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Originally posted by MrPenny
Originally posted by euclid
As I said no one here knows what it is to be a true skeptic.
But, now any skeptic who reads this post has no excuse.... they know and if they continue with their out-of-hand dismissives then they are just guilty as the fanatical believers.
I thought you wrote earlier that you were "probably the only true skeptic on these boards," -- I'm paraphrasing here -- skilled in the practice of "philosophic skepticism"...
So....given your previous breakdown of an image from Mars as being "unknowable" due to the exclusion of any other senses but "'visual".....doesn't the lack of other senses also come into play here? On the Intarnets? This is a "visual" only media....right? Wouldn't that, by your measure, discredit your above assertions and conclusions as incorrect?
Finally....I like how you do that "talking out of both sides of your mouth thing".....that's a skill.
Originally posted by euclid
It isn't visual only
copied/pasted from euclid's posts in this thread
Some information is outside direct phenomenological experience and therefore cannot be knowingly adjudicated. [...]
Nothing that is outside of our direct experience is truly "knowable" [...]
therefore the photos DO NOT MEET THAT REQUISITE CRITERIA AS THEY ARE BASED ON ONLY ONE MODALITY which is "visual" and therefore its true nature is "unknowable"
But, now any skeptic who reads this post has no excuse.... they know and if they continue with their out-of-hand dismissives then they are just guilty as the fanatical believers.
Originally posted by euclid
I really think the only fair alternative is the Comic Relief section.... It doesn't censor the post or delete information or quell the free exchange of ideas.... it just moves the data to the most appropriate bucket. In this case the BS bucket and then once in there the normal rules of decorum should not apply so that people can vent their frustrations at the posters who "contribute" garbage. It's fair. There is nothing wrong with telling some one their idea is total BS.... it's only politically correct not too. And I think that ATS is over-doing it a bit in the politically correct decorum rules. This would provide a place where we can MOCK those posts that are obviously nonsense and completely worthy of being mocked.
-Euclid
Originally posted by euclid
Well.... I don't know about us being the only intelligent life in the multiverse. In fact I believe a lot of stuff that most of ya'll would think was BS. And I would too if I didn'y have first-hand experience of certain things. I experienced strange events throughout my life. I don't post them here because I don't have pictures - just my experiences. On the other hand because I had, and in some instances continue to have, strange experiences it did provide the impetus to look into many different paranormal phenomena, religions, philosophies, science.
Truth is really stranger than fiction.... I believe that almost 95% of REAL paranormal phenomena can be explained by quantum mechanics. Do I believe that there are aliens out "there"... yes. Do I think there is GFL as described in "those" posts.... hell no.
I'm actually a skeptic.... who has had some very strange experiences.... but I can smell BS a mile away - so when people post BS we should have a bucket for it. I think that bucket should be comic relief so that we can all have a good laugh and take pot shots at goofy posts.
Originally posted by euclid
next time I see a SPS (self proclaimed skeptic) saying that a rectangluar "thing" in the sky is a "definitively" a bird, insect, swamp-gas, lens flare, JPEG artifact, et cetera I don't expect any one will be upset when I cuss them out.
Originally posted by euclid
None of the posters here, and others who call themselves skeptics, are true skeptics adhering to the philosophy of Pyrrho - the founder of what we can call skeptic philosophy.
Originally posted by euclid
But the overall generalization is correct. Nothing that is outside of our direct experience is truly "knowable"... do we really know if the sun is a thermo-nuclear reactive mass or some thing else, do we really know what electricty is, do we really know the nature/essence of consciousness, do we really know how trees came into existence, do we really know there was a big bang, do we really know what causes quantum deviations within large gravitaional fields? (I could go on forever) The point is we take much of our understanding based on 2nd, 3rd, & 4th (and more) hand data without direct experential evidence and treat it like the word of god.... and it isn't.
Originally posted by euclid
you're just not smart enough to see/read/understand it or are ignoring it.
Originally posted by rawsom
reply to post by euclid
I'm just wondering whether you realize or not that they are actually just having some fun. Nobody really thinks it is a coin.
Originally posted by euclid
The correct position for a skeptic is indifference due to the fact that this is an unknowable enigma and therefore it is pointless and useless to argue whether it is one thing or another!!!!!!
most skeptics here dismiss things out-of-hand just as much as "believers"
Originally posted by euclid
reply to post by MrPenny
More useless drivel from a mind with no cents.