Paradise (Where is it now?)

by dhw, Sunday, January 03, 2010, 15:10 (5437 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: It's true that we can all make speculations, but what's the point if there is no evidence?-As usual, this depends on what you accept as evidence. For a materialist like yourself, who believes there is nothing beyond the physical world, subjective experience is not acceptable. If you were confronted with the hundreds of thousands of people down through the ages who claim to have experienced mystic or psychic phenomena, reincarnation, spiritualism, near-death journeys into another world etc., you would remain convinced that every authenticated experience could be explained "naturally", and that the rest of the mob were deluded, mad, fraudulent, drunk or drugged. You have no doubt that even though scientists are still unable to explain how globules of matter can produce consciousness, subconsciousness, memory, thought, emotion etc., eventually science will crack the code and come up with a physical explanation. Personally, I don't have a problem with this. It is absolutely right and proper that you should believe whatever you want to believe, and you are free to pick and choose which evidence you consider acceptable and which you do not. Similarly, others are free to accept subjective experience as valid ... particularly when it's their own ... while those of us who remain open-minded will continue to respect both views.-Therefore, I would only dispute statements like: "Without that it's all just fiction", and: "But I know this is science fantasy." The first statement swallows its own tail, since you choose to dismiss the "evidence", and the second is not a matter of knowing but of believing.