If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature....

Or Science Fiction!Don't forget about that.

If you don't have any evidence of there being anything in the room, then why jump to it being a black cat? Why not a red fox? Or a brown otter?Given that you are just guessing that its a black cat, the odds of you being right that it is a cat, and even more specifically a black one, are small enough to consider you most likely to be wrong.

No, if the odds of those things are roughly evenly at zero, then the sentence makes perfect sense.The theologians are wondering things like how many toes the cat has, or how long its whiskers are, or whether or not it has claws.Since they're pondering about something that they are most likely wrong about even existing, then they're not going to be any help."Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there."

In science, you don't assume your hypothesis is true. You do everything you can to show that it is false, and then when you cannot show that it is false, you accept that it is a reasonable approximation of the truth. Well, a particle (A) is not a wave (B). But light (C) behaves as both a wave and a particle.A != B
C=A
C=B
Therefore, A=B
But A !=BLight behaving as both a wave and a particle paradoxically violates the law of noncontradiction, so its not really unquestionable true.

There's a difference between believing that you have the right hypothesis, and assuming that it is true. Both. They're not mutually exclusive.

No, you just don't make any assumptions about its correctness. You're supposed to leave your biases at the door when you enter the lab. Yes, and then when you are unable to prove the hypothesis wrong, we can accept it as being accurate. That's just how science works. I know what the words mean, I'm the one who used them. Argument via dictionary is the lamest argument.And trying to define a position into being right, is neither profound nor impressive. You've just added that "in every respect" part in an attempt to save your position. Its unnecessary.Light behaves as both a particle and a wave, that is contradictory. That's just not true. We know plenty of things independently of the contradictory things we've discovered.Just because discovered that we have Brownian motion in a deterministic Universe does not mean that all the other stuff we've learned suddenly becomes wrong or unknowable. Yawn. This is that stuff that people think is so impressive right after they take a freshman philosophy course.Tell me, what happens when Pinocchio says: "My nose will grow".?ZOMG!, mind blown! You're conceited too?

No, that's not right. That would mean that if there is a hamburger on a plate, then the only thing that is on the plate would be the bottom bun. But that's silly, the whole burger is on the plate. Actually, Ringo made a really good point about how saying "everything" doesn't have to mean literally every single thing.If you tried harder to understand the point rather than just trying to score debate points by trying to make him wrong, then this discussion could have begun to move forward months ago.So, the column of air above the plate is technically on the plate as well as the food is. When a parent asks if you've eaten "everything" on you plate, they are not talking about every single thing on the plate (like the air above it), they are just talking about the food on it. That is because "everything" does not have to mean every single thing. Its like a tautology. The problem isn't that they aren't true, they just don't really tell us anything. That's what is meant by being trivial.The fact that something is itself and not something else is not some kind of profound insight, its trivially true. That it is the only example of an absolute truth that you can come up with, tells me that absolute truths are a pipe dream.If there really were good examples of absolute truths, then you would have simply said one instead of distracting the whole thing by focusing on a tautology.You've got nothing. You're fluffing up your lack of evidence and argument and trying to sound like you have some kind of evidence and argument. But all you've got is fluff.This whole thing started six months ago:

quote:

---

It may be a tautology but evidence is evident. You don't get to have your own set of evidence. If it ain't evident (to most people, on an objective basis) it ain't evidence. If it needs to be accepted a priori it ain't evidence.

---

quote:

---

You seem to be using the term "objective truth" in the sense of "absolute truth".
There is no absolute truth. There is only what most people agree on

---

And down the rabbit hole you've gone. If you actually had any evidence or argument, then you would have presented it. That you've instead decided to focus on irrelevancies and distractions tell us that you never had anything in the first place.

Also, there are synthetic elements.

What would happen if Pinocchio said: "My nose will grow."?Would he be saying something that was true?

I'm not so sure. Can you expand on that argument? Why does the premise lead to the conclusion?When we zoom in on actual reality, the farther in we go, the blurrier and blurrier it gets. Its gets less and less "absolute" the closer we look at it.When we get into really deep quantum levels, things stop being particles and behave like wave function and probability distributions. There's really nothing "absolute" about that.But all that doesn't stop us from approximating reality at our macro level and figuring out how things work. So I don't see how without absolute truths, that we cannot make scientific predictions.Added by edit:To further my point, in the context of the length of a two-by-four. I contend that even without absolute truths, scientific predictions would still be possible.Let's say we have a two-by-four. You're saying that it has an absolute length. So, God drags out a board, makes a cut with his saw, and proclaims this absolute truth: "This is an eight-foot two-by-four."You walk out with your tape measure, slap it down; "ninety-six inches... on the dot."Now, for the scientific perspective; we bust out a magnifying glass and take a closer look. The edge of the board is all pointy and spikey. Its hard to find an exact edge. We zoom in closer, its even crazier. The cells themselves have varying length. In closer and the particles become more like clouds. We cannot find a point to draw an actual edge on. We doubt that there's an absolute length because that shit is too blurry.So, let's grant that the scientific perspective is actually right. That as you get closer to defining the absolute edge of a board, the less clear it becomes where it is.Please realize that this doesn't mean that you can't walk up with a tape measure and go: "Yup, ninety-six inches"Or even; 'hey, random guy: "How long is this two-by-four?"'<.< "Uh, eight-feet?"Sweet, add it to the wall.No wait, there's really no absolute length of the board and we have to doubt all our predictions about how level the top of this wall is going to be! Oh noes! and the wall vanishes into non-reality.But seriously. From a non-absolute perspective, you can still "do science" and make predictions about how level the top of your wall is going to be. It won't be absolutely level, but that random guy knew it was level. And all our eyeball observations agree.The lack of an absolute doesn't prevent the measurement. And once we have those observations, we can begin the predicting. And that's just the half of itYou gotta account for inerrancies in your observational methods. Maybe you can't see real good, and it was really on ninety-five and fifteen-sixteenths. Granted, that would mean that God was fucking with you.But still, as we zoom in we might be loosing some clarity. Starting from your eyeballs and even your brain, themselves, down through the lens in the magnifying glass and microscope.Even if there is an absolute truth, you still can't be sure that your objectification of it was absolutely correct.But that's where objectivity comes into play. If we can all agree that this board is eight-feet long, and the top of the wall really is fucking level, then it never matters that the board's length isn't really absolute. And it is possible to make scientific predictions about how level the top is going to be.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : Added

I don't think the rotation of the Earth can be stopped at a rate fast enough that it won't still spin enough distance for the sun to appear above my horizon before what would be tomorrow.And if by some magic it was, then nobody would be here to know the answer to the question... so it wouldn't matter.

What kind of absolute truth would impress you? As it sits, I don't think that "absolute truth" has ever had any relevancy.

The column of air is also on the plate. That's one of the reasons why if you weigh the plate at sea level it will be heavier than if you weigh it on top of a mountain. On the mountain, there is a shorter column of air pushing down on the plate so it weighs less. There is literally more air ON the plate at sea level. You said:

quote:

---

By the way, what I fined ‘silly’ is the argument that asking someone if they have eaten everything on their plate would be construed to include any item not actually touching the top surface of the plate itself.

---

Since the top bun of a hamburger is not touching the top surface of the plate, itself, then according to the above it would not be on the plate.But you still haven't really acknowledge the point: When someone says "everything", they don't necessarily mean "absolutely everything". The point is shown by the example that eating "everything" on your plate does not mean literally and absolutely every single thing that is on the plate, like the air molecules that are touching the surface of it.Can you acknowledge this simple point? Sure. Light exists as both a wave and a particle and we have Brownian Motion in a deterministic universe. These two things contradict themselves and yet, as far as we know, they are both true.Also, the phrase: "This statement is false." can't even have a truth value assigned to it, so the Law of non-contradiction can't be applied to it.So there's a few examples where the LNC is not true and therefore, it isn't absolutely true.Also, I already explained that the LNC is just a stupid tautology. "A red thing is red" is just as impressive. Is that really all you were talking about with absolute truths? That you can come up with tautologies?

quote:

---

Its like a tautology. The problem isn't that they aren't true, they just don't really tell us anything. That's what is meant by being trivial.

​

The fact that something is itself and not something else is not some kind of profound insight, its trivially true. That it is the only example of an absolute truth that you can come up with, tells me that absolute truths are a pipe dream.

---

. Seriously, when you started talking about "absolute truth", were you really just talking about tautologies?If you, instead, would have said that tautologies exist, then you wouldn't have had an argument.

Nitrogen has the Atomic Number 7, but its Atomic Weight is 14.007.
Oxygen has the Atomic Number 8, but its Atomic Weight is 15.999.
Hydrogen has the Atomic Number 1, but its Atomic Weight is 1.008.

Consider a table. Its hard and holds your dinner.But at the atomic level it is mostly empty space, and the atoms aren't even touching.We could say that the hardness of the table is an illusion.Before we were capable of observing down to the atomic level, would you say that we couldn't call that an illusion?