Omphalism

How do you determine that?You'd have to compare it to something. You can't use empiricism to validate empiricism...Compared to omphalism... yeah, that one's been falsified.Compared to Last Thursdayism? How can you show Last Thursdayism is more unlikely? I don't claim the empirically evidenced conclusion is rationally accepted over Last Thursdayism. That's why the rational reponse to Last Thursdayism is agnosticim.Show me why Last Thursdayism is more unlikely and you'll have a point. No, I don't see how you can calculate that likelihood. Its a new questions and I just did.The previous discussion was about accepting the empirical conlusion over an alternative. Now you're trying to validate empiricism with empiricism.

At first glance, I'm thinking no. How could you determine that?

No. Are you saying that you are capable of using empirical evidence to determine the likelyhood of the empirical conclusion being correct? Your question is nonsense.

So how much more likely is the empircal conclusion than Last Thursdayism?

from you that's hilarious. That's all I get from you.Its more like I'm avoiding your standard protocol of ignoring my questions while continually telling me what I think. I forgot about pretend Omphalist mode. I've already explained why the empirical conclusion was more justified than the Biblical Omphalism and the answer was the same as yours:

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Based on the comparitive demonstrable reliability of the two epystemologies in question.

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Although I phrased it as: Science put a man on the moon, what has Biblical Omphalism done? I didn't say we couldn't have confidence in it.I oppose you using an empystemology to determine its own likelihood of accuracy. You can't use the fact that science works against the very questioning of it working.How can you show that Last Thursdayism is unlikely? Its precludes your empirical evidence so how can you use it against it?What unreliable explanations of Last Thursdayism have been shown to be wrong so that you can use it as an epystemology to demonstrate against?Those are the questions you going to have to stop avoiding if you want me to care to continue.

Logic please...You're inability to show the likelihood of an empirical conclusion being correct does not mean that we should consider it just as likely to be incorrect.You laughing at your own illogic makes you look like a goon. Last Thurdayism is not a method of knowing. Its a philisophical proposition. A 'What-if' scenario.Its set up to require PAP agnosticism. No, I haven't. I'm not agnostic to Last Thursdayism and I disbelieve it. I just don't consider that a rational position based on any kind of observable evidence. I haven't said they're equally reliable, I've just questioned your ability to show the reliability of one over the other. You're ascribing position to me based on what you think I must be saying rather than what I actually am saying.The contradiction you think you are seeing is from my position of the rational conclusion being what empirical evidence suggests: billions of years.But Last Thursdayism is not an arrived at position from any kind of methodology or epystemology. You're not comparing anything to anything and you're not determining any liklihoods.Just like you can't prove that we're all not in the Matrix. You can't use empirical evidence to come to a rational conclusion that we are not in the Matrix, but that doesn't mean that I cannot have confidence that I'm not or recognize that the empirical evidence seems to suggest that we are not and take my belief from there.Just because I'm willing to admit that you cannot show that we are more likely not in the Matrix doesn't mean that I'm saying that I think there's a 50/50 chance of being in the Matrix nor that I cannot have any confidence in not being in the Matrix.I have confidence in the conclusions of science because science works. But science would work the same in the Matrix. Being in the Matrix precludes the scientific conclusions so you can't use them as evidence against it. That doesn't mean The Matrix is in any way convincing or that I can't say that I think we are not in the Matrix.

I don't. Its worded as if it is a guess. It could have been Wednesday, or whatever. But its not on the basis of no reason whatsoever. Its specifically designed to call into the question of the basis of the empirical evidence. Because you want to maintain that rationality... so you have to be Permanently Agnostic in Principle. If we go around in circles enough, at times we won't be overlapping. This is like the third lap, You're gnudging the context back and forth and I'm loosing track of what you're saying. Sort of. I asked what you were comparing the liklihood to and then you changed the question and put it into another context. It sure seems like it. Science works. But I don't think you can actually rationally determine the liklihood of science being right. And I don't think you can use whatever determination of a liklihood you're using to argue against a philisophical proposition designed to call into question the epystemology itself. Its not, but I don't believe you. And that position is irrational because none of the empirical evidence can show that you didn't. Its unfalsifyable. The empirical evidence is unable to suggest that it is more likely that the universe has existed for 4+ billion years. The determination is internally consitant with the epystemology, and it works, but its not a claim to the actual accuracy of the number. But that doesn't mean that simply following what the evidence says and believing the empirical conclusion is irrational. It just means that disbelieving the unfalsifyable is. That rationally believing the evidenced based conclusion is not taking a position on the likelihood of the unfalsifyable.So, believing the scientific age of the universe while ackowledging agnosticism to Last Thursdayism is rational and consistant. Also, the position of disbelieving Last Thursdayism on the basis of the scientific evidence is irrational.

Back to this again Nobody has actually concluded that the age of the Earth is Last Thursday. It is a 'what-if' scenario. From Message 39:

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If someone says: "It could have been...."

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Then my PAP agnosticims goes: yeah, sure, whatever

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If someone says: "It was...."

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Then my TAP agnosticim goes: Oh really, lets look and see

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So yeah, as a conclusion from empirical evidence, we could rationally refute that evidence for Last Thursadayism and go with the scientific answer that has not been refuted. But as a philisophical proposition, we are Permantly Agnostic in Principle. The empirical evidence is not capable of showing that the Earth was not poofed last thursday because the proposition precludes that evidence. But you still can't rationally use the empirical evidence to show that it wasn't created last thursday. So while you'd have no reason to believe it, you'd also have no empirical evidence that you could use to disbelieve it, and the rational position based on the empirical evidence would be agnosticism. Apparently, being rational isn't all that its cracked up to be. If you don't have the empirical evidence to base your conclusion of disbelief on, then that is not being rational. Its no big deal though, really. You might consider it likely to be correct but you cannot show from empirical evidence that it is likely to be correct. But you can have confidence that it is very old while acknowledging that this doesn't necessitate having confidence that it is not young.Yes-'old' does not have to be no-'not young' because, for all we know, it could have been poofed last thursday. Whoa... Two exclamation points... calm down.If you cannot show from the empirical evidence that the claim is false, then it is irrational to disbelieve the claim. Without a reason to believe the claim, it is also rational to not believe it, so we're left at a position of agnosticism with a lack of belief but we have not rationally reached disbelief. First off, Last Thursdayism is not based on no reasoning.

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Last Thursdayism is a response to omphalism which posits that, by the same logic, the world might have been created last Thursday (or by implication, on any given date and time), but with the appearance of age: people's memories, history books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and so forth. It is aimed at the logic point that when this logic is permitted, it can be used to prove any "fixed date creation" schema.
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The point is that the logic of the philisophical proposition of calling into question the empirical evidence, itself, does not lead us to any one particular age for the world. The logic cannot lead to the Biblical age of 6000 years any better than it can lead to last thursday.Because the logic of it is set up to preclude the empirical evidence, you cannot use that empircal evidence to argue against the logic. For that reason, we must be Permanently Agnostic in Principle. The evidence is unable to lead us to disbelief, the rational conclusion is agnosticism, and its technically irrational to be at disbelief.Now, you yourself recognize the ridiculousness of the rational conclusion, which goes to show that being rational is not some be-all end-all to sensible positions. Because empirical evidence doesn't lend itself a liklihood of being correct, nor as being more likely than an unfalsifyable conclusion. It hasn't been shown to be wrong, and it works, so its rational to believe it, but it isn't saying that another possible conclusion must be wrong or is more likely to be wrong, especially one that cannot be falsified. That's all we can rationally conclude from the empirical evidence. I don't deny that I do disbelieve Last Thursadayism and that this is not a position derived from empirical evidence and thus it is not rational. Or your understanding of it.There is no actual conclusion of the age from the logic behind Last Thursdayism. You're forcing it to take a position, and then trying to determine the liklihood of that position as being accurate. But that is not something you can determine from the empirical evidence. It doesn't follow from the reasoning that the scientific conclusion must be the same as a random guess. Because science doesn't care that, rationally, it isn't actually finding the truth, all that matters is that it works. We can see from its successes that it does work, so it doesn't matter if its really all technically wrong or not (like if Last Thursdayism were true). And it isn't even saying that it is the right answer anyways, just that the answer it found is working and hasn't been shown to be wrong yet.

Interesting that you have resort to a last ditch effort of hand waving my argument by calling me crazy. Or, that that would just be the rational conclusion from the objective evidence.I coulda swore that people knew that science doesn't proclaim its conclusions as truths to be known. I don't believe that it is, but that is not a postion arrived at rationally from the empirical evidence.You never have shown any empirical evidence that suggests that the world was NOT created Last Thursday so you haven't even supported your claim that it is possible, let alone a convincing argument on why I should believe you. Reliable? Sure, it works.More likely to be true? I believe that it is, but but that is not a postion arrived at rationally from the empirical evidence.Empirical evidence cannot be used to determine the probability of itself being right. You should know this. It can be. Nope. You don't understand my position.The empirical evidence suggests that aeroplanes do really fly because of air currents and aerodynamics and it is rational to believe that. The empirical evidence does not say that an unfalsifyable concept is not doing it. If you had some empirical evidence suggesting that your pilchards were responsible, then we could (possibly) refute your evidence and thus disbelieve your concept in favor of the scientific one. If you just propose your concept as an unfalsifyable possibility, the empirical evidence is unable to refute it, and the rational conclusion based on that evidence would be not knowing, thus disbelieving the concept would be irrational (unless we could show that it was not possible). But, without a reason to believe you, we could still rationally not believe it.So, rationally I don't believe you, but a rational conclusion of disbelief cannot be drawn from the empirical evidence, even though I rationally believe the scientific conclusion.You think that believing the scientific conclusion is taking a position towards an unfalsifyable concept while I do not. And I'm saying that a position against an unfalsifyable concept is not something that can rationally be arrived at form the empirical evidence. If it could, then it would be falsifyable.