Evidence – Harmonia Philosophica

The Raven Paradox.

In all your life, have you ever seen a raven that wasn’t black? That probably leads you to conclude that all ravens are black. Of course, it’s impossible to see every raven that ever existed and ever will exist, but from the evidence you have on hand, it’s pretty fair for you to make the statement, “All ravens are black.” Put into a logical form, the argument looks like this:

Proposition 1: All ravens are black.

Evidence 1: This raven is black.

According to logic, the statement “All ravens are black” has the equivalent form “All non-black things are non-ravens” — or in regular English, “Everything that isn’t black isn’t a raven.” The same way that every black raven you see supports your first conclusion, every non-black non-raven you see (A green apple! A school bus! A Smurf!) supports it, too. This builds upon our argument like this:

Proposition 1: All ravens are black.

Proposition 2: All non-black things are non-ravens.

Evidence 1: This raven is black.

Evidence 2: This green apple is not a raven.

Though the raven example is almost absurdly simple, the paradox itself highlights a potential issue with the scientific method. Does every piece of evidence — even a piece of evidence unrelated to your topic (e.g. ravens) — really support your hypothesis, just because it doesn’t contradict it? Is the scientific method taking us into fallacious territory?

Ultimately, though, many argue the raven paradox isn’t so paradoxical. Though it doesn’t jibe with our intuition that a green apple would have a bearing on raven’s hue, that’s a problem with our intuition. A green apple does provide an almost imperceptible grain of support for the “All ravens are black” hypothesis. A black raven just provides a lot more. (1)

We all try to find evidence to support our views.

Trying to prove God exists.

But He does not need evidence.

He simply is.

And the evidence is all around us.

Even when they are not.

Or better: especially when there are not.

Oh…

Look at that raven…

Yes, there is a God.

Look at all the evidence against Him…

Moon landing. Jesus resurrection. Stories told. Stories forgotten.

We recently celebrated the 50 years anniversary of the moon landing. And yet, we saw many headlines of people speaking in favor of a conspiracy theory which wants the moon landing to be a hoax. I will not stand in the details of this funny conspiracy theory. What I will try to do is show how truth can easily be turned into a lie with only one key ingredient added to the recipe: time.

You see we went to the moon not so long ago, but the new generation is already questioning this. It could be for fun, it it could be due to stupidity, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that a story which was held true from one generation is now considered by make as false. An event which was considered the most important event man ever experienced, is now ridiculed by people who see obvious flaws in the story.

But many people went to the moon! one might argue.

Well, many people were resurrected as well.

But resurrection is a miracle, it defies natural laws! one might say.

So does s journey to the moon, for scientists who lived well before Armstrong. (remember that many years ago scientists didn’t even believe we could fly and after that they didn’t believe we could surpass the speed of sound limit)

But we will go again to the moon! one might say.

Sure we will. And many people will resurrect again! (or are they already? Check for NDE-related articles in Harmonia Philosophica)

But many people can testify that the moon landings happen! Well, I have a much better one: Many people DIED because the resurrection happened!

All in all, time along with the arrogance (we know better) and ignorance of newer generations, will always result in the manifestation of one of the major (brain) functions of the human intellect: forgetfulness. Nothing mysterious or fancy. No conspiracies or high-end philosophy. Just plain and raw dementia.

It takes courage to accept your limits. And recognize that what you might not remember could be something you once knew. Because in order to do that you must challenge your own self. Only because deep inside you can never doubt him…

Disappearing geysers. A mystery of the senses. A riddle of the mind…

Now you see it, now you don’t. Europa’s 200-kilometre-high water jets may have been downgraded from major discovery to major mystery. Follow-up searches have yet to see the geysers again, while older observations don’t seem to support their existence. Some people are now wondering if the jets are far rarer than expected – or if they were ever there to begin with.

“It’s a real puzzle now”, said Donald Shemansky of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who presented the analysis of spacecraft data at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on 18 December that contradicted the idea of regularly erupting plumes. (1)

See the evidence.
Formumate theories.

See the evidence again.
Formulate new theories.

What “is” is not.
What you “see” is now gone.

Some things happen only once.
Some things can be exceptions.

Can you believe in miracles?

Free will. Yes, yes, yes… We have one. For the 1000th time, we have one! (ywan) [or: Religion is the Science. Science is Religion]

The vast majority of people think we have free will and are the authors of our own life stories. But if neuroscientists were one day able to predict our every action based on brain scans, would people abandon this belief in droves? A new study concludes that such knowledge would not by itself be enough to shake our confidence in our own volition.

Many neuroscientists, such as the late Francis Crick, have argued that our sense of free will is no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. This is tied to the idea of determinism, which has it that every effect is preceded by a cause, with cause and effect connected by physical laws. This is why the behaviour of physical systems can be predicted – even the brain, in principle.

As author Sam Harris puts it: “If determinism is true, the future is set – and this includes all our future states of mind and our subsequent behaviour”. (1)

Atheists BELIEVE we do not have free will.
Contrary to all empirical data. (yes, they too feel that they have free will!)

The power of belief is great.
And I have said it 1000 times and I am willing to repeat it here (since articles like this keep on coming): We should stop believing things. We should start being scientists! And the empirical data a scientist would trust show that there is a Cause for the existence of the universe, that we have Free Will, that we have a spirit since a set of matter can never become “alive” and experience the “I” we all do.

Religion has become science.
Science has become religion.

Welcome to the 21st century!

Seeing with data. Seeing with your eyes. New vs. Old.

The Boeing 777 airliner that has been missing for more than two weeks crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 passengers and crew, according to a fresh analysis of the satellite data broadcast by the stricken Malaysia Airlines plane.
The news that relatives had dreaded came in an announcement by Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak, who said an analysis by the UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the London-based satellite services provider Inmarsat was of a type never before performed on air incident data. But he is confident in its conclusions. (1)

An aricraft down.
Not because we saw it.
But because the data says so.

Seeing without seeing…
A priviledge of our era.
An era which takes pleasure in ridiculing past days where people were “superstitious”.

But these people had only their senses to rely on.
These people understood the world not through their “logic” but through their experience.
They were true “materialists”.
They were the ones who relied only on evidence.

And they saw (literally) the soul of the cosmos.
They were able to see their importance.
They could sense their immortality.
They could know their spirit.
We are now blind, relying only on our inner beliefs to claim that we are nothing.
Our inner eye has lost its sight.

Open your eyes if your want to see the truth.

Without any “data”…