On what basis? If reality from one perspective can be wrong, why would a statistical generalization of many potentially flawed ideas be right? According to that logic, if 99.999% of the population believe that lead floats on water, then it does.

What is a faller? I think you mean a person able to observe, measure and record the airborne vibration, or the movement of the tree, etc.

Measurements of vibrations are meaingless until someone interprets them.

The act of interpretation itself employs the senses (reading the meter e.g.), and the concept drawn from such raw data rests on sensual experience; if we had not ourselves moved around, bumped into things and lived in the sensual world, what would vibrations or pressure waves mean to us?

Events may well occur independent of our perception of them (I would guess so), but the point here is that that cannot be known. On the other hand, I do know that my own experiences exist.

He is said to have travelled into the future by whom? What does that even mean? Are you serious? ...:sarcastic:

Exactly. That cannot be known.

Percpetions come from the brain. The mind comes from the brain. Consciousness cannot exist independently from the brain.

Scientific research indicates that certain brain functions relate to certain mental functions. They cannot explain the mechanism though, and not because they havn't done enough research. It is an impossibility. It makes no sense at all. Material things do not afffect immaterial things.

Kielicious,
What does it mean for someone to travel into the future? Nothing. I'm familiar with the theory of relativity, it isn't relevant to this discussion. By my definition, the future is 'that which has yet to happen.' Therefore, by definition, one cannot travel into the future, as that would entail experiencing what has yet to be experienced. That is NONSENSE in the strictest, non-derogatory sense of the word.

How does a brain create perceptions? How does a material thing give rise to an immaterial thing? Short answer; it dosen't, there are no things, only mental constructions.

Scientific research indicates that certain brain functions relate to certain mental functions. They cannot explain the mechanism though, and not because they havn't done enough research. It is an impossibility. It makes no sense at all. Material things do not afffect immaterial things.

There is no standard by which to judge any experience and a statistical generalization is not necessarily accurate. If the majority of people were in error, it would be less accurate.

There is no distinction between this and the example with lead. Per your logic, that the sum of all perspectives must reflect a more accurate picture of reality than any one perspective, a population convinced that lead floats would be correct. The lone man who thought otherwise would be incorrect.

This is an assumption, which is fine if you acknowledge it as such. No one observed those events. They exist only in the minds of people who think about things like this (that is all we know for sure; those events could have happened, but we do not know).

Until meaning is assigned to them, they do not exist. What do we refer to when we say 'they': a meaningless event that cannot be understood in terms of anything we have ever experienced? If so, then we are talking about nothing. If not, then the 'thing happening' is dependent on the thing having meaning, which can only be given it by us.

... actually, statistical generalization is the standard ...

What do you mean by intersubjective?

Yes it is. That's the idea. :bigsmile:

I don't think we can get anywhere because you are assuming from the beginning that an independent external world exists, whereas I am not.

... that's a little anthropocentric, don'tcha think? ... even if humans disappeared tomorrow, wouldn't the experience of apes, dogs, birds, etc. keep things going? ... but even that is a bit too terracentric for me ... and it seems to ignore the kinds of experience (e.g., study of the traces of past events that have been left behind in the present) that lead to scientific theories such as the evolution of the universe and life on Earth ...

Sure, without humans those experiences would continue, but there would be no beings with memory, and thus, no past, and no beings with deliberative capabilities so the future is nothing other than a probability of possibilities.

... you obviously haven't met my dogs ... they remember all kinds of things ... and they can predict with almost perfect accuracy when bed-time potty time is (unless they've also learned how to read clocks! ) ...

That is a different type of memory.