:rofl:Occam's Razor...the kind of drivel that people who cannot truly reason use. — Frank Apisa
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Another example of the Dunning-Kruger effect on stunning display ...
Occam's Razor...the kind of drivel that people who cannot truly reason use.
— Frank Apisa
:rofl:
“It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.” ~Albert Einstein (1933)
"There never was a sounder logical maxim of scientific procedure than Ockham's razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. That is to say; before you try a complicated hypothesis, you should make quite sure that no simplification of it will explain the facts equally well." ~Charles Sanders Peirce (1903) — 180 Proof
It's not about popularity. Language can't do its work as a medium of thought and communication without standards, norms, conventions, rules of use.Forgot to comment on "ordinary speakers". This is an argument from popularity. Just because it is popular to use the word belief in the way that the masses do does not make it correct. The vast majority of people are also not intellectually equipped to wrestle with the problem. — SonOfAGun
So far as I can tell, denial of the proposition "x exists" entails:
i) a belief that the proposition "x exists" is false,
ii) a belief that the proposition "x does not exist" is true, and
iii) a belief that there is no such thing as "x".
For ordinary purposes we don't need to fuss over the logical form of (iii). It's customary for people to say things like "x does not exist". That should only seem strange to logicians. — Cabbage Farmer
I'm not sure I understand how that distinction is supposed to apply.I have no problems with i or ii. I see i and ii as meta-beliefs, as they are referring strictly to a statement/proposition. Whereas iii is referring to the nonexistence of a real world object. — Pinprick
I hope I've made it clear enough by now, on what grounds I suggest that a belief that "there is no God" should be interpreted as a belief about something like a conception indicated by the word "God".In a different thread, Atheism was being defined, by some, as a belief that there is no God. Doesn’t this essentially equate to a belief in “nothing?” If so, isn’t that self-defeating? A belief requires an object, that is, something as opposed to nothing. If there is no object your “belief” is referring to, then you don’t have an actual belief. — Pinprick
I'm not sure I understand how that distinction is supposed to apply.
So far as I can tell, the sort of belief indicated in (iii) should be interpreted as a belief about the word "x" and about statements and propositions that use the word "x", and the like. I don't see much difference between (i)-(iii) in this regard. — Cabbage Farmer
I hope I've made it clear enough by now, on what grounds I suggest that a belief that "there is no God" should be interpreted as a belief about something like a conception indicated by the word "God".
That is the object you've requested. That is the sort of "thing" such beliefs are beliefs about. — Cabbage Farmer
I wonder, is it all beliefs that require an object, on your account? Might it be closer to the truth to say that true beliefs must be analyzable as having some "object", whereas some false beliefs turn out to be figments of confusion? — Cabbage Farmer
Would you agree it seems we've homed in on the region of our disagreement?Well, God is certainly only a concept, but I think that “I believe there is no God” refers more towards the non/existence of the concept, rather than the concept itself. — Pinprick
I would say "I believe the shirt is not red" is a statement "about a shirt" in much the way that the previous statement is a statement "about a concept of God".If I say “I believe the shirt is not red,” I’m making a statement about a property (the color) of the object (the shirt), not about the object itself. — Pinprick
I suppose false beliefs and false judgments are called "false" in the same sense that false assertions are called "false".I don’t know what a “false belief” is, so I don’t know. Is that just an untrue belief, like a lie that is believed? — Pinprick
Is it not appropriate to look towards the consensus of scholars/experts as a starting point to find the truth? What definition of knowledge should I have assumed if not the one the experts generally agree on?
— Pinprick
I'm considering this one closely. My first inclinations where to be snarky, but I don't want to do that. May take some time. — SonOfAGun
I wonder, is it all beliefs that require an object, on your account? Might it be closer to the truth to say that true beliefs must be analyzable as having some "object", whereas some false beliefs turn out to be figments of confusion? — Cabbage Farmer
Would you agree it seems we've homed in on the region of our disagreement? — Cabbage Farmer
In a different thread, Atheism was being defined, by some, as a belief that there is no God. Doesn’t this essentially equate to a belief in “nothing?” If so, isn’t that self-defeating? A belief requires an object, that is, something as opposed to nothing. If there is no object your “belief” is referring to, then you don’t have an actual belief. You can have beliefs about the premises leading up to the conclusion that there is no God (Theists haven’t provided evidence, it isn’t logical, etc.), but that isn’t the same thing. So, my question would be ”What is the object of the belief in the above definition of Atheism?” — Pinprick
If there is no object your “belief” is referring to, then you don’t have an actual belief. You can have beliefs about the premises leading up to the conclusion that there is no God (Theists haven’t provided evidence, it isn’t logical, etc.), but that isn’t the same thing. So, my question would be ”What is the object of the belief in the above definition of Atheism?” — Pinprick
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↪jjAmEs You’re either misunderstanding me, or are wording things wrong. I agree that an Atheist doesn’t believe in God. I’m arguing that to say an Atheist believes God doesn’t exist is wrong. — Pinprick
I agree with this. It is misused and misunderstood.Occam's Razor sucks like a black hole...and is probably misapplied more than any other philosophical "principle." — Frank Apisa
the idea is not to look for simple explanations. It is that if one is given a choice between two explanations, each of which fit the evidence equally well, it is better to go with the explantion that has less posited entities. That's useful for communal knowledge.If one looks for simple explanations one will eventually find one that fits well enough to be considered adequate. — Frank Apisa
They are denying any and all “images” of God. — Pinprick
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47025/47025-h/47025-h.htmIf my work contained only the second part, it would be perfectly just to accuse it of a negative tendency, to represent the proposition: Religion is nothing, is an absurdity, as its essential purport. But I by no means say (that were an easy task!): God is nothing, the Trinity is nothing, the Word of God is nothing, &c. I only show that they are not that which the illusions of theology make them,—not foreign, but native mysteries, the mysteries of human nature; I show that religion takes the apparent, the superficial in Nature and humanity for the essential, and hence conceives their true essence as a separate, special existence: that consequently, religion, in the definitions which it gives of God, e.g., of the Word of God,—at least in those definitions which are not negative in the sense above alluded to,—only defines or makes objective the true nature of the human word. The reproach that according to my book religion is an absurdity, a nullity, a pure illusion, would be well founded only if, according to it, that into which I resolve religion, which I prove to be its true object and substance, namely, man,—anthropology, were an absurdity, a nullity, a pure illusion. But so far from giving a trivial or even a subordinate significance to anthropology,—a significance which is assigned to it only just so long as a theology stands above it and in opposition to it,—I, on the contrary, while reducing theology to anthropology, exalt anthropology into theology, very much as Christianity, while lowering God into man, made man into God; though, it is true, this human God was by a further process made a transcendental, imaginary God, remote from man. Hence it is obvious that I do not take the word anthropology in the sense of the Hegelian or of any [xiii]other philosophy, but in an infinitely higher and more general sense.
Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendour of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity. Hence I do nothing more to religion—and to speculative philosophy and theology also—than to open its eyes, or rather to turn its gaze from the internal towards the external, i.e., I change the object as it is in the imagination into the object as it is in reality. — Feuerbach
You might proceed by rereading my previous reply to you. It contains an answer to the question you've just asked that should make it clear that you have just grossly misrepresented my "claim".Yes. I’m not exactly sure how to proceed since our difference seems to be fundamental to the topic at hand. But I would like to ask you what a belief about existence would be, since your claim that statements like “I believe God does/doesn’t exist” are actually about the concept of God, rather than existence? — Pinprick
I would not say "I believe there is no God" is a claim about the nonexistence of a concept. — Cabbage Farmer
Well, God is certainly only a concept, but I think that “I believe there is no God” refers more towards the non/existence of the concept, rather than the concept itself. If I say “I believe the shirt is not red,” I’m making a statement about a property (the color) of the object (the shirt), not about the object itself. — Pinprick
I might agree that this statement is also about something like "the color red", or "the property of being red" or "the predicate 'is red'"... and about the relation of some such thing to the thing called a shirt. Accordingly I might characterize the speaker's belief as a belief that there is a thing called "this shirt" and that the concept or predicate "being red" does not apply, or is not correctly applied, to that thing. — Cabbage Farmer
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↪BraydenS But making a statement like that means that you can change the position of the “positive” and “negative” aspects and retain the same meaning.
“I believe that this doesn’t exist” becomes “I don’t believe that this exists.” Which means, to me at least, that by negating the object (exist) you actually negate the verb (believe). — Pinprick
Speaking for myself, I believe THAT theism is not true (i.e. believe THAT theism's negation is true). I/we don't "believe IN" (i.e. "worship"; unconditionally (devotionally) "trust" or "submit to" or "hope for") any one/thing as e.g. theists do.atheists are believing in something — BraydenS
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atheists are believing in something
— BraydenS
Speaking for myself, I believe THAT theism is not true (i.e. believe THAT theism's negation is true). I/we don't "believe IN" (i.e. "worship"; unconditionally (devotionally) "trust" or "submit to" or "hope for") any one/thing as e.g. theists do. — 180 Proof
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