A question has come up in another thread about the term “evidence”, and what qualifies (and does not qualify) as evidence. This particular debate has come about when Elizabeth said, in relation to an ongoing description of my model of “how things work” (free will/psychoplasm), said:
The problem it seems to me, with your model is that a) there is no evidence to support it whatsoever and b) we have a supported model that works pretty well.
I then challenged that assertion about the state of evidence with:
Can you support your assertion that “there is no evidence to support it whatsoever”?
She responded:
No, and I will qualify: I am aware of no evidence to support it, and I speak as one fairly well acquainted with the empirical literature.
Which I found odd, since I had given testimony (or, as Robin later said, “claimed”) that this model apparently worked well for me, others I know, and had in this thread and the Free Will thread pointed ouit various other similar doctrines that are chock full of such testimony (or “claims”). So, I asked:
So, my testimony, and that of others through various media, is not evidence?
Unfortunately, Elizabeth has yet to respond to that question. However, Robin contributed his/her answer:
No. Claims are never evidence of what is being claimed; they are solely evidence that someone made a claim. Why? Because anyone can make a mistake or even lie.
I think this deserves its own thread, for reasons I think will become clear. Before responding to Robin, though, I’d like for others to weigh in on the question of if testimony (not in the court sense, but in they typical “claim” sense), through various forms of media, is evidence.
I just saw a herd of pink elephants fly by my house. Is that evidence of a herd of pink elephants flying by my house?
Creodont2:
So your answer is that testimony (outside of court) is not evidence?
Answer my question and then I’ll answer yours.
Testimony is the weakest kind of evidence, even in court.
Lots of prisoners have been released on the basis of DNA evidence after being convicted on eyewitness testimony.
We generally accept testimony if it’s plausible and reject it if it involves something weird.
Let’s agree that there is a qualitative dimension to evidence, that not all evidence is the same, that sophisticated thinkers use confidence levels not ‘facts’ and that we don’t need 5 pages of William’s unique sophistry.
deal.
William discovers equivocation.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evidence
ev·i·dence /ˈɛvɪdəns/ Show Spelled [ev-i-duhns] Show IPA noun, verb, ev·i·denced, ev·i·denc·ing.
noun
1. that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
2. something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever.
3. Law . data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.
Look ma, I’m pretending 1 is 3!
What other kind of evidence is there, “even in court”?
Who released them? A judge or a jury? If so, did they collect the DNA themselves, and conduct the test themselves? If not, then what kind of evidence were they ultimately relying on?
So, as long as the testimony sounds plausible to you, it is evidence, and if it sounds weird to you, it is not?
Personally I don’t think testimony’s validity as evidence is limited to judicial systems. I think the validity of testimony as evidence has a great deal more to do with reliability and trust. A trustworthy source can provide a claim of a given event that most people would take to be evidence. For example, I am not involved in the Secret Service in any way, nor have I been to Colombia – nevermind Cartegena – recently, yet I accept the reports in the news regarding the Secret Service scandal as evidence that some kind of improper event occurred. The reason I accept such is based on a variety of factors:
1) No simple reason for the news organizations to make that report up.
2) High risk of exposure and loss if the report is found to be false.
3) The amount of time, money, and energy high profile news organizations go through to gain credibility and a reputation of honest reporting.
4) The amount of corroborating evidence of disparate sources.
5) The event itself, while highly uncommon for the institution, is not uncommon for human behavior in general and falls squarely within the realm of reasonable plausibility.
These are all key factors in determining whether related information is credible and can be relied upon to make an assessment of other information in my view.
Robin said;
So, to be clear, you have changed your earlier position that no testimony is evidence to the view that testimony can be evidence if it meets the criteria you listed?
There is such a thing as physical evidence. For example, clothing with blood stains on them is physical evidence.
And how is the jury or judge supposed to come to an understanding of the connection of a physical object in the courtroom to some purported crime, and the suspect, unless it is through the testimony of those who actually found, handled, or otherwise examined such objects?
Well sure. As others have pointed out, the word evidence has many dimensions and levels of confidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Not relevant to the point. The type of evidence that bloody clothes represent does not depend upon other types of evidence or claims presented. Bloody clothing is physical evidence of something – be it simply that someone cut themselves shaving or had a bloody nose while wearing the clothing. It is still physical evidence of an event regardless of the circumstances surrounding what others claim that clothing represents.
Yes.
I guess that depends on the point. Bloody clothes sitting on a table in a courtroom doesn’t impact the case whatsoever unless testimony about those clothes is given.
Well, every word anyone utters, and every imaginative thought is evidence of something, even if it is evidence of a delusion or an invading horde of gnomes. Saying it is evidence of “something” is entirely irrelevant. We are talking about evidence as that which tends to support the validity of any particular claim. In court, or in the world of debate, nobody disputes that virtually everything is evidence of “something”; the question is whether or not it is evidence of the particlular claim or theory in question.
In order for the bloody clothes, or any other physical evidence to make any difference whatsoever in terms of supporting a particular claim, a person must either have first-hand, empirical experience of the evidence in question and its relationship to the claim being examined, or they must rely on the testimony of others..
In order for it to be meaningful evidence in favor of, or not in favor of, any particular claim or theory, it must be accompanied by testimony of some sort.
So, what we have figured out here is that there are really only two kinds of evidence that any individual has access to by which they can evaluate any particular claim or theory; personal empirical evidence (that which one personally experiences), and testimonial evidence, even if that testimony describes the purported connection or relevance of physical facts to a particular claim.
The only interesting question left, then, is how and by what criteria one weighs, sorts and evaluates personal experience and testimony.
(And, when you get right down to it, even testimony is a subset of “personal experience”, but we can set that aside for now and get on with the business of examining how one establishes criteria for accepting testimony as valid evidence).
Answering that question is how science was invented. the methods are constantly being evaluated.
It’s not like you are the first to notice the problem of evidence.
William, why don’t you just stand on the point that evidence consists of whatever you want to believe it does?
And you believe that we all agree with you.
That would be the logical solution based on your application of Free Will.
That wasn’t the question I was responding to. The question I was responding to was from the following exchange:
The answer is physical evidence. If you wish to debate the practicality or applicability of the category in law and/or whether it really is genuine to jurisprudence, I suggest you take it up with judiciary of the US and legal scholars from around the world. If you wish to debate it as reality of science, I’ll be happy to, though it’s somewhat moot consider it is a category of evidence regardless.
Physical evidence is pretty self-explanatory outside of court anyway. The fact that given solar bodies – such as the moon and planets, track across our skies in fixed patterns that are different from other solar bodies is physical evidence that they move relative to the Earth. This isn’t about testimony; it’s just about coming up with explanations for what we perceive for ourselves. Now, you may interpret that movement to be evidence of something else – say…that each evening different objects of placed in various positions around the sky by pixies. That’s fine too if that works for you. Of course, the fact that that particular hypotheses for the evidence doesn’t jibe with other evidence does present a person who believes the latter with something to ponder, but if that person is good with holding onto a variety of explanations about the workings of the world that don’t mesh, no problemo. I’m not comfortable with that myself, but your mileage may vary.
Umm with that physical evidence there has to be testimony to explain it. Also materialism cannot explain any physical evidence- not even of the motion of planets in our solar system.
Graon. The “religious method” of attaining knowledge has always been to SAY something is true, believe it, and POOF it’s true. Say it twice, and it’s twice as true. “Evidence” consists entirely of unsupportable claims, backed by the confortable conviction that if it doesn’t support what I wish to believe, then it’s simply not “evidence” in the first place.
Disputes at the cutting edge of science often, perhaps usually, revolve around the validity of observations. Experimental methodology, null hypotheses, controls, and all attempts to neutralize confirmation bias are tacit admissions that GOOD evidence can be elusive. Testimonial “evidence” is so unreliable as to be regarded as at best suggestive, and calls for all possible validation.
So again, we’re playing word games. In science, evidence means well-documented observations, usually from multiple sources using multiple methods. In religion, evidence means whatever supports the desired conclusion, even if it needs to be fabricated. I don’t hold high hopes that this discussion will adopt different terms (like scientific-evidence and religious-evidence) to denote these entirely different phenomena, which means we’ll chase WJM’s goalposts around in circles until we’re bored.
Also – as this is a sidetrack / subtopic, it should be ‘sandbox’, not a new post. thanks. Let’s keep spin-off posts for where multiple parties have requested them.
Repeating myself. The dispute over what constitutes evidence is at that core of what science is. You aren’t going to change science by puffing about religion or philosophy.
Science has several hundred years of increasingly sophisticated methodology behind it. It provides (not necessarily instantaneous or even timely) methods for dealing with controversies.
There are always controversies, such as the recent “evidence” for particles travelling faster than light.Sometimes it takes years or even decades or centuries to clear something up. Sometimes there are ragged edges, such as the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian gravity, or the problem of uniting relativity and quantum gravity.
We gain by collective experience a measure of likelihood of reliability of “evidence”
Eye-witnesses in court give evidence of what they saw – not infrequently this is shown to be what they THINK (or “murray-believed”) they saw. They may be honestly mistaken. Eye-witness evidence may thus be regarded as somewhat unreliable unless corroborated in some way.
The provenance of, and test results for, a DNA sample as given by an expert witness are (or should be) backed up by a full paper trail in prescribed form; which greatly reduces any doubts as to these factors. This would be regarded as more “reliable” evidence, less affected by subjectivity or error.
Now, I may be wrong, but WJM appears to have led something of a charmed life, which he appears to ascribe to his beliefs and the way in which he arrives at them. His wife survived cancer, he has a fine house despite some difficulties put in the way of his getting it; he has survived some dangerous situations,; and the cost of an ill-advised purchase was outweighed by an unexpected tax rebate.
We don’t of course know his whole life story, but I’m led to wonder if anything has ever gone wrong for him; and if so did his beliefs account for that; and whether relevant beliefs held before any such disaster were modified post hoc – indeed, whether any prior beliefs were held responsible for any damaging event.
For my money, he’s whats known as a lucky devil. And a sufferer of the “never wrong syndrome”. And just a tiny bit smug with it.
In other times or cultures such a person might claim the beneficent attentions of a “Guardian Angel”
Whether one’s beliefs and/or free will affect that which appears to others to be one’s “luck” seems to me to be one of those questions which can only be argued about at the “eye-witness” level of evidence.
I do believe we have a new argument for design –
The William J Murray / Mister Magoo argument.
William, I think this is where the notion of “objective” evidence comes in, where the word “objective” is used in my sense, not yours!
i.e. the kind of evidence that can be agreed on by independent observers.
As I pointed out a few posts back, if you see a pink elephants in the room and no-one else does, that pink elephants are a subjective observation only. However, if anyone entering the room also observes the pink elephant, we usually call that pink elephant an “objective fact”.
That’s really at the root of science – the idea that independent observers can make the same observations using the same methodology, and was why I am still confused by your concept of “objective morality” – to me “objective morality” would be a morality that independent observers could agree on.
But that’s a side-track.
Here, I’d say good evidence is evidence that independent observers can agree on (which is why cross-examination matters in court, of course – to flush out the “subjective” on which not everyone can agree to be so, and drill down to what everyone can agree to be so, likely to be a subset of the evidence actually offered).
Elizabeth,
I cannot parse your answer to my question from reading your post. You said you are not aware of any evidence to support my model, even though I (and others, in various media outlets and under similar such doctrines) have testified that it has worked effectively for me.
Is my testimony not evidence, even if it might be unconvincing evidence? Is the evidence of those other people who independently confirm the same model and principles I have testified about not evidence, even if still unconvincing?
When you say “there is no evidence”, or “I am not aware of any evidence”, do you really mean that what evidence you have encountered (such as my testimony, and that of others in agreement) is not convincing to you personally?
The whole purpose of science as an enterprise is to evaluate evidence. That and to evaluate hypotheses that organize evidence.
Your testimony is anecdotal. It’s not something to be automatically dismissed, but it isn’t in a form that’s useful for making generalizations about the world.
There’s an anecdote that ascribes Darwin’s turn to atheism to the death of a daughter. Maybe a true story and maybe not, but as a form of reasoning it’s no more useful than ascribing theism to a miraculous cure or other good fortune.
There’s a scientific mindset and a pre-scientific mindset. I don’t know of any way to bridge the gap. You certainly haven’t given me any reason to take your mindset seriously. If you have a good reason you have failed to communicate it.
Probably. Consider the (fairly sizeable) group of alien abductees. Their stories are all very similar. But other than those stories, there’s no additional external evidence that any of the abductions ever actually happened. And by PURE coincidence, many of those abductees were only able to recall their abductions, and the details of that abduction, under hypnosis by the SAME hypnotist – who himself “rememered” his OWN abduction, and by golly, all his subjects “remember” just what he does when he’s the hypnotist.
And by amazing coincidence, some of the visual details just happen to match a cultural caricature of aliens – small, slender, huge slanted eyes, in flying saucers. Yep, that’s what the hypnosis subjects all “remember”.
And it might be worth mentioning that this group of abductees is very tight, providing enormous amounts of social support, sympathy, corroboration, and comfort to one another. Something they can all identify themselves with and stroke one another.
So just how good IS this evidence? Is it as strong as the evidence for gods? Other than comprising a smaller group, you can substitute “communes with god” for “abducted by aliens” and everything else remains identical.
This discussion will go nowhere unless there is an agreement that some kinds of evidence is more convincing than other kinds.
This is not an issue that can be decided by logic. It has to involve a meeting of the minds on whether evidence differs in quality and, if so, how can it be evaluated.
What qualifies as evidence all depends on what you are investigating. A bloody t-shirt is just evidence that this t-shirt has blood on it. The presence of a dead-body is evidence that that person is dead.
Science asks three basic questions, one of which “What’s there?”, is all about the evidence- that bloody t-shirt and that dead body, the universe, us.
Another one of the 3 basic questions is “How did it come to be this way?”. First we have to figure out the options and then figure out how to test them.
The other question is “how does it work?”, which would apply to the mechanism that made it the way it is- “it” being the thing investigated.
So you want a discussion on validation? Might be interesting to relate what evidence IS, to how well it’s been validated.
And that in turn may come back to the question WJM is fond of asking, about whether and how we are sure that the reality we think we live in is, in fact, real.
I think that this is only marginally interesting. OI think WJM would say that most of the sources we might cite for evidence that our reality is real may be themselves part of the illusion, and therefore invalid. But is this so?
Tmorrow, I’m off to London with the missus to meet a friend, go to the theatre and have dinner. The people and things I interact with on the way could be part of the illusion but I think I can adduce additional evidence which I could in no way influence.
Consider. The ticket clerk at the station might be part of my illusion, but an independent observer could find in some place of which I have no knowledge, an electronic record of my use of a credit card to buy tickets. There will be electronic records of the tickets being used at each end of the journey.There will be CCTV images at stations and in London streets. There will be more electronic records at a restaurant. These records are not available to me, I don’t know where they are, nor how to access them.
To me, that would be strong objective evidence that I am not living in an illusion, but that my reality is shared by sufficient other beings and objects, interacting with me and with independent people. to justify my opinion that my reality is really real.
It may be, to some, an interesting philosophical exercise to question the reality of reality. But ultimately fruitless
A much more interesting question is why and how someone like Todd Wood can accept and believe the validity and objectivity of all the science that shows the Earth is old; whilst simultaneously accepting and believing the subjective account of creation in Genesis with all that that implies in terms of a planet only a few thousand years old.
I’ll offer my perspective on this – if I am in an illusion that is elaborate enough to cover all those indirect items and NPC awareness, in what way would that not be reality?
In other words, if one is in an illusion so clever that there’s no way from the inside to determine it’s an illusion, what’s the difference and why should I care?
In fact, given my perspective on illusions vs reality, one thing that truly puzzles me is that it appears creationists and other such conservative theistic types believe they are in such an illusion and vehemently insist that the rules we experience are not only not genuine, but should in many cases be ignored in favor of the rules of some other external “reality” they believe exists. Oddly, few of them – if any – actually treat this illusion as anything but real.
I assume you mean: “Is the testimony of those other people who independently confirm the same model and principles I have testified about not evidence, even if still unconvincing?”
In the scientific sense of the word evidence: only if ANYBODY (with the same qualifications as ‘those other people’; in this case the qualification seems to reasonably apply to: anybody who is not severely mentally impaired) who attempts to apply the same model and principles actually DOES confirm them.
That is the underlying, fundamental assumption in all scientific “testimony”: that it is independently confirmable and repeatable by anybody qualified to examine the same data or repeat the data collection (And this assumption is constantly tested by doing or at least enabling just that: the possibility of examination of the same data through deposition of original data in public access databases, and replication of experiments by independent researchers).
Since this is not the case with the model and principles in question, the answer is: no.
Testimony isn’t the word most people would choose, except in a courtroom situation, and an explanation would only be necessary if someone wants to explain it to someone else, or if someone else can’t or doesn’t want to see, study, or understand the physical evidence by themselves.
You’ll resort to any off topic, diversionary, asinine crap to get attention and derail a thread.
Tell you what, joe, go out and jump from the top of a very tall tree. I think you’ll find that the material aspects of the ground will cause some physical evidence of an impact to your body, whether there’s anyone around to explain it or not.
Good point.
Perhaps we should only care when someone appears to inhabit a different reality with the result that they may physically harm themselves and/or others in “this” reality.
It’s a source of wonder to me that we don’t, when meeting those who feel impelled constantly to question our consilient reality, simply point, laugh, and walk away.
But then, I’ve always wondered why so many philosophers have become so revered.
Perhaps it would be better to have a small number of such people licensed to operate – a bit like court jesters in reverse.We would know that what they’re saying is not MEANT to be funny.
Part 1 of 2:
Essentially, there is only one kind of evidence: experiential (personal empirical). All information about anything comes through the senses subjectively and personally.
We apply different categorizations to different kinds of experiential evidence. That first branch is where we differentiate between phenomena we experience ourselves, and information about phenomena that other people, through various media, offer (ignoring, of course, the fact that “other people”, to us, are “phenomena we experience ourselves”).
It is important to note, however, that at the root, all evidence is essentially experiential, meaning it is necessarily filtered through personal, subjective senses and interpretive structures. There is no escaping this “cave” of personal subjectivity.
Individuals experience two general categories of phenomena; that which is generally consensual and predictably repeatable, and that which is not generally consensual and predictably repeatable. Yes, there is some overlap, and these are oversimplified categories, as we will see in ensuing posts. It is important to note that both categories of phenomena are experienced, interpreted and evaluated in the mind.
Outside of employing an improper tautology (defining “reality” as “that which is sufficiently consensual, predictable and repeatable, and then denying that anything not meeting those criteria as being “real”), there is no reason to consider as “real” only that which meets those criteria. It’s an a priori worldview based on ideology, nothing more. Since everything that one experiences can only be experienced in the mind, any division that says “this part of what mind experiences is real, and everything else is not” is an arbitrary assertion of what kinds of experiences are real.
What value is there, anyway, to describe one set of experiential phenomena as “real” and another set as “not real”, other than to act as a quick, easy filter, a basic confirmation bias? Far more neutral would simply be to label various phenomena as to their degree of consensuality and predictability than to pejoratively assign them as being either “real” or “not real”. It is as valid an a priori assumption to hold that all experiences are real, and some are consensual and others are not; some are predictable and others are not. One doesn’t have to choose between the two.
So, what is evidence, ultimately, in terms of negotiating models about various phenomena? It cannot be anything other than how an individual mind correlates an experience with a model about that experience – as an explanation of it (as Joe pointed out) in terms of “what it is”, “how it came to be”, and “how does it work”. Please note that other than brute sensory data, these questions all refer to a model of some sort, even “what it is”. The basic question “is it real” requires a model of what is real, and what is not. An answer of “rock” or “tree” requires some kind of model that puts those terms in context. Even so simple a requirement of evidence as identifying what it is requires a mental model the phenomena can be interpreted by or into.
(cont)
Part 2 of 2:
The difference between brute sensory input, and that experience of phenomena being regarded as “evidence” of any sort, lies entirely in how the mind interprets the sensory, meaning, according to what model it identifies, sorts, categorizes, describes, theorizes, explains and predicts. All of that is necessarily a mental model, or a set of overlapping, interconnected mental models, that provide a structural framework for the ongoing development and use of experience into evidence in that particular individual’s mind.
In most adults, this interpretive framework is well established. Incoming data – whether personally experienced, or represented by others via some form of media – is immediately filtered through a series checks, or “buffers” that quickly categorize the value-as-evidence of the incoming data/information. If it conforms to the established protocols, it is allowed through to more serious examination. If it fails the basic “reality-check”, it is quickly dismissed, often with ridicule and prejudice (as we can see in this forum, where non-conformist ideas and assertions are immediately associated with other terms and phrases those people find of similar dismissable quality – “magic thinking”, “illusion”, etc.)
Note further how, when confronted with the necessarily subjective nature of their own “objective evidence” model, they are quick to point out that there are highly predictable, repeatable, consensual phenomena, and they often dare others who challenge their one-size-fits-all phenomena filter to “go into oncoming traffic” or “jump off a cliff”, as if anyone has challenged that highly predictable, highly-consensual phenomena exist. For them and their mental buffer system, it is an either-or model which they vigorously defend.
I’m not challenging that such highly-consensual, highly-predictable phenomena exist; my challenge is that such phenomena are not necessarily the only useful phenomena that are real. Phenomena need not be highly consensual, nor even highly predictable, to be of use to an individual or to various groups. There is no reason, IMO, to isoloate only that phenomena which meets a specific metaphysical model or methodological criteria and ignore/deny all other phenomena. If such phenomena applications that are useful to individuals or groups (and there’s no reason, other than a priori bias, to assume such kinds of phenomena do not exis), they would not be amenable to validation by any model that requires universal consensuality and predictability – they would, essentially, only be amenable to use by various individuals.
As we can see, the idea that “there is no evidence” that supports my model, when issued from a perspective that only validates evidence as that which comports with the metaphysical/methodological materialist, consensual-empiricism model, is a categorical error generated by the deep assumption that one’s a priori bias is the default mode of what “evidence” must refer to. The very nature of what I propose means that there will be no significant metaphysical/methodological materialist, consensual-empiricism evidence to support it, because such phenomena would inherently not fit that model.
PART 3 OF 2:
But I ignore any that I don’t like and just go with what makes me feel happy.
Joe – Vox Day is also waging war on materialism. Why not go and give him a hand? Tell him I say “Hi” – I’m sure he could use your, erm, help.
The best reason to think of life as an illusion is not because there is no reality, but because our conceptions and senses fall so short of it. We use illusion to fill in the gaps of our knowledge, which tend to be very wide. Then we’re surprised when it turns out there’s a lot of unexpected real stuff occupying those gaps which we never suspected.
I like Dumbledore’s line near the end of Harry Potter:
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
May a lawyer contribute?
In my view, William is correct to say that statements of personal belief, reports of others’ opinions, corroborated opinions, and empirical facts all can and should be called “evidence” in a true semantic sense.
The issue, as others more clever than I have pointed out, is the degree of reliance that can or should be placed on them. The question of what a particular statement evinces is not always clear, as, for example, the rule that hearsay statements are direct evidence of the fact that a statement was made and witnessed, but are not probative of the truth of the statements themselves. A further issue is when we should accept we should shout “Stop!” and accept that the truth of statement has been sufficiently demonstrated.
William, I find that many of the statements you made leading to this discussion to be evidence only of the state of your opinions and the fact that you have chosen to share them with us.
There is nothing tautological about a definition. You don’t like the definition. You are free to dislike it all you want, but you can’t pretend that therefore this definition is “improper and tautological”. It is not. It is a widely accepted and used definition of reality.
The question is not whether the experience is real. The experience is, of course, always real. The question is whether the phenomenon that the experience refers to is real. If the experiences of the phenomenon are not consensual, then it is highly doubtful that the phenomenon is real.
So, it sounds like you propose to categorize as “real” all those phenomena that someone claims to experience and claims are useful to them? So, how exactly is the concept of reality useful, i.e., how do you propose to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not? Or do you simply propose that everything that anyone proposes is real? At which point, of course, the concept of reality has become meaningless.
So, this means that what you propose is inherently useless and meaningless to anyone who does not happen to experience the same phenomena you experience.
That is exactly what you do, Rich. Thank you for finally coming out and admitting it.
It seemed earlier that you prescribed to the law of non-contradiction (a thing / phenomenon cannot be A and not-A at the same time and in the same sense). The problem with the view that all phenomena that anyone experiences are real, is that many of these non-consensual, non-predictable, non-repeatable phenomena are in direct contradiction to each other or to specific consensual, predictable and repeatable phenomena. Taking them all as as real clearly leads to a violation of the law of non-contradiction.
The magic 8-ball said:
“Outlook Not So Good”
Oh well, maybe next time.
Of course, with the proper compartmentalization, you can always rationalize that each experience is uncontradicted within it’s own compartment.
Say William, would you consider doing me a favor? When you’re offering your opinion like this, would you be so kind as to preface it with something like, “For me”, “in my experience” or maybe “in my opinion”. That way we will know that you aren’t making a claim about some school of thought or some fact, but rather just presenting your ideas about things. Thanks!