The Nature of Scepticism

Lol. I caught you with your pants down. As I have before. No, it's actually because you are actually posting false representations of what I actually say.And the best way to avoid this is for you to use actual quotes of my statements rather than your near-sighted self-delusional interpretations. I've suggested this before when you make an absurd or unrealistic or false statement about my position -- that you back it up with actual quotes -- yet you never do ... apparently you prefer fantasies over reality.If you use the phrase (or one like it) that "RAZD says ... " then you should either provide an actual quote of that or not say it. So I take from this that you stand 100% behind every single word and phrase you have ever quoted on every thread in support of your position ... ROFLOL. That'll be a great example of skepticism in action.In addition I note that you post your fantasy hypothetical word games to get my response, but you get all squirrelly when I ask you how you react to an actual practical application of an actual quote on the actual topic of skepticism from wikipedia -- one I posted to see where you were drawing your lines in your positions.How is that not hypocritical? Another cop-out, avoidance, etc etc -- if you use actual quotes you should not have any problem, just don't make up stuff. That's how honest debate is done. And when I quote someone, then you should refer to the quote and the author, and you shouldn't go wrong. That too is how honest debate is done.Curiously, I actually rephrased Truzzi's list in my words at the end of Message 92, so you can feel free to actually read it this time (and quote it when you actually get around to actually answering): You didn't answer the question and you didn't stay on topic, but continued to attack me rather than address the issue. That certainly is not proper skeptical behavior as I understand it, no matter how typical it is for you. Why don't you either actually read what I have already said and respond to that, or if that is not sufficient, then wait and see what I am actually advocating before you start making false prophesies.Do I need to highlight it for you? Again? Amazing. You can't help yourself from shouting this from your garden, can you. I will get to that when you stop wasting my time -- and your thread -- by making false statements about me, stop attacking me personally rather than the argument and deal with the issue.Start by answering just this simple question and nothing else:Do you AGREE or DISAGREE with this characterization of skepticism?

1. Acceptance of doubt when neither assertion nor denial has been established
2. No burden of substantiation to take an unconvinced position
3. Agreement that the corpus of established knowledge must be based on what is validated, but recognizing its incompleteness
4. Even-handedness in requirement for validations, whatever their implication
5. Accepting that a failure of a validation in itself proves nothing
6. Continuing examination of the results of experiments even when flaws are found

You can also show good faith by editing Message 92 to take out all references to me or my beliefs and only address the issues of the topic via direct quotes. It should be good practice for you to consider as a way of making future posts: deal with the issues not the people. You just need to ask yourself if you want this thread to be about skepticism or about your delusional\perverted views of my beliefs.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : ...

I am not going to risk brain damage to my children just to stubbornly insist on being right on an internet debate forum.If your form of skepticism results in the conclusion that brain damage caused by the inaudible trumpeting of ethereal elephants is a realistic possibility then, for the sake of my children's brains, I beseech you to tell me this and explain how you have arrived at that position. I can assure you that you will never have a more attentive student. My children's brains are at stake here.If however your form of skepticism results in the conclusion that the proposition in question is not a realistic possibility then I don't see that we are disagreeing over anything but terminology. It's convuluted and I certainly wouldn't word it like that but broadly speaking I wouldn't object to this stance being taken to a question such as "Does the beef lasagne in my freezer contain horse meat?" Given recent events it's a perfectly well founded possibility that the lasagne in my freezer contains horse meat but I just don't have enough information to know whether it actually does or not. I genuinely don't know. I am agnostic. (And on that agnostic basis if I wanted to avoid eating horse I would not eat that lasagne in case it does contain horse meat)But is this a valid stance to take with regard to a proposition for which (to quote Russel from the OP) "there is no ground whatever for supposing it true"?Should a justifiably skeptical approach result in different conclusions when considering grounded and ungrounded propositions?Does your form of skepticism require that brain damage caused by the inaudible trumpeting of ethereal elephants be considered a realistic possibility? I need to know. My children's brains are at stake here and that is no laughing matter.

The one defining thing about skeptism is the fence that one is standing on, having neither fallen off to the one side of an issue or the other.It is the definition of open mindedness but unqualified as to the extent one demands more evidence, in some particular case or another.NOTHING can be proven to you or I, unless we have already agreed upon some particular discipline in advance, like Mathematics, Geometry, Empiricism, etc,...We each reserve the right to be unconvinced and insist that nothing at all has been proven to us, personally.This makes us all skeptics to some extent, measurable by the weight of the evidence it takes to convince us otherwise.Then, there are the fundamentalists, like the Athesits and the Creationists, for example, who from the start are bias, and intend to so remain.

The missing postulate to this claim is that the supposed "sceptic" must already have agreed to some particular discipline of general knowledge, wherein whatever will be brought forth as "evidence" has already been established therein.I can not use mathematics to convince a person of certain Facts if that person can not count.I can not indisputably argue that two triangles are congruent unless one has already reasoned with me in elementary Euclidean Geometry.

So all knowledge is axiomatic as far as you are concerned?

Skepticism is the practice of determining whether or not a claim does correspond directly and one-on-one to what actually exists. Without skepticism, there's no way to know if something is "true".

Still with the word games ... kind of like asking if 2+2=5 in an alternate universe ... pointless mental masturbation imho.So there is no given way to assess whether there really is a risk or not, with the information you have provided - until some actual brain damage is manifested. One could look at brain damaged children in the area and then try to devise some kind of test (time in and proximity to your garden?) but I skeptically doubt that any kind of valid test could be devised given your parameters that would lead to informed results.Thus I am not convinced that there is a risk at this time. Well, I wouldn't adopt it dogmatically, but it seems a fairly evenhanded approach to skepticism.Curiously, I've had horse meat and thought it had nice flavor, so I would not be bothered by this issue myself. Different people have different feelings, however, so I can understand how some may be squeamish about horse, dog or cat meat. Thus I don't see any need to make a decision on this issue -- either way the lasagna should provide a good meal (and possibly less likely to give you Creutzfeldt—Jakob disease -- a reason that I don't eat beef anymore. This is not a very likely risk of brain damage, but one I just don't want to take, given that there are other options). Such as whether 2+2=5? What do you mean by grounded?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : )

Compared to the potential for long term brain damage to my children neither horse meat nor scoring points in an internet debate forum concern me.Is brain damage caused by the inaudible trumpeting of ethereal elephants a realistic possibility? Does your approach allow me to come to a rational conclusion regarding this matter? Obviously I don't want to wait to see if my children have been brain damaged before taking preventative action.So what would you advise that I do in order to avoid this? Should I evacuate them to their grandmothers flat where there is no garden in which ethereal elephants will congregate? Dude if you don't want to partake in mutual mental masturbation why are you even participating in a thread whose entire purpose is to consider propositions for which (to quote Russel from the OP) "there is no ground whatever for supposing true"? We should certainly get back to this once we have decided what to do about my potentially-being-brain-damaged kids.

And I remain unconvinced that there is a determinable risk at this time. If brain damage begins to be manifest, however, then this would change the equation and I would be open-minded towards revisiting the issue. I am not convinced that my personal beliefs\opinions (political, spiritual, etc) are absolutely true (and I've told you this before), nor am I convinced that they present any risk to myself or others.I am not convinced that democratic socialism is absolutely better than corporate fascism, though I like to think so, ... but what do you measure to determine "better" -- subjective happiness?I am not convinced that removing assault type guns from American hands will eliminate school massacres, but I like to think it will reduce mass death numbers, and I personally don't see a down side to doing it.I am not convinced that aliens have visited this planet, though I like to think so. I am perfectly willing to let people spend time and money researching this issue if they want to, and I will be happy to read their results.I am not convinced that sasquatch exists, though I like to think so. I am perfectly willing to let people spend time and money researching this issue if they want to, and I will be happy to read their results.( ... Could sasquatch sightings actually be of aliens in "gilly" suits? I don't know ... but it amuses me to think so ... )This is the area of opinions, rather than conjectures that can be verified at this time.This is the area where world views are more dominated by opinions\biases\beliefs than by conclusions based on evidence ... which gets back to the issue of what is reality.Do you have a sports team that you "favor" over other sports teams? Music group? Artist? Why? LOL. This is your metaphysical garden, posts in this and other threads in this and other forums; its where you plant seeds of debate that grow into good arguments or die. You should read The Unicorn in the Garden by James Thurber -- I think you would enjoy it. And yet I really do not have sufficient information to enable me to decide (your definition), and I remain unconvinced (my definition) as a result.Nor do I feel that a decision is necessary (original version): Now if you really feel that a decision is necessary, then you end up at (B) and make a guess based on your worldview opinions\biases\etc rather than on verifiable objective evidence.For example, from Message 112 again: So I go to (B) and make a decision\guess based on my worldview opinions\biases\etc rather than on verifiable objective evidence, and decide not to eat any more beef. So you could say that you went to (B) rather than (D) ... that you felt you needed to make a decision, and then decided there was no realistic risk due to your personal world view. But it's still a guess rather than an evidence based decision, yes? Ah, you are posting quotes that are not your argument, I understand. Straggler the pragmatical skeptic. But that's not you being skeptical of your position, it is you saying that we should all question our approach and then patting yourself on the back for being "pragmatic" and "lacking-belief" and then claiming that it results your preferred position ... LOL. That's a "free ride" post if I ever saw one.One problem with your use of "unable" for "genuinely agnostic" is that it has connotations of someone all in a dither, even when they have evidence rather than just someone who has insufficient information.Someone who is "unconvinced" on the other hand is not so handicapped. Setting the question aside and waiting for more information to become available before deciding is not any sort of Pascal's wager, but a rather pragmatic approach to situations where there is insufficient information and no real need to rush to a decision. And, curiously, his failure does not show any other world view to be "true" or "valid" -- just that his was invalidated, yes?" Not really true, though is it, this claim of yours? Do you really need me to go over this again with you?

quote:

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Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1: The challenge for the creationist is not just to describe how a single method can be wrong, but how they can all be wrong at the same time and yet produce identical results - when the errors in different systems should produce different random results.
Message 2: Minimum age of the earth > 8,000 years based on this data.
Message 3: Minimum age of the earth > 10,434 years based on this data.
Message 4: Minimum age of the earth > 12,405 years based on this data.
Message 5: Minimum age of the earth = 35,987 years based on this data..
Message 6: Minimum age of the earth > 40,000 years based on this data.
Message 7: Minimum age of the earth > 250,000 years based on this NEW data.
Message 8: Minimum age of the earth > 900,000 years based on this data. ...

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This is not me saying how old the earth "really" is (getting back to what is "reality" and how do we know ...), but that this is what the objective empirical information - aka data - shows, and that the task is for the creationists to show how correlation between these systems occurs with such seeming accuracy.Remember this discussion of the word "know"? Remember this confidence scale? Want to continue collaborating on that scale?Note that your hypothetical word games are "0. No Confidence Concepts" ... yes?Would the age of the earth be a "III. High Confidence Concept" ? And yet consilience is about agreement.So how do we tell which world view/s are more consilient with reality? What is reality and how do we know? Probably because, with their world views, they think it provides information about realty ... which gets us back to this question again.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ...

Compared to the potential for long term brain damage to my children neither epistemological musings nor scoring points in an internet debate forum concern me. The question of whether practical action needs to be taken to avoid my children becoming brain damaged needs to be resolved before we can move on. I am not interested in how personally convinced you are that there is any determinable risk.I have only two criteria that you need concern yourself with:[1] I want to safeguard my children from suffering brain damage.
[2] I want to act in a manner that is rational.Thus I am in effect asking you what positions and actions qualify as rational if we apply your open-minded approach to the proposition in question. On your own scale this is where brain damage caused by ethereal elephants would come. Yes?

Opinion 1: Brain damage due to the inaudible trumpeting of ethereal elephants congregating in the garden is a realistic proposition and action should be taken to avoid damage to my children's brains (i.e. I should evacuate my children to a gardenless place)

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Opinion 2: Brain damage due to the inaudible trumpeting of ethereal elephants congregating in the garden is not a realistic proposition and there is no need to take any practical action to avoid it.

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Does your open-minded approach allow us to distinguish between opinion 1 and opinion 2 in terms of either one being any more or less rational than the other?

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Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Once we have established what the rational course of action is with regard to safeguarding my children from brain damage we can ponder the following: Where, on this scale, can we place ourselves with regard to the confidence we have in the validity of the scale itself?

The knowledge is not axiomatic, but the field of the inquiry that presents a fact as knowledge is always axiomatic.All knowledge is contingent upon the axiom(s) inherent in the particular discipline wherein there is evidence to support that knowledge.For instance, the evidence of an Algebraic solution depends upon the Twelve Field POSTULATES.The eight basic axioms of Geometry must be agreed to as, assumed they are true, before the Proof of a geometric fact (knowledge) can be established.

Whether one knows what is true or not is irrelevent to the existence of Truth.Truth exists in the absence of man, himself.Truth is the Ideal which corresponds to what is real and actually exists.
Truth is the son of the ever unfolding next Frame of Reality that sires that truth is its wake.

So all methods of knowledge acquisition are axiomatic as far as you are concerned? How does one select one's axioms? Are all axioms equal or are some more equal than others? I don't think anyone is arguing that mathematics is anything but axiomatic. Are there any limits on what we can assume as our axioms?If two different sets of axioms result in two mutually exclusive conclusions regarding reality how do you decide which conclusion best reflects reality?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Perhaps you don't. Perhaps determination of reality is not ultimately our decision.