Omphalism

I don't think so. We mostly agree about a contemporary year, though I'm not sure even that holds for advocates of LastThursdayism.

You don't agree on what events happened one year ago.

You are probably having trouble understanding my point of view because you are something of an essentialist yourself. Most people are, and they tend to look askance at my conventionalism.

Modulous writes:Man up, explain what you are talking about OR talk about the same thing we are: People that use the words 'year', 'age', 'earth' etc consistently and state that they believe with a high confidence that the earth is billions of years in age but aren't willing to say with equal confidence that it isn't 10,000 years old with the appearance of age.

That is precisely what I have explained.You have chosen to not accept my explanation. That leaves you with a problem of something for which you do not have an explanation acceptable to you. It does not leave me with a problem, nor with any further obligation to solve your problem.

When the Omphalist declares that the age of the Earth is something very different, something completely out of context, then I can only conclude that the Omphalist means by "age of the Earth" is very different from what I mean by "age of the Earth."

As a conventionalist, I believe that the meaning of "age of the earth" is determined by our empirical practices

But we cannot appeal to anything beyond evidence, since our empirical practices define what we mean.

Modulous writes:So - can you support the assertion that Last Thursdayists don't agree with me about what the time period of 'a year' means?

Under which theory of meaning?

Straggler writes:Except that the biblical omphalist disagrees with you as to what is evidence and what is not.

Under which theory of meaning?

Second Link writes:In essence the Omphalos crisis comes down to the fact we have apparently contradictory information coming from two very different sources of knowledge. The conflict with a theory of a billions-years-old Earth comes from the arts and humanities, not the natural sciences.There are two competing sources of knowledge about the past: 1) Human religious, philosophical and historical traditions, and 2) Modern science. The first we tend to think is more reliable the older the primary sources are. The second, due to its reliance on technology and the refinement of scientific methods, is the opposite. When we look to the primary sources of creation histories to try and determine when God may have created the Earth, most evidence tends to point to c4000 BC. Sure, it is fair enough to say Genesis 1-11 reads like a myth. But in reality the genealogy from Adam to Abraham really ties the whole thing into history in quite a profound way — certainly unmatched by Greek and Norse mythology. Sure, if you consign it as myth, you can do away with the conflict. But before you do the hermeneutics the conflict is definitely there — that we can’t deny.

I am not agnostic about biblical literalist versions - I reject those.

I was directing my comments toward the "Last Thurdsdayism" versions of omphalism.

I enter this discussion with much hesitance.

I felt it important to add one thing to the discussion: the omphalist believes that the empirical evidence tells a coherent, internally consistent story, because the evidence is planted deliberately with the intent of telling that specific story. However, that story is wrong.

Omphalism isn’t just the notion that the empirical evidence will always tell the wrong story: it’s that the empirical evidence will always tell the same wrong story.

Since the story is internally consistent, it’s still useful for an omphalist in solving practical problems that are part of that microcosm. So, there is no contradiction in an omphalist advocating empiricism.