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Author | Topic: Absence of Evidence.............. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.5 |
Rahvin writes: You've given no reason whatsoever to believe anything you say. That is entirely up to you. BTW I stated a fact that when I die I will know if I am right or wrong. When you die you will know if you are right or wrong. That has nothing to do with what you believe or do not believe, what I believe or do not believe, Pascal's Wager, or any other kind of wager. As of today the death rate is still 100%. God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
ICANT writes: BTW I stated a fact that when I die I will know if I am right or wrong. That is not a fact. You do not know whether you will know anything at all when you die.
When you die you will know if you are right or wrong. How can you know this?
That has nothing to do with what you believe or do not believe, what I believe or do not believe, Pascal's Wager, or any other kind of wager. As of today the death rate is still 100%. It has everything to do with what you believe. As of today, the evidence that anyone knows anything after their deaths is absolute 0.
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ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.5 |
bluegenes writes: That is not a fact. You do not know whether you will know anything at all when you die. You are partly right. Because if your belief system is correct I will never get the answer. But if my belief system is correct you will have all the evidence you need to convince you. Sometimes you do not know the results of the experiment until it is finished. You can get some pretty good ideas along the way but you do not have the evidence until the results are in.
bluegenes writes: As of today, the evidence that anyone knows anything after their deaths is absolute 0. Agreed but I was not talking about evidence today. Just like science is looking for evidence of how the universe came into existence. They hope that someday they will have the answer. But as of the moment there is only some wild ideas being thrown around. But because they don't know does not mean the universe is not here because it is. God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Why would people buy something called life insurance when they have to die for their beneficary to collect?
So that my loved ones are not left completely financially screwed by my absence.......obviously!!
Straggler there are many things that science does not have an answer for. But scientist keep looking for the answers in the hopes that one day they will find the answer.
True. BUT there are many things that people like you claim are utterly and inherently unknowable, untestable and non-empirical. It is these things I dispute the validity and existence of. Not the things for which inadequate technology or insufficient evidence is the cause of our ignorance.
When it comes to God and if a person has a spirit that will live forever I do not have empirical evidence.
Which is why I suggest it is fundamentally silly idea. Borne of wishful thinking and philosophical bias with no basis in truth whatsoever.
But one day I will have empirical evidence.
No you won't.
It is similar to the life insurance except my beneficary won't have the evidence one way or the other but I will. The same goes for everybody as the last time I checked the death rate was 100%.
The fact that death is certain is exactly why it is not the same at all.the probability of death is certain. The probability of you meeting your maker in a spiritual afterlife once you die.... well pretty darn negligible by the reckoning of any actual evidence worth that name. Your beliefs to the contrary are irrelevant in determining the truth of your claims. Delusion rather than truth is the obvious conclusion. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.5 |
Straggler writes: ICANT writes:
Which is why I suggest it is fundamentally silly idea. Borne of wishful thinking and philosophical bias with no basis in truth whatsoever.
When it comes to God and if a person has a spirit that will live forever I do not have empirical evidence. ICANT writes:
No you won't. But one day I will have empirical evidence. I went back and bolded the word if in the first part of the quote. IF there is a God and IF man has a spirit that will live forever would you please explain to me how I will not have empirical evidence. God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Absence of Evidence.............. Strictly speaking the absence of evidence is only evidence of the absence of evidence, and nothing more can be logically concluded.
... we should obviously treat the existence of Vishnu as 50/50. Nor does it follow that any concept needs to be considered in equal light (the major fallacy of the "teach both sides" crowd), especially when there are conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities. When we get beyond the realm of scientific tentatively validated knowledge we enter the realm of basic uncertainty and basic beliefs that may or may not be true. What we can honestly say is that we do not know for sure, except that we currently observe an absence of evidence. Enjoy. by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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ramoss Member (Idle past 612 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
On the contrary. If there is no afterlife, after you die, you don't know anything, since you (as a conscious being), know nothing.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
ICANT writes: bluegenes writes: That is not a fact. You do not know whether you will know anything at all when you die. You are partly right. Because if your belief system is correct I will never get the answer. Not partly right, entirely right. I put the point that you do not know whether or not you will know anything at all when you die. That was not an expression of a belief that you won't know anything, merely that you don't know whether or not you will. It would be abusing the word "know" to argue against me on that point. No one can claim to know what happens after death, but, of course, religious people of many different hues often claim to know, and they "know" many different things, which is invariably the result of a world in which people will claim "knowledge" based on blind faith, and these people aren't described, as they should be, as mad.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
RAZD writes: Nor does it follow that any concept needs to be considered in equal light (the major fallacy of the "teach both sides" crowd), especially when there are conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities. When we get beyond the realm of scientific tentatively validated knowledge we enter the realm of basic uncertainty and basic beliefs that may or may not be true. What we can honestly say is that we do not know for sure, except that we currently observe an absence of evidence. This seems correct. So, when there are "conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities" then believing in any one would, logically, be best described as bloody stupid. So, when there is zero evidence in any area, it is sensible to lack belief. Atheism, I must point out here, is the lack of belief in any Gods. It is not, as so many seem to think, a faith that there are not or cannot be Gods. Belief is active, and there is no point in going through life believing in any evidenceless propositions.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
This seems correct. So, when there are "conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities" then believing in any one would, logically, be best described as bloody stupid. Atheism, I must point out here, is ... ... one of those conjectural possibilities.
So, when there is zero evidence in any area, it is sensible to lack belief .... ... in any conjectural possibility being the absolute truth. Including atheism. The only truly logical choice is a skeptical agnosticism, as anything else is a choice made on the basis of belief in knowing an unknowable truth. Enjoy. by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Strictly speaking the absence of evidence is only evidence of the absence of evidence, and nothing more can be logically concluded.
My OP was aimed at beliefs in things for which it is claimed that there can be no empirical evidence. Things that are said to be inherently non-empirical, untestable and physically unknowable. E.g. God, the soul, personal auras etc. etc. etc. I should have made this much clearer in the OP.
... we should obviously treat the existence of Vishnu as 50/50. Nor does it follow that any concept needs to be considered in equal light (the major fallacy of the "teach both sides" crowd), especially when there are conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities. When we get beyond the realm of scientific tentatively validated knowledge we enter the realm of basic uncertainty and basic beliefs that may or may not be true. What we can honestly say is that we do not know for sure, except that we currently observe an absence of evidence.
Here I do not agree.A complete absence of physical evidence of any kind in relation to a claim, especially if evidence for the claim in question is pro-actively sought, can only ever suggest that the claim is false. If a scientific theory predicted a certain new particle (for example) and after years of research and a multitude of experiments designed to detect the particle no evidence for the particle was found would we not consider the theory as having been at least possibly falsified and a new theory necessary?There is no certainty in science so absence of evidence for something is in practical terms about as certain as it is possible to get. In the case of the soul (for example) the complete absence of any empirical basis for such a claim means that the reasons given for belief in such a thing are inherently and demonstrably unreliable. In the absence of physical evidence for such a thing we must conclude that it does not exist. Any claim to the contrary and we head back into the realm of invisible pink unicorns once again.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
RAZD writes: Including atheism. The only truly logical choice is a skeptical agnosticism, as anything else is a choice made on the basis of belief in knowing an unknowable truth. I just pointed out that atheism is a skeptical agnosticism. A skeptical agnostic is not someone who will half believe in a golden creator unicorn with ten bollocks just because someone else makes the proposition. A skeptical agnostic will lack faith in any evidenceless proposition. That's what an atheist is in relation to any Gods ever proposed. Someone who lacks faith in them all. Believing in evidenceless propositions requires faith, but not believing in them doesn't.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
My OP was aimed at beliefs in things for which it is claimed that there can be no empirical evidence. Thanks for the clarification. I presume this would include such things as the existence of alternate universes, or what came before "T=0".
This is the same point I was making with this example. It seems to a be a common argument here at EvC that if we have no physical evidence on which to base any conclusions we should treat all claims equally. This position is obviously logically flawed. The usual (strawman?) argument involves pink unicorns and the flying spaghetti monster, the issue being that while we cannot absolutely rule them out, there is no rational reason to believe in them.
Here I do not agree. A complete absence of physical evidence of any kind in relation to a claim, especially if evidence for the claim in question is pro-actively sought, can only ever suggest that the claim is false. There was a complete absence of evidence of any kind for the existence of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker after the last known specimens had died.
If a scientific theory predicted a certain new particle (for example) and after years of research and a multitude of experiments designed to detect the particle no evidence for the particle was found would we not consider the theory as having been at least possibly falsified and a new theory necessary? Such as a graviton? The problem may be that there is evidence, but we don't know how to observe it yet. If we never find a graviton does that mean that gravity does not exist? Or does it mean that we are looking in the wrong place or with the wrong equipment?
In the case of the soul (for example) the complete absence of any empirical basis for such a claim means that the reasons given for belief in such a thing are inherently and demonstrably unreliable. In the absence of physical evidence for such a thing we must conclude that it does not exist. Can you absolutely prove that pink unicorns do not exist? The only thing I can properly conclude from an absence of evidence for pink unicorns is that there is an absence of evidence for pink unicorns, and nothing more. I can treat the concept of pink unicorns with skeptical agnosticism, I can chose to believe in their existence in spite of an absence of evidence, or I can chose to believe in an absence of existence because of the absence of evidence, but neither of those choices are based on logic or evidence.
Any claim to the contrary and we head back into the realm of invisible pink unicorns once again. I am highly skeptical about the existence of invisible pink unicorns. Enjoy. by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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lyx2no Member (Idle past 4716 days) Posts: 1277 From: A vast, undifferentiated plane. Joined: |
Someone who sits with their feet dangling over the edge of the bed is not agnostic about the monster. People who are agnostic about the monster play it safe.
Kindly A mind changed against its will is of the same opinion still.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I just pointed out that atheism is a skeptical agnosticism. Only if it is highly skeptical about the existence but does not rule it out, and then it is usually called "weak atheism" (while an honest look would call it agnosticism). Strong atheism does not allow for the existence, and thus there is nothing "skeptical" about the position, rather a conclusion has been chosen that is not supported by the evidence.
Believing in evidenceless propositions requires faith, but not believing in them doesn't. Such as believing in the absolute truth of an absence of all gods. If you want to pursue it further we should start another thread. You could start with this No webpage found at provided URL: from wikipedia:
quote: Which matches up to straggler's restrictions on the OT in Message 26:
straggler writes: My OP was aimed at beliefs in things for which it is claimed that there can be no empirical evidence. Things that are said to be inherently non-empirical, untestable and physically unknowable. E.g. God, the soul, personal auras etc. etc. etc. If it is not possible to know then it is not possible to logically conclude one way or the other. The logical choice left is skeptical agnosticism. Enjoy. by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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