Modality then? Possible worlds semantics? — creativesoul

Well, possible worlds goes beyond what I'm saying, but that too is a possible contingent fact. However, there are some contingent facts that never obtain.

There are possible states-of-affairs. For example, it's possible that the Earth could have two moons. It's contingent.

So what is it before it obtains? — creativesoul

Simply its possibility, i.e., if it's contingent.

To say that a fact obtains is just another way of saying the fact exists, or the state-of-affairs exists.

What does this mean? Is the status of facthood obtained by what? — Posty McPostface

Facts are simply states-of-affairs, and there are different kinds of states, viz., brain states, physical states, abstract states, contingent states, and necessary states, to name a few. So a fact about my apartment would have to do with the arrangement of things, at least partly, in my apartment. How many bedrooms or bathrooms is a fact about the apartment. If we talk about a fact obtaining, then partly we're talking about the existence of those states-of-affairs. If the state exists, then the fact obtains.

There are contingent facts, i.e., a certain state-of-affairs that does not exist now, but may exist in the proper setting. For example, there is no mug on my coffee table at the present moment, but now there is, so the fact obtained based on me putting the mug on the table, among other things. There are a whole range of facts from physical facts, metaphysical facts, to logical facts, and how they obtain varies, some are necessary features of reality, so they do not obtain in the same way, if they obtain at all.

By the way, one of the definitions of a fact is, a state-of-affairs which obtains.

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Excellent phrasing. — Banno

Thanks.

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What other examples are there that provides evidence for something supernatural? — Purple Pond

This argument is posted in here, and I've started a blog that starts out with the argument. However, what would convince you depends on many factors, and those factors may have nothing to do with good arguments or good evidence.
https://consciousnessanddeath.quora.com

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Now I need to go back to Moore, and have a re-read. Does he mention certainty in his text? I don't recall his doing so. The introduction of certainty into he discussion is I think down to Wittgenstein. — Banno

Wittgenstein points out that Moore's use of the word know is more an expression of subjective certainty (OC, 21 and 42). He says this because Moore's use of the word seems to reflect something indubitable, which if the case, would imply that we can infer from Moore's propositions that we too know.

Wittgenstein, wants us to consider the proposition's negation, namely, "I don't know this is a hand," which helps us understand how out of place Moore's use of know is.

That's close. I don't see how knowing I have a hand could be purely what's going on in the brain; it must, at the least, also involve a hand. — Banno

If I believe I have a hand, then yes, the belief involves the hand. I'm not saying otherwise. Only that it's both, the mind and the hand. I'm not stressing one over the other, but you seem to want to stress the hand and the action as somehow superior. They work together. If anything the belief is dependent on the mind, not the other way around. The mind is not dependent on the actions or the belief being expressed. Without the mind there would be no actions or beliefs. No cultural setting for your belief to manifest.

In order for us to attribute a mind to something, it does require actions of some kind, otherwise how would we know we have minds. However, this is a language point, that is, the concept mind would be senseless apart from the actions of minds. My point is partly linguistic, but also partly non-linguistic.

Part of what makes you, you, are your unique experiences and memories.

Yes, by definition, knowledge is something that is justified. As Wittgenstein says, satisfying oneself is part of the language-game of knowledge.

Many empirical claims are bedrock, i.e., they are outside our epistemological language-games.

Why must all knowledge claims(I'm assuming empirical claims) be able to be doubted? — creativesoul

If this wasn't so, then one could infer knowledge from a simple claim that one knows. It has to be more than reasonable that in many situations the knowledge claim is something to be demonstrated.

Her thinking was not seperate from this bodily activity; nor from the items on the shelf, or the phone. Thinking is not just something that happens in minds. — Banno

Where else would it happen? In other words, if we're talking about the concept, the concept thinking gets its life from the actions you pointed out, but it's not as if thinking can be generated apart from minds. Minds are necessary. It's as if you want to say the actions in themselves are the thinking, but my disagreement with you, I think, lies in the difference between how a concept gets its life and what's going on in the brain. The two are inseparable.

Yes, the causality link hasn't been clearly established. Although I do think it's certainly something to consider.

With Witt's strict application of the phrase "I know", aren't there things that we can surmise about his thoughts on the matter that perhaps he had not written down, but was still in process, or some such? — creativesoul

Yes, in fact I've done this with my foundationalist idea's based on Witt's hinge-propositions. I also think there is much more that can be surmised, namely, that there is a causal link between our sensory perceptions and many of these hinge-propositions or bedrock beliefs. Whether or not this causal link will hold up to scrutiny I'm not sure.

Doesn't Witt claim that knowledge must be dubitable? Wouldn't that condition disqualify Moore's claim all by itself? — creativesoul

Yes, isn't that his point? All knowledge claim are doubtable, and if they're not, like Moore's claims, then there not knowledge claims, they're beliefs of a different sort (bedrock).

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Allowed? Unless you want to live in some Big Brother society, there's nothing that can stop someone from publicly accusing another of wrongdoing. — Michael

Obviously we can't stop all accusations, but what happened here was just a circus.

Sure, but there's nothing anyone can do about that. Once the accusations come in, the public are going to think what they think. So I'm not sure what you were trying to suggest with your remark. — Michael

Sure, there was plenty that could have been done, viz., much of this could have been done behind closed doors so that the reasonableness of the accusations could be ascertained. However, we've allowed accusations of the worst kind come into the public arena.

I agree with everything you said. But as far as I can tell, every reasonable person around me believes he attempted rape at the age of 16. If he's confirmed it will be wounding. It's just a shame that we can't go back in time and have Trump pick somebody else. — frank

People who are generally reasonable can be unreasonable at times, there are a number of reasons/causes for this.

Not being confirmed to the Supreme Court isn't destroying someone's life. — Michael

If you think that these accusations haven't destroyed his reputation, whether he gets on the supreme court or not, you have to be living on Mars. That accusation will hang over his life for the rest of his life - innocent or not.

This argument boils down to the strength of Ford's claims, period. Not what your ideology is, not what your opinion is, not how you feel about her, not what someone's motives are, etc. First, do the claims Ford has made have enough support to come to the conclusion that Cavanaugh committed a sexual assault, which is based on her memory of something that took place over 35 years ago.

There is no doubt that she is credible, i.e., no doubt that she believes what she's saying. However, believing what you're saying is not enough to ascertain truth, there has to be objective evidence. The only thing we want to know is if there is any corroboration, or any objective evidence that supports her claims. In fact, there is no evidence to confirm her accusations, other than her memories, which may be false memories, maybe partially false memories, or they may be accurate memories. In fact, it's quite possible that her memory of the assault, which I believe happened (although just an impression) could be mostly based on faulty memory. We don't have enough information about her, her background, her psychological state, her character, etc. There is evidence that her memory, for example, is faulty, viz., she can't remember where it happened, or even give a good time frame of the assault. Based on that alone we should wonder just how accurate her memories are.

I hear people say that since this is not a court proceeding that somehow we don't need to be reasonable or require good evidence. What?! The idea is to be fair and just, to not let mere accusations destroy peoples lives, whether you like them or not. If a credible accusation is enough to destroy people, then we're all in trouble.

Testimonial evidence by its very nature is weak, even when you have two or three witnesses it can be weak. People have been wrongly convicted based on the testimonial evidence of two or more witnesses. Why is this enough to say that he is guilty? Why is it even enough to keep him off the Supreme Court? It isn't.

Is there counter-evidence? Yes, his whole life is counter-evidence. There is nothing in his character to suggest that he would do such a thing.

Finally, can we know for sure? No, we can't, but we have to base our conclusions on what is reasonable to believe, what is probably the case, not what is possible. Not on what we want to believe, or what is politically expedient, or even one person's memory of something that occurred so long ago. This is true of those on both sides of the argument.

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The Inductive Argument:

This is a restatement of the argument.

The following argument is based on the testimonial evidence of those who have experienced an NDE, and the conclusion follows with a high degree of probability. As such, one can claim to know the conclusion is true. This argument makes such a claim.

Each of the aforementioned criteria serve to strengthen the testimonial evidence. All of the criteria in the previous paragraphs work hand-in-hand to strengthen the conclusion, and these criteria serve to strengthen any claim to knowledge. If we have a large enough pool of evidence based on these five criteria, we can say with confidence that we know that consciousness survives the death of the body. In other words, we can say what is probably the case, but not what is necessarily the case.

Again, if there is a high degree of probability that these testimonials reflect an objective reality, then we can also say with confidence, that we know consciousness survives the death of the body. Thus, our knowledge is based on objective criteria, not on purely subjective claims.

We will now look at the testimonial evidence in terms of the five stated criteria, and how these testimonials support the conclusion.

First, what is the number of people who claim to have had an NDE? According to a 1992 Gallop poll about 5% of the population has experienced an NDE; and even if this poll is off by a little we are still talking about hundreds of millions of people. Thus, the number of accounts of NDEs is very high, much higher than what we would normally need to decide the veracity or accuracy of the testimonials, and much higher that what is normally needed to draw a proper conclusion.

Also, as was mentioned in the previous post, numbers in themselves are not enough, which is why the other criteria must be coupled with numbers.

The second criteria of good testimonial evidence is variety, i.e., do we have evidence from a variety of sources? The answer to this question is in the affirmative. NDEs have been reported in every culture from around the world, which by definition means that we are getting reports from different religious views, and different world views. NDEs also span every age group, from young children, to the middle-aged, and finally to the aged. The testimonial reports come from doctors, nurses, scientists, atheists, agnostics, literally from every imaginable educational level and background. NDEs occur in a variety of settings, including drowning, electrocution, while awake, while on the operating table, after a heart attack, etc. People have also reported having shared an NDE with someone else, although rarely. They have happened when there is no heartbeat, with the blood drained from the brain, and with no measurable brain activity. They have been reported to happen with a minimal amount of stress, i.e., without being near death. Finally, there have been many thousands more reporting these and similar events happening to those who have taken DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine), which is an illegal schedule 1 drug. These DMT reports are also reports that are happening without being near death.

The third criteria is scope of the conclusion, and the scope of this conclusion is limited to consciousness surviving the body. The conclusion claims that we can know that consciousness survives bodily death.

The fourth criteria is truth of the premises. To know if the premises are true we need corroboration of the testimonial evidence, a high degree of consistency, and firsthand testimony. In all or most of these cases, it seems clear that we have all three. We have millions of accounts that can be corroborated by family members, friends, doctors, nurses, and hospice workers. Corroboration is important in establishing some objectivity to what is a very subjective experience. It lends credence to the accounts. One example of corroboration is given in Pam's NDE out of Atlanta, GA, which can be seen on Youtube.

Consistency is also important to the establishment of the truth of the premises. We have a high degree of consistency across a wide variety of reports. What are these consistent reports?

1) Seeing one's body from a third person perspective, i.e., from outside one's body, and hearing and seeing what's happening around their bodies.
2) Having intense feelings of being loved, and also intense feeling of peace.
3) Seeing a light or tunnel in the distance and feeling that one is being drawn to the light, or moving through the tunnel towards the light.
4) Seeing deceased loved ones.
5) Seeing beings of light that one may interpret as Jesus, Mary, Muhammad, an angel, or just a loving being that one may feel connected to.
6) Heightened sensory experiences, viz., feeling that one is having an ultra real experience, as opposed to a dream or a hallucination.
7) Communication that happens mind-to-mind, not verbally.
8) Seeing beautiful landscapes.
9) Seeing people who are getting ready or waiting to be born.
10) Having a life-review by a loving being who is not judgmental in any way, but simply showing you how important it is to love, and the importance of your actions on those you come in contact with.
11) Feeling as though one has returned home. This is also confirmed by people who were told they chose to come to Earth.
12) A feeling of oneness with everything, as though consciousness is at the bottom of everything.
13) Memories of who they really are return, as though they temporarily forgot who they were, and where they came from.
14) There are also reports of knowledge returning, and many questions being answered.
15) Understanding that ultimately we cannot be harmed.
16) That we are eternal beings simply entering into one of many realities.

These are just some of the reports from those who experienced an NDE, and some of these reports are confirmed by those who have taken DMT.

Another aid in establishing the truth of the testimonial evidence are firsthand accounts, as opposed to hearsay. There are literally thousands of firsthand accounts being reported by the International Association of Near Death Studies. And according to polling, there are hundreds of millions of firsthand accounts of NDEs.

The fifth criteria is cogency of the premises. Whether the argument is cogent for you depends on many factors, but many people have heard of near death experiences, so the concept is not an unfamiliar one. It is not going to be cogent for everyone, but with a little study and reading it can be cogent. It is not difficult to understand the concept. Although it is probably going to be difficult to understand how it is metaphysically possible. This argument is claiming that it is highly probable that consciousness survives the death of the body, and that the conclusion is very strong based on what makes for strong inductive arguments.

The further claim of this argument is that I know that I know the conclusion is true. Is it possible the conclusion is wrong? Of course it is possible, but we do not want to base a belief on what is possible, but on what is likely the case. All kinds of things are possible, but that does not mean we should believe them.

The following is a deductive proof.
So how would I construct a proof? It is very simple. The following is a deductive argument based on the evidence of the inductive argument.

Modus Ponens:

(1) If it is true that NDE reports are accurate, just as any veridical experience is, then consciousness survives the death of the body.
(2) It is true that NDE reports are accurate, just as any veridical experience is.
(3) Conclusion: Consciousness survives the death of the body.

As with any deductive argument all you have to do is dispute any premise, i.e., show that any premise is not true.

I believe the inductive argument is more apt to be believed, so it is a stronger argument in some ways.

A testimony can never serve as proof of a thing — Pilgrim

I agree, testimonial evidence is not a proof, but where did I say it was? On the other hand, it depends on how you're using the term proof, i.e., if you mean proof as in a deductive argument, again I agree, but if you're using the term loosely, as in strong evidence, then I disagree. That said, it's not difficult to construct a proof, which I will do at the end of these posts.
Proofs have limits, which I will discuss later.

Millions of consistent testimonies can never serve as proof of a thing — Pilgrim

Again, I agree, but let me re-emphasize something, one doesn't need a proof to make the claim that one has knowledge of their conclusion. In other words, all we need to know is that the conclusion follows with a high degree of probability. We do it all the time. I'm not sure why so many amateur philosophers are under the false impression that we should only make knowledge claims if our conclusion follows with absolute necessity. If this was true, then I couldn't make the claim that I know algebra based on my grade of 95%, since there would be a 5% chance I could be wrong. I couldn't tell you that I know my brand new car will start, since there is a slight chance I could be wrong. Most of our knowledge claims follow with a high degree of certainty, rarely, do we use proofs in our everyday lives in terms of our knowledge claims. Moreover, one forgets that a proof is only one way of having knowledge.

I'm not going to address the rest of your post, I'm just going to give my argument again. The arguments in the following posts will be both inductive and deductive.

My claim is that there is sufficient testimonial evidence to reasonably conclude that consciousness survives the death of the body. In other words, I'm making the claim that I know the conclusion is true. And although I believe that I could make other claims based on the evidence, i.e., claims of knowledge, I'm limiting the scope of the conclusion. By limited, I mean I'm not trying to give evidence of a god, heaven, that we are eternal beings, or any other spiritual or religious idea; nor am I trying to give evidence of many of the other claims people are making while having such an experience. Although I do believe there is strong evidence to support other conclusions, and these conclusions have varying degrees of certainty, just as many of our everyday rational conclusions have varying degrees of certainty.

The first question is, what makes a strong inductive argument? As many of you know, the criteria for a good inductive argument is much different than the criteria of a good deductive argument. The criteria of a good inductive argument are as follows:

(1) number
(2) variety
(3) scope of the conclusion
(4) truth of the premises
(5) cogency

First, number. It seems rather obvious that if you have a greater number of testimonials that say X happened, then the stronger the argument. This does not mean that the conclusion relies solely on numbers, because numbers in themselves are not sufficient.

Second, variety. The greater the variety of cases cited the stronger the conclusion. Remember that when examining the conclusion of an inductive argument, the conclusion is either strong or weak, which is much different from a good deductive argument, where the conclusion follows with absolute necessity. The difference being what is probably or likely the case (inductive arguments), verses what necessarily follows (deductive arguments).

Third, scope of the conclusion. This has already been covered briefly in the opening paragraph. It means that the less the conclusion claims the stronger the argument. In other words, conclusions that are broad in scope are much harder to defend. A conclusion that is limited in scope is easier to defend.

Fourth, truth of the premises. Clearly this means that the premises must be true, which by the way, is the same criteria that makes a good deductive argument, i.e., a good deductive argument must be sound (soundness has to do with whether the deductive argument is valid, plus the premises must be true).

(a) Also, since we are dealing with testimonial evidence, in order to know if the testimonial evidence is true we need corroboration, i.e., we need an objective way to verify some of the testimonial evidence. This helps to establish the truth of the testimonial evidence, and since the evidence is testimonial evidence, it helps to establish the fourth criteria of a good inductive argument, viz., the truth of the premises.

(b) Another important factor in determining the truth of testimonial evidence is firsthand testimony, as opposed to hearsay or secondhand testimony. Firsthand testimony is stronger than hearsay or second-hand testimony, all things being equal.

(c) Consistency of the reports is another important criterion in terms of getting to the truth. However, testimonial evidence does not have to be perfectly consistent to be credible. When dealing with a large number of reports you will inevitably find some inconsistency. So, inconsistency itself is not enough to rule out the reports unless the inconsistency is widespread, and of such a number that it affects the quality and number of consistent reports. So although consistency is important, it must be looked at in terms of the overall picture.

Fifth is cogency. You rarely here this criteria, but it's very important in terms of effectiveness. Any argument's (deductive or inductive) effectiveness is going to be based on whether the person to whom the argument is given, knows the premises are true. For example, if I give the following argument:

The base of a souffle is a roux.
This salmon dish is a souffle.
Hence, the base of this salmon dish is a roux.

If you do not know what a souffle or a roux is, then you do not know if the premises are true, so how would you know if the conclusion is true. You may know that the argument is valid based on its form, but you would not know if the premises are true. Thus, you would not know if it is sound. For any argument to be effective, you have to know if the premises are true; and since knowledge varies from person to person, an arguments effectiveness is going to vary from person to person.

I will give the actual argument in my next post based on these criteria.

These are videos about one person's DMT experiences. I'm posting them here because there are similarities between these and NDEs. Here are a series of four videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca5tZ2njgq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfdrjWqQrZA&t=31s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WVrIRVcLi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C-24hOpvJ8

because it is made distinct from behaviour. I suspect a consequence of the approach Wittgenstein takes is to join mental states and behaviour - but that becomes a clumsy wording and leads to my (and his?) being accused of behaviourism. — Banno

Ya, it may lead to people accuse you of behaviorism, but I'm surely not going to let accusations dictate my beliefs. People will always misunderstand things, including myself, but all I'm doing is letting Wittgenstein's thoughts, as I interpret them, lead me to new avenues of thinking.

People also think that Wittgenstein promoted the idea that meaning is equivalent to use, or that language-games are what determine meaning. These are just misunderstandings.

I'm thinking about this in relation to the following from Snakes Alive:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/214348 — Banno

He's relearning the use of a word, just as a child would learn to use a word. I don't see the connection between what you said above and this video.

It's not just a matter of doing things in a language-game, it's doing things correctly.

But despite there not being a something, the game takes place; and has a role. We do things with our talk of pain. — Banno

I don't remember the context of this quote. I believe the point was, that if there was no pain behavior, the word pain would be practically meaningless. The pain behavior in social settings is what gives meaning to the word pain. The pain behavior also reflects a mental state, although the mental state in itself doesn't confer meaning. It's the mental state along with the behavior in social settings. Without the mental phenomena there would be no behavior in social settings. I'm not saying that mental states are objects that the word latches onto. So it goes something like this: mental states - behavior - words in social contexts - meaning - but it doesn't work in reverse, that is, you can't point back to the mental state to give the word meaning. The mental state is not an object that confers meaning. Repeating for emphasis.

What are we to make of "I know how to ride a bike"?

The justification here, if there is one, is in riding the bike. The doing makes the knowing so.

I haven't ridden one for a few years - perhaps I've forgotten how...

Or I suffer an inner ear infection that makes balance impossible, and so cannot demonstrate my skill; do I still know how to ride? — Banno

Well, it's similar to knowing how to count to ten, it's knowledge as a skill. The evidence or the justification is in the doing. If you say you can ride a bike, then get on and fall on your butt, then you don't have the skill. It doesn't matter that you once had the skill. The point is that your claim is no longer true.

Basically just another restatement of the argument from evil. The theist response is compensating goods. A moral God can allow evil if there is a compensating good. A compensating good must be much better than the evil, and the compensating good can not be possible without the evil. A theist would claim that our free will is such a compensating good. — Rank Amateur

I find this reprehensible. It's worse than the previous posts. You can justify just about anything under this idea. In fact, you have justified some of the most hideous evils under this idea.

First of all, premise 1a assumes that “God created people in such a way that they would sin.” This is indicating that God has created human beings who are prone to sin rather than not to sin. It is assuming that sinning is a behavior that God has programmed into every human at the time of creation; since it is forced onto human beings, sinning is not a choice but an inevitable consequence of God’s creation of the humankind. If someone were to ask: why do human beings sin, the answer in such context would be: because God made them to. This seems wrong to the mainstream Christian beliefs. God created human beings with free will, so that they are free to make choices of their own behaviors. To sin or not to sin are two choices with an equal chance of being selected by each individual before temptations. Either sinning is a choice by each human being, or God did not create human with free will. In the Christian belief, God has created human beings with free will, thus sinning is a choice out of free will rather than a behavior God has programmed into every human. — CYU-5

The following is what I see as the real problem. First, God knew that he was creating beings with a free will. Second, he knew that people would use that free will to reject him. Third, he knew that most people would reject him, or at least a billions would reject him. It would also seem to follow from this, that if God knew, for example, that creating Hitler would result in the murder of millions of people, then God is responsible for that evil. He is just as guilty as if he did it himself. For example, if I create a robot with a free will, knowing that that robot would murder people, then you would be within your right to charge me with murder. So either something is wrong with the doctrine you are proposing, or something is wrong with the concepts, or it's just incoherent. It's probably all three.

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