Deepak Chopra attacks Skepticism

[Pippy]

I am not trying to put words in your mouth, and apologize for that.

It was an unfair jab, because you have not stated that Atheism is objectively correct, or that I am wrong to not believe it. That's why it bothers me a little to argue with you, you are very good at it, and so if you think me a tin-foil hat kinda guy, it is a little likely to be true.

However my point about believing something based on the evidence, that's a staple of skepticism.

Allow me to continue if I may? I think that believing something based on evidence is paramount, but we have to be very honest about the value of all of the evidence. And I see the doubt and the skepticism in that need. When I see a video about 9/11 I know it is a video. It is a work of opinion by another person who, even if they tried to be objective as possible can't help but try to manipulate the information. So I can't believe that 9/11 was an inside job because I have seen a video, no matter the quality of the arguments or any alleged proof it showed. Because the proof in other people videos will always be alleged until I get something more solid, more real world... That is what I mean by skepticism, that we assign a realistic value to evidence, and that we err on the side of doubt. So that is why I didn't "see the light" with Adrians 9/11 "proof", because it was a YouTube video. I, if you remember, did not post a YouTube video to make my point, I referenced basic physics and our own personal recollections of the event.

I maintain that I am notorious for using words as abstract symbols to represent ideas and concepts, and that my personal definition may be a little off. That might create the most friction here. I learned from you guys that Homeopathy does literally mean snake-oil. Things like that. So I may be misunderstanding skepticism.

Skepticism is about what is possible, not what is certain. Ooooh, another jem. Write that one down.
Thanks again,
-Pip

[theVOID]

Skepticism is about what is possible, not what is certain. Ooooh, another jem. Write that one down.

Skepticism is about neither possibility nor certainty.... It's about NOT accepting a claim unless it meets certain criteria of verification. It is not about being certain a claim is false, but saying that this claim oes not yet have the level of evidence required to verify it as true.

[Eilonnwy]

As I recall, Adrian posted more than just youtube videos.

Youtube itself is a great source, and yes you may need to take what you find on youtube with a grain of salt. But you can't just dismiss something out of hand because it's on youtube, that's a logical fallacy. If you have questions of the legitimacy of the video, confirm the source. I don't think using something like youtube to share a video means that it's a bad source.

However, regardless of your feelings of youtube, which I think is a fair criticism, as I said above, more than that was posted. You can't just go anomaly hunting. The sum of all the evidence that 9/11 was a terrorist act perpetrated by Al Quada is overwhelming. If you go looking for tiny things that won't fit, it's bound to happen. But you can't weigh 1 anomaly against the mountains of evidence. Unless that anomaly gets to that point where it does outweigh that mountain of evidence, all you have is an anomaly.

[Rhizomorph13]

I learned from you guys that Homeopathy does literally mean snake-oil.

Just a small point, homeopathic remedies are not made from the oil of snakes. They are literally water that might accidently have some other material in them, but probably not. Nice to see you back Pippy! I still marvel at your inability to understand the logic that places the burden of proof on theists, but value your counterpoint.

Rhizo

[Eilonnwy]

Well, snake-oil is now a term for anything that is pretty much not what it claims to be and does nothing.

In cryptography, snake oil is a term used to describe commercial cryptographic methods and products which are considered bogus or fraudulent. The name derives from snake oil, one type of quack medicine widely available in 19th Century United States.

Since we're being nitpicky. ;P

[Rhizomorph13]

E,

I get that, but when you throw "literally" in front of something...

Rhizo

[Eilonnwy]

Fair enough

[Pippy]

Hey Rhizo the mushroom man. We can go over the burden of proof trap again, if you want It is about whether or not we ar emaking claims tha need to be supported, whether our beleifs are objective or subjective. Whether we think the other should beleive what we do, that we are right and they are wrong.

Yes, I didn't mean literally snake oil, but literally false. Literally the allegorical meaning of snake-oil. Literally the allegorical??? Now, to be clear, I didn't think tinctures were medicine, but that homeopathy could include naturopathy... I had the definition of the word misrepresented to me.

I don't want to get back into this, but I have to say a few things. I respect your views on the sbject. I don't think there is such a thing as Al Queda. At least that it is not what we are told it is. There is not a bunch of radical Muslims going to work all week ("morning Akbar", "morning Muhammad") as the most advanced and international terrorist network in the world. If anything Al Queda is like Oceana and Eurasia, made up enemies. There was no mention of Al Queda before the "war on terror", and it is likely that the translation means "base" in the sense of "database", like the intellegence people took what was a database of names of suspected radicals, and called it a highly orginized international armed group.

Long story short, I am skeptical that Al Queda is real. I am skeptical that alleged 19 hijackers stole four airplanes without fuss, flew them into shit for hours with no response. Flew one into what might be the most heavily defended building in the world (you think the Pentagon dosn't have the ability to defend itself from a giant airplane?). And (three) steel framed buildings having massive stuctural failure after an hour of kerosine and printer paper fires that is descried as a "pancake" collapse but seems to involve a lot more white powdery dust that that would entail...

It is not that I ignore the fantastic evidence the Commissions gathered and pick fringe shit. It is that both are theories are conpriracies, but the governemtn backed story is fairy tale bullshit. It is so fake it hurst my head. And so as a skeptic, I doubt the version of the story with the most stink of lies and manipulation.

Ugh. May be I should have just walked away, but I want to try to not be misunderstood.

Thanks,
-Pip

[Tiberius]

There is no such thing as absolute truth and I think it's naive to think you must know absolutely before accepting something as true.

Whilst I agree with the latter half of that quote, I must disagree with your assertion that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

To say such a thing requires absolute truth in the first place (i.e. your insistence that absolute truth doesn't exist is an absolute truth in itself, forming a contradiction). So either you say your statement was relative, and that therefore absolute truth may exist, or you argue that whether absolute truth exists or not is not important, and the fact that non-omniscient beings cannot know absolute truths (or at least know that something they know is an absolute truth) is the main part of the debate.

Given that as an agnostic I do not think non-omniscient beings can know whether what they "know" is absolute truth, I tend to think in the latter form. All we can really say about truth is that our version of it is probabilistic, refined by observation, experience, and experimentation.

[Eilonnwy]

There is no such thing as absolute truth and I think it's naive to think you must know absolutely before accepting something as true.

Whilst I agree with the latter half of that quote, I must disagree with your assertion that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

To say such a thing requires absolute truth in the first place (i.e. your insistence that absolute truth doesn't exist is an absolute truth in itself, forming a contradiction). So either you say your statement was relative, and that therefore absolute truth may exist, or you argue that whether absolute truth exists or not is not important, and the fact that non-omniscient beings cannot know absolute truths (or at least know that something they know is an absolute truth) is the main part of the debate.

Given that as an agnostic I do not think non-omniscient beings can know whether what they "know" is absolute truth, I tend to think in the latter form. All we can really say about truth is that our version of it is probabilistic, refined by observation, experience, and experimentation.

Smartass!

But yeah, I meant that people can't really know something absolutely. I'm often posting at work and trying to get my thoughts out quickly while I'm on break. Oops!