That NM is still good enough for some purposes is besides the point. We know for sure that NM is not completely correct. — Pfhorrest
Finding reasons to reject that some observation is evidence to the contrary of a belief is exactly the behavior that someone clinging to that belief in the face of evidence would do. — Pfhorrest
Depending on what you mean by "God", there is, or sometimes it's not the kind of thing held susceptible to evidence at all, and so must be rejected on those grounds. — Pfhorrest
This is a semantics game again. I specify two different terms, "liberalism" and "fideism", exactly to avoid playing this semantics game. I'm not against believing in the absence of evidence, I am against believing against evidence. Call those whatever you like, names don't matter except for convenience. — Pfhorrest
It's possible to prove something true by falsifying the predictions of it's negation. It's not possible to prove something true by confirming its own predictions. Different kinds of proof, not different kinds of statements. That is the important distinction. And neither of those is "induction"; that's something else entirely, that comes well before the stage of testing like that. — Pfhorrest
What does it mean to say it is not correct, though? What specific part of it is not correct, as opposed to merely not accurate enough? — Janus
Give me an example of the evidence you have in mind. — Janus
Dismissing an argument as being merely semantics seems like a cop out. If you want to give new or eccentric meanings to terms you should be able to support their use. — Janus
But to say they believe against the evidence is a step too far, given that what is believed is not subject to empirical verification or falsification. — Janus
This is as clear as mud. Please give an example. — Janus
To say it’s not correct is to say that some observations one would expect on account of it are contrary to the observations that are actively had.
For example, Mercury does not move in the way one would expect from NM. — Pfhorrest
If what you mean by “God” involves being all knowing, all powerful, and all good, then the occurrence of evil is evidence against the existence of such a God. — Pfhorrest
Give me a better word to use for the refusal to question an opinion, then; something that contrasts it with being open to an opinion not yet proven. — Pfhorrest
If what they say is not subject to empirical testing, then that is on itself a reason to reject the belief, because that makes it unquestionable in principle, and all beliefs must be questionable in principle.
But also, lots of people believe in a God that is subject to empirical tests, since their concept of God is supposed to actually have some noticeable impact on the world. — Pfhorrest
We went over many examples before.
If the Face On Mars was artificial, we would expect it to be made of baryons.
It is made of baryons.
Therefore it’s artificial?
Or:
If it was natural, we would expect it to be made of baryons.
It is made of baryons.
Therefore it’s natural? — Pfhorrest
GR does not "faslify" NM — Janus
It is only evidence to those who believe that humans notions of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence are sufficient to understand God.
And even if that were accepted, a transcendent God who did not possess such attributes could be believed in without fear of encountering any empirical evidence for or against its existence. — Janus
Lack of ability to empirically test a belief is not reason to reject the belief, unless you count empirical evidence as the only kind of evidence for a belief. — Janus
The belief that your wife loves you cannot be definitively empirically tested, because however she treats you, you can never be certain about her motivations or psychological pathologies. — Janus
Most philosophical ideas cannot be empirically tested. How would you test whether there is a Platonic realm of Forms, for example? — Janus
Please supply a real world example. — Janus
Cases where it looks like confirmationism is working, like you keep giving, are cases where it’s falsification doing all the heavy lifting. — Pfhorrest
Cases where it looks like confirmationism is working, like you keep giving, are cases where it’s falsification doing all the heavy lifting. — Pfhorrest
To do what though? — Srap Tasmaner
Again, what about quantum mechanics and evolution? Neither body of theory is entirely satisfactory to much of anyone, but the fundamentals are the most confirmed scientific theories we have ever had, and that seems to matter to scientists an awful lot. — Srap Tasmaner
This fundamentally misunderstands falsification. One theory does not falsify another. Observations falsify theories. And showing an inaccuracy of one is the same thing as falsification. — Pfhorrest
Her behavior is evidence of her mental state; all empirical properties of everything are behaviors of some sort of another. — Pfhorrest
Like I said, it depends on what you mean by "God". — Pfhorrest
Most properly philosophical ideas (in today’s narrower sense excluding “natural philosophy”) are not beliefs about the facts of the world, but ideas about the framework through which to investigate things like (but not exclusively) the facts of the world. Since they’re not making claims about reality, empiricism is not relevant to them; which is good, because whether or not to use empiricism is one of those topics, and if it were to be settled empirically that would be circular. — Pfhorrest
Cases where it looks like confirmationism is working, like you keep giving, are cases where it’s falsification doing all the heavy lifting. That nobody would even try a case that isn’t like that suggests that falsification more accurately models our intuitions, even though we intuitively say otherwise. — Pfhorrest
Showing an inaccuracy does not falsify a theory. — Janus
In the case we are discussing the inaccuracy was thought to be caused by some hidden planetary or asteroids — Janus
Nonsense, she might act as though she loves you and yet not; or conversely act as though she doesn't love you even though she loves you. — Janus
Like I said, it depends on what you mean by "God". — Pfhorrest
No, it also depends on what you count as evidence and how you define omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence, and how you think an infinite eternal being would manifest those qualities (whether you think human understanding of those qualities is adequate). — Janus
Even if we accept fro the sake of argument that it merely depends on what you mean by "God", the questions remains as to whether the existence of a transcendent God, however that is otherwise specified, can be confirmed or disconfirmed. — Janus
Right, so if we believe one philosophical idea rather than another it is merely a matter of faith then because it is believing without inter-subjectively corroborable evidence. — Janus
It appears as though you are going to continue to simply assert this without giving any good examples of how it supposedly works. — Janus
It absolutely does. That's what falseness is: not being an accurate model of reality. — Pfhorrest
If NM was correct, we would expect there would be some previously unaccounted-for mass causing the unexpected motion of Mercury. So either there is such a mass, or NM is incorrect. There is not such a mass, so NM is incorrect. — Pfhorrest
In a colloquial sense, sure, people can pretend things. You're not arguing in good faith here anymore if you think I wasn't conceding that.
Notably, you ignored the bit about her brain state being empirically observable in principle. — Pfhorrest
Or something that's not testable at all. Better be consistent with that definition though and not act as though anything is evidence of God acting on the world or something. — Pfhorrest
Any transcendent anything cannot be tested. It also has no effect whatsoever on anything in the world, because that is exactly what makes it transcendent and impossible to test. And that is all the reason to reject belief in any such things. — Pfhorrest
Math is not subject to empiricism either, but that doesn't mean all mathematical theorems are just taken on faith. — Pfhorrest
It appears as though you are going to continue ignoring the plentiful examples I have given over and over again of the absurd implications that would follow if confirmationism were a sound method of inference.
Didn't you ragequit this thread already, yesterday? — Pfhorrest
None of our models can ever be definitively shown to be accurate models of reality, or for that matter be shown not to be. — Janus
So now you claim that it has been verified that there is not such a mass. — Janus
That would mean, could only mean, that the GR idea of space being warped has been verified to be correct. — Janus
In any case the fact that people can pretend things doesn't alter the fact that whether your wife loves you or not cannot be empirically demonstrated. The bit about her brain state being "observable in principle" is irrelevant, because that would require that a certain pattern of neural activity could be reliably verified to be equivalent to being in love. But you say no verification is possible. — Janus
I've already said that I think there cannot be any empirical evidence either confirming or dis-confirming the existence of God. It would help if you read more carefully. — Janus
Exactly what I've been saying all along; that some beliefs are faith-based insofar as there cannot be any inter-subjectively corroborable evidence to confirm or dis-confirm them. Your preference for rejecting such beliefs is just that, and nothing more; your preference. — Janus
(Of course I agree that such beliefs cannot be argued for or against because that would require inter-subjective corroboration of some sort; either empirical or logical; we probably agree about that much. But I also think that no one has the right to determine what should or should not reasonably motivate privately held beliefs, because you have no way of knowing what another has experienced). — Janus
Not a good example; in math there are determinably correct and incorrect answers. — Janus
The latter is the only kind of God anyone would have any reason to care about the existence of anyway, since the former kind by definition would make no noticeable difference on the world whether he existed or not -- since if he did make a difference, that would be a way to test for his existence. — Pfhorrest
Individuals are part of the world. — Pfhorrest
You got the first half right, but the second half wrong. It's trivially easy to show a model to be inaccurate. — Pfhorrest
Either there is not such a mass, or some much deeper and more subtle assumptions according to which we interpret our experiences are wrong. We've searched thoroughly for such a mass and found nothing, so either we're doing something subtly and fundamentally wrong with how we search for things in space, or there is no such mass and so NM is false. — Pfhorrest
If her love has any effect on the world at all, and isn't just some kind of epiphenomenon, then it will make an observable difference of some sort, from which we can in principle tell whether or not she's in love. — Pfhorrest
You don't have to verify the correlation between being in love and observable neural states, you just need to be able to falsify the alternative. What would be the observable consequences of her not being in love? If those are not observed, then she is in love.
This is just a repeat of your same misunderstanding of what falsification is about. It's not at all about whether the thing being tested is phrased as a negation of something else or not. You can always rephrase something as just a different term that doesn't involve negation: "natural" and "artificial" can be taken as negations of each other, and either tested for without saying "not-" the other. — Pfhorrest
The latter is the only kind of God anyone would have any reason to care about the existence of anyway, since the former kind by definition would make no noticeable difference on the world whether he existed or not -- since if he did make a difference, that would be a way to test for his existence. — Pfhorrest
If they have experienced something, then that is empirical evidence... for something. FWIW, I have frequently experienced the "religious experiences" some point to as evidence of God, and I remain an atheist, because supposing the existence of God is far from the best explanation for those experiences, and raises far more problems than it would solve even if it were. — Pfhorrest
Not a good example; in math there are determinably correct and incorrect answers. — Janus
You presume there are not in philosophy, ethics, etc? I have arguments why you should presume to the contrary, but I've already given them in previous threads and don't want to rehash that here. We've been over objectivism before just like we've been over empiricism before. — Pfhorrest
Inaccuracy is not a black and white thing; there are obviously degrees. — Janus
Although we cannot presently know it is always possible there is a mass we cannot detect. — Janus
That just isn't necessarily so. Her love may have a profound effect on her, but for her own reasons she keeps it entirely hidden.
[...]
No again you are making unwarranted assumptions; there may be no observable consequences of her not being in love, just as there may be no observable consequences of her not being in love. — Janus
If natural and artificial can be tested for that means there are observable marks of each that confirm one or the other. — Janus
so by your very own argument God makes a difference in the world. — Janus
But that still doesn't tell us whether God exists or not. — Janus
Again, you misunderstand the nature of faith. People care about the existence of God and believe or disbelieve in it because of the effect belief or disbelief has on them. — Janus
The point is that any God people care about will make a difference to them, and hence to the world, however small that difference might be. The difference could even be indiscernible to all but the believer. — Janus
Sure, and all that says more about you than anything else. — Janus
The answers in math are provably right or wrong. There are no provabnly right or wrong answers in ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, or metaphysics, etc. — Janus
Making a difference to a part of a thing makes a difference to that thing. — Pfhorrest
Say I change a tire on my automobile, does it become a different automobile? — Merkwurdichliebe
Do you get that? This is the important point I keep repeating and you keep ignoring. — Pfhorrest
There are signs that rock formations are natural, and there are signs that they have been modified. If rock formations display tool marks then we know they have been modified. — Janus
Can you not see that it's falsification doing the heavy lifting here? — Pfhorrest
falsification and verification are two sides of the one coin as I see it — Janus
On this I'm satisfied to agree to disagree with you — Janus
It's just a non-sequitur that's not contrary to what I'm saying ("if P then Q, Q, therefore P" is not the same kind of inference as "if not-P then not-Q, Q, therefore P"; the latter is valid, the former is not, even though they both prove the same theory P via the same observation Q). — Pfhorrest
There are signs that rock formations are natural, and there are signs that they have been modified. If rock formations display tool marks then we know they have been modified. — Janus
"If not-artificial, then not tool-marks, tool marks therefore not-not-artificial" is indeed deductively valid, but it relies on the (unproven) premise that tool-marks could not exist on a natural structure. The proper conversely expressed verificationist counterpart to "if not-P then not-Q, Q, therefore P"; would not be "if P then Q, Q, therefore P", but "if Q then P" (if tool-marks then artificial), which is precisely the unproven premise in "if not-P then not-Q, Q, therefore P". — Janus
Can you really though? I mean, pragmatically speaking, in an ordinary sense, sure you can: you can look at Jon and see his hair is blonde. But in a technical sense, in the way Banno and Isaac are on about, it's always possible to instead revise a bunch of other beliefs to account for why it seems to you like Jon has blonde hair but somehow he really doesn't. — Pfhorrest
the other, which I call "cynicism" (whereby it is necessary to reject any belief until reason is shown to accept it), is what I'm arguing against, and which you seem to be arguing for here. — Pfhorrest
For any reason put forth in support of some opinion is itself another opinion, for which the justificationist must then, if consistent with this principle, demand yet another reason. But that in turn will be some other opinion, for which the same demand for justification must be made. And so forth ad infinitum. — Pfhorrest
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