If God interacts with his alleged creation, then he must inevitably exert a force of some sort within it, and that force could be observed and measured, bringing him within the realm of scientific knowledge. If he influences anything meaningful to us, then his influence will be detectable.
However, when you disprove the claims of miracles, and discredit his supposed interactions, they always and inevitably fall back into saying that he is unknowable.
The nature of God is always said to be unknowable. When we get into semantic arguments, no scientific conclusion is 100% certain. We could just as easily say that we can never know for sure if Airplanes work, or if we've just been exceedingly lucky for a hundred years.
No one ever applies this logic-- that we're not 100% sure, so we can't know-- to any subject except theology. It's rather irksome, if you ask me; why should it be treated any different from any other subject?
"The nature of God is always said to be unknowable."
I'm afraid you do not know the subject you are talking about [viz. theology]. All the monotheistic religions, for example, think that God has communicated with his creation in many ways. Therefore they believe that God has revealed his nature. To say, as you do, that God is "always said to be unknowable" then you have not read or listened to any monotheist ever. That is sad.
Again - PLEASE listen to Feynman. This video is not about being paralysed about technology working or not. It's about the ultimate truth of the paradigms of science and whether science can answer all meaningful questions.
When you make toast, do you arrogantly assume that the toaster will work?
Or do you sit and contemplate how you can never know if it will function until you use it, and thus must assume that a toaster cannot be expected to make toast, because we can never know for sure that it won't, say, turn into a pony or burn your house down instead?
Reading your comment I cannot help but wonder if you actually took the time to listen to what was being said in the video because your comment is so unrelated to what I was talking about.
The video is excellent. It reminds me of Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which proves the limits of human logic. There will always be questions unanswered, and we can't expect science to solve them all one day.
I agree, that's the right answer, or at least right way to search for it. Sadly there is so little philosophers that know mathematics sufficiently (especially set theory) to see what it actually means. We need a new kind of philosophers (or old ones - like old Greeks were)
"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man." Richard P Feynman
When it comes to exploration, we must define what we are seeking to explore, and go with the methodology that fits its requirements. If we seek to explore the Natural world, or anything empricism, then Science works. If we seek things such as ethics, then philosophy works. If we seek to explore ultimate reality, then theology, mysticism, and intuitionism work.
I apologize if I'm running down any well-worn paths of argument. Philosophy isn't something I spend a lot of time discussing or thinking outside of ethics/morals.
You are right. You should ask all of those questions, but I would say that having an answer, even a consensus, doesn't provide knowledge, though it can still help us live in society.
As for multiple interpretations of phenomenon, any may provide some knowledge of how things work, but any inconsistencies represent a lack of knowledge. In fact, even where we have single consistent explanation of things it may only be apparent or partial knowledge.
@TheCartesianTheist Cute. As far as I'm aware that's right. The "right" I used in quotations before was ment as a synonym for correct as in "this is the right answer" and not as in right and wrong. For example, "what is beauty?", "what is right (morally)?", "what is truth?" are all questions without correct answers. Many different people all have different answers to these questions. To go a step further, all these questions are about human constructs that don't exist outside of the mind.
"For example, "what is beauty?", "what is right (morally)?", "what is truth?" are all questions without correct answers. Many different people all have different answers to these questions."
BUT that doesn't stop you. You think you know what the truth is!!
By the way - you're view would also slay science since most paradigms in science have differing interpretations. For example there are two main schools of thought in interpreting quantum phenomena!
I think that the arguments below have missed the real point and gotten caught up in philosophy about philosophy.
My personal thoughts on the subject are this: facts (as we understand them) are collected through observation; science tries to explain facts; philosophy, ethics, etc. are collections of opinions based on facts.
The last group does not produce knowledge but opinion. There are no "right" answers in philosophy, and though it shouldn't be ignored it does not produce knowledge.
It would seem that this video sidesteps the basic claims of its opponents. Any definition is fine so long as there is something that can be found to actually meet the definition. If there is nothing by which to review whether the claimed thing exists, science can't address it. However, if the claimed thing is claimed to do things that science has found that it doesn't at least in the manner presented that it does - can the claimed thing with no support be claimed to not exist?
Someone should make a video on the limits of philosophy, just to put things in perspective. As even philosophy is not without its limits of understanding the true nature of reality.
Go for it. The difference, I think, is that you don't find too many philosophers running around claiming that philosophy answers everything. I may be wrong but I have not heard any of them doing that. Have you?
@TheCartesianTheist Well one could say theologists attempt to try and say they have the answers to everything by playing science/philosophy for their views. I see both science and philosophy as beneficial for gaining knowledge, but sometimes the two like to conflict with one another. Our bias/agendas really seem to be stopping us from gaining total truth.
I don't recognise what you're stating at all. All the theologians I have read consider both philosophy/theology AND science to be important for a full picture of the world. Galileo was one. He said both were needed. Newton took the same view. So did Bacon, Copernicus, Descartes, Leibniz etc. etc. etc. One would have to be quite naive to suggest either has no place. Our bias is another matter but both disciplines are affected by them for sure.
@TheCartesianTheist Well theology as opposed to say philosophy are two entirely different things, the difference is in philosophy you aren't claiming a specific god is the cause for everything and trying to prove that assumption. Philosophy/science attempts to gain whatever answers it can with the information discovered/gained with no ulterior motive except for trying to finding out what the unknown is. Not that god isn't impossible, just in some cases implausible as an answer.
"...you aren't claiming a specific god is the cause for everything and trying to prove that assumption."
That's not what theology is though!! Theology is far broader than that. You have historical theology for example which is where you would try to understand what a set of theologians or one particular theologian was arguing. Then there's biblical theology which is the same but pertaining to just the bible. Then there's systematic theology...
which is the discipline of taking themes and arranging the topically. Then there's philosophical theology which has numerous overlaps with theology and all the classical philosophical writers wrote philosophical theology.
It is completely naive to think that science has no underlying metanarrative for its project. Of course it does. Whenever science is being done it's being done in a framework - this is well accepted in philosophy of science today.
@TheCartesianTheist Yes theology is broad I can agree with that, and I see that it does overlap with philosophy in many ways. I just think it usually has an ulterior motive that is unchanging.
Well the difference is in science if the hypothesis is flawed it is thrown out and if it has enough things to support it, it can become a theory. This is something theology will never think of doing and its greatest weakness, as it would rather keep the assumption despite conflicting evidence.
Yes but even if it's true that aspects of it have a motive that does not discredit it per se. Atheist philosophers have a motive for doing philosophy. Does their motive mean they cannot achieve anything in their field? Well does it? According to you [if you're being consistent] then it does. But that cannot be. Actually if you think nothing has changed in theology in the last 100 years even then I'm inclined to think you don't know the subject.
@TheCartesianTheist There was a reason why I included bias in one of my first posts, its not that i'm saying we can't gain knowledge with our biases its that our biases are driving us away from gaining further knowledge. The other thing I was pointing out was that theologians will never throw out their faith in a god if information turns against them and are instead forced to integrate and evolve their ideas if they wish to survive.
Are you really suggesting there are no theistic philosophers who have stopped being theistic? Would you really like me to name some for you? Perhaps you know some already and can save me that task? Once again, the bias is only badly problematic to the discipline if there is no academic discipline. But theology is a very professional discipline. During the enlightenment it was considered the "queen of the sciences"!
@TheCartesianTheist I'm not a philosopher, but I wouldn't doubt that people have changed perspectives in philosophy especially on the subject of god.
Theology seems to appeal simply to one's calling to a specific religious group and to defend, compare, explore, reform, or propagate that religion. The main problem here is really knowing which god is the objective god and how to prove it apart from religious texts.
Well you may well "doubt" that people have changed their views but then you are just plain wrong. I'll give you two examples. Paley's watchmaker argument was almost completely abandoned by serious theistic philosophers and at the end of the 20th century most serious atheist philosophers abandoned the logical argument from evil. Both of these developments took place in philosophical theology.
@TheCartesianTheist Did you reword what I wrote just so you could assail that I was in disagreement with you? I said I WOULDN'T doubt that philosophers would change their perspectives on the subject of god from either side of the debate. My point was that we humans can't know what the true god is, we have nothing to go on, just many conceptions none of which give us an objective true definable god. If we did have a true definable god things like religion,faith, and debates would be unneeded.
But that is surely the point? If there has been progress made in the field then the field is worthy of study. After all, there are great divisions and many differing schools of thought in ethics but does that mean that we dispose of ethical studies and not bother because there are very divergent views amongst the experts? I would certainly hope we don't. Same with theological issues.
@TheCartesianTheist I wouldn't say division is a bad thing on ethics considering all the amounts of different ideologies that have been built over the years in philosophy but that seems more or less like a collective of truths. But god is different in that we are trying to find the true one, unless you think more than one god could be real. I'm sort of taking the ignostic position here because how do we define something far beyond human comprehension?
Of course observation and reason are important - although the latter more so in my opinion. Today we are discovering that observation is quite misleading on a number of levels. "Collection of truths"? But moral subjectivism and objectivism cannot both be equally true? A deontologist won't agree with a right-wing consequentialist. It's terrible trite to refer to all ethics as a "collection of truths". Most are completely contradictory.
@TheCartesianTheist I agree our intuitions can be very wrong, and I also agree both observation and reason are important.
I was sort of making a bridge when I said there are collective truths, most follow the same ideas dealing with well being in the broader sense but making them more complex it does run into problems depending on motives/principles that people hold to. Is it possible that morals are constructive and based on many pillars through many areas of understanding and advancement?
Also it's worth asking what the point of consensus is as well? I mean, in science there is consensus on a lot of matters but there is still a good chance of science changing where there is consensus in the future. Therefore consensus does not, in itself, actually grant that we're any nearer the truth of a matter and I think that's worth keeping in mind.
@TheCartesianTheist I would say that science is moving towards truth, it evolves and changes with each new discovery bringing us further out of ignorance on some aspects of our reality. It may not be completely accurate but it does have a good way of making predictions and gaining knowledge on subjects. Then of course there is the fact that science loves scrutiny so as to be as critical as possible on debatable hypothesis and theories.
Science (or more broadly reason supported by the analysis of observation) is the best source of knowledge we have. Knowing that science has limits in no way says anything positive about philosophy. Philosophy motivates and inspires individual to do things but does little collectively other than to justify the convictions of the majority. I find values and morals are more a social product of life experience and social norms than any philosophical justification behind them.
And this is one of the reasons current atheism has such a huge mountain to climb. The fact that so much of it in the West today wishes to suggest that science is the only real way to know and trying to put philosophy down. Feynman was warning atheists against this but they have not heeded his warning. That there are serious limitations on science does say something important about other routes to knowledge. And philosophical inquiry is one such important way.
@TheCartesianTheist Truth is merely a human construct it only exists in the minds of humans and does not exist in the real world. There is only what exists and what we call the truth is merely our best estimate of that. Science and an evidence based understanding of who and what we are and how we got here, appears to be the most successful and beneficial tools to get our best understanding of the truth.
"...reasons current atheism has such a huge mountain to climb." Time will tell.
"Truth is merely a human construct it only exists in the minds of humans and does not exist in the real world."
Well if that's true then that's only 'true' as a construct in your brain and has no 'truth value' outside of your own brain. But then if that's the case then the statement is fallacious as expressed since the statement is implying a universality that it cannot maintain if it is remotely true.
@TheCartesianTheist This is where philosophy fails again: playing lawyer rather than addressing the issue.
The only universality in the statement is that the statement is derived from the observation that an abstraction is by definition distinctly separate from the thing it represents and since I know of no exceptions I will treat it as universal until I find a reason not to. Truth is at its essence an assessment of the state of some observation which exist only in our brains.
Scientific methods are good for understanding the physical nature of our world. That is where they are of great benefit. This is undisputed. I have no idea why, primarily atheists, get all defensive the moment the suggestion that science cannot answer everything. I suspect I know why but it really ought not need to be so jumpy. It is quite obvious that science needs to work in conjunction with philosophy since empirical science cannot verify its own founding assumptions
Think, for example, of what you're arguing in your post. You're suggesting there is such a thing as 'truth'. But the quest for truth has always been seen as primarily a philosophical one. Science assumes it. The theory of knowledge is a philosophical question [epistemology]. Scientists assume an epistemology but there is no such thing as an epistemology which is non-philosophical. All epistemologies are, necessarily, philosophical.
@TheCartesianTheist
If God interacts with his alleged creation, then he must inevitably exert a force of some sort within it, and that force could be observed and measured, bringing him within the realm of scientific knowledge. If he influences anything meaningful to us, then his influence will be detectable.
However, when you disprove the claims of miracles, and discredit his supposed interactions, they always and inevitably fall back into saying that he is unknowable.
AnariPlanet 3 weeks ago
@TheCartesianTheist
The nature of God is always said to be unknowable. When we get into semantic arguments, no scientific conclusion is 100% certain. We could just as easily say that we can never know for sure if Airplanes work, or if we've just been exceedingly lucky for a hundred years.
No one ever applies this logic-- that we're not 100% sure, so we can't know-- to any subject except theology. It's rather irksome, if you ask me; why should it be treated any different from any other subject?
AnariPlanet 3 weeks ago
@AnariPlanet
"The nature of God is always said to be unknowable."
I'm afraid you do not know the subject you are talking about [viz. theology]. All the monotheistic religions, for example, think that God has communicated with his creation in many ways. Therefore they believe that God has revealed his nature. To say, as you do, that God is "always said to be unknowable" then you have not read or listened to any monotheist ever. That is sad.
TheCartesianTheist 3 weeks ago
@AnariPlanet
Again - PLEASE listen to Feynman. This video is not about being paralysed about technology working or not. It's about the ultimate truth of the paradigms of science and whether science can answer all meaningful questions.
TheCartesianTheist 3 weeks ago
Watching this video, I can't help but wonder...
When you make toast, do you arrogantly assume that the toaster will work?
Or do you sit and contemplate how you can never know if it will function until you use it, and thus must assume that a toaster cannot be expected to make toast, because we can never know for sure that it won't, say, turn into a pony or burn your house down instead?
AnariPlanet 3 weeks ago
@AnariPlanet
Reading your comment I cannot help but wonder if you actually took the time to listen to what was being said in the video because your comment is so unrelated to what I was talking about.
TheCartesianTheist 3 weeks ago
The video is excellent. It reminds me of Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which proves the limits of human logic. There will always be questions unanswered, and we can't expect science to solve them all one day.
InspiringPhilosophy 3 weeks ago 5
@InspiringPhilosophy
I agree, that's the right answer, or at least right way to search for it. Sadly there is so little philosophers that know mathematics sufficiently (especially set theory) to see what it actually means. We need a new kind of philosophers (or old ones - like old Greeks were)
grayxy 3 weeks ago
I'm tired of the New Atheists' scientism. So many of them need to get an education in philosophy. Great video.
Truth4JWs 1 month ago
"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man." Richard P Feynman
arizonaviking 1 month ago in playlist More videos from TheCartesianTheist
When it comes to exploration, we must define what we are seeking to explore, and go with the methodology that fits its requirements. If we seek to explore the Natural world, or anything empricism, then Science works. If we seek things such as ethics, then philosophy works. If we seek to explore ultimate reality, then theology, mysticism, and intuitionism work.
IamnotSmartz 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist
I apologize if I'm running down any well-worn paths of argument. Philosophy isn't something I spend a lot of time discussing or thinking outside of ethics/morals.
burstofsanity 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist
You are right. You should ask all of those questions, but I would say that having an answer, even a consensus, doesn't provide knowledge, though it can still help us live in society.
As for multiple interpretations of phenomenon, any may provide some knowledge of how things work, but any inconsistencies represent a lack of knowledge. In fact, even where we have single consistent explanation of things it may only be apparent or partial knowledge.
burstofsanity 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist Cute. As far as I'm aware that's right. The "right" I used in quotations before was ment as a synonym for correct as in "this is the right answer" and not as in right and wrong. For example, "what is beauty?", "what is right (morally)?", "what is truth?" are all questions without correct answers. Many different people all have different answers to these questions. To go a step further, all these questions are about human constructs that don't exist outside of the mind.
burstofsanity 2 months ago
@burstofsanity
"For example, "what is beauty?", "what is right (morally)?", "what is truth?" are all questions without correct answers. Many different people all have different answers to these questions."
BUT that doesn't stop you. You think you know what the truth is!!
By the way - you're view would also slay science since most paradigms in science have differing interpretations. For example there are two main schools of thought in interpreting quantum phenomena!
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
I think that the arguments below have missed the real point and gotten caught up in philosophy about philosophy.
My personal thoughts on the subject are this: facts (as we understand them) are collected through observation; science tries to explain facts; philosophy, ethics, etc. are collections of opinions based on facts.
The last group does not produce knowledge but opinion. There are no "right" answers in philosophy, and though it shouldn't be ignored it does not produce knowledge.
burstofsanity 2 months ago
@burstofsanity
"There are no "right" answers in philosophy..."
Is that right?
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago 7
@burstofsanity Is that scientific?
MrItchyElbow 2 months ago
It would seem that this video sidesteps the basic claims of its opponents. Any definition is fine so long as there is something that can be found to actually meet the definition. If there is nothing by which to review whether the claimed thing exists, science can't address it. However, if the claimed thing is claimed to do things that science has found that it doesn't at least in the manner presented that it does - can the claimed thing with no support be claimed to not exist?
MyContext 2 months ago
@MyContext
"It would seem that this video sidesteps the basic claims of its opponents."
The "opponents" were logical positivists.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
A lovely video. Well done.
AMWOODco 2 months ago
Someone should make a video on the limits of philosophy, just to put things in perspective. As even philosophy is not without its limits of understanding the true nature of reality.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
Go for it. The difference, I think, is that you don't find too many philosophers running around claiming that philosophy answers everything. I may be wrong but I have not heard any of them doing that. Have you?
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist Well one could say theologists attempt to try and say they have the answers to everything by playing science/philosophy for their views. I see both science and philosophy as beneficial for gaining knowledge, but sometimes the two like to conflict with one another. Our bias/agendas really seem to be stopping us from gaining total truth.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
I don't recognise what you're stating at all. All the theologians I have read consider both philosophy/theology AND science to be important for a full picture of the world. Galileo was one. He said both were needed. Newton took the same view. So did Bacon, Copernicus, Descartes, Leibniz etc. etc. etc. One would have to be quite naive to suggest either has no place. Our bias is another matter but both disciplines are affected by them for sure.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist Well theology as opposed to say philosophy are two entirely different things, the difference is in philosophy you aren't claiming a specific god is the cause for everything and trying to prove that assumption. Philosophy/science attempts to gain whatever answers it can with the information discovered/gained with no ulterior motive except for trying to finding out what the unknown is. Not that god isn't impossible, just in some cases implausible as an answer.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
"...you aren't claiming a specific god is the cause for everything and trying to prove that assumption."
That's not what theology is though!! Theology is far broader than that. You have historical theology for example which is where you would try to understand what a set of theologians or one particular theologian was arguing. Then there's biblical theology which is the same but pertaining to just the bible. Then there's systematic theology...
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
which is the discipline of taking themes and arranging the topically. Then there's philosophical theology which has numerous overlaps with theology and all the classical philosophical writers wrote philosophical theology.
It is completely naive to think that science has no underlying metanarrative for its project. Of course it does. Whenever science is being done it's being done in a framework - this is well accepted in philosophy of science today.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist Yes theology is broad I can agree with that, and I see that it does overlap with philosophy in many ways. I just think it usually has an ulterior motive that is unchanging.
Well the difference is in science if the hypothesis is flawed it is thrown out and if it has enough things to support it, it can become a theory. This is something theology will never think of doing and its greatest weakness, as it would rather keep the assumption despite conflicting evidence.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
Yes but even if it's true that aspects of it have a motive that does not discredit it per se. Atheist philosophers have a motive for doing philosophy. Does their motive mean they cannot achieve anything in their field? Well does it? According to you [if you're being consistent] then it does. But that cannot be. Actually if you think nothing has changed in theology in the last 100 years even then I'm inclined to think you don't know the subject.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist There was a reason why I included bias in one of my first posts, its not that i'm saying we can't gain knowledge with our biases its that our biases are driving us away from gaining further knowledge. The other thing I was pointing out was that theologians will never throw out their faith in a god if information turns against them and are instead forced to integrate and evolve their ideas if they wish to survive.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
Are you really suggesting there are no theistic philosophers who have stopped being theistic? Would you really like me to name some for you? Perhaps you know some already and can save me that task? Once again, the bias is only badly problematic to the discipline if there is no academic discipline. But theology is a very professional discipline. During the enlightenment it was considered the "queen of the sciences"!
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist I'm not a philosopher, but I wouldn't doubt that people have changed perspectives in philosophy especially on the subject of god.
Theology seems to appeal simply to one's calling to a specific religious group and to defend, compare, explore, reform, or propagate that religion. The main problem here is really knowing which god is the objective god and how to prove it apart from religious texts.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
Well you may well "doubt" that people have changed their views but then you are just plain wrong. I'll give you two examples. Paley's watchmaker argument was almost completely abandoned by serious theistic philosophers and at the end of the 20th century most serious atheist philosophers abandoned the logical argument from evil. Both of these developments took place in philosophical theology.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist Did you reword what I wrote just so you could assail that I was in disagreement with you? I said I WOULDN'T doubt that philosophers would change their perspectives on the subject of god from either side of the debate. My point was that we humans can't know what the true god is, we have nothing to go on, just many conceptions none of which give us an objective true definable god. If we did have a true definable god things like religion,faith, and debates would be unneeded.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
That is my bad - I misread you on that one.
But that is surely the point? If there has been progress made in the field then the field is worthy of study. After all, there are great divisions and many differing schools of thought in ethics but does that mean that we dispose of ethical studies and not bother because there are very divergent views amongst the experts? I would certainly hope we don't. Same with theological issues.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist I wouldn't say division is a bad thing on ethics considering all the amounts of different ideologies that have been built over the years in philosophy but that seems more or less like a collective of truths. But god is different in that we are trying to find the true one, unless you think more than one god could be real. I'm sort of taking the ignostic position here because how do we define something far beyond human comprehension?
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
Of course observation and reason are important - although the latter more so in my opinion. Today we are discovering that observation is quite misleading on a number of levels. "Collection of truths"? But moral subjectivism and objectivism cannot both be equally true? A deontologist won't agree with a right-wing consequentialist. It's terrible trite to refer to all ethics as a "collection of truths". Most are completely contradictory.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist I agree our intuitions can be very wrong, and I also agree both observation and reason are important.
I was sort of making a bridge when I said there are collective truths, most follow the same ideas dealing with well being in the broader sense but making them more complex it does run into problems depending on motives/principles that people hold to. Is it possible that morals are constructive and based on many pillars through many areas of understanding and advancement?
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
I'm not sure what it is you're claiming now. Sorry.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
Also it's worth asking what the point of consensus is as well? I mean, in science there is consensus on a lot of matters but there is still a good chance of science changing where there is consensus in the future. Therefore consensus does not, in itself, actually grant that we're any nearer the truth of a matter and I think that's worth keeping in mind.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist I would say that science is moving towards truth, it evolves and changes with each new discovery bringing us further out of ignorance on some aspects of our reality. It may not be completely accurate but it does have a good way of making predictions and gaining knowledge on subjects. Then of course there is the fact that science loves scrutiny so as to be as critical as possible on debatable hypothesis and theories.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 2 months ago
Thought provoking, much enjoyed!
iamgoddard 2 months ago
Science (or more broadly reason supported by the analysis of observation) is the best source of knowledge we have. Knowing that science has limits in no way says anything positive about philosophy. Philosophy motivates and inspires individual to do things but does little collectively other than to justify the convictions of the majority. I find values and morals are more a social product of life experience and social norms than any philosophical justification behind them.
BigAtheist 2 months ago
@BigAtheist
And this is one of the reasons current atheism has such a huge mountain to climb. The fact that so much of it in the West today wishes to suggest that science is the only real way to know and trying to put philosophy down. Feynman was warning atheists against this but they have not heeded his warning. That there are serious limitations on science does say something important about other routes to knowledge. And philosophical inquiry is one such important way.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist Truth is merely a human construct it only exists in the minds of humans and does not exist in the real world. There is only what exists and what we call the truth is merely our best estimate of that. Science and an evidence based understanding of who and what we are and how we got here, appears to be the most successful and beneficial tools to get our best understanding of the truth.
"...reasons current atheism has such a huge mountain to climb." Time will tell.
BigAtheist 2 months ago
@BigAtheist
"Truth is merely a human construct it only exists in the minds of humans and does not exist in the real world."
Well if that's true then that's only 'true' as a construct in your brain and has no 'truth value' outside of your own brain. But then if that's the case then the statement is fallacious as expressed since the statement is implying a universality that it cannot maintain if it is remotely true.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist This is where philosophy fails again: playing lawyer rather than addressing the issue.
The only universality in the statement is that the statement is derived from the observation that an abstraction is by definition distinctly separate from the thing it represents and since I know of no exceptions I will treat it as universal until I find a reason not to. Truth is at its essence an assessment of the state of some observation which exist only in our brains.
BigAtheist 2 months ago
@BigAtheist
a] "Truth is merely a human construct it only exists in the minds of humans and does not exist in the real world."
b] "Truth is at its essence an assessment of the state of some observation which exist only in our brains."
So in what sense are we to understand you as claiming that a] and b] are 'true'?
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
@TheCartesianTheist
Observation and reason of course. do you think they are true?
BigAtheist 2 months ago
@BigAtheist
Scientific methods are good for understanding the physical nature of our world. That is where they are of great benefit. This is undisputed. I have no idea why, primarily atheists, get all defensive the moment the suggestion that science cannot answer everything. I suspect I know why but it really ought not need to be so jumpy. It is quite obvious that science needs to work in conjunction with philosophy since empirical science cannot verify its own founding assumptions
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
Comment removed
BigAtheist 2 months ago
@BigAtheist
Think, for example, of what you're arguing in your post. You're suggesting there is such a thing as 'truth'. But the quest for truth has always been seen as primarily a philosophical one. Science assumes it. The theory of knowledge is a philosophical question [epistemology]. Scientists assume an epistemology but there is no such thing as an epistemology which is non-philosophical. All epistemologies are, necessarily, philosophical.
TheCartesianTheist 2 months ago
Rev you got it backwards
Descriptive does not entail "philosophy must be a science"
TimelessApologist 2 months ago
Comment removed
RevDevilin 2 months ago
@TimelessApologist Ops philosophia naturalis :D
RevDevilin 2 months ago
@RevDevilin
Ok I understand what you meant now!!!
TimelessApologist 2 months ago
Science is philosophy, or more precisely a branch of
watch?v=uck53BNLqgc&feature=plcp&context=C3e465a8UDOEgsToPDskKbR5mIKZ4sjTAjK9wZ5_M_
RevDevilin 2 months ago
Good intelligent video CT.
aaugoaa 2 months ago
Excelent!
StupidTheist 2 months ago