Big Bang is evidence for creator at 60% probability so combining probabilities: — Devans99
It helps if you think about the probability space as a box. Let’s start with the proposition ‘the dog is nice’. Let’s assume you know nothing about this or any dog then the chance of the dog being nice is 50%. So imagine the probability space cut 50% / 50% ‘dog is nice’ / ‘dog is nasty’.
Now we can add a peice of evidence FOR the proposition. The owner says the dog is nice and we trust him 75%. So we already know that 50% of dogs are nice what about the 50% of dogs unknown? Well we can multiply that 50% by 75% and add it to the 50% we already had for dog is nice: 50% + 50% x 75% = 87.5%. Think of the original 50/50 probability space growing to 87.5/12.5 ‘dog is nice’ / ‘dog is nasty’.
So above is how you compute ‘evidence FOR’. ‘Evidence AGAINST’ is a different calculation:
Starting with dog is nice 50%
Now add a piece of evidence AGAINST: ‘the dog bit me’. 90% chance dog is nasty so that’s a 10% chance the dog is nice. So we take 50% x 10% = 5% chance dog is nice.
NOTICE THE CACULATION IS DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON WHETHER THE EVIDENCE IS FOR OR AGAINST THE PROPOSITION. — Devans99
What metaphysical views it holds (if it holds any) and whether these views are the source or the result of something else, and to which degree, are questions that can't be answered without empirical research. — Πετροκότσυφας
Right. So then there is the further question of whether there are universal elements in these beliefs and narratives. I think this is where it becomes a matter of interpretation. — Janus
Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces comes to mind. Any thoughts? — Janus
shouldn't the question be whether the universe was created? why do you presume it was created? Perhaps it has always been or is a eternal recurring process of sorts? — Arne
Obviously, with the countless logical proofs of the existence of God, I'm in the heavy minority here, but what makes you think that the origin of all of existence can be meaningfully understood by such a method? — John Doe
I'm not posing an objection as much as a skeptical worry that you're a flesh and blood animal employing concepts which you acquired in the course of participating in an earth-bound human form of life and it seems bad philosophical practice to investigate the nature and origin of both all that is and the existence of entities as such without first giving some consideration as to why you feel entitled to hold that these abstract concepts are capable of doing that sort of work. — John Doe
It's a matter outside of the applicability of logic, proof and words. — Michael Ossipoff
My main interest has been, how is it that scientific materialism has become so influential in secular culture. — Wayfarer
I think a fair number of people here would naturally be of the view that the change in mentality or outlook that characterises the modern and post-modern world represents progress. — Wayfarer
People in Socrates’ day were still h. Sapiens, they eat, breathe, sweat, and die, the same as we do now. Sure we have huge benefits from medical technology and the rest, but self-knowledge can’t be reliant on externals, in my view. — Wayfarer
But if I were asked to try and articulate what exactly I think has gone missing from modern philosophical discourse, the answer I would give is: the vertical dimension. The ‘vertical dimension’ refers to the axis along which what used to be understood as wisdom and the grasp of higher truths used to lie. It is ‘the domain of value’, the source of real value. I can’t the use word ‘objective’ because it’s not objective, it transcends the objective. How it can transcend the objective, and yet still be real - this is precisely the kind of thing that has been forgotten. As a consequence, nearly everyone will reflexively, instinctively say that truth is what can be established or known objectively. If it can be known objectively, then it can be measured; if it can’t be measured, then it’s subjective, or social, or cultural, or personal; but it can’t be considered real. That’s the issue in a nutshell. — Wayfarer
Which is not epistemology(!). That is, fundamental ontology is not to be confused with metaphysics. I am pretty sure you're good on this distinction - but are you?!It is not an easy task to study and understand fundamental ontological principles, but this is required. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's the problem, ontology must reflect the true nature of existence, not just existence in the sense of the way that I like to think of existence. This means that it requires a complete understanding of things like matter, space, and time. — Metaphysician Undercover
That is, fundamental ontology is not to be confused with metaphysics. I am pretty sure you're good on this distinction - but are you?! — tim wood
The right way (it seems to me) is through a recovery of fundamental ontology, which once recovered is certainly subject to review. — tim wood
*Can you add a well-crafted sentence or two or three on the exact difference between epistemology and metaphysics? The best I can do is that epistemology is about knowledge and metaphysics is about the asking that produces knowledge. And it seems perhaps ironic, from the standpoint of fundamental ontology, that neither is about understanding. — tim wood
To cycle back through and redo metaphysics and epistemology* without re-establishing fundamental ontology is simply to repeat errors in new and frightening ways. — tim wood
That is because "being" means nothing without context. — Metaphysician Undercover
Just exactly so. I'd continue, but I suspect you do not understand what you wrote. In short it means that metaphysics presupposes being and context - world - and without a preliminary analysis of that as ground, metaphysics has been - will, can only be - incomplete and error ridden. — tim wood
Any argument you have is with Heidegger. And it is easy to argue against Heidegger, if you have neither read nor attempted to understand his thinking. — tim wood
For clarity's sake, I take metaphysics to be, generally and mainly, the methods and techniques for finding answers to questions in the form, "What is that?" Example: a metaphysician answers "What is a gun?" — tim wood
It is the analysis of these beings and what it means for them to be that is primordial, the analysis being in terms of a priori elements of being. — tim wood
But you conflate two distinct things here, and that is why I disagree. The "analysis of beings", and "what it means for them to be that" is two distinct things. The former being science, the latter being metaphysics. The analysis of beings determines what they are. — Metaphysician Undercover
eternity — MathematicalPhysicist
The third option, the universe always existed in one form or another for eternity.
No creation, No magic. — MathematicalPhysicist
You're right, I wrote hastily. But here's the division: near as I can tell, you start with the thing and try to determine what it is, or why it is, or what it's for. I suppose at one end of a continuum you can call this science and at the other end metaphysics, or not. I find this online: — tim wood
What's missing is 1) any account of the person asking, and 2) any attempt to account for the presuppositions implied in the questions asked. Immediate examples: — tim wood
The questions "what is there?" and "what is it like?" presuppose that the "is" and the "there" are meaningful, as well as the notion that "it" is "like" something. — tim wood
But this is not our subject. Here's the question for us: do you believe or hold that any analysis of the being doing the metaphysics or science, or anything else for that matter, whom the literature calls dasein, is any proper part of philosophy? Heidegger does: he argues that fundamental ontology comes before metaphysics as ground. He is not at all saying that fundamental ontology is metaphysics. — tim wood
"Taking for granted" in this sense is just the set of presuppositions in play that allow us to think or do at all. And presuppositions have nothing to do with skepticism. They can joust with each other, but to no end. As to Kant, many people - you apparently among them - imagine that Kant tells us we can't know the thing-in-itself. For knowing the world, Kant had practical knowledge: he had no problem knowing a chair was in fact a chair or counting his coffee beans. Where he drew his line was in just how, in the sense of scientific inquiry, we could have scientific knowledge.You cannot start with the thing, unless you take it for granted that "the thing" is something real. But taking 'the thing" for granted doesn't give you a real ground. That's the point Descartes was making, skepticism disallows you from taking the thing for granted, then all you have is thoughts and the appearance of a thing, and there isn't any point to asking what the thing is or is not until you give some reality to the thing. So we have the Kantian division right here, what are you handing reality to, and asking "what is it?", the appearance, or the thing itself. — Metaphysician Undercover
What's missing is the account. The person is not missing. I think the easiest way here, instead of laboriously chasing you through old philosophies and in some cases yours and their errors - your briar patch, apparently - is to simply say that metaphysics itself is not grounded. The best metaphysics can do is work towards internal consistency. And this is just your point above. And for a remedy you would look for "principles." If you think about it, you'll see that any such principle you find cannot ground the enterprise. It's a little like a criminal undertaking to be the best criminal he can be, thinking he will thereby no longer be a criminal. And this would be a poor analogy and joke, except that history tells us this is exactly what happens time and time again!What's missing is 1) any account of the person asking, and 2) any attempt to account for the presuppositions implied in the questions asked. Immediate examples:
— tim wood
I don't think "the person asking" is missing. It is already implied, and taken for granted in the questioning, that a person is asking. So if any "thing" is to be taken for granted, it is the thinking thing, as Descartes claims.
But the questions to you stand: can you, do you, distinguish between metaphysics and (fundamental) ontology, do you recognize in the ontology a ground? — tim wood
I really don't know what you mean by "fundamental ontology". This is the problem I find with Heidegger in general. He uses many terms in a vague and obscure way, which upon interpretation by different people creates ambiguity between the different interpretations. So discussion is fruitless because of this ambiguity, and it ends up appearing like Heidegger never really said anything important.
But the questions to you stand: can you, do you, distinguish between metaphysics and (fundamental) ontology, do you recognize in the ontology a ground? — tim wood
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