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Will_Newsome comments on AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything - Less Wrong
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I agree complex recurrent hallucination in otherwise seemingly psychologically healthy people is rare, which is why the "gods"/psi hypothesis is more compelling to me. For the hallucination hypothesis to hold it would require some kind of species-wide anosognosia or something like it.
I think you misunderstood me.... My position is: Most people don't claim to have seen gods, and gods aren't real. A small percentage of people do have these experiences, but these people are either frauds, hallucinating, or otherwise mistaken.
I don't see why you think the situation is either [everyone is hallucinating] or [gods are real]." It seems clear to me that [most people aren't hallucinating] and [gods aren't real.] Are you under the impression that most people are having direct experiences of gods or other supernatural apparitions?
So how do you explain things like this?
Same as with Bigfoot/Loch Ness Monster. People (especially children) are highly suggestible, hallucinations and optical illusions occur, hoaxes occur. People lie to fit in. These are things that are already known to be true.
Well the miracle of the sun was witnessed by 30,000 to 100,000 people.
How many people witnessed this?
It looks to me as if the two of you are talking past each other. I think knb means "it doesn't seem to me like things that would have to be complex hallucination if there were no gods are that common", and is kinda assuming there are in fact no gods; whereas Will means "actual complex hallucinations aren't common" and is kinda assuming that apparent manifestations of gods (or something of the sort) are common.
I second knb's request that Will give some description of his own encounters with god(s), but I expect him to be unwilling to do so with much detail. [EDITED to add: And in fact I see he's explicitly declined to do so elsewhere in the thread.]
I think hallucination is more common than many people think it is (Oliver Sacks recently wrote a book that I think makes this claim, but I haven't read it), and I am not aware of good evidence that apparent manifestations of gods dramatic enough to be called "outright complex hallucination" are common enough to require a huge fraction of people to be anosognosic if gods aren't real -- Will, if you're reading this, would you care to say more?
Upon further reflection it is very difficult for me to guess what percentage of people experience what evidence and of what nature and intensity. I do not feel comfortable generalizing from the experiences of people in my life, for obvious reasons and some less obvious ones. I believe this doesn't ultimately matter so much for me, personally, because what I've seen implies it is common enough and clear enough to require a perhaps-heavy explanation. But for others trying to guess at more general base rates, I think I don't have much insight to offer.