranoia/dehydration/starvation/insomnia may have led to the experience. As far as I can tell, you do not consider this a reasonable possibility.
Two and three are functionally identical. It still comes down to the binary choice of my experience being of something externally real or not.
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There is a basic epistemological problem here. There is no clear way for an uninvolved party to distinguish between a genuine encounter with the Almighty (assuming there is an Almighty) and a psychic dysfunction. For the person who "has met God" it is not clear whether he is bat-shit crazy or has been Touched by God. Even to that person. A crazy person will be just as convinced he met God as one who has genuinely (if that is possible) met God.
What further complicates matters: If a God exists, this God could appear to 'crazy' persons as well. Which would add the variant that a person coud be both be 'crazy' (psychotic) and have had God encounter.
In which case the opposition "Person P either had a God encounter or is/was crazy (or had a psychotic break) would not exist anymore.
Based on the premise (for discussion's sake only) that a god exists, one gets the following combinations:
+psychotic +God encounter
-psychotic +God encounter
+psychotic -God encounter
-psychotic -God encounter
I have never believed in "God". By the age of nine I dismissed the idea as irrelevant, that is, it explains nothing. Einstein explains it best: http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/einstein%E2%80%99s-god
I don't see an epistemological problem.
The epistemological problems in discussions about religion are manifold because one will often encounter people who refuse to separate fact from fiction, being so convinced they have "met God" that they react very touchy to epistemological challenge which places the burden of proof on them - a proof they cannot offer due to the nature of such 'experiences'.
The approach of Neil Schulman's discussion opponents was strictly empistemological, and as the debate progressed, Neil found himself more and more struggling with this challenge:
"Claiming that God exists while failing to meet the burden of proof "merely communicates to others that one has a particular mental attitude known as belief". (Ghs, Why Atheism, p. 32)
Neil tried to counter but only got deeper in quicksand because the nature of his counter-attacks did not meet even basic epistemological standards.
One example of many:
"god is no pacifist." (NS) (making the mistake of presnting a mere belief as fact)
"Because I present my reasons why I regard God's existence as a real person as not violating Aristotle's and Rand's axioms, nor violating of a reasoned understanding of natural law." (NS)
Neil believes that his subjective idea of a God (= "a real person") reflects reality.
One could as well claim (I'll borrow George's "invisible elves" for that purpose) that one regards them as "real persons" and delude onself into thinking one's imagination reflects reality.
Especially detrimental to Neil's argumentation is that he tries to cling to Aristotle's and Rand's axioms during it all.
That's why he resorts to speaking of god a "a real person" and an "entity", and that's why he denies that the supernatural is unreal.
He seems to believe that if the supernatural is declared as "real", then Objectivists will have to accept it as such.
Neil tried to counter but only got deeper in quicksand because the nature of his counter-attacks did not meet even basic epistemological standards.
One example of many:
"god is no pacifist." (NS) (making the mistake of presnting a mere belief as fact)
If it was God communicating with me then what I learned during the communication is a valid basis for this statement. Only if the communication did not happen in the first place would the conclusion be baseless.
"Because I present my reasons why I regard God's existence as a real person as not violating Aristotle's and Rand's axioms, nor violating of a reasoned understanding of natural law." (NS)
Neil believes that his subjective idea of a God (= "a real person") reflects reality.
One could as well claim (I'll borrow George's "invisible elves" for that purpose) that one regards them as "real persons" and delude onself into thinking one's imagination reflects reality.
No, it's not because I claim that the concept of God does not violate Aristotle and Rand's three axioms of Existence, Non-Contradiction, and Identity, but because I do not claim things about God that violate those axioms. I do not claim that God is "omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent." I do not assert that God has an impossible-to-know undefinable and unspecific nature. I assert, based on my experience of him, that God is limited by the nature of his existence as an existent subject to the Law of Identity. In fact, I assert, based on my experience of him, that God is with one fundamental exception the same sort of conscious being that we are: a conscious soul that may enter into a biological body and does not terminate with that body but merely exits it upon its death. The distinguishing difference is that God is the First Existing Conscious Entity and like existence itself his consciousness Exists -- while our consciousnesses have beginnings defined when they became independent of his.
This, alone, distinguishes what I learned from many other teleology which have as its purpose to end that separation from God, while the teleology I learned from communication with God is to develop and evolve our own independent consciousnesses rather than abandon our distinct individual identities in favor of losing our selves back into the One we came out of. That makes God pro-free-will and pro-individualist -- a libertarian.
Especially detrimental to Neil's argumentation is that he tries to cling to Aristotle's and Rand's axioms during it all. That's why he resorts to speaking of god a "a real person" and an "entity", and that's why he denies that the supernatural is unreal. He seems to believe that if the supernatural is declared as "real", then Objectivists will have to accept it as such.
If my experience of God was real then God is real. If God is real he is a real thing, subject to the three axioms of Existence, Non-Contradiction, and Identity. If I had a communication with someone real and with a consciousness of the same nature as our own then referring to God as a person is sensible. That's what I experienced: communication with an eternal consciousness of the same nature as our own. I don't "cling" to the Axioms. I merely encountered nothing that negates them, nor how could anything real exist that does?
If my experience had been of something that violated the axioms -- if I'd encountered things that contradicted them -- then that would have been an immediate proof to me negating my experience as real. It is because my encounter was of an entity that does not contradict the axioms that I was willing further to pursue validations of that experience as real.
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"Mr. Atheism" trashing my book as entirely unconvincing and preposterous isn't the sort of endorsement that will improve its sales prospects.
If you're target market is Believers, then Mr. Atheism's negative appraisal is probably exactly what they'd want to hear.
Glenn Beck claims to be ecumenical, but I doubt that includes people like me who are not only not members of his church, but of any established and respected "faith." My denial of faith and criticism of people who accept the existence of God only because of faith would be a negative to him, not a positive.
I don't think that Beck is a subtle enough thinker to make those distinctions and judgments. I think that if he heard of an atheist turned Believer, that would be enough for him. His curiosity would end there. I don't think he'd even try to get his mind around your criticism of people accepting God on faith, or why you'd label his and others' experiences of feeling God's presence inside them (to one extent or another) as being based in faith where you categorize your own experiences as something other than faith.
J
You don't watch Glenn Beck enough. He is very specific in what hobby horse he promotes.
And the lack of interest suggests to me that "believers" believe something else.
-
I did expect people who have read Thomas S. Szasz not to be so quick as to play doctor and start issuing diagnoses of psychosis for no better reason that someone reported events outside their dogma of what is possible.
There has been no such diagnosis. Psychosis is one half of the false dilemma you set up for yourself. In several posts I pointed out that you haven't considered a third possibility: that you were mistaken in your interpretation of an unusual state of mind.
But before I even posted for the first time here you decided to ridicule and sneer at my accounts of my experience. You've called me insane because I no longer accept my former Godless worldview. For an old friend who knows me as scrupulously accurate in trying to represent my experience, that's just fucking rude.George posted twice before your appearance. In each of the two posts he was rather light-hearted. Starbuckle did not sneer or ridicule, and neither did Ninth Doctor.
Nobody has called you insane. No one. You are utterly wrong to insist on this. It is dishonest to keep banging that drum.
Here's what Starbuckle asked: "But my main question here is whether accepting the existence of God or accepting that he had had a "psychotic break" with reality were really Schulman's only reasonable alternatives when he experienced whatever it was that he experienced."
That was a good faith question. You have dodged that question in every single post. What makes other alternatives unreasonable?
All you have to do is consider the possibility that your old atheist buddy didn't suffer a psychotic break with reality but discovered that reality was of a different nature than his previous understanding allowed for.Nobody set the only alternative explanation of your experience as a psychotic break with reality. Nobody but you. Only you have set up this false dilemma.
Your refusal to consider the possibility of another explanation is the crux of your communication problem. Do you show good faith insisting that there is no third possibility? Is it good faith to insist that other people have set the false dilemma -- when only you have set up the alternatives?
++++++++++++++++
If I was forced to choose from the buffet of god stories, I would probably choose Neil's confection: his god doesn't actually do much, doesn't actively hurt anyone, doesn't raise a superstructure of loathsome religion, does not make lightning strike, does not intrude on the world or make anything of importance happen. An inert, distant, uninvolved and low-power god seems a lot more palatable than the other offerings.
Neil's god seems to have set everything in motion and then had a series of long naps.
So, I can provisionally accept that Neil's god is the one gem amongst all others.
Now what? Neil's god doesn't seem to have anything more to say to anyone on any subject. He has no awesome powers and no control over events. He neither causes disasters nor is able to avert them. He gives no map to salvation and has no particular beef with anyone or anything.
About the only thing we can take away from this concept of god is that life is eternal, that we humans live on in some way after 'death.'
That's a good deal, I figure. No rules, no expectations, no punishment, no anger, no hell, no nothing.
So, Neil, I can provisionally give a nod to your concept of god as the least monstrous.
Now what? What do you think I should do with this general acceptance of your god as Best In Show?
A good-faith question is one where the questioner's viewpoint can potentially be altered by the answer.
In a dispute the question of whether any given answer is sufficient to negate the assumptions of the questioner requires an objective third party to mediate. Good luck finding one who isn't ridiculed by one side or the other the moment he rules against one of the sides.
The acceptance of biblical stories as a measure of who God is and what he's done by people who don't believe the Bible is anything but politically-motivated fiction strikes me as a case of what Rand called the "stolen concept." If you don't believe in scripture as historically accurate then using any of its stories to negate a non-scriptural description of God is absurd.
You also make a lot of assumptions with respect to my presentation about God that's not warranted by what I've written or said. I never asserted, as do Deists, that God plays no active role in what happens within our plane of existence. I merely assert his powerlessness when it comes to our own free-will decision-making. We don't decide on whether or not to have earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme weather, solar flares, volcanic eruptions, asteroid fly-bys, and a gazillion other things. That certainly leaves plenty for God to act if he found there was a reason that satisfied his purposes. I don't know why God acting has to be classified as miraculous any more than when any other intelligent actor makes a decision that effects a change. The Deists were just taking one narrow position in a dilemma of religious choices about an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God-- Christianity's living God who gives a shit, or their living God who's so indifferent he might as well be dead.
Regarding psychosis. That's an establishment psychological diagnosis to describe people whose behavior regularly pisses off others.
Here is the alternative as I see it:
1) I experienced something externally real.
2) I did not experience something externally real.
That's pretty binary.
I maintain 1) because my experiences satisfied pre-conditions I'd set for myself to negate my skepticism.
I maintain others are reasonable in not accepting 1) until it happens to them.
Out of loneliness I encourage others to make the experiment.
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Yeah, it must have been my God-given psychic powers that influenced Starbuckle to start this discussion and draw me into a flame war instead of spending that time on something that might actually make me money.
There's no need to consider "psychic powers" as an explanation. When running any kind of publicity stunt, one needn't be able to predict ahead of time exactly how it will play out, who will be lured in, and which opportunities might present themselves to be taken advantage of. When one goes around promoting the idea that he interacted with God after having been an atheist, and confesses to having the expectation of changing the world with his testimony, it should come as no surprise to him that someone, somewhere, would end up discussing it in one public medium or another. You happened to catch Mr. Atheism commenting on it. That's a pretty big fish.
You could have done worse, and, who knows, you might still do better as far as exposure is concerned. If, say, Glenn Beck -- who you report as having raved about your Alongside Night -- were to suddenly take an interest in your Conversion and your heroic battles with George and his "douche bag" atheist minions, and decided to give your story some national television air time, we wouldn't need to posit your "psychic powers" as having influenced Beck, but just your promotional maneuverings in going after free advertising and a much larger market.
J
I do publish with the expectation of interest. However given that the interest in I Met God has been far less than many of my other books, I haven't been sanguine about its commercial prospects for quite some time. I moved on to other projects and came here because Starbuckle's specific complaint was the lack of follow-up questions to an interview with me done years ago. I came here to answer follow up questions to one of my books. I would have done that for any of my books.
"Mr. Atheism" trashing my book as entirely unconvincing and preposterous isn't the sort of endorsement that will improve its sales prospects.
Glenn Beck claims to be ecumenical, but I doubt that includes people like me who are not only not members of his church, but of any established and respected "faith." My denial of faith and criticism of people who accept the existence of God only because of faith would be a negative to him, not a positive.
But we do have a test. As a follow-up to my Alongside Night which Glenn Beck read and liked, I recently sent him a copy of Escape from Heaven. I'm not holding my breath either that he'll read it, or having read it like it, or having read and liked it decide it's worthy of his public endorsement, but you never know.
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I have never believed in "God". By the age of nine I dismissed the idea as irrelevant, that is, it explains nothing. Einstein explains it best: http://www.bigquesti...n%E2%80%99s-god
I don't see an epistemological problem.
Generalize the problem. What if a person has seen (or perceived) something not seen by others. Something extra-ordinary or something new. Is he crazy or has he actually seen something completely out of the ordinary. How can he distinguish the two situations. One cannot deny the possibility of encountering something never encountered by anyone else before.
Ba'al Chatzaf
One can have this sort of experience and still maintain objectivity. Allow me to tell a story about my uncle. In his early forties, married with a 4yo daughter, he had a severe heart attack. This was in 1952 in St. Anthony, Idaho. He was not expected to survive, but he did survive, though a significant portion of his heart did not. He told this story: He saw a bright white light, from out of this white light came his Mother, who had passed away a year or so before. She said, "Come with me Floyd, it's time to go home". He said "No, I'm not ready. Please let me stay and raise my daughter". I believe this story tells a lot about his motivation for staying alive and explains his survival. But it was purely a personal experience in his own mind. He did not use this personal experience as a way to convince anyone of the existence of God. Though my aunt certainly did. But my uncle certainly experienced what he experienced. It was as real to him as anything in his life. He was as honest and hard working a man as any I've known, not an exaggerator or a blowhard, but thoughtful. But the experience was internal. It revealed to him his reason and purpose for living. Aren't all of these experiences of the same nature? Internal experience that says nothing about external reality?
If experiences from multiple observers are of the same "nature," then that implies it's not just something internal but reflects external reality.
If experiences from multiple observers are of a different "nature" but contain common referents, that also suggests observation of an external reality.
The willingness of unwillingness to talk about an experience says nothing about whether the experience is internal or of an external reality. Does a hit-and-run not happen because a witness decides not to come forward?
Are you familiar with emergent systems and schooling behavior in fish? http://guava.physics.uiuc.edu/~nigel/courses/569/Essays_Fall2008/files/olson.pdf
In particular:
"Schooling behavior is an emergent property. Fish are not intelligent enough to
create these regular patterns by choice. Further, the high density of many schools
prevents them from even seeing most of the other fish in the school, so they lack the
information to know their place in the larger structure. The fish are driven simply to be
near each other. It is simple behavioral rules which guide each fish and these result in
such fascinating and complex emergent structures."
That's quite a bit of hand-waving in an attempt to explain the cause of a phenomenon when the cause is not immediately apparent.
If I was studying this I'd be looking for subtle means of communication either among the fish or in reaction to some as-yet unidentified external trigger.
Is J. Neil Schulman justified (logically) in believing in God?
in 2 - Epistemology
Posted
I did already. From my 1995 book Self Control Not Gun Control:
A Non-Christian's Prayer To Christ
Of course
You already know what happened.
So I'll just tell it
for the audience.
I'm at the Abbey.
The place where You have the monks.
Only I was at a conference
and it wasn't one of the monks
I was arguing with.
This guy
and I don't have to bring names into this
You know who it was
and so do those who were there
and it's not important for the rest of you
he's a preacher
an official spokesperson
for Jesus
and the Word of God,
particularly the newer stuff.
But the reason I'm listening to him
is that he was close to somebody
whose opinion I really respected
and he really knows his stuff.
Also, I like him a lot
on the first meeting.
Anyway, he's selling me that
the Bible says
You took the bullet for me
And if I don't say it's so
naming the right Names
I don't get into Heaven.
Let me tell you,
I want to get into Heaven.
Eternal rest has no appeal for me.
Neither does swimming in fire.
I say, what about the Jews?
No go, probably, he tells me.
They say God but they don't mean
Christ
and that's a rejection of what
You did
for them.
Some,
the real religious ones
might slip through, though.
And the Mormons, I ask?
You ever look into them?
he asks me.
A scam job, he says.
But the idea, he tells me
Is that if they had the choice
to accept You by name
and they didn't take it,
it's one ticket to a customer.
And the theater is cleared
between shows.
Now, it was late.
I'd been up since early morning
and I was in one of those places
where you take an idea seriously
and run with it.
And I'm thinking,
Okay, God's always been straight with me.
I'll pray again
and if I have to use the name Jesus,
what's the big deal?
Then it hits me.
My parents aren't going.
Neither of them is ever
going to pray to Jesus.
That's goes for all my relatives, too.
Well, maybe except my sister
since I've never been able to
figure out
what she thinks
or who she prays to
or for what.
But I want her in Heaven, too.
It just wouldn't be the same
without her.
My grandmother
the biggest heart I ever knew.
Not there, waiting for me.
My aunt
a great heart
even if I always thought she was
a Communist
if the words Jesus Christ ever
left her lips
it was as a curse.
Probably not in Heaven,
according to my preacher friend.
And there's my ex-wife.
Okay, I admit I didn't make the
smartest move in marrying her
it didn't work out
but, damn it, she has a hard time
believing in You
so that means she's not going either
and if my daughter gets in
she's going to miss her mommy.
My friends.
My beloved friends.
One wrote a book
in which You Killed Yourself.
Another used to believe in you
but doesn't now.
Another one pulls stuff
that even I think is crap
but he's done a lot of good stuff too.
I can't think of three friends
who make it past Your gate
under these rules.
If I ask to go
I'm leaving behind
everyone I loved.
Then I think about the Mormons.
They want so much
to make sure everybody gets into Heaven
that they get genealogies on everybody
then baptize them
even if they're already dead.
Maybe some people are offended by this
but not me.
I think it's sweet.
Looking out for the other guy
particularly the ones who are ready to dump on you.
Now that's Christian charity.
You have to love the Mormons
for making maximum effort.
This was starting to put me in a panic.
Let me see if I have this right
I say to You
In LA Times letters page style.
Someone who doesn't love anybody here
they don't care if anyone's left behind
so it doesn't cost them anything to
use one particular name
and get into Heaven.
No problem for the guy who never
learned to love
he gets in.
Somebody who's a coward
and would sell out his family
because they didn't use the right name
but because this moral cripple uses the right Name
he gets in?
What sort of God
I ask You
would set things up this way?
This would be really lame.
I'd cry for the Universe
made out of such cheap materials.
And I think of Heinlein's story
where he already looked at this problem.
You could always count on him
to get to the point.
Hey, Heinlein wouldn't be in Heaven either,
under these rules
and there goes the most interesting man
I ever met.
So cowards go to Heaven
and it's not the home of the brave?
Lovers and families
are split up for all time
with those who use Your Right Name
left in eternal grief
or worse
given some forever heroin?
I know.
That's not how C.S. Lewis
played it
in his book about a visit to Heaven.
He stacked the deck
so everyone who's there
is happy
and everyone who's left behind
is drained of all that was good
about them.
You know what?
That sucks, too.
I don't believe it.
That's not how God would set things up.
That's the kind of universe the devil
would think up.
Then it hits me.
If you have to make this choice
between being a selfish coward
looking out for Number One
and getting into Heaven
or rejecting You
because friends and lovers aren't going?
It's a test.
It's like the gag You pulled on Abraham
to test his faith.
Take your son
and sacrifice him to Me.
Only at the last minute
You tell him,
Good Job,
Just kidding.
That's got to be right, right?
If I love
You have to love more than a mortal, right?
You've had more practice at it.
If I don't want to go to heaven
if all the good guys aren't going
if those I love won't be there
then that's out of respect
for an absolute standard of
good and evil
that even God would have to obey,
right?
God has to be better than I am,
and care about good and evil
more than I do
Don't You?
And if I
cheap as I am
would cut some slack
to let the marginal cases in
You know
the ones who tried
but didn't get it completely right
but they must have some good in them if
other people love them
then you'd cut an ever better deal,
right?
Because that's what God would do.
Listen, God.
You've got a p-r problem down here.
You've got people spreading bad news
about You.
Saying that you're cheap
and grumpy
and bureaucratic
and mean.
And they say Your Own Book said so.
The same people say
if I take this attitude
I'm choosing to reject You.
I'm in the devil's teeth.
I'm just a crackpot
heading for the kiln
for refiring.
I think it's a slander on You.
I think this is a libel.
I think that THIS is Satan's lie.
Not MY creator, buddy!
He wouldn't be like that.
Take it back!
God is good
it says so right on page One
and if You ask me
somebody better take a blue
pencil to the stuff
that says otherwise
no matter what title it says
on the Book cover.
So, God.
By any Name.
Including Jesus Christ.
I don't believe that about You.
You take the good guys to Heaven
No matter what name they say
or even if their lips don't move
or maybe even if they don't believe
what they don't see
because that, after all, makes sense too.
And, I pray, I'll be seeing you
and all my lost beloved
just like You promised elsewhere
when it's my time.
Amen.
June 29, 1995