If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature....

Before I respond, let me give you a short cut for creating a link to a message in the same thread. Instead of [URL=http://www.evcforum.net/dm.php?control=msg&m=761779]post # 607.[/url] you can just say [msg=607].Looking at Ringo's Message 608 where he replies to your Message 607, I think Ringo should save any discussion he might like to have about whether reality is real for another thread, but I don't think that's what he really wanted to discuss. The question of whether you or he or reality exists was just an example, as Bigfoot was an example, and as your fake dollar bill was an example. The central issue is how we know what we know, or in slightly more detail, how we establish the greatest confidence in what we think we know. When Ringo asked how you know whether you or he or reality exists I think he was just trying to say that we can never be 100% certain in what we think we know, which in science is a principle known as tentativity.I attempted to follow the discussion between you and Ringo to its roots, and it seems possible that the original question was whether there's any such thing as an absolute truth. If that's right, then while Ringo and I would undoubtedly phrase the question differently, I think it is the same question: How do you know any idea is an absolute truth? Further, how do you know there even *is* anything like an absolute truth?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor typo in 2nd para.

You've misunderstood what Ringo was saying. You guys were discussing absolute truth. Ringo wasn't saying we cannot know anything at all. He was saying we can't know anything with absolute certainty, and that therefore there can't be anything like absolute truth. And you can't be 100% certain of your own statement, either. You're embarking down a philosophical path that will only tie you in knots and get you nowhere. The reality is uncertainty. Agreed, mostly. Are you doing science or religion? I'm pretty sure you can. And you can prove it mathematically. And yet Schrodinger's cat can be both dead and not dead. Neither is the thread's topic. They're both digressions. Do you see one as an appropriate digression and the other not?--Percy

As I said, there are many satisfactory descriptions of the scientific method on the Internet. They're just worded and partitioned into steps differently. The only one I've seen recently that was actually wrong was the one you provided from the Biblical Paradoxes lecture series.You reported that you Googled "the scientific method", so now that you've read a number of different descriptions of the scientific method, you understand it doesn't include identifying a frame of reference or determining the initial conditions. I was just trying to help you see that the description you took from Biblical Paradoxes lecture series was bogus.But that wasn't my main point. I was mostly just trying to encourage you to cease being evasive and begin engaging the discussion.--Percy

You've misunderstood things again. I forget - did we already establish whether English is a second language for you?Ringo was just providing a little more information, not describing a different problem. The additional information is that we do have evidence of people in the past dressing up in Bigfoot costumes. The question he's asking is when faced with a new Bigfoot sighting, how do you tell whether it's a person in a Bigfoot costume or the real thing? This comes back to the question of how we establish what we think is likely true about the real world, i.e., the scientific method.But as I said before, the original issue was about absolute truth. What evidence to you have that there is any such thing?--Percy

You've wandered off course again. The question wasn't, "If your only evidence is the Patterson footage, how do you tell whether it's a guy in a Bigfoot suit or 'something else'?" It was, "What process do you use to decide whether it's a guy in a Bigfoot suit or 'something else'?" It was just an example of the larger question, "How do you determine what is true?"Assume you've captured Bigfoot. How do you determine whether it's really Bigfoot or just a guy in a Bigfoot suit? The answer is: an approach based on the scientific method. More generally, you carefully observe the real world and analyze the data. That's how you learn anything. The scientific method at the Biblical Paradoxes lecture site is bogus. This is not a step in the scientific method. This, too, is not a step in the scientific method.You been told this repeatedly. This is an incomplete statement of your third step, too incomplete to be considered correct. This also is not a step of the scientific method.No one's asking you to form conclusions from incomplete information. They're asking you what method you would use to learn what is true about the real world.--Percy

They're self evidently too specific. They could be steps in some scientific experiments and not others. They're insufficiently general. That's why they're not included in any other description of the scientific method.It would be like having steps to change the oil filter like this:

1. Disconnect the bracket holding the air conditioner compressor and swing it out of the way.
2. Drain the oil.
3. Loosen and then unscrew the oil filter.
4. ...etc...

Look at the first step about the air conditioner compressor. Obviously these instructions are for a specific model car and are not general instructions.That's what's wrong with your scientific method. It's got steps that might be part of some scientific work and not others. It's not general. Even worse, it seems intended as part of promoting a view of Genesis as science. I did, and I told you I found that you and Ringo had begun discussing the issue of absolute truth. I think English must be a second language for you.Why not get off your merry-go-round, adopt some widely accepted description of the scientific method from a neutral site, then start addressing the actual question of how one establishes what is true and what is not about the real world. Here's an outline of the scientific method from Wikipedia:

1. Define a question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form an explanatory hypothesis
4. Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
5. Analyze the data
6. Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

Here's a flowchart version frequently posted by RAZD: Take your pick, or find another one, just don't use the one from the Biblical Paradoxes lecture series. It's bogus.--Percy

If you had any honest intentions to discuss anything or reach an actual point you would simply ignore obvious misspeaks, such as here where Pressie said he would "set initial conditions." He obviously intended to say the same thing your bogus scientific method says, which is to "determine the initial conditions."Are you ever going to move forward with actually discussing anything, or are you just going to nitpick and misconstrue your way through an entire thread?--Percy

Hi JRFjr01,Once again, nothing about the topic. Yes, we know how the topic began. As a subtopic we are now discussing how one establishes what is actually true about the real world, because at one point you claimed there was such a thing as absolute truth. People in this thread are trying to encourage you to actually discuss how one goes about establishing absolute truth, or even just what is true about the real world.--Percy

Great, an answer of sorts, at last. Thank you.With the caution that Ringo and I might decide to go in different directions at this point, let me give my own reaction to this. You're not very specific, but you seem to be implying that we should establish whether a particular instance of a Bigfoot is real or just a man in a suit by studying it, observing it, analyzing it, etc. Is that correct?Once you've done that and established to a scientific level that it is either a Bigfoot or a man in a suit, is that then an absolute truth?--Percy

Uh, okay. Whatever you said is beyond me. Are you equating scientifically true to absolutely true?--Percy

If Absolute Truth is undoubted and certain then what you've said is not true. The foundations of science are not "undoubted; certain." Even the foundations of science are tentative.It's not clear what you mean by the "foundations of science." Perhaps things like, "The laws of the universe are the same everywhere" and "The laws of the universe are unchanging"? Even those are tentative.--Percy

Another way of thinking about tentativity is that no matter how many 9's we add after the 99.99% certainty, we will never reach 100% certainty. We can have a great deal of confidence in theories where our certainty is high, but again, certainty will never reach 100%. There always exists the possibility that theory is in some way inaccurate or incomplete or even wrong.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Add clarity.