Freethought & Rationalism Archive

SignOfTheCross · 07-20-2003, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TheGreatInfidel
How is it that a non-physical substance (i.e the omni-spook: god) can cause a physical substance (i.e the world)?

1)Non-physical substances cannot cause physical subtances or events.
2) God is non-physical.
3) The world is physical.
4) Ergo, god did not cause the world.

Prior to the big bang (imaginary time) there was also no physical substance. Argue that in defence of science, and you'll have your answer for the arguement above.

Peace,
SOTC

TheGreatInfidel · 07-20-2003, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by fishbulb
Let me try to put it another way:

A deductive argument does not prove anything about the real world.

It only takes one counter-example to demonstrate that your statement is wrong - just one! Nonetheless, let us see to what absurdities your assertion leads.

Quote:

It makes a prediction that, if the premises are true in the real world, we will find that the conclusion is also true.

You've just defined a valid deductive argument (in part) and you also stated that "we will find that the conclusion is also true." My question is, where will it be true? In the world? But in your previous statement, you stated that a deductive argument does not prove anything about the real world? Make up your mind! In the words of Curly Howard - are you trying to give me the double-talk?

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Proof in the real world is, of course, a less pristine thing than proof in the abstract or mathematical sense. We cannot prove anything in the real world with absolute certainty

We cannot prove anything in the real world with absolute certainty? Again, it just takes one counter example to demonstrate that your assertion is false (BTW, absolute certainty to who?).

I'll make a few attempts: How about that there exists material objects? Can that be proven with absolute certainty? How about that humans exists? Can that be proven with absolute certainty? How about that I am reading this off the screen of a computer monitor? Can that be proven with absolute certainty? How about that only statements that can be verified in experience are meaningful (as you would have me believe), can that be proven with certainty? Any of you readers are welcome to try and disprove fishbulb's statement. All you need is one counter-example.

Quote:

there are always what-if's. When we talk about proving things in the real world, we talk about approaching, not reaching, certainty.

[sarcasm]Yeah, I know what you mean. We can only approach certainty that there exists material objects, but we can never reach certainty. I can only approach certainty that I exists, but I will never reach it. In fact, I ask myself all the time, do I exist? I suppose the same is the case with you, that is, that you have never reached certainty that you exists. You must only approach it.

We can only approach certainty that a pin prick hurts me. But we can never reach certainty that indeed it hurts me. I'll try it right now. Hold on.......let me go get a pin. OUCH! Damn, this hurts! Oh, wait a minute, I'm not sure it indeed hurts. Yeah you are right, I didn't reach certainty that it hurts. It looks like I'm bleeding, but I haven't reached certainty. I'm probably not bleeding.[/sarcasm]

Are you certain that we can never reach certainty?

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The way we reach this certainty is we corroborate our predictions with observations. The more observations we make and the more unsuccessful attempts we make to falsify our predictions, the more certain we can be that they are true.

Yeap, some people call that inductive reasoning.

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It is possible to make predictions that you cannot corroborate.

No kidding!

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If you do this then you have no way of knowing if your premises are right.

Ridiculous. Making predictions that you cannot corroborate has nothing to do whether your premises are right. Right premises can infer, both conclusions that are not corroborated in experince, and conclusions that are corroborated in experience. Get it straight!

Quote:

Your logic may be impeccable, but if your premises make predictions that you cannot verify, then you have no way of demonstrating that your premises are likely to be true.

This is beginning to be ri-goddamn-diculous! Whether the conclusions aren't verifiable has nothing to do whether the premises are true or verifiable in experience (I suppose that by "verifiable" you mean verifiable in experience). It is possible to go from verified premises to unverifiable conclusions, just as it's possible to go from verified premises to unverified conclusion. Furthermore, the truth of the conclusion does not dictate the truth of the premises. You got it backwards.

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How are documents, portraits, and so forth, not experiential verification? If Washington were the first President of the United States, we would expect to find evidence of this in the form of documents and other historical artifacts. These documents exist and serve to corroborate our hypothesis.

My question is whether it can be verified in experience that George Washington is the first president of the US. Not whether it can be verified in experience that there exists documents, portraits etc. that help corroborate the hypothesis that George Washington is the first president of the US. You see the difference?

Quote:

You don't have to observe Washington being president in order to know that he was.

Wait a minute, you said that a conclusion has to be verified in experience in order to be meaningful. Are you going back on that?

Premise 1) There exists documents protraits etc. that help corroborate and make a very strong hypothesis that George Washington is the first president of the United states.

Conclusion 2) Ergo, George Washington is the first president of the US.

The premise can be verified in experience. I'll give you that much. But how about the inference we make from that? Can the conclusion be verified in experience?

Quote:

That's not the point. The point is that you do need empirical evidence to corroborate the premise.

Yeap, I agree with you. Evidence is needed that the premise is true. Why would anyone want to support an argument with a premise that isn't verified to be true? Something tells me you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Quote:

You can get empirical evidence that Washington was the first president. You cannot get empirical evidence that non-physical entities cannot affect the physical world.

We can get empirical evidence that may help us build a very strong case that Washington was the first president. I also agree with you that it can be verified in experience that there exists documents, portratis etc. that help corroborate the hypothesis that George Washington was the first president of the United states. But again, that's not what I'm asking for.

My question is whether it can be verified in experience that George Washington is the first president of the US. Not whether it can be verified in experience that there exists documents, portraits etc. that help corroborate the hypothesis that George Washington is the first president of the US. You see the difference?

By the way, if you are having trouble understanding the implications of the assertion that a statement is only meaningfull if it can be verified in experience, I don't blame you. That assertion is an old speculation, tried and abandoned - 80 year old epistemology. Maybe you should stick with computer science.

Furthermore, I had enough of your non-sense, it's one thing to get fundie-logic from Christians, but it's a really sad state of affairs when I'm getting it from someone that calls himself a rationalist.

* Edited to add italics, correct mispellings and other meaningless crap.

TheGreatInfidel · 07-20-2003, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SignOfTheCross
Prior to the big bang (imaginary time) there was also no physical substance. Argue that in defence of science, and you'll have your answer for the arguement above.

Peace,
SOTC

What?!

Llyricist · 07-21-2003, 12:49 AM

TheGreatInfidel,

I'm afraid it is you that has fishbulb's point backwards. All he said was that it was your premises that are unverified and seemingly unverifiable. Therefore the conclusion may or may not be true depending on whether the premises are. Your entire argument totally misses his point, In fact you are arguing the SAME point from the opposite direction!

As for his certainty thing, you should know by now that we can't be 100% certain that we aren't a "brain in a jar" or in a pod ala Matrix. Though for practical purposes we rule it out.

TheGreatInfidel · 07-21-2003, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Llyricist
TheGreatInfidel,

I'm afraid it is you that has fishbulb's point backwards. All he said was that it was your premises that are unverified and seemingly unverifiable.

Therefore the conclusion may or may not be true depending on whether the premises are. Your entire argument totally misses his point, In fact you are arguing the SAME point from the opposite direction!

If you want me take your view. You need to give me more than that. You need to quote him, quote me and demonstrate that what you are saying is true. And then I'll consider what you are saying.

You need to go back and read the rest of it.

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As for his certainty thing, you should know by now that we can't be 100% certain that we aren't a "brain in a jar" or in a pod ala Matrix. Though for practical purposes we rule it out.

He said that nothing is certain. All we need is one counter example to prove him wrong. I'm certain I feel pain, whether i'm bodily injured is another questioned. What I'm referring to is the phenomenal, "what it's like".

Even if I'm indeed the brain in a jar, that I feel pain is a certainty. Again, I'm not referring to whether it is certain that I'm bodily injured because It's uncertain that I have a body (I'll give you that). But, I'm referring to the *qualitative state* of pain. By the way, certainty to whom?

For the sake of clarification, his assertion is that a statement is meaningless if you can't verify it in experience; In other words the position of the 1930's Carnap, Vienna Circle etc. Sometimes he said it of the premises, and sometimes of the conclusion nontheless, his assertion is that a statement is meaningless if you can't verify it in experience. What I was trying to do is point out that that assertion leads to absurdities. So I tried to point out that "George Washington is the first President" cannot be verified in experience. See above. So in part I assumed his position, so that I'll reveal the aburdity. I.e Reduction ad Absurdum.

1) A statement is meaningfull iff it is verified in experience. (His assertion)

2) The statement, "George Washington.......US" cannot be verified in experience." (I tried to make his see why this is so)

3) Ergo, The statement "George Washington is ....US" Is meaningless (absurdity)

Again, I tried to make him see that his assertion leads to absurdities. Because there are statement swhich we hardly would consider meaningless, but if we assume his position, those statements are meaningless. E.g That GW, is the first president of the US.

Llyricist · 07-21-2003, 01:24 AM

Sorry, the reason I didn't quote was because the pont I was making applied to nearly every segment of the exchange, I'll let fishbulb do the quoting if you can't see it from the overall point I made.

Okay, I can't speak for fishbulb, but I would concede that you can be certain that you actually perceive what you perceive, though that is a long shot from the point he was making, which had more to do with things outside of ourself.

TheGreatInfidel · 07-21-2003, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Llyricist
Sorry, the reason I didn't quote was because the pont I was making applied to nearly every segment of the exchange, I'll let fishbulb do the quoting if you can't see it from the overall point I made.

I'll give you the benifit of the doubt. But I need to be shown. I can't accept what you said, without you giving me a reason to believe that it is true.

Quote:

Okay, I can't speak for fishbulb, but I would concede that you can be certain that you actually perceive what you perceive, though that is a long shot from the point he was making, which had more to do with things outside of ourself.

I've edited my previous message to add stuff related to this.

SignOfTheCross · 07-21-2003, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by TheGreatInfidel
What?!

Time began upon the creation of matter. Time began at the big bang.

Peace,
SOTC

fishbulb · 07-21-2003, 10:22 AM

TheGreatInfidel,

I shall conceed that I need to be more careful in the phrasing of my arguments. It's something of a bad habit writing online that one tends to respond immediately rather than taking time to carefully think through and proof read everything. If you want to be picky, then you can find inconsistencies and draw absurd conclusions from some of the things I wrote. It's hardly a difficult feat to accomplish in an online forum; uncharitable interpretations of discussion points in a forum such as this are the easiest way to ensure that discussions generate into name calling and acrimony.

However, none of this ranting or lawyering does one single thing to support your argument. You are still left, at the end of the day, with an argument whose premises are unsupported and whose conclusion cannot be corroborated by experience. This leaves you with nothing. You cannot justify your conclusion because you cannot support your premises. You cannot verify your conclusion, which could potentially lend some measure of support to the validity of the premises, because it makes no prediction that can be verified. Your argument is relevant to itself and to itself only. It suffers from the fundamental flaws of all of the theological arguments that attempt to prove the existence of god along the same lines. Garbage in, garbage out.

TheGreatInfidel · 07-26-2003, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by fishbulb
TheGreatInfidel,

I shall conceed that I need to be more careful in the phrasing of my ...<snip>...Garbage in, garbage out.

In this post, you've reiterated the same thing you've been claiming throughout this thread. I already replied to it.

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07-21-2003, 12:49 AM	#34
Llyricist Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Fort Lauderale, FL Posts: 5,390	TheGreatInfidel, I'm afraid it is you that has fishbulb's point backwards. All he said was that it was your premises that are unverified and seemingly unverifiable. Therefore the conclusion may or may not be true depending on whether the premises are. Your entire argument totally misses his point, In fact you are arguing the SAME point from the opposite direction! As for his certainty thing, you should know by now that we can't be 100% certain that we aren't a "brain in a jar" or in a pod ala Matrix. Though for practical purposes we rule it out.

07-21-2003, 01:24 AM	#36
Llyricist Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Fort Lauderale, FL Posts: 5,390	Sorry, the reason I didn't quote was because the pont I was making applied to nearly every segment of the exchange, I'll let fishbulb do the quoting if you can't see it from the overall point I made. Okay, I can't speak for fishbulb, but I would concede that you can be certain that you actually perceive what you perceive, though that is a long shot from the point he was making, which had more to do with things outside of ourself.

07-21-2003, 10:22 AM	#39
fishbulb Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 792	TheGreatInfidel, I shall conceed that I need to be more careful in the phrasing of my arguments. It's something of a bad habit writing online that one tends to respond immediately rather than taking time to carefully think through and proof read everything. If you want to be picky, then you can find inconsistencies and draw absurd conclusions from some of the things I wrote. It's hardly a difficult feat to accomplish in an online forum; uncharitable interpretations of discussion points in a forum such as this are the easiest way to ensure that discussions generate into name calling and acrimony. However, none of this ranting or lawyering does one single thing to support your argument. You are still left, at the end of the day, with an argument whose premises are unsupported and whose conclusion cannot be corroborated by experience. This leaves you with nothing. You cannot justify your conclusion because you cannot support your premises. You cannot verify your conclusion, which could potentially lend some measure of support to the validity of the premises, because it makes no prediction that can be verified. Your argument is relevant to itself and to itself only. It suffers from the fundamental flaws of all of the theological arguments that attempt to prove the existence of god along the same lines. Garbage in, garbage out.

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