Message #19771

[mccoy]

SI, there is no other proof than subjective proof, and that can be indeed tainted by imagination.

On the other side, there are minds which can by nature (not my case) or by development (my case I reckon) analyze in an objective way such episodes and assign an objective degree of reliability to their objective existence.

In other words, I can remember all the past occurrances of supernatural episodes in my life (not all of them glamorous many subtle) and assign subjective degrees of reliability to them, often using an objective bayesian procedure. The bayesian method has been formulated by Reverend Thomas Bayes in the late 17th century and has been recognized to be the way human reasoning often proceeds.

We have an a priori probability, which depends on the objective knowledge in that field.
We have an empirical probability (likelyhood), which depends on data collected
We have a posterior probability,   mathematical conditional combination of a priori and likelyhood function.

I may come up with a posterior probability that describes the degree of reliability of such supernatural experience (the probability that it is indeed objective and not a figment of my own fantasy or imagination).

I'll start up with a 50% priori, which means total neutrality; the experience has the same probability of being true or false. This because I want to start in the less biased way as possible. I may also change the priori, for example, noticing that I was in a very lucid and objective state of mind, no influences, so the a priori probability was less favourable to imagination.

The critical analysis of the experience, any connection with hard evidence or the lack of it, can yield a likelyhood score, always expressed in unitary likelyhood: zero= experience imagined; 1 or 100% = experience absolutely true and objective.

I don't know if you guys followed me but, when I have time, I may prepare a very simple calcsheet based on the conjugate normal priors by which anyone can apply such method.

I'd like to score some of my past experiences. It is crucial that the evaluator, ourselves, be objective, critical and not influenced by the outcome.

Some of my past supernatural experiences woudl score a very high degree of probability of being true.

For example my experience of seeing with the astral sight while sleeping.
Or my experience of being X-rayed by a clarvoyant who told me an anatomic detail she would have never been able to know in other ways.

Some others would rate low. For example my seeing or dreaming the devil pretty often as a young boy.

Subjective spiritual experiences are more difficult to rate, as Steve implies since they are often tenuos or subtle. The best discrimination should apply there.

As soon as I'll prepare the spreadsheet I'll publish it here with a case history.