The importance of testing and problem of eyewitness testimony.

[loveofourlord]

This is just a anecdote,the other topic got me thinking about this, probably one of the reasons why I'm very careful about just accepting blind eyewitness testimony because no matter how sincere, or truthful someone can be, they can also be wrong.

It was about 4-5 years ago I was walking home late 3-4 in the morning after watching a movie, I think it was American grudge 3, kinda spooked and thinking of ghosts and such when I get to this one part of the road that is very dark, no street lights for a block so it's a dark patch. And as I'm passing a driveway I happen to look into it, and standing there, was a 5 year old or so boy, looked right out of the grudge, now I'm thinking GHOST!!, or something like that, as I can't think of any good reason a young kid be out there in middle of the night.

Now if I had done what most might do and ran away, I would be telling today the story of the time I saw a ghost child, maybe be part of my towns legend, people would see the ghost boy there, it be a game to walk there at night, someone might find a reason for why a child was there.

Except I didn't run, I waited, ready to run but wanted to see what was going on, and then it moved, and I saw it was in fact a deer. But the shadows, the poor lighting with just enough to give it a odd shape my brain filled the rest and saw a child. Now if I had run and told the story I would have been quiet sincere, and convinced I saw a ghost or something odd, but the truth is it wasn't one.

And thats the problem we assign lables to things, we think, "Well it must be Y." without seeing if it really is or not, I think it's important to test all our beliefs and claims of others, lest one be tricked, or lied to, just because we believe something to be true, or want it to be true, and even in fact might be true, doesn't mean eery claim of it is.

Not everyone that claims to see a UFO is telling teh truth seperate from wether they exist or not, not everyone that claims to speak for god does, some might be trying to decieve us, but I fear all too often people rely on claims that fit their world view, without thinking, "Are there other reasons."

 

[DogmaHunter]

Indeed.

It's rather simple for me....

Anyone can make any claim, and they can base those claims on any number of things.
You have two choices: either you take their word for it and just believe them, or you require some form of evidence / verifiability.

You can take their word for it, but there is a risk involved here.

Because the people that make the claims:
- can be mistaken
- can be deceived
- can be lieing
- can be correct

And without some form of verifiability of the claims in question, you won't be finding out wich one it is.

This doesn't mean I will require verifiability for any and all claims. That would entirely depend on the claim. The level of verifiability I will expect, will be pretty much related to the content of the claim.

If my friend tells me he saw a great movie last night, I won't be overly sceptical about it.

If my friend however goes on to tell me that a princess character from the movie came out of the TV set, made love to him and then returned into the TV-set....

 

[Chriliman]

This is just a anecdote,the other topic got me thinking about this, probably one of the reasons why I'm very careful about just accepting blind eyewitness testimony because no matter how sincere, or truthful someone can be, they can also be wrong.

It was about 4-5 years ago I was walking home late 3-4 in the morning after watching a movie, I think it was American grudge 3, kinda spooked and thinking of ghosts and such when I get to this one part of the road that is very dark, no street lights for a block so it's a dark patch. And as I'm passing a driveway I happen to look into it, and standing there, was a 5 year old or so boy, looked right out of the grudge, now I'm thinking GHOST!!, or something like that, as I can't think of any good reason a young kid be out there in middle of the night.

Now if I had done what most might do and ran away, I would be telling today the story of the time I saw a ghost child, maybe be part of my towns legend, people would see the ghost boy there, it be a game to walk there at night, someone might find a reason for why a child was there.

Except I didn't run, I waited, ready to run but wanted to see what was going on, and then it moved, and I saw it was in fact a deer. But the shadows, the poor lighting with just enough to give it a odd shape my brain filled the rest and saw a child. Now if I had run and told the story I would have been quiet sincere, and convinced I saw a ghost or something odd, but the truth is it wasn't one.

And thats the problem we assign lables to things, we think, "Well it must be Y." without seeing if it really is or not, I think it's important to test all our beliefs and claims of others, lest one be tricked, or lied to, just because we believe something to be true, or want it to be true, and even in fact might be true, doesn't mean eery claim of it is.

Not everyone that claims to see a UFO is telling teh truth seperate from wether they exist or not, not everyone that claims to speak for god does, some might be trying to decieve us, but I fear all too often people rely on claims that fit their world view, without thinking, "Are there other reasons."

Agreed. Truth is independent of what we think might be true. The question is: why is truth independent of what we think might be true?

 

[loveofourlord]

Agreed. Truth is independent of what we think might be true. The question is: why is truth independent of what we think might be true?

Because we can make mistakes, in my example I would have believed I truly saw a ghost or something like that, and had grounds to believe it, wouldn't be good ones, but my believing it was true, didn't mean the deer actually was a ghost wether I knew it or not.

I'm always concerned about this, look at conartists or scammers they rely on people not thinking about what they are told, a lowlife like peter popoff or such rely on people accepting their claims because they claim to be Christian and many refuse to question, are they really. It's always tough and I don't think there are any easy answers, but it's best to try to find answers then just give up.

 

[loveofourlord]

Another intersting example was where for months straight I was haunted by a giant spider over my bed, it was weird, I would clearly see it, but when I turned on the lights it was gone, after a few nights I realized it wasn't there, but couldn't figure out what was causing it finally I realized it was from a game I had been playing. World of Warcraft, I was doing alot of mining and such and paying attention to the minimap, that had left a retinal burn in the shape of a spider, and my brain when it saw the burn when I went to bed was filling in the gaps.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Agreed. Truth is independent of what we think might be true. The question is: why is truth independent of what we think might be true?

Because things are the way they are, regardless of what goes on in your head.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Another intersting example was where for months straight I was haunted by a giant spider over my bed, it was weird, I would clearly see it, but when I turned on the lights it was gone, after a few nights I realized it wasn't there, but couldn't figure out what was causing it finally I realized it was from a game I had been playing. World of Warcraft, I was doing alot of mining and such and paying attention to the minimap, that had left a retinal burn in the shape of a spider, and my brain when it saw the burn when I went to bed was filling in the gaps.

Lol

I once played GTA for 4 days straight after I had surgery.
On the 5th day, I found myself in my car and felt like the world looked very "digital".
At one point, I found myself waiting on a red light and got impatient.

Seriously, I actually already had the gear stick in my hand, ready to put the pedal to the metal and take of "GTA style". That freaked me out so much, I actually pulled over and went to get a cup of coffee.

The brain is an organ that is surprisingly very prone to failure.

 

[Chriliman]

Because we can make mistakes, in my example I would have believed I truly saw a ghost or something like that, and had grounds to believe it, wouldn't be good ones, but my believing it was true, didn't mean the deer actually was a ghost wether I knew it or not.

This makes me think that it's irrational to assume something is true without thoroughly investigating it. In this case you investigated the object and discovered that your previously held belief that it was a ghost was actually false and the truth was that it was a deer. But why is it important to thoroughly investigate something? I think the answer is because we are meant to be curious, we are meant to want to know the truth and not just take something at face value.

However, many on these forums will say that we should not ascribe such meaning and purpose to ourselves because the implications of such thinking points to a purpose for our existence. A purpose for our existence points to God. I think this is by design.

 

[KCfromNC]

But why is it important to thoroughly investigate something?

Because believing "somethings" which run contrary to reality can have detrimental side effects, like being hit by traffic or being eaten by a lion. No need to invoke magic spirits or whatever.

 

[loveofourlord]

This makes me think that it's irrational to assume something is true without thoroughly investigating it. In this case you investigated the object and discovered that your previously held belief that it was a ghost was actually false and the truth was that it was a deer. But why is it important to thoroughly investigate something? I think the answer is because we are meant to be curious, we are meant to want to know the truth and not just take something at face value.

However, many on these forums will say that we should not ascribe such meaning and purpose to ourselves because the implications of such thinking points to a purpose for our existence. A purpose for our existence points to God. I think this is by design.

well it depends on the subject, if I saw a deer I'm not going to assume it was a ghost because deeers are rather common, but other way since I've never seen ghosts I would want some evidence.

 

[bhsmte]

well it depends on the subject, if I saw a deer I'm not going to assume it was a ghost because deeers are rather common, but other way since I've never seen ghosts I would want some evidence.

I think that is sound logic.

The more unusual and uncommon the claim, the more evidence is required to support it.

 

[Chriliman]

well it depends on the subject, if I saw a deer I'm not going to assume it was a ghost because deeers are rather common, but other way since I've never seen ghosts I would want some evidence.

That makes sense. My post was based on the fact that you first assumed the figure was a ghost of a child and this assumption was purely based on a prior experience. Your assumption was irrational because of the experience you had before you saw the object. If you had seen the object without that prior experience you might have assumed it was a deer instead of a ghost of a child and then confirmed your assumption by investigating.

 

[loveofourlord]

That makes sense. My post was based on the fact that you first assumed the figure was a ghost of a child and this assumption was purely based on a prior experience. Your assumption was irrational because of the experience you had before you saw the object. If you had seen the object without that prior experience you might have assumed it was a deer instead of a ghost of a child and then confirmed your assumption by investigating.

My point here is that we all make mistakes, as you said what we see can often be clouded by our expectations, see a scary movie, and you might see something scary in the shadows, my concern is when people accept X without questioning if it's true, as I said there are many that are out there lying, we see it alot with alternative medicine, in their world pharmacuticals are bad, natural is good, so when they hear about product X that is natural and supposedly work they accept, not questioning if it actually does, or worse is it doing harm.

Obviously some thigns we must accept uncrtically just because they are so mundane or we waste all our time investigating something, but the more unusual and strange the claim, the more important it is to accept it.

Just because one might believe in faith healing doesn't mean everyone that claims to heal can, some are out to scam and we should be careful.

 

[Chriliman]

My point here is that we all make mistakes, as you said what we see can often be clouded by our expectations, see a scary movie, and you might see something scary in the shadows, my concern is when people accept X without questioning if it's true, as I said there are many that are out there lying, we see it alot with alternative medicine, in their world pharmacuticals are bad, natural is good, so when they hear about product X that is natural and supposedly work they accept, not questioning if it actually does, or worse is it doing harm.

Obviously some thigns we must accept uncrtically just because they are so mundane or we waste all our time investigating something, but the more unusual and strange the claim, the more important it is to accept it.

Just because one might believe in faith healing doesn't mean everyone that claims to heal can, some are out to scam and we should be careful.

Agreed!

 

[HitchSlap]

Agreed!

That's the million $ question, then, isn't it? What's the best way to know is one is mistaken?

 

[Chriliman]

That's the million $ question, then, isn't it? What's the best way to know is one is mistaken?

Well the best way to know you're mistaken is to find the truth. Someone who's mistaken doesn't necessarily know their mistaken unless someone else tells them the truth or they discover the truth on their own.

 

[quatona]

Well the best way to know you're mistaken is to find the truth.

 

[Ana the Ist]

A purpose for our existence points to God. I think this is by design.

This is another example of the brain failing....flawed logic.

 

[Chriliman]

This is another example of the brain failing....flawed logic.

You think its flawed because you do not believe we are meant to want to know the truth. You think we just happen to want to know the truth because we evolved in such a way that made us capable of understanding that things are true, but you don't believe there is a highest truth that can explain everything we perceive. I do believe there is a highest truth that can explain everything we perceive, please explain how this makes my logic flawed?

The only way you could explain it is if you could show that there isn't a highest truth that can explain everything, except in doing so you'd prove yourself wrong because to show this, you would be relying on a highest truth to explain that there isn't a highest truth, thus contradicting yourself.

All this to simply say, you have no grounds to call my logic flawed because my logic is based on the belief that there is a highest truth that can explain everything.

 

[bhsmte]

Well the best way to know you're mistaken is to find the truth. Someone who's mistaken doesn't necessarily know their mistaken unless someone else tells them the truth or they discover the truth on their own.

You are skipping a step.