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[Ket]

To sum up, I was a bit disappointed here. I expected him to show his work, but he just makes unfounded assertions for the most part. Every aspect that was easy to accept either runs contrary to idealism or is neutral with respect to it. He does ask us to withhold judgement pending further explanation, so I will do that, Still, I've gone from expecting a breakthrough to being a bit suspicious. He did a great job of exposing flaws in other theories, but when he tried to express his own, it seemed to have some similar flaws.

Fascinating coverage. Thank you. I look forward to hearing the remainder and perhaps offering my two cents.

[Lagayascienza]

I've downloaded his Doctoral Thesis in which the theory is explained clearly. I find this easier to understand because I can read it slowly rather than making notes whilst trying to listen to the videos. If you Google Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only Ontology you'll find it as free Pdf. It covers all the material in the videos but it is set out a bit differently.

[Lagayascienza]

Below are my notes on the 4th Video. I ned t condense them.

Here an attempt is made to construct an alternative hypothesis to physicalism and Constitutive Panpsychism. It will b=need to be logically coherent, empirically adequate, conceptually parsimonious and explanatorily adequate. The following are the empirical observations we start with:

1. We seem to share the same world of gravity, trees, stars … However misleading the appearance of this may be in terms of any underlying reality, it is something that we share.

2 We can’t change the world just by wishing it to be different. The world does not acquiesce to our wishes. It just does what it does.

3. Inner experience correlates with brain function. Alcohol gets you drunk and results in a change to inner experience.

(The above three points are expanded upon later)

A theory cannot contradict any of the above facts. It must explain them.

Under physicalism matter is defined quantitatively but that is a theoretical abstraction meant to explain the above facts. It is not empirically accurate. What is physics about? Knowledge begins with perception – all else is theory. We forget this and think that the physicalist account of matter is the complete explanation. We replace the reality of perception with a theoretical abstraction called matter. But it all starts from perception. Physics is a science of perceptions - only studies models and predicts the behaviour of the dials on the dashboard (explained in previous videos). It is not, and does not provide, a transparent window onto the real world behind appearances. Physics studies only the needles on the dials of the dashboard which evolution gave us. It cannot provide all the answers as to what the world really is. It does not explain “being” itself. It only settles questions of behaviour of the dashboard and that’s all we need to survive and develop technology.
Matter is not an empirical given but an abstraction. It is safe to say:

1. There is experience.

2. Therefore there is an experiencer; a subject to which experience is given.

3. Brain function is a perceptual experience. Neuroscience sees the output of fMRI. Brain function just the content of perception. Matter underlies the brain and the rest of the universe so there is a kinship between the brain and the rest of the universe.

These are three safe theoretical conclusions. How do we interpret this solid ground in the simplest way without question begging?

First, we avoid an ontological distinction between experience and the experiencer because we run into problems. E.g., how does the experiencer feel the experience if the two are separate? This is the interaction problem. To avoid this , we can say that an experience is an excitation of an experiencer just as a ripple is a disturbance of matter. The experiencer is the only thing that has stand-alone existence. (Mmm…)

Second, there are two experiential perspectives. There is brain function - neurons, synapses, etc, and then there is experience of brain function – when a neuroscientist sees the output of an fMRI for example. Both experiences correlate. We have extrinsic brain function and intrinsic experience of consciousness. These are both experiences. How do we account for these. The simplest way is to posit that the extrinsic perspective is the appearance of the intrinsic perspective from a certain POV. Brain function is what my conscious inner life looks like when observed by a brain scientist through a brain scanner. This is not to say that brain function generates conscious inner life. (Mmmm... I baulk at this)

This is the least committal, simplest interpretation of the empirical facts. The argument then will be that there is only one experiencer. Why argue this? It is a simpler and more promising path. Because if there are multiple distinct consciousnesses , distinct experiencers, we run into problems again of the interaction problem of panpsychism. Is there a way of conceiving of how separate experiencers arise from the one experiencer?

The matter of brains and of the universe is alike. If matter is the extrinsic appearance of my conscious inner state then the same should apply to the universe as whole. The matter in the whole universe is the appearance of conscious inner life otherwise we would be positing an arbitrary discontinuity in nature. Why would the matter in brains and in the rest of the universe be fundamentally different? Implication: the universe as a whole is also the appearance of universal conscious inner life, of transpersonal mental states that underly our nature. If that is so, and if matter in my brain organises itself into a certain topological structure, we would expect to see a similar fractal structure in the universe as a whole on its largest scales. Both are appearances of underlying inner conscious states. But is that the case? It is. ( Shows picture of brain cells and large scale filamentous structure of the universe – they look similar) Is there more than how they look in images? Yes. Information theory and the network appearance of the universe on a large scale look similar. Physics provides no reasons for this similarity. But it is what we would expect under analytic idealism. If matter in the universe at large and of matter in our brains looks similar, is it so surprising? Everything that is displayed on the screen of perception is simply how inner life presents itself to the screen of observation. If that’s what matter is, then it’s no surprise that there is some similarity. Both are images of mental processes as displayed on the dashboard. So no surprise they look the similar. Other lines of research lead to similar conclusions. (Lea Smolin. The Autodidactic Universe) Laws of physics are an expression of a learning process in an underlying an immanent neuronal network immanent across the entire physical universe. The expression of that neuronal network, of that learning process is what we perceive and call the laws of physics. So what is it that learns? A mind. Steven Alexander new book has a chapter: Is there is a universal mind underlying physical reality?

Bringing it all together. A story:

In the beginning, everything was one universal mind. One integrated sphere of mentation. No outside world beyond. Experiences were endogenous - did not depend on intentional content, on perception of things outside – there was no outside. No vision, tasing, touch etc. Just experiences akin to thoughts, imagination, ideas, emotions etc. that also arise within us. (Nor exactly analogous to ours. That would be to anthropomorphize) They were akin but not identical because the universal mind is not the mind of a human being.

This one mind then underwent dissociation – a psychiatric phenomenon. An alter personalities developed with their own endogenous experiences. They don’t share each other’s thought and memories. Cannot access each other’s contents. Mental contents outside continue and impinge on the dissociative boundaries. Stressful. So compartmentalize. Deliberate dissociation. Emotions still felt but set aside so executive ego can function. The emotions still impinge on the ego indirectly- affect mood for example. They modulate what happens inside the boundary. Nature developed a way to leverage this impingement. We are the dissociated alters of universal consciousness. We think we are separate.

Evolution found a way to leverage this impingement. Why? Because the impingement provides info about what’s happening outside the alter. To survive we need to know something about what’s going on in the world so we can successfully steer our actions. The result is the screen of perception, the dashboard. The dashboard that contains info about the world outside. The physical world exists only on the dissociative boundary. What happens outside are just endogenous mental states. Nothing physical, no space, time… Just ideas and emotions that impinge on the boundary. But we only have access to the dashboard – we couldn’t cope with more – more would be inconducive to survival.

So, two sides to our experience: the intrinsic and extrinsic. This is an old idea. There is essence – what the world is in itself, and appearance. Essence is the intrinsic view. Appearance is extrinsic. Can call it concealed nature and revealed nature. Akin to decoherence in QM. Imagination, thought, emotions is essence. The physical world is icons, symbols, dials that point to the underlying essence behind the physical world. Schopenhauer called essence the will which he associated with the drive towards change and re-creation. The universe would be static without will. The classical physical world is representation. Not real. Kant called essence the world in itself. Phenomena are what we experience. Spinoza called essence nature begetting, doing and appearances nature begotten, the classical physical world.

We are alters. But we identify with our bodies. What is the relationship between mind and body? We see other’s bodies and they impinge on us. It’s transpersonal. A body is the extrinsic appearance of the dissociated mental states of the other alter. We see alter two on the dashboard. Life, organisms, bodies are the extrinsic appearance of the dissociative process in universal consciousness.

Any evidence for this? Under fMRI the brain activity of patients with dissociative disorder and actors imagining having the disorder look the same. Dissociative processes in the universe look like living organisms. Death is the end of the dissociative process.

Is dissociation enough to blind us to what’s happening outside? Yes, it can be blinding. See paper: Sight and blindness in the same person. And the dissociation in the universe does the same. (But is the analogy an adequate one? Alters in real life can shake hands and interact. In dreams dissociative disorder patients’ alters can also interact as our alters do in real life. (Mmm… Very speculative analogy here – drawing long bow.) We are alters of universal consciousness partaking in this dream we call the world.

Conclusion. Unlike physicalism which postulates an abstract entity, we can make sense of things by taking only what is given. What is given? Experience. That’s all we have. All else is theory. Experience goes on beyond the horizon of our physical mind. Physicalism says that beyond our mind is just matter. Not so. Beyond our mind’s horizon is more experience. The inanimate world we see, the stars and galaxies, these are the extrinsic appearance of transpersonal mental processes as displayed on the dashboard. The body is a dissociated alter of the universal mind. All of these are experiences – the substance of the world are transpersonal experiential states to which we have no direct access. We have access to only the perceptual experiences of the dashboard. Extrinsic and intrinsic are all experiences. Multiple perspectives. We can account for the totality of reality with experience alone. Dissociation does exactly what we need it to do to explain he whole of reality only with nature’s given experience. Therefore the one universal experiencer in which dissociated alters interact but don’t recognise each other as part of the one.

Back to 3 empirical observations:


1. We all seem to share the same world of gravity, trees, stars … Under analytic idealism we also share an ocean of transpersonal endogenous states which are akin to thought and emotion although not human thoughts and emotions, but instinctive and not with higher level mental functions. Our dashboards are fed by the same surrounding thought and emotions. Transpersonal endogenous experiential states that constitute the world as it is in itself, that world presents itself to us on our dashboard as the physical world. But the physical world exists only here on the dashboard, it is the dashboard. What’s really going on outside, the noumena, the thing in itself is endogenous, transpersonal mental states that impinge on aur individual dissociative boundary. We share the same world of thoughts and emotions in which we are all immersed. That world presents on our dashboard as the material world.

2. Laws of nature independent of our desires. Is this accounted for by Analytic idealism? Yes. Our wishes are inside the dissociative boundary and cannot directly affect what is outside. This creates the experience of separateness. The only way to influence what is happening outside is to manipulate the dissociative boundary itself. The surface boundary is the surface of our body, our sense organs. The physical appearance of the mental dissociative boundary is the surface of our body and by manipulating that surface we can do work and change the world outside.


3. Brain function as read on fMRI correlates with inner experience. How does analytic idealism account for that . A body and brain is what the dissociated mental activity of an alter looks like when observed across one or more dissociative boundaries. So of course there is correlation. The image of a phenomenon correlates with the phenomenon it is an image of. Brain function correlates with inner experience because brain function is what inner experience looks like when observed from across the dissociative boundary. Brain function does not generate experience. That is the mistake of physicalism. The correlation is between the image of a phenomenon and the phenomenon and not between the cause of the phenomenon and the phenomenon.

[Lagayascienza]

Kastrup's theory so far is just not doing it for me. I don't see how it's even testable. So I question whether I should spend further time on it. However, he promises in the 5th video to provide empirical evidence for Analytic Idealism - evidence from physics and consciousness studies. If that doesn't satisfy, then I shan't watch more.

[Lagayascienza]

Apologies for the length and disorganised state of these notes.
This video was very interesting but I have reservations, some of which I have highlighted in the notes.

I've watched five of the seven videos now so I figure I might as well watch the remaining two. They seem to be a bit shorter.

5th Video
Empirical evidence for Analytic Idealism. Evidence from physics and consciousness studies.

Physics. The Mental Universe, Nature 2007, etc. Difficult technical papers. Experiments confirm that physical entities do not have stand alone existence. They are observables that don’t exist prior to observations. What’s seen on the dashboard is a set of instruments. What we see on the dashboard is the result of a measurement of what’s out there in the world as it is in itself. But the world as it is in itself is not made of these physical observables. The position of dials on the dashboard do not exist prior to a measurement being made. The conclusion is that matter has no stand-alone existence. It is an appearance of something else non-physical. What we define as physical are the observables - the result of measurements
.
Quantum Mechanics shows spooky action at a distance. An image of a deeper reality. Matter is not there until we observe it. How does Analytic Idealism make sense of this? Mainstream physics rests on the idea that physicality has stand-alone existence. If this is not true, then mainstream physicalism must be discarded.

Analogy: Watch a soccer match on TV. What you see is not the match itself but an image of it captured by a camera in the stadium, a camera that measures the actual game. Watch match on a second TV on another channel captured by a different camera in a different place in the stadium. Images of both are of the same match. They are correlated, but on the different TV the ball appears to travel in a different direction even though it is the same underlying reality being shown. A change in one image is correlated instantly with a change in the other image. Is there causality between the two TVs? No. Just an illusion. What’s on the two TVs is not the real world, just different extrinsic appearances of the same underlying reality. We don’t have direct access to the match because we are not in the stadium. All we have is two dashboards, two TVs. Not surprising that a change in one TV image occurs simultaneously with a change in the other. The TVs don’t need to talk to each other. They are only showing images, appearances of the same reality from a different angle.

The strange spooky action at a distance in QM is just a correlation between two images of a particle, of the same reality, but that reality is not available to us because we only have access to the dashboard. We are not in the stadium watching the underlying reality. The apparent particles don’t communicate via space time. The communication is not between the two images. It is between the reality of what is happening and the measurements of this reality. We have to stop thinking about the dashboard as if it were reality itself. The physical world we see on the dashboard is not the world in itself. It is just a representation, an appearance on the screen of perception. Physicality does not have stand alone reality for the same reason that the images on the TV screen do not have stand -alone reality. The are not noumenal. All becomes understandable if we drop the assumptions of mainstream physicalism. (Mmmm... Maybe, maybe not.)

Apart from Analytic Idealism, the only other alternative to physicalism is postulate countless real physical universes pop into existence every infinitesimal fraction of a picosecond. The Many Worlds interpretation of QM. But zero empirical evidence for this. So, if we discount physicalism, we must either accept that the Many Worlds Interpretation, or we accept that the physical world is just a representation without stand alone existence - we accept Analytic Idealism. (Some big IFs there!!!) We just have the dashboard that evolution provided. What is there is mental, not physical. This is Analytic Idealism. (From what I've read, I understand that Kastrup knows his physics. I know about QM in layman's terms, but I'm no physicist so I'm in no position to judge whether any of this is reasonable.)

There is different but supporting evidence for Analytic Idealism from neuroscience/consciousness studies. Research on psychedelic phenomenon with hallucinogenic drugs. 2012 Imperial College London showed blood flow/metabolism decreases rather than increases with psychedelics. How to explain experience? If experience is dependent on brain metabolism/activity how does physicalism explain this? How can experience increase at the same time that and brain metabolism decreases? Difficult to explain under physicalism.

How does Analytic Idealism explain this? The process of dissociation should also have an image. But if the dissociation reduces, that image will be of a reduction in brain activity that correlates with the dissociative process itself. Some reductions of brain activity should, under Analytic Idealism, correlate with a reduction of the dissociation itself. Under psychedelics the reduction in brain activity corresponds with the dissociative process itself. If that brain activity is reduced, dissociation is also reduced and so, what was an impenetrable dissociative boundary may become porous so that mental activity that was beyond the boundary can get in and be experienced non-locally. The hypothesis is that Psychedelics directly influence the dissociative process itself. The image of that, when measured is a reduction of brain activity and a huge increase in, and a richer, conscious experience. Experiences that were not formally in the Alter and be experienced as transpersonal things that can percolate through the boundary that will be experienced but not register in an fMRI as an increase of brain activity.

Physicalism puts it down to brain entropy, randomness, noise. This does increase to a statistically significant extent. Is this a good explanation for the phenomenology of the psychedelic experience? No, defies plausibility. A psychedelic experience isn’t random noise but highly structured, richly symbolic, highly compelling… An increase in noise cannot explain this. Moreover, the actual increase in noise is only 0.005, a tiny difference that could not explain the phenomenology. And in some cases the noise is reduced. Moreover, if you say experience under psychedelics is explained by an increase in noise, then all experience should be explainable in the same way. More noise should result in more experience. But under normal conditions an increase in experience correlates with an increase in brain activity not with brain noise.

Artificial Intelligence can read brain scanner of dreaming person and translate it into a description of the dream. This correlates with patterns of brain activation. The phenomenology is not noisy but structured.

Neurone magazine - study of transcendence backs up analytic idealism. People with lesions had more intense experience of transcendence than those without impairment to brain. Hypothesis: Damage causes alteration to dissociative process leading us to feel ourselves as part of something bigger than just the Alter. Seen in so called mediums, too, compared with a control group. Mediums had reductions of activity in key brain areas involved in writing during trance whereas controls showed an increase as would be expected. This effect was enhanced with more complex text. Analytic Idealism associates this with am impairment of dissociation – picking up things from beyond the dashboard. (But isn't it the case that every medium whose ever been scientifically tested has turned out to be a fake? Bringing this sort of stuff into his argument would only seem to weaken it.)

In hypoxia an increase in experience is also seen like with psychedelics. Pilots experience it. NDEs and people undergoing Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation can also experience it. Also in brain injury and in meditation. Physiological stress in initiation rituals in traditional culture can lead to increased experience and mystical insights.
(I was under the impression that NDE's have been extensively studied and been explained by science already. Maybe I'm wrong...)

These phenomena can be explained if the brain doesn’t produce the mind. What we are seeing is the image of particular states of consciousness that result from an increase of the porosity of the dissociative boundary. The brain is less like a factory and more like a river. There is increasing openness to this way of thinking - Scientific American articles. (I would need to read up on this in the journals he mentions. He says the references can be found after the videos but I can't find them.)

[chewybrian]

How can experience increase at the same time that and brain metabolism decreases? Difficult to explain under physicalism.

How does Analytic Idealism explain this? The process of dissociation should also have an image. But if the dissociation reduces, that image will be of a reduction in brain activity that correlates with the dissociative process itself. Some reductions of brain activity should, under Analytic Idealism, correlate with a reduction of the dissociation itself. Under psychedelics the reduction in brain activity corresponds with the dissociative process itself. If that brain activity is reduced, dissociation is also reduced and so, what was an impenetrable dissociative boundary may become porous so that mental activity that was beyond the boundary can get in and be experienced non-locally. The hypothesis is that Psychedelics directly influence the dissociative process itself. The image of that, when measured is a reduction of brain activity and a huge increase in, and a richer, conscious experience. Experiences that were not formally in the Alter and be experienced as transpersonal things that can percolate through the boundary that will be experienced but not register in an fMRI as an increase of brain activity.

This is interesting stuff but a bit difficult to digest. I haven't had time to view the 5th video; I'll probably get to it this weekend. However, what you said above seems to have a strong relationship to what I quoted from Huxley about a week ago. I'll leave it here again and ask you if you don't see something of a restatement of what you said, using 'valve' instead of 'filter', for example.

...the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main
eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever
happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function
of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of
largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or
remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be
practically useful." According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far
as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at
Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out
at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the
surface of this Particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man
has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call
languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which
he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of
other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is
the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for
data, his words for actual things. That which, in the language of religion, is called "this world" is the
universe of reduced awareness, expressed, and, as it were, petrified by language. The various "other
worlds," with which human beings erratically make contact are so many elements in the totality of the
awareness belonging to Mind at Large. Most people, most of the time, know only what comes through
the reducing valve and is consecrated as genuinely real by the local language. Certain persons, however,
seem to be born with a kind of by-pass that circumvents the reducing valve. In others temporary bypasses
may be acquired either spontaneously, or as the result of deliberate "spiritual exercises," or
through hypnosis, or by means of drugs. Through these permanent or temporary by-passes there flows,
not indeed the perception "of everything that is happening everywhere in the universe" (for the by-pass
does not abolish the reducing valve, which still excludes the total content of Mind at Large), but
something more than, and above all something different from, the carefully selected utilitarian material
which our narrowed, individual minds regard as a complete, or at least sufficient, picture of reality.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, I think Huxely was onto something important. And I see how all this could fit in with all the "valuing" we do and it suggests a source of that valuing. But it's very hypothetical and I need to think about this a lot more.

Hope you get something out of the 5th video. It's a lot easier than the 4th.

[Xenophon]

This whole fiasco only flies if one starts out with a definition of "know" that no one except a professional philosopher (and his victims) would ever accept. As actually used, when most of us say "know" we simply mean that's where the bulk of evidence lies. Shift that bulk and I shift my opinion. I never agreed that what I "know" is something immune to revision and adamantine incorrigible.

[Lagayascienza]

I've watched all seven videos now. I did not make notes of the last two videos because the sixth is basically a recap the previous five and, whilst the seventh deals with common objections to Analytic Idealism, it answers those objections by reference to material already dealt with in the first five videos.

I've found the course very interesting. But I am not convinced. As I see it, the weakest part of the theory is Kastrup's notion of a "Universal Mind" and his notion of "dissociation" whereby postulated individual "alters" form by dissociating from the postulated "universal mind". I do not find the analogy with dissociative disorder convincing but that analogy is pretty much all he offers in support of the notion of the dissociation of consciousnesses. There is little explanation of how, or why, the posited dissociation from the posited universal mind occurs. I did not find his evidence from consciousness studies convincing.

I am also not satisfied with his explanation of why the Standard Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is untenable. Further, it is not true that the only alternative to the the standard interpretation of QM is the Many Worlds interpretation. There are many other interpretations on offer. And nor am I satisfied that, if we reject these two interpretations of QM, the only option left is Analytic Idealism. He simply hasn't made a case for this.

Still, I'm not closing the door to all possible forms of Idealism. If a form of Idealism entails only that phenomena given in consciousness must be the staring point of any investigation into reality (and who could argue with that?), and if it leaves what we perceive as the material universe intact, then I'd have no problem with it. One can choose to believe it as some sort of support for religion or mysticism or just as a stop-gap measure for making sense of things we do not yet understand about consciousness and the material world. But one is not compelled by reason to accept it. Science may yet fill the gap.

[chewybrian]

Yes, I think Huxely was onto something important. And I see how all this could fit in with all the "valuing" we do and it suggests a source of that valuing. But it's very hypothetical and I need to think about this a lot more.

Hope you get something out of the 5th video. It's a lot easier than the 4th.

Ironically, the 5th video led me right back to Huxley once more. I feel like the presenter is on a mission to make Huxley relevant. He talks about limited brain function resulting in richer experience. This fits with Huxley's idea of the valve. The brain is filtering out the noise and giving us only what we need to know (at least that seems to be its primary function). So, if the brain is not firing on all 8 cylinders, we should expect to get more noise and to notice things as experience that we would often dismiss and ignore as part of the background. Huxley goes into great detail about noticing chairs and drapes in ways he would not have noticed on an ordinary day without the drugs. (Question: is the presenter using "noise" colloquially or in a technical sense? If it is a technical term, what does it indicate?)

The filtering/valve idea fits with my understanding of psychology. We use heuristics to get quick answers in the interest of survival. Our brain is designed to give us shortcut, possibly incomplete or even incorrect answers. Heuristics that might have saved us in the wild might be seen as cognitive biases today, keeping us from acting rationally at times.

Still, everything presented so far about analytical idealism (not in opposition to other ideas) is pretty weak sauce. It only shows that the door is open for analytical idealism, but not that it is the only way, as he seems to believe. He leaves me convinced that physicalism has some holes in it, but not convinced that idealism is bulletproof. As you said, he seems to offer so many options, destroy the ones he doesn't support as best he can, and then try to convince you that his is the only path remaining. I feel like we are still far from a theory that correctly describes life, the universe and everything, so I will check "none of the above".

I will likely watch # 6 and 7, and even review them if I find more than you have.

[Pattern-chaser]

This whole fiasco only flies if one starts out with a definition of "know" that no one except a professional philosopher (and his victims) would ever accept.

Yes, and this is a philosophy forum, where such usage is also common and convenient.

As actually used, when most of us say "know" we simply mean that's where the bulk of evidence lies. Shift that bulk and I shift my opinion. I never agreed that what I "know" is something immune to revision and adamantine incorrigible.

If we reduce and dilute every word to its everyday meaning, then precise or accurate communication of any sort will quickly become difficult.

It is reasonable to suggest, I think, that if you claim to *know* something, then you are very confident indeed, that it is correct. The only reason I don't say that knowing is certain is to avoid introducing the subjective/objective debate here, now.

[johny3]

Fred challenges George's reliance on scientific authority, highlighting the uncertainty in scientific findings and the limits of human knowledge. He prompts George to consider the possibility of a reality beyond human comprehension and emphasizes the importance of faith in navigating life's mysteries, aligning with themes of humility and faith found in Ayat al-Kursi.

[Lagayascienza]

I hope Fred and George both got something out of their little tête-à-tête.

[Sy Borg]

George asked Fred if it was wise to rely on ancient texts written by people who believed that bacterial disease was demonic possession.

[Belindi]

George asked Fred if it was wise to rely on ancient texts written by people who believed that bacterial disease was demonic possession.

But modern people may find some ancient beliefs of an ancient tribe ,or an outdated myth, a lot of nonsense while finding value in other ancient beliefs.
For instance I myself find much literary value in the book of Genesis despite that the book is part of the Judeo-Christian canon which itself is replete with miracles.