Magical Realists Magical Reality

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by Magical Realist, Mar 30, 2015.

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  1. Kristoffer Giant Hyrax Valued Senior Member

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    I know I saw both towers collapse here in Denmark.
     
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  3. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    what kind of trollop nonsense is this now...? there is physical evidence of such disorders, documented by x-ray, cat, and other scans, not to mention often blood markers, etc
     
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  5. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have an authoritative source for that, Trippy? Frankly, I don't believe it.

    My memory isn't as good as it once was, but I'm reasonably certain that I saw two collapses on television that morning.

    The idea that "the footage wasn't released until 24 hours later" isn't very plausible if one thinks about it. New York City is probably the world's capital for TV news. Many networks, both foreign and domestic, had their cameras focused on Lower Manhattan and had continuous live feeds and excited commentary going as both towers went down.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2015
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  7. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    "Trollop nonsense"? What does that mean?

    Somebody is going to have to look at the x-rays, scans and blood tests, evaluate them, and then provide some eye-witness testimony as to what the tests show.

    If we are talking about how human beings come to know things, as opposed to robots, I don't see how human observation can ever be entirely discredited.

    Doing so would render human life, and science along with it, impossible. Historically, this is a move that's associated with more extreme skeptical challenges to epistemology.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2015
  8. Bells Staff Member

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    Queensland and yeah, about that. But I do remember watching it live at that time. I refused to watch any more footage of it after that. I was on the phone with my boyfriend at the time, from the start of the attack, and we both watched both towers come down, not to mention the Pentagon attack. Even had a helicopter flying at a distance, filming it and you could see the gap it left behind as it came crashing down and the dust and smoke from it.

    I watched the TEDx video, but I didn't watch it (9/11 attack) or view it 24 hours later. I actually didn't turn on my TV for like 3 days after it happened.

    The TEDx video claims that the footage from the second tower to come down, the North Tower was not released for 24 hours. But I don't believe it, because I do remember sitting there, watching it, within an hour or so of the first tower (South Tower) collapsing. Is there something else I am missing? Surely you aren't talking about time zones.. So what are we missing?

    Not the same, and you know it.

    With cancer diagnosis, it is physical evidence. It can be tested, reviewed by others. With a cancer, there will usually be a biopsy. Which is a physical thing. That is then tested and a cancer diagnosis would stem from that. You can actually see the cancer cells. It isn't a matter of an eyewitness. There is physical evidence that it is cancer. So I would see that as being very different.

    Which can be corroborated with physical evidence.

    A family friend was very recently told he had cancer. He refused to believe it, even though they had a biopsy and the result from a biopsy. He demanded a 2nd, 3rd and then 4th opinion. All came back with the same diagnosis. It was clearly cancerous tissue. When they did the PET scans and MRI and CT scans, they found it had spread everywhere, through his lungs, liver, bones, bowel, stomach. Everywhere. His lungs are apparently trashed and he was given 4-5 months to live. He still refuses to believe he has cancer and he believes the 10 or so doctors who have reviewed the biopsies they removed from his organs saw cancer there. My father, who was diagnosed with cancer a week and a half ago, was diagnosed directly from a biopsy. He was then sent for scans to see if it had spread and thankfully it had not, well they are certain it has not from what they have seen. He also had a moment of doubt from the scans, in desperation, telling me that perhaps it is all a mistake, but there could be no doubt from the physical evidence from that biopsy. And he is lucky, because they are very certain it hasn't spread to any other organs and it can be treated. But his best friend since childhood, only has a few months left to live and still refuses to believe it is cancer, despite the physical evidence from those biopsies and the fact that he is desperately ill and feels desperately ill to boot. With my dad, they won't be 100% sure that it hasn't spread until they open him up and operate and see for themselves. But they are very certain it is contained from when they went in for the biopsy.

    If we were looking at only scans, which can be left to interpretation, then maybe. But with physical evidence, then that is a whole different kettle of fish altogether.
     
  9. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    You are equating recalling observed events from memory to reading scan/test results directly... not exactly the same thing Yazata...
     
  10. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    A biopsy is taken and sent to the lab, where a technician observes it under the microscope looking for particular cell-types or something. Then after making that judgement, he or she turns to a paper form or to a computer keyboard and records what was observed - from memory.

    What makes the report of the lab test different than a report of seeing bigfoot isn't some foolish premise that eye-witness testimony is always bullshit and that memory is always unreliable. It's that the biopsy specimen still exists and the lab test can be repeated by others (who will make their own observations and use their own memories) if the accuracy of the initial test is questioned. The assumption behind repeatability is that it's unlikely that multiple observers will all be making the same mistake.

    Automated measuring instruments can also reduce the possibility of error. But they too are dependent on somebody observing and remembering what the results were.

    Science is totally dependent on the possibility of human beings making accurate observation reports and remembering them from one moment to the next.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2015
  11. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Did you watch the TEDx talk I linked to?
     
  12. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    No, I consider them to be based in repeatable, verifiable science, which is how mis-diagnoses are found when they occur.

    This is the opposite of eye-witness testimony which is often NOT repeatable or verifiable. The most we can achieve is to, where possible, re-produce the circumstances of the eyewitness testimony and make a judgement call as to the reliability of the witness's statement.
     
  13. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    You either have no idea how human memory works, in which case you can be forgiven for that terribly inaccurate and totally unequivocal example... or you do know and are trying to be intentionally deceitful... I'm not sure which.

    How can you compare a technician entering medical records with the paper copy right in front of them to a person recalling a vague sighting that occurred in a less than sterile environment? The fact that the "sighting" is an unknown, by its very existence as an unknown variable, dramatically alters how the memory is perceived on recollection, as the mind tries to fill in the gaps. Recalling hars-data from a medical exam for entry into a computer suffers none if that... not to mention the differences between short term and long term memory

    that, and honestly, most people doing data entry transcribe the information... they don't have to look at their fingers while typing, so they are reading the document as they type thus eliminating the "memory" aspect entirely...
     
  14. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    I'm so confused...

    Link to "live" broadcast of the collapse of the North Tower?



    Either way this is going to prove out Trippy's original point:

    People don't have to be lied to to provide misleading testimony.

    Most people will tell you the saw the footage of the second world trade center coming down an hour or two after the first. Only a handful of people in New York saw that - the footage wasn't released until 24 hours later.

    The brain abhors a vacuum and will fill it in with detail.​
     
  15. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    The Ted speaker's claim doesn't even make sense: every news network in the area had cameras trained on the WTC for the entire day since soon after the first crash. How could they not have captured both live? Here's CNN's live feed, showing the 2nd tower collapse, and with the time stamp in the bottom right:


    Here's a compliation showing about a dozen separate live broadcasts of it:

     
  16. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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  17. Bells Staff Member

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  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    The insults are noted. People often get angry when they sense that they are losing arguments.

    I'm not sure what sterility has to do with the issue. The biopsy and the lab technician weren't originally my example. I pursued them because the possibility of human beings making accurate observations and then subsequently remembering what those observations were is fundamental to understanding the example.

    If you are no longer arguing that all observation is bullshit and memory is always unreliable, moving instead to new assertions that observations of new and unexpected things is bullshit and that memory of new and unexpected things is always unreliable, you are moving in the right direction by qualifying the previous untenable position.

    Unfortunately, the new version is still much too strong to be plausible. If taken seriously, it would seem to render discovery impossible.

    If you are willing to move to the proposition that remembered observations of new and unexpected things might sometimes be less reliable than remembered observations of familiar things, especially if the unfamiliar thing is only seen fleetingly, you may (or may not) be on stronger ground. (There may be a greater tendency to 'fill-in-the-gaps' with pre-existing knowledge in the case of observations of seemingly-familiar things.)

    Of course, this new version of the idea would no longer justify total disregard for all reports of new, unusual (and unwelcome) things. It may arguably justify greater skepticism regarding them though.
     
  19. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    I must have missed where he said that. Please provide the quote.

    It appears to me that you are arguing a strawman. The problem is that even if kit did say that and is shown to be wrong, it still doesn't make you any less wrong. "Winning" a strawman argument doesn't get you anything (except perhaps the satisfaction of being able to say you won something, no matter how pointless?).

    You are clearly aware of what the difference is between physical evidence (even expert investigated) and eyewitness testimony, because you correctly explained it:
    All that should be left here is for you to acknowledge that that's a really, really big difference.
     
  20. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Provided at the bottom of this post, along with my running argument.

    How so?

    Those arguing for the unreliability of 'eye-witness testimony' seem to be defending an inherently ambiguous position.

    It might be given a weak interpretation, where it means that eye witness testimony is often very accurate and in the majority of cases informative, but that it isn't necessarily infallible. In my opinion this view is almost certainly correct. But this weak interpretation doesn't justify disregarding eye-witness reports, based only on their being eye-witness reports.

    It might also be given a strong interpretation, where it means that eye witness testimony is always or overwhelmingly false and uninformative, and that eye-witness reports should therefore never be believed based simply on the kind of reports they are. If that's the way we want to go, then we need to recognize that this is a very extreme position that threatens to render much of human life, and science along with it, highly problematic.

    That's not a 'straw man'. I'm just pointing out that if one makes that kind of extreme argument, then one faces very real epistemological problems. One can't slip and slide conveniently between the strong and weak interpretation according to whim.

    If none of MR's opponents intended the strong interpretation, then perhaps they need to qualify what they have written in order to explain more clearly what they did mean.

    If you think that I'm wrong about anything, then point out the error.

    This isn't pointless. One of the things that I've noticed about Sciforums is the way that so many participants simply choose up sides, decide that their chosen side is the 'good-guys' and the damnable others the 'bad-guys'. Here on Sciforums, the 'good-guys' like to imagine that they are defending 'reason', 'logic' and 'science'. Since they are on the side of the angels, they assume any argument that they make in defence of the good things must therefore be a good argument.

    That results in a lot of very bad philosophy on Sciforums, spun out by people blind to the defects of their own ideas because they are so filled with righteous condemnation of those they are arguing against. To disagree with them is received almost as if it was treason.

    What precisely does 'inherently flawed' mean?

    If it means that human memory doesn't always deliver necessary truth, I think that everyone already knew that. It's part of common sense. Just because somebody says they remember witnessing something doesn't make their claims necessarily and infallibly true.

    If 'inherently flawed' means that human memories are normally false and that eye-witness testimony should never be taken seriously, then that version is so exaggerated as to be bizarre.

    Earth, where court trials are still centered around the testimony of witnesses, where scientists report the results of their experiments, and where ordinary people live their lives confident they have learned from experience who those around them are, where they live and work, and countless other things.

    Sciforums readers should probably be aware that trying to cast doubt on the possibility of people making accurate observation reports is a direct attack on scientific empiricism. The Oxford Guide to Philosophy defines 'empiricism' as "Any view which bases our knowledge, or the materials from which it is constructed, on experience through the traditional five senses." If we want to insist that 'eye-witness' observation reports are universally or overwhelmingly false, natural science would seem to be rendered very problematic.

    Just because memories and observations may be wrong on occasion doesn't mean that they are always wrong or even that they usually are. It certainly doesn't imply that reports from memory of things observed at an earlier point in time should therefore be disregarded on principle, based merely on the perceived nature of the report.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2015
  21. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I will respond to this once I am no longer limited to my phone, but the moving of the proverbial goalposts is noted. Intentional dishonesty on your part is is then... *shrug*a shame
     
  22. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    It does, however, limit their credibility when said memories go against what repeatable, verifiable, observable fact dictates...
     
  23. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Oh well - my point still stands regardless of the validity of that specific example. People don't have to be lying, or have to be lied to in order to produce misleading eye-witness testimony. The brain abhors a vacuum.
     
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