I have no interest in letting this thread die.  Its really too important.   I'm going to add just a little more.

In a nutshell, my conclusion up to this point is twofold:  1.  Any relation to 'X' that we might have, assuming we are not X (and having at least one good reason for thinking we aren't), is 'panen.'  Our very existence must be from out of the substance of 'X,' whatever it is.  And 2.  Logic demands that any reliable information about 'X' will have to be revealed to us by X.  Ie, our frame of reference is unable to gain reliable knowledge about X, as it is within the larger frame of reference and restricted, by the very nature of their relationship (see #1).  Information will have to come in.  We cannot go out and get it.

The argument up to this point does not necessarily demand that there is anything 'out there' to reveal itself.  It only sets the parameters about what sort of thing will have to happen in order for us to learn about it.  However, as I said, we have a very good reason for at least considering the possibility that we are not in the final regress, in that X must be without a beginning, and it is very much agreed upon in the Standard Cosmology that our own universe/frame of reference DID have a beginning.

With all that said, then, let us consider the question more closely.  Without knowing anything at all about 'X,' but knowing that except for some raw inferences we will be absent reliable knowledge unless it reveals itself to us, we need to ask ourselves what kind of conditions will allow that to happen.

For example, at this point in the argument, we cannot even know that X has a 'personality.'  We know very little, in fact.  However, we can infer something about motives based on the nature of our universe.  If X's self-revelation to us is to be recognized as speaking directly to it, it has some problems to overcome.  

How can we know we are learning something from X about X that is not merely just an aspect of reality inherent to the universe?*  For example, it is certainly possible that X could just fill our brains with constant communications.  However, how will we be able to distinguish between our own thoughts and X's communications, then?

Perhaps 'X' could reveal itself directly in that format on every person's 20th birthday.  Rather than creditting this to 'X,' naturally we'd just attribute this phenomena as a natural part of being human.   If it was randomized, we'd still believe this as being a natural part of being human.   Especially as it occurs subjectively, such communications could never rise to the level of credibility.

The problems that X has to overcome in order to effectively communicate its existence and its nature are immense and difficult.

However, in order for objective communication to be possible in a way that can allow that communication to reasonably be creditted to X, and not say, simply a property of the universe, our frame of reference must proceed for the most part according to observed 'fixed' laws.  Protocols, if you will.

This, by the way, is not by any means a problem confined for communication between 'X' and us.  This problem exists between us and us.  Most notably, our ability to distinguish on the Internet communications that are derived from other intelligent agents and not just 'system messages' comes from the fact that we have established protocols and standards.  We do no not need to be privvy to these standards in order to make use of them.

If the Internet was completely random, or perhaps more realistically, fractured into hundreds of thousands of different standards, protocols, programming languages, etc, it would be extremely difficult for us to communicate with each other.  When a message did get through, we could not reliably know that it was directed to us.

Communication requires order.  Only if that order exists in a way that allows it to be manipulated into new patterns or what not can communication exist.  This is true just on a human to human basis.

It is even more true in relation to how X might communicate with us.  But the problem is even worse, because we can always dismiss a communication by X as nothing more than a property of the universe.

To this end, then, we need to examine ways that X can communicate with us that could reasonably lead us to think it is more than a property of our universe.  In the first place, we have to have some idea about what the properties of the universe ARE!

So, while we may no little about 'X,' including whether or not it would desire to communicate with us in the first place, we do know that our universe does appear to follow basic orderly laws.  This is a prerequisite for communication, and at least gives us hope to investigate further.

""We'll have to look for REVELATION.""  

"So what precisely should we be looking for?"

That is precisely the question.  If you come across a dead guy with a bullet hole in his head, you go looking for a gun.  You don't go looking for a knife.  If you're looking for a guy who lives over on 28th and Sycamore you don't go looking for him at 10th and Niles.  This question forms the crux for any objective inquiry into theism in general and Christian theism in particular.

Let's start handling your questions...

"How do we know, for example, whether revelation is knowledge that has been revealed to us by something outside our universe or is merely a hallucination or a psychotic episode, or some other mental malfunction whose genesis lies inside our own brains, or even a communication from another, more intelligent lifeform from within our own universe?"

Right.  That's a problem, isn't it?  That's what I was getting at above.  How could we distinguish between an authentic revelation and what might simply be an innate property of the universe or an innage property of our mind.  You speculate that it could be 'mental malfunction.'  Depending on the frequency and the method, you could not know it was a 'malfunction' at all.  For all you know, its the norm for humans.

Its a problem, isn't it?

"Shouldn't we be extremely skeptical of revelation that just so happens to confirm our culture's preexisting biases?"

My position is that we should be skeptical of everything.  But that's just me.  But let me turn it around- if we grant the validity of this (and I'm only willing to go part way, in fact)- do you then allow that we should be especially open to revelation that flies in the face of our culture's preexisting biases?

"If the producer of the revelation has the ability to communicate clearly and unambiguously and intends to do so, shouldn't the revelation that he produces be clear and unambiguous in its meaning?"

Well, first things first.  In my post immediately above, I offered a reason for thinking that X intends to do so.  Information is not possible without the existence of underlying order.  We observe order:  if there is an X, we are justified in exploring whether or not this order is meant to have as an effect (and not limited to this mind you) the ability to communicate.

In the second place, the clarity of the message is not necessarily the mark of a revelation by X or about X.    This is so incredibly important I can't possibly over-emphasize what is to follow.  Please read carefully.  Principles of revelation are fundamentally the same in any context.

To make this point, take your statement and substitute either you or me into it:

"If the producer [sntjohnny/Cogito] of the revelation has the ability to communicate clearly and unambiguously and intends to do so, shouldn't the revelation that he produces be clear and unambiguous in its meaning?"

The principles that undergird our ability to reveal things to each other are the same.  In this particular context, we require the uniformity of various technological protocols, both at the software and hardware levels.  It is only on top of this order that we are able to meaningfully communicate.  

However, you already know I exist.  The highest claims I make for myself in regards to this particular context is that I am the forum owner.

I could reveal things to you all day long without once needing to invoke that elevated status.  However, what if we were to put it to the test?  What if what I was trying to communicate "clearly and unambiguously" not just your average run of the mill banter, but rather that I AM the forum owner?  How could I convince you of this?  The same mechanisms by which I would convince you of this are the very same ones that X would need to communicate not merely something like "don't kill your brother" but "I AM GOD."  That can be communicated easily enough.  That is clear.  But communicating this additional detail- no trifling point- that X is talking, yes that X, that adds an important dynamic.

Think about it.  How could I convince you that I was the forum owner in a clear and unambiguous way, without having an underlying order to the forum which I allow to persist?  How are you able to detect my elevated status, and distinguish clear and ambiguous messages from me from the problems associated with distinguishing clear and ambiguous messages ABOUT me?

Example.  Check the top of the page.  There are four lines.  "Defend and debate" followed by rows of content.  The last row has a content that says "you have no new messages," or, if you have a private message waiting, 'you have messages.'  Are you able to distinguish which of that content is FROM ME and which is generated by the underlying order?  Is there anything unclear about 'Deeper Discourse Permitted and Encouraged"?  I don't think so.  But that is not the sort of 'revelation' we are trying to pin down.

A clear message may be important, but there are additional problems involved when the 'higher' is trying to convince the 'lower' of the truth of the relationship.

Your next paragraph is filled with good questions but my answers are of a varying sort, and I don't think this is yet the right time to deal with them.  But let's go.

"Wouldn't it be helpful if the revelation could be independently confirmed in some way?"

That would be great, wouldn't it?  Something external rather than internal.  Subjective revelations from the higher to the lower may become impossible to distinguish from the lower's own epistemological machinery.

"What if the revelation included new information about the world that was previously unknown?"

Sure.

"For example, if the revelation included the statement that intelligent life would be discovered beneath the surface of Mars on 6/10/12 and then if intelligent life really were discovered there on that date, that would be strong confirmation that the revelation was from a higher intelligence even if not necessarily from one outside the universe."

Well, revelations by 'X' and not merely from a higher intelligence is specifically the problem that we are trying to tackle.  However, take your example above and compare it with your statement below:

"As Thomas Paine, among others, has pointed out, revelation is only revelation to the one to whom the revealed knowledge has been revealed. To everyone else, it's hearsay."

That would include the 'new information' revealed beneath the surface of Mars.  For one group of people, there would be direct observation.  For the rest of us, it would be hearsay.  Even if we allowed the possibility that everyone in our generation marched past this 'new information' and was convinced by it, what about their (our) unborn children?

We may very well march them past it, but on what grounds can they believe that it was really 'discovered' the way that the previous generation said it was?  The 'new information' becomes 'hearsay' to some people in 20 years.  Does each new generation have to have 'new information' 'discovered' in order to escape the apparent hammer blow of Thor that 'hearsay' apparently amounts to?  If each new generation gets its own new information newly revealed, how many generations do you think will need to go by before some wiseguy atheist begins wondering if all these 'independent confirmations' coming like clockwork are not actually just manifestations of normal, 'orderly' patterns of the universe?

Besides, DNA contains an immense amount of new information that has only recently been discovered.  Everyone agrees that DNA is information.   It meets your criteria pretty well, but I don't think it ever occurred to you to consider it 'revelation.'  Perchance this is because you had Sagan's 'Contact' in mind, where the higher intelligences revealed instructions on how to build wormhole generators.  Maybe we shouldn't be too picky about what we think this revealer ought to reveal.  Our DNA is packed with information on how to build living humans.  Perhaps X thought that this information would be more relevant to us, since, you know... we are humans.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not arguing that DNA is THAT revelation.  I'm saying that even when you have what you ask for, it doesn't at all mean that it will or could satisfy you.  But I think that's my point, too.  Why should this only be about you, and your generation?  Anything X does in this generation will be hearsay to the next.  Perhaps the next generation will be trained anthropologists (    )who recognize that this previous generation's revelation was 'merely' conforming to our 'society's preexisting biases,' and so can't be trusted?

This puts us back into our spin cycle.  If X reveals itself compellingly now to the next generation so they don't have to depend on 'hearsay,' they may very well be convinced.  It won't be too many generations until some wiseguys think it is a much simpler thing to believe that these revelations are derived from the biological nature of humans or the orderly patterns of the universe.

That is the problem that X faces.  You should not misconstrue me.  I'd be with the wiseguys, myself.  We are now face to face with the real problem:  how can X reveal itself in a way that respects our epistemology?

"The speaking burning bush may have been a revelation to Moses but it's not possible for it to be a revelation to anyone else. To Moses' friends, it should have been a reason to put Moses away, not to follow him into a desert. In that light, shouldn't the revelation, if it is intended for all people, be universal in its scope and not localized either in time or geography?"

You make it sound like Moses or God were unaware of these concerns.  You should get out your Bible and read Exodus 1-14.  Instead of presuming that there is absolutely no way such events could have happened, read it in light of our discussion.  How was epistemology respected?  Was Moses aware of these questions?  What about the Israelites?  If you had been an Israelite witnessing these things (or an Egyptian for that matter) would you have been convinced?

Exodus is a fine case study, and may even allow me to stop talking about 'X' and use the word 'God.'  

"Yes. It's a very big problem which is why I bring it up. Any solutions for it come to mind?"

But you didn't bring it up.  I did.

"That's universal skepticism and that's an untenable position. Some things must be assumed or taken to be self-evident. The goal is to keep our assumptions to a minimum; i.e., don't multiply assumptions unnecessarily."

Well, this is clearly a difference between you and me.  I think when you start out, you absolutely should be universally skeptical.  That's what Descartes was all about.  He started with something that I think ought to be pretty familiar to you.  If it is agreed that 'some things must be assumed' it doesn't mean that every assumption is of equal validity.  The goal isn't merely to have parsimony in assumptions.  The goal is to have quality assumptions, too.  An argument is never any better than its assumptions.

For example, assuming that the best explanation for everything must always be understood in purely reductionist terms is a bad assumption.  For one thing, if the very question at hand was whether or not the best explanation for everything can be understood in purely reductionist terms, if you assume that it is, you've begged the question.

"For example, ignorance about the origin of consciousness (if one doesn't accept the evolutionary model) is not helped by assuming a non-detectable, inscrutable being as its cause. This merely multiplies our assumptions."

For the record, I reject your framing of the alternative as 'non-detectable' and 'inscrutable.'  Keep that in mind as I say that it multiplies nothing.  The assumptions total 1 in either case.  Positing the evolutionary model as the origin of your consciousness is a single postulate.  Postulating a 'non-detectable, inscrutable being' is also a single postulate.   The truth is, positing the evolutionary model is actually at least two postulations.  First, it postulates that a reductionist framework is the 'best' and then it postulates in addition a particular reductionist model.  That's two.

Mere parsimony games go nowhere.  

""But let me turn it around- if we grant the validity of this (and I'm only willing to go part way, in fact)- do you then allow that we should be especially open to revelation that flies in the face of our culture's preexisting biases?""
"No, but we have reason to be less skeptical about it."

Then that's a clear double standard.  Either the consistency of a revelation with a preexisting cultural bias is a plausible measurement, or it is not.  You've switched to the very position you denounced a minute ago:  universal skepticism.

Don't argue for ways that you think would discredit ANY piece of evidence if you are unwilling to allow its foil to be a credit towards it.

""That would be great, wouldn't it? Something external rather than internal. Subjective revelations from the higher to the lower may become impossible to distinguish from the lower's own epistemological machinery.""

"It's not "impossible" unless there is a logical contradiction implicit in the claim. Where is the logical contradiction in the claim that an omnipotent, omniscient lifeform can communicate with a less intelligent lifeform in any manner it wishes?"

I said 'may become' for a reason.

"Not necessarily. The space vehicles doing the exploration of Mars could be equipped in such a way that most of the people of earth were observing the discovery as it was made."

Right.  I allowed for that.  What about the next generation?  What about my great-great step-grandfather who insisted to his death that the 69 space landing was a hoax?

"My example is not exclusive. It is only one suggestion out of billions of suggestions for ways in which a revelation could be made more believable."

Your suggestions fail.  You are confining yourself to only generation and ignore the epistemic problem that surfaces immediately for the next generation, which I pointed out and you dismissed.

"Here's another: a revelatory message to the world could include the claim that beneath the words "I exist" a bright red cross would appear on the surface of the moon beginning 6/10/06 and would remain visible for exactly 10 years."

So, in other words, its your view that if there was sufficient specification, it would be reasonable to infer intelligent agency.  Right?

"Each revelation could be accompanied by a different sign or prediction. There is no reason that I can think of to make the signs or predictions orderly or "clockwork-like.""

You are failing to grasp the point.  Obviously, X could do all sorts of things.  There is no reason to make the revelations 'orderly' or 'clockwork.'  Sure, they could be random.  But then you could simply deduce that it is a random universe.  You need to factor in the epistemological consequences to any revelation.

I said 'any' for a reason.  There are epistemological consequences to OUR revelations, too.  For example, earlier when I said 'may become' you responded with "It's not "impossible..."  But I didn't say it was impossible, did I?  Now, good faith debating allows that this was simply an overstep on your account.  However, now that I've revealed to you again, in a specified manner, what I DID say, there is an epistemological consequence.

You can no longer think that your statement beginning with "It's not 'impossible' correctly addresses the content of that paragraph.  That possibility is no longer open to you- so long as you are a rational person.  Faced with this specified revelation, you must either conform... or harden your mind.

Please don't misunderstand.  I really don't care that you overstepped.  I am quite willing to take it as innocent.  I'm using it to explain how ANY revelation has epistemological consequences.   ANY.  Not just the revelations by X about X.  You must understand that any and all of your 'billion' suggestions will have epistemic effects.  The range of these effects will vary.  On one hand, if they are too random, it will make the communication of information impossible, as you will not be able to distinguish it from anything else.  On the other hand, if is too orderly, it will be, or could be, considered as simply a property of the universe.

"This is true; but it's true because I decipher no message to the human race from a being that exists outside of the universe in DNA. Do you? This gets back to the "clear and unambiguous" requirement. If DNA spelled out a message in Hebrew then I could see your point. But it doesn't."

We still aren't at a point to answer that, because we haven't established what sort of evidence would point to a being 'outside of the universe.'  After all, you will recall that Francis Crick thought it was at least worth investigating whether or not the DNA originated from super-aliens.  It was called Directed Panspermia.  It doesn't matter a lick that Crick decided against this.  The point is that we need to establish the sort of revelation that would point to OUTSIDE the universe... in a panen way, mind you, to X.

But in otherwords, specification again.

"The mere fact that it exists tells us nothing about the possible existence of an inscrutable, non-detectable being who exists beyond the universe."

Cog, no one has said anything about 'inscrutable or non-detectable,' have they?  Please don't put words in my mouth.  For one thing, I have argued that the existence of order, if X does exist, would imply some desire to communicate.  That may be limited, but that is not inscrutable, either.  And while I have pointed out that you cannot EMPIRICALLY detect X, that is not at all to say it is 'non-detectable,' is it?  In case you haven't noticed, the conversation is about how one would recognize revelation by X in the first place.   If you are assuming that this is non-detectable in any way other than direct, empirical observation, than you are begging the question.  You would be assuming that no detection is possible by your very definition of 'non-detectable.'

""Was Moses aware of these questions? What about the Israelites? If you had been an Israelite witnessing these things (or an Egyptian for that matter) would you have been convinced?""

"You may misunderstand my point."

I get your point clear as day.  You misunderstand mine.  MY point is that YOUR point has validity.  Now OPEN your Bible to Exodus and see if Moses was aware of YOUR point, too, and examine how the matter played out.  

Good grief.  I understand that it is the modern way to assume all the ancients were idiots- like Pythagerous and all his geometric theorems, and Democritus and his views on the atom, and Ptolemy, who sure, had a geocentric model of the universe, nonetheless calculated the CIRCUMFERENCE of the ROUND earth, etc, etc- morons, all of them- but don't you think it occurred to Moses that his fellow Israelites won't believe his story?

Eh?

Cog?

Whaddayathink?

Read the story, and see if Moses and I AM appear to be aware of epistemological issues, aight?