Hello again Zak

As for what you regard us to be, so what!

You ask for my opinion, then you dismiss it because it's only my opinion! Is this what they call skeptic-logic?

I don't recall ever asking your opinion of us and I don't care one way or the other what you think of us. I'm not here to get you, or anyone else, to like me or admire me or think anything else in particular of me I can't speak for the others here of course.

I would suggest that it is best to always apply critical thinking even to personal experience.

So now my direct, personal experience isn't "valid" unless I apply critical thinking to it? I'm sure you can't be seriously suggesting anything so absurd and illogical - can you?

Are you naive enough to believe that people don't suffer from all sorts of illusions, delusions and self deceptions in their personal experiences, that we can't, even when totally convinced we have experienced something, ever be wrong. To a Schizophrenic the voices are a totally real personal experience. The pilot who damaged his 737 on landing in the rain had direct sensory information that he was on the correct approach, unfortunately, due to an optical illusion caused by the rain, the ground was closer then his direct personal sensory experience told him and he failed to flare. Yes they're extreme examples but errors in perception and miss-interpretations of even the most personal experiences are all too common so yes critical thinking should always be applied to avoid the pitfalls.

Ah, the old "the senses are unreliable" argument. I was wondering when we'd get to that. Completely bogus, of course, since all observations are ultimately sensory/extrasensory.

Far from a bogus observation this is simple fact. Yes all our inputs are from our senses but we must recognize, if we wish to avoid falling into self deception, that any of these can be false, or to some extent distorted, so we must always try to rule this possibility out. Recognizing the fallible nature of all our sensory inputs allows us to apply critical thinking to rule out as many potential sources of delusion as possible.

You can believe and still hold a skeptical view that other explanations must be ruled out, that future evidence could change your mind even if you are currently firmly convinced of these things.

Silly stuff. You're talking about belief: I'm talking about experience. Direct experience is not the same thing as belief. A belief can be wrong: an experience cannot. (Oh yes, it can be delusory, but delusions are real experiences.)

Sure what your senses tell you is a real perception but it is not, in the case of delusions, based in any external reality, at least not wholly by definition. Thus, if we're interested in the real world out there and not just what our fallible sense tell us, we have to try to eliminate as many of these distortions and errors as possible.

Being skeptical does not mean you don't believe anything it is the mindset of weighing up the evidence before and after forming beliefs, of holding all positions as open to revision with logic and evidence even your current most deeply held beliefs.

I know what being skeptical means; so I presume the above was for the benefit of your fellow Factoids?

Your statement above contradicts this claim so no this was for your benefit as you seem to only selectively apply this rule to yourself and your position. You falsely exclude your own direct experience and the beliefs based on them from critical evaluation. I wished to point out this omission, this error, to you.

It is the mindset of trying very hard to base your beliefs on reality and not on delusions and self-deceptions now and into the future. That does not mean that you don't believe anything or that you loose your skepticism just because you have experienced something yourself.

What an unnecessarily convoluted mind you have.

The simple answer is always the bet hey Zak? Forget the strong evidence that we can and do regularly delude ourselves and make errors.

That does not mean that you don't believe anything or that you loose your skepticism just because you have experienced something yourself. Skepticism allows belief but tempered with the knowledge that future evidence might force a change in that belief.

Again you're confusing experience with belief. If I run headlong into a brick wall and crack my skull I am unlikely to be in any doubt whatsoever as to the physical properties of brick walls. I would not merely believe that brick walls were not the best things to run into, I would know damn well that they weren't. In the unlikely event that future evidence altered my belief about this - eg if I ran headlong into another wall and I discovered it to be soft and painless - then that would be a new and separate experience, and my belief about the solidity of brick walls would be modified accordingly.

Exactly the point, to be able to modify your beliefs about brick walls you have to hold your beliefs about them in a skeptical way. You have to be open to the possibility that your initial perception was wrong or at least not the whole story.

If there is no dishonesty or bias, why aren't any of my messages archived with headings like "Zak wipes the floor with Richard", or "Zak totally demolishes Pierre's dumb and dangerous argument"?

IMHO it has not happened yet but when it does I'll be glad to include such a heading. In fact there is one example of

The messages have been selected to show your Factoids in the best possible light, and to show me in the worst possible light. A stranger, who had not followed these discussions, would form the impression, from reading your archives, that I had made one or two nonsensical and poorly argued points, and that I had the IQ of a fruit fly, and that every point I made had been effectively countered and rebutted by "members" of FACTS. This might be your fantasy, but it certainly isn't the truth. Therefore your archives are misleading and dishonest.

I guess your apparent IQ and the effectiveness of your arguments is a point of contention here, I would suggest that your case and your counter arguments in the AID's discussion were in fact not effective. Though thorough and containing a great deal of evidence I for one did not find it convincing. I believe that Pierre did best you in that one and I have been following the AID's problem for many years now in the medical and scientific literature and through a number of sufferers of my acquaintance. Your position is a fringe position and I believe for very good reason.

On the AID's thread you've been offered the opportunity to reply six times now that I am aware of, take it or drop it, this is getting boring Zak.

Russell