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Big Bird and the Belief that All Beliefs are Equally Improbable

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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Objective reality can’t be known with 100% certainty. Even taking something like, say, the acceleration due to gravity, we can measure this experimentally. But the validity or utility of the experiments depend on a number of axioms, Given those axioms, we can know the acceleration due to gravity, but as we cannot prove the axioms to be true, there’s still a possibility that what we “know” is in fact false.

    So far, this is a trite point for philosophers. So what’s the value in pointing it out? The value is that it opens up other, more interesting questions. YOu ask, what's the case for the prosecution, in a world in which objective reality is unknowable? That's an important real-world question that demands attention, because the world we live in is one in which objective reality is ultimately unknowable.

    How can we live in a world in which perfect knowledge of objective reality is unattainable? How can we live with radical uncertainty? When it comes to something like the acceleration due to gravity, pretty much all of us are happy to live on the unproven and unprovable assumption that the axioms which underpin the scientific method are correct and, on the whole, that seems to work out pretty well for us. So the prosecution against you will proceed and, if there are difficult issues, it won't be over whether the victim plummeted to his death or not.

    What we can say though is certain aspects of objective reality, such as acceleration due to gravity, can be known to a verifiable degree of confidence for a given scale or range of values assuming no interference factors. This repeatability is the basis on which the sum of the technology our civilization depends on manages to survive.

    While the totality of objective reality is ultimately unknowable in any absolute sense, parts of objective reality are knowable within these bounds. These bounds are also expanding as our understanding grows and becomes refined.
    To compare this to any unmeasurable religious belief or imagined notion of an objective reality is a false equivalence.
    But that’s not a complete answer, because there are other claims whose truth cannot be tested by the scientific method. So, how are we to live in a world where important claims cannot be known to be either true or false? This matters, because the class of claims that cannot be known to be either true or false includes things like:

    - that a woman has a right to control her own fertility;

    - that my right to free speech trumps (or doesn’t trump) your right not to be offended, your right to confidentiality or privacy, your right to control your own personal data, your right to privacy; your copyright; etc

    - that there are fundamental human rights that cannot be overridden even by a democratically-expressed majority view;

    - what these fundamental human rights are;

    - and many more besides. In other words, it includes lots of questions that we regard as quite important, and that we have a need to take a position on.

    I humbly suggest that something like the sh!tshow of a discourse about abortion that we had in Ireland over the past 40 years might have proceeded in a more constructive way if both sides had conceded that their respective positions were founded on claims which could not be known to be true, and had tried to work out a position which accepted this instead of ignoring or denying it.

    What we see here is that, as a tool, empirical measurement of our physical universe only really addresses certain classes of question. There are other classes of question which rest on abstracts such as ideology, ethics and social justice. These are better addressed using other methods such as collective understanding through evolving consensus and discussion. The evolving bit is important in the context of human rights here, e.g. if we consider things like slavery or the right of a third party to interfere with a woman's bodily autonomy. Much as our understanding of the physical universe is expanding over time through a process of observation and refinement, so to is our understanding of fundamental human rights. I think religious ethics are of diminishing value here giving their rigidity and anachronistic nature.

    I'd humbly suggest the rather lively discourse around topics such as abortion and gay marriage over recent decades have been of great value to our society in this context. Rather than have these issues dictated to us by a waning patriarchal hierarchy using religious dogma from a different era we are discussing and arriving what is best for our society in a way that is most fair to all concerned to the best of our current collective understanding.

    That aside, the whole pretext of this discussion is one huge false dichotomy. It weighs empiricism as a sole philosophy for our understanding of the universe against a corresponding religiously derived understanding. This is a nonsense. As described above, most people who employ empirical methods only do so for certain classes of problem. Similarly, most religious people will also typically use the exact same methods when dealing with those problems. I have yet to meet anyone who seeks to address issues of social justice or ethics using purely empirical methods. For most of us, empiricism is a tool rather than a sole philosophy.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    I'm having trouble understanding the point of an argument that objective reality is unknowable.

    The argument isn't that the objective reality isn't knowable. The argument seeks to extract from you where the root of your knowing anything is located.

    The solution does not lie in asking how ridiculous it would be if pushing a person off a cliff wasn't known to result in their death. We know it will. But where is the root of our knowing so?

    Since that lies in us as individuals, we are down to our knowing being a personal decision that we can know. Whether we decide to refer to outside sources to aid us (where we decide we might err) or not is rooted in ourselves

    Theologically, this impossible attempt (by atheists) to root their knowing in something concrete outside themselves is an impossible attempt to evade God.

    Evading God and taking the self directed path is, afterall, precisely what Adam was doing in his apple eating.

    But what need to root our knowing outside ourselves? Does God need to root his knowing outside himself. Or is it, that being God, he is objectivity. The root. And being attached to him our knowing can be objective. It would only take him permitting us to know he exists for us to objectively know he exists. There may be t&c's attached to his permitting/enabling that but once he does, we know. Or at least, I know.

    Either God as root - for which you have no evidence. Or something concrete outside yourself is the root - for which you have no evidence.

    Stalemate.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    "I can't prove my god is true - but you can't prove it's false" :rolleyes:

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    I humbly suggest that something like the sh!tshow of a discourse about abortion that we had in Ireland over the past 40 years might have proceeded in a more constructive way if both sides had conceded that their respective positions were founded on claims which could not be known to be true, and had tried to work out a position which accepted this instead of ignoring or denying it.

    Said "sh!tshow" was entirely the fault of religious fundamentalists, and ironically almost entirely at their instigation. Very, very few people were talking about abortion rights in Ireland until the "masterminds of the right" (a great little book by Emily O'Reilly) decided to initiate a campaign for a "pro-life" amendment.

    Pro-choicers have always been clear that their arguments are based on the concept of human rights, and as such a societal consensus not an objective truth. Their opposition are the ones who claim to hold objective truth based upon religious belief. There was no secular pro-8th amendment campaign.

    I also agree with smacl that the series of social policy referenda starting in 1983 (even though the conservative forces won that one, and divorce in 1986) have been very useful in allowing Irish society to define what it is and what it wants to be, as the old 'certainties' of catholic Ireland fade away. A somewhat painful transition was inevitable. Spain, Quebec and other catholic church dominated societies have been through the same process. We are still stuck with the massive problem of church domination of education.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    "I can't prove my god is true - but you can't prove it's false" :rolleyes:

    True: whether your god is God or whether your god is empiricism.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Said "sh!tshow" was entirely the fault of religious fundamentalists, and ironically almost entirely at their instigation. Very, very few people were talking about abortion rights in Ireland until the "masterminds of the right" (a great little book by Emily O'Reilly) decided to initiate a campaign for a "pro-life" amendment.

    Pro-choicers have always been clear that their arguments are based on the concept of human rights, and as such a societal consensus not an objective truth. Their opposition are the ones who claim to hold objective truth based upon religious belief. There was no secular pro-8th amendment campaign.

    I also agree with smacl that the series of social policy referenda starting in 1983 (even though the conservative forces won that one, and divorce in 1986) have been very useful in allowing Irish society to define what it is and what it wants to be, as the old 'certainties' of catholic Ireland fade away. A somewhat painful transition was inevitable. Spain, Quebec and other catholic church dominated societies have been through the same process. We are still stuck with the massive problem of church domination of education.

    We have serious and intractable predicaments looming. Dwindling resources, climate change, worsening standards of living (even if an infinite choice of smartphones and way more than "16 channels of sh1t on the TV to chose from" )


    The proability is against society either sucessfully or peacefully navigating its way through to green pastures

    It isn't unreasonable to suppose society one day turning its back on the patently absurd 'ever onwards and upwards' march of scientific/rational/because I'm worth it thinking that has helped bring this situation about.

    Imagine what will occur in a society that is genuinely in need of multiple crutches - when your view is that religion is a crutch.

    Might be sooner than you think. Keep watching the methane burp..


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    What we can say though is certain aspects of objective reality, such as acceleration due to gravity, can be known to a verifiable degree of confidence for a given scale or range of values assuming no interference factors. This repeatability is the basis on which the sum of the technology our civilization depends on manages to survive.
    We need to assume more than “no interference factors”. We need to assume the truth of the axioms which underpin the scientific method, none of which are (or can be) proven to be true.
    smacl wrote: »
    While the totality of objective reality is ultimately unknowable in any absolute sense, parts of objective reality are knowable within these bounds. These bounds are also expanding as our understanding grows and becomes refined.
    The bounds may be expanding, but they are not infinitely expandable. The scientific method proceeds on the basis of empirical observations, which it means that it can’t be applied to verify (or falsify) claims about anything which is objectively real but not empirically observable.

    You can deny the significance of this limitation by asserting that the only things that are objectively real are things that are empirically observable, which is precisely the claim that philosophical materialists make. But of course this claim itself is a claim about objective reality that we cannot know to be true.
    smacl wrote: »
    To compare this to any unmeasurable religious belief or imagined notion of an objective reality is a false equivalence.
    Yes, totally. That’s my point.

    There’s a range of claims about reality whose objective truth can be tested by the application of the scientific method. And - if we’re prepared to assume the truth of the required axioms, which we mostly are - we can know with a high degree of reliability whether these claims are objectively true or objectively false.

    But there’s another range of claims about reality whose objective truth cannot be tested by the scientific method. And this range is very diverse; it includes theological claims, ethical/moral/political claims, claims about Platonic realities, the claims of Euclidean geometry, pure mathematics, etc.

    Three points about these claims:

    First, the fact that they cannot be scrutinised by the scientific method tells us nothing whatsoever, one way or the other, about whether they are true or false. Philosophical materialists sometimes dismiss these claims as untestable, but all they are really doing there is to assert their philosophical materialism, which is untestable in exactly the same way as the claim they are dismissing.

    Secondly, because they’re diverse, we don’t have a one-size-fits-all epistemology for scrutinising them. The way in which we set out to prove a Euclidean proposition, for example, is no use at all when it comes to scrutinising an ethical claim.

    Thirdly, for the most part, the methods we do use to scrutinise these claims don’t yield answers attended by the same degree of certainty as the scientific method provides in relation to claims that it can scrutinise. But all we can do is note that, and move on. The fact that we can have only a limited degree of certainty about the truth of a claim has no implications at all, one way or the other, for its objective truth.

    Which brings me back to the point I was making earlier. The lesson from all this is not that untestable claims (as in, not scientifically testable claims) are unimportant, or can be dismissed. The lesson is that we need to come to terms with the fact of our own uncertainty about them.

    Which of course is what you are working towards here:
    smacl wrote: »
    What we see here is that, as a tool, empirical measurement of our physical universe only really addresses certain classes of question. There are other classes of question which rest on abstracts such as ideology, ethics and social justice. These are better addressed using other methods such as collective understanding through evolving consensus and discussion. The evolving bit is important in the context of human rights here, e.g. if we consider things like slavery or the right of a third party to interfere with a woman's bodily autonomy. Much as our understanding of the physical universe is expanding over time through a process of observation and refinement, so to is our understanding of fundamental human rights. I think religious ethics are of diminishing value here giving their rigidity and anachronistic nature.

    I'd humbly suggest the rather lively discourse around topics such as abortion and gay marriage over recent decades have been of great value to our society in this context. Rather than have these issues dictated to us by a waning patriarchal hierarchy using religious dogma from a different era we are discussing and arriving what is best for our society in a way that is most fair to all concerned to the best of our current collective understanding.
    Yeah, there’s a couple of things I could quarrel with here. The casual bracketing of “religious ethics” as “rigid and anachronistic”, for example. In the abortion debate, I didn’t observe the assertion of the right to choose as being any less rigid than the assertion of the right to life. And in relation to claims about objective truth, “anachronistic” is not necessarily a vice. I think, to be honest, you’re kind of poisoning the well by proposing “religious ethics” as something characteristically different from non-religious ethics. I’m not convinced that it is.

    But, broadly, I like what you’re saying here. I think discourse is important in dealing with radical uncertainty. Radical uncertainty requires both you and me to accept that what we believe, regardless of how passionately we believe it, may be objectively false. And I think a corollary of that is that we should be open to listening to other people’s beliefs, because (a) we should be willing to let them influence our beliefs; they might be closer to the truth than we are; and (b) their beliefs have as much traction with the collective understanding as mine do; in that sense at least they are equally as important.

    I hate to keep coming back to the abortion debate, but I do - not because I think it’s typical of discourse about competing claims that may be wrong, but because I think it’s an Awful Example of how not to do it. We have absolutist moral claims being asserted (on both sides) in a take-no-prisoners conflict in which any kind of compromise or synthesis is a betrayal. At least, that’s how it has tended to play out in the Anglosphere. It’s been bloody, it’s been long drawn-out, and it tends not to result in a secure or stable outcome. (I see that in the US they are obsessing once again about the real risk that conservative-dominated Supreme Court will overturn Roe -v- Wade.)

    Contrast the discourse in much of continental Europe, where intransigent right-to-life and right-to-choose absolutists are to be found, but tend to be more marginal figures, and where much of the discussion has been pragmatic, and has focussed not on the rights of the individual but on the role of the state. It has made for a much less heated debate, much more easily and quickly resolved , with - this may be a coincidence, but I suspect not - frequently a high degree of legal freedom coupled with signficantly lower abortion rates than characterise the Anglo-American world. From a utilitarian point of view, what’s not to like? And maybe this is attainable when you don’t have a discourse which proceeds by saying that my ethical claim is true and you must all yield to it, but his is false and must be ignored.
    smacl wrote: »
    That aside, the whole pretext of this discussion is one huge false dichotomy. It weighs empiricism as a sole philosophy for our understanding of the universe against a corresponding religiously derived understanding. This is a nonsense. As described above, most people who employ empirical methods only do so for certain classes of problem. Similarly, most religious people will also typically use the exact same methods when dealing with those problems. I have yet to meet anyone who seeks to address issues of social justice or ethics using purely empirical methods. For most of us, empiricism is a tool rather than a sole philosophy.
    I agree. We have, or should have, a whole range of epistemologies that we apply to different questions, according to their utility. But I think this has to be coupled with an acceptance that our epistemologies are imperfect, and often very imperfect, which should lead to a corresponding degre of humility about the conclusions that they lead us to, and openness to the fact that other people’s different conclusions can’t be dismissed, and are worthy of our attention, and any collective action ought to take account of competing understandings.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    That's some brainwashing your parents subjected you, Peregrinus.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,771 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    But what need to root our knowing outside ourselves? Does God need to root his knowing outside himself. Or is it, that being God, he is objectivity. The root. And being attached to him our knowing can be objective. It would only take him permitting us to know he exists for us to objectively know he exists. There may be t&c's attached to his permitting/enabling that but once he does, we know. Or at least, I know.

    Either God as root - for which you have no evidence. Or something concrete outside yourself is the root - for which you have no evidence.

    Stalemate.

    This is just the ontological argument, swapping "perfect" for "objective". This is wrong for two reasons:
    1) The same reason the ontological argument is wrong - laughably false premise. We can define fictional concepts with all sorts of properties that we can say implies they are or could be real, that doesn't actually make them real. I can claim that Harry Potter can figure out a spell to bring him to our real world, thereby making him real. Does this make Harry Potter a real person?
    2) As you are not the source of objectivity, you can't know that your belief in your god is from your gods "root of objectivity", or if it's just the same as all of the other false beliefs that other theists have in their contradictory gods that can't also exist. So even if your idea of god happens to exists, a guess that is correct is still a guess. You don't have objective knowledge, you just assume you do.

    At best you have only created a stalemate between yourself and other theists, who also claim their own distinct and yet perfect and root of objectivity gods.


    Empiricism doesn't actually claim to be the source of objective reality, it is a method for reducing the subjectivity of your claims and tests so that your results better represent objective reality. So there is no stalemate between empiricism and your system which assumes it knows all because it just decides it knows all.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    The bounds may be expanding, but they are not infinitely expandable. The scientific method proceeds on the basis of empirical observations, which it means that it can’t be applied to verify (or falsify) claims about anything which is objectively real but not empirically observable.

    You can deny the significance of this limitation by asserting that the only things that are objectively real are things that are empirically observable, which is precisely the claim that philosophical materialists make. But of course this claim itself is a claim about objective reality that we cannot know to be true.

    There’s a range of claims about reality whose objective truth can be tested by the application of the scientific method. And - if we’re prepared to assume the truth of the required axioms, which we mostly are - we can know with a high degree of reliability whether these claims are objectively true or objectively false.

    I think OscarBravo hit on an important point here previously which is one of utility (or value if you prefer). The bounds where an axiom holds and effect of interference factors is only an issue if you assert the axiom to be universally true. From a utilitarian perspective, you can state the axiom holds true within the context of those limitations. e.g. classic Newtonian physics may be bounded by scale but they are nonetheless robust and useful within those bounds. We know the earth is not flat yet for the purpose of topological mapping within our 5km exclusion zone we can consider it to be flat. As we consider greater distances for many purposes we can consider the earth to be spherical. Where higher accuracy is required we move from spherical to ellipsoid. For more accuracy still we need to consider the geoid, tectonics and changing, irregular nature of our planets surface. While we may desire universal absolute truths, we can derive more value from relative truth and ignore context at our peril. What we end up with are limited complex truths while we would prefer simple universal truths. One thing we do know for sure though is that wanting something to be true has no bearing on that thing being true ;)
    But there’s another range of claims about reality whose objective truth cannot be tested by the scientific method. And this range is very diverse; it includes theological claims, ethical/moral/political claims, claims about Platonic realities, the claims of Euclidean geometry, pure mathematics, etc.

    Three points about these claims:

    First, the fact that they cannot be scrutinised by the scientific method tells us nothing whatsoever, one way or the other, about whether they are true or false. Philosophical materialists sometimes dismiss these claims as untestable, but all they are really doing there is to assert their philosophical materialism, which is untestable in exactly the same way as the claim they are dismissing.

    Secondly, because they’re diverse, we don’t have a one-size-fits-all epistemology for scrutinising them. The way in which we set out to prove a Euclidean proposition, for example, is no use at all when it comes to scrutinising an ethical claim.

    Thirdly, for the most part, the methods we do use to scrutinise these claims don’t yield answers attended by the same degree of certainty as the scientific method provides in relation to claims that it can scrutinise. But all we can do is note that, and move on. The fact that we can have only a limited degree of certainty about the truth of a claim has no implications at all, one way or the other, for its objective truth.

    Which brings me back to the point I was making earlier. The lesson from all this is not that untestable claims (as in, not scientifically testable claims) are unimportant, or can be dismissed. The lesson is that we need to come to terms with the fact of our own uncertainty about them.

    I suspect what we're talking about here are pure abstracts, which while extremely useful are nonetheless imaginary constructs. Euclidean geometry in two and three dimensions would be a good example of this. The truths it contains speak more about the internal consistency of the geometry and hence are also bounded truths that only apply in that context. From an atheist perspective, the same can be said about theological truths. Given they may be internally consistent in no way implies they are universal truths. The value they provide is contextually limited to those of shared faith. This is worth bearing in mind when we are considering ethics where multiple belief systems, traditions and notions of social justice are in play. The pragmatic tools to use in this context are discourse and consensus. In this sense, while I'm an atheist, this is a personal position of little consequence to this discussion. What is more important is that I'm a secularist, which I suspect you are too, even though our understanding of the term may well be different.
    Yeah, there’s a couple of things I could quarrel with here. The casual bracketing of “religious ethics” as “rigid and anachronistic”, for example. In the abortion debate, I didn’t observe the assertion of the right to choose as being any less rigid than the assertion of the right to life. And in relation to claims about objective truth, “anachronistic” is not necessarily a vice. I think, to be honest, you’re kind of poisoning the well by proposing “religious ethics” as something characteristically different from non-religious ethics. I’m not convinced that it is.

    My beef with ethics derived from religion is that they're based on a very limited canon of knowledge that can't readily be updated to reflect the massive differences in society at the time of Christ and today's society. For example, consider the problems created by global population growth and attendant over consumption, pollution, exhaustion of natural resources and destruction of the environment. These are new problems and require different ways of thinking about what is good and bad. They're not addressed in the bible as they simply didn't exist at that point in time.
    But, broadly, I like what you’re saying here. I think discourse is important in dealing with radical uncertainty. Radical uncertainty requires both you and me to accept that what we believe, regardless of how passionately we believe it, may be objectively false. And I think a corollary of that is that we should be open to listening to other people’s beliefs, because (a) we should be willing to let them influence our beliefs; they might be closer to the truth than we are; and (b) their beliefs have as much traction with the collective understanding as mine do; in that sense at least they are equally as important.

    I hate to keep coming back to the abortion debate, but I do - not because I think it’s typical of discourse about competing claims that may be wrong, but because I think it’s an Awful Example of how not to do it. We have absolutist moral claims being asserted (on both sides) in a take-no-prisoners conflict in which any kind of compromise or synthesis is a betrayal. At least, that’s how it has tended to play out in the Anglosphere. It’s been bloody, it’s been long drawn-out, and it tends not to result in a secure or stable outcome. (I see that in the US they are obsessing once again about the real risk that conservative-dominated Supreme Court will overturn Roe -v- Wade.)

    Contrast the discourse in much of continental Europe, where intransigent right-to-life and right-to-choose absolutists are to be found, but tend to be more marginal figures, and where much of the discussion has been pragmatic, and has focussed not on the rights of the individual but on the role of the state. It has made for a much less heated debate, much more easily and quickly resolved , with - this may be a coincidence, but I suspect not - frequently a high degree of legal freedom coupled with signficantly lower abortion rates than characterise the Anglo-American world. From a utilitarian point of view, what’s not to like? And maybe this is attainable when you don’t have a discourse which proceeds by saying that my ethical claim is true and you must all yield to it, but his is false and must be ignored.

    I think the abortion debate is a thorny one and we risk falling down a rabbit hole if we pursue it in depth. This has already been done to death here and elsewhere. Outside of the arguments in relation to basic human rights and other more emotive subjects, what it does illustrate is a major contextual difference between biblical times and our world today. In biblical times there was a necessity for society to have enough new births to grow population at a time of high infant mortality and reduced life expectancy. At this time there was an abundance of available land and other natural resources. This has been largely reversed in recent times and societies needs have similarly changed. If we consider our ethics in terms of what is best for society and what is best for the individual, we need to recognise and deal with this change. I consider religiously derived ethics surrounding reproductive rights rigid and anachronistic because they fail to do so.
    I agree. We have, or should have, a whole range of epistemologies that we apply to different questions, according to their utility. But I think this has to be coupled with an acceptance that our epistemologies are imperfect, and often very imperfect, which should lead to a corresponding degre of humility about the conclusions that they lead us to, and openness to the fact that other people’s different conclusions can’t be dismissed, and are worthy of our attention, and any collective action ought to take account of competing understandings.

    Agreed, but the same time we need a basis by which we can make collective decisions for the common good irrespective of personal belief. Pragmatically I would suggest that discourse and consensus are the way forward here and dogma, whatever its source, is left to one side. In that sense, the relative merit of different beliefs such as those put forward by the OP fall into the realm of the personal until such time as they can be shown to have broader utility.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    That's some brainwashing your parents subjected you, Peregrinus.

    Mod

    And lo antiskeptic seeks to self sabotage the opportunity afforded to him/her/them to convince others of the validity of their hypothesis by repeatedly committing infractions of the Charter.

    So far in this thread we have had a yellow for backseat moderation.
    Another yellow for discussing moderation in thread.
    And now we have a red (due to the nature of escalating sanctions) for uncivility in attacking the poster not the post.

    I, personally, find it interesting that I have sanctioned you more in this thread - which I created to enable you to argue without fear of sanctioning for soapboxing- then I have done since I became a mod.
    Why is that do you think?
    Is it that you know your argument is fatally flawed so are trying to run away without it looking like you ran away?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Empiricism doesn't actually claim to be the source of objective reality, it is a method for reducing the subjectivity of your claims and tests so that your results better represent objective reality. So there is no stalemate between empiricism and your system which assumes it knows all because it just decides it knows all.

    Well said, empiricism is essentially a tool of refinement that helps us dig deeper into certain things that we're trying to understand better. It is not a system of belief.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    This is just the ontological argument, swapping "perfect" for "objective"Z

    It wasn't so much an argument as a question. There is this view that we need to ground or anchor ourselves against something external to ourselves so that the objective reality can be established objectively.

    But find an anchor we cannot. Not unless we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. God? Empirical method (in the sense of it being positioned as supreme god)? Both require our decision as to their solidity.


    . This is wrong for two reasons:
    1) The same reason the ontological argument is wrong - laughably false premise. We can define fictional concepts with all sorts of properties that we can say implies they are or could be real, that doesn't actually make them real. I can claim that Harry Potter can figure out a spell to bring him to our real world, thereby making him real. Does this make Harry Potter a real person?

    Since I wasn't attempting to demonstrate God I'm not sure of relevance.



    2) As you are not the source of objectivity, you can't know that your belief in your god is from your gods "root of objectivity"

    The question then as to the source of objectivity if not self at root? It appears you can't point to empirical method, since it would be a subjective decision of yours that empirical method removes subjectivity and leads in the direction objectivity.
    if it's just the same as all of the other false beliefs that other theists have in their contradictory gods that can't also exist. So even if your idea of god happens to exists, a guess that is correct is still a guess. You don't have objective knowledge, you just assume you do.

    It seems you're saying that God cannot objectively demonstrate he is God to someone - unless he does so in a specific manner you place so much faith in. That's some claim: a philosopher that God would have created has managed to prove that God can't objectively demonstrate the existence of Himself. The created can objectively demonstrate things, but God can't. Hmmm..



    Empiricism doesn't actually claim to be the source of objective reality, it is a method for reducing the subjectivity of your claims and tests so that your results better represent objective reality.

    And you are going to explain how you convert that subjective belief about empirical method into an objective one?


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    smacl wrote: »
    Well said, empiricism is essentially a tool of refinement that helps us dig deeper into certain things that we're trying to understand better. It is not a system of belief.


    The belief occurs when you suppose empiricism a tool of refinement. Isn't something a belief when it is subjective and unproven?

    The religious-like system of belief occurs when empiricism is elevated to levels where it gets to pronounce on God/not God. Empiricism is the throne God need bow before :)

    Paul wrote about such things
    So they worshiped and served the things God created (i.e.
    knowing through empirical method) instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,771 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    It wasn't so much an argument as a question. There is this view that we need to ground or anchor ourselves against something external to ourselves so that the objective reality can be established objectively.

    But find an anchor we cannot. Not unless we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. God? Empirical method (in the sense of it being positioned as supreme god)? Both require our decision as to their solidity.

    If we are trying to anchor ourselves against something external in order to determine information about objective reality , which is more likely to be a more useful and accurate anchor:
    1) Assuming that our personal (i.e. subjective) belief in a god is perfect true and just stopping with subjective assertion;
    or
    2) Checking our ideas against other people's and trying to amalgamate and reconcile them.
    If we want to approach anything objective, then should we not actually approach the non-subjective.
    Since I wasn't attempting to demonstrate God I'm not sure of relevance.

    You used the same argument to jump from a god you assumed demonstrated to the same god therefore being the (only) source of objective knowledge. If the base argument is invalid, then so is your conclusion is.
    The question then as to the source of objectivity if not self at root? It appears you can't point to empirical method, since it would be a subjective decision of yours that empirical method removes subjectivity and leads in the direction objectivity.

    It is not a subjective decision of mine that the empirical method removes subjectivity, it is an inescapable outcome. If I reconcile my subjective observation with someone else's, then my subjective observation is no longer subjective to me. We have therefore taken a step towards objectivity.
    The better the source of my initial observations, the more people I can reconcile with) the bigger the step.
    It seems you're saying that God cannot objectively demonstrate he is God to someone - unless he does so in a specific manner you place so much faith in. That's some claim: a philosopher that God would have created has managed to prove that God can't objectively demonstrate the existence of Himself. The created can objectively demonstrate things, but God can't. Hmmm..

    I am not talking about god, I am talking about you. You are not god. Therefore you are not the source of objectivity, you are not all-knowing and infallible. You may be convinced, but that is not the same thing as you knowing.
    At best you have only created a stalemate between yourself and other theists, who also claim their own distinct and yet perfect and root of objectivity gods.
    And you are going to explain how you convert that subjective belief about empirical method into an objective one?

    What subjective belief about empirical method?


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,771 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    The belief occurs when you suppose empiricism a tool of refinement. Isn't something a belief when it is subjective and unproven?

    A ruler is a tool of measurement. A bent ruler is still a tool even if by being bent means it cannot give correct measurements. You may think empiricism a faulty tool, but it is still a tool.


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