The Need to Evolve

[Sheldon]

Except we can easily objectively verify the result, a simple double blind clinical trial, with some test subjects receiving a placebo could confirm that the drug is causing the happiness, and of course since the claim is a natural physiological phenomenon, we already now the result is possible, we have no objective evidence that anything supernatural is possible. 

What objective evidence can we have that the people in the trial actually feel happier?

None, it's a subjective feeling, though it is of course a trivial claim, but the best we can have is objective markers, just as with pain, that's why A & R (that's ER department to those in the US) carefully check for signs of addiction before whipping out the prescription pad. 

I note you have focused on that part of your scenario, and ignored the part of the response that moved your bare appeal to numbers, to how I explained we could present objective evidence the medication was working, via properly conducted double blind clinical trials with a placebo. Do you imagine I don't notice you shoving the debate endlessly in one direction, or why? 

Now I also can't help but notice, that I am yet again expansively and honestly answering your questions, while you flatly ignore mine, reciprocity my friend, or I shall have to cut you off.

What has your claims to do with the original claim I responded to? Please be specific, and don't just offer links to the philosophical arguments of others. Explain specifically why you think they are relevant, offer quotes to evidence why you think this. Give me some sign you want honest debate here, and are not just preaching at me.

[Angrboda]

I'd say intersubjective evidence is persuasive if the experience doesn't require coaching, practice, training, or foreknowledge. A person without prior experience will see a pencil appear to ben when placed in water. A novice told to meditate will not have the experience of a lifelong meditator. Why is really beside the point. The experiences are tainted by the possibility of bias and imagining.

[Belacqua]

What objective evidence can we have that the people in the trial actually feel happier?

None, it's a subjective feeling, though it is of course a trivial claim, but the best we can have is objective markers, just as with pain, that's why A & R (that's ER department to those in the US) carefully check for signs of addiction before whipping out the prescription pad. 

Yes, I think we agree on that. Some very important things (e.g. happiness and other moods) exist but cannot be confirmed through objective evidence. 

Imagine you were the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, and your chemists came up with a new chemical. And they tested it on 10000 severely depressed patients, and 9999 of these reported a significant improvement in their mood. Related objective indicators would be partial confirmation, but these are knock-on effects, and not the subjective experiences themselves. If you were CEO, I doubt you would reject this evidence and decline to produce the medicine due to a lack of objective evidence. The subjective evidence here would be sufficient. And if you did refuse your shareholders would fire you right away. 

No doubt you can see further implications here. 

So for example after Isaac Newton changed the metaphysics of the way we think about color, people understood that the experience of color is subjective. It is in the mind of the individual. However, because human beings mostly have the same faculties, it is reasonable to assume that although our experience of color is subjective, almost everyone's is the same. That's what I meant by "intersubjective." 

So there are subjective experiences, for which we don't have objective evidence, which nonetheless we consider to be common and real. 

Now, back to the earlier discussion. As I recall, you were asking for a definition of the word "spiritual." The Cambridge Dictionary gives this:

relating to deep feelings and beliefs, especially religious beliefs: "Traditional ways of life fulfilled both economic and spiritual needs."

The issue I'm working on here is whether the lack of objective evidence for spiritual experiences is a good reason for us to conclude that such experiences are unreal. Over time a huge number of people have self-reported such experiences. For example, W.H. Auden reported a spiritual experience that seems to have been very similar to the spiritual experiences of Plotinus. Since we agree, I think, that subjective experience (e.g. happiness or color) is not to be dismissed simply because it is subjective, then I don't think we have established sufficient reasons to claim that they are false or illusional. 

We can guess that all the people making the reports are mistaken in some way, but without begging the question is there reason to conclude this? 

Earlier on someone mentioned Karma Yoga, and I think you connected this with Hinduism. Probably people mostly think of Hinduism as polytheism with lots of gods running around like superheroes. No doubt we've all seen lots of illustrations to the Ramayana with cute monsters, etc. But if you go back to the intellectual sources of the traditions that later became known as Hinduism you'll find that their epistemology and ontology are very subtle and not at all easy to dismiss. There are sentences from the early Sanskrit writings that could just as easily have come from Wittgenstein or Heidegger. These were not dummies. And the spiritual paths of the different types of yoga (the serious original types, not just stretching exercises) have yielded a long tradition of spiritual experiences. The practices have benefits that pay off, according to serious practitioners. 

I am unwilling to dismiss these many well-established traditions simply because we cannot measure the results with some sort of quantifying machine. As you acknowledge, subjective truths may be partly confirmed through objective indicators, but we would need to be very serious about what these indicators are before we dismiss the existence of the subjective experiences.

[Belacqua]

I'd say intersubjective evidence is persuasive if the experience doesn't require coaching, practice, training, or foreknowledge.  A person without prior experience will see a pencil appear to ben when placed in water.  A novice told to meditate will not have the experience of a lifelong meditator.  Why is really beside the point.  The experiences are tainted by the possibility of bias and imagining.

Granted, the way we interpret our experiences is inevitably influenced by what we have learned. 

But I don't think that training is invariably something that invalidates an interpretation. For some unusual or unsettling experiences, training may be very useful. 

So we'd have to go back and analyze whether there are other reasons to accept or reject the interpretation of the person having the experience. 

I think there is a danger of begging the question if we say that only those interpretations are valid which can be confirmed by a certain set of scientific means.

[Angrboda]

I'd say intersubjective evidence is persuasive if the experience doesn't require coaching, practice, training, or foreknowledge.  A person without prior experience will see a pencil appear to ben when placed in water.  A novice told to meditate will not have the experience of a lifelong meditator.  Why is really beside the point.  The experiences are tainted by the possibility of bias and imagining.

Granted, the way we interpret our experiences is inevitably influenced by what we have learned. 

But I don't think that training is invariably something that invalidates an interpretation. For some unusual or unsettling experiences, training may be very useful. 

So we'd have to go back and analyze whether there are other reasons to accept or reject the interpretation of the person having the experience. 

I think there is a danger of begging the question if we say that only those interpretations are valid which can be confirmed by a certain set of scientific means.

You're mistaking the implication. It's not saying that the experiences aren't valid if such and so, it's saying that the experiences aren't validated by the intersubjective shared experience. The experiences may be perfectly valid, but if there is a competing explanation -- imagination, indoctrination, whatever -- then intersubjective validation would not apply and thus would not be a route to validation. But again, that's not the same thing as saying the experiences aren't valid.

[Belacqua]

Granted, the way we interpret our experiences is inevitably influenced by what we have learned. 

But I don't think that training is invariably something that invalidates an interpretation. For some unusual or unsettling experiences, training may be very useful. 

So we'd have to go back and analyze whether there are other reasons to accept or reject the interpretation of the person having the experience. 

I think there is a danger of begging the question if we say that only those interpretations are valid which can be confirmed by a certain set of scientific means.

You're mistaking the implication.  It's not saying that the experiences aren't valid if such and so, it's saying that the experiences aren't validated by the intersubjective shared experience.  The experiences may be perfectly valid, but if there is a competing explanation -- imagination, indoctrination, whatever -- then intersubjective validation would not apply and thus would not be a route to validation.  But again, that's not the same thing as saying the experiences aren't valid.

That's fine. 

It's just puts us back at having to analyze what lies beneath the experiences. The fact that they are subjective is not in itself sufficient for rejecting them. 

And I don't want to beg the question by dismissing anything for which we don't have a certain kind of objective evidence.

[Sheldon]

Belacqua wrote: 

As I recall, you were asking for a definition of the word "spiritual." The Cambridge Dictionary gives this:

Well obviously I can consult a dictionary myself, but since the other poster made an assertion, I wanted them to explain what they meant, and how they knew it existed. If we are going to claim abstract ideas "exist" then Superman and Spiderman et all exist, this doesn't seem helpful in advancing our understanding of reality. 

Your new analogy makes the same false equivalence your first did, since my criteria is that sufficient objective evidence be demonstrated, and I explained previously objectivity and subjectivity are on a scale, they are not a binary condition, one or the other, thus evidence can be said to be sufficiently objective quite apart from whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant credulity.

Since all claims carry a burden of proof, but they do not all carry an equal burden of proof. Someone claiming to be happy whilst subjective, is pretty trivial, but it can be objectively tested, for example if they profess happiness, and end up on a bridge threatening to jump off, is it likely they were telling the truth? Just as with the subjective experience of pain, there are objective markers to test the claim. So if a pharmaceutical company markets a drug that fights depression, we can objectively measure how well depressed people do on the drug, again simple double blind clinical trials where the test group involves a placebo spring to mind.

The issue I'm working on here is whether the lack of objective evidence for spiritual experiences is a good reason for us to conclude that such experiences are unreal. Over time a huge number of people have self-reported such experiences.

Another false equivalence, since we know physiological changes can be cause by drugs, and objectively testing them is easy, I have explained how> Paradoxically I know of no way to objectively verify that religious beliefs making the adherent happy, objectively evidences that belief? Given they've had limitless resources and millenia to do so, I can only remain dubious. 

we would need to be very serious about what these indicators are before we dismiss the existence of the subjective experiences.

I have not, nor do I need to dismiss anything, in order to withhold belief from a claim, the burden of proof is always with the claim, and disbelieving a claim is not the same as making a contrary claim, hence my original questions, and your analogous comparisons that appear to be a false equivalence. Since your analogies ignore the fact that whilst all claims carry a burden of proof, they do not carry an equal burden of proof, and that claims involving phenomena we already objectively know are possible, must be deemed to carry a lesser burden of proof than those we have no objective evidence are possible. 

It's difference between someone making an unevidenced claim that they own a pencil, and someone making an unevidenced claim they own a unicorn, both claims are prima facie entirely subjective, but they do not carry an equal burden of proof. 

So my question remains unanswered, what objective evidence if any, can that person demonstrate that anything "spiritual" exists. Happiness doesn't exist outside of the human mind, it describes an emotional (brain) state, if one is claiming their religion can be reduced to an emotional state, then fine, I'd not have a problem with that, but this does not evidence that the belief they claim produced the state is in any way true. People can be happy reading Superman comics, this does not make Superman real.

FYI we know emotions relate to brain states, and these can be indicated on an MRI scan. 

Happiness in an MRI

[Angrboda]

And I don't want to beg the question by dismissing anything for which we don't have a certain kind of objective evidence.

Does that apply to the Greek gods as well?

[Sheldon]

And I don't want to beg the question by dismissing anything for which we don't have a certain kind of objective evidence.

Does that apply to the Greek gods as well?

Or Mermaids or Unicorns come to that, if a dearth of objective evidence is not a reason to disbelieve a claim, then what I wonder is a sound criteria for disbelief? Then there are unfalsifiable ideas of course where the claim, and its contrary claim, cannot conceivably be falsified even were they to be false. We cannot rational believe all unfalsifiable claims, as it must involve believing contradictory claims, we cannot believe some but not others without bias, for or against, thus the only rational open minded position seems to be disbelieving them all, but keeping an open mind if any objective evidence is produced or discovered.

[The Grand Nudger]

When we say that a thing x is intersubjective rather than objective we have already made a claim about what underlies that thing x. Intersubjectivity.....?