Monday, August 5, 2013

Atheists can't face Scientific Facts:Exchange with Royce part 2

Part 2



Royce:
I've taken courses in formal logic and critical thinking; that's how I know what the "fallacy of appeal to consequence" is. You're committing it. 

Meta:
you are only a sophomore you can't have taken that many, you didn't pay attention apparently. Even people who are smart and study lots of logic can still argue fallaciously.

just becasue you find two aspects that are similar between an argument and a fallacy doesn't mean it's the fallacy at work. that's based upon the fallacy of argument from analogy.

Royce
Employing an argument from an analogy is not fallacious.


Meta:
yes it is. especially trying to prove B is q because A is q. that is a total fallacy.


Royce
It's only fallacious if the analogy is faulty, or if the similarity cited is not likely to provide evidence for the similarity inferred. Please learn your formal and informal fallacies. Here's a Wikipedia page to help you.


Meta:
you please learn to go beyond Cliff notes.that is not true in the first place, even the best analogy proves nothing. A being exactly like B does not prove that B will turn out like A. Especially if there is no causal link bewteen A and B.

If I show that the situation with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is exactly like the situation in Dallas in 1963 that does not prove that JFK was killed by conspiracy. or do you think it does? why didn't they just say that in front the senate hearings that chruch ran why wouldn't that be proof enough?

this is on Point (3) Disproved by positive effects

There are no comparable effects from irrational beliefs. Most irrational beliefs are the result of mental illness, mental illness is degenerative and not transfomative. NO irrational belief is tranformative. Just finding a similarity is not proof that it's the same.


you can't explain how it could be that a misfire of chemical process consistently results in dramatic life long postiive change.


Royce:

Whether a belief is epistemically rational, true, etc. has nothing todo with the positive benefits of the belief. To say otherwise is to commit the fallacy of appeal to consequences. Here's the Wikipedia definition of the fallacy:


Meta:
nononono! you are totally misapplying that. It does most certainly have to do with positive effects iff the positive effect always follow a certain thing and not another. If the positive effects rule out a negative cause then positive effects are important in arguing cause.

If a patient should have died from a certain condition, no treatment was given, he not only didn't die but improved his health, then obvious he didn't have that condition.

Royce:

"Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for "argument to the consequences"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. This is based on an appeal to emotion and is a type of informal fallacy, since the desirability of a consequence does not make it true." Please stop committing it. 

Meta:
you are misusing that. I'm not "appealing to them" I'm using them as an indicative marker. that is not the fallacy. like the analgoy above (btw that's the proper use of analogy in argument, I'm not trying to prove by use of it but illustrate the concept).


Royce:
Furthermore, you're wrong to say that, "most irrational beliefs are the result of mental illness." Please do not make up claims about topics you do not know much about. For example, Kahneman and Tversky's work on bounded rationality shows that many, if not most, people exhibit irrational reasoning in fairly everyday situations. 

Meta:
no that's not true. I specified that I was talking pathology not logical inference. you dont' know anything. you don't understand you are babbling. you find this you think it really proves your nonsense and all it really does it make for show and tell. O look at me I can articles I'm a genius. o yes!no you are not.


Royce:
And these people are not suffering from mental illness. Furthermore, there are plenty of everyday situations in which people have false or irrational beliefs that have positive consequences for them.
you haven't proved they have pathological states. so we are just talking at cross purposes. you are distorting the original argument becuase you have your little show off thing there.

For example: a husband may be driven to care for their wife due to them havign the (false) belief that their wife loves them. Someone can devote their life to charity and giving to others due to the (false) belief that an Hades and/or Thanatos will reward them in the afterlife by allowing them to see their departed love ones. Not to mention the empirical evidence that depressed people tend to have a more accurate image of themselves then less depressed people (here's the Wiki page for it; i can give you paper on it if need be). So that's a clear case in which an inaccurate belief has positive benefits: helping one avoid depression. 

Meta:
multiplying examples doesn't cut it.

[He's still just talking at cross purposes because I was talking about psychological pathology and not merely illogical inference. Religious experience is not the result merely having illogical ideas. Illogical ideas done produce the kind of emotional reaction termed "mystical experience." So we are obviously talking about something more psychological. Logically the argument he should be making should be about potential causes of mystical experience, because that's the issue, the atheist argument that they the result of naturalistic causes. He hasn't done anything to prove that just having illogical ideas causes the kind of informative effects we see with mystical experiences.]

that's argument from analogy. Poor analogy. saying this is no like my argument.

 Royce:
Arguments from analogy are not fallacious, unless the analogy is faulty, You have not shown the analogy is faulty. Furthermore, you are engaged in God-of-the-gaps reasoning, and God can be cut out of the explanation by Occam's razor


Meta:
(1) you can't evoke Occam's razor to get of God. Occam himself said you can't do it.

(2) you can't argue farm analogy and prove that some result B will result becuase the situation is so like the result in A. If we could then we could just stop having senate hearings and just appoint analogy committees.

Major point in the 7 major arguments
(4) God part of the brain is a pro God argument, it's evoked by the assumption that religious experience is the result of an adaptation.

God part of the brain cannot be expalined though mere evolutionary means because it requires innate ideas. Evolution can't give innate ideas, in fact innate ideas come to be considered impossible in the enlightenment.

Royce:
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Evolution cannot give innate ideas?! You're joking, right?! Have you read ANYTHING in evolutionary psychology?! Please stop this habit of making up claims about topics you know next-to-nothing about.


Meta:
(1) evolutionary psychology is BS. Sociobiology was bull ****.


(2) there is no proof of innate ideas. none. you are using instinct and calling it "Idea" you are reductionism leads you to think ideas are just instincts.

Web definitions
Innatism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge, and that therefore the mind is not a...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_ideas

Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...70/innate-idea

"innate idea, in philosophy, an idea allegedly inborn in the human mind, as contrasted with those received or compiled from experience. The doctrine that at least certain ideas (e.g., those of God, infinity, substance) must be innate, because no satisfactory empirical origin of them could be conceived, flourished in the 17th century and found in René Descartes its most prominent exponent. The theory took many forms: some held that a newborn child has an explicit awareness of such ideas; others, more commonly, maintained that innate ideas have some implicit form, either as a tendency or as a dormant capacity for their formulation, which in either case would require favourable experiential conditions for their development."



sorry the sophomore doe snot assign the Ph.D. you are the studnet I am the teacher. time stop pretending.

your arguments suck. you argue twisted logic and you make up your own facts. children at play do not make good philosophers.

your assignment is to listen to people who have ideas different from (ahahaahah) "yours," try to understand what they are really saying instead of twisting their words.


 part 3


that is totally! it's idiotic to argue that it's not valid [It there being the M scale.]when it is being used as the standard approach. I've quotes several experts who say Hood revolutionized the field that he's great and that his scale is great. you have no coutner answer.

[ already cited:
Katherine A. MacLean, Roland R. Griffithis, et al

"Factor Analysis of the mystical experience Questionnaire: A study of experiences occasioned by the Hallucinogen Psilocybin," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion PDF 
http://www.heffter.org/docs/2013pdf/Mystical%20experience%20questionnaire.pdf


"Beginning with Hood (1975), the modern empirical study of mysticism has focused on char-
acterizing mystical experiences that individuals have had across their lifetime. Hood’s Mysticism
Scale ...developed according to Stace’s (1960) framework, is the most widely used quantitative mea-sure of mystical experience. The Mysticism Scale has generally been shown to be a reliable
and cross-culturally valid measure of lifetime experiences."




Michael E. Neilsen
Georgia Southern University
Feb, 2000
Psychology of Religion in USA

Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief.
"Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief. Although Freud reduced religious belief to a natural, if ultimately flawed, attempt to cope with life's stresses, contemporary psychoanalytic interpretations are not necessarily hostile to religious faith. Analytical schools find their inspiration in Jung's description of spiritual life. Most psychologists, however, consider such descriptions to be undemonstrated by scientific research, and therefore it plays a limited role in psychology. Object relations schools also draw from psychoanalysis, but focus their efforts on maternal influences on the child. Each of these three schools rely on clinical case studies and other descriptive methods based on small samples, which runs counter to the prevailing practice of psychology in America." \\


Dale Caird
originally in journal for the Scientific study of religion 1988, 27 (1) 122-126

"Research into mystical experience has been greatly facilitated over the last decade by Hood (1975). Utilizing the conceptual framework of Stace (1960) he devised a 32 item questionnaire tapping eight categories of mysticism. This questionnaire the M scale was shown by Hood to have respectable internal consistency and reasonable construct validity.]


Royce:
I do have a counter: multiple researchers pointing out the flaws and limitations of Hood's M scale. Here they are again. 

Meta:
No you don't have it. you have made up that they say that because the don't. Look would Hood Put them (Spanos and Moretti) in his chapter saying "these guys back me up" if they didn't? how could he get away with that? hU? use your brain. you never did quote their conclusion! you qutoe minor stuff form in the middle of the study you don't show their conclusion.

Hood uses them as back up how could he do that if they said he was no good. Little matter of losing credibility!He hasn't. I've quoted experts saying he's ground breaking, he's the standard, he's taken seriously. you manipulated what they say so it looks like they are against him but they are not. Page 364 of his text book:

"They directly correlated the M scale with the Tellegen and Atikinson absorption scale and with three measures of hypnosis. Overall the M scale correlated positively with all of these measures."



(1) you have misquoted Spanos. He does not say the S scale is bad. you are reading that in by using minor statements that are not part of the conclusion. their conclusion is that the M scale corrolate with two other scales and shows that it's validated and that people who have theses experinces are as stable as the average person.

Royce:
You can't show a single-place I misquoted them. 


Meta:
"leaves out a whole level.." they did not say level, they did not have a conclusion that M scale is no good. they never say that!

[numerous times previous exchanges--prior thread--when I confronted him with that he would say "they do say that."]

Royce:
They claimed that there was a whole subset of mystical experiences that Hood and Stace ignored (nonpositive and negatively affective mystical experiences), 


Meta:
NOW YOU ARE CALLING IT A "SUBSET" THAT PROVES IT'S YOUR WORDS! i YOU HAVE BEEN SAYING "LEVEL" BECAUSE i CORRECTED YOU ON IT ABOUT 10 TIMES. NOW YOU CHANGE THE PHRASE. THAT JUST PROVES YOU MAKING UP PHRASES AND CLAIMING ITS IN THE STUDY.

Royce:
that this oversight may have biased the work of Hood and Stace, and that when they examined this subset of mystical experience it was correleated with psychological disturbance. I've given you the quotes to back up this claim on this thead. Here they are again: 


Meta:
NO i MADE THAT POINT FIRST BEFORE YOU DI AS ANSWER TO YOUR NONSENSE. YOU HAVE COMPLETELY MISREPRESENTED. YOU ARE SO DISHONEST THIS PROVE YOU ARE TOTALLY DISHONEST

they didn't leave anything out. you have been habitually speaking like there's some written in stone protocol that there has to be a negative side and there is no data to confirm that. Jame's references are anecdotal. there is no data. Stace didn't include it because it wasn't in the mystics he read. Hood didn't include it because he was studying Stace.


Royce:
""A number of investigators have classified mystics with traditional psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., as hysterics, Leuba, 1929), or have labeled mystical experiences with such pejorative expressions as "infantile" or "regressed" (e.g., Maven, 1970; Prince & Savage, 1972). An alternative tradition has viewed mystical experiences as positive, optimistic, and ego-enhancing rather than as negative or psychopathological. Along these lines Hood (1974, 1977; Hood, Hall, Watson & Biderman, 1979) found no relationship between his questionnaire measure of mystical experience and measures of psychopathology, and positive correlations between mystical experience and measures of self-actualization and psychological strength. 


Meta:
those negatives are NOT from studies. they didn't any scientific studies in 1929! they are anecdotes.

Royce:
James (1902), however, acknowledged that mystical experiences were not always positive and were sometimes negative, evil and frightening. Such "diabolical mysticism" he believed was restricted to those "of enfeebled or deluded states of mind" (417). Relatedly, a number of investigators (Glock & Stark, 1965; Margolis & Elifson, 1979) have indicated that individuals who report intense religious experiences sometimes describe negative experiences, out-of-body experiences, visions, voices, disorientation and other "nonpositive" events that do not fit within the uniformly positive descriptions of mystical experience offered by Stace (1960) and others. For instance, the empirically derived taxonomy of mystical experience developed by Glock and Stark (1965) included such negative and "diabolical" experiences as the sense of being acted upon by an evil presence, being given messages by or being overtaken or possessed by Satan, and so on. The mystical experience questionnaire developed by Hood (1975) was based on the positive description of mystical experience offered by Stace (1960). Hood's (1975) questionnaire does not assess negative or diabolical aspects of mysticism and this may be one of the reasons that it fails to correlate significantly with measures of psychopathology [emphasis added].


Meta:
none of those are data. James's exampel was based upon one guy (read teh Verities. I've read it I know the example--not a study). they do't give a reason why it shouls do that.
[To be more precise the early dates such as the James and Luba were not really studies as we would do studies today. the latter dates (after the 60s) are studies but they are not damaing to mystical experience. Out body experience is not part of mystical. The conclusion that Spanos and Moretti reach says that mystical are as stable as non mystics. Sot they are talking about experiences mystics have in addition to mystical experience.]

I argued the first several threads on Spanso that you never proved this point..you have no yet. I asked over and over again for the data you still don't have it. if you had data you would use it. you don't have any kind of quote such that "x% of mysticls have negative." you have not quoted that. you don't have it becuase it doesn't exist.

(2) not much

(3) It's short term. I've arleady documented that. that's from the spiritual board that summarized Nobel and Wuthnow. they say the negatives are anxiety and it's shortterm.

you have no evidence on it at all.

Royce:
For the present study we developed two instruments to assess "nonpositive" and diabolical religious experiences. Our Diabolical Experience Scale was based on the Glock and Stark typology (1965) and assessed the extent to which people reported contact with demonic beings (e.g., "I have sometimes felt as if I were in the presence of the Devil"), experienced demonic revelations (e.g., "I believe that certain things have been revealed to me by an evil spiritual being"), and felt overwhelmed by evil forces (e.g., "I have had an experience in which an evil presence seemed to absorb and take hold of me"). 


Meta:
Spanos and the conclusion is the M scale passes! read their conclusion stop cherry picking stuff form side bars.

Royce:
Margolis and Elifson (1979) found that individuals who reported mystical experiences sometimes reported out-of-body experiences (OBE's) and visions and voices. The visions and voices were sometimes defined as demonic and sometimes as divine or holy. Consequently, we developed an Anomalous Experiences Questionnaire to assess such experiences. [...]
I disproved that. you did not answer. you are dredging up stuff I disproved.


Meta:
(1) that's not part of mystical expedience. that's why the quote say 'they also have...' doesn't say it's part of it

(2) I quote several definitions that rule it out including Stace. so that's a good reason why the M scale doesn't use it or need.

[quoting Spanos and Moretti--from the conclusion!]
"Like Hood (1975, 1979) we found that positive mysticism was unrelated to measures of psychopathology. On the other hand, diabolical experiences were related both to positive mysticism and to those measures of psychological disturbance that emphasize the reporting of somatic symptoms (i.e., neuroticism and psychosomatic symptoms)."
(1) I already said this 1979 was before the triple solution so the M scale was less developed at that time. any findings not valid now becuase it's better and it's different. their conclusion that it works is ok because if it worked then it works better now.

(2) any criticism of the M scale from that far back is invalid becuase it ignores the way the scale is done now.

that means big tricked you used to make the bogus argument that they condoning th M scale is necessarily wrong because if they were they would not find it corroborating with two other scales.


Royce:
Wrong again. The two scales were specifically designed to examine the nonpositive mystical experiences ignored by the M scale. 

Meta:
that doesn't even address what I said. I said if the negatives were significant they could not correlate it with the two absorption scales (the quote from Hood's book above). So you have not answered that.

if they thought to not measuring the negatives were significant enough they could not conclude the people were stable.

Royce:
Nonsense. The clearly said that negatively affective mystical experience (specifically: diabolical experiences) were correlated with measures of psychological disturbance.

Meta:
THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER. IT HAS NOTING TO DO WITH the issues. SCREW YOUR HEAD ON AND TRY TO LISTEN TO THE WORDS: SPANOS AND MORETTI FOUND THAT MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE PEOPLE WERE AS STABLE AS ANYONE,THAT'S PART OF THEIR FINDING. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU CHERRY PICK OTHER STATEMENTS THAT'S WHAT THEY FOUND A CONCLUSION! THEY COULD NOT CONCLUDE THAT IF HTE NEGATIVES WERE SIGNIFICANT. THEN THEY WOULDN'T BE STABLE. DO YOU EVER UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF NEGATIVES?

Royce
http://books.google.com/books?id=ETV...etti%3F&f=true
I read the relevant pages. Where does your your rebut a single claim I've made about Spanos and Moretti's 1988 paper?


Meta:
YOU HAVE NOT READ THE CONCLUSION (what you call "revlivant is your cherry pikcing) until you read the conclusion you have no argument. [he never quoted from the actual conclusion of the study I did--see above]

Royce:
I've asked you to read it several times why are you afraid to?

Meta:
I've asked for the number or percentage of negatives. why wont you give that? you must be afraid to you always give something else rather than that.


 part 4

in all of that hubbub he doesn't' answer these points:

(5) none of the researchers who claim to evoke mystical experience by stimulating the brain use the M scale or another valid scacle to know if they succeeded so you can't use them as evidence.

(6) that means your argument is merely ideologically driven and theoretical

(7) you can't show that an accident or an adaptation would be consistently positive i so many ways.

rather than answering them when he finished screwing up 4 he goes back to the Spanos and Moretti which was earlier set of threads. why? because he thinks he can millage off that since it's twisting a study to make it look it doesn't support Hood when it does. he also clearly has no answers for these points.



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