the role of \"the scientific method\" in agnostic thinking (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, May 31, 2010, 12:41 (5290 days ago) @ dhw

A PS concerning my reply to George's thoughtful posts on this subject. You regard science "as the only reliable method of finding out about anything." I have a degree of sympathy for that view, but there are areas of life to which science has no relevance, and only subjective experience can be used as guidance. I'm talking about spheres of emotion, aesthetics, vocation, intuition, taste etc. Subjective experience alone governs my love for my wife, my boundless admiration for Shakespeare/Beethoven/ Michelangelo, my chosen career, my decision to play forward and not back (cricket shot for the uninitiated), my liking for chocolate and my dislike of ginger. Similarly, if someone I know, respect and trust (my wife, for instance) relates an incident to me, my assumption ... based on subjective experience ... will be that she is telling the truth. I have never met David or BBella in person, but when they relate incidents on this forum, my subjective response is to believe that they too are telling the truth, i.e. that those incidents actually took place. And so we come to what for our discussion is an important borderline. You wrote:-"Claims that such independent proofs have been found in the case, for example, of secret knowledge being found by people who have out-of-body experiences, have never been scientifically justified. They are just anecdotes."-You dismiss the claims, because your own subjective criteria for reliability have not been met. That is your prerogative, but my subjective criteria for reliability will not allow dismissal. You are, of course, right that "there are lots of madmen who believe all sorts of strange things", but if my subjective opinion is that they are mad, I will dismiss their evidence just as you do. However, until my wife, David, BBella, Pim van Lommel and countless others are shown to have deceived us, or to have deceived themselves (or to be mad!), I'm prepared to believe that they have witnessed events and/or acquired knowledge in ways which science cannot (as yet) explain. I will not, however, draw conclusions from those experiences. I simply remain open to possible material and non-material explanations.