I come from a science background, so I am well aware of the fallibility of the human mind and personal experience, which is why I disagree with many such beliefs. But discussion of evidence, reasoning, and rationality is much broader than just scientific evidence, with epistemology being a branch of philosophy, not science. And this isn't necessarily an issue of correct vs. wrong, but difference between sound and valid logic, that a reasonable person can come to unusual conclusions if given unusual premises.
You missed part of the point of the bit about saying what clouds look like. Saying a cloud looks like a bunny is not about classifying clouds or accurately convey the shape of the cloud in detail like a photo would, but about conveying what the cloud looks like to that person, their interpretation of it, or sometimes their state of mind.
The mixed bag matters, because you are still treating everything as a scientific claim, when not all such people are making such testable claims. Talking about spirit in the abstract identify sense is like the cliche abstract example of love. Love itself has no physical presence or direct physical impact, but instead is a nebulously defined collection of actions, feelings, and emotions that are what is actually affecting the world. In one such sense, a spirit is just a abstract representation of a collection of feelings, experiences and aspects of a person, and exists as much as that person does, and has physical impact as much as those aspects of the person does. It is a description, an act of conveyance
Unless you are trying to argue there should be no claims or statements outside of scientific claims, and are discounting all of philosophy and most of art...
I come from a science background, so I am well aware of the fallibility of the human mind and personal experience, which is why I disagree with many such beliefs. But discussion of evidence, reasoning, and rationality is much broader than just scientific evidence, with epistemology being a branch of philosophy, not science. And this isn't necessarily an issue of correct vs. wrong, but difference between sound and valid logic, that a reasonable person can come to unusual conclusions if given unusual premises.
You missed part of the point of the bit about saying what clouds look like. Saying a cloud looks like a bunny is not about classifying clouds or accurately convey the shape of the cloud in detail like a photo would, but about conveying what the cloud looks like to that person, their interpretation of it, or sometimes their state of mind.
The mixed bag matters, because you are still treating everything as a scientific claim, when not all such people are making such testable claims. Talking about spirit in the abstract identify sense is like the cliche abstract example of love. Love itself has no physical presence or direct physical impact, but instead is a nebulously defined collection of actions, feelings, and emotions that are what is actually affecting the world. In one such sense, a spirit is just a abstract representation of a collection of feelings, experiences and aspects of a person, and exists as much as that person does, and has physical impact as much as those aspects of the person does. It is a description, an act of conveyance
Unless you are trying to argue there should be no claims or statements outside of scientific claims, and are discounting all of philosophy and most of art...