Yes, I do that too. I don't lean back as far as I would like to, remembering the last time the chair broke.

But does this not require faith in your ability to see? You believe that your ability to experience seeing the cup is in fact an accurate way of gaining knowledge. Do you touch the cup to test your sight before you believe what you are seeing? Do you do this for everything? Seems to me you would be a very odd fellow if you tested every shred of data by validating your senses every time they provided data. We know we can see things that are not there so that means it is reasonable to have doubt in the function, why does this knowledge not require constant testing to confirm that ability? Because of faith, even if only temporary it is useful, and thus used.

When we do scientific experiments we have no faith in our equipment, we test every component it is practical to test, and if we get results we doubt, we then rip it apart and test even those components that are not practical to test, but we do not do this with our sight . . . we do not do this with really any perception ability, at all almost ever, perhaps you are a strange fellow JR who spends many many hours of every day testing every bit of data, must be challenging/tiresome having no beliefs and resting nothing on faith.

no. i experience myself seeing.



no. seeing the cup is good enough. i might choose to touch it instead but then i would have experienced feeling the cup on the table instead of seeing the cup. i experience many things, everything actually, using the five senses available to me.



what have i seen that is not there? or what have you seen that was not there?



i suppose, but i've yet to see anything that i doubted seeing. perhaps i didn't understand fully what exactly it was that i saw but i don't doubt that i saw it. slight of hand for instance. i saw the magician show me an empty top hat then watched as he pulled a rabit out of the hat. but i missed the slight of hand that made that happen. still, i experienced seein the empty hat and then experienced him pulling a rabbit out of the hat that he just showed me was empty. but it would require faith for me to believe that he actually pulled a rabbit out of an empty hat. which of course he relies on people doing just that to make his living.

Ok jrbogie, I think that we've come to common ground. Correct me if this is off. All things humanly thought/believed and known stem from life experience.

hmmmm. i'll go with all things known by humans stem from personal life experience. i can conjur thoughts without experience. and belief of course is not necessary with experience. i simply see no place for belief.

How would you know?

Knowing that one can conjure thoughts without experience would require having done so. We cannot remove ourselves from our experience to know such a thing.



It's been shewn.

sure. but i've experienced myself conjuring thoughts without having had the experience of the thought beforehand. i might postulate that a flying spaghetti monster created the universe without actually experiencing a spaghetti monster even existing much less watching as it created the universe. but i did experience myself postulating that a flying speghetti monster may have created the universe. i can experience a thought without the thought itself being based on experience. and of course many thoughts happen for the first time without my having ever experienced such a thought before.

You can take this as far as you like, but you are making assumptions, those assumptions if held to be accurate is belief, and if you have no data to back up those assumptions, then they are faith.

I agree, and many example used, getting old really. I done.

ah, but i never hold assumtions to be accurate. if i did they would not be assumtions. but i do agree that many people do hold assumptions to be accurate and their belief that such is the case does indeed require faith such as those who assume the genesis is correct in describing how the universe was created. but that of course is not me. and suspecting you'll now bring up the big bang theory, i've made no assumtion as to it's accuracy either. sounds much more plausible than genesis though.

I agree, and many example used, getting old really. I done.


k, see ya.

You should look up the definition of assume. I do not think it means what you think it means . . . .


INCONCEIVABLE!

I actually think we are being trolled creative.

Is that what you and others are going to say every time someone has a different opinion now?

geeeeze.

Unshakable conviction requires belief. We have the former, therefore the latter is here too.

Yep.

Jrboogie,

Do you believe you are right?

I can get you to hallucinate faster than you can type you do not believe it. No drugs needed, just some flashing lights, also can use tapping up and down your arm and everyone experiences something that did not happen. You will swear by your experience and be wrong.

We always hallucinate, its just our hallucinations are usually accurate renditions of reality.

Yet we all believe we know the difference until shown how wrong we can be even then we have trained our minds to accept the data we think we have acquired, its all fabulous and very faulty, but that we act on the data means we believe it, and really just on faith.

Your a very stubborn person JR, not really someone I enjoy chatting with I think.

Even though an hallucination is a 'real' experience, it does not mean that it is 'real' to other people sharing your reality.

If you have an experience that is unique and people call it an hallucination then that is your unique experience.

Others may tell you that it is not reality. That is their experience.

Science should be about explaining what seems to have no explanation.

If a person is constantly having hallucinations and considered to be "insane" like the guy in "A Beautiful Mind" that just means that one person's experience is not "real" to others.

Some say that the Pineal gland is the source of dreams and hallucinations. It may even be more than that.

My aunt was having hallucinations from watching television. The characters she was watching were so real she believed they were actually in her house. She called me to tell me that Oprah was sitting at her desk.

She is in a home now.

We always hallucinate, its just our hallucinations are usually accurate renditions of reality.

So you are saying that reality is an hallucination.

If our hallucinations are "accurate renditions of reality" how do you know that for certain?

Perhaps it is simply a mass hallucination and most of it is agreed upon. Some of it is not.

That is why witness accounts of events are always different.

Please don't feed the trolls....