That Newton didn't examine every single mass interaction that has ever or will ever take place before deriving the laws of motion, gravity etc?
I agree with that. But what does that have to do with inductive reasoning?
quote:Inductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, or educated guess in colloquial English, is a kind of reasoning that draws generalized conclusions from a finite collection of specific observations.
Newton suggests (not his own words):
quote:Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force.
A body of mass m subject to a force F undergoes an acceleration a that has the same direction as the force and a magnitude that is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass,
The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear.
Since you agree he is making these general statements based on a specific and limited set of observations - we can conclude inductive reasoning is involved.
I raised some other examples too.
If you want to argue that this isn't by your philosophical position 'inductive reasoning' (which I suspect you were doing using the minimum number of words possible) then you are making the wrong argument in the wrong place and are just being pedantic on one of your pet subjects.
I can negate all of this by appealing the pragmatics of my statements rather than the semantics of my statements:
If you want to call 'schminductive reasoning' that Newton engaged in - then that's fine. It was 'schminductive reasoning' I was talking about and 'schminductive reasoning' that bluegenes is employing and 'schminductive reasoning' that RAZD argues should not be done despite the fact that it is.
Specifically, I do not agree that Newton was making a generalization based on limited specific observations.
I see. What's the difference between Newton's limited set of observations of "all known bodies" leading to a theory of "all bodies" (which I'm going to start calling schminduction if this argument continues to future posts) different than bluegenes observations of "all known supernatural beings" leading to the theory "all supernatural beings"?
Where Newton was doing science and was schminducting, bluegenes is apparently not doing science because he is not schminducting?
If you think I am arguing for the position taken by bluegenes, then you are mistaken. I believe I have already been clear (see Message 288) that I would not consider the "bluegenes theory" to be a scientific theory.
I wasn't implying anything about your position regarding bluegenes' theory. I was just trying to get you to avoid your pet topic of your disdain for philosophy and the role of induction and to try and address what I was actually saying (by using different words with meanings you can define yourself) - if you wanted to address what I was saying at all, that is.
Newton's laws are a standard upon which observation is based. As far as I know, he proposed those standards on theoretical grounds, and then his "limited set of observations" were used to demonstrate the efficacy of his standards.
Talk about philosophical just so stories! The efficacy of standards? Basing observations upon standards? Proposing standards on theoretical grounds? Is this how you think scientists go about doing stuff?
He didn't just tinker, measure and record results of various experiments and say "I did this 500 times and I got the following results, indicating this is a rule that describes the relationship between Force and Acceleration in general," That would be completely against the practice of science as it occurs every day - right?
When bluegenes proposes a set of standards that we should follow when making observations of supernatural beings, I will agree that he is doing science about supernatural beings as they are defined by his proposed standard
Seems straightforward:
1. Is the postulated entity what any normal person would call 'supernatural'/'of the spirit'/'from the dualistic realm'? 2. Is there any evidence to suggest this is a real entity? 3. Is there any evidence this entity was made up in someones imagination?
If the IPU is entirely a figment of human imagination, as the theory claims, and if bluegenes has plenty of evidence to support that, then he should be able to provide the specific evidence of the making up of the IPU - the creation of the story on alt.atheist in the usenet archives and so forth.
But once again - the theory is not "The IPU is made up". The theory predicts that should the source of the IPU ever become 'known' it will turn out to be 'human imagination'. Bluegenes' theory does not predict that the sources of all supernatural beings is known.
Let me turn to rain drops yet again. According to the theory that "All raindrops come from clouds" This rain drop
came from a cloud (picture just for pretty illustration, I realize this drop is likely a splash rather than an actual rain drop). If there is plenty of evidence to support the raindrops come from clouds theory (as meteorologists may reasonably claim), would it be reasonable to demand that a meteorologist provide the evidence that the above pictured raindrop is absolutely and unequivocally from a cloud?
I could do the same for Germ Theory and just about any other theory you probably have no problems with.
bluegenes did not claim to have 'plenty of evidence' for the thoery "The IPU is made up from the imagination", he claimed to have 'plenty of evidence' for the THEORY we have so often repeated in this thread. This does not mean that the person saying 'I have plenty of evidence to support my theory' must therefore be claiming that he can provide evidence to support every single prediction of the theory.
It is not a 'screw up' to say you have 'plenty of evidence' just because you don't have some specific piece of evidence. If bluegenes had claimed "I have complete evidence which proves that..." you'd have a point.
. He had to word the theory in such a way as to not have to produce the making-up forensic evidence for every case, or even only for cases that such evidence should be relatively easy to find, just enough cases to get an induction up and going.
No he didn't. Nothing in his theory suggests he has to produce evidence for 'every case'. His theory covers every case (as do all theories), but like all theories - it is developed from a position of incomplete knowledge. bluegenes is definitely not saying "It is an empirically known fact that all supernatural entities are figments of the imagination", as he explicitly says:
quote:Even outside science, in common speech, someone saying "I have a theory that all swans are white" would not expect to be understood as saying "it's a known fact that all swans are white".
You seemed fine (provisionally) to accept the theory that All Chimpanzees and Humans share recent common ancestry. despite the fact that we cannot test Henry VIII in comparison with some specified Chimpanzee that died in 1864 which we will call Ugaka. With bluegenes though, you seem to demand more. If I say I have plenty of evidence to support the common ancestry theory would you jump all over me and say
quote:If Henry VIII shares common ancestry with Ugaka, as the theory claims, and if Modulous has plenty of evidence to support that, then he should be able to provide the specific evidence of the common ancestry
?
Because it's the kind of nonsense challenge creationists make - and I'd hope you'd avoid doing it. But your line in this thread demands to avoid special pleading you must do this very thing!
He could have admitted, in the 3rd post (after RAZD's OP and the Admin promotion post), "That evidence you seek is unfortunately not available in a rigorous manner, like it is for the FSM. But that does not change the magnitude of the power of the theory." Then things would have proceeded to the next issues.
I said it before, I'll say it again. RAZD doesn't get to determine what specific pieces of evidence bluegenes has in order to qualify as having 'plenty of evidence'. This is a core misunderstanding by RAZD and you as to what a theory is, so bluegenes seems to have decided to show that RAZD's IPU challenge is irrelevant.
I don't think that is the case here (RAZD arguing that science is logically invalid) - but, yes, if it were, that would be special pleading.
Then save the common ancestry theory, because right now the biologists that seem to be making it are screwing up in the same way bluegenes did! If they aren't screwing up, why is bluegenes screwing up? A failure to resolve the tension between these two positions means that special pleading is going on.
I thought one of the big points was that science's conclusions aren't being proposed as the truth. Even with the always accepted amount of tentativety, they still don't go so far as to say that they are, in fact, the correct answers.
bluegenes' theory isn't being proclaimed as the truth - it is tentative. If you argue that it is invalid on these grounds, you are arguing all other scientific theories are invalid on those grounds.
So, someone taking the position that there are no black swans as being more likely to be valid than not, based on the theory that all swans are white, would be taking a logically invalid position, no?
And a forensic expert that uses facts about what has happened in the past to deduce what happened at a crime scene is being logically invalid, by this standard of validity. But they're doing science. So if this action is logically invalid - then we have to be arguing that science is logically invalid. As I said: "RAZD is arguing that science is logically invalid"
So, let's say we agree with RAZD. Why would he be singling out bluegenes' theory for being likewise logically invalid? It's like Dover County putting stickers on books warning about the tentativity of evolution instead of just mentioning the tentativity of scientific conclusions.
It's fine that
That's not what I am arguing.
But it is what I was arguing. You interjected with
quote:But I would say that them being proclaimed as the truth is, actually, logically invalid.
I simply pointed out that this is true of any scientific theory. Hence why I said "If you argue that it is invalid on these grounds, you are arguing all other scientific theories are invalid on those grounds."
Even with the always accepted amount of tentativety, they still don't go so far as to say that they are, in fact, the correct answers.
Are you suggesting bluegenes has done anything like this? What relevance do you think this has to the bluegenes-RAZD debate?
If the forensic scientist stands up in court and says "It is more likely that the wounds on the arm were caused post mortem.", based on the theory that all stragnated* wound patterns are caused post mortem then he would be doing the same thing you said was logically invalid.
I don't think its the same thing. How would, say, finding your fingerprint on a murder weapon be making a logically invalid induction like that of using the theory that all swans are white to conclude that there probably aren't any black swans out there?
When you say 'my fingerprint', you actually mean a pattern of grease marks that correspond to a pattern of skin ridges on the tips of one of my fingers. If the forensic scientist uses the empirically supported theory that
quote:all greasy patterns that correspond to a given person's skin ridges on a fingertip are caused by said fingertip of said person touching the surface the greasy patters are found on
to conclude, when asked a stupid question by a moronic lawyer, 'it probably wasn't caused by the tongue of a parakeet'.
What should the forensic scientist do when the moronic lawyer demands the forensic scientists unequivocally rules out parakeet tongue manipulation as a source for the greasy patterns?
I thought the A-1 point was supporting a strong atheist position of there being no god(s). That the theory that all gods come from human imagination suggests that there probably aren't any gods out there. And thus, its a rational evidence supported conclusion as opposed to an opinion.
But what has bluegenes' theory done that other theories don't? Or what has his theory not done that other theories do?
I have a theory that every book is written by a human author. This suggests that there probably aren't any non-human authors out there.
I have a theory that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This suggests that there probably aren't any unequal or non-opposing reactions out there.
Is this logically invalid? Does it only apply to bluegenes theory which might be worded "every supernatural creature was created by human imagination. ". Where does bluegenes' theory "go so far as to say that they are, in fact, the correct answers"? There would only be a problem if someone said "Since it is a theory, it is a fact" - which would be clearly problematic. Nobody is saying that because it is predicted by the theory, it is therefore true that there are no gods.
* Made-up word. Wound analysis is complex, so I'm simplifying for sanity.
The point is that there is an alternative explanation, and that you have absolutely failed to provide a means to distinguish one from the other. ... All I need demonstrate is that there are valid reasons to be highly skeptical that you have anything but personal opinion. I have done that. In spades. ...
Much of RAZD's view seems to be that as long as an alternative hypothesis exists that cannot be ruled out, you cannot say you have a high confidence theory. RAZD's problem seems to be that his alternative is unfalsifiable. He requires that it must be ruled out that there is some supernatural truth behind supernatural beliefs completely. Feynman addressed this "but can you say it is impossible that alternative hypothesis x true?" mentality thusly:
Much of RAZD's view seems to be that as long as an alternative hypothesis exists that cannot be ruled out, you cannot say you have a high confidence theory. RAZD's problem seems to be that his alternative is unfalsifiable.
If you don't quote what I actually say, then the likelihood is high that you are misrepresenting my position. Badly.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Furthermore, I did quote what you actually say.
Maybe you are trying to tell me that the Hindu hypothesis cannot be considered much of what your view seems to be about. Or maybe you believe it is falsifiable?
RAZD writes:
That you have failed to invalidate\falsify the "Hindu Hypothesis", also means that you have not shown your hypothesis to be the only valid explanation, NOR have you presented any way to discern that your hypothesis is true and the "Hindu Hypothesis" is false.
What the "Hindu Hypothesis" says is that when we take all these symbolic stories and put them together, that the total picture that emerges is one of the universal truth/s - and among others, that god/s exist(ed) and that they created.
or from the OP
RAZD writes:
Of course my participation will only involve showing the errors and poor logic in your argument/s, and I bear absolutely no burden to substantiate my personal position/s in this proposed debate: the sole focus would be on your attempt/s to show objective empirical evidence that shows - once and for all - that no god/s can possibly exist
certainly seems like you require that it must be ruled out that there is some supernatural truth behind supernatural beliefs completely. If that's not what you meant, I suggest you clear it up quickly. Clearly, the outgroup of Straggler et al whose ranks it seems I have joined are so blinded by our various worldview biases that we've completely misconstrued what you have been saying from your bias free position.
RAZD writes:
Nope, I've just pointed out that you have failed to account properly for alternative explanations. In a true scientific hypothesis development you would list alternative explanations and then show how they can be falsified, and proceed to do so.
RAZD writes:
The point is that there is an alternative explanation, and that you have absolutely failed to provide a means to distinguish one from the other.
It does appear, quite strongly, that you are asking bluegenes to demonstrate the impossibility of the Hindu Hypothesis much like Feynman's layman. I may be wrong about your position - but I think it is a little desperate sounding to start asserting I am making stuff up about it.
So I challenge you to prove absolutely that it does not seem, to me, that much of your view is that as long as an alternative hypothesis exists that cannot be ruled out, one cannot say one has a high confidence theory. If you fail, I trust you will withdraw your allegations of fabrication.
My position in the debate is to act as an open-minded skeptic, and show that bluegenes has not considered the other possibilities, especially those that lead to contrary positions to his personal concept, but rather has just ignored them.
As an open minded skeptic though, you surely agree that it would be foolish to worry about unfalsifiable 'possibilities' - since they can be raised against any notion whatsoever.
This would be like a scientist ignoring contrary evidence and alternate hypothesis when stating that he had a valid theory.
Like biologists that ignore omphalism, right?
But it is precisely bluegenes' claim - not mine - that HE has ruled out supernatural truth in determining that all supernatural entities are the product of human invention, and his claim that the human mind is the only source of information.
He hasn't ruled out supernatural entities, though. He just hasn't seen any evidence that an actual supernatural entity is the source of a supernatural entity concept. If such evidence were to be presented (and bluegenes requires it meet standards of evidence seen in science), it would falsify his theory.
He asked you for scientific evidence of such a source, and you have not been able to present any. There's no shame in that of course, if such evidence existed, the debate probably wouldn't be happening.
All I am doing is demonstrating that he has absolutely failed thus far to show this to be so in any way shape or form.
Failed to show what? He has shown that the imagination is a source of supernatural entity concepts. You have failed to show any exceptions to a standard that would be considered scientific. So, as much as it is possible to establish such things in a debate he has successfully demonstrated that the only known source of supernatural entity concepts in science is the human imagination.
On the other hand - you have demanded that an alternative unfalsifiable hypothesis be absolutely ruled out by bluegenes.
This is as clearly as ludicrous as Feynman pointed out. When I said this, you accused me of making stuff up about your position. You are now saying that you are 'merely' suggesting bluegenes hasn't considered any unfalsifiable positions - but I quoted you talking about the importance of bluegnes falsifying them.
RAZD writes:
That you have failed to invalidate\falsify the "Hindu Hypothesis", also means that you have not shown your hypothesis to be the only valid explanation,
and so on. Your more moderate position of demanding bluegenes 'consider' alternatives is still ludicrous unless you likewise demand evolutionary biologists 'consider' omphalism. Is bluegenes doing any worse than any evolutionary biologists might when discussing omphalism? Does the existence of the concept of omphalism undermine the scientific theory of evolution?
What exactly, have I 'made up' about your position?
The difference between discussing evolution and supernatural entities is that supernatural entities are a necessary part of the discussion of supernatural entities, but not of biology.
In all fairness, omphalism doesn't necessarily require a supernatural entity and could be postulated with no recourse to it (I've seen an amusing omphalistic argument told from a purely thermodynamic point of view, for instance).
If you are going to argue that supernatural entities do not exist, then you logically must include discussion of whether supernatural entities do in fact exist or not.
I'm in no doubt of that. But bluegenes isn't arguing that supernatural entities do not exist, he's describing a theory that postulates all supernatural concepts are merely concepts. There are many things to discuss there. I submit 'but you can't absolutely rule supernatural entities out' is as absurd as the UFO argument Feynman had.
The theory predicts that supernatural entities do not exist. So the only discussion surrounding the existence of supernatural entities should be possible falsifications - ie., by submitting evidence of a scientific nature that a supernatural entity exists. Otherwise the only other discussion should be the evidence (not absolute proof) of the role of imagination in creating, maintaining, and evolving supernatural entities.
So by all means, if you can show that in fact supernatural entities exist - that would be pertinent. But saying 'they might' exist, or 'they haven't been ruled out' entirely misses the point. Just saying that 'omphalism' might be true doesn't really impact evolution. The question is, which theory has more supporting evidence to explain the gang of supernatural beings proposed in this world - the known to exist irrational predilections of known to exist terrestrial entities or the unknown actual existence of supernatural entities?
If all you have is 'some people have believed these things' then you have failed to provide evidence to distinguish your alternative hypothesis from the hypothesis bluegenes proposed: since this is one of the things bluegenes' theory seeks to (in part) explain in the first place! It would be like saying 'that life on earth appears to be old and appears to have changed is evidence in favour of omphalism (which predicts an appearance of old age) and therefore weakens evolution!'
To intentionally dismiss and disregard any discussion of supernatural entities is like talking about a population of swans, and saying that in any population of all white swans that black swans do not exist.
While this may be true for a pure population of white swans, it is not true when all the known information about swans is included.
Actually it would be more like someone saying "I have a theory that all swans are white. Produce a non-white swan to falsify my theory", and someone saying 'non-white swans might exist. There was a golden swan in Saxon folk-lore for instance' is not sufficient to falsify the theory.
Your analogy of a biologist would be more accurate it involved a biologist that claimed that black swans do not exist, and then ignores the evidence in published literature that black swans do exist.
Unless you are suggesting you have provided scientific evidence that demonstrates the existence of supernatural creatures, it doesn't seem that analogy would be apt.
IF i may be so bold, Feynman did NOT rule out extra terrestrial origins of UFOs - he just said they were way less probable than human delusion....
Agreed: More likely the known vagaries of the human mind than the unknown existential properties of unknown beings of an unknown realm interacting with our known realm using unknown mechanisms
I find it odd that RAZD is very much a champion of pointing out possible psychological biases people have - but he doesn't have much time for the notion that supernatural beings might be borne out of those same (and other) biases.
HOWEVER - I am not going to go around living my life as if there was a God.
It's usually the best way to determine someone's actual beliefs (versus their stated beliefs): observe if they act as if a proposition were true
If I live my life under the cloud of all kinds of unlikely things, my life would be so much more of a mess that it is already in!!!
Especially since many of them are mutually exclusive ("I'll buy a winning lottery ticket tomorrow" versus "I'll be killed by a plane engine in 10 minutes")!
Is it possible for a theory to meet the criterion of falsifiability when the only alternative explanations are not falsifiable?
Maybe not - but in bluegenes' case, some of the alternative explanations are falsifiable. Sure, we can't falsify the omphalistic god - but the honest young earth creator might well be as good as falsified. Likewise the spirit that will kill you for raising this objection in 2 minutes is falsifiable as well (hopefully it will be falsified too!).
Granted, we're used to thinking of supernatural entities as being unfalsifiable, but I think that is an artefact of the falsified. That is: those supernatural entities that are falsifiable have been falsified so all that is left is the unfalsifiable. Call it a memetic selection process, if you will. Survival of the unfalsified Most 'sensible' people only believe in the unfalsifiable supernatural beings...it's quite reassuring to know you'll never be proven wrong, I'd wager.
RAZD likes the god of basically no defined properties. The ultimate model in unfalsifiability.
All the other god concepts would be relegated to a "we don't know the source" bin. But, given the attributes of supernature, isn't the "we don't know the source" bin where we would expect all genuinely supernatural beings to go?
If I burned some heather and Hecate appeared in my living room - I'd say we had some pretty good evidence of another source of supernatural concepts: ie., the experience of real supernatural beings. It doesn't matter if we don't know the nature of the supernatural realm - we do know that the source is more than 'human imagination' if we could learn some scientifically supported information about a supernatural entity of some kind.
I'm perfectly willing to stipulate that humans do make up supernatural things. Science fiction and fantasy novelists do it all the time. I'm rather convinced that the Easter Bunny is made up, a relic of ancient bestiaries that thought all animals existed for moral lessons and symbolism.
I'm just concerned with the justification of the universal inductive conclusion in this case because of the unfalsifiable nature of the only alternatives.
Unlike before, I'm open to a change in my position now, but I'm still stuck on this one point.
I agree that as it stands - there are some interesting and potentially persuasive philosophical angles for attack along the lines of your thinking. I can certainly see them in my mental landscape - unformed arguments that haven't been fully explored and I was hoping someone like RAZD might concentrate on them.
RAZD's best hope is to try and show that it is a weak induction somehow. I've tried a few times myself and have been unable to muster a good argument that it is, as per the memetic selection concept outlined above.
Even so - I think, when we start adding in the evidence from cognitive psychology and evolution we end up giving ourselves a more confident position from which to make the induction. I think I might be able to falsify bluegenes' theory, but only if we carefully stipulate what the human imagination actually is. For instance, is it our imagination that means we cannot help 'falling for' optical illusions? Seeing movement where none exists? I say that strictly, it is not imagination. The 'sense' of 'otherworldly presences' may well not be imagination but some kind of cognitive illusion (as optical illusions technically are) - though many properties of the beings 'present' might be 'imaginary'.
This therefore, may satisfy the 'common cause for religion' alternative hypothesis of RAZD's without this common cause necessarily being either imagination or supernatural. But I don't think bluegenes would argue all that much with this and point out it is really a semantic rebuttal and that careful constructions of his theory would remove this difficulty (I think bluegenes is using imagination more broadly than is common).
Where my above example might be seen as a weak induction is where we take the conclusion, "thunderbolts are not thrown by Thor," and make it into, "Thor does not exist."
What is Thor?
I would suggest that an entity is defined by its properties. If we define Thor to be the God that is the cause of Thunder/Lightning which he does by creating giant sparks like those seen coming off an anvil using Mjllnir (his hammer), then that being does not exist if we accept that thunder is caused by rapid expansion of rapidly heated air as a result of an electrical discharge....
So where Thor is 'the cause of thunder' and is a conscious being wielding a magic hammer - I think we can rule out Thor.
Of course, as with any theory we can make ad hoc modifications, to make sure it isn't falsified. Thor is the being that causes electricity to be or some such nonsense for example. This can be done with perfectly scientific theories too, There is modification, and there is hopelessness. Eventually, if you've modified your theory so that it is an unfalsifiable reflection of the scientific one - parsimony dictates the one with magic hammers in it has to go.
Indeed the 'only known source' section of bluegenes argument is really an argument of parsimony: why appeal to unknown sources and entities to explain something that can be done without them?
Still, I may not now have much of an objection to Bluegenes calling it a theory. I still don't personally consider it a theory, but I'm starting to see it as one of those things that can just be let go in conversation.
Bluegenes' theory is very simplistic - but that's largely due, I think, to the insufficiency of the objections so far presented. It need not be complicated if the main objection is 'but its a theory not a fact' or 'you have to falsify the unfalsifiable before you can have a theory' or more recently 'you have to prove that imaginary being you have identified is actually real before you can use it as evidence that the being is merely imaginary'!
There is however, a field of investigation in science which have all sorts of hypothesis and the like, which can be simplified into bluegenes' theory. Try looking up The Cognitive Science of Religion.
quote:The view that religious beliefs and practices should be understood as nonfunctional but as produced by human cognitive mechanisms that are functional outside of the context of religion. Examples of this are the hyperactive agent detection device and minimally counterintuitive concepts. The cognitive byproduct explanation of religion is an application of the concept of exaptation explored by Stephen Jay Gould among others.
If a man once mistook his wife for a hat, I think it's reasonable to conclude that mankind can mistake intensely emotional experiences as being the presence or gift of disembodied agents.
Most 'sensible' people only believe in the unfalsifiable supernatural beings...it's quite reassuring to know you'll never be proven wrong, I'd wager.
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