Keep The Reason wrote:Back at you: How do you know that's true that they can't be demonstrated as universal? When you look at deep space via the Hubble telescope, as far as we can see which is to the deep end of existence, we see identity maintaining itself. What would suffice to convince you if not the whole of existence overtly displaying an adherence to the laws of logic?
Only you, with your added "spiritual realm" (that goes undemonstrated) has this problem. I don't. A local star, Sol, is itself and not a different star at the same time and in the same place even if it happens to be located 10 billion light years out. I'd say that's a fairly firm grounding of the laws of logic-- universally demonstrated.
Who sees the laws of Logic being violeted in this deep space picture? Raise your hands and tell us why!
I haven't seen the whole of existence, nor have you, that was the point. I was using the term universal in its logical sense not in the spatial or astronomical sense. None the less what you are saying here is that you think the laws of logic must apply everywhere. That is if you say everywhere I have seen, I have seen it demonstrated that the laws of logic hold, therefore the laws of logic hold everywhere then the logic here is deeply flawed. Unless that is you have found a solution to the problem of induction. The alternative is that this conviction must arrive through intuition not demonstration. I have explained this several times and really I cannot make the point any clearer. If you don't get it we will have to drop it.
No, I am saying that you have to be able to demonstrate things in some tangible manner. Assertion (which is your vox populi rebuttal here) is not enough. If 5.5 billion people say the moon is made of green cheese, then this doesn't make it a fact that the moon is made of green cheese. It means they are simply asserting something undemonstrated. When you get to the moon and find out it's not made of green cheese, you show those 5.5 billion people are wrong despite their overwhelming numbers.
Exactly so some people asserting that the laws of logic work for them and then acting as if they were in place does not demonstrate that the laws are valid.
You are in your same trap. Simply asserting that "we haven't looked at all water yet" may be true, but you cannot argue that there is water with properties outside of those of water in any ultilitartian manner; you certainly can simply say it, but it's meaningless. Anything with the properties of water (one of which is a boiling point) would be water. You find me water that has no boiling point, and I would say, "It cannot then be water."
If I understand you here you are saying that there are some aspects of empirical science which cannot be falsified even in principle and are in this sense irreducibly metaphysical. I think that is an interesting insight and I would like to see it developed. I certainly don't want to dismiss it.
If the question is what kind of claims can be made by extending the epistemology of empirical science into other areas then the question of how we understand the nature of scientific claims is relevant regardless of the practical application of that philosophy. In fact most philosophers of science have felt their role has been not to guide the practice of science by providing a set of rules but to counter the ideological use of ideas about science to invalidate other views.
So?
So, those who have tried to examine lucidly the nature of scientific enquiry have almost invariably concluded that the scientific method in so far as there is one is not something that can be regarded as superior to other ways of knowing or used to dismiss non-scientific knowledge claims.
It's not just that people collectively agree something is extant (like in this example, what letters "sound" like and how they become words, and words become sentences that leads to communication, etc.)
Is it actually possible you're ignoring the fact that the letter are there, on the page, in a material, existing sense? Or that they are uttered sounds? That when a group of people say the word "tree" they are talking about plant life with trunks, branches, bark, roots and leaves? And that the word "tree" is grounded in material soundwaves, or a written word we can directly see, and we can actually point to an object that we call "tree" and that it is therefore a tree?
We can do that but we don't have to. Given that we know these things then how do we know them? You have said that billions of people agreeing on something cannot make it so, so how can you and I agreeing that a tree is a tree make it so?
I'm saying every VALID truth claim must be demonstrable.
This is a truth claim. Either it is valid or it is not. It is a universal claim (in logic a claim using words like all or every is called universal) In order to be valid according to you it must be demonstrable. In order to demonstrate it I would need to examine every single valid truth claim ever made and I would have to have a way other than assertion of showing that all of these were demonstrable.
VALID. It must be something that can tangibly be. It must exist. You can make ASSERTIONS all day long but those that are not demonstrable are fully open to be dismissed as INVALID CLAIMS.
I know you just did make an assertion about all truth claims. Now all truth claims may in a sense be tangible but they are not examinable.
If something is, by definition, not demonstrable, we have utterly no reason to consider it a valid proposal. We may be wrong-- maybe it IS a valid truth, but we cannot tell if it is or not.
So we have to dismiss the claim you have made above because it fails its own test.
And remember, this is just one piece of the pie. By itself it doesn't mean "Ergo, one is an athiest". There's a lot more to the theistic models that build on the compelling case to be made that gods are fictional.
Yes there is, but this one is a fallacy. Exposing the fallacy does not destroy the case for atheism. It does dispose of that argument.
This is another thinig thiests in these forums tend to do. They think because we're focused on this one particular element of the discussion -- in this case the lack of demonstrability of all god claims -- that this by itself leads to atheism. Which of course is bullshit. There are lots of other reasons besides the lack of demonstrability, though the lack of demonstrability is a strong reason by itself.
If the lack of demonstrability is a strong reason then I think one of the major planks in atheist argument is easily disposed of. That does not prove theism but it might humble a few atheists.
I don't know where you get your statistics from, but where I come from, while there are some people who do what you've said, there are others who leave immediately, or, if they stay, its out of fear of some kind, even if it's the fear of having to do things on their own without the skills or training to do so. Surely, some victims of abuse might assert they are loved by their abusers but to cite that "almost all utterly insist" this is patently absurd. And pretty naive yourself.
None of the points made in your quotation seem to address what I actually said. I admit I don't have stats to back this up and they would be hard to collect. I am drawing in personal experience and lots of discussions with professionals. The point is that trying to infer inner states from outward behaviour is much more precarious than you seem to realise.
Which of your definitions of demonstrate are you using this time?
At all times, demonstration is delivering solid, tangible examples of the thing being asserted that can be examined or analyzed as part of the actual expience or event being asserted.
And yet you keep making universal claims without having examined all of the things you make the claims about. You make assertions about the nature of claims and yet in a very real sense claims are not tangible but semiotic.
While they are not fully understood nor proven per se, there aren't many scientists looking for the answers to the human mind by hunting in fields of daisies or in the clouds over Mount Kilimanjaro. They are looking for those answers, ironically enough, in the brain. Why? Because that is where they are to be found. No brain that has been turned off offers anything like a mind or a personality or a soul. So while I guess we have to say these are inferred --else philosophers will revolt in the streets apparently -- the inference that the brain houses the mind and the personality is pretty much a demonstrated fact.
Again this is that vaunted view of science which needs to be questioned. We can be pretty sure there is a relationship between mind and brain but the idea of the mind as something purely physical raises as many problems as it solves. The problem of determinism being one of the most vital.
So far, only physical beings have exhibited even the slightest hint of knowing. I'd say "knowing" is, in fact, a physical process. If you wish to assert otherwise...
I certainly think this is the case for biological life and I often think you underestimate the extent to which it is the case. I am not convinced that mind is boundaried by the physical or that non-physical minds cannot exist.
Demonstrate it. What do I mean by demonstration? See above.
Mind is not tangible even if its effects can be.
It's not misfiring if they want to believe in dreamland things. They are simply choosing to believe in fantasy. A large part of it is likely a lack of education-- not an EXLCUSIVE reason, as some percentage of thiests are of course highly intelligent; but by and large, people who believe in religious tenets are not as well educated in the answers we do have. For instance, most people in the USA don't know anything of the subtlties of evolution-- they only know the simplistic soundbyte version that on the surface aren't even what evolution is. They consistently make the same mistakes: That evolution is merely blind and random chance, that there's nothing workable about "half an eye" (that one is particularly lamebrained, since having some sight is better than having no sight), that there is a "missing link" between humans and apes, and that "if humans came from apes, how come there are apes today?" type thinking.
Of course if you are steeped in ignorance about what actual information has been demonstrated to be true might be, you're going to be open to all sorts of numbnuttery and absurd assertions. and if you dismiss some tangible version of demonstration, you're even more likely to be gullible and fall for nonsensical claims.
Yes, I understand. You think people disagree with you because they are ill educated, or stupid or less rational than you.
