Faith

There might be, Lam, some things which it could be argued are taken on "faith". It is streching the meaning of the word a far amount however.We take as an unprovable given that there is a real universe out there to examine. Some argue that we can be fooled. IMO, it is a waste of time to get into that. We take it as a given.Is that "faith" in the same sense as religious faith. I don't think so but if someone want to mess with the word then fine.There are, apparently a small number of such postulates that we take without examination.The nonsense talk about "reasoning" and such is just so much stringing together of words by someone who thinks they are a philosopher.

That is why I brought it up. There is, somewhere down there some things which we all take without hard, evidentuary "proof". However, if you take this as being "faith" in the sense the word is often used in religious cirles you are missing the nuances of the words.It is down to nuances now if you want to have a sensible discussion. The other choice is to debase the meaning of religious faith to a simple acceptance without thought or proof.Those unproven base postualates which I take are done because you need some of them to make any forward progress. That seems to be something different than that which leads to faith in "god" or "Jesus", isn't it? If I spend all my time worrying if there is a physical universe out there or not I will spin in the same circle forever. If I don't provisionaly accept that the behaviour of the universe which I observe is moderately stable over space and time then I will not have a base upon which to predict anything at all.Since having "faith" in these simple, but perhaps deep, assumptions has worked enormously well it seems to make sense to carry on down this path for awhile.Some philosophers have listed these basic assumptions. I should look them up but don't have time right now. I have yet another online coffee date and then I'm going to be visiting friends in Victoria for a day or two.It sounds like this might be a good thread to list each others assumptions.

You seem to be high by a factor of 1,000. The figure given should be in units of kg not tonnes.from:How was Earth's Mass Determined? - Enchanted Learning
or Mass of the Earth - The Physics Factbook