Important Unknowns
I think we should distinguish between important and unimportant unknowns. I think there are important unknowns that can influence our attitudes and ideas.
For example I cannot know how many grains of sand are on a beach or how many stars are in the universe but these kinds of facts will not impact on my values. However I think that when it comes to the nature of consciousness, the afterlife,morality and gods these are important unknowns.
I call myself a general agnostic because there are things I can't know and so I live without factoring in certainty in these issues.
You might compare it to someone whose relative or friend is missing. They don't know if the person is dead or alive so they have the pain of uncertainty and not knowing. You can't reassure them with facts. (I am not saying agnosticism need be painful however).
Also I can't pretend as if I know. Some people try and argue with you such as saying gods are really implausible or there is no afterlife etc. I don't think you can entirely prove something by argument but only evidence resolves things. (I think this is why philosophy struggles because arguments don't trump evidence or aren't as compelling)
For example I cannot know how many grains of sand are on a beach or how many stars are in the universe but these kinds of facts will not impact on my values. However I think that when it comes to the nature of consciousness, the afterlife,morality and gods these are important unknowns.
I call myself a general agnostic because there are things I can't know and so I live without factoring in certainty in these issues.
You might compare it to someone whose relative or friend is missing. They don't know if the person is dead or alive so they have the pain of uncertainty and not knowing. You can't reassure them with facts. (I am not saying agnosticism need be painful however).
Also I can't pretend as if I know. Some people try and argue with you such as saying gods are really implausible or there is no afterlife etc. I don't think you can entirely prove something by argument but only evidence resolves things. (I think this is why philosophy struggles because arguments don't trump evidence or aren't as compelling)
Comments (116)
Yes, this is a problem for many, as either atheists or theists. To say for sure that 'God' is or is not is misleading at best and dishonest at worst, and they can easily be called on it. Preaching 'maybes' as 'maybes', of course greatly diminishes the impact the saying of getting followers for what is believed in. While we presume that many can see through this dodge, there may be unsuspecting adults or children listening to the 'maybes' touted as if they were truth and fact.
Dawkings is honest, surmising a one in a quadrillion chance for there to be 'God'; he goes by probability, which is all we can do if we want to choose, which often we must, such as to go or not to church. Tough to sit on a fence, but it seems that's what has to be done, as agnostic.
He may be honest about the fact that he believes that, but it's a ludicrous claim. I can only assume he meant to mean something like, extremely unlikely.
I think the only things that are impossible are logical contradictions.
There are things that will probably never happen but are not ruled out by the current laws of physics.
A square circle is definitionally impossible. But a a massive square is not impossible but may be physically implausible
When we say 'The existence of God is unlikely' what does that mean?
I can interpret this a reflection of the subjective state of speaker's knowledge or belief and feel some appreciation for it (Bayesian?). Compare it to a statement about a roll of a die. 'Rolling six sixes (with fair die) in a row is unlikely', is for me a statement of 'objective' or classical probability.
Feel free to educate me if both statements can be appreciated with a comparable use of the word 'probability'.
Other statements that fall into the latter category include the probability of stars with planets around them (given the surveys of our skies and evidence of extra-solar planets).
Another statement that falls into the former category would be the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
How can statements of the former be conveyed with any conviction, persuading from a rational, rather than an emotional, spiritual or moral perspective? I can believe that you believe that God is likely/unlikely, but I'm not sure why I ought to believe it as well.
Again, my confidence on these matters is low. So feel free to provide references that I can use to educate myself.
They cannot, unless one goes off on some extremely skeptical tangent in relation to the make up of mundane earthly reality as we know it, the dice scenario we have a lot of knowledge of the factors. How many universes have we studied to see how much they need or do not need deities? What branch of science does the testing for such things? And so on.Quoting JosephS
I agree, though I see this is somewhere on the spectrum closer to the dice scenario then the question of the deity. Quoting JosephS
Sure. I find it really odd that in such discussions the experiences of the people involved are considered to not play a role. If person X has a wide variety of experiences that lead them to believe X is likely or true, and person Y does not, this can mean that each person reaches different conclusions about probability and BOTH can be being quite rational.
There is an overriding assumption that if it is not rational for me, then it is not rational for you. Or if you believe and it is rational, then you must be able to convince me, and often online, you must be able to convince me via words on a screen.
If we use the example of rogue waves. Sailors and others in ships on the ocean saw what they experienced as extremely large solitary waves in otherwise fairly calm seas. Scientists told them they were reacting emotionally and were incorrect, because then current models seemed to indicate that such waves were not possible. There is no reason to work with the model that if it is true then experiencers and non-experiencers should draw the same conclusion. After time technology changed and the bridges of ships had video cameras and it sure seemed that there were huge lone waves. Still there was resistence until satellite photography came in and they could be seen. Then the relevent scientists found a way to explain them - motivated by the knowledge that they did in fact exist.
Now the rogue wave experiencers should not expect that everyone believe them. They should understand that the experience is key - until such time that some other kind of evidence than witness reports can be provided - and the scientists and other experts should be wary of ruling something out because it does not fit with current models.
But no, in most such interactions it is as if there must be only one possible rational conclusion for all parties so you are close minded and you are a naive or delusional or hyper emotional simpleton.
Now, note, I am not weighing in here on the various reasons, for examples, people based on experience believe in God. I am black boxing that.
I am pointing out that there is something weird and also extremely wrong headed on the part of all parties when they expect that the other must believe or disbelieve regardless of experience. As if experience does not matter. And also what I consider ridiculous, the assumption that if you are rational about something, then you must be able to convince me through rational argument on paper/screen. That's practically insane.
How could they possibly have convinced strangers that what they experienced on the sea was in fact as they described it via reports? And yet they were rational to have believed in what they experienced and how they interpreted it.
In many situations different people with different experiences can be rational and yet reach different assessments of probability or the existence of certain entities (and other conclusions). And it might take decades before a bridge can be made. Or, in fact, such a bridge might never come.
Certain's notions of gods would be less plausible or clearly non existent. I think the most valid reason to invoke a god is due to gaps in explanation such as a first cause.
I think the nature of consciousness and the afterlife are more important unknowns. I think the nature of consciousness would rule an after life in or out.
On a more immediate level there is the issue of promoting positive thinking. People have said "don't worry it might never happen" but what is the probability of things happening to you such as losing a job, getting cancer, finding a romantic partner etc. To some extent in the face of not knowing the future we have to have some kind of faith or blind optimism.
But it certainly seems dogmatism is not good, creating immovable dichotomies and in flexibility. Personally I have found it hard to get a secure anchor on reality.
Here is the West, often in intellectual discussions, it is as if we arrive at beliefs via argument and deduction or, often, the empircal research of others.So when people thing of theism or religion or spirituality or belief in God, it is as if one can only rely on arguments and experts or faith. But, in fact there is a huge empircal (that is to say, experiential) facet to this.
There are reasons not to believe in mainstream religions because of problems with their scriptures such as contradiction, incoherence etc.
I am not devaluing experience. I have personally never had a religious experience or encountered God and I spent my whole childhood in a religious environment.
I am not ruling out the idea that some experiences may be spiritual or linked to a god. However from my experience this would have to be an indirect connection because I have no reason to attribute any experiences to gods but I can speculate about causality.
If I personal encountered God tomorrow I wouldn't be able to prove this to anyone probably, so I could not use this to convince anyone else of God's existence.
I think it possible to believe in some kind of deist version of God by reason alone if you feel there are substantial gaps in our knowledge or explanation that might need filling by a deity. I believe this kind of thought led Famous atheist philosopher Antony Flew to a form of Deism.
But I think consciousness is the most challenging phenomena because we know things through consciousness but don't understand the consciousness that is the basis of our knowledge so it has led to extreme forms of skepticism.
As I mentioned in my first post the number of grains of sand appears to be an unimportant unknown but other unknowns could be life changing or mind changing.
This is not true. I just looked up an estimate on the web that says there are 1 EE 21 stars. It would be relatively easy to figure out the number of grains of sand on a beach - do an accurate survey of the surface. Figure out the bottom of the sand layer using test pits or seismic geophysics. Measure the average specific gravity of the grains and porosity of the sand using geotechnical methods. Then calculate the number of grains. Of course our estimates will have significant uncertainty, but knowledge we use every day does too.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
You are mixing up types of things here, making for a sloppy argument.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
I assume we are talking about Richard Dawkins. I don't know what his basis for the 1 in a quadrillion probability is, but he is a notorious shill for atheism. His hatred for religion overshadows every statement he makes on the subject. I write this as someone who has no particular religious beliefs.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I think I agree that nothing is impossible when it comes to whatever reality exists outside our minds. As for logical contradictions, they aren't possible or impossible. Logic is just a method for manipulating symbols. And the possibility of a squared circle is just a matter of definition - a circle is the set of points in two dimensions equidistant from a single point. A square is a four-sided, two-dimensional geometrical figure with four straight, equal sides and four equal angles. Saying you can't square the circle is like saying you can't dog the cat.
Sure, but I was focusing on the reasons people believe.Quoting Andrew4Handel
That doesn't contradict my points. I am not saying that all people who are raised in the church or in a religion will have those experiences, seek them, engage in practices with any particular interest, etc. I was describing what I hear from people who believe. That even in the states, where practice is often toned down, people will refer to experiences they have, in church, socially in the religion, in experiences that fit the more traditional religious experience - not necessarily visions of angels or such dramatic things, but a sense of peace or connection after prayer, etc. IOW they are not believers because they decided to fill in the gaps, say, around what set the Big Bang in motion or why is the universe seemingly so fine tuned, but rather out of their experiential lives. This is even truer of people who turn to religion out of despair, catastropy, addiction, powerful experiences. I don't think I have ever met anyone who is religious or a theist because God filled in the gaps in knowledge. Yes, theists will often argue in online discussions and elsewhere, but it's not what made them or kept them theists. And if you investigate how they became theists you will hear experience based answers.Quoting Andrew4Handel
Sure, but it might affect your own belief. That was the topic in my post. Perhaps it was too much of a tangent. People believe all sorts of things they can't convince others are the case. I would say we all do.
I see your last post about what you are most interested in and I will try to keep my focus on that if I participate.
Knowing something doesn't imply that you know it with certainty or that it's provable.
Certainty and provability are simply about whether something necessarily follows in the particular axiomatic system that we've chosen to operate under, anyway.
I think if you know something then it has to be certain.
I believe the Moon exists because I have experienced it. My experience might be an illusion however I can be certain that I had that experience.
I think knowledge without provability is belief. uncertainty can be a healthy skepticism.
What kind of success do you believe consciousness studies have had?
I wasn't claiming that I was saying that we could propose a deity based on gaps in our knowledge.
If there were no gaps in our knowledge there might be no room for gods.
For example if I baked a cake I know what happened and have no need to propose the involvement of God directly.
The reason for my agnosticism is explanatory gaps and first cause issues.
I think some atheist have tried to rule out God by minimizing the kind of gaps a god might fill to the extent that they would propose a Universe from Nothing like Lawrence Krauss. That kind of atheism seems to be based on the notion there is no room or need for God in reality but I am not convinced of that position.
Then we wouldn't be able to make any empirical claim, including things as simple as "I know where I parked my car," "I know the title of Black Sabbasth's second album," "I know who holds the RBI record for the Yankees," etc.
You'd have to say "I don't know where I parked my car." etc. People who are depending on you for a ride might find that annoying.
Um, that was, unfortunately for good communication, referring to the physicist's nothing that isn't nothing; the zero-point field still has energy.
I don't see how this follows. You can be certain about where you parked you car. You don't know of your car has been stolen but that is statistically unlikely. You can know where you parked your car without knowing if it is still there.
I think the problem arises in cases such as when your car is stolen and prior knowledge and beliefs become irrelevant.
So what definition of certainty are you using?
Having no good reason to doubt something.
Then why wouldn't you accept that for some people, there's no good reason to doubt the nature of consciousness, whether Gods exist, whether there's an afterlife, etc.?
I think other peoples reasons can be considered false. I don't think reason is subjective. This is why I differentiate between belief and knowledge.
Anyone can believe anything and have all manner of grounds for believing it but I don't think we can know something unless we are to a big degree certain.
Believing the earth is flat might be reasonable if you live in the Australian outback without access to modern education because that might be what experience tells you. But it is contextually reasonable but can easily be falsified by new information.
There's no way to make what's a "good" reason non-subjective.
"Good" is necessarily subjective.
Valid per some arbitrary system of logic?
Somethings are internally contradictory or refuted by further evidence.
Validity is relative to a logical system that we've adopted. For one, in traditional logic, any argument with contradictory premises is valid.
There are hundreds of neuroscience studies about the nature, scope, behavioral effects, and experience of consciousness. These have gotten more specific and detailed with the development of cognitive science techniques - PET scans, MRIs. Specific brain activity can be associated with specific mind activity - memory, emotion, thought, perception. This information has been used to try to understand the functional processes that go to make up consciousness. The one source I can steer you toward is "The Feeling of What Happens" by Antonio Damasio. I don't like the book much and I'm not sure if I buy his conclusions, but I found it a very plausible example of what a neuroscience description of consciousness might look like.
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. (Chalmers 1995: 212)
I copied this out of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It is David Chalmers's description of the "hard problem of consciousness," which I guess is why people think that consciousness is such a mystery. I must admit I don't get it. To me, this seems like an old Cheech and Chong routine. Two stoned guys who are overwhelmed and awed by the taste of Doritos and the music of the Grateful Dead.
Quite so. There is no statistical technique (that I know of) that will allow any numerical value to be placed on a hypothetical probability such as this. If Dawkins was truly a scientist, he would say as much: there is no way to quantify the probability of God existing (or not). If we want to guess, that's fine. But we should state that we're guessing, to fulfil our responsibility to our audience: not to mislead or deceive. :up:
Probabilities such as God existing cannot be quantified; no value can be placed upon them.
I did a degree in Philosophy and Psychology with a module on philosophy of mind. I had to do a lot of reading in this area including about mind-brain correlation, interpreting brain scanning results, language processing, meaning etc.
There is no explanation of how anything in the brain gives rise to or could give rise to mental phenomena without leaving a large explanatory gap.
The idea of one specific experience has problems because experiences have many different features. However say you correlated something like someones memory of their grandmother to some specific neurons their would still be a fundamental puzzle of how activation of this area produced conscious experience.
We don't have a measure of consciousness so that we can prove anyone any organism is consciousness. There is wide range of problems in the field and a massive literature. It is a very optimistic stance to take to believe the field is near an explanation of consciousness.
Peoples moral beliefs affect how they behave. Moral certainty or the reverse moral nihilism can impact behaviour negatively but moral agnosticism can lead to caution.
Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer both claimed to be moral nihilists who converted to religion in prison. On the other side religious fanatics/fundamentalists claim their religion commands them to commit atrocities.
There are people including myself who might have vengeful and nihilistic feelings but restrain themselves based on moral uncertainty. Whereas in some countries/conflicts tit for tat violence continues with both sides feeling justified.
I think that's what I don't get. What's the big deal? What explanatory gap? If you have trouble grasping how the mechanics and electronics of our minds turn into feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, that doesn't have anything to do with consciousness. Do you doubt that deer or chimpanzees have most of those same experiences? Do you think chimps see images in their minds? Do sheep have movies playing in their heads the way we do? Seems likely to me they do. And that isn't consciousness, it's just awareness. Consciousness is something added on top of that.
And yet it does. It's OK to accept a truth instead of a proof when the proof involves the first person realm, the only place where quailia are; tough to get in there.
The problem is what you consider to be God...The Christian God? all-powerful, all-knowing in all places? So that would be a being that can do anything but doesn't do anything because he doesn't want to interfere but at the same time, he dictates who you should marry and what you should eat, the being that is all love but if you have sex before marriage you will burn throughout eternity?
Or maybe you talking about the Egyptians Gods, so now when you die you can take your employees and your money to the afterlife but at the gate, your heart will be weighed against a feather.
Or maybe you talking about a God that no human knows it but feels it and IT can do whatever whenever ignoring all rules of physics and chemistry.
But as you say there is no amount of logic and evidence that will convince someone that there is no god simply because they do not understand the evidence... and because of the complexity that the universe seems to have the only explanation is that something superior did it.
I have a different question for you mate, what would be an absolute proof that God does not exist?
Because for me absolute proof of God's existence would a simple hello.
Evidence is not straight forward.
Democritus suggested an atomic theory of matter thousands of years ago and the existence of atoms was only considered proven about a hundred years ago (although the nature of atoms is still mysterious and they are not indivisible as initially though)
Democritus probably like most people can looked at his surroundings and experiences and tried to understand what reality consisted of.
When something exists that is evidence for something and scientists, philosophers and other thinkers speculate about what reality is, what is causing their experiences and what stuff is made of and how it came to exist..
The problem is something is not usually if ever evidence of nothing. So to prove a creator deity did not exist you would have to present a compelling case that reality could be explained in terms of something from nothing, self creating and self sustaining.
There are different models of consciousness, Dualism argues that the mind and brain interact but are independent. You might use the radio signal analogy
Panpsychism suggests everything is imbued with consciousness.
Idealism suggests everything is mental and is a position that has been and still is supported by several physicists
Solipsism is profound skepticism that one person might be imagining reality and questions the existence of other minds. I have not heard a convincing refutation of solipsism and agree with Descartes Cogito about the primary certainty being of our self existing in some form.
I have no idea. I only have access to my own mind and my own experiences.
I don't think creating analogies between your own experiences and other people or other organisms is sufficient. Some experiences are widespread and we can imagine common experiences in a basic way such as having a headache or feeling cold but the rich personal world including many experiences and values we don't share is is unlikely to be something one can imagine or see on a brain scan.
This also relates to the Mary's room Knowledge argument so that unless Mary has seen red she can't simply imagine it and Knut Nordby a real life achromatic said he couldn't imagine colours even though he had extensively studied the visual system and psychology etc.
I don't know. I gave examples of unknowns such as the precise numbers of grains of sands and stars. These are hypothetically knowable. So I am differentiating between the hypothetically knowable and currently inaccessible knowledge (which we don't even have a convincing framework or set of reliable axioms to study them with).
Dark energy, dark matter and the multiverse are like a God of the gaps. Unknowns posited to explain gaps in data or to rescue current theories. They are seen as credible because they apply scientific terminology.
Some people are trying to give materialist or scientific account of morality which they view as giving it more credibility and more of an empirical basis.
Consciousness is no great mystery?
I'm trying to interpret this in a way which is not grossly misspoken.
I understand that there have been efforts to de-emphasize the nature of consciousness (qualia), suggesting that it is illusory. I am not a researcher in the field but have an abiding interest in the topic and looking to my personal library have books I own and read (pop science all) from Dennett, Ramachandran, Pinker, Churchland, Tononi, LeDoux and Penrose. Now, as a layman, I find it very hard to swallow that all of these words (and so many more) have been written regarding a topic which is 'no great mystery'.
Is there a means to interpret your glib reflection on the topic that would jibe with my experience that it is one of, if not the, central mysteries of human existence?
I have objections to your other mentions in my quote, but want to understand the context of your first claim. I'm wondering if there has been some breakthrough that I'm unaware of or if there is a context for your statement that makes my appreciation and yours mutually compatible.
Science is full of subjects that are under study but which are not fully understood. Consciousness is one of those. It's not a "mystery," it's a subject that requires further study. I think an understanding of consciousness seems to be much more important than it really is because it is so close to home for all of us. It is right at the heart of how we see ourselves. Things that are about us seem more significant. We want to believe our innermost, intimate experiences are mysterious.
Subjects of inquiry are mysteries to a greater or lesser extent (dark matter is both a mystery and an inquiry requiring further study) and, as the dominant species on the planet, what humans consider mysteries bears disproportionate weight to the judgment (dogs have neither science nor philosophy to provide their input).
And it is a mystery because, as opposed to -- gravity, economics, sociology or psychology -- our self awareness resists an explanatory reduction. 10th graders can talk about the inverse square law of attraction, the law of supply and demand and how racism arises from human tribalism. Could any explain consciousness short of reflecting on the brain as its seat and its role in our sense of individual identity?
It's not as if we haven't been studying it for a while. That this inquiry is so significant to our individual identity supports rather than undermines its status as a great mystery.
Is there an architecture that can be pointed to that, when instantiated, ticks off the boxes of what we consider conscious at a human level of awareness? When we can explain what is and is not self aware, we will have made progress to resolving the mystery.
I disagree. Again, it's nothing mysterious. It's only not fully understood. The scientific tools for looking at it closely are relatively new. Our self-experience and self-importance clouds our perceptions and understanding.
I tend to value @Andrew4Handeland @JosephS’s insights. That’s my persuasion. However, @S would say that I am a wishful thinker.
By the way, go fuck yourself, S. Piece of shit.
Yes, @S and I are close personal friends. And yes, he is a piece of shit.
Although, in this situation, I'm not sure how that matters. I don't question @JosephS's and @Andrew4Handel's approach to this because I am a crusty old materialist. I just think their romantic views distract from a serious understanding of what is going on.
At least you can disagree without being disagreeable.
@s is a sweet little red spotted toad. He used to be mean. Now he's cute and nice.
Also - I am perfectly capable of being disagreeable.
So am I, obviously. Something about his personality strikes me as defective, though. This from someone who knows personal defects. He’s absolutely pathological. I hope he seeks professional help.
The mechanism is not understood at all. We do not know what creatures have and which do not. There is a growing number of scientists that think plants have it or may have it. We can't measure it, though we can measure behavior and reactions and things, and not suprisingly we grant consciousness first to things like us. In fact this bias was so strong that up until the 70s it was taboo in professional contexts to assume other animals had it and were not just machines. We don't know which matter has it, though we can track reactions like memory and response to some degree, but again these are functions of the conscious matter not consciousness itself. The word 'mysterious' is floppy and hard to nail down, but it seems mysterious from the persepctive of materialism that begins with dead matter banging around and forming connections and since this is presumed to be not conscious and still the building blocks of all other matter. Now, sure, it could be an emergent property. But we don't know where it emerges, though we can look at effects on response and behavior in life forms like us, but whether this means there is no consciousness below that in simpler matter, we have no way of knowing. Yes, people hit on the head go unconscious, though is this a lack of certain functions, like memory and response, rather than the end of awareness? Deep dreamless sleep one can be conscious during, after meditation practice. I've experienced this with some regularity. Is this me shoving consciousness into that state. Or is this my ego connecting to a consciousness that persists but which I do not usually remember? Mysterious is a word that includes the already placed paradigm of the person using it or experiencing it or not. So it depends on that. I think it should be mysterious to physicalists, so far. Maybe it won't be in a few years or in a hundred years, maybe not.
Well, we know plenty about consciousness through experience and science, and we know plenty about morality through experience and sociology. And, realistically, gods and the afterlife aren't really unknowns. That's a misleading statement, a bit like saying that dragons and fairies are unknowns. To the best of our knowledge, there's nothing there [i]to[/I] know. They seem instead to be merely a product of our imagination.
So I don't agree with your classification of the things you've mentioned. I don't agree with the way that you've assessed them and grouped them together.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This point has been made hundreds of times, but clearly it bears repeating: that something is uncertain doesn't amount to much in terms of epistemology. There are innumerable things which are uncertain, and only a relatively tiny number of things which are certain. So that's a poor criterion upon which to base your epistemological methodology. [U]Knowledge doesn't require certainty[/u].
Quoting Andrew4Handel
In another discussion, I recently brought up a useful distinction I make between acknowledging a possibility and taking it seriously. Merely pointing out that something is possible or uncertain is, in itself, insignificant. A sophisticated epistemological methodology would take into account other factors, most importantly evidence. If there's practically zero evidence in favour of an afterlife, then that doesn't warrant being taken particularly seriously in my book. The burden of proof lies with the proponent of an afterlife.
Philosophy doesn't need evidence, it arrives at truth through raw thought power. Science, for some poor reason, has come to supplant philosophy. If you want to be a scientist, think scientistically. If you want to do philosophy, think philosophically. Philosophy was originally written in verse. Today, there are those who would have it it must be constrained by evidence-based objectivity. Philosophy isn't objective at all in the same way as science.
Because you clearly are.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
:lol:
That would be a subset of philosophy known as bad philosophy.
And I've had a hard time understanding how scientists revel in evidence, yet think. Thinking has no evidence. There's no evidence for the empirical method, it was born of thought. "Science" (personifying it here), from a certain persepective is stuck at the level of sensorium. The senses have nothing to say, they're dumb. Any time we have a thought, idealism has entered the domain. Scientists are exceedingly ignorant of this point. The entire enterprise of science lies on a foundation for which there is no evidence because it is idealism. A heavy contradiction to put it mildly.
I oriented in science until realizing it can't address truth. It makes sense for the half of reality which is physical...but to only see half of reality is a chimerical chase...especially when the part of reality closest to each of us is without evidence.
And it's impossible to prove consciousness/mind even requires energy as we know it. Seeing the mind as though it were an open system the same as the body (open to energy) fails to understand the mind or conscious awareness is in need of organization and information in an entirely different manner than food intake. Extensive knowledge without processing or thought about what is known amounts to a very low level of intelligence.
Important unknowns. All information is incomplete. Knowing this is more important than the "content" of what is unknown. Really, being able to ask a question distorts the concept of the unknown unless the question is "what is unknown?" This would be about the extent of what you could even ask regarding the unknown. If it's unknown...you can't say anything about it. Whatever you can say something about is a derivation of the known, not the unknown.
That's not true.
Quoting Coben
We have an idea of various animals that might have it. Again, it's unknown, not mysterious.
Quoting Coben
None of this makes any sense to me unless we want to completely change the current meaning and usage of the word "consciousness." Which I don't.
Also - of course consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. I'm not sure what "we don't know where it emerges" means. Do we know where any emergent property emerges?
Quoting Coben
That's how we measure all psychological phenomena. Consciousness is nothing special.
Indeed. Any further argument devolves into dictionaries and word play -- boring.
Imbued within the word 'mystery' is some sense of wonder which I accept as personal.
If someone can live without mysteries, more power to them. I choose not to.
It's not just word play. It has significant consequences. If you call something a mystery, you treat it differently than if it were just unknown. I think it was Alan Watts who said that what we call mysteries are parts of ourselves that we're not aware of. That makes a lot of sense to me. If you want to mix your personal mysteries in with science and philosophy, that's fine, but it undermines the credibility of your argument.
Well said.
Quoting T Clark
Quoting T Clark
How do you look at consciousness closely? Measuring brain activity is not looking at consciousness, it isn't seeing what the person sees or thinks or feels.
If you think biology could be derived in principle from chemistry, and that chemistry could be derived in principle from fundamental physics, then you think biology could be derived in principle from fundamental physics. Fundamental physics claims to describe the fundamental constituents of the universe and how they move, through equations of motion. These equations allow to derive where some particle will be at some point in the future, or what probability there is to detect one in some location, or even how some arrangement of matter is going to move or change, but by construction they can't allow to derive that any arrangement of matter perceives or thinks or feels anything at all.
If we claim the laws of fundamental physics govern the universe, and it's impossible to derive consciousness from these laws, then there's something huge missing in these laws. Essentially these laws only model what's within our perceptions and omit everything else, like feelings, thoughts, and the existence of perception itself. These laws can model how a brain looks like and how it behaves, but they can't say anything about what it experiences, they're only modeling appearances and not the underlying stuff that gives rise to these appearances. The best they'll give is models of brain activity, which boils down to motions of particles like electrons.
Or if you think biology couldn't be derived in principle from fundamental physics and you invoke some emergence to account for the existence of consciousness, then that amounts to invoking magic, to say there is some magical stuff happening that makes a bunch of moving particles become conscious. To say that we don't know yet how consciousness emerges from these particles but one day we'll find out, is just wishful thinking, it's logically impossible without sprinkling magic in the middle. Believing that it's possible is not proof that it's possible, it's just blind faith.
Quoting T ClarkHe's not mixing in his personal mysteries, he is saying that it strikes him as mysterious. Which is probably true, unless is lying or quite bad at introspection. Mysterious and unknown both cover situations where our limited knowledge encounters something that seems real. One focuses on the epistemological absence, they other add feelings having to do with how the not known thing strikes us given our paradigms. This doesn't take away from any of his arguments.
Of course looking at brain activity associated with conscious experience is "looking at consciousness." Consciousness is something other than personal experience. All mental phenomena are something other than personal experience. It's like saying I'm not looking at disease because I look at factors other than the patient's symptoms.
Quoting leo
Although biology must be consistent with the principles of chemistry and physics, it cannot be derived in principle from either or both. It operates on principles and according to "laws" that are not predictable from the laws of physics or chemistry. And so on on up the line. This is what people mean when they talk about "emergence." Consciousness and other mental experiences are emergent phenomena of biological anatomy and physiology. And that's why it's not a mystery, any more than the emergence of chemistry out of physics is a mystery. It's not magic, it's the way the world works. Or are you denying that emergence is a real phenomenon?
I don't get it. The universe is chock full of stuff we don't understand. Is that surprising? No, it's a big place. We're just getting started. We have a very limited, parochial point of view - we're located somewhere in the middle of a continuum of scales that goes from subatomic and maybe beyond to galactic and maybe beyond.
Quoting Coben
Fine, it's mysterious, but you shouldn't pretend it's science or good philosophy.
I disagree.
What do you disagree with? That calling something a mystery will make people evaluate it differently than if it's just everyday old normal stuff? That it undermines the credibility of your argument?
Anyway, never mind. We seem to have taken this as far as we can.
I agree.
I have learned something in the intervening day and that is that I initially misinterpreted your use of the word 'mystery'. I found your claim that consciousness wasn't mysterious a facile expression.
What I gather now is that your use of the term is rather more nuanced that mine. I don't accede to the contours that you (or Alan Watts) would give it, but I respect that you've considered what is and is not a 'mystery' longer than I have.
I will continue to use the term in the way I have and will continue to group the nature of consciousness into things mysterious, but will look into how Alan Watts would have us use it.
Definition of consciousness: a person's awareness or perception of something
So no, looking at brain activity associated with conscious experience is not looking at that conscious experience. That's like saying "of course looking at a fossil associated with a dinosaur is looking at a dinosaur".
Obviously if you define consciousness as brain activity then there seems to be no great unknown about it, it's just a matter of associating observed brain activity with reports of the person whose brain activity is observed. But that's not how consciousness is defined. Just like if you define dark energy as the discrepancy between observations of supernovae and the predictions of the CDM model of cosmology then there is no great unknown about dark energy, it's just a matter of computing that discrepancy from observations of supernovae, but that's not how dark energy is defined.
Quoting T Clark
There are physicists like Dirac who claimed that the whole of chemistry can be derived from the laws of physics: The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble. It therefore becomes desirable that approximate practical methods of applying quantum mechanics should be developed, which can lead to an explanation of the main features of complex atomic systems without too much computation.
It seems to be the implicit hypothesis of many physicists, we now have the field of quantum chemistry where computer simulations based on quantum mechanics are run to solve chemical problems. There doesn't seem to be a widespread belief among physicists or even chemists that chemistry is not completely determined by physics, it is simply that equations are not solvable exactly and require computer-intensive simulations to find accurate solutions.
In the same way it is imagined that molecular biology could be derived from chemistry, cellular biology from molecular biology, and so on, but that in practice it is simpler to find laws at a given level than to infer them from the laws of the level below.
Quoting T Clark
If you say that laws at a given level emerge but couldn't be derived even in principle from the laws of the lower levels, then what is it that makes them emerge, at what point is the magic infused to make these new laws appear? You're saying we couldn't find a mechanism that would explain how cells behave based on how molecules behave, so what is the additional thing that cells are made of which isn't molecules? If it can't be described in any way then it might as well be magic.
I've been looking for the specific reference in Alan Watts I mentioned. Still not sure it's Watts. It's got me rereading "Nature Man and Woman." I'll let you know if I find anything.
Your definition doesn't say "the un-observable, personal experience of a person's awareness or perception of something." It's perfectly possible to talk about consciousness as an objective fact about a state of mind. Just like it's possible to talk about and study pain, depression, sight, language, and all the rest of our internal states based on observable and measurable external signs, symptoms and measurements. We talk about consciousness of non-human animals and try to determine what types of observable behaviors show us what the animal's internal state is. Of course we are also interested in personal reports of what consciousness feels like, but that is not the only way we can know about it.
So, yes, looking at objectively measurable evidence of consciousness, including brain activity, is a legitimate way of studying consciousness. Just as studying fossil evidence of dinosaurs is a legitimate way of studying dinosaurs.
Quoting leo
I didn't define consciousness as brain activity. The original point I made is that there's no mystery about how brain activity expresses itself as the observable phenomena we call "consciousness." Lot's of unknowns. No mystery.
Quoting leo
I'm skeptical, but I'll see if I can track down the references. If you have something more specific, it would be helpful.
Quoting leo
I believe that's not true. Here is a link to a well known article by P.W. Anderson about reductionism and emergence and how the properties of higher level phenomena are not predictable by the properties of lower level phenomena.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/177/4047/393
Quoting leo
That's just the way it is. Higher level behavior does emerge from lower level behavior. Biology is not predictable using chemistry and physics. It's not a short cut, it's the only way we can know the principles of higher levels of organization - by observing them directly. Reductionism doesn't work. It doesn't reflect reality.
The problem is that in looking at brain activity or at observable behaviors of a particular being, nothing shows us that this being experiences anything at all, it could be a philosophical zombie for all we know. The huge unknown lies in explaining why these observations imply that the being experiences anything. Assuming right from the start that other beings have a consciousness is explaining away the problem of consciousness.
Quoting T Clark
That's where Dirac said it: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspa.1929.0094
The 1998 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for the "development of computational methods in chemistry" based on quantum mechanics, and it mentions the Dirac quote without questioning it. Here are some other excerpts from the press release: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1998/press-release/
computational methods making possible the theoretical study of molecules, their properties and how they act together in chemical reactions. These methods are based on the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics as defined by, among others, the physicist E. Schrödinger.
The laws of quantum mechanics as formulated more than 70 years ago make it theoretically possible to understand and calculate how electrons and atomic nuclei interact to build up matter in all its forms.
Quantum chemistry is today used within all branches of chemistry and molecular physics. As well as producing quantitative information on molecules and their interactions, the theory also affords deeper understanding of molecular processes that cannot be obtained from experiments alone.
It doesn't sound like they're implying that laws in chemistry aren't a consequence of physical laws, rather they're implying that the underlying physical description gives a more detailed picture that cannot be obtained from chemistry experiments alone. They see laws of chemistry as high-level approximations.
Some quotes from other well-known physicists, all Nobel Prize laureates:
Heisenberg: Physics and chemistry have become fused in quantum chemistry (in his book Physics and Beyond)
Feynman: The Schrödinger equation has been one of the great triumphs of physics. By providing the key to the underlying machinery of atomic structure it has given an explanation for atomic spectra, for chemistry, and for the nature of matter. (in The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 3 Ch. 19)
Gell-Mann: I know of no serious scientist who believes that there are special chemical forces that do not arise from underlying physical forces. Although some chemists might not like to put it this way, the upshot is that chemistry is in principle derivable from elementary particle physics. In that sense, we are all reductionists, at least as far as chemistry and physics are concerned. (in his book The Quark and the Jaguar)
Gell-Mann goes on to say: A science at a given level encompasses the laws of a less fundamental science at a level above. The laws of elementary particle physics are valid for all matter, throughout the universe, under all conditions.
and
What about the relation to physics and chemistry of another level in the hierarchy, that of biology? Are there today, as there used to be in past centuries, serious scientists who believe that there are special “vital forces" in biology that are not physico-chemical in origin? There must be very few, if any. Virtually all of us are convinced that life depends in principle on the laws of physics and chemistry, just as the laws of chemistry arise from those of physics, and in that sense we are again reductionists of a sort.
and
Complex adaptive systems on Earth give rise to several levels of science that lie “above” biology. One of the most important is the psychology of animals, and especially of the animal with the most complex psychology, the human being. Here again, it must be a rare contemporary scientist who believes that there exist special “mental forces” that are not biological, and ultimately physicochemical, in nature. Again, virtually all of us are, in this sense, reductionists.
Quoting T Clark
Gell-mann does say "The science of biology is very much more complex than fundamental physics because so many of the regularities of terrestrial biology arise from chance events as well as from the fundamental laws", but these "chance events" are the only thing he sees as preventing the prediction of the specific life forms here on Earth from chemistry and physics.
When Nobel laureates in physics all tell a similar story, it's no wonder that the reductionist view is the widespread one in physics.
Now after doing some looking up I have to admit that the non-reductionist view seems a little more widespread than I thought it was, but not among physicists or most scientists, rather among philosophers as Anderson mentioned in the article you linked.
But if you argue against reductionism, you would have to show that the laws at the higher levels are not predictable from the more fundamental laws not because of "chance events" that couldn't have been anticipated (for instance the laws of biology on Earth could have been different if other events had occurred in the past, so the laws of chemistry couldn't have predicted the particular laws of biology that would arise on Earth, but in principle these laws of biology could still be reduced to laws of chemistry). You would have to invoke something other than more fundamental laws and "chance events", something other than "our computers are not yet powerful enough to make more complex simulations", and what is that additional thing?
What is a cell made of besides molecules? Or what are the forces that dictate the behavior of a cell that don't reduce to the forces between the molecules that make up the cell?
The crux of the matter is that if the reductionist view is assumed (as it is by most physicists), then consciousness cannot arise from the more fundamental laws and from chance events, because these chance events are still constrained by the fundamental laws.
And if reductionism is not assumed, then one would have to explain for instance what is it about the behavior of a cell that doesn't depend on the behavior of the molecules that make up the cell, and if we can't describe that in any way then we might as well say something magical is going on, and similarly say that consciousness arises from the brain because something magical is going on.
But there is a way out of this conundrum: to stop assuming that our perceptions allow us to model what we are. Models of what goes on within our perceptions are not models of what gives rise to these perceptions. Then the question of reductionism becomes irrelevant, because then physics and chemistry and biology and neuroscience all together only tell a tiny part of the whole story, they only describe what goes on in one movie some of us are watching.
This is really interesting and well presented. I have some thinking to do. We'll pick this up again later.
The issue is the importance of the unknown. Not knowing the cure for cancer is not the same as not knowing how many grains of sand there are. So it is not just a religious versus atheist issue.
But both sides of that dichotomy have a reason to exploit or diminish the unknown. I am a general agnostic in the face of the unknown.
Are you talking about the as of yet unknown or perhaps unknowable nature of qualia of perception and emotions?
I'm talking about the impossibility to explain consciousness in a materialist framework (by consciousness I refer to what a being experiences: perceptions, feelings, thoughts ...), or in other words the impossibility to explain what gives rise to our consciousness based on the contents of our perceptions alone (so if we claim to have a model that describes the fundamental laws that govern our universe, but it is impossible to derive from that model that anything experiences anything even in principle, then it's not a model of our universe, because at least something experiences something). Well we can always give an explanation by invoking magic (for instance say that consciousness arises from the brain because magic, or that it arises from some complex process we can't describe), but usually we expect more from an explanation, otherwise we can explain anything in any way we want.
Just to make sure I understand - you think that consciousness rising up out of brain function is fundamentally different in kind than life rising up out of chemistry. And that this is the reason for the "hard problem" of consciousness. Is that right?
Can the hard problem be solved by science? If so, where do we look? If not, that's just magic too. I've been following up on our previous discussion with some reading. In what I've read, a lot of people equate the hard problem and vitalism. I'm assuming you disagree.
It depends how we define life. We could have self-sustaining aggregates of molecules that follow the laws of chemistry and that we call life forms, in principle we might even have life forms that look like human beings and that obey the laws of chemistry, but these life forms wouldn't have any consciousness, they wouldn't perceive/feel/think anything. So life rising up out of chemistry, sure why not, but not life with consciousness.
Maybe the people who equate the hard problem with vitalism implicitly refer to life with consciousness.
Quoting T Clark
Again it depends how we define science, here we have another kind of somewhat hard problem, the problem of demarcation between science and non-science, I had made a thread about it, basically my view on the subject is that there is no criterion scientists apply consistently to define what is science and what isn't, rather scientists call 'scientific' the theories that suit their personal desires/beliefs and 'unscientific' the ones that don't. So I don't agree that what isn't labeled 'science' is automatically magic.
The hard problem arises from assuming materialism, my view is it can't be solved within materialism. But the problem disappears if idealism is assumed instead of materialism for instance, in idealism consciousness is fundamental as opposed to matter so there is no hard problem of explaining how consciousness can arise from matter. There are some apparent problems with idealism, but they aren't 'hard' like the hard problem of consciousness in materialism. And we could very well have a science that assumes idealism, science doesn't have to be restricted to materialism.
This isn't to say that the hard problem only disappears in idealism, it also disappears for instance in panpsychism but in it another hard problem appears, the so-called combination problem. In interactionism we have instead the problem of interaction. Some form of idealism seems the less problematic to me, but I haven't thought thoroughly about all philosophical viewpoints yet.
I'm surprised. Maybe I wasn't paying close attention to what you have written. I thought we were talking about the hard problem of consciousness - the question of where and how our personal experience is generated through our bodies. Where it comes from. I thought you were arguing that emergence couldn't be the answer because it doesn't really exist so no new principles or behaviors can develop between one layer of organization and and the next. So that leaves the hard question unanswered.
Now it seems to me that you are saying that consciousness is somehow applied to us from the outside, which would be vitalism as I understand it. Or are you saying that the physical world develops out of consciousness, since it is fundamental? How does that work?
Yes you understood that correctly. Strictly speaking I wouldn't say emergence doesn't exist, for instance I do agree that there are laws of biology and chemistry, I do agree that there are properties like density and viscosity that fundamental particles do not have, but I'm saying that in materialism these laws and properties can be reduced to laws and properties of the fundamental particles, and if we say they can't and we can't describe their emergence in any way then the emergent laws and properties are taken to be fundamental in themselves, and we end up describing the universe in terms of hundreds of fundamental laws at various levels, seeing all levels as disconnected.
For instance using the example of the cell again, we end up saying that there are fundamental laws that govern the behavior of a cell that don't reduce to the laws that govern the behavior of the molecules that make up the cell, and we do that at all levels. But then that also means that consciousness is taken as fundamental and not as reducible to brain activity, and that's not materialism, that's something else. So basically, if we say the emergence of consciousness from matter cannot be described in any way then we're refuting materialism, while taking consciousness as fundamental. The hard problem stems from saying that consciousness is not fundamental and arises from matter.
Quoting T Clark
If consciousness is fundamental then it's not "applied from the outside" any more than if matter is fundamental it's "applied from the outside". Also, saying consciousness is fundamental is not equivalent to vitalism, because life doesn't necessarily have consciousness (or at least that doesn't have to be assumed).
But if we say that consciousness is fundamental and not matter, then the physical world is part of consciousness and that's the philosophy of idealism. Which doesn't reduce to solipsism, the physical world could be seen as a part of our collective consciousness. But there is no hard problem of explaining how that world can develop out of consciousness, because it doesn't exist outside consciousness, it is part of consciousness. It could be interpreted for instance as a shared dream.
Whereas in materialism we can't say that consciousness is part of matter, because it is said that consciousness arises from some matter, and that's what gives rise to the hard problem.
No, it isn't.
The world did not end yesterday.
You are not dead [slap]
These impolve empirical demonstration. If we are not allow any empirical proofs (which yes, in the mathematical sense are not proofs), I think there can be deductions that prove negatives.
And a lot of positive assertions can be transformed into negative formulations.
And what sense would that be? :chin:
Quoting Coben
Yes, but so what?
Those are completely abstract and are not open to the kinds of revision scientific conlcusions must be.
IOW most positive conclusions we work with are not provable in that sense. Is that the sense you meant?
And then it would also hold that you cannot prove that we cannot prove a negative without contradicting your claim.
Exactly. So why this focus on proof? There is rarely proof of anything, especially when such a proof would prove ( :wink: ) useful! :wink:
But it ain't just negatives, then.
And yes, lot's of the best stuff that would be good to have proof of, you have to rely on your intuition plus analysis of stuff idiosyncratically. Of course, everyone does that, even the people judging others for doing that.
[Mine is that debating proof is almost certainly a waste of time.]
[Edited to add: and you can't prove a negative.]
Quoting Pattern-chaserThat's just what your gut tells you.:razz:
Quoting Pattern-chaser
But again 1) all swans are white
is the positive formulation of that and has exacly the same problems.
Each time you focus on the negative, it seems to me you think it has a special problem.
It seems to me, possibly, there is a conflation between evidence of absence and proving a negative.
And in the realm of proofs, again, all statementsQuoting Pattern-chaserWell, the verb 'is' eliminates the time jumping. But this is all true for the positive. Not sure how we got back here to this again.
I used this quote from Stephen Jay Gould recently in a different thread. Thanks for the chance to use it again:
“In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’”
Given that definition, it is perfectly possible to show that a negative statement is a fact, i.e. is proven.
No...
Quoting Coben
...yes, it does. But you still can't prove a negative. Just like you can't prove some positives. :up:
Quoting Coben
The proof here refers to the definition of the term "bachelor", which is "unmarried male". Thus it is disproved by definition, which is a somewhat trivial case, don't you think? :razz:
OK, so to prove that "no swan is black", you would need to examine all currently-living swans. No matter where they're hiding. Impossible, in practice (which is all that matters). It can't be done, in the real world we live in.
Well, if we take "prove" to be more or less absolute in its meaning, then I suspect there's nothing we can prove. And if we dilute its meaning to avoid this problem, what we are left with is 'proof' that is sort of probable or likely, rather than, er, proof.
Well, if we are dealing with probablities, then we can start doing this with negatives.
and then we need to deal with which qualities of swans are part of the definition of swans. Can I say there are no swans without fur instead of feathers? Are there intermediate examples that are analytic? Is black one of them?
Quoting Pattern-chaser
===============================================
Quoting Coben
No, I stated it without proof, as proof is impossible. Where there can be no proof, we can only trade (what we think are) possibilities, n'est ce pas? :wink:
We could begin by telling the absolute truth, as we understand it, and see where we can go from there?
We have never seen or heard of a swan with fur, so we believe there are no furry swans.
There, a belief and its justification, simply presented. No claims to proof. :up:
So, then, like with positive assertions, we can argue in terms of probability. Or we are simply reduced in all things to trading assertions. So, your argument in favor of your assertion that one cannot prove a negative was an attempt to say it was unlikely, for reasons X and Y. That's our position in terms of postive assertions also.Quoting Pattern-chaserSure, agreed, but that wasn't my point. My point was that the difference between analytic and synthetic statements is not so cut and dried.
And the general point is that both positive and negative statements cannot be proved. So to keep saying negative statements cannot be proved implies something specific about negative statements. And note, generally the idea is used as a critique of using absence of counterevidence as supporting evidence that something exists. Certainly many negative assertions seem as easy to show they are probable as positive statements. Your father is not dead. You father is alive. Negative statements are not a specific case. And yes, I haven't proven that negative assertion.
Neither of us have proven our negative assertions about negative assertions.
There is something specific about negatives: it is impractical (as in 'impossible in practice') to prove them. That some positives also show this property does not affect the truth of this, does it?
The specific thing about negatives is that they are framed in such a way that proof becomes impossible because of the way they're framed. This only applies to some positives, I think?
I don’t see how that’s the case. “The cat is not on the mat” - why is that statement impossible to prove? Surely it’s just a matter of observing that the mat doesn’t have the cat on it.
Quoting Coben
I remember acknowledging that proof is often difficult to achieve in practice. But the problem, I think, is not positives or negatives but "proof".
If we (briefly) consider "objective", we get absolute and dilute meanings, and people say it meaning it in its absolute version ("corresponding to that which actually is"), but - eventually, after interminable discussion - admit that only the dilute version ("impartial; unbiased") actually applies. [Correct use of the absolute meaning is much more difficult to justify.]
"Proof" is easier, as its definition holds it close to its absolute meaning: an unambiguous demonstration of the correctness of something. And this is very difficult to achieve, it seems to me. :chin:
Quoting Coben
:up: Works for me. :smile:
Quoting AJJ
I don't think it is ... because it is clarified and focussed by the context you provide. "The mat" is a small thing, small enough to be examined in sufficient detail that we can positively confirm the absence of a cat on the mat. A (much) bigger mat would make proof much more difficult. An even less constrained description might render it impossible.
Dats what I saying, man.Quoting Pattern-chaser
Yes.
I agree. But then there doesn’t appear to be anything about negatives qua negatives that makes them impossible to prove; but you seem to have acknowledged as much already, so there you go.
Well, this would seem to apply (only) to negatives with unconstrained contexts. Specifically, it applies to statements for which empirical verification (or falsification) is impossible in practice (even if it might be possible in principle).
I agree, but that’s also the case with positive statements: “The cat is on the mat” is impossible to prove in practice in the same way the negative statement is, if the mat is large enough. You appeared to be saying this problem is specific to negatives.
I started off thinking it was, but it isn't. Nevertheless the old saying - you can't prove a negative - still stands. It's just that other things also can't be proven, for similar reasons. :up:
Well, then, self-contradiction still remains for disproving.
:chin: Er, what?