Terrapin Station

Are you saying that it's not logically possible that we do know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist?

Then logical possibility is sufficient to justify the stance that we do know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist. In other words, logical possibility...

We can say that it's possible that a god exists and is undetectable. It's also possible that no god exists and that any existent god would be detectab...

Yeah, it makes sense to say that P is true or false, but P has to be a proposition. It needs to claim something. And then it's the claim that's true o...

Well, and if art/entertainment is as good as ever, what would any of that matter, anyway?

Is there a way we could know?

Then why did you bring it up when I was talking about evidence?

?? Nothing "deeper" about any of that. It's simply an argumentum ad populum that something is correct just because it's agreed upon. I'm not saying th...

So it might not be your opinion?

Sure we're getting there. So the question again is why you were going with "There are some things that are in principle not detectable" over the other...

It's not a fact that it's your opinion?

Yeah, that's what I said. "Both are epistemically possible." But only one can be actualized, because they're logically contradictory.

Both are epistemically possible, but if one is ontologically actual, the other is ontologically impossible by virtue of being a contradiction of the o...

No, you can't. And yes, that's an empirical claim. Since you can't prove empirical claims, you can't prove that an empirical claim was made. Again, th...

I would change the second line to "A lot of our thoughts and claims are about that world." Certainly not all of them are. (Well, and the first claim s...

Sure they are. It's a simple contradiction. If there's an x that's undetectable in principle, then it can not be the case that there is no x that's un...

The problem with this is that there's a name for it: it's the argumentum ad populum fallacy. The only thing that's the case due to agreement is the fa...

To understand why I say that truth is subjective, one needs to understand how I define the subjective/objective distinction, and then understand my an...

Sure, it's possible that there's an x undetectable in principle, and it's possible that there is no x undetectable in principle. Which one do we go wi...

Every proposition has a mental perspective because propositions are meanings and meaning is a mental phenomenon.

The simple test is whether we're talking about mental phenomena or not. Re your test, we can just say, "Banno conceptualizes this text as English" or ...

Truth there can't have the property of being objective because the relation in question only obtains via an evaluation that an individual makes, based...

So there's a distinction to be had here: (1) X is undetectable in principle. In other words, no matter what we ever do, no matter what we ever know, w...

"Subjective" refers to mental phenomena per se. "Objective" things obtain independently of mental phenomena. The distinction isn't limited to the like...

So what is the worry with it?

So you're not proposing something undetectable in principle? Just something we haven't detected yet?

I'm asking you about this: "...and YOU still come up with "If humans cannot detect it...it does not exist"...which is absurd." How are you getting to ...

Yeah, you do. Everyone does. The word(s) you use for it are irrelevant. So what would be the basis for the notion of some things being undetectable in...

I don't know what sort of therapy you're dealing with. If it's physical therapy because of some major medical issue, then that's going to be difficult...

Ah, well, I have no idea why one might think that entertainment is damaging. To me that seems like a weird thing to think. Also, not sure how we'd "no...

So, you're believing first off that some things are not going to be detectable in principle, right?

Well, it's not even limited to sense. At least not directly. It includes any sort of evidential detection from any instrument, too. For example, somet...

Again, it's not just about seeing. Can we get that straight first? Let's see if we can settle anything.

Yes it is. The only way it wouldn't be is if god is supposed to be located someplace where we haven't even checked. In lieu of specifying a location, ...

Damaging how?

Correct. There is evidence that there are no gods. Everywhere we check--no evidence of any gods. That's evidence that there are none. That's evidence ...

Not seeing, per se. No evidence of them. Ideas aren't located on desks. They're brain phenomena. There's plenty of evidence that they're brain phenome...

Importance is subjective. I don't know what you're going to consider more important on this end. I don't consider any piece of evidence more important...

Okay, but what you said is "then any gods that exist are nonphysical also." I don't know how "also" makes sense, but again, the idea of a nonphysical ...

I'm not very interested in what he said. I don't know if Scruton has ever said much of anything I've agreed with. I'm primarily interested in the fact...

Couldn't we say that P is universally true, where truth is subjective?

So x is like F from reference point y, and like G from reference point z. Does it make sense to call "x is like F" "universal"?

I'm assuming you meant "Then any gods that exist are physical." That's fine. As I said above: " I don't know what we'd be talking about. alternative w...

In my view nothing is objectively true. "Objective truth" is a category error. I was simply asking why you were conflating universality with objectivi...

You said, "For something to be objectively true." It's logically possible for there to be objectively true things but for them to not be universally t...

No, not at all. Aren't you familiar with the general/special relativity, for example?

They're not nonphysical. Nothing is. The world is. I'm not going to pretend that I can't observe it.

Students need to practice coming up with objections/counterarguments. That needs to occur on a spectrum from easy to not-so-easy, as we progress from ...

If we're talking about something that has at least some nonphysical aspects, yes. And if we're not, I don't know what we'd be talking about. The alter...

I'm strongly against him--or anyone else--being sacked for anything they've expressed (at least insofar as it's not a contractual issue--non-disclosur...