Hasn't this kind of thinking lead to climate change, and the last-chance-saloon Extinction Rebellion? We have, acting naturally and without interferen...
Do we? Mostly we make these 'decisions' unconsciously. We give them little or no conscious attention. So we don't really know if we're trying to make ...
Indeed. And not having CNS problems probably equates to being even less of an expert, don't you think? But I wouldn't dream of telling anyone "they ca...
Given that I cannot place a number on the probability of it being correct, or not being correct, my answer to your question is: I don't know. No, I re...
Sorry, it's the way I use the words, but not everyone else does. :wink: That's fair enough. There are no terms defined, and distinguished, for this pu...
No, I'd say it's evidence that the concept in question is useful. Use includes some degree of accuracy, of course, but evidence for causation? I suppo...
In the way that I use the words, everything we think correct is belief, even the things we're certain of, which are also known. Because belief is less...
Yes, but one is certain, and the other (which applies to almost everything :wink:) is not. That's the only distinction between them, as far as I can s...
Sorry, I tend to use "know" for what we certainly know, and "believe" for what we think we know. I forget not everyone uses that particular distinctio...
I think a lot of the problems with discussions like this one are encapsulated in what you say. When applied to God, 'existence' is not binary. Does it...
Maybe. Please don't state possibilities - even those you believe to be highly probable - as certainties. This is a philosophy forum, after all. :smile...
Without trying to define or explain what consciousness is (we understand it well enough for anything except a direct investigation of consciousness it...
Cause and effect are roles occupied by events, so you're right, of course. But cause and effect are a pair that go together in our vocabulary, even ou...
Yes, that's half of a description of agnosticism, isn't it? Open to the possibility it's TRUE; open to the possibility it's FALSE. -------------------...
This characterises "government" as something malevolent, something external. It is neither. Government is simply a collection of individuals we have a...
Well yes, it is, in practice. We use guesswork to get past the fact that the things we know are so few. The "feelings" you mention are guesswork, and ...
No, "Objective truth" describes a statement/proposition/etc that accurately and correctly reflects that which actually is. The word you have described...
Good questions. I don't have answers, sadly, but they're good questions. Especially the last one. I imagine the idea became popular because it proved ...
Causality is certainly something we think we have identified, but have we? There are always different ways of looking at things. If we think A causes ...
You say the success of science offers evidence, but you don't say what it is, and I can't see it in what you write. :chin: Then you follow up simply b...
I'm afraid I prefer the former. I started this topic to consider cause-and-effect, and the possibility of causeless effects: effects that have no caus...
Plenty, I imagine. ... Provided, of course, we remember to spend some time in sober reflection, following our stoned insights. :smile: Some of those i...
No, I don't. Your treatment seems to isolate pleasure and suffering, to see them as two things, separate and distinct. My view is to see them as a pai...
Please be careful about theorising what people with neurological conditions might experience - unless you have Parkinson's yourself? I have MS, and yo...
Because if we had a proof, we'd use it. No need for guesses (axioms), we'd justifiably assert the truth of causation, based on our proof, and that wou...
I'm really uneasy about introducing theism or atheism into this topic. Uneasy because I see no justification for that introduction. What does it add t...
Does it? :chin: Empirical evidence supports causality in some (many/most) instances. But mostly we do not look for or consider empirical evidence. We ...
I'm merely curious about a long-accepted axiom. In recent years, I've read of causeless effects, and effects that chronologically precede their causes...
Where? There are lots of cases where causality is assumed (unexamined) to be present, and so it appears. But appearance is less than scientific proof....
Of course we do. :up: My only wish is to clearly identify assumptions as such. To call them proofs, or anything more definite than the guesses they ac...
The only structured, scientific, way we have of dealing with probabilities is statistics. Please translate your thoughts about probability into the re...
We're trying to see whether axioms are in any way justified (directly contrary to the definition of the scientific term "axiom"). You have given a tho...
OK, it looks like we have to do this the hard way. :sad: Please state the statistical science that justifies your ability to define the numerical prob...
link to Philosophical dictionary page An axiom is an assumption, not a proof. An axiom is declared only because there is no proof (of the concept in q...
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