Testimony is Evidence

[Pat Mustard]

Too bad for you that testimony is the weakest of evidences and hearsay is the weakest form of testimony.

Most of the time you don't get physical evidence--especially for events. So, the best evidence possible is often going to be testimonial evidence.

So because you have no evidence to support you, you demand we accept what are at best third hand retellings of tall tales as accurate accounts of reality? Not going to happen, untl you accept that Cú Chulainn killed Ferdiad by throwing the Gae Bolga at him using his foot as being equally true.

[LadyForCamus]

I'll accept 'English is not my first language' or 'I am on the autistic spectrum' as under the category of reasonable alternative explanation'.

This one made me LOL.  😄

[SteveII]

Read more carefully. I said "lasting or meaningful effect on the physical world that could be examined at a later time". Each of these phrases carry meaning. What they clearly do not mean is:

1. that the actions, interactions, and conversions were not meaningful--they could could be very meaningful and could contain very important truth of a matter. 
2. that the actions, interactions, and conversations did not have an effect on the physical world--only that they "could not be examined at a later time"

Regarding the first half of your post, this is a general discussion on testimony as evidence and not on a particular body of evidence--that would be a whole different topic in a different sub-forum.

Again, In principle, nothing happens, no action, interaction, or conversation could have effects that could not be examined at a later time.  Effects that could not be examined at later time is information lost.  Physics says no information once created is ever lost.    Now it might be very difficult and costly to interpret the information, but it is there.   Your speech is sound that propagate as pressure waves in the air, and by examining the current movement of every air molecule, and all the ways energy is added to and removed from the air, you can in principle trace backwards the movement of air in minute  granularity until you've reconstructed the past pressure pulses that was your speech.   Your past speech is in principle examinable in the form of the current behavior of all the Molecules that once carried the pressure pulses that carried your speech.
Yes, it is difficult.  That's why we have tape recorders to record the sound and not mega-ultra computers to reconstruct the sound.  But it is in principle possible.

I don't believe you are capable of saying anything important, so I won;t even bother with a tape recorder.  And I think even you agree that you have nothing worthy of time on a supercomputer to recover the information to verify or reconstruct.

But if you think you have information on something so heavenshaking, so to speak, as indications of an entity so kind as to create you and threaten you with eternal torment, you ought to want to welcome as much effort and time and resource as it takes to confirm or deny whether it was real, or it was a lie.  Don't you?

Why are you so afraid it is a lie that you would not even discuss the possibility of how to verify it?

Your talk of physics has nothing at all to do with my point. We are discussing testimony--which to use the OP definition: "is the transfer of knowledge from one person to another with the assertion that this information is true (this may be written or spoken). If one is testifying of an event, this testimony very well might be the only evidence you will ever be able to examine. For example:

1. Actions witnessed: someone running, weaving in and out of traffic, aimed his gun at the clerk.
2. Conditions witnessed through the five senses like at 8am I was sleeping, smelling gasoline, hearing an argument in the next apartment, the light was off. 
3. Interactions like the man shoved me out of the way, the stranger gave me a dollar for a coffee, I gave my bus seat to the old lady.
4. Conversations like Fred said he would shoot my dog if it shit on his lawn again or that Mary said she is having a bad day. 

Tell me, a week following any of these events, what physical evidence would be readily available to examine if the event really happened?  A month? A year? There are billions of such things every minute of every day happening in the world. 

The rest of your post does not apply since you missed the point and are veering off topic.

[The Grand Nudger]

If testimony is the only "evidence" of something...then the specifics of what's contained in the claim simply are not in evidence.  As so many examples have shown..even the simplest and most uncontroversial claim does not provide evidence for the accuracy of it;s own contents.

I claimed to eat a cheeseburger...but nothing in my claim will help you to establish whether or not I ate a cheeseburger - or even whether or not cheeseburgers -exist-.

Another claimed to have had a lunchdate with a man named John.  Nothing in the claim helps to establish that such a lunchdate ever took place, that there is a man named john, or that the claimant knows a john, let alone had a lunchdate with john....or that they even eat lunch.........ever.

[LadyForCamus]

I think that it depends on what you mean.

How do you not know what I mean...?   I've only been yapping at you about it across three threads.

If I claim that I saw a black Dodge Charger on the way home from the park today, is my witness testimony, alone, sufficient to convince you my claim is true?

If I claim that I saw a gremlin eating the wheels off of a black Dodge Charger on the way home from the park today, is my witness testimony, alone, sufficient to convince you my claim is true?

This is an easy one, RR.

Re-posting this because I don't want RR to "forget" to respond.  😏

[Pat Mustard]

Fixed your post for truthfullness and accuracy.

Seeing as you've already had this unevidenced assertion debunked in your previous thread, I see no reason to humour you this time.

Please don't put your words as a quote with my name on it.

We can do a deal here you stop posting bullshit and I'll stop condensing your bullshit down to the essential meaning. Ok?

[RoadRunner79]

Please don't put your words as a quote with my name on it.

We can do a deal here you stop posting bullshit and I'll stop condensing your bullshit down to the essential meaning. Ok?

Your not going to quit straw manning people... don't fool yourself!

[Brian37]

We can do a deal here you stop posting bullshit and I'll stop condensing your bullshit down to the essential meaning. Ok?

Your not going to quit straw manning people... don't fool yourself!

See if you can spot the pattern RR.

1. Your not going to quit straw manning people, therefor Allah is the one true God.
2. Your not going to quit straw manning people, therefor Yahweh is the one true God.
3. Your not going to quit straw manning people, therefor the Hindu creator God Brahama is the one true God.
4. Your not going to quit straw manning people, therefor Buddha is the only path to wisdom.

BTW, I misspell words too, but it is "You're" as in "You are".  "Your" is a possessive word, like "Your car" or "Your house".

I do it too, but I I can correct myself in the post before the time is up on the ability to edit, I do try.

[SteveII]

If testimony is the only "evidence" of something...then the specifics of what's contained in the claim simply are not in evidence.  As so many examples have shown..even the simplest and most uncontroversial claim does not provide evidence for the accuracy of it;s own contents.

I claimed to eat a cheeseburger...but nothing in my claim will help you to establish whether or not I ate a cheeseburger - or even whether or not cheeseburgers -exist-.

Another claimed to have had a lunchdate with a man named John.  Nothing in the claim helps to establish that such a lunchdate ever took place, that there is a man named john, or that the claimant knows a john, let alone had a lunchdate with john....or that they even eat lunch.........ever.

I agree. Words are not capable of conveying truth value simply because they were asserted. So the witness's character, cognitive ability, subject knowledge, experiences, and track record plus the context of the event provide tangible and necessary inputs in determining the weight of testimonial evidence toward a conclusion. It is the inseparable package of these things together that form "evidence".

---

Most of the time you don't get physical evidence--especially for events. So, the best evidence possible is often going to be testimonial evidence.

So because you have no evidence to support you, you demand we accept what are at best third hand retellings of tall tales as accurate accounts of reality? Not going to happen, untl you accept that Cú Chulainn killed Ferdiad by throwing the Gae Bolga at him using his foot as being equally true.

When I have I ever given the impression that I "demand" anything from you other than to be accurate? One could make that a full time job on this forum.

[LadyForCamus]

If testimony is the only "evidence" of something...then the specifics of what's contained in the claim simply are not in evidence.  As so many examples have shown..even the simplest and most uncontroversial claim does not provide evidence for the accuracy of it;s own contents.

I claimed to eat a cheeseburger...but nothing in my claim will help you to establish whether or not I ate a cheeseburger - or even whether or not cheeseburgers -exist-.

Another claimed to have had a lunchdate with a man named John.  Nothing in the claim helps to establish that such a lunchdate ever took place, that there is a man named john, or that the claimant knows a john, let alone had a lunchdate with john....or that they even eat lunch.........ever.

I agree. Words are not capable of conveying truth value simply because they were asserted. So the witness's character, cognitive ability, subject knowledge, experiences, and track record plus the context of the event provide tangible and necessary inputs in determining the weight of testimonial evidence toward a conclusion. It is the inseparable package of these things together that form "evidence".

And the fact (read: well-supported by a robust body of evidence, including scientific evidence) is that a person can have upstanding character, sharp cognitive abilities, a plethora of knowledge and experience in the subject, and a phenomenal track record, and yet...still be wrong about what they are recalling.

Such is the irrefutable unreliability of witness testimony, no matter how badly you guys want to muddle and over-complicate the matter.