I'm working with the definition of materialism that is commonly accepted by the majority of working academics and scientists. This holds that the basis of individuals and personality and memory is molecular in nature, and can only be transmitted by genetic means. But if you agree that such things could exist, and simply haven't been discovered yet, then really we have no argument. — Wayfarer

You're working with a very narrow definition of materialism, trying to ascribe this to scientists generally, all in order to make strawpersons of them so you can condescendingly pooh-pooh them.

Scientist currently believe that genes and the molecular structure of the brain are what creates consciousness, because there is no proven account of anything else. That's how science works.

Well, I'm not sure what definition of materialism you're working with, but if you give it a moment's consideration, you may realize that it's compatible with accepting that things like rebirth and souls could exist. It would merely assume that these are heretofore undiscovered/not understood matters.

In other words, they would say, that once what is thought to be supernatural has been proven to exist, it must be considered natural.

The traditional opposition of materialism to idealism or religion stems from the lack of proof for the claims of the latter, not because the former is dogmatically unable to understand or accept them.

meant beyond the scope of conventional science, considering he presented a scientific study himself. — Shamshir

Which would be contentious enough, but he literally said:

I mean that commitment to a secular~scientific view rules out such beliefs and prevents consideration of them — Wayfarer

Wayfarer is not just claiming malpractice though. Wayfarer wants to simultaneously claim malpractice and that rebirth and such things are beyond the practice/scope/ability of science at all.

You cannot both claim that science rules out the possibility of rebirth and that doing so in unscientific. Either you claim that the scientists who do so are being unscientific, or that your theory goes beyond science. You can't have it both ways.

Blast! You guessed! But at least you now know the most important man in the world will waste time talking to the likes of you. — Wayfarer

Self-important, maybe.
And he's off his rocker, so ya never know :P

Of course I do. — Wayfarer

And yet you keep on insisting:

Pointing this out, however, is evidence of bias and prejudice, and of not understanding science. — Wayfarer

But still maintain:

As I'm not wedded to a secular~scientific philosophy, then I don't have the same underlying inhibitions about the subject that are quite understandable in those who do (as, for them, it's a threat to the underlying worldview.) — Wayfarer

And:

I mean that commitment to a secular~scientific view rules out such beliefs and prevents consideration of them. — Wayfarer

On the one hand you want to reject science and a scientific worldview on the basis that it cannot encompass all of your voodoo. On the other you wish to maintain that dismissing supernatural phenomena is not scientific. You're not being consistent or clear about your position.

But then, I guess when you adhere to a worldview that embraces illogic, you can choose to say anything even contradictory stuff. Kinda like Trump. Are you Trump, Wayfarer?

Not what I meant. I mean that commitment to a secular~scientific view rules out such beliefs and prevents consideration of them. — Wayfarer

I don't think you understand how "secular-scientific views" work. Of course we can and do consider possibilities of rebirth and even illogic. There's a huge difference, however, between considering and accepting or believing in these things.

But again, that's the continual Buddhist mistake--the assumption that just because I don't agree with you, that I haven't considered, or do not understand your position.

As this is a philosophy forum, I think the point is not to convince others of our beliefs, but to explore their nature, to expose their underlying assumptions and to consider why we think the way we do. As I'm not wedded to a secular~scientific philosophy, then I don't have the same underlying inhibitions about the subject that are quite understandable in those who do (as, for them, it's a threat to the underlying worldview.) — Wayfarer

See, and this is the most irritating thing about Buddhists. All the preaching about being humble and reassessing beliefs, yadayadayada, but then there's this underlying current of "but, of course, I have insights that are beyond you and your 'logic' and only accessible to true believers."

Relativists and Buddhists are the least inclined to actually question the foundations of their own theories.

And then there are those who think merely establishing the possibility of X is sufficient to believe in X, when in reality there is a vast gulf between those things that could theoretically be true and those things that are true/we can know to be true.

Tautologies are funny that way--they tend to be inherently truthful.

Everything is possible except the impossible.
Or, only the possible is possible.
Or, the impossible is impossible.

Well, whatcha gonna do? It is what it is.

2,700 cases, right? So we could go through all of these and show how every one of them was just coincidence and confabulation and wishful thinking, but I just don't think so — Wayfarer

On what basis? Cause it seems like a large number?

Apparently 1.1% of the world's population is estimated to have schizophrenia. Over half are thought to hear voices.

1.1% of at least 7 billion is 77,000,000, and half of that is 38,500,000.

Am I supposed to think that all those people who hear voices are hearing real voices, just because it's such a large number of people?

And let's not even get started on the virgin birth. — Bitter Crank

At least that's theoretically possible, except for the part about the baby-daddy being a deity.

I don't think that addiction necessarily explains or excuses ALL of an addicts bead behaviors, but certainly some of them. It may be hard to distinguish in some cases which actions are due to the addiction or the addict being a jerk as a person.
For example: addict steals cash from a store--probably the addiction taking over.
The addict votes for Trump--probably just a jerk.
The addict cheats on his wife--could be a mixture of being a jerk and addiction-induced behaviors.

My personal opinion is that since addicts obviously pose a danger to themselves and others, they should be treated in involuntary facilities like other mentally ill persons who've proven to be a similar risk.

I'm not sure of the extent that he's doing this deliberately or whether it's more of a unconscious psychological thing, but it doesn't do him any favours — S

I'm not quite sure either, but I do know it's sucked all the interest out of this thread for now.

I don't think you can just assume mental states have a relationship to some kind of metaphysically secure external reality. We are not obliged to make metaphysical commitments about the nature of our mental states. — Andrew4Handel

Well, in that case, anyone's belief about the afterlife is not evidence for the afterlife.

It is your problem that you were ambiguous. If you want to give an example of something absurd you probably should check that it doesn't exist. — Andrew4Handel

Nope. If I say "leprechaun" and you interpret "person afflicted with dwarfism," or I say "ghost" and you interpret "semblance or trace" then you're just purposefully misreading me, which is simply not my problem.

I mean, I could play that silly game too and interpret:

rich variety of strange phenomena — Andrew4Handel

as
rich: having great monetary value
variety: a kind or sort, like chocolate is a variety of ice cream
strange: alienated or bizarre
phenomena: a remarkable or exceptional person.

I really hope you see how that would be absurd, dishonest, and just entirely unphilosophical.

You can have an accurate belief that can be later validated by public or personal evidence. — Andrew4Handel

In which case it would, and always would have, extended beyond just your belief.

You don't have to prove to someone one else that your mental states exist or are valid. — Andrew4Handel

Ideas exist. The idea of an afterlife or previous lives exist. So does the idea of a unicorn. That is different from the thing in itself existing.

I mean, is that all you're out to prove? That there are people who believe in an afterlife? Yes, that's true. So what? Doesn't mean or follow that an afterlife exists.

So what was your inaccurate diversion on Dragon eggs about? — Andrew4Handel

It's also intellectual dishonesty to insist I repeat myself when I was perfectly clear and you chose to reply with a fallacy. Go back and reread it and then present me with a valid response.

Your example is flawed because dragon eggs do exist. Komodo dragons lay eggs. — Andrew4Handel

So that's just a purposeful fallacy of equivocation. And frankly, committing fallacies on purpose is is just as immoral and a waste of everyone's time as being disingenuous about what you believe.

You are begging the questioning by already assume afterlife claims are going to be absurd. — Andrew4Handel

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say they are absurd, I said they are extraordinary, because ordinarily people don't make such claims. Furthermore, the absurdity of such claims stems from the lack of a single shred of corroborating evidence.

Yes, and that sort of approach has wider implications in philosophy. It is deeply immoral, is it not? Intellectual honesty is right up there as a fundamental value. — S

I agree. It's not only dishonest to us (and a waste of our time), but to themselves. They think they're getting away with something, but in reality they're just undermining their whole theory by trying to base it on such fake argumentation.

It does not follow that a claim about a mental state entails a claim about what we consider to be the external world — Andrew4Handel

You do realize that if rebirth doesn't extend beyond my personal belief in it, then it's not real?

What makes you claim something is an extraordinary event? Existence itself is extraordinary.
Maybe you mean common mundane events. — Andrew4Handel

Sure, things are relative. We should all spend more time thinking about how extraordinary it is that we exist in this vast, cold, amazing universe.

And yet, it's just blatantly ridiculous to claim you can't tell the difference between claims of eating cornflakes and of eating dragon eggs. That's just being disingenuous on your part. Don't pretend things cause you want to make your argument stick.

Although the specfics of how it is described are still being debated, psychologists recognize addiction as a mental illness in its own right.

Though, yes, it often co-occurs with other mental illnesses.

The problem is that you can't provide corroborating evidence for private mental events. — Andrew4Handel

There's a different set of evidentiary expectations for ordinary events and extraordinary ones. If someone says, I was thinking about making a sandwich, you can believe them, cause it's a totally ordinary thing that I would say most people think about fairly often. If you say, I had a vision of my past life, that's not ordinary.

Same with cornflakes. I can believe you, because there's no reason to doubt that possibility. If you say you ate dragon eggs and unicorn flanks, I'd have reason to doubt you.

Additionally, the claim that you had a vision of a past life, if true and not a delusion, simultaneously makes a claim about the way the world outside of your mind is and works, thus making it not purely a mental phenomenon.

I wasn't using certain in that sense of the word. I meant it in the sense of some but not all.

Personal testimony can be fallible but that does not make it all false, logically. We rely on successful inter human communication to get through life. — Andrew4Handel

I see now.

Still, it's not even close to sufficient evidence. At most, in such extraordinary cases, it may be a reason to investigate further, but even that has its limits.

Like, if someone claims to have seen a murder happen. Sure, the police will investigate, but when not a single shred of corroborating evidence turns up, they'll stop and probably assume the witness was mistaken somehow.

I would define addiction as a self-destructive discipline/pattern of activity. — BrianW

This.

Addiction and mental illness are typically identified (in part) by how much they infringe on your quality of life/ability to function.

Some addicts may seem functional from the outside, but a) addicts are really good at covering up their problems, b)only for a limited amount of time--it WILL ruin their lives eventually.

certain evidence based on what is essentially ad hominem about personal testimony — Andrew4Handel

Personal testimony is NOT certain evidence. That's why there's currently a lot of debate about how much eye witness testimony should count in courts.

This sucks because now I'm having to rehash really straightforward stuff that I already typed. — Terrapin Station

Wait a sec--did my above scenario just apply here? :gasp:

I didn't type and I'm not saying anything even remotely near "We make all choices per whim." I wrote, " [It] Depends on the scenario. It's not as if it's just one way that we choose things, and sometimes we basically do it by whim or 'randomly.'" — Terrapin Station

You're right; you did make that distinction.

So let me rephrase:

Seems to me that if we just choose things on unreasoned whims, then we would constantly be doing unpredictable things. Take someone really close to you, whom you know very well: if they do something totally out of character, you don't typically say "oh, I guess that was just his "whim" taking over!" you wonder what the causes were that brought this action about. And, depending on the action, you may be more or less concerned about their mental state. — NKBJ

It's unlikely that political idea is immoral per se absent any action thereupon.

But a belief or opinion may be immoral if you have a relationship that rests on the commitment to certain ideas. Like, it's probably immoral to hate your spouse when your spouse believes you love them. Even that immorality, rests on your continuing to be married to the person.

What would reasoning have to do with that, and how would this imply anything about whether control necessarily involves reasoning? — Terrapin Station

Seems to me that if we just choose things on unreasoned whims, then we would constantly be doing unpredictable things. But take someone really close to you, whom you know very well: if they do something totally out of character, you don't typically say "oh, I guess that was just his "whim" taking over!" you wonder what the causes were that brought this action about. And, depending on the action, you may be more or less concerned about their mental state.

Aside from that, I love Glen Campbell, by the way. ;-) — Terrapin Station

Well, he was a pretty decent guitar player, I'll give him that.

12 times more likely to commit suicide as a result of childhood trauma and yet this is apparently acceptable treatment in modern society. It's a fucking disgrace — Isaac

Yes, it is. I worked with students in isolation rooms before, and it was a horrible situation. We couldn't mainstream them, because they posed a danger to others (think, attacking students with scissors when told to please take a seat), but the state kept saying that their cases weren't severe enough to be placed in treatmemt facilities. Additonally, the same parents who mess up their kids get a huge say in whether a kid gets treatmemt or not--usually not.

That depends on a whole host of things:
1. What do you mean by "people"?
2. What do you mean by "are created"?
3. What do you mean by "equal"?

I'm getting the impression that you never choose anything on a whim, by the way. Which seems weird to me. — Terrapin Station

Lol. I'm not that OCD. I just think in real life, the things we call "random" or "on a whim" just seem to be that way and are actually products of my subconscious desires or other predetermined factors. Like when you drop a bag of marbles, it "seems" random where they all go, but we know that it's determined by all sorts of physics. We call it random though because we can't immediately predict all of it.

Do you just mean that you believe that being in control does imply reasoning? Why would you believe that? — Terrapin Station

Because otherwise I have no basis for choosing one mediocre 70's band over another. How do I then stop myself from listening to, *shudder* Glen Campbell?

But there's nothing about being in control of something that implies reasoning. — Terrapin Station

That's question-begging, imho.

We're talking about an example where they're intentionally performing an action--choosing something per whim. — Terrapin Station

On what basis is a person intending to do something on a whim? Even having the impetus to a whim is a cause.

You're in control of it, because it's an action that you take. — Terrapin Station

There are many examples of actions that you can theoretically take without actually being "in control." Like, when you sleepwalk, or are under the influence of some kind of "truth serum," or are being hypnotized, or have a disease like Tourette's Syndrome, etc etc.

In all these examples we would say that the person is not "in control," because they are not able to access their reasoning skills to willfully direct their actions.

Whose or "what's" whim is it? Who or what is doing something by whim? — Terrapin Station

That's just the thing--in your hypothetical, it doesn't matter really. You're not using any part of "you" to make the decision, you're just acting.

Furthermore, I don't think this is what most people are looking for when they speak of "freewill." They don't mean "I can sometimes choose randomly based on nothing, not even my own thoughts, ideas, reason, knowledge, and experience." Most people just want to be able to maintain that they're ability to use just those things is not coerced, which is compatible with determinism.

It's controlled by you, since you're choosing it by whim. — Terrapin Station

We're going around in circles. I simply don't see how you could call something that's a random whim under your control. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Depends on the scenario. It's not as if it's just one way that we choose things, and sometimes we basically do it by whim or "randomly." — Terrapin Station

If you're just doing it by whim or randomly, I don't see how you can call it "controlled" by anyone.

I'm a Western materialist type and I can only make sense of rebirth in a few ways:

Literally as zombies: reviving the body before major cell damage has occurred in the brain. If the brain is gone, so is anything that makes "you" you.

Metaphorically as our actions: living on through the ripple effects of my deeds in the world and my impact on the people around me.

Semi-literally on the atomic level: the atoms that have made my body will continue to exist and be building blocks for all sorts of things at least until the end of the known universe.

You're causing it ultimately, yes, where that's not deterministic. — Terrapin Station

On what basis are you causing it? I mean, why are you choosing A over B?