I think the important point is it is a fallacy. It's ad hom as far as I can tell. We don't have to choose between emotions and reason (and a social primates, good luck with that endeavor) ((you didn't say this but to me the thread degenerated into a discussion of whether we are for reason or for emotions, which I think misses the point.)) I have noticed a turn towards more of this kind of ad hom also, and I think good practice would be to label it, also a third party. If we see someone ad homming in this way, even if they are doing it to a poster we disagree with or has their own basket of fallacies, we should label it out and demand they make a case, critique a position, support their own position.

Why not make it a general request to remove posters who do not engage in philosophical argument and discussion but preach. This may be more common amongst religious posters, but it seems to me form of participating rather than content of positions should be the focus. Anyone who regularly confuses stating their positions with philosophical discussion, assertion with argument, appeal to authority with reasoning
regardless of the position, assertion and authority is considered to be violating the rules of the forum.
Which I assume they are already

How do you sense without consciousness?
— Pop

How does a computer sense when I hit the space bar? — Kenosha Kid

It that 'sensing'? Do you think there is an experiencer in the computer? At what point does cause and effect become sensing on the effected substance/object/thing/life form? Rocks when hit by other rocks. IOW there are chains of causes and effects, sometimes very simple, sometimes complicated. Do all of these involve sensing?

When we talk about humans we tend to include experiencing....
1.perceive by a sense or senses.

then with machines we may means something like below

2.(of a machine or similar device) detect.

But these two are quite different in most people's estimation. The former, with perception, includes this idea of experiencing, the latter, a bit anthropomorphized, actually means something like affected by a stimulus as intended by the user/inventor.

I wish the search engine here could produce a list. I can use 'theory' in the search in titles, but that gets to many other titles. But we can take your op as a moral or a practical position (or both). And it would be interesting to see how many people who started that way ended up banned. I don't have any problem with using 'theory' colloquially as more or less 'position', as in my position on some philosophical problem. The act itself seems peachy is what is mainly an informal context. But it's a funny idea if 'my theory of' is such a telling psychological tick that it does predict for behavior correlating with banning. Perhaps a less lazy person than me will do the necessary research.

No, just because you have knowledge of something does not mean that you believe it to be true. I have knowledge of a meeting scheduled tomorrow at 5 pm. Is it true that the meeting will happen tomorrow at 5pm? It turns out someone cancels earlier in the day, and the meeting does not happen. — Philosophim

You had knowledge there was going to be a meeting and then it was cancelled. You were correct that a meeting was scheduled.

of course what we consider knowledge can turn out not to be the case. So, even tougher examples can be made. But this is example is clearly a situation where you believe that a meeting is scheduled. If you believed that all scheduled meeting will take place, that other belief caused you problems with th knowledge you, in fact, had.

And let's be even more specific: You said you had knowledge, there was a meeting scheduled. This means you arrived at this conclusion via some rigorous process. A memo was sent to all employees about the meeting. You double checked with your supervisor. You got a request from the supervisor's assistant to prepare issues in advance for the protocol, etc. All information that supports the conclusion that a meeting was schedulted.

Now if you worked for a company that schedules meetings all the time and they often or regularly are cancelled, that would affect any knowledge you have about whether it must take place.

I should add also that you are using a phrase that indicates less certainty that what one usually means when one uses the term knowledge: "had knowledge of." You also shifted to predictive knowledge, rather than, say knowledge about the world or some facet of it. One can certainly consider that knowledge, but in general that is statistical knowledge, especially when dealing with incredibly complex phenomena like a meeting: where personalities, crises, traffic,changed priorities, illness and a variety of other factors can always change outcomes.

Correct. One can have knowledge, but believe that knowledge is wrong. — Philosophim

Though one would also believe it was true. Knowledge is a kind of belief. You can't say I know that the earth revolves around the sun but I don't believe it. That is not a complete description. You also believe it. You would be in a state of cognitive dissonence.

One cannot believe, and not believe the same thing — Philosophim

It's an incomplete description at best. I can believe X and not X, though. I can believe that I will graduate college, that since I am managing my courses well, have been complimented by my professors, but also have a belief that I am a failure and won't manage. One can, and I have had, such contradictory beliefs, and then also not just about me, but about statements about the world.

A belief is simply a wish or desire that something is a particular way. — Philosophim

A belief is something one believes. And we often form beliefs through perfectly good non-conscous processes but which we have not done formally and consciouslly. We form beliefs through all sorts of processes some rigorous others not and both rigorous processes and not rigorous ones are fallible.

Knowledge is a logical process that must follow certain path, and arrives at deductive conclusions. — Philosophim

Deduction being one process but not the only one, even within science say.

That is fair. This OP is about those essays though. I would wonder why you would post if you aren't going to read the theory though. I can't imagine arguing about a theory I have no knowledge of. — Philosophim

It's a discussion forum, people tend to present their ideas also in discussion form and I get knowledge via that. I think the medium is best suited for those discussions, but obviously people can use the forums in a variety of ways. Yes, I am not critiquing your theory in the sense that I am not critiquing your papers. But even in your presentation I see assertions that I can interact with. Conclusions. Those are yours and I can respond to them.

I was giving an example in which a person believes they can win, but
knows they likely will not. — Philosophim

Yes you can. I can buy a lottery ticket believing that I will win, but with the knowledge that I probably will not. — Philosophim

First I want to point out these are descriptions of two very different scenarios. The belief that one can win, but knows it is likely they will not, is a description of two beliefs (one a belief classed as knowledge, that do not contradict each other. The belief that one WILL win despite one's knowledge of the odds, is completely different.

I'm afraid I am not going to read a long essay or series of essays online. If you prefer not to respond to people who won't read the paper, I'll understand.

If one has knowledge X, one believes knowledge X based on criteria that your and or others have decided are rigorous enough to class the conclusion as knowledge.

I cannot know that the sun is one star amongst many and not also believe that.

We can, of course, hold more than one belief, and these can be contradictory.

But if I know the odds are very low I will win the lottery, I belief that.
I may also believe that I will win, based on gut feelings.

IOW I may be in a state of cognitive dissonance, unable to reconcile beliefs that contradict each other.

But one cannot sum me up, then, as simply believing I will win. I also believe, based on my criteria for knowing that I have very little chance, that it is unlikely I will win.

UNLESS....I also believe that the odds are very low but I am psychic OR the lottery is fixed. Then the beliefs do not contradict each other. Though I would then quibble that 'the odds are low' in this specific scenario and any special third belief that affects my thinking needs to be mentioned in the scenario description.

But I can neither be summed up as just believing I will win nor as just believing it is unlkely I will win. I must be described as having two beliefs that contradict eachother.

For example, it makes no sense for me to say, I know it is raining, but I don't believe it is raining.

I am not sure what you mean by unsconsiousness (is this the unconscious?) being beyond reality. It is part of reality, or? The unconscious certainly is a part of reality. But I am likely not understanding something here. Whatever it is, it sounds interesting?

Though it raises the issue of what seem like contradictory statements, in a specific case, cannot be dismissed via logic. IOW prior to QM one might have thought that one could deduce that two statements cannot both be true, when in fact they both can be true. So the application of logic to reality is of course affected by assumptions that can be faulty. 'At any given moment in time and knowledge can what seems to violate logic may not do that. And applications of logic may seem necessarily correct but not be. I think there could be more humility about this.

Thats the first sentence of a paragraph, which explains what exactly he meant by that. — DingoJones

Yes, he certainly goes on to explain what he means.

Perhaps you disagree with it, but thats not the same as “dumb”.

Nor are they mutually exclusive. IOW you just told me that the reason I gave it as an example of one of his ideas that I consider dumb is because I disagree with it. (and yes, you said, 'perhaps' but since it is obvious I disagree with it, so your reminding me of something I do not need to be reminded of/told, is assuming I conflate my disagreement with an idea with that ideas dumness.) This is mindreading. He's obviously a very smart person and he does make a case. However very smart people can make well thought out cases for ideas that are dumb. I think there are a lot of problems with treating thoughts/beliefs as the equivalent of actions.

What is it about that you think is dumb? — DingoJones

The combination of considering beliefs to be the moral and practical equivalent of actions AND a justification for torture is dumb. As in such a pernicious idea that goes against the core values of Western liberalism (not in the sense of conservative against liberal) that it is actually more aligned with the worst of Islamic fundamentalism than the culture it is supposed to be defending. We are not just attacking freedom of speech, with the combination of these ideas, we are attacking freedom of thought and belief. Something radical Islam, the supposed justification for this radical shift in values is supposedly against. I think that is dumb. I think it is dumb that he doesn't notice this, though, yes, he makes an intelligent, though flawed defense of his position. I also think it is dumb that he did not take responsibility for the problems created by his ideas, which were pointed out by many readers, and simply denied the conclusion. Saying one does not believe the conclusions that can logically be deduced from one's positions without explaining how the deduction is incorrect is dumb. Because he should know how people can use texts for their own ends, including violence. He should know that factions within the government like torture and would love to have an apologist for the justification of extending the use of torture to people based on beliefs.

Further he should know, as a modern intellectual, how people's beliefs can often extremely accurately be determined by the various social media companies. In fact they sell this information. And the intelligence services monitor this information. IOW once we have decided that beliefs are the same as actions AND we have a system in place to determine even unsaid (publically at least) beliefs, we have a machine of totalitarianism in place that rivals, say, Stasi and the current Iranian Islamic regime. I think it is dumb that he doesn't realize he is going against Western ideas and that his position, on this, share more with belief systems he does not like and wants to fight.

I think howeverly cleverly it is argued that we treat belefs as actions, it is dumb because of what an actual implementation of such a concept would lead to. And if someone wants to argue that terrorism is so bad that it's OK to treat Islam this way, governments tend not to contain/limit precedents, they extend them. Why only with some POTENTIAL crimes and criminals? the government or intelligence official can ask. I think it shows ignorance (that is, is dumb) of history and even of Enlightenment values.

IOW I think it is dumb how he doesn't seem to notice that he is going radically against Western values. Ones that for example removed us from the reign of conceiving heresy and blasphemy and atheism as crimes. What he considers punishable sins are different but it is dumb to not notice that the problem is not content by form. He is setting an anti-Western precendent and one heartily accepted by his enemies, the Islamic terrorists. Yes, we can treat your beliefs as actions. Or you lack of beliefs. You are not innocent.

Only brainwashing or the grace of God can change a core belief. Ormaybe what Kuhn calls anomolies can build up to the point where they compel a paradigm shift. — Phil Devine

Yes, experience can change beliefs. And other people can be part of that process, giving information, stressing that X happened, suggesting things to experience, reminding the person of what they said and why they believed something, suggesting reading, teaching certain skills that lead to experiences, challenging interpretations or dismissals and so on. I don't agree with the first sentence but the second is more expansive.

So that hinges on the individual willingly giving up their agency. In other words: no you can't force your will on others. So success is dependent on the torturee agreeing to give up. — ISeeIDoIAm

I don't think one is willing. I think pain becomes and hopelessness becomes compulsion. I also don't think you choose to believe. He is hurting me so much so I choose to believe. In the broken, hopeless tortured state one finds one believes. I can't just choose to believe something to please someone. I can lie about it, but that's something else. There would be gray areas in there also.

I was silently giving you the last word, but JerseyFlight and The Mad Fool ruined it.

Rejecting empiricism means effectively rejecting criticism, — Pfhorrest

Rejecting empiricism completely would do this (at least I think so) but if empiricism means, for example, one can only get knoweldge via experience, say, then one could reject that point without losing the ability to criticize. I think. Also we need to specify, I think, which empiricism.

1. If the apostles were willing to be martyred for the sake of Christ, then they must have had intense belief.
2. Intense belief must be backed by equally sufficient evidence.
3. The apostles were willing to be martyred for the sake of Christ.
4. Therefore, the apostles must have had sufficient evidence for their intense belief. (MP 1,3) — Josh Vasquez

1) If the Muslim terrorist (or any terrorist) is willing to be martyred for the sake of Allah/Islam, then they must have intense belief.
2. Intense belief must be backed by equally sufficient evidence (this is the most problematic of your assumptions)
3. The terrorists have been willing to be martyred for the sake of Allah/Islam.
4. Therefore they had sufficient evidence not only for their intense belief in Allah/Islam but also in the righteousness of their acts.

Pick an act where children were killed.

Why be rational?

Well, I'm not - in the sense that it's not a binary thing. Sometimes I am, sometimes I am not. Further when I am not rational, this does not entail that am irrational - which is a pejorative term. It just means I arrived at choices through non-rational means. I don't reason my way to the toilet when I have to pee, and similar decisions are made through non-rational intuitive processes throughout my day. Many decisions I make socially are emotion driven, intuition driven decisions, not ones made via linear deductive, say, mental verbal processes. Of course I use rational processes also.

Even the choice of when to use rational means and when to follow intuition is generally not a rational choice. I make an intuitive choice. I also make an intuitive choice when I decide that my reasoning has been checked enough and it makes sense.

It makes them think that every police officer is racist, when that simply isn't the case. — Harry Hindu

What year do you think the police stopped being racist? (if you think they stopped being racist. If don't think they were ever racist how does that fit with what is generally accepted as the behavior of the police in the past?) the 50s?, the 70s?

Why would refer to the experience aspect? I suppose I could understand we might say and remember pain itself, but why would be refer to an epiphenomenon in general. Why would atoms bashing into eachother come up with that topic? And then it is referring to something that supposedly cannot be causal. But it seems like we creatures reacted to the existence of it - this epiphenomomen - and thus it because part of a chain of causes and effects. A pure epiphenomenon would never be mentioned.

Unless a thing is established as impossible...IT IS POSSIBLE. — Frank Apisa

I think it is better to say 'for all we know it is possible.' Why do I say this?

Well, saying something is possible can mean: I can't rule it out.

But it can also mean something like given the conditions of the universe of reality one thing that might happen or whose reality could be supported is X.

One is an in situ realization of what i or we can't rule out (now) and the other is an ontological claim.

I would guess it was The End of Faith. That's my best guess. It's my guess because it was a while ago, so not one of his more recent and then when I googled around the issues I mentioned I found quotes that fit with the arguments I remembered being made. Perhaps they were made in other books as well and I am remembering one of those.

“Given the link between belief and action, it is clear that we can no more tolerate a diversity of religious beliefs than a diversity of beliefs about epidemiology and basic hygiene.”

― Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

(and he extends this to the idea of treating beliefs AS actions. We can't tolerate certain beliefs and we must treat them as fait accompli actions. Interesting what happens if you apply this to his beliefs about torture,say)

I believe that I have successfully argued for the use of torture in any circumstance in which we would be willing to cause collateral damage (p198)

Given what many of us believe about the exigencies of our war on terrorism, the practice of torture, in certain circumstances, would seem to be not only permissible, but necessary. (p199)

The problem with this is you are drawing an objective probability from a subjective not knowing.

So, I don't know if X is true or false. And I have no criteria at all for deciding if it is more likely to be true or not. So FOR ME it might be useful to think that there is a 50% chance it is true or false, but it doesn't mean there is a 50% chance it is true or false. Perhaps there are experts who know things that swing it one way or another. That's one clue that my lack of knowledge does not split any issue into 50 percent packages. It just means that I have no reason to weight true more or less than false. I have no reason to.

That's very different from saying that given my state of unknowing we can draw the conclusion that X is 50% likely to be real or true.

Yes you can. I can buy a lottery ticket believing that I will win, but with the knowledge that I probably will not. — Philosophim

You can have these thoughts with attendant feelings, but it does not make sense to say you have belief X and knowledge -X. You could say 'a part of me believes that I will win but I know the chances are lower than that part of me thinks.' Because we are not unified beings. But only in the context of parts of a self does it make sense.

Let's say my name is Jack.

It doesn't make sense to say Jacks believes he will win the lottery despite his knowledge his chances are very small. (unless the lotter is rigged)

It could make sense to say part of Jack believes he will win. Part of Jack believes this is incredibly unlikely.

Generaly in philosophy knowledge is considered a rigorously arrived at belief. I do believe we can hold more than one belief about something, but then we cannot be summed up as having just one if we have more than one.

H1: Established Physics can explain all observations and thus there is no God.
H2: Established Physics fails fundamentally and God is necessary — Marco Colombini

But we don't need to choose between those two hypotheses. For example, one could choose to argue that physics incomplete, we don't know everything via physics (yet). And then the physicist can add his own thought that he has no evidence of a God, so he goes on either considering himself an agnostic or an atheist.

Also what you are doing in in the OP is not being done scientifically. It's pure and problematic deduction.

I'm a theist, but that was not a convincing argument.

I think it is useful

when

arguments in response to why is there something rather than nothing

explain seemingly that the nothing had potentials. It wasn't really nothing.

In a lot of arguments on such subjects, I think people are getting away with calling a something nothing.

Whats an example of one of his dumb ideas? — DingoJones

In one of his works he argued in favor of torture and separately in favor of treating beliefs like actions. IOW if Muslims have certainly beliefs that might lead to violence or classify people a certain dangerous way, these should be treated (the thoughts) as actions. I have problems with both positions, and their combination is incredibly bad. He denied the implications of his positions in the book, without acknowledging that horrific positions could be deduced from his arguments. Pre-emptive torture based on beliefs can be deduced from his arguments. Again. He later, when this was all pointed out, said he was against such things. But he created the premises that lead to some really horrible conclusions. He says the conclusions are not his, but he never denied that his assertions and conclusions that are these premises are false.

Take into account the fact that inanimate objects like a rock or an animal are missing something crucial - personhood that one quality that confers on those who possess it what we've fondly come to know as rights. — TheMadFool

What's a two month fetus have on a 10 year old chimp?

Most fourth graders are more interesting than this discussion. — Benkei

Presumably statements like this are the kind of thing that leads to banning, if there are enough of them.

We talk about all sorts of stuff, including discussing interesting new ideas, unlike yours. — Hanover

Or like this one.

I don't see his idea being effectively countered. It's something that happens in all sorts of contexts: academia, sports, debating. It's not idiotic to restrict certain interactions to those who are considered more skilled. Is it a good idea here`? Would there be negative side effects? is he wrong that there would be any benefit to have a small subsection that did this? I am not convinced he is right. But I find it odd that moderators decided to be insulting and not to respond with much substance.

A fourth grader is more interesting than this discussion is an odd, but interesting assertion. It's odd because it is part of the discussion and part of what set the tone for the rest of the discussion. Did the discussion have to go the way it went? Is perhaps this reaction something that makes the discussion less interesting, in the longer run? But it's a silly assertion. A fourth grader is more interesting than any discussion. A fourth grader has a brain that is more complicated than any discussion or book. A fourth grader is changing rapidly in ways we still cannot completely track or understand, though we have made great strides. He or she is orders of magnitude more complicated than the works of Plato and certainly Hegel.

Though perhaps the mods were trying to demonstrate through example that there would be no role modeling potential in such a restriction discussion sub-forum. Kinda like 'Hey, this is what we'd be like.' Demonstrating concretely the foolishness, at least here, of trying Hippyhead's suggestion.

I take an about face. This was a clever (cough) Zen gestural argument that his idea was a poor one. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

It seems to me the title of the thread is misleading. You aren't comparing the power of thought to the power of God. You believe God is only a product of thought and has no independent existence. You assert something in the title and the text reasserts this by saying God is only one of our thoughts. So in relation to the title, we just have an assumption/assertion, not an argument.

it is very unlkely that thought is your central motivation. It is more likely that it is emotions. (I am not insulting or ad homing you, this is true for all of us. Motivations and desires set us in motion. )

To reach a theory, what is considered a theory, there needs to be a lot of evidence and no better explanation. If we reached a place where the scientific community considered there to be sufficient evidence this would mean we has specific details that are considered evidence. Your op does not deal with specifics. Once you get into specifics, yes, it can be falsified.

For example, one of the ways people have gathered some evidence is by interviewing children who know specific details of what the children themselves think of as past lives - who they lived as before. The researchers then investigate the details. Did someone live there with that name, that life, that family - sometimes they can even interview the family. Then they look for alternate explanations - if the child'd knowledge seems way beyond chance, for how that child might know this. They do this with many cases, and try to rule out other ways the child could have what is considered too much correct information about something they couldn't know about.

So you end up with a theory, should it be accepted as one, based on ruling out other explanations.

So individual cases AND the theory in general could be falsified by demonstrating other or better explanations for the knowledge the children have or are supposed to have.

In some ways this would parallel research on what someone might be able to remember from the age of two, only more so. Perhaps the child did not remember what happened when they were two, perhaps they were told by a family member and so on.

Perhaps the statistics supporting the theory are incorrect. This could also falsify the theory.

case by case dismantle, refute the statistics, refute any assumptions or arguments that rule out other ways the children could have 'so much' or so much correct information.

AS researched so far, any theory of reincarnation could be falsified. It can also be judged insufficient which is also the case for many.

Well, that's another topic. I think that's an oversimplification. I think the reasons Christianity and Islam keep going has a lot of factors in there, some neutral, some even good, though I also would wish they would drop the Abrahamic religions and find their own way without those dated books. I don't think it helped to oversimplify those one disagrees with. Here's their/your one motivation. And then I do think they think that rights do get enforced in the long run. Of course, if they truly believe that, more of them should be really quite relaxed.

Qualia are codes for discriminations, they bind up a bunch of useful information about the world such that we can distinguish between internal states. — Graeme M

This may well be what the a function of what is happening, or the non-experienced facets of what is happening, but it doesn't take away at all from us experiencing them. IOW what you are saying does not contradict the fact that we experience something. It's additional information (you are giving) about what is happening.

A video? I don't know exactly how to even search for one. Every human I have ever met accepts the testimony of individuals for all sorts of assertions. I gave examples. The court system validates as evidence ALL THE TIME the testimony of individual witnesses. Yes, often this needs to be bolstered by, for example, physical evidence. but it, as you assert, it was givne zero value NO lawyer would waste everyone's time calling witnesses. We all weigh a number of factors into decding whether to accept one person's claim: their history of cliams we know of, their expertise, their potential motives, how likely they were in the right place and so on, the exceptionalness of the claim, what we already believe in general and more. But to say we give zero value to one person's seeing/claim/assertion does not fit everyday reality in the least. I find it hard to believe anyone made a video showing this. We all, for example, go to experts ALL THE TIME, and often only in extreme situations (cancer diagnoses, for example) do we go for a second opinion. And when we do this does not mean, generally, that we consider the first opinion to have no value. Not considering it necessarily 100% correct does not mean it has no value.

Now if we are talking about scientific contexts only, again, individual observations are included in all research, but to gain acceptance as a theory, for example, rather than a hypothesis, we require more individual observations by individuals, and rigorous control of potential other factors. This is to reduce the potential problems an individual observer might have (misinterpretation, bias, mistakes). None of this reduces the single observer to having no value. That single obersvation simply does not have enough value (note!!!!! not binary, we are talking about degree of value). So when you add up things with not enough value in and of themselves,you are adding up some degree of value to a level considered rigorous enough to be consider ENOUGH value. Degrees of value.

If for some reason this is still unclear or you still want a video, perhaps someone else is a better interlocutor for you than I am.

How is it that while one individual's testimony has zero credibility, a group of people, composed of individuals as it were, enjoy a special status as far as believability is concerned? That's all I'm concerned about. — TheMadFool

HOnestly, it seems like you didn't read what I wrote. I directly challenged the ideas that an individual's testimony has zero credibility and that the whole thing is binary. I don't think anyone follows these ideas in practice anywhere, regardless of their epistemology. Even the most rigorous scientist takes her husband's testimony, for example, on all sorts of things. Some things less, and if he said some things very little. But heck, I went into all of this in my previous post.

1. An individual/one person's report doesn't count as a strong enough foundation to believe that what this person perceives is real. How is it then that a group of people's report of a perception is taken as adequate grounds for believing a given perception is real? After all the group consists of individuals. It's like saying that a group of blind individuals can see even though each and everyone in the group is blind. — TheMadFool

Blind people cannot see. People's perceptions are fallible. Blind people reporting things that must be seen to be noted are right only coincidentally. The cannot possibly have seen anything. Fallible people might often be right.

And the truth is we often believe what 1 person says. If you tell me you had a bad night's sleep and there is no reason for me to suspect you might have a motive for lying, I am safe, in general, taking such things as true. If you say you exploded into a mass of pulp and blood over breakfast this moring, I will want some more evidence than your account.

Depending on what is asserted and who is asserting it a single's person's account may be taken as true, possibly true, and every other gradation down to false.

Once we note that unlike blind people, fallible people can be often right, but this does not mean what we consider less likely need be accepted without more evidence, we have a very complicated situation.

The advantage of more observers is that some possible reasons for being confused, deluded, psychotic, start to reduce. This becomes even more likely (the reduction) fi the people do not know each other or have a common reason to make up/hallucinate/lie/misinterpret what they claim they have seen. Science tries to reduce all these factors with strict protocols.

You take one blind person and ask them what is in an image projected on a wall, then ask more blind people what they see, this does nothing to reduce their full on inablity to see. The exact same experiment, with a photo of a duck projected on a wall, reduces the factor of one person's fallibility in identifying the image. It's not a good analogy and it is not binary.

To me, rights are like laws, completely useless and worthless unless they can be enforced by a given power when they are breached. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Earthly laws are intended to try to prevent breaches and to punish (generally) breaches. Those goals overlap and different countries have different views on punishment (say, as opposed to rehabilitation). Pretty much every law is breached. Goverments may take the responsibility for completly eliminating a crime against rights. But generally this is an intent where perfection is out of reach.

A deity, on the other hand, it seems to me is saying that there would be compensation or ultimate justice for that person whose rights are taken away. That ultimately a breach is fixed. So, the good person gets into heavan or whatever.

The word 'right' has a lot of different meanings. It seems clear that pretty much any deity is not guaranteeing an earthly existence without injustice, victims, suffering, but most theisms present a sense in which ultimately or deep down or both, certain rights are respected. And justice is enforced.

that's a pretty common - meaning asserted by people from a wide range of epistemologies and intentions - assertion, that what seems true to you actually isn't.

An unusual psychiatric case. Mentally ill or something more profound?

We don't know. No one does. Perhaps later, if this person has more such experiences and they tend to correctly foreshadow things, then someone would know. Or if he has more and nothing disastrous comes, then we could start drawing conclusions. But so far, we don't have enough.

The only thing one can do is either be cautious or express one's biases.

That would mean that before we understood why water had a high surface tension, we considered bugs walking on it supernatural. Or that dark matter is supernatural. Or why certain fashion items become trends. And also many things that are considered supernatual are explained by believers in them. Not all, and not by all believers.

If a thing exists...whatever that thing is...it is NATURAL.

If GODS exist...they are natural...not supernatural. — Frank Apisa

A nice point (which I've made myself elsewhere so this is a narcisstic compliment). 'Do you believe in the supernatural?' bears a kind of resemblence to 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' It carries in it a problematic assumption; or it's a kind of one word oxymoron. Do you believe in things not currently accepted by the bulk of scientists? is a more workable question, it seems to me.