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dime_novel_heroThe conversation started to go bad when she said her house was haunted.
The discussion on the steampunk chat room had started out normal enough and went through many of the strange associations that conversations take: Doctor Steel. The Time Machine. Books for children. H. P. Lovecraft. Dreams. Nightmares. When she said that part of the stress that caused her insomnia was in seeing a ghost in her house, I suggested ignoring it because it was a figment of her stressed imagination.
I know from experience that when I am stressed, I will not sleep well. I will wake up but still be in a dream state, seeing dream-things in my room. I will also have night paralysis where I will wake up from a bad dream and not be able to move. My life isn't as stressful as it used to be so these things don't happen as often as they used to but, when they do, I understand that they are dreams, semi-dream hallucinations and an electrochemical failure. There is a part of the brain that is supposed to turn off when you're sleeping so that you don't move about while dreaming. Well, sometimes you can wake up but still have that part of your brain shut off so that you can't move. It can be pretty scary but, knowing what it is, I am not terrified by it anymore.
The person I was talking to, however, was convinced of the reality of the supernatural. I wont go into all the paths that we went down (damn, I wish there was a chat log) but it ranged around quite a bit on her part trying to convince me it was true because she had first hand experience and my asking for the real evidence, something not based on eyewitness accounts and feelings because those are proven to be unreliable.
But where things went really wrong is when she tried to convince me that the odds of the supernaturals existence were even.
See if you can follow this logic (which I have paraphrased. I hope I got it right.): Either the supernatural exists or it doesn't. Therefore, it is even odds and my belief is just as valid as yours.
Now, I've read of this logical fallacy before but I'd never encountered it directly and I'd never done the dance to try to challenge it. I relied on the lightning analogy. What are the odds of me being struck by lightning? If I remember the numbers correctly, the odds are about 1 in 3 Million. I could get struck by lightning but, the vast majority of the time I am not going to be so that small possibility is not worth paying attention to. The same with the existence of the supernatural. Sure, it's possible but, with absolutely no physical or scientific evidence, there is no reason to believe the odds of its existence are very high. Very likely much less that the odds of being struck by lightning. So low as to say it probably doesn't exist.
Her counter, over and over again, was that if I step outside I could be struck by lightning or I could not be struck by lightning. That's 50/50.
No. No. No. That's not how probability works. The outcome does not define the probability of that outcome. To say that something is possible does not make it equally probable. If the odds really were 50/50, then a lot more people would be struck by lightning. Half of all people. She said that there are variables that can change that but it's still basically 50/50 and I responded that all those variables are factored into the 1 in 3 Million number.
I only thought of this analogy after the conversation: Let's say I have a 6 sided die. When I roll that die there are two possible outcomes. I could roll a one or I could roll something other than a one. 50/50, right? No. Not at all. On a 6 sided die the probability of rolling a 1 is clearly 1 in 6. So, if I had a 3 Million sided die and on a one I get struck by lightning and on a roll of something not a one I don't get struck by lightning, what are the odds? Not 50/50. Because there are 2,9999,999 different ways not to roll a 1.
The analogy probably wouldn't have worked, anyway. At some point they (there was a second person who was taking the woo side) started using arguments like "2+2=22" and implying that different perceptions lead to different answers.
And this person claimed to be a physics teacher. I wonder what would happen if one of her students attempted to use that creative math. Odd are, she'd flunk him.
"What if you were struck by lightning tomorrow?" they asked, trying to get me to admit that such a thing would have not been coincidence.
"It would be an incredible coincidence but nothing more because I have used the 'struck by lightning' analogy nomerous times and not been struck by lightning. We tend to remember the successes and ignore the misses, imagining a pattern where there really is none."
When the primary "even odds" proponent left the room, the second string stepped up and started invoking the name of god and faith, again, trying to trap me in some sort of admission of sciencism. That I have faith in science. That it is some sort of religion.
"Do you have faith that your wife won't cheat on you?"
"No. I cave confidence that she won't."
"What's the difference?"
"Confidence is based on observational evidence. I have known my wife for over 20 years. She hasn't cheated on me in that time. I understand how she behaves. Why she acts the way she does. Those decades of experience given me confidence that she will not cheat on me in the future. It's possible she could. I can imagine the circumstances that would lead to such a thing but the evidence leads me to conclude that the probability of her cheating on me is so low as to not bother considering.
On the other hand, faith is not based on observational evidence. In fact, faith is a belief in spite of evidence. The sort of faith that women of domestic abuse have that their husbands love them when all the evidence is that they are filled with nothing but hate. Faith is a delusion that flies in the face of all evidence."
She didn't have a counter to that argument except to say that I can't prove the supernatural doesn't exist, a common tactic of apologists. While it is true that you can't disprove the negative, it's not for me to debunk your assertion. It is the responsibility of the claimant to provide positive proof of their claim. If the supernatural exists, show me the evidence. Real, verifiable evidence.
She then said that I sounded like a bible thumper, which is another common tactic of religious apologists. I again stated that I was merely asking for evidence, not demanding that you believe the way I do with the alternative being eternal damnation.
Then she tried the, "we believe what we want, why can't you just leave us alone?" invoking the persecution complex. Once more I said that I was asking for the evidence of their claim. If they had any evidence at all then they wouldn't have to put up with people asking for it all the time. Like those conspiracy theorists who claim secret knowledge or the UFOlogists who claim they have the evidence but never actually produce any of it. One alien body. One piece of bigfoot DNA. A cup of ghostly protoplasm. Produce it and you get to be king of the world.
Then came the coup de grâce, she said that I was just trying to drown her out so I could get the last word.
Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!"
But I walked into it. No, the last word would be your presentation of actual evidence. If it was verifiable, testable, independently verified and real, there would be nothing I could say after that. I would have no choice but to accept the reality. Where is it? Where is your evidence?
Then she said that I proved her point and bid me good night.
And the evening started out so well.
The discussion on the steampunk chat room had started out normal enough and went through many of the strange associations that conversations take: Doctor Steel. The Time Machine. Books for children. H. P. Lovecraft. Dreams. Nightmares. When she said that part of the stress that caused her insomnia was in seeing a ghost in her house, I suggested ignoring it because it was a figment of her stressed imagination.
I know from experience that when I am stressed, I will not sleep well. I will wake up but still be in a dream state, seeing dream-things in my room. I will also have night paralysis where I will wake up from a bad dream and not be able to move. My life isn't as stressful as it used to be so these things don't happen as often as they used to but, when they do, I understand that they are dreams, semi-dream hallucinations and an electrochemical failure. There is a part of the brain that is supposed to turn off when you're sleeping so that you don't move about while dreaming. Well, sometimes you can wake up but still have that part of your brain shut off so that you can't move. It can be pretty scary but, knowing what it is, I am not terrified by it anymore.
The person I was talking to, however, was convinced of the reality of the supernatural. I wont go into all the paths that we went down (damn, I wish there was a chat log) but it ranged around quite a bit on her part trying to convince me it was true because she had first hand experience and my asking for the real evidence, something not based on eyewitness accounts and feelings because those are proven to be unreliable.
But where things went really wrong is when she tried to convince me that the odds of the supernaturals existence were even.
See if you can follow this logic (which I have paraphrased. I hope I got it right.): Either the supernatural exists or it doesn't. Therefore, it is even odds and my belief is just as valid as yours.
Now, I've read of this logical fallacy before but I'd never encountered it directly and I'd never done the dance to try to challenge it. I relied on the lightning analogy. What are the odds of me being struck by lightning? If I remember the numbers correctly, the odds are about 1 in 3 Million. I could get struck by lightning but, the vast majority of the time I am not going to be so that small possibility is not worth paying attention to. The same with the existence of the supernatural. Sure, it's possible but, with absolutely no physical or scientific evidence, there is no reason to believe the odds of its existence are very high. Very likely much less that the odds of being struck by lightning. So low as to say it probably doesn't exist.
Her counter, over and over again, was that if I step outside I could be struck by lightning or I could not be struck by lightning. That's 50/50.
No. No. No. That's not how probability works. The outcome does not define the probability of that outcome. To say that something is possible does not make it equally probable. If the odds really were 50/50, then a lot more people would be struck by lightning. Half of all people. She said that there are variables that can change that but it's still basically 50/50 and I responded that all those variables are factored into the 1 in 3 Million number.
I only thought of this analogy after the conversation: Let's say I have a 6 sided die. When I roll that die there are two possible outcomes. I could roll a one or I could roll something other than a one. 50/50, right? No. Not at all. On a 6 sided die the probability of rolling a 1 is clearly 1 in 6. So, if I had a 3 Million sided die and on a one I get struck by lightning and on a roll of something not a one I don't get struck by lightning, what are the odds? Not 50/50. Because there are 2,9999,999 different ways not to roll a 1.
The analogy probably wouldn't have worked, anyway. At some point they (there was a second person who was taking the woo side) started using arguments like "2+2=22" and implying that different perceptions lead to different answers.
And this person claimed to be a physics teacher. I wonder what would happen if one of her students attempted to use that creative math. Odd are, she'd flunk him.
"What if you were struck by lightning tomorrow?" they asked, trying to get me to admit that such a thing would have not been coincidence.
"It would be an incredible coincidence but nothing more because I have used the 'struck by lightning' analogy nomerous times and not been struck by lightning. We tend to remember the successes and ignore the misses, imagining a pattern where there really is none."
When the primary "even odds" proponent left the room, the second string stepped up and started invoking the name of god and faith, again, trying to trap me in some sort of admission of sciencism. That I have faith in science. That it is some sort of religion.
"Do you have faith that your wife won't cheat on you?"
"No. I cave confidence that she won't."
"What's the difference?"
"Confidence is based on observational evidence. I have known my wife for over 20 years. She hasn't cheated on me in that time. I understand how she behaves. Why she acts the way she does. Those decades of experience given me confidence that she will not cheat on me in the future. It's possible she could. I can imagine the circumstances that would lead to such a thing but the evidence leads me to conclude that the probability of her cheating on me is so low as to not bother considering.
On the other hand, faith is not based on observational evidence. In fact, faith is a belief in spite of evidence. The sort of faith that women of domestic abuse have that their husbands love them when all the evidence is that they are filled with nothing but hate. Faith is a delusion that flies in the face of all evidence."
She didn't have a counter to that argument except to say that I can't prove the supernatural doesn't exist, a common tactic of apologists. While it is true that you can't disprove the negative, it's not for me to debunk your assertion. It is the responsibility of the claimant to provide positive proof of their claim. If the supernatural exists, show me the evidence. Real, verifiable evidence.
She then said that I sounded like a bible thumper, which is another common tactic of religious apologists. I again stated that I was merely asking for evidence, not demanding that you believe the way I do with the alternative being eternal damnation.
Then she tried the, "we believe what we want, why can't you just leave us alone?" invoking the persecution complex. Once more I said that I was asking for the evidence of their claim. If they had any evidence at all then they wouldn't have to put up with people asking for it all the time. Like those conspiracy theorists who claim secret knowledge or the UFOlogists who claim they have the evidence but never actually produce any of it. One alien body. One piece of bigfoot DNA. A cup of ghostly protoplasm. Produce it and you get to be king of the world.
Then came the coup de grâce, she said that I was just trying to drown her out so I could get the last word.
Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!"
But I walked into it. No, the last word would be your presentation of actual evidence. If it was verifiable, testable, independently verified and real, there would be nothing I could say after that. I would have no choice but to accept the reality. Where is it? Where is your evidence?
Then she said that I proved her point and bid me good night.
And the evening started out so well.
