Anyone here who sees the unseen?

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I looked up the flicker for fluorescent lights, what would have been in your classroom:

http://www.scn.org/autistics/fluorescents.html



Interestingly, the page is in reference to workplace accomodations for autism. So it may be that the figure for perceiving 100 or 120 Hz is higher than 1 in 4,000 which only refers to percieving below 70Hz. They suggest other types of lighting, including LEDs. So you may be in that itty, bitty subset of people who wouldn't be helped by their suggested accomodation even though other AS people would.



Indeed, but maybe perceiving the higher but still generally imperceptible ranges is more common in AS people. It may also be that NTs are perceiving this 100 Hz flicker but are far less aggravated by it and can tune it out.

Almost nobody will say "there is no possibility whatsoever of a supernatural being existing".

However, in everyday speech it is perfectly reasonable to say that we "know" things that we can be almost certain of. Indeed, what are beliefs if not statements we hold to be true? In effect, the words "I believe" are redundant, unless you simply want to state your belief in a way of making it immune from criticism.

The default position, by the way, is always anti-belief until there is evidence to support it.

Doesn't describing something with terms like, "seeing the unseen", or even using the word, "supernatural", convey a dismissal of these subjects? It's like saying, "have you seen X, and are you therefore delusional?" If I pick up a book about strange phenomena, it sets off alarm bells when people use this kind of terminology, because it suggests that the author is approaching their subject in a less than open minded and scientific manner.

RE: The bolded text

Responding to different posters sequentially does not equate to "sneaking".

Atheism =/= "strong atheism"

"Strong atheism" or "hard atheism" is an ideology whereas "atheism" is not.

Atheism is not an ideology, but it has been used as the basis for one (strong atheism). What you are saying is like claiming Jesus Christ is an ideology because Christianity is an ideology.

For evidence of your semantic trickery (which was the claim you made against myself) one need only understand the various meanings of belief and then apply those definitions to the instances of belief, along with its variants, in your posts.

Perhaps the issue here is one of language - you stated that you are not a native English speaker - and so I will grant the benefit of doubt and assume the strawman that forms the entire basis of the quoted text is accidental. That does not excuse the derogatory tone of parts of your previous posts, however.

The part that I separated into its constituent parts consisted of a series of disconnected ideas with no logical progression that were poorly put together in order to create an unsound platform for your conclusions. It was necessary to address each point separately to point out the flaws in your reasoning. If you claim I have misinterpreted your words or ignored context you will have to provide a reason for your claim other than (e.g.) "I don't like it".

Considering the patience I have demonstrated in my responses to you, and the manner in which I have addressed only your actual words, your repeated suggestion that I am a "troll" is spurious to say the least. Would you care to reciprocate?

Pfft, everyone knows that's it's SOP for trolls to carefully fisk out esoteric arguments and explain their lines of reasoning down to the nth degree, you're not fooling anyone!

Interesting. Perhaps most of the 1 in 4000 have an ASD? I've done some cursory googling but can't find a relevant study.

On this subject, 120hz and higher monitors have been a revelation. I cannot recommend them highly enough for anyone who struggles with 70 and under. More problematic are those horrible energy-saving light bulbs and their high pitched screaming and flickering low frequency emissions.



Curses! You got me!

Though it occurs to me that someone might read that and think you were being literal, despite the smiley.

@aghogday

I'm not sure how I missed your response - and those below your last post on the previous page. Thanks for the insight into how you perceive the world. The stand out point of interest for me was:



I too find it fascinating. I'm one of the minority of primarily auditory thinkers. Whilst I find audition to be incalculably more simple than visualisation, I'm not completely mind-blind per se. For example, I can "listen" to a piece of music I've heard, or create new compositions entirely within my head. I can recognise people I'm familiar with by their footsteps - everyone has a unique rhythm and weight of stride. On the other hand, it is no simple task to conjure the face of a loved one or close friend in my mind's eye.

A key phrase you used (not quoted here) is "reduced ability to imagine through visualization". That would be an apt description. Though I don't have difficulty with visual problem solving, I don't excel at it either.

I don't see a connection between impaired inner visual acuity and the absence of faith. There is a solid argument, though, that the message of most religions is not efficiently designed for consumption by an aurally-oriented thinker.

I thought I saw a ghost one time, but it turned out to be my own reflection in the kitchen window.

I near s**t myself though.

No it doesn't. This is the plausible device hardcore atheism used to deflect all burden of justification away from anything its side says. Its flaw is that it creates a double standard, forbidding active belief in anything on balance of likelihood while allowing disbelief on balance of likelihood. Always defaulting to disbelief may not match which way the evidence points on balance of likelihood, so does not reflect reality impartially.

When something can neither be conclusively proved nor disproved, we are left with balance of evidence and what it shows of balance of likelihood. Burden of showing the balance of evidence favours your view falls equally upon the contenders from both sides. Rationality is supposed to mean listening to evidence - you are keen enough to go on about that with things there is no evidence for. So, when something is quite well evidenced but not conclusively proved, it is not rational to say that therefore you call all the evidence a delusion and write it off. That is not listening to evidence on the merits of its content.
Not on its own. But it becomes so when it is argued from evidence actively suggestive of the postulate being true. When atheism is actually argued for instead of just asserted by default, most argument for it looks at flaws or apparent lack of forward planning in the universe, and contends from that suggestive evidence that it might reasonably be true.

Pardon me.

That is not what "the burden of proof" means.

In order to believe in something, good evidence must be presented.

No good evidence has been presented for the existence of a god.

Therefore, it is irrational to believe in a god.

Non-believers do not need to present the evidence against the existence of god. They have to be reasonable with any evidence that is ever presented, but, as you cannot easily prove a negative, they do not need to provide evidence of their own.

meH, Classical PanTHEIST leaning folks have been around way before complex written communication per example of the American Indian. They believed and still believe in the GOD of nature and so do I. Not really hard to prove THE GOD of nature for anyone who has eyes to see inside, outside, above so below. In other words, a mind for observation and PROOF of the real GOD; IT, YES GOD is hard to miss unless someone has their nose stuck in a book. I go in the backyard everyday and find GOD when I get off this two dimensional box.

YES, the NATURE THAT IS GOD, IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ESCAPE, and who knows perhaps after life too, but science is way too small to approach the subject of INFINITY. I trust in the GOD of nature as NOW; that is all any animal, including humans, really need to know for simple balance in now, in living life; the TRUE gift from the GOD of nature.

I say it's time we take GOD BACK, from folks who believe in pretend GODS. There is only ONE GOD; the GOD of nature, and even the real man Jesus according to the Gospel of Thomas, said the same thing in 'so many empty humans written words', for those without meaning to 'see' them.

In the world there are some minds subject to conspiracy theories as science does now show, and there are some who simply want to expand their human potential in accordance with the GOD of nature to be set free.

No one fools mother nature; never before and never now; in the future, only WHO knows; and yes GOD is WHO too.

And HELL NO i'm not preaching; this is just my extremely educated opinion :); Zealot style.

If I define GOD as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the I can see it too. It's misleading to say nature is GOD, because the word GOD obviously has different connotations than nature.

My answer to "do you ever see things that don't seem real?" was "how would I know?"

Now, if I were to answer that question today, I would make a cynical comment about special effects in movies like "The Incredible Hulk didn't seem very realistic when I watched it."

it is meant to be derogatory becuse your plainly an idiot - being highly 'logical' and analytical as you seem to want to present yourself doesnt make you any less of a selectively-sighted fool. but im going to do what yuor doing and just chalk it up to language because most of your arguments yuo set up make no sense and contradict what yuo say earlier (like your position that atheism wasnt a belief and it coulldnt possibly be an idealogy, whether we just want to calll it "atheism" or specify "srong atheism" or whatevre else, which is what i called you out to begin with [with your nonsense of it isnt a belief if its an absence of belief when that was only a happy accidennt of a fools semantics], that is what a belief and it form basis of idealogies, and then which yuo decided to go back on in subsequent posts). then you claim i use sematic trickery just becuse i happen to use "system" once which sugests multiple beliefs insted of belief which isnt to speak of all your BS abuot "strong atheismm" and you simply cherry picking what you do and dont want to read and respond to in my posts (the "series of disconnected ideas with no logical progression" is perfect example becuse it made sense when yuo read it all togethre but somehow you instead focus on defining opinion and all the other s**t insted of seeing the whole f-ing quesiton. then yuo just keep setting up more and more BS and trying to turn it around and make it look like my arguments were bad when i blew the one i was originally have contention with out of the water (that atheism isnt a belief) and the fact that you keep going on and on with yuor short sighted overly-analytical jackarsery when i alredy made you eat the words i had a problem and saying im setting up "straw men" is why im calling you an obvious troll. you can go ahead and analyse the bits and pieces of this too, and miss the whole point becuse aparently you cant think outside of a line and like to focus on the details instead of the whole.

Last edited by WildTaltos on 25 Sep 2014, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You've already had a response regarding burden of proof. My thanks to The_Walrus for saving me the trouble there.

The problem with "Well it might be true" as an argument is that it's used after exhausting all possible avenues of presentable evidence as a last-ditch attempt to cling onto an irrational or unreasonable belief. It's perfectly acceptable to start off with a premise of "I think this could be true", but without falsifiable evidence to support your hypothesis you're left with an unfounded belief. "Well it might be true" is essentially an atheistic position. Using it as an argument to support a positive claim of the existence of god or gods is illogical.

Pantheism is as much a theist believe in GOD as any otherTHEIST belief IN GOD. The only difference is it is definitely provable. IN fact, IT is the furthest belief away from Atheism as there is no doubt the GOD OF NATURE, DOES EXIST.

GOD is just a three letter word.

Humans decide the meaning, and that varies as much as the languages of culture. As that is exactly what the abstract concept is, just a THREE LETTER word, when there is no meaning.

Some people see IT, yes GOD, as invisible; I see it as both. My GOD is the biggest GOD imaginable. And again, worldwide and for as long as history and artifacts of pre-history exist, this is a major THEIST way of defining GOD, across the GLOBE, wherever humans live closer to nature, and farther away from abstract complex language and the byproducts of complex culture that do bring GREAT ILLUSION, for any possibility of having a balanced animal life.

My GOD works very well to keep me balanced and happy. And that truly is all that counts in the REAL world, when ALL is said and DONE.

But if you want to call GOD a Peanut Butter Sandwich, go ahead; it's a very small part of GOD but NEVER the less a part of the GOD of nature; AGAIN, NEVER the less.

I guess my criticism is why not just abandon the word GOD and just use nature, if they mean the same thing. GOD implies an entity in control and nature is self controlled or non controlled. Nature implies nothing other than nature.

I believe we need to make a clean break from nature, like the ants and termites do. They live in separate artificial environments created for their needs. The more we do with nature, the more we screw it up.