Inductive Atheism

Your statement, boiled down, is not so profound as you think: Any concept not derived from evidence external to the mind must have originated within the mind.Really not too impressive.Edited by Jon, : clarity

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

The literal meaning of your comment is true, but only since no cherubs have ever been discovered and investigated.Since I described the cherub has having none of the properties of material things - I am unsure what else something that is immaterial should be. Perhaps you could expand a little - tell me why we should consider an entity that is not composed of material should be considered material?

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Further: why are you protesting again? Before you were all about conceding that certain god concepts could be empirically detectable, even if you don't call them supernatural gods. How is this any different? If you must - think of it as a being from a parallel universe with differing laws of physics where 'matter' does not exist. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Of course many things aren't literally composed of matter. I used the term as a catch-all for referencing things that are part of the physical Universe, including materially-detectable energy, materially-detectable anti-matter, and materially-detectable cherubs. As I already mentioned, many things in our world cannot be directly detected by our naked senses, and the fact that we need to use various devices to detect them (infrared sensor, radio receiver, etc.) never otherwise forces us to regard them as 'immaterial'; why one would feel justified in giving a certain detector (the soul) and the things it detects (cherubs) special status is entirely beyond me. It's not too different. The main protest is with calling the cherub immaterial, despite a clear precedent against doing so.To the science of it all: The statistics you are offering on random chance guesses as justification for favoring the cherub hypothesis are only half to the point; we must also figure the likelihood that our data represent a cherub communicating via a soul before we can decide which hypothesis to favor based on the probability of each one given the evidence.So far, you've not yet shown the relevant statistics for cherubs and explained the validity behind the calculation. Given that, how is anyone to decide which hypothesis is better?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Why not quote the statement you're referring to? Then, you could explain what makes you think that I think that there's anything "profound" in that statement. Is that your characterization of my theory? What? Your characterization? Who wouldn't agree?

LOL. No; your original theory was overly unspecific and stupid. This was a summary of your latest post and what appeared to be the most recent version of your position.How do you feel your current position differs from my summary?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

You referred to a "statement", not a post. Summary? I read an arrangement of words which, if it was meant to be a summary of my post, merely demonstrates that you didn't understand it. As is the case with so many things.

Yes. Read up on Straggler's definition of supernatural.In Message 114, he offers: Is this an okay definition for you? Are there any refinements you wish to make? (Other than the missing 'i' in 2 words - Straggler & I both have been known to take advantage of these opportunities to consume huge amounts of hazardous chemicals . . . which certainly may impair our aim at times.)

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

You need only address the points; if you feel my take on your position is not accurate, merely indicate why.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

The meaning might be the same, but I'd go for something like: "Above nature; not constrained by the physical universe."Do you agree that establishing the existence of a werewolf would falsify my theory? If not, why not?Do you agree that "real" doesn't mean "natural"? They're not synonyms in my O.E.D.

What points?What points are you trying to make on this thread?

I can show that you are making a semantic argument in a fairly straight forward fashion.Bluegenes theory is built on there being no alternative source for the existence of the beings he calls 'supernatural'. Clearly our cherub is another known source for the existence of what bluegenes calls 'supernatural'. Even if you decide to argue that this source is technically not supernatural itself, it is still a source that humans can get ideas about what they call the 'supernatural'. Therefore the inductive reasoning fails, killing bluegenes' theory.Thus, even conceding your points, it doesn't really make a difference.I'm happy to answer questions about the cherub, but the experiment I proposed was just to confirm there was something there. This is interesting because no other thing that is real is detectable to humans but not to anything else. This characteristic, along with the capacity to interact with the material in a certain way at will, and its general appearance and mannerisms all coincide with a being previously labelled 'supernatural', serves to falsify the theory that all such beings were products only of the human imagination.Yet again I say: it seems all you are saying is that bluegenes theory is either trivially true or it is not yet falsified. Along the way you seem to be intent on arguing minutiae of how and if epistemology crosses over with metaphysics when this is not ultimately important. The important thing is that in the interpretation of bluegenes theory that is not yet falsified it is falsifiable. What is your specific problem with the theory if I've missed it? It just seems unworthy to waste both our times on arguing about the higher order truths of some hypothetical cherub. All that really matters is that it exists, and that's all my experiment was designed to ascertain.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

There must be some miscommunication. I'm not looking for higher order truths.If I walk outside and the Sun isn't out, there are many conclusions I could draw (scientifically, even, as they are all falsifiable): the Sun exploded; there is an eclipse; the cloud cover is killer; it is night time; etc. Now, I can narrow down my choices by ascertaining the likelihood of each of my hypotheses given available evidence: the Sun didn't likely explode, since I heard nothing on the radio about it, and I'd probably be dead if it had; I don't see any rings or circles in the sky, so probably not an eclipse; no clouds in the sky since I can see up very far... even to the stars; AH HA! that explains it, it's night time, which causes the Sun to not be out about 50% of the time.When we do our science, the evidence can be interpreted in multiple ways, and lead to multiple conclusions. The task is figuring out the likelihood of each of these conclusions and favoring the most probable one. Whether this is the correct one or not does not matter; given the evidence we have, we choose the most likely explanation.So, back to the cherub: the likelihood that we're witnessing random guessing is low, admittedly; the likelihood that we're witnessing cherub communication is... lower? higher? That's what must be determined before accepting one theory over the other; and without reason for favoring the cherub explanation after our experiment, it's hard to say that our experiment can be of much use. I agree that our results would be interesting; they'd definitely make me question much of what I thought I knew! But after leaving Jon's mind and gettng back to the rigors of science, we'd still want those probabilities figured out before writing the cherub off as the best scientific explanation.JonABE:Indeed, whether the cherub-soul hypothesis would be more or less likely immediately after the experiments does not alter the fact that the experiments make the cherub-soul hypothesis actually falsifiable. This is something I've always maintained: hypotheses about detectable things are falsifiable.Edited by Jon, : ABEEdited by Jon, : ABEE

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Well, yes. Once again, the fact that we know we gave what we thought was a cherub the passkey and told it to give it to the observers who subsequently scored close to 100% makes it more likely there is a real cherub over chance.You are looking for higher order truths. You want to know the facts about the cherub, but this is not important. It's like witnessing a horse. I can tell you 1,000 people witnessed a horse based off the fact that someone printed a distinctive brand on the horse which the observers were asked to memorize. The fact they were able to describe the brand with a high rate of success is indicative they saw the horse.But if this is insufficient scientific evidence of a horse (and if you look at scientific papers, this level of evidence is way over the top - I exaggerate only because of the extraordinary nature of the entity in question), then what do you think I would need to do, as a scientist to conclude someone saw my horse and the cherub or anything. Now imagine that experiment was done. Now imagine it came up as a positive on the existence of the horse/cherub as an objective fact.Theories that horses/cherubs/equine beings/supernatural beings are products of the imagination are now falsified.The details, the higher order truths as I characterised them, are really unimportant but feel free to get tangled up in such things.When you're done we can get back to your actual point. Is it that bluegenes theory is either tautologous or falsifiable and not falsified depending on how one interprets the meaning of supernatural from some sterile unused philosophers definition to the definition used by most people?

If by "establishing the existence of", you mean scientific observation and verification, especially by reproducing the observations else where within the scientific community, then, as has been done with everything else at odds with the body of natural laws prior to this development, the body of natural laws will be modified so as to describe this phenomenon - it will be folded into the natural laws, and thus the werewolf would no longer be supernatural. If there were aspects of it that could not yield to satisfactory analysis, then such aspects would still not be established and would still not be verified. The very process of observation and verification removes it from the supernatural and thus it no longer can falsify your theory.In Message 304, Jon points out emphatically: So they would fold it in. This is because science modifies itself. 1. real: existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary, ideal, or fictitious2. real: being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary1.natural: having a real or physical existence, as opposed to one that is spiritual, intellectual, fictitious, etc.2. natural: in conformity with the ordinary course of nature; not unusual or exceptional
this one has the problem of then defining what the "ordinary course of nature" is. Not a major roadblock, as the definition Straggler and I agreed to uses the term "natural law", which can also be thought of as the "ordinary course of nature". I have also used the term "body of Natural Law", which is merely the entire, vast lump sum of accepted scientific knowledge to date.3. natural: of, pertaining to, or occupied with the study of natural science: conducting natural experiments
this also uses the word natural in the definition4. natural: not supernatural or strange: natural phenomena
this one isn't of use because it is circular in this argument. No doubt when you look up supernatural, it will say "not natural"....Looking at these, in regard to your theory, I'm leaning towards the 2nd definition of real and the 1st definition of natural. And if the nuance between objective existence and physical existence is too much, I would replace each one with "objective, physical existence" to cover the bases. Or is this the very difference you wish to mean?You say I think we could say that "not constrained by the physical universe" is an equivalent of "not subject to natural law".

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

BG's theory seems to change clothes with the weather. But I didn't really come here to talk about bluegenes; afterall, it was Straggler who started the thread.The rest of this business with the cherub is really unimportant though, as we both agree on the essential aspect: the cherub-soul hypothesis is falsifiable.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr