Until completely random stuff starts happening, I'll choose not to assume they did simply because i might want to avoid conclusions I dislike. — VagabondSpectre

As I have already tried to make clear, my comments have nothing to do with the conclusions of modern science, or whether I like them. I am pointing out the presuppositions that underlie them, which most people - including you, apparently - adopt uncritically. This is a philosophy forum, after all.

As above, if they evolve overtime and we notice that evolution, that's when we should overturn our existing axioms and adapt them accordingly. — VagabondSpectre

What if they are evolving so slowly at this point that it would take thousands of years before the change is large enough to exceed our usual measurement errors? What if they evolved faster in the very distant past? How would we be able to tell? Again, I have no problem with applying the laws of nature as we currently understand them to the present and (short-term) future; the issue is assuming that they were the same billions of years ago.

If you think about it, the laws of nature define causation. — VagabondSpectre

No, we hypothesize laws of nature to explain causation; or rather, what we presuppose to be causation, rather than just random events.

Except for the fact that the laws of physics haven't yet changed under our watchful eyes. they remain stoicly and suspiciously consistent. — VagabondSpectre

How long have we been capable of carefully monitoring the universe's adherence to the currently accepted laws of physics - 100 years or so? Compared to the corresponding estimate for the age of the universe, it is less than the blink of an eye. Proportionally, it is like saying that because we do not observe any significant changes in 10 seconds, a person who is 43 years old probably has not changed at all since the day he/she was born.

It's more reasonable to assume the laws didn't suddenly change in the past because they don't suddenly change right now. If the laws kept suddenly changing, then I would be with you in assuming that in the past they did change. — VagabondSpectre

You skipped right over my comment that addresses this. Here, let me repeat it for you.

Who said anything about sudden changes? Another possibility is that the laws of nature have evolved gradually over time. — aletheist

Besides, our understanding of the laws of nature has changed quite radically over the last century or two. Furthermore, there is no way for us to tell for sure whether the tiny deviations that our instruments routinely detect from our precise mathematical predictions are entirely due to measurement error, as we usually assume, or actually reflect continuing evolution and/or random fluctuations of the laws of nature themselves.

You're saying that since we cannot be sure causation happened in the past like it does in the present, we cannot be sure evidence of past events is meaningful or points to what really happened. — VagabondSpectre

No, not causation in general; rather, the specific laws of nature as we observe them operating today.

We have no good reason to presume that physical constants were different in the past, except possibly in the very hot and dense early universe where the big bang description still applies. — VagabondSpectre

We also have no good reason to presume that they were exactly the same over that entire vast period of time.

Arbitrarily presuming that the laws of physics suddenly changed at some point (in order to avoid a conclusion we don't like: the rapid expansion model) goes against the preponderance of observational evidence we do have. — VagabondSpectre

Who said anything about sudden changes? Another possibility is that the laws of nature have evolved gradually over time.

Note that I have never suggested in this thread that the universe is not 13.7 billion years old; I have simply challenged your assertion that we know it to be 13.7 billion years old.

Basically you're suggesting that even though empirical science has given ample evidence to warrant accepting the big bang, they might be wrong because of some sort of magical interference. — VagabondSpectre

You are not even trying to understand the point that I am actually making.

So long as the technology which is built using the laws we hope are constant keeps working, it's good enough for me. — VagabondSpectre

Technology is built using the laws of nature that we observe now, and have observed (for the most part) over a time period of only a few hundred years. Even if we extend that to the entire span of human history, there is no way for us to observe whether the same laws of nature operated in the same way over a time period that is posited to be six orders of magnitude greater than that.

When deciding whether some belief warrants the claim of knowledge, justification is the only criterion that needs to be met. — SophistiCat

It seems to me that we have to make a distinction of some kind between justification that warrants belief and justification that warrants knowledge. Otherwise, the two concepts would be indistinguishable, which is obviously not the case.

When you single out one particular belief, surely you have more than this platitude in mind? — SophistiCat

I am not really singling out one particular belief, but one particular kind of belief - definitive scientific pronouncements about the very distant past. For the reasons that I just posted, I think that there is inadequate warrant for claiming to have knowledge in such cases.

Causation is just one of those things that keeps showing to be true via experience and observation. — VagabondSpectre

I am not questioning whether causation is a presupposition of beliefs about past behavior that are based on present observations; I am questioning whether it is the only such presupposition.

We take the causal relationships that we observe and in the same way we use them to make future predictions, we simply reverse them to infer the past. — VagabondSpectre

Right - we (quite reasonably) presuppose that nature has "always" operated in the same way that we observe it operating today; or at least, all the way back to very soon after the posited Big Bang. However, we do not - and cannot - know that this is the case.

The reason why we can use observations of the present to predict (and thereby understand) the future is because the present and the future are connected. The past and the present are also connected, via causation. It's an axiomatic truth that is unproductive and unreasonable to deny. — VagabondSpectre

That the past, present, and future are connected does not entail that that the laws of nature are invariant throughout all time. Such a conclusion requires the presupposition of causal determinism, which many people (quite reasonably) reject.

What presuppositions must one adopt in order to predict past behavior on the basis of present measurements? — aletheist

Causation. — VagabondSpectre

How does causation, all by itself, warrant beliefs about past behavior on the basis of present observations?

What presuppositions must one adopt in order to estimate the age of the oldest observable stars and star clusters? — aletheist

Proven theories pertaining to astrophysics. — VagabondSpectre

How can we "prove" any theories about the past, entirely on the basis of present observations?

"The Moon orbits the Sun". "Oh but what presuppositions must one adopt in order to asses the position of the moon?". "Reasonable ones." — VagabondSpectre

I am guessing that you meant to say, "The moon orbits the earth." In any case, I have no problem with relying on our best theories about how the universe currently works to make fairly definitive statements about the present, and even some predictions about the future (which we can subsequently test to see if they are borne out). The issue is uncritically adopting the same level of confidence when making fairly definitive statements about the past, especially the very distant past; e.g., "The moon began orbiting the earth 4.5 billion years ago."

How do we distinguish justified belief from genuine knowledge? — aletheist

Well, how do we? If justification is insufficient to warrant the claim of knowledge, then what is? — SophistiCat

I asked you first. :) It was a sincere question. No doubt every person has some beliefs that are justified yet false, which therefore do not qualify as genuine knowledge. Hence modesty seems to be the proper attitude about them.

The scientific method rejects the presupposition of truth. — VagabondSpectre

I did not ask what presuppositions you reject, I asked what presuppositions you have (perhaps uncritically) adopted in claiming to know the age of the universe.

One way we can tell is by measuring the continual expansion/separation between observable bodies of matter, and by charting their positions, speeds and distances we can predict how long it took for them all to arrive at where they are from the central point of expansion. — VagabondSpectre

What presuppositions must one adopt in order to predict past behavior on the basis of present measurements?

Another way we can try to tell the age of the universe is by figuring out the age of the oldest observable stars and star clusters. — VagabondSpectre

What presuppositions must one adopt in order to estimate the age of the oldest observable stars and star clusters?

"Reasonably dispute"? Basically nothing. — VagabondSpectre

Your bias is showing; you are imposing your own presuppositions as rational requirements that everyone must adopt, without identifying them let alone providing justification for them.

It's the overwhelming preponderance of evidence. — VagabondSpectre

But each of us has certain presuppositions that dictate what we count as evidence and how we evaluate it, and different people can have different presuppositions, such that what is reasonable to some is not to others. I see it as an important role of philosophy to expose those presuppositions so that we are not adopting them uncritically. What are you assuming when you claim to know that the Big Bang happened, which another individual could reasonably dispute?

What else could possibly warrant a claim of knowledge? — SophistiCat

How do we distinguish justified belief from genuine knowledge? For example, I do not see how anyone can possibly know that the universe is 13.75 billion years old. After all, that age estimate has varied over time, and probably varies somewhat even among scientists today.

The answer, of course, is already contained in your question - the warrant is in the justification. — SophistiCat

The justification warrants the belief, but not (by itself) the claim to knowledge.

No, all I'm saying is that aletheist's solution to the problem of counterfactuals doesn't work. He said that "if X then Y" is true if the laws of nature determine that if X happens then Y will happen. — Michael

I said that "if X then Y" is true if the laws of nature are such that if X were to happen then Y would happen. I was not trying to offer a solution for any other type of counterfactual.

How can the laws of nature be "real generals" when something so simple as gravity can be understood in these two opposing ways? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because we construct different models of real generals, for different purposes.

Now the law, the so-called "real general", only applies in these instances of artificial separation. This real general doesn't apply to naturally occurring situations at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Artifical" vs. "natural" has nothing to do with it. If an earthquake were to dislodge a stone from the edge of a cliff, then it would fall to the bottom.

This misses the whole point of the example. In context, Peirce was illustrating for his audience that laws of nature are real generals; it had absolutely nothing to do with his "power" to let go of the stone. If it helps, we can change the subjunctive conditional to eliminate that aspect: "If my hand were to disappear magically, then the stone would fall to the ground."

All we know is that we're living in the energetic diffusion of a 13.75 billion year event that we can only describe as very hot and very dense. — VagabondSpectre

Just curious, what is your warrant for claiming that we know this? It is obviously a belief; and given certain presuppositions, it is justified; but what makes you so confident that it is true?

Surely counterfactuals are a problem for verificationism. How do you verify "if X had happened then Y would have happened"? — Michael

Again, that is the wrong kind of subjunctive conditional. You verify "if X were to happen then Y would happen" by making X happen (e.g., conducting an experiment) and observing that Y does, in fact, happen. And you keep on doing this indefinitely, since the scope of the subjunctive conditional is not limited to any collection of actual events; it is a real general that governs an inexhaustible continuum of possible events. You never really verify it, at least not in the strict sense; rather, you corroborate it - i.e., you never falsify it.

In what sense do you think that we are justifying induction via induction? Again, Peirce's argument was that induction is justified by virtue of its self-corrective nature. If the retroductive hypothesis that we are testing is false, then experience will eventually reveal that to us by confounding the expectations that we deductively derived from it.

Peirce was intimately familiar with Hume and rejected the notion that induction depends on presupposing the uniformity of nature. Instead, his justification of induction was that it is a method of investigation that is intrinsically self-correcting, at least in the long run of experience.

That is the position seemingly endorsed (at least tacitly) by many Humeans that whatever is possible is actual, and whatever isn't actual is impossible. — Pierre-Normand

This seems like an alternative version of modal collapse, which today is widely (though not universally) considered to be a fallacy in modal logic. Usually it is presented as the claim that whatever is actual is necessary, hence it entails strict determinism.

The statement was "If I had opened the box at 3:00pm then I would have found the cat to be dead" ... So how do you make sense of that statement's truth-value? — Michael

Perhaps under quantum theory, it does not have one. The proper subjunctive conditional for my approach would presumably be a probabilistic one, like my example of the coin flips.

To explain this further, the OP raises a problem with the correspondence theory of truth. — Michael

The various theories of truth--correspondence, coherence, consensus, instrumental--only arise within the context of nominalism regarding generals. Pragmatic realism (i.e., pragmaticism) understands truth as encompassing all of these notions, because it is defined as what an infinite community of investigators would believe after an indefinite inquiry.

Some counterfactual claim about Schrodinger's cat, for example. — Michael

I guess something more like, "If the bottle of poison were to be broken, then the cat would be dead." Not sure this gets at your point, though.

If the laws of nature are not such that if we had done this then that must have happened (i.e. chance is involved), then your initial explanation doesn't work. — Michael

It has to do with the idea that the habits of matter are so inveterate that any deviations from them are extremely minute. So a macro-level subjunctive conditional (e.g., that the stone would fall if released) is true, but a micro-level prediction (e.g., the magnitude of its acceleration) can still exhibit a chance discrepancy that is indistinguishable from measurement error.

It's an empirical fact that I have never flipped a coin and measured it to be both heads and tails. — Michael

But if you were to flip a coin such that it landed on its side, then it would be neither heads nor tails. :D

I used to call them "counterfactuals," until someone on this forum insisted that by definition, this means that they must be "counter to fact." I switched to "subjunctive conditionals" to preclude any such terminological debates.

Right, then a counterfactual quantum event rather than a future quantum event. — Michael

What would be an example of a "counterfactual quantum event"?

How do you account for its truth, given that the laws of nature do not necessitate a particular outcome? — Michael

Peirce was ahead of his time in recognizing the reality of absolute chance; he held that the laws of nature are not completely exceptionless, such that the slight deviations in our measurements of phenomena are not solely due to error. In other words, all laws of nature are in that sense statistical, even the ones that we treat as deterministic.

Hume's claim is that we don't see causation. We only see invariant correlation, and then infer causation – and that this inference isn't deduction. — Michael

Deduction is not the only kind of inference. We infer causation as a retroduction - i.e., a hypothesis. We then use deduction to infer predictions that follow from this hypothesis, followed by induction to investigate whether those predictions are falsified or corroborated in experience.

What makes "If Pierce had dropped the stone during a lecture, it would have fallen." true is that "Pierce has the power to see to it that the stone drops during a lecture." is true — Pierre-Normand

No, what makes the first statement true is not some "power" that Peirce has. Rather, it is the fact that there is a real tendency in the universe for things with mass (such as a stone and the earth) to move toward each other in the absence of some intervening object (such as a man's body).

Consider the statement "the particle will be at position p at time t". Presumably this statement is either true or false. — Michael

This thread is about counterfactuals, which I prefer to call subjunctive conditionals; your example does not qualify, so the statement is either true or false only if the future is already actual. A relevant statement would be, "If such-and-such were to happen, then the particle would be at position p at time t."

But the statement we're considering is "the coin will land hands", not "the coin has a 0.5 chance of landing heads". — Michael

Again, no; the statement that we are considering is, "If such-and-such were to happen, then the coin would land heads." Alternatively, as a probabilistic example, "If this is a perfectly fair coin, and I were to flip it infinitely many times, then it would land heads for 50% of the tosses."

From a pragmatic realist (i.e., pragmaticist) standpoint, subjunctive conditionals are true when the laws of nature that they express are real generals; i.e., they are operative regardless of what anyone thinks about them. Peirce famously demonstrated this during a lecture by holding up a stone and stating that everyone in the audience knew that if he were to let it go, it would fall to the ground; and this was true even if he never actually let go of the stone. Similarly, a quality is a real possibility; e.g., if one were to shine broad-spectrum light on a red object, it would predominantly reflect it at wavelengths between 620 and 750 nm. Again, this is true even if no one ever actually conducts such an experiment.

... the more I searched for certainty and order in things the more I started to notice that nothing at all is certain ... — John Pride

How can you be certain that nothing at all is certain?

I have put aside all beliefs because they in no way can be used as tools to reach truth ... — John Pride

But you evidently hold to the belief that beliefs in no way can be used as tools to reach truth.

I do not mean to downplay the struggle that you are experiencing; rather, just to point out that having beliefs that are uncertain is an inescapable aspect of the human condition. I often quote this passage from Charles Sanders Peirce, because I think that he makes a very important point.

We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. Hence this initial skepticism will be a mere self-deception, and not real doubt; and no one who follows the Cartesian method will ever be satisfied until he has formally recovered all those beliefs which in form he has given up. It is, therefore, as useless a preliminary as going to the North Pole would be in order to get to Constantinople by coming down regularly upon a meridian. A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts. — CP 5.265, 1868

Most of your beliefs are reasonably accurate. The ones that are mistaken will either become apparent from your subsequent experience, or will not make much difference anyway. A life of inquiry, scientific and otherwise, is well worth living - even though you must always treat your findings as provisional.

This is why you should read some theology rather than just relying on some interpretations of what Jesus said. — Metaphysician Undercover

That seems rather uncharitable on your part. I have read a fair amount of theology, but evidently from different traditions than what you have read. I am not a Thomist, or even a Roman Catholic.

It may be that original sin is the reason why the human soul is always united to a body, and does not exist as a separate substance. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why would you suggest that? The souls of the very first humans were united to their bodies, even though they did not have original sin.

In as much as a human being is an existing being, one is inherently good, as I say, but to the extent that we are deficient we are all evil, as you say. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, but that involves some equivocation on what we mean by "good" and "evil." We all bear the image of God, which makes us good; but that image is corrupted in all of us, which makes us evil.

The mark, the target of one's moral action is the beam in one's own eye, not the mote in another's. — unenlightened

There is much wisdom in this.

I don't see the point in posting a bunch of out of context quotes. — Metaphysician Undercover

The point is that Jesus clearly taught that human beings since the Fall are not inherently good, contrary to your position. I did not think that it would be appropriate to post the entire context of each quote; I provided the citations so that you can look up the passages yourself if you are so inclined. I also stuck to statements of Jesus Himself; the list would be much longer if I had included the entire New Testament.

If only God is good, as your quote from the Bible claims, and sin renders us evil, as you claim, where does forgiveness leave us? — Metaphysician Undercover

Forgiven, obviously - restored to a right relationship with God, despite our sin and evil. If we were inherently good, then we would not need forgiveness.

You have no idea what forgive means, do you? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is amazing how often you make comments like this that you really should be directing at yourself.

Christian theology teaches that God is forgiving, and sinning does not render us as evil, because we can be forgiven. — Metaphysician Undercover

Christian theology teaches that sin does render us as evil. If we were not evil, then there would be no need for us to be forgiven - i.e., no need for Jesus to die on the cross in order to make our forgiveness possible.

Human beings are still inherently good despite the fact that we are not perfectly good. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not according to Jesus Himself.

• "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
• "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11, cf. Luke 11:13)
• "For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." (Mark 7:21-23)
• "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19)
• "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." (John 3:19)
• "The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil." (John 7:7)

Your position makes us all sinners because of the original sin. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is precisely what the doctrine of original sin teaches. We commit individual sins (our actions) because our human nature is corrupted by original sin (our condition).

What's the point in holding such a believe which makes all human beings necessarily evil, because it is impossible for a human being to be as God? — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you not familiar with the traditional Christian doctrines of original sin and the Fall? God created the first humans in His own image, such that they were able to live in complete accordance with His nature and will. However, they freely chose to sin instead, and the inability of their descendants (including you and me) to live in complete accordance with God's nature and will is a consequence of that.

Why even try to be good if it's impossible for us, and we're necessarily going to be evil anyway? — Metaphysician Undercover

We certainly should not "try to be good" in a vain effort to satisfy God, since His standard is perfection, and we are incapable of achieving it. However, we should "try to be good" for the sake of our fellow humans. When we fall short, we should ask for forgiveness - both from God and from our fellow humans. In fact, the greatest single need of every single human is God's forgiveness of his/her sins.

I think you need to differentiate between sin and evil. — Metaphysician Undercover

All sin is evil. Do you disagree?

And you argue that to be inconsistent with God's will is necessarily sinful, and even evil. — Metaphysician Undercover

I argue that to be inconsistent with God's nature is necessarily sinful, and therefore evil; and again, God does not will anything contrary to His own nature.

No human being can choose the absolute best action, and therefore no human being's actions are truly consistent with God's will, even though our actions are good. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is contradictory, in my view; any action that is inconsistent with God's will cannot be good. Indeed, no human being is capable of living 100% consistently with God's will: "The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Psalm 14:2-3)

We do sin sometimes, but sinning is mistaken actions, and so long as we recognize our mistakes as mistakes, we may be forgiven. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sinning is not just mistaken actions; often we sin quite deliberately, with full awareness that what we are doing is wrong. We are forgiven not because we recognize our mistakes as mistakes, but because we recognize our wickedness as wickedness, and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God: "... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ..." (Romans 3:23-24)

In the traditional Christian conception of good, such things are not evil. — Metaphysician Undercover

Which Christian tradition do you have in mind? On the contrary, I think that most Christians would characterize "behaving selfishly, harming others, manipulating them, exploiting them, discriminating against them, causing them to suffer, etc." as evil (i.e., sinful).

I don't think theologians define "good" as what's consistent with God's nature, rather it is defined as what's consistent with God's will. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are painting with a very broad brush, treating "theologians" as a monolithic class. Some define good as what is consistent with God's nature, others as what is consistent with God's will (and others as something else). In my case, there is no distinction between the two, since God only wills that which is consistent with His nature.

Failing to determine the best choice does not make one's choice evil, as Marchesk seems to be arguing. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to have a highly unusual understanding of Christian doctrine. Any action that is in any way inconsistent with God's nature - or God's will, if you prefer - is sin, and therefore evil.

And you claim as your Peirce the non-scientist. — apokrisis

It is not about "my Peirce" or "your Peirce" or even "the consistent Peirce," but about faithfully representing the man's actual views as expressed in his voluminous writings. You wish that he had gone farther in the direction of physicalism, and I wish that he had been a more traditional Christian theist; but he was what he was, and we both have drawn significant insights from his thought.

What is the 'materiality of symbols'? A symbol is effective (I had thought) because of the meaning it conveys, and the meaning it conveys (or imparts) is not dependent on the matter from which the symbol is made. — Wayfarer

Good question. In Peirce's terminology, a symbol indeed represents its object only in so far as it will be interpreted as doing so. Furthermore, a symbol is a legisign or type, which must then be embodied in a sinsign or token. Of course, words are paradigmatic examples of symbols; between what I quoted from you and my response, there are four such replicas of the one word, "symbol" (now five).

'Sign relations' generally only operate in the the context of life and mind, don't they? — Wayfarer

Yes, but according to Peirce, matter is effete or partially deadened mind - "matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits." As such, sign relations are also operative in matter, albeit in a degenerate way - "inveterate habits becoming physical laws," which are often dyadic rather than triadic.