Comments on Nathaniel Branden's Benefits & Hazard's talk

Sarah replied to Michael,

"One should always recognize what evidence is telling you. But the way you phrase your statement makes it sound as if you believe one should dismiss evidence in favor of rationalism."

The question is, what counts as evidence for anomalous perception? More to the point, what could count as evidence for it, short of discovering in human beings an additional sense organ conferring a unique form of sensory awareness. Suppose, for example, that in the typical human being, there were no auditory receptors. In other words, assume that the normal condition for man were deafness. And suppose that a human being were born with auditory receptors and could, therefore, perceive by means of sound waves. How would the normally deaf human beings identify these auditory receptors? Well, the bearer of this fifth sense would undoubtedly communicate to his deaf colleagues that he was experiencing a totally unique sensation that he could not describe to them, because its form differed so radically from his other four senses.

But is that what people who claim to have anomalous perception typically do? No. The standard procedure is to give the claimant a test in which he is asked to write down what he "sees" (e.g., remote viewing). During the test, people are given certain scenes or pictures to look at, and the test subject is then asked to identify what they are looking at and to draw a replica of it, after which the tester compares the subject's drawings with what the observers witnessed. But observe that this alleged anomalous "perception" is expressed visually; it is expressed in terms of the sensory attributes that are characteristic of sight. If there truly were a sixth sense, this is not how the bearer of that sense would express it. He would say that he is unable to describe what he is experiencing in terms of any of his other four senses. No one describes a song in terms of colors and shapes, a picture in terms of sound and melody, or a salty taste in terms of aroma or smell. Yet the test subjects typically describe their anomalous perception in terms of visual attributes, attributes that are characteristic of the sense of sight.

The problem with so-called anomalous perception is that it doesn't fulfill the obvious prerequisites of a new form of perception. There is no "how"--no unique means by which the person claims to be aware of the "extra" information that he purports to be accessing. Moreover, there is no physical sense organ that can be identified to correspond to the new form of perception. The lack of this kind of foundational evidence makes all of the statistical tests done on behalf of anomalous perception virtually irrelevant. The best that can be said for them is that they show some interesting correlations involving attempts by subjects to guess what is happening outside their range of awareness. But, no matter how statistically unexpected the results of this sort of test are, they cannot be construed as evidence of a new or radically different form of perception.

- Bill

Post 41

Saturday, December 3, 2005 - 10:15pm

William,

I agree. I was arguing general principles rather than ESP itself.

Sarah

Post 42

Saturday, December 3, 2005 - 11:13pm

Bill,

I essentially agree with you. However I see two scenarios where anomalous perception should not be completely discarded and possibly studied from another angle.

1. There is the possibility that there is some kind of developing sense organ in the human being. I don't know enough about evolution to know how gradually new receptors and other facilities are added to an organism, but I sincerely doubt that a mutated newborn will come into being with a full-blown capacity. The theory is that the human being might be a work in progress evolution-wise and there simply has not been time enough in recorded history for major developments like the acquisition of a new sense organ to have occurred. Thus if anything is being evolved, whatever is tested now will be highly irregular by nature.

2. Many sensory phenomena do not come isolated to one sense only. A strong sound can become so loud that it can be felt by the hands and other parts of the body used only for the sense of touch. It impacts the air so strongly that touch is brought into play. In more poetic terms, thunder usually comes with lightening. Thus an anomalous sensation, one for which there is no human organ to perceive it with, may be "attached" to other phenomena that is perceived normally. However its effect causes some kind of anomalous irregularity - the monkey-wrench in the works, so to speak.

I do not know much about the studies that have been carried out, except for some military studies I have read. (Guess what they always want?) I do suspect that the scenarios I laid out above would be useful in setting up experiments, though. If I thought about it, maybe I could even come up with more scenarios.

What I do not accept at our present state of knowledge is an outright dismissal of the possibility that anomalous sensory phenomena (in human terms) cannot exit at all - and that the possibility of anomalous perception is mere delusion. As Sarah said, this is more rationalizing than examining and thinking.

You made a statement that impressed me:

Well, the bearer of this fifth sense would undoubtedly communicate to his deaf colleagues that he was experiencing a totally unique sensation that he could not describe to them, because its form differed so radically from his other four senses.

Go one step further. What makes anyone think that this is not happening already with people who experience anomalous things they cannot control, but actually do experience them?

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 12/03, 11:18pm)

Post 43

Sunday, December 4, 2005 - 2:39am

Bill:

The problem with so-called anomalous perception is that it doesn't fulfill the obvious prerequisites of a new form of perception. There is no "how"--no unique means by which the person claims to be aware of the "extra" information that he purports to be accessing. Moreover, there is no physical sense organ that can be identified to correspond to the new form of perception

This supposes that such anomalous perception would be similar to the familiar forms of perception, using a specialized channel and organ. But it's also thinkable that it would be some information transfer that is achieved more directly in the brain, like some kind of wireless transfer of brain states. Depending on the content of those brain states the information would be primary visual, auditory, emotional, etc., but not limited to any particular one of those aspects.

We now know of course that there is no such mechanism, but it wouldn't have been an unscientific idea some 100 years ago, when we had far less knowledge than we have now. Compare it with the biological knowledge in Darwin's time about genetics; this was in fact a large mystery (Mendel's work was still unknown, not to mention the whole DNA business), yet it was clear that somehow information was transmitted from one generation to the next one and that the new generation somehow combined traits of both parents. The correlations were there, but no one had the foggiest idea about the mechanisms involved. However, the fact that at one time nobody could explain the correlations didn't imply after all that there was no information transmitted.

Post 44

Sunday, December 4, 2005 - 9:51am

Sarah,

If you agree with what Bill wrote, then how are you claiming what I said was "rationalistic"? There is no "kind of" difference between a rational explanation based on the evidence of the senses and claims to knowledge via undefinable means. To make it more blunt, are you going to keep a "healthy skepticism" about somebody who uses a ouija board as a source of his knowledge?

Michael

Post 45

Sunday, December 4, 2005 - 10:13am

Rather than hijack this thread for a question I have regarding psychology and Rand's view of it, in light of Adam's comments about certain important things having been proved about the senses, I've started a new thread here:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0732.shtml

Let's discuss!

REB

Post 46

Sunday, December 4, 2005 - 10:32am

Michael,

To make it more blunt, are you going to keep a "healthy skepticism" about somebody who uses a ouija board as a source of his knowledge?

Had I never seen an ouija board or did not understand what it was supposed to do, I'd withhold scientific judgment until it had been investigated. Even after hearing someone explain to me what it was supposed to do, I'd still investigate because people often times don't understand the mechanisms behind simple phenomenon, so they may very well be wrong about an actual occurrence. It turns out there's just nothing going on there or with ESP and so that's that.

In short, it doesn't matter what people claim, only what's actually happening.

Sarah

(Edited by Sarah House
on 12/04, 2:52pm)

Post 47

Sunday, December 4, 2005 - 11:25am

MSK wrote, "I essentially agree with you. However I see two scenarios where anomalous perception should not be completely discarded and possibly studied from another angle.

"1. There is the possibility that there is some kind of developing sense organ in the human being. I don't know enough about evolution to know how gradually new receptors and other facilities are added to an organism, but I sincerely doubt that a mutated newborn will come into being with a full-blown capacity."

Well, the sense organ would have to be there at birth, wouldn't it? Is there any evidence of someone's developing a sense organ as they grow and mature? I don't think so.

You continue, "The theory is that the human being might be a work in progress evolution-wise and there simply has not been time enough in recorded history for major developments like the acquisition of a new sense organ to have occurred. Thus if anything is being evolved, whatever is tested now will be highly irregular by nature."

I'm not sure I follow you, Michael; either you have the sense organ or you don't.

You write, "2. Many sensory phenomena do not come isolated to one sense only. A strong sound can become so loud that it can be felt by the hands and other parts of the body used only for the sense of touch. It impacts the air so strongly that touch is brought into play."

What impacts the air so strongly that touch is brought into play? It is the sound waves, not one's auditory reception of the sound waves. We have to distinguish between the sound waves and one's reception of the sound waves. In this case, the same sound waves are received via two different sensory receptors: auditory and tactile. But note that the sensory experience is radically different in each case. There are no tactile qualities in an auditory experience, nor auditory qualities in a tactile experience.

You continue, "In more poetic terms, thunder usually comes with lightening.'

Thunder always comes with lightening, if by "thunder" we mean the sound waves generated by the static electricity. We may not always hear the thunder after we see the lightening, although usually we do.

You continue, "Thus an anomalous sensation, one for which there is no human organ to perceive it with, may be 'attached' to other phenomena that is perceived normally."

Here I suspect that you are confusing the objective phenomenon with the subjective sensation that it generates. One does not sense a sensation or perceive a perception. One senses (or perceives) an objective phenomenon. So the "anomalous sensation" cannot be "attached" to phenomena that are perceived normally (via the five senses), because a sensation is not itself an objective phenomenon.

You write, "What I do not accept at our present state of knowledge is an outright dismissal of the possibility that anomalous sensory phenomena (in human terms) cannot exit at all - and that the possibility of anomalous perception is mere delusion. As Sarah said, this is more rationalizing than examining and thinking."

Well, it's certainly not a theoretical impossibility that a human organism could be born with a mutation that involved a new sense organ, if that's what you're suggesting. But if someone claims to possess another sense organ (in addition to the five that we already possess), then he or she needs to provide evidence of it. Lacking any such evidence, the person's claim deserves to be dismissed.

I wrote, "Well, the bearer of this fifth sense would undoubtedly communicate to his deaf colleagues that he was experiencing a totally unique sensation that he could not describe to them, because its form differed so radically from his other four senses."

You replied, "Go one step further. What makes anyone think that this is not happening already with people who experience anomalous things they cannot control, but actually do experience them?"

Well, if there are people who are currently perceiving reality through another sense organ, then it should be possible to identify that organ. So far, no one has come forward to claim possession of such an organ and to enable others to locate and identify it scientifically. You ask, what makes me think that such people don't already exist? What makes you think they do? Remember, the burden of proof rests on they who assert the positive. I have no more reason to think that there are human beings in possession of another sense organ than I do to think that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The evidence for it just isn't there.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 12/04, 11:28am)

Post 48

Sunday, December 4, 2005 - 1:07pm

Bill,

I am going to have to do this as you do. (I normally don't like to go through posts like this, so this will be an exception.)

You wrote: "Well, the sense organ would have to be there at birth, wouldn't it? Is there any evidence of someone's developing a sense organ as they grow and mature? I don't think so."

Wherever did I claim that a sense organ emerges during growth? You made your own question - not mine - and answered it correctly as far as I can see. That particular straw man is yours, not mine.

There is a great deal of evidence, however, in degrees of capacity of sense organs. For example, some organisms have extremely limited sight and others have much better sight than humans. Also, the use of the sense organs develops as an organism grows, but this could be more cognitive than physical. Physically, I do know that my eyesight has gotten weaker over time. I haven't looked into this, but it would make sense that a sense organ has some kind of positive physical development during growth, just as with most every other biological aspect of a living organism.

Where you didn't follow me on limited development, I was talking about degrees once again - and maybe even the cognitive use of a newly emerging and very weak sense organ. Once again, to use the sight example, an animal with extremely limited sight would process only extremely simple things. What it reacts to in reality might be very similar to what others do (like with sound and so forth), but a bit differently due to the extra input. Thus such a reaction would be judged by one not having that experience within his own sensory frame. He would have no reason on earth to imagine that the other being was experiencing matters differently than he was. That option is not one that he can conceive of.

(Actually, the awareness of any new sensory possibilities or mental ones is only possible to a conceptual mind because of its capacity for theoretical speculation that perceptual minds do not have. These limited minds can "speculate" on a perceptual level, thus immediate values can be chosen among alternatives that arise. But a higher form of speculation is impossible to it.)

I don't know how long it takes for a fully developed sense organ to become a part of a species, but I have seen the term 50,000 years or so bantered about. That's an awfully long time for the present stage of research.

With your discussion of sound waves, actually you made my point. It is the same sound waves for two different kinds of sense reception. But touch involves physical contact with air molecules. Thus there is one other aspect that is available to sensory reception. As I stated, "many sensory phenomena do not come isolated to one sense only." My meaning was that they come in a package with other elements. A sound usually does not come as pure sound, for example. It has a source that usually contains other elements that we can perceive through other senses. That was my meaning. Not that a smell can be seen or something like that.

Your comment on the thunder and lightening thing was one more way of saying exactly what I did. One sensory phenomenon being packaged with others.

You are correct on my misuse of the term "sensation" in my phrase, "Thus an anomalous sensation, one for which there is no human organ to perceive it with, may be 'attached' to other phenomena that is perceived normally."

I should have said it this way, "Thus anomalous sensory data, that for which there is no human organ to perceive it with, may be 'attached' to other phenomena that is perceived normally."

I was speaking about the sensory "package" again and the wrong word slipped in. Sorry.

You wrote, "Well, it's certainly not a theoretical impossibility that a human organism could be born with a mutation that involved a new sense organ, if that's what you're suggesting. But if someone claims to possess another sense organ (in addition to the five that we already possess), then he or she needs to provide evidence of it. Lacking any such evidence, the person's claim deserves to be dismissed."

We are in full agreement - and that is precisely what I was suggesting (theoretically) - until we get to the nature of the evidence that is required. Frankly, I need to research this more. All I can say at the present is that there are way too many highly intelligent people doing such research to dismiss the whole field as folly.

Also, I do not believe that there has been enough evidence gathered to make an outright claim that no further mental capabilities for the human being than what exist at the present are possible - and make that claim as an absolute fact. Still, like I said, I need to read more research. Some military stuff that I have read is pretty impressive. Here is one link. Admittedly, this paper is a bit dated (1996) and I have not done any follow-up reading (way too busy with other things). But I do intend to read more on this.

Finally, you asked me what makes me think that people might have a developing new sense organ? The only rational answer to that right now is the volume of people relating anomalous experiences and the fact that we have yet no knowledge ceiling (at least none that I can perceive) on the explanation of things that just don't work the way they are supposed to.

I, also, have always maintained that any knew discoveries or knowledge must build on our present rational capacities, not negate them. Add to them. Thus your example of Jesus at the end - in a possible insinuation that I was trying to justify faith or slip it in - is a bit off if you were making an indirect comment on my open-ended approach.

I think it is a good idea to keep speculative options open to research until they are debunked entirely (like the earth is flat, for instance).

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 12/04, 1:20pm)

Post 49

Monday, December 5, 2005 - 1:39pm

Michael, you wrote: "You are correct on my misuse of the term 'sensation' in my phrase, 'Thus an anomalous sensation, one for which there is no human organ to perceive it with, may be 'attached' to other phenomena that is perceived normally.' I should have said it this way, 'Thus anomalous sensory data, that for which there is no human organ to perceive it with, may be "attached" to other phenomena that is perceived normally.' I was speaking about the sensory 'package' again and the wrong word slipped in. Sorry."

Apology accepted. But I'm still a bit puzzled. With your revised statement, a new problem emerges. What is "anomalous sensory data"? As I understand that term "anomalous" in this context, it refers to a new and different method of perceptual awareness. But the term "sensory data" refers not to the method of perception, but to the object of perception--to what it is that is being perceived. And what is being perceived is simply objective data, if you will, not some sensory form of the data, which refers to how you perceive it, not what you perceive. It is true that you can perceive the same objective data in two different sensory forms, as in your thunder and lightening example, in which you're perceiving the same burst of static electricity auditorally as well as visually. But that example is not analogous to your statement about anomalous sensory data being "attached" to other phenomena that is perceived normally, since you state that the anomalous sensory data can be present even though "there is no human organ to perceive it with." If there is no human organ to perceive it with, then there is no anomalous sensory data. There is simply data that is perceived through your normally existing organs of perception.

You write, "Finally, you asked me what makes me think that people might have a developing new sense organ? The only rational answer to that right now is the volume of people relating anomalous experiences and the fact that we have yet no knowledge ceiling (at least none that I can perceive) on the explanation of things that just don't work the way they are supposed to."

You are assuming the very point to be proved, when you refer to the volume of people relating "anomalous experiences." For the term "anomalous experience" or "anomalous perception" to have any meaning, it has to refer to a unique form of sensory awareness. But is that what people who lay claim to such perceptual experiences are describing? No. They are describing hunches, guesses, intuitions. What they are not describing is a unique and radically different form of perception--as a person blind from birth might describe vision after being able to see for the first time. Moreover, in none of the people who claim anomalous perception has a new and different sensory organ or sensory receptor ever been identified. There is simply no evidence that anything like a radically new form of perception among human beings has ever existed.

The closest we have come to a different sense organ is the presence of a fourth color cone or photopigment in the human retina of a small percentage of women, who are called "tetrachromats." Human beings are normally trichromats, having only three color cones (red, green and blue) with the exception of color-blind "dichromats," who have only two functioning color cones. The fourth photopigment lies somewhere between red and green.

Until fairly recently, there was some question as to whether these female tetrachromats had the neural circuitry to discriminate colors that the rest of us cannot. But In 1993, Gabriele Jordan of Cambridge University conducted a test of 14 women considered good candidates. She designed an experiment in which the subjects tried to determine whether a pair of colored lights matched. The subjects used joysticks to blend two different wavelengths, resulting in hues that lay outside the spectrum of the blue photoreceptor, so that normal trichromats would have the use of only their red and green photoreceptors to detect a color match. Having produced a color, the subjects would then try to reproduce it by mixing two other wavelengths. Because the trichromats had the use of only two photoreceptors (red and green), they found a whole slew of mixes that produced a matching color. However, any tetrachromat should have been able to use three photoreceptors (red, green and another color between red and green) in this color space, and therefore make a single, precise match.

Two of the women performed exactly as a tetrachromat would be expected to, finding only a single match. Because they had a finer sense of color discrimination, given their extra photoreceptor and advanced neurocircuitry, they could see that the other mixes didn't match, whereas the other subjects couldn't tell the difference. These women would therefore appear to have a perceptual ability that the average human being does not possess. But other than this, I am not aware of anything like an extra sense organ having been identified in human beings.

- Bill

Post 50

Monday, December 5, 2005 - 3:00pm

Bill,

We are starting to hone a concept. Your confusion on my new term, "sensory data," indicates that I need to find even clearer words, since I am detecting a sincere desire to understand what I am saying - and not merely an urge to debunk a windmill on the white steed of Rand with the lance of forced dichotomies.

You wrote, "There is simply data that is perceived through your normally existing organs of perception." My whole point is that there is data that is not perceived at all, because we have no sense organ for it. That is what I am talking about - that data. Just because we do not perceive it, does not mean that it does not exist.

Either reality comes first or consciousness does. If reality does, then consciousness is a part of something larger and more varied than itself. If consciousness comes first, then no reality can exist at all that is not perceivable.

I prefer the open-ended epistemological approach based on metaphysics first.

Here is a way you have of looking at an argument that is not mine. It is so common and widespread that it makes me weary when I encounter it. You wrote, "You are assuming the very point to be proved, when you refer to the volume of people relating 'anomalous experiences.'"

I am not assuming anything is proven and I never claimed it. Why attribute me with that? What is gained by this? I sincerely want to understand the why of this way of pushing a point on another person that is not his. I don't feel that you wish to argue with a person who does not exist, nor do I feel you wish to falsify my meaning, so this behavior confuses me.

Back to the discussion. What I do assume is that many people report things they cannot explain, and the volume of these reports points to something that needs to be studied. The only thing that is "proven" to me by such volume is that scoffing and ignoring them will explain nothing at all, but people will keep on reporting these things.

It's a choice, I suppose. I choose not to scoff and ignore. Where the scoffers try to push that stance is to make it sound like I (or those like me) am embracing one particular view or other. However, my following words mean precisely what they say. No more and no less.

"I don't know, one way or the other. Neither side has convinced me. More work needs to be done."

I have a question for you. How would a person who has a weak and unstable sense of sight explain his perceptions to a group of people who are blind from birth and have never heard of sight?

Think about it. He would be in a horrible position - a very confusing one, to say the least.

That is the position I am allowing for. I am not saying that anything has been proven. But I am leaving that particular door of possibility open for research.

Your comments on tetrachromats is fascinating. I will read more about this. There are also the amazing things autistic people do. Many of them have sensory overload - possibly enhanced sense organs. I think mankind will end up profiting greatly from the present studies of them.

Michael

Post 51

Monday, December 5, 2005 - 6:27pm

: Dr. Hardy-
:
: PhD or M.D.?

PhD in statistics with a minor in mathematics.

: I for one do not think that evidence for or proof
: of ESP would repudiate any tenets of objectivism,
: but until there is either evidence for or proof
: of ESP, the idea is nothing but wishful thinking
: that smacks the face of objective reality, and
: this DOES go against the tenets of objectivism.

The claim, as I understood it, was that the existence
of means of perception beyond those that are well-known
would mean that the senses are not valid, or otherwise
that some tenet of objectivism is not true.

: Also, who were these "many scientists" in the
: 20th century who believed that there was
: "overwhelming evidence of telepathic ability"?

You know, I'm not ready to answer this, but I know
Alan Turing asserted that there was overwhelming
evidence of telepathy, and my impression was that in
so saying, he was just following the crowd. Dr. Rhine
had reported evidence; those who had read the headlines
and didn't study the matter trusted him; refutations
came only later.

: Yes, once Duke was associated with ESP, and now
: it is associated with POMO nonsense.

What's "POMO"? -- Mike Hardy

Post 52

Monday, December 5, 2005 - 6:45pm

Mike-

What's "POMO"? -- Mike Hardy

That would be 'postmodernism'. Duke, or rather one of it's prestigious journals, Social Text, met with the same fate as the famed emperor when it was revealed by Alan Sokal that POMO was indeed naked. Sokal, a physicist who had had enough, submitted a non-sensical article in this journal which was a parody of postmodernism and they published it!. It was complete gibberish and was titled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." After publication, Sokal revealed that it was a hoax and the Humanities have never been the same since. If you are interested, there is a great book by Sokal and mathematician Jean Bricmont about the hoax and postmodernism's abuse and deception in using science and mathematics(as jargon) to further its agenda's-It's called Fashionable Nonsense.

P.S.-So are you constantly being driven mad by the use of "statistics" to further weak agendas?

Mike-this was edited because Ellen slandered you as being a grammar Nazi. ;)

(Edited by Jody Allen Gomez on 12/05, 6:47pm)

(Edited by Jody Allen Gomez on 12/06, 6:41am)

Post 53

Monday, December 5, 2005 - 8:13pm

Yes - that is indeed a fun book to read...

Post 54

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 1:32am

Jody,

If I might point out a grammatical error you frequently make --
with the subsidiary clause that I point this out from friendly
intent, and with the addendum that I myself, in the days before
I retired from doing editing on a paid basis, unfortunately
often was prone to making this exact error:

The possessive of the pronoun "it" is "its" not "it's."
(See your post 52.) I add: I felt that it would be only kind
to indicate, in advance of Dr. Hardy's being tempted to do so,
the presence of this error. Dr. Hardy is a Holy Terror in
regard to grammatical and spelling niceties. ;-)

I also add: I'm sending from a laptop with an outdated browser
on which I can't use italics, hence the resort to quote marks above.

And that: I think your statement that "the humanities have
never been the same since" the "Sokal hoax" is more hopeful
than accurate.

Ellen S.

Post 55

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 6:39am

Ellen-
Thanks for pointing that out. I know the rules and upon editing my own work I tend to catch them, but when writing things out in haste, the correct use of the apostrophe is usually the first to go.

I think my statement about the Sokal hoax was a bit hopeful, but also true. It rocked the academic world when it happened, and it's still being discussed 10 years later. It says much about the postmodern humanities that they can't tell the difference between scholarly work and deliberate gibberish.

Post 56

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 7:34am

There is a similar work, A House Built on Sand, by Koertge...

Post 57

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 7:50am

Robert-
Haven't read that one, but have read her co-authored work Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales From the Strange World of Womens Studies. I would recommend that one to anyone interested in a first hand account of what goes on in such 'indoctrination' studies.

Post 58

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 10:03am

In Post 50, Michael wrote, "My whole point is that there is data that is not perceived at all, because we have no sense organ for it. That is what I am talking about - that data. Just because we do not perceive it, does not mean that it does not exist."

Okay, but then what do you mean when you say that anomalous sensory data for which there is no human organ to perceive it may be "attached" to other phenomena that is perceived normally? Do you mean something like the following? A blind person holding a red ball can know that the ball is round by his sense of touch, but cannot know that it is red. The ball's redness is sensory data that comes "attached" to its roundness, but the blind person has no organ with which to perceive it? In other words, are you saying that those who claim some form of anomalous perception have an extra organ with which they are able to perceive some particular attribute of reality that comes attached to other attributes normally perceived by the five senses? if so, what would be an example of this that you are familiar with?

You write, "Either reality comes first or consciousness does. If reality does, then consciousness is a part of something larger and more varied than itself. If consciousness comes first, then no reality can exist at all that is not perceivable. I prefer the open-ended epistemological approach based on metaphysics first."

Of course, no one is denying that.

I wrote, "You are assuming the very point to be proved, when you refer to the volume of people relating 'anomalous experiences.'"

You replied, "I am not assuming anything is proven and I never claimed it."

What I meant is that you are assuming that the experiences these people were relating actually were anomalous. But the experiences could not been anomalous, unless the people were perceiving reality in some radically new and different form and by means of a radically new and different organ of perception, something for which there is at present no evidence.

You wrote, "What I do assume is that many people report things they cannot explain, and the volume of these reports points to something that needs to be studied."

What do you mean "things they cannot explain"? Before you can say even this much, you have to show that there is something that needs explaining, or that cannot be explained by our normal understanding. As far as I am aware, there are no claims that need explaining that involve a radically new and different form of perception. There are only claims to unexpected and coincidental occurrences, to predictions that happen to come true, or to intuitions, hunches or feelings that prove to be correct.

You write, "I have a question for you. How would a person who has a weak and unstable sense of sight explain his perceptions to a group of people who are blind from birth and have never heard of sight?"

Of course, he couldn't explain the experience to them, but as far as I am aware, none of the claims to anomalous perception asserts anything analogous to experiencing a new form of perception. What is asserted is simply a better-than-average success at guessing what the subjects cannot possibly have knowledge of.

- Bill

Post 59

Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 10:14am