Just to take a question one step farther.... If you experienced something that you could not reproduce -- a vision (while not under the influence of any substances that might induce hallucination) for example -- would you take that as evidence for yourself, even if you didn't expect anyone else to take it?
I think that's the gap I've been trying to jump.
If I had a vision that was not reproducable by others, I would seek professional psychiatric care.
I think that's the gap I've been trying to jump.
Sorry, I see no gap here.
I appreciate your point. The difference is that we can measure whether or not someone is having a hallucination or experiencing an external phenomenon. Though a person may not be able to say whether an event was a hallucination or an external phenomenon, the important point is that metrics exist that CAN make this determination and therefore can falsify any assertion that it was one thing or another.
Nobody can know the validity of any assertion that isn't falsifiable. Having faith in something for which the validity of the underlying assumptions are themselves in question looks very strange and generally meets the definitions of a couple psych pathologies. The problem is that once you are inside such an ipso facto invalid reasoning path, it is hard to break out as that would require re-evaluating core assumptions and most people's epistemologies simply aren't up to the task.
Indeed, arguably the single biggest points of contention in these threads revolve around differing fundamental epistemologies. This is the REAL difference between both sides, but no one is addressing it. We are arguing conclusions derived from different premises. And since I brought it up, some epistemologies are clearly better (e.g. more general) than others.