silver (02/16/83)
I used to think that only OBJECTIVE (repeatable, demonstrable) evidence of supernatural things would sway my beliefs. I've come to realize that there is such a thing as SUBJECTIVE evidence, valid in its own way. This is something that happens to you personally and as far as you can tell, you are not crazy, hallucinating, misperceiving, etc. I perceive that most people's "undefendable" beliefs are indeed based on subjective evidence. So, either a lot of people are too easily convinced by false perceptions, or there really is something going on that's hard to pin down. I myself am not sure which. I've had some experiences that are hard to ignore, yet I was not myself certain... Still waiting for It to happen to me, Alan Silverstein
karn (02/17/83)
Part of the problem with "subjective" evidence is that it is the observer who judges the validity of his own observations, and no one else can prove them right or wrong. Everyone has limits to the reliability of their senses; you certainly don't have to be on drugs or insane to perceive things incorrectly. Most people know how their eyes can be fooled with optical illusions, and most of us are prepared for them since we've seen them before. However, there are other more subtle situations in which the "sensor parity error" never gets flagged, and we really believe we have seen something that isn't really there. Let me give several examples: 1. An excellent earlier article in this newsgroup described some of the strange things the human mind often experiences in a semi-conscious state, e.g., while you're drifting off to sleep or waking up. I first learned about this in a psychology course when sleep and dreams were covered. Shortly thereafter, I had an experience of my own. One morning I woke up facing the wall next to my bed to see a spider apparently crawling across it; I watched it for what seemed like a few moments. Then the "spider" suddenly vanished as I came fully awake. It was only then that I realized that it wasn't really there, and the image didn't really look like a spider after all - just a black blob. This "hallucination" certainly convinced me of the fallibility of MY senses when half asleep! 2. The wife of a friend of mine once maintained that she had once seen a UFO, and that no other phenomenon, including meteors, could explain it. A few summers ago, I mentioned the upcoming Perseid meteor shower, and they went out to observe it. When she saw one particularly bright meteor, she realized what it had been that she saw years before. 3. Even some well-known skeptics are willing to admit to being fooled. In his book "The View From Serendip", Arthur Clarke describes one evening during the filming of 2001 in which he and Stanly Kubrick saw a bright object rise into the sky, hover apparently motionless for a minute or so, then rapidly go back down. They had been out looking for the Echo satellite, but this object appeared when the newspaper had said no Echo pass would occur. Besides, they thought, a satellite would appear to move most rapidly when nearly overhead, while this object appeared to rise, stand still, and set. They really thought they had witnessed a UFO. It turns that the newspaper had been in error; it really WAS Echo, and the apparent hovering was due to the fact that they had no points of reference to detect motion when the satellite was overhead. (This occurred on the balcony of a city apartment, so the streetlights made most stars invisible.) I wonder how many "unexplainable" UFOs have been described by people who weren't as aware of their own susceptibility to illusions. Phil Karn
tim (02/17/83)
Judging the tone of the ESP discussion, I strongly suggest that it be moved to net.philosophy. Subjects like subjective vs. scientific facts, etc., definitely belong there. I'll post my own feelings on the subject there soon. Tim Maroney decvax!duke!unc!tim
silver (02/19/83)
Good comments. Yes, subjective evidence is not very trustworthy; that's why I feel I haven't had any myself. But, I brought it up originally because there are people who've had experiences, wide awake, that they SWEAR they did not imagine or misperceive. I see how it could happen! So, I am prepared myself to accept such evidence should I encounter it. Unfortunately, it won't make a very big difference to anyone else!! This article is some sort of evidence that I exist.
mmt (02/27/83)
Subjects like subjective vs scientific facts belong in net.philosophy only in the sense that all science is natural philosophy. There is a very significant statistical point about subjective ``facts''; there is only one of ME and billions of YOU, so that an event that happens to ME has to be taken more seriously (statistically) than one that happens to YOU. If you take a Bayesian approach to statistics (which I happen to think is the only realistic approach), then this matters. So, my evidence about the way the world works CANNOT be the same as yours, if anything has happened to me that is different from what happened to you. In this sense, there are no ``scientific'' facts, just facts that are well enough supported that they can be (with a reasonably good chance) repeated by ME if I get the right equipment and learn the right things to do the experiment right. It is quite reasonable, statistically, if ESP works only for some people, and for those people when not under testing boredom (for that's what the ``scientific method'' entails), for the results to be acceptable ``subjectively'' but not ``scientifically''. But I don't know what you do about that, as a scientist. Martin Taylor
wjl (03/01/83)
I would like to obtain any information available on what other nets are
in use.
W.J. LUMPKIN
ABI INDIANAOLIS